Tony Nomination Day

Remember how awesome it was when these two won the Oscar for costume design in March 1995. Now they're nominated at the TONY AWARDS

If you're still hoping this old blog will be updated, it won't. We're feeling totally at home at the new place so please come and join the new site. It's 2011! Renovate. If you're late at making the switch get caught up with the best of January, February, March and April.

THE NEW BLOG
THE 2010 FILM BITCH AWARDS
APRIL SHOWERS
MAY FLOWERS (just begun)
NEW EPISODES OF FIRST AND LAST

Another Suitcase...

Where am I going to....?



To the new site silly. It's totally oscar season.
Don't miss anything! Final Predictions, Film Bitch Awards and all of that.

Float on Over... We're Off on a New Adventure

We were so attached to this ol' blog that we refused to leave it.

So we uprooted it for a new adventure.

So float over yourselves. There's room for everyone in the spacious new blog (now with Oscar charts, top ten lists, screening log, galleries and NEW FILM BITCH AWARDS all in the same spot. It's the whole works!

Hey Stragglers! BEST OF THE YEAR IS HERE

We've moved over to a new site that's a combo of this blog you love and the old site, freshly renovated. Things are really picking up so check it out. We've started the Best of the Year countdown!

Honorable Mentions (#24-14)
Runners Up and Top Ten Pt. 1 (#13-08)

All that plus awards news, Christian Bale's body, Michelle Pfeiffer's new project, Guild Awards, Natalie Portman discussion and much more. So move over with us. Can't wait to see you there.

Psssst. the Film Bitch Awards start any minute (okay, late tonight)

We've Moved.

Where do you want these boxes?

Come see the freshly renovated blog & site. Everything* in one place. Happy 2011!

*still working on importing the archives and the contents of this blog but daily posting and Oscar charts and everything are over there.

Alexandre Desplat "A Fast Moving Train"

Previous Desplat Goodies: "Breakfast with... Desplat", "How to Watch Movies" and Random Quotables

As promised here's the profile and interview I did for Tribeca Film...

If you're a regular moviegoer, you're familiar with his work. Even if you only get to the movies on special occasions for an Oscar hopeful like The King's Speech or an event film like the latest Harry Potter, you’ve heard it. Alexandre Desplat, the gifted 49-year-old French film composer is in demand. He scored five movies this year alone, with just as many on the way in 2011.

I had first scheduled an interview with Alexandre Desplat a full year ago, when he received his third nearly consecutive Oscar nomination for the whimsical score for the animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox. One year later, his voice finally materializes on the other line...

Read the rest at Tribeca Film

Wherein Desplat talks about his crazy workload, collaborating with Roman Polanski and composing around brilliant performances like Nicole Kidman (Birth) and Colin Firth (The King's Speech).

The Linky City

Two bits from Chicago
Roger Ebert the eclectic international and intergenerational cast list of the new Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies. Congratulations to all! This can only be a gazillion times smarter than the previous short run with the Bens.
Wall Street Journal saddest movie news of the day: a classic cinema shut down in Chicago.

General Linkage
Cinematical Matt Damon's "abs double." A funny quirk of crediting.
Show Tracker What are Mad Men cast members up to between seasons?
The Social Network's official site overfloweth.
Ferdy on Films announces her favorites of the year. It's almost exclusively a festival list but she considers going by theatrical release like we do a hegemonic. Ouch!

Confession/Question
Weird reader question coming, so bear with me. Before you interview a star, the publicists almost always say "no personal questions!" and I'm always like "uh, why would I ask one of those?". I am so tied up in the celluloid that it honestly never occurs to me to say something like "so tell me who you're screwing." The only time this interests me is when it has curio above/below the line value -- for instance, I love knowing which costume designer or art director is married to which actor or actress -- or when its part of the overarching Hollywood Mythology (superstar couples like Brad & Angie, Newman & Woodward, Matt & Ben, Liz & Dick, Warren & Annette, etcetera). But sometimes my lack of interest in offscreen celebrity dating shocks even myself. I was reading on PopBytes that Macauley Culkin and Mila Kunis just broke up and I didn't even know they were a couple. Or if I knew it, I never committed it to memory. And they've been together for 8 years! I blame this ignorance on having next-to-no Mila familiarity until she started working on the big screen regularly a couple of years ago. (I have only seen, like, 2 episodes of That 70s Show.) Whenever a TV star is suddenly in demand in the movies, I have that damn info-lag.

So my question is this: Which specific aspect of celebrity life or the movie industry or whatnot do you have almost zero interest in, despite your interest in everything else???

The Razzies Are Coming! The Razzies Are Coming!

Why so glum Christina?

"and you're in my mirror AGAIN?"

Oh right, you suspect that a Razzie nomination is coming your way for Worst Actress for Burlesque? Happily the movie, though, is not on the longlist for a potential Worst Picture bid.

Worst Picture Longlist:  The Bounty Hunter, Clash of the Titans, The Expendables, Grown Ups, Jonah Hex, Killers, The Last Airbender, Little Fockers, Sex and the City 2, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Vampires Suck and Yogi Bear.

Nominations will be announced on Monday, January 24th. You can still join up and be a voter for $25 [begging] but if you have $25 to throw around, I'd prefer you donate it to The Film Experience. I work hard for you all year and the Razzies only spring up once! [/begging]

The Razzies are rarely discussed in a serious way on the web as it's mostly an opportunity for free-form mocking. It's good that Burlesque missed this longlist. Burlesque is NOT a bad movie; it's fully aware of what it is and it's totally entertaining. If you get a good helping of entertainment out of a movie, it is not worthy of Worst Picture gong.

But in some ways, the Razzies reflect just as much laziness in groupthink voting as any of the "Best" focused precursors do year in and year out. Both actresses are on the longlists for Worst Actress. There is nothing about Cher, as an actress, that one could conceivably view as worst; she's fully aware of what she's capable of and she's totally entertaining (I'm sensing a repetitive theme here). More inexplicably, since Cher is an easy/visible/lazy target, is that Cam Gigandent is on the longlist of Worst Supporting Actor for his best performance to date... which is not saying much, but throw a guy a bone! If you can watch Easy A and Burlesque and think he's worse in the latter, you are probably missing your eyeballs altogether. (In which case: How are you watching movies, silly!?)

Curio: Dawn Dudek's Filmscapes

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly art break.

Reading the opening to Nathaniel's interview with Kirsten Dunst ("one half expects her to flicker when one meets her, as if she's being projected still", lovely!) reminded me of this painting by Dawn Dudek.

M escapes to dream.

2007, acrylic on canvas

Dawn creates magical split-frame paintings that go beyond merely imitating the atmosphere of a film; her paintings capture feeling of watching a moment at 24 frames per second. Her subjects range from more obscure films to the (slightly) more commercial. One of the fun things about looking at her work is figuring out what film inspired each painting. Some I recognized immediately, others took longer, and for many, I needed help. But not knowing doesn't detract from the experience at all. A selection of some of my favorites, below.

Cleo wears her new hat on Tuesday.

2007, acrylic on canvas

Su waiting for Chow

2006, acrylic on canvas

William in pursuit

2007, acrylic on canvas

El Paso

2010, acrylic on canvas

The twilight of Cathy Whitaker

2006, acrylic on canvas

My Udo My Udo What Have Ye Done

JA from MNPP here. Have you read this phenomenally odd and delightful interview with the actor Udo Kier at The AV Club? Odd and delightful are the two words I'd always use whenever mentioning Mr. Kier, but he really brings it this time around.

Over at MNPP  I picked out my fifteen favorite quotes from the interview, but I'm so oddly delighted in this chat's wake I've got to just keep on thinking about Udo, and what better way to do that then to mercilessly pick apart the work he's done over the years with a completely frivolous list. He's worked so much in such a vast array of projects that there are dozens of his performances that I've missed (I don't know how this is possible but it appears I've never seen any of the films he's done with Fassbinder, for example), but out of the many I have seen here are my five favorite performances of his.

5 Favorites



Lee Meyers, My Son My Son What Have Ye Done - I don't think it's often that Udo gets picked to play a straight man to somebody else's nuttery, but when stacked up against a way out there Michael Shannon it's not only possible, it's enthralling.

NSFW image after the jump





Hans, My Own Private Idaho - I think he sums it up best: "Amazing to have sex with Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix!"

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Count Dracula, Andy Warhol's Dracula - It's hard choosing between his Dracula and his Dr. Frankenstein in the previous year's (superior) Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, but his sickly Drac casts an enfeebledly hypnotic spell I can't quite shake.


Aage Krüger / Little Brother, The Kingdom - You haven't truly lived until you've seen Udo's face emerge from the vital space of a birthing mother.

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Franz Hess, Grindhouse's fake trailer for "Werewolf Women of the SS" - Sure I could've picked something from his other classier works, like all the stuff he's done with Von Trier (he's Lars' most commonly used actor, ya know), but I think this one about sums it all up in a nice tight insane bow.

Runner-up: He played a character named "Wolfgang Herzog" on an episode of Nash Bridges. I haven't seen it, I don't need to see it, without knowing it demands a place upon this list.
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Mo'Nique to Announce Oscar Nominees

I'm riffing on a conversation from Facebook (sorry Matt & Erik!) here but since Mo'Nique will announce the Oscar nominees on January 25th with AMPAS president Tom Sherak, can she please do it in character as Mary Jones!!?!

Frankly, no matter which wonderful film or actor gets a terribly unjust snub that morning (and I know a handful who are in danger), it'd still be the greatest Oscar morning of all time if Mo'Nique will rip down one of those 5 screens that hang behind the podium as soon as she's displeased with one of the names uttered.

I know you know the set I'm talking about...

the general setup each year.

Just rip down one of them screens, Mo'Nique!

Hurl it at the sea of reporters, caught off guard. You'll be all anyone talks about that Tuesday even though you didn't even have a movie this year.

This is my new favorite Oscar nomination morning fantasy of all time! If you share this fantasy, pass it on. We can will it into happening. Hear us oh great Mo'Nique!
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