Last Pre-Oscar Link Roundup!
Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 12:47AM 
Best Picture & Oscar Mania
Nicks Flick Picks preferences and predictions
Variety how to watch the Oscars online
Salon on the Birdman vs Boyhood battle for Hollywood's soul
Guardian on Ida and Leviathan's troubles at home as they head to the Foreign Film Oscar decision
NY Post goes out on a clickbait limb and predicts American Sniper for the Best Picture win
Disqus on which Best Pictures people are talking about in which states. Chart and graph madness!
Slant Eric Henderson has finally convinced me that Birdman is winning Sunday night. I don't know why I've been so resistant to that idea? It just seems way too experimental and funny and weird to me to think of it as a Best Picture winner but I guess I have to adjust my thinking.
Slate how to accept an Oscar properly
In Contention on the dead heat for Best Director
and ICYMI
Our Final Predictions Podcast
Category Overview Towleroad Article
Film Bitch Awards Oscar Correlative Ballot ~ Nathaniel's Votes
Meet the Movie Press
I guest-starred on this show yesterday (I come in at about 24 minutes but I'm sad I missed the discussion of Alien cuz I love me that slimy acid-blood franchise) just as I was crashing into miserable sickness. Good timing. You can watch it right here. Thanks to the @theinsneider and for having me on. We discuss Oscar predictions.
Off Oscar Miscellania
Pajiba 10 movies John Cusack's made recently that you've never heard of. Pajiba's Cusack obsession is always fun
Coming Soon Birdman has convinced Hugh Jackman that he should keep playing Wolverine until he dies. Say what?
/Film Scarlett Johansson will star in The Psychopath Test. The synopsis (very lengthy) suggests two major male characters so I'm not sure who she'll play. Perhaps the psychologist that gets the plot rolling before the men take over?
/Film Wonder Woman to shoot in the fall
The Film Stage Tom Ford finally has his follow up to A Single Man (2009) lined up or his follow-ups really. Continuing Hollywood's most hateful trend it's said to be a two-part film. Movie people stop. You are not television. The mediums are for different things and TV is where the longform stories are supposed to go. If you want to tell a long story that's where you belong. (People hated me for hating that movie but I'm eager to see his next because he does have an eye.)
Reader Comments (12)
Oh, and this just in. Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas just won 4 Razzies for Worst Picture, Worst Actor for Kirk Cameron, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Couple for Cameron and his ego. Michael Bay won Worst Director while Kelsey Grammer won Worst Supporting Actor, Cameron Diaz won Worst Actress, and Megan Fox won the Worst Supporting Actress. Ben Affleck won the the Razzie's first ever Redeemer Award.
I hate to say it, but 'American Sniper' winning Best Picture seems to be much less of a long shot than 'Crash' winning Best Picture was back in the day. (My money is still on 'Boyhood', though...)
That Pajiba link on John Cusack was a broken one, but one of the movies on that list is probably Dragon Blade, which I just watched few days ago. It has been the yearly event to watch a Jackie Chan movie during the celebration of Chinese New Year (a.k.a. Spring Festival) since we were kids. He was even here in Malaysia last week with Jackie Chan and Adrien Brody for the press tour. The movie is not really bad, but for a Jackie Chan movie, when the action scenes and martial arts don't surprise me, I consider it a slight failure. I have so much admiration for Jackie Chan but lately I have not liked any of his films.
You must work the pronunciation of Iñárritu.
Another movie on the John Cusack list is Grand Piano, about a piano player who is being held hostage (or something) and must not play any note wrongly or he will die(!). I thought it sounds like a more high-blown (read: ridiculous) version of Whiplash, then I saw that it is actually written by Damien Chazelle! So I guess we shouldn't make fun of Cusack,,,he was this close to being JK Simmons. And also, I am curious how far Chazelle can stretch this niche of crazy music teachers.
Wonder Woman shooting in the fall: Really? Guys: We don't even know if we're going to like this interpretation of Wonder Woman yet. I know waiting until we have a full reaction to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice means that hitting that July 2017 window will be cutting it close, but if you film it in the fall and it turns out only about 1/2 the people who went to Man of Steel go to Batman v Superman and NO ONE likes the Wonder Woman in it? Congratulations, you've just wasted $200 million.
Lupita -- yes i think i'm putting the accent on the wrong syllable. but there's nothing i can do about sounding American while saying it ;)
How to accept an Oscar. The host of this year's Goya awards in Spain gave a hilarious demonstration of how to give the perfect acceptance speech in one minute. He was even left with seven seconds to try to sell his car. Any buyers? Too bad I could not find a subtitled version. The guy's name is Dani Rovira, of "Spanish Affair".
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/premios-goya/dani-rovira-minuto-mejor-aprovechado-goya-2015/2986407/
Birdman convincing Jackman to play Wolverine until he dies: Dude, you're already arguably pushing it at 46. It's not like you're playing Plastic Man or Green Lantern (I've always liked the idea of the Green Lantern corps, but the entire concept means physical fitness as a mandate is uncomfortably "body fascist." Yes, I AM saying that MAYBE Jack Black doing it was a better reflection of the fantasy than any of the Green Lantern comics have ever even tried. Regardless of race or weight or gender, you should be able to bear the ring, right?) or Iron Man or something else where keeping a crazy fitness level isn't the point of the character. MAYBE he can last another 10-15 years, but, until he dies? No.
I just came across 2 videos that made me smile. On Flavorwire they put up a compilation of early roles by the acting nominees, some people started off better than others:
http://flavorwire.com/505115/exclusive-supercut-the-early-roles-of-your-2015-oscar-nominees
And the cheeky "Hey academy I'm a woman"
http://flavorwire.com/newswire/listen-to-hey-academy-im-a-woman-a-song-about-the-oscars-history-of-ignorance-toward-women-in-hollywood
My fellow '90s enthusiasts should check out Richard Lawson's liveblog of the 1994 Oscars at VF.com.
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/02/1995-oscars-recap
I've come around to Nathaniel's prediction about the right split too. We've had two split years in a row now, and both times they picked the more technical achievement (Life of Pi and Gravity) for director, and the more storytelling-feeling movie for picture (Argo, 12 Years). So I think it's Birdman for Director and Boyhood for Picture.
I wonder if it's fair to say getting twelve years of work lined up is more a producers achievement than a director's achievement, and so Boyhood is where they go for Picture.