Team FYC: The Grand Budapest Hotel for Sound Editing and Mixing

Editor's Note: We're featuring individually chosen FYC's for various longshots in the Oscar race. Here's Teo on the sound work in Golden Globe nominee, The Grand Budapest Hotel.

 By now, Wes Anderson's house style has become so familiar that it can be easy to take it (and him) for granted. But for fans, the surface similarity of his films is just an invitation to look for the differences. And in every way, a closer look at The Grand Budapest Hotel pays off.

I had the opportunity to sound edit a film over the summer. It was a documentary, but in a process like sound editing, the difference between documentary and fiction film is generally negligible. You fix what the on-set mics couldn't capture. You try to find or create sounds that can approximate what you lost. What's unique about Anderson's sound editing is that he doesn't try to make his films sound like reality any more than he tries to make his films look like reality. Instead, Wes Anderson's films are filled with sounds that are almost hyper-real. They're crisply recorded and minimal in their design...

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The Animated Feature contenders: Cheatin'

Tim here, with another look at one of the lower-profile submissions to the Academy in the Best Animated Feature category. This time around, we’ve got Cheatin’, the sixth feature-length animated movie from Bill Plympton (seven if we count an anthology made of his earlier shorts), one of most iconic names in independent American animation. I will not say that to see his work is to love his work – there’s too much aggressive grotesquerie in his character designs and morbid humor for that to be true – but I do think that it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone watching his beloved Oscar-nominated 2004 short Guard Dog and not walking out a committed fan.

In the meanwhile, we’re here to talk about Cheatin’, and what an absolutely wonderful film it is, too. It would be hard to defend it as Plympton’s best work: his sense of humor works so perfectly in the context of a short, where he can run in, land a few quick sucker punches, and run back out again. But “best” or not, it’s still a stunning work of unexpected emotional complexity and images scratched out in Plympton’s customary aesthetic, looking like delicately-shaded color pencil sketches of distorted, unyielding human forms.

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Interview: Joan Chen and Zhu Zhu of "Marco Polo"

Reader for more binge-watching? The new Netflix event Marco Polo debuts tomorrow! Here's Jose to talk to its glamorous stars...

The most surprising thing about Netflix's new series Marco Polo may be how much attention it gives to its non-titular female characters. Keep in mind, that the show takes place during the 13th century, an era in which women had little say in politics and were ignored by the history books filled as they are with male explorers and conquistadors, including the title character played by the gorgeous Lorenzo Richelmy. In a show which could have treated its women like decorative supporting objects, series creator John Fusco, the writers, and the actresses make them the most fascinating people we meet. As the boys plan wars, train in kung fu and engage in sword fights of all varieties, the women show their power through intellect.

Two of the best characters in the show are Empress Chabi, played by international film and television goddess Joan Chen (Twin Peaks, Lust Caution), and Princess Kokochin, played by Zhu Zhu. Where the former is serene, to the point where her harshest decisions become chilling, the latter is more explosive. 

Other than its lead (Richelmy), who during the first season is mostly a vessel through which we see the clash of cultures, Marco Polo’s ensemble is completely non-white, something Chen highlighted during our conversation. In a time when Hollywood continues to practice whitewashing in casting, it's refreshing to see a show with people of so many different nationalities and races.

Chen and Zhu Zhu were gracious enough to discuss their process, their inspiration and the importance of history. Our talk is after the jump.

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GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS

No, Paula Patton did not become a Hollywood Foreign Press Associate. But she was helping with the nominations in the wee hours. The complete list of nominations with some commentary (more to come in additional posts) is after the jump...

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ICYMI. Play Catch-Up!

December and January are always the busiest months in these parts so even if you're clicking over regularly your bound to miss something. Tragedy! 

[Quieting the inner drama queen now.] Perhaps it's not tragic, in the standard definition, but it's sad. Why miss a post you might love just because you overslept one day, partied one night, or (gasp) went offline for a full 24 hours (pull yourself together, reader, never do that again -- that's what April and August are for!). Herewith a handful of recent key posts you may have missed but shouldn't have! And the unending swath of awards news in list form.

Five Musts
Jake's Southpaw... would you rather?
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is going gray; he just hit 50
Monty smells Cake. Will Oscar? 
Podcast goes behind the Critics Awards curtain. How do those votes happen?
Amy vs. Nick. Where's your vote gone, girl?  

Awards Updates Golden Globe Nods | OFCS Mommy issues | SAG Nominees |  AFI conservativeness | Grammy detour | Help me with my "Critics Choice" ballot

Interview Jamboree
We've really been hitting the 1:1 circuit hard this year so we hope we're not overwhelming you with information so much as spoiling you with pleasure and making 2015 even more difficult for ourselves by way of 'how to top this?'. Before we move into yet more interviews (18 still to transcribe. whew) and the Year in Review Madness which begins tonight and lasts forever [insert nefarious laugh] you really should play catch up with these highlights: the inimitable actress who loves to play wild women; the legend who turned down Sex & the City; the iconoclast who won't option her own life story to the movies; the perfect specimen who plays with the superheroes; and the visionary who made that crazy convincing ape village; and last, but by no means least, the one and only shockingly versatile Carrie Coon, that newbie who humanized Ben Affleck onscreen just after wowing everyone on stage in Woolf and killing it on TV in The Leftovers.

Will all the statues one day belong to her? 

All of that and you still haven't liked us on Facebook or followed us on Twitter or donated (see sidebar) or told all your friends and relatives about us ?! What more do you want from us - Blood!?