Link Her Moore

NYT TV comedy legend and dramatic Oscar nominee Mary Tyler Moore (Ordinary People, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) dies at 80
Empire Actor Dan Aykroyd pays tribute to his Blues Brothers co-star Carrie Fisher in a new essay
Awards Daily Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey interview to air on Netflix tomorrow 

Playbill If you're near Cambridge, there's a new production of Night of the Iguana starring James Earl Jones and Amanda Plummer (!) opening in February 
Tracking Board Jacob Tremblay signs on to a reboot of Predator as an autistic child with a gift for languages
/Film X-Men is getting its own TV series, unrelated to the movies. Good luck with that 
THR on all the times the Star Wars universe has used "The Last Jedi"  
People Scarlett Johansson and Romain Dauriac have split 
Interview talks to Asghar Farhadi about his Oscar nominated film The Salesman 

More Oscar Reactions
MNPP Jason does not like Hacksaw Ridge. But will still ogle the soldiers
Washington Post subtlety and Oscar don't always mix. Bye Amy! 
The New Yorker if you can get past the condescension of Richard Brody's opening 'graphs he says a lot of good things thereafter about the Oscar nominees and the beauty of Annette Bening's missing performance

Call Me By Your Name Sundance premiere won raves

Sundance Fever
Tracking Board bidding war and awards season plans for Dee Rees Mudbound
Coming Soon Netflix picks of new Marti Noxon (Buffy) movie To the Bone about aneroxia
/Film is keeping a list of all the movies that have sold
Variety gay drama Call Me By Your Name starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet (best known for playing Finn on Homeland and McConaughey's son in Interstellar) won lots of sexy buzz out of Sundance. I know I'm supposed to be excited because it's a gay drama but honestly my entire obsession with getting to that movie as quick as possible is that I L-O-V-E Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love, A Bigger Splash) who directs. Now if he would just get on with making that Auntie Mame remake with Tilda.

32 Days til Oscar. Have you seen "Grand Hotel"?

How will you spend those days? Since 32 is the magic number today, please spare a thought for the wildly undervalued Best Picture winner of 1932, Grand Hotel.

It only won a single Oscar, but that's all it was nominated for. There were no supporting acting categories just yet, as honors were given only to stars (same as now, basically, only with category fraud as the cause instead of no category at all) but, had there been, Joan Crawford would have certainly been deserving. She gives an unusually warm performance (for her) in this picture. 

This is also the film that gave us the image of Greta Garbo that stuck, as a solemn "I want to be alone" diva. More gorgeousity and a few gifs after the jump if you're so inclined...

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Asian Actors and the Academy: Triumphs and Snubs

Robert here. On Tuesday British actor Dev Patel became only the third actor of Indian descent to be nominated for an Academy Award. His nomination came amongst a renewed embrace of diversity (which is something to celebrate, but not rest on) after two years of completely white sets of nominees.

The Oscars – and, of course, the film industry at large – have long courted controversy for their issues with diversity, and Asian actors across the board have long been overlooked and undervalued. Often they are cast in flat, stereotyped roles, or as we've been made much more aware of lately, the roles of leading characters of Asian descent are given to white actors. Before Dev there have been several actors of Asian descent whose strong work has garnered them award attention, and even more who were snubbed despite memorable performances.

A brief retrospective is after the jump:

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César Nominations: Elle, Frantz, and More

France's César Awards announced their nominations this morning. As expected Elle and Divines (currently streaming on Netflix) have much reason to celebrate. Other hits with César including François Ozon's gorgeous black and white feature about Post-War relations and guilt called Frantz (which opens in the US in March), The Innocents (an arthouse hit in the US this year) and My Life as a Zucchini which was just nominated for the Animated Feature Oscar and receives 3 nominations here. 

Their foreign film category also has two Oscar players Manchester by the Sea and Toni Erdmann.

Best Film
DIVINES (on Netflix)
ELLE (now playing)
FRANTZ (opening in US in March)
LES INNOCENTES (available on blu-ray)
MA LOUTE
FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON
VICTORIA 

Ma Loute is from Bruno Dumont and is called Slack Bay in some markets. From the Land of the Moon stars Marion Cotillard among others.

Best Actress
JUDITH CHEMLA dans A WOMAN'S LIFE
MARION COTILLARD dans FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON
VIRGINIE EFIRA dans VICTORIA 
MARINA FOÏS dans IRRÉPROCHABLE
ISABELLE HUPPERTdans ELLE 
SIDSE BABETT KNUDSEN dans LA FILLE DE 
BREST SOKO dans LA DANSEUSE 

Click to read more ...

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