Podcast Pt 1: Joe, Nick and Nathaniel's Oscar Predictions

Nick, Nathaniel and Joe get together -- no Katey this week, sorry kids -- to make our final predictions and let our conversations wander (as we do). Joe reveals a very messy ballot, Nick brings up The Judge goddamn it (!), and Nathaniel watches Matthew McConaughey commercials.

Pt 1 Oscar Prediction Finale
41 minutes
00:01 Scores. Do they realizes that Alexandre Desplat hasn't won?
05:14 Song. A disagreement about "Lost Stars" and which version will Adam Levine perform?
11:53 Sound Mixing & Sound Editing. Drums (Whiplash / Birdman) vs. Bullets (American Sniper / Unbroken) and some "what is this doing here?" theories
18:00 Documentary. Is Citizen Four locked up or could we see a surprise?
20:00 Animated Feature. More disagreements!
23:35 Visual Effects. How to we even predict this category? Film love? Technological Breakthroughs? The one that stands out?
28:00 Makeup & Old Age makeup done right for a change
30:33 Foreign Film: Ida trumps
36:00 Film Editing: we discuss Structure / Rhthyms / Agendas 

Supplemental Material for this Podcast:
Tomm Moore interview on Song of the Sea
An interview with Hans Zimmer
Oscar Charts & Final Predictions
Nathaniel's Tilda-Specific Makeup & Hair Ballot

Please to enjoy and continue the golden conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes starting tomorrow.  

Oscar Prediction Finale Pt. 1

An Interview with Hans Zimmer

Anne Marie here with an observation: Hans Zimmer's studio is incredible. The ten-time Academy Award nominated composer has furnished his studio in a manner that fits the man who wrote the dramatic scores to Inception, Gladiator, and the Dark Knight trilogy. The walls are deep red, and lined with dark wood bookshelves bursting with books, albums, candles, and knick knacks. Light filters through stained glass-covered hanging lamps. Overstuffed couches and chairs sit on a raised platform. Clashing with this rustic scene are the walls of musical instruments, blinking sound equipment, and Zimmer's high tech work station. It's a lot to take in.

When I'm led into the room for an interview, I'm still recovering from car trouble. I'd been listening to Zimmer's Oscar-nominated score for Interstellar in the car, which had somehow led to my car stalling on the highway. Miraculously, I'm not late. When I meet Hans Zimmer, he is deservedly proud of his workspace, and immediately launches into conversation. Zimmer speaks animatedly of his decorating philosophy, decades-long partnership with Chris Nolan, the trouble with organs, and why he loves the Academy.

Anne Marie: This is an amazing room. This is quite possibly the coolest room I have ever been in.

Hans Zimmer: No, but hang on. There’s a reason. There’s a pragmatic reason: If you had to spend 98% of your life in one room, you might as well have some fun with it. Do you agree?

 Anne Marie: I absolutely agree!

 Hans Zimmer: And you know what, sometimes we just move the furniture out of this way and let the musicians come in, and we just start playing, and wow! Music!

Anne Marie: Oh my goodness! Talk about a great creative space.

Hans Zimmer: And that was, that was partly why I did it. I was sitting with this wonderful editor, Richie Marks, y’know [he] worked on Apocalypse Now, and all the Jim Brooks movies, Penny Marshall [films], The Godfather too. I’m sitting on the couch in his cutting room, I’m sort of leaning back, and I’m looking at the--what do you call those, y’know the ceiling with the sort of… they look like cottage cheese.

Anne Marie: Ceiling tiles I think?

Hans Zimmer: Right? It’s horrible! And the walls, which have this y’know horrible hospital color, and I’m thinking, “This great man is trying to create art!” and y’know the bad linoleum floor. Y’know? And this is, this is, this is, every day he has to go to this horrible room! So, Richie doesn’t actually know this, but it was really partially because I thought, “Poor Richie, in this horrible environment! I’m going to do my own!”

Anne Marie: Well from such an environment, I can see where something dramatic like Interstellar came from. I have to admit, my car stalled on the way here while I was listening to the Interstellar soundtrack!

Hans Zimmer: [Laughs] It’ll do that to cars!

[Interstellar and Oscar Love after the jump...]

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So Nice, She's Been Nominated Twice: Liv Ullmann

abstew here. With her second nomination for Two Days, One Night, Marion Cotillard joins a small but prestigious group of actresses that received both their Best Actress nominations for foreign language performances. The first actress to achieve it was Sophia Loren who we discussed over the weekend. Today we look back at the Norwegian muse of the master Ingmar Bergman...

Liv Ullmann
after the jump 

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Curio: Alternative Oscar Art

Alexa here. It's that time of year, where artists and designers take a crack at creating alternative posters for the Oscar nominated films. As they do every year the BAFTAs commissioned posters for their nominated films; the Academy is at least featuring movie Valentines from illustrator Nan Lawson on its site but I wish they'd feature some alternative nominee posters too (grumble grumble).  To fill the void, here are some favorite designs I've spied floating around... 

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Review: 50 Shades of Grey

This review originally appeared in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It is reprinted here with a couple of minor adjustments.

SPOILER ALERT: Nothing happens in 50 SHADES OF GREY. Nothing at all. The property’s idiot savant genius may be how well it achieves this tabula rasa narrative and aesthetic zen state. Its slate is so blank that the audience is free to project whatever they’d like on to it including the drama. BYOE: Bring Your Own Everything. Perhaps this accounts for its enormous “event” like status at the box office. 

We begin with an embarrassingly botched interview between a young woman who we're supposed to think of as a frumpy plain jane, an unstylish deer in the headlights if you will, and the snappily dressed über intimidating businessperson who will decide her fate. (Think The Devil Wears Prada plus sexual tension minus jokes). Naive and beautiful young Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), her name apparently downloaded from a romance novel generator, has gone to see the young billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) but she's not actually supposed to be there. She's doing it as a favor for her sluttier worldly BFF Karla (think streetwise Kit to impossibly virginal hooker Vivian in Pretty Woman) who happens to be sick on the day of her interview with the college's most successful alumnus/eligible bachelor. 

So our leads meet quite by accident. Is it fate? Will it get kinky? 

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