Shea Cinema: The Best Picture Project

TLDR; Father/Daughter team watch and review all movies nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, starting back in 1927.

Welcome to Shea Cinema, The Best Picture Project!

Join host Sara Shea and her father, William Shea, as they watch and explore every film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Sara and Dad are recreating a project Sara assigned to her high school Film Studies students, which includes contextual historical research, discussing their personal responses to each film, what makes these films important, why these films need to be understood in context, and, finally, did the winner deserve the Oscar?

So grab your popcorn, pull up a chair, sit back and relax, and let's begin Shea Cinema.

All Episodes

Shea Cinema: The Best Picture Project

S5E1: 5th Academy Awards, 1932

April 08, 2024 • Shea Cinema • Season 5 • Episode 1

Welcome to our Season 5 Premiere! Sara and Dad cover the 5th Academy Awards ceremony (honoring the best in films - screened in Los Angeles - between August 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932). We discuss (again) the context of these films being made during the pre-code era, and what the implications are for filmmaking moving forward. This season ups the ante with eight nominees instead of five, and we consider the possibilities of doing some more bonus episodes (movies that were not nominated for Outstanding Production but still fall on our historical timeline). Oddly enough, this season has some funky components to the competition--including a tie for Best Actor, and a director with two Best Picture nominees.

Of course, we give an overview of the eight films nominated for the top honor, and speculate on our interests.

The Movies:

The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Bad Girl (1931)
Five Star Final (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Arrowsmith (1931)
Shanghai Express (1932)
One Hour With You (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)

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