Friday, February 27, 2015 at 7:00PM 
Julianne in 2013 getting her star
Remember that time when Julianne was winning TV prizes for her turn pretending to be Sarah Palin in Game Change and we thought "this is all we'll ever get to see her accepting prizes for -- but at least we get to see her accept something even if it's so not representative of her career!"
Yeah, glad we were wrong.
Friday, February 27, 2015 at 4:21PM Our black history month coverage continues with Margaret on Spike Lee's 1997 nominee for Best Documentary Feature...
Spike Lee is famously an Oscar loser. With every passing year--25 of them now behind us--it makes less and less sense that Do the Right Thing lost its nomination for Best Original Screenplay, let alone that it failed to earn Oscar nominations in the Best Picture or Best Director categories. When one thinks of Spike Lee, what comes to mind is a distinct stylization, and a reputation for incendiary cultural commentary. His inflammatory style has often been implicated as the cause of his cool reception from the film establishment.
His less remembered brush with Oscar was a nomination for Best Documentary in 1997 for his film 4 Little Girls, and that loss is more mysterious. No less artfully crafted or emotionally gut-punching than the best of his filmography, the documentary is also more formally and stylistically straightforward: other than the title card up front identifying it as "A Spike Lee Joint" it's absent many of the colorful hallmarks of the Lee's work.
The historical events examined by 4 Little Girls should be familiar to anyone who caught the recent Best Picture contender Selma. [Read more...]
Friday, February 27, 2015 at 10:30AM AV Club there's finally a Whiplash spoof starring The Muppets' Animal. "Animalllll!"
Boy Culture remembering a great poem "Lana Turner Has Collapsed"
EW the DVD of Into the Woods will include the new Sondheim song sung by Meryl Streep cut from the movie - you can see a minute of it here. I like it. Could listen to Meryl sing all day
Pajiba all the crazy shit that's gone down at 50 Shades of Grey screenings
THR Lovely profile of Kyle Chandler's careful career moves. If you missed my review of the pilot of his new series Bloodline it's here. Love this actor. I'm totally curious about what he'll do in Carol with Cate Blanchett
Coming Soon first image and synopsis from Jem & The Holograms
Movie City News David Poland says very smart things about the Academy's lack of confidence in themselves as evidenced on Oscar night. I've often felt this and don't get why they don't embrace their power? They're always worrying about audiences they don't have and not concentrating on delivering for the huge audience they do have.
Variety Brit Joe Alwyn lands the lead in Ang Lee's next project Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk about a 19 year old US soldier home briefly between tours in Iraq. It's Alwyn's first motion picture though he's done stage work.
Amazon I haven't watched this yet but they're streaming the pilot to Sutton Foster's new show Younger for free
THR Blade Runner's sequel will be directed by the talented Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) though I still don't get why something that perfect in original form needs a sequel (sigh). You're just asking for trouble!
Variety Joan Allen doing a dramatic thriller pilot co-starring Zach Gilford from Friday Night Lights
HitFix Louis Virtel reminds us that The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) was actually hilarious.
Wait, there's still more links?
i09 bringing comic book characters to life with a really unique take on makeup transformations
Empire Rosamund Pike lining up lots of projects including The Deep Blue Good-By with Christian Bale which is meant to be a franchise
A Fistful of Films gives out 1939 prizes. I keep thinking of doing this with older film years but I'm such a completist and those big projects undo me! Still giving best actress to anyone but Vivien Leigh that year? I won't hear it!
Stage Buddy talking to The Last Five Years producer. Who came up with that Russell Crowe joke?
Uproxx Neill Blomkamp is refreshingly honest about how he failed Elysium
EXIT VIDEO
Julie Andrews goes Death Metal in this awesome Mary Poppins video
Friday, February 27, 2015 at 8:30AM 
Previously in Oscar Fashion Discussions
- Reader Poll Supporting plus Viola, Jessica, Scarlett
- Reader Poll Actress plus Kidman, Blanchett, Robbie
...and just when y'all thought we were done talking Oscar night fashions.
As you may have heard that amazing pearl dress worn by Lupita Nyong'o was stolen from her hotel room. My first thought was "but where could you even wear that? Everyone will know and you're not going to look as good as Lupita anyway!" but then a more basic bitch realization: oh right, THOUSANDS of pearls. Supposedly 6,000 of them in all and unmarked and the dress is worth something like $150,000. Or, probably more than Lupita was paid for co-starring in 12 Years a Slave back before she was a household name, Oscar winner and instant fashion icon.
Theories abound but here are TFE's three best guesses as to the culprit.
01. THAT CREEPER who was lurking around the actresses all night. Suspicious!*
02 THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE. Consider the facts: She WAS at the Dolby that night. She IS cultivating a "Modern" bad girl image. She DOES have a thing for pearls.
03 URSULA. Her rep declares the allegations unfounded and insulting. "On the whole she's been a saint."
*Scarlett Johansson is now a character witness so it looks like he's off the hook.
Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 11:54PM 
Tim here. Tomorrow sees the release of Focus, a romantic drama about two con artists, played by Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Time will tell if it finds its audience – the critics are steadfastly ambivalent – but I would at least argue on its behalf, sight-unseen, that it's already gotten at least one thing right. There's a slick likeability to any generally good con artist picture, which openly confess to the thing that most movies try to hide at least somewhat: the reason we watch them is to be told enthralling lies. We go to the movies in the specific hope of being conned, and never more so than in the case of romances, which in Hollywood's view are games of people trying to trick other people into falling in love with them, while tricking us into believing that all these contrivances are true and meaningful instead of just skilled craftsmanship. I'm hoping against hope that Focus ends up being really great.
While we wait to find out, I'd like to take you back in time to the last great con artist love story (if we skip over American Hustle, which has other goals in mind), the wantonly under-appreciated Duplicity from 2009. It was writer-director Tony Gilroy's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Michael Clayton, transposing that film's world of corporate espionage and skullduggery into the frame of a fizzy romantic comedy. It was also the second film to pair Julia Roberts and Clive Owen as a pair of sniping lovers after the acidic "everybody hates everybody" drama Closer. And Duplicity tanked, and was widely unloved, and even six years later, those facts still break my heart a little bit.
