Beauty vs Beast: Everything's Coming Up Con

Jason from MNPP here with our weekly battle of the good-to-bad guys called "Beauty vs Beast" -- today I'm taking us deep inside all of the shades of gray in between. This past weekend marked the 25th anniversary of Stephen Frears' first US film, the electric noir The Grifters, which came out in limited release on December 5th, 1990. It is a very good movie! If you haven't seen it in awhile, you should. It was nominated for four Oscars -- Frears was nominated for Director, writer Donald Westlake got a Best Adapted nod, and the final two nominations went to the two lovely, too awful ladies making muck out of John Cusack's poor-sap-life...

PREVIOUSLY We're really loving on the year 1990 this month - last week it was Misery's turn, and with a swing of the sledgehammer Annie Wilkes took Paul Sheldon down for the count again, walking off with just over 3/4s of the vote. James Caan had his cheerleaders though (besides myself, even) - here's what brookesboy says:

"Kathy is so entertaining in this, but Annie is torturing some poor dude who does not deserve it one lil bit. And I don't know anyone who isn't fully delighted when Paul cracks her skull with that brass pig. Annie gets the bronze--where it counts; Paul gets the gold."

OFCS Falls For Category Fraud

The Online Film Critics Society have released their annual nominations. They're the oldest of the many critics group which sprung up with "online" in the title back in the days when there was more of a clear line between print and web. This year unfortunately they've signed up for Category Fraud endorsing both Alicia Vikander and Rooney Mara's "supporting" campaigns so it's difficult to take them seriously. If we can't defeat the spreading cancer of category fraud this year with so much attention paid to how ridiculous it is to call protagonists in their own films "supporting" -- even among groups who aren't generally eager to "predict" Oscars with their nominations (and OFCS has been blessedly free of that curse in the past) -- than perhaps the war will never be won. It's all so very discouraging because it makes the honors feel cheap and gamed as opposed to fairly won.

the war on drugs will never be won. perhaps the war on category fraud is just as eternal

As such it's difficult to find joy in happy results like Cynthia Nixon nominated for James White (despite a very low profile and only $52,000 in ticket sales to date) and Sicario, which we'd feared would be forgotten coming on strong. In fact Denis Villeneuve's drug war thriller led the nominations alongside Carol. The complete OFCS nominations are at their site if you're interested.

UPDATE: I have heard from a few members of the OFCS expressing their displeasure with the results and/or this post. Like the BFCA (of which I am a member) there were internal discussions about this before they voted. (Full disclosure: at least two of our own contributors are members of the OFCS). There are people within the organization who are against category fraud but voting within all awards bodies is a matter of math and majority rules.  I don't really expect BFCA to self-correct on this next week when the nominations come out but it's good that there's at least been a discussion for once. Internally the BFCA has suggested to members that Rooney Mara should be considered a lead, despite what the campaign says, but they are still free to vote as they will. We'll see.

Grammy's Film/TV Related Categories

The Grammy Awards were announced today with Kendrick Lamar (11 nominations), Taylor Swift and The Weeknd (7 nominations each) leading the nominee pack. But here at The Film Experience we're only really concerned with the visual categories.

I'm not including Grammy's Spoken Word category as I am sometimes prone to do because there aren't actors involved this year beyond Amy Poehler who is nominated for the audiobook of her "Yes Please" memoir. But don't get too excited about her nomination. The brilliant Poehler seems to be a statue repellent; she's not anywhere close to an EGOT since she's never even won a damn Emmy despite years of TV brilliance.

Here are the nominees in the film/tv related categories...

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News: BIFA, Carrie Fisher, Creed

Gothamist Good Morning America tries to interview Carrie Fisher. She is not as cooperative as they're used to. Hilarious. She mostly wants to talk about her dog Gary. Also...
Carrie Fisher's Dog is on twitter
/Film best and worst of Ryan Gosling on SNL
Variety Shailene Woodley, to whom I am mostly allergic, will unfortunately co-star with Nicole Kidman in Big Little Lies
Boy Culture Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn has died at 69
i09 in case you can't wait until Christmas, they've released 8 clips from The Hateful Eight to tide you over
Pajiba 8 sets of celebrity dopplegangers

Today's Watch
Director Ryan Coogler talks about Creed's amazing continuous shot boxing match. So gutsy that this bravura bit comes so early in the movie and he still manages to top it later on.

List Mania
Vulture David Edelstein's top ten list is quite adventurous as it zigzags from Room to Chi-Raq but his top 10 and best performances list is.... Steve Carell The Big Short as #2 of the year (say whaaaa?)

Saoirse Ronan has arrived. Finally...
The Moet British Independent Film Awards ceremony happened yesterday during all the critics award madness stateside. The winner by a significant margin was Alex Garland's haunting sci-fi triangle Ex Machina. The prizes...

British Independent Film: Ex Machina
Director: Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Actress: Saiorse Ronan, Brooklyn
Actor: Tom Hardy, Legend
Supporting Actress: Olivia Colman, The Lobster
Supporting Actor: Brendan Gleeson, Suffragette
Screenplay: Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Documentary: Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance
International Independent Film: Room
Debut Director: Stephen Fingleton, The Survivalist
Producer of the Year: Paul Katis & Andrew De Lotbiniere, Kajaki: The True Story
Discovery Award: Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
Achievement in Craft: Andrew Whitehurst for VFX, Ex Machina
Short Film: Edmond
Promising Newcomer: Abigail Hardingham, Nina Forever

Kind of a surprise to see Ex Machina dominate so thoroughly though we do love it here at The Film Experience

tweet 16

Jennifer Lawrence and David O. Russell walk past a 45 Years poster. "That should've been you," he whispers.

— Matthew Eng (@Eng_Matthew) December 3, 2015

It's funny because it's true! ftr JLaw is really good in Joy but toward the end of the movie she does kind of have to play hardened wiser 40something and... sigh... I wish this didn't bother me but I can never make that leap with her.

Anyway... a collection of recent tweets of note or amusement or truth starring Jennifer Lawrence (again), Tom Hardy, Melanie Lynskey, Carol and more presented without further ado after the jump...

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