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Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 3:31PM People say such strange things when they're talking about Oscars
• Bwin predicts Leo will lose the Oscar. One especially weird bit of reasoning is that all of the Actor nominees are playing good guys. Um, did they watch Steve Jobs?
• The Guardian says a "conservative" estimate is that Australians will win 10 Oscars tomorrow. Conservative? Have they not heard of The Revenant?
• /Film Stunt people want their own Oscar and recently protested again. Unfortunately they also felt the need to belittle other industry talents saying:
People love action; that’s why people go to the movies. No disrespect, but who goes to the movies to see the hairstyles?”
*raises hand*
More Oscar Mania
• Vanity Fair fun interview with nominated Jenny Beavan, Mad Max Fury Road costume designer, with a choice Charlize Theron quote
• Boston Globe really interesting piece from Ty Burr on "what if the Oscars didn't exist..." and it takes you to place I personally wasn't expecting
• Psychology Today on why we're obsessed with the Oscars. STOP PSYCHOANALYZING ME!
• IndieWire Ira Deutchman suggests changes to make the Academy more diverse. "First film" would be interesting and skew young but I am adamantly opposed to breakthrough since that is too easily gamed -- see the "breakthrough" prizes Charlize Theron won for Monster after several years of stardom. We'd have a whole new category fraud problem with that.
• The Guardian has an interesting take on the Short Film categories -- why don't people watch them when they're increasingly available -- and why do they feel like commercials for features?
• Variety beautiful reminiscence from Alfre Woodard on her earliest theatrical success and her 80s Oscar nomination
• Tim Brayton's Oscar Predictions
• Movie Motorbreath's Oscar Predictions
General Film
• Interview ZOMG Julianne Moore interviewing Christina Vachon!
• Instagram The Sleeping Beauty dragon via LEGOs!
• i09 JJ Abrams is claiming Star Wars will feature gay characters. I'll believe that when I see it (but until then it's fun that Oscar Isaac winked to queer fans with Poe Dameron. And also the Star Wars Saga is largely asexual anyway so...
Off Cinema
• Pajiba nails Marco Rubio with a great Turing Test joke
• i09 Bram Stoker Awards -- for horror fiction. Which of these will end up as movies?
• /Film Tom McCarthy is going to follow up Spotlight with a Netflix series called 13 Reasons Why... it's based on a bestseller but honestly the suicidal premise sounds atrocious / reductive. Already worried!
• Jeanne the Fangirl amazing find - a letter to Marvel from 1974 complaining about Iron Fist's whitewashing. Here we are in 2016 and Marvel is STILL planning a white Iron Fist even though the story is Asian by origin
• Playbill.com has a badly needed redesign. Check it out if you love Broadway
Today's Watch
A Cat predicting the Oscars. (Monty, TFE's Oscar predicting cat, wouldn't cooperate this year but he's always been temperamental about his psychic duties. Also: he's very very old now and only wants to sleep.) So anyway here is some random cat who thinks he can do it. Rampling, eh?
Reader Comments (15)
Well, here's another strange thing, something that's been gnawing at me about Sylvester Stallone's frontrunner status. If he wins, would it be the first time that an actor wins in a lineup where he's playing the only 100% fictional character (the rest of the nominees play characters based on real people, even though Tom Hardy's portrayal of John S. Fittzgerald is highly fictionalized)? IT's the reason why I never bough Michael Keaton's frontrunner early frontrunner status last year (even though I so wanted him to win). Just something to consider...
OMG Monty is SO cute! Hahaha. I love that you can hear him purring loudly thought the whole video. Have you had him since he was a baby kitten Nathaniel?
Is it too late for this photo to win Best Picture? http://img.getfirstlook.com/hBdSoV.jpg/400
Steph -- the cat in the video is not Monty. it's some random cat.
Richter Scale: Does "kind of playing yourself" count as not being 100% fictional?
I'm not sure I agree about that Guardian article about the shorts. More people than ever *are* watching them - the box office gross of the shorts packages frequently grosses seven digits range, which is more than can be said for any of the foreign language competitors, sadly. And we honestly don't know at all how many are viewing them at home, although I've seen them pop up in the iTunes best seller chart a few times.
What I'd like to know is why more people don't watch the old Oscar-nominated/winning shorts, many of which are on YouTube for free. Entire animated short line-ups just ready to be watched, Oscar-winning documentary shorts there for the viewing. But most people don't go back to discover short films unless they're directed by famous people, which I guess answers my question but doesn't quell the disappointment.
Oh haha. Sorry I'm an idiot. I totally thought that was your kitty/video and missed the part where you clearly stated that Monty wouldn't cooperate. Still awesome though.
Volvagia: It does not. Rocky Balboa is not a person that ever existed in the world as we know it, therefore he is fictional.
The character of Danny Rand is white, dude.
Richter: I was referring to Keaton there.
Volvagia: Also fictional...
Richter: But you were using the "100%" clause. Riggan Thomson, because of the actor playing him, is, at most, 80% fictional.
I'd love to read something about Charlize Theron's career pre-Monster, which is kind of a mystery to me. Was she basically a Margot Robbie?
Richter-Victor McLaglen won for playing a fictional character over three real life people (albeit all in the same movie).
Volvagia: I used the 100% fictional clause because many times, actors can play very fictionalized versions of real people, but the movie still acknowledges that it's those real people (like Fitzgerald in The Revenant), but the actor using his own image and personality to feed into the character their playing does not make the character based on a real person. That's something movie stars have been doing from the very beginning, it doesn't make the fictional characters they play suddenly non-fictional.
John T: That's a good one actually. So, it would be the first time in 80 years (and that's if you don't count Paul Muni's write-in nomination for Black Fury that came in second in the final ballots (just looked that up). Oh well, I guess history will be made tonight one way or the other.