Who you gonna call? Linkbusters

Vanity Fair Melissa McCarthy and other funny ladies in talks for Ghostbusters reboot. I'm rooting for Jillian Bell myself who is mentioned. Yay.
Buzzfeed a definitive ranking of Disney Prince butts - as great as it sounds though I'd place Prince Phillip higher because my imagination works (I love that former Prince BD Wong even replied to his ranking on Twitter)
Vulture let us all worship Charlize Theron who has demanded (and been given) equal pay to her male co-star for The Huntsman. It's not like people went to the first movie for Hemsworth...Insane. Sexism by the numbers.
The Film Grapevine Birdman and the unexpected virtue of Contrivance
A Socialite Life Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone photobomb someone actually trying to take a photo of them

Slate on why Wes Anderson movies have never been popular with the Academy Awards before (presumably) now. Fairly good reasoning
MNPP Wet Hot American Summer will become a Netflix series and the original cast is all returning
RogerEbert.com on the women in Selma: the unsung heroines of the movement
THR Samuel Goldwyn Jr dies 
Theater Mania The Color Purple is coming back to Broadway (already?) with Jennifer Hudson as Shug 

Good Long Reads
IndieWire great piece on the definitions of patriotism and exceedingly pro-gun messaging of American Sniper. Please do not let this film be nominated for Best Picture. It's just not what we need right now...especially given how many people have been killed by guns lately in the States...and still no gun reform.
Grantland Wesley Morris on Selma. Love this sprawling, provocative review / thinkpiece. I've been totally appalled and confused myself at the way the media has latched on to the Lyndon B Johnson depiction but Morris makes a great point here that helps clarify, for me, the anger and nitpicking:

A quick survey of film history suggests that the depiction of racial themes in America has always been the province of white directors, whether it’s something as spectacularly diabolical as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation or the antebellum revenge of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. These great-man movies tend to reflect the aspirations and identities of the people who make them, which is how so many stories ostensibly about black life wind up with white interpolators. DuVernay understands the fraught, imbalanced legacy a film like this pulls her into, and she’s been as fair as she needs to be. This is not a film that undermines or questions Johnson’s ultimate contributions to the improvement of black life in this country. (It very easily could have mentioned the two decades in Congress he spent opposing civil rights legislation.) Inasmuch as there are villains, they are Wallace, Hoover, and Selma’s sheriff, Jim Clark. But because this isn’t Johnson’s story, those accustomed to seeing the president as hero (or protagonist) ultimately seem dismayed by how little of the president there is here.

The bold is mine, not Morris's. People who are angry about Lyndon B Johnson's depiction really ought to look beyond the myth and think about reality. And once they do, rather than be disappointed, they should be as generous as DuVernay is who depicts him as an imperfect man who makes a great progressive decision which changes history.

2014's Interview Index

Nathaniel leaves for Los Angeles for the Critics Choice awards mid week and Michael we'll join him at Sundance the following week. It's high season! Can you handle all of these things happening at once every day? If you've missed any of our chats, they're listed below. It's one of the only perks of a life of movie blogging to be able to meet talented people and grill them about their gifts and work (albeit in a usually rushed way!). Hope you enjoy reading them!

The Actors
Joan Chen & Zhu Zhu (Marco Polo)
Carrie Coon (Gone Girl)
Chadwick Boseman (Get On Up)
Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes / Terminator: Genysis)
Laura Dern (Wild)
Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year)
Anna Kendrick (Into the Woods / The Last 5 Years)
Jenny Slate (Obvious Child)
Timothy Spall (Mr Turner)
Marisa Tomei (Love is Strange / The Realistic Joneses)
Finn Wittrock (Unbroken / Freakshow) 

Auteur Theory
John Carney (Begin Again)
Damien Chazelle (Whiplash)
Stephan Haupt (The Circle)
Jennifer Kent (The Babadook)
Hong Khaou (Lilting)
Chris Mason Johnson (Test)
James Marsh (Theory of Everything)
Tomm Moore (Song of the Sea)
Matthew Warchus (Pride)
Daniel Ribeiro (The Way He Looks)
Toa Fraser (Dead Lands) 
Liv Ullmann (Miss Julie)

Behind the Scenes
Cinematographer Yves Belanger (Wild)
Composer Antonio Sanchez (Birdman) 
Composer Patti Smith (Noah) 
Composer Hans Zimmer (Interstellar)
Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson (Noah)
Production Designer James Chinlund (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes)
Stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton (Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Producer Guillermo del Toro (The Book of Life)
Producer Joanna Natasegara (Virunga)
Screenwriter Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy) 

Oscar Parties / Cocktails / Banter
Allen Leech, Alex Lawther, Matthew Beard (Imitation Game Party)
Ava DuVernay, Common & John Legend (Selma Luncheon)
Ava Duvernay, Niecy Nash, and Lorraine Toussaint (Selma Premiere)
Jessica Chastain, J.C. Chandor, and Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year Premiere)
John Boorman (Hope & Glory Memory and Current Ballot) 

Celebrity Guests For Our Devout Actressexual Readership
Dana Delany (Amazon's Hand of God) shared A+ stories in our '73 Smackdown. Such a movie buff! 
Missi Pyle (Gone Girl) one of Hollywood's best scene stealers, guest-blogged with hilarious Oscar memoir
Melanie Lynskey (Happy Christmas, HBO's Together) participated in our '64 Smackdown and cursed herself for picking a bum year 

and...

Quick Impressions - in this unique experiment we celebrated the non-famous working actor, day players and/or possible future stars. Thousands of showbiz dreams are embedded in every frame of your favorite movies from the principles on down to the one-liners. In this three episode tryout we talked to actors who worked on Gone Girl, The Boxtrolls, and American Horror Story: Freakshow. Should we resume for 2015?

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2013's Index - Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Paulson, Sally Hawkins, etc
2012's Index - Nicole Kidman, Eddie Redmayne, Kerry Washington, etc.
2011's Index  -Jessica Chastain, Charlize Theron, Corey Stoll, etc.
2010's Index - Julianne Moore, Kirsten Dunst, Juliette Lewis, etc.

Meet the Contenders: David Oyelowo "Selma"

Abstew continues his weekly look at acting contenders as their films open...

David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma
Best Actor

Born: David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo was born 1 April, 1976 in Oxford, England

The Role: Filmmakers have been having a dream of bring a film about civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. to the big screen for years now. And this particular story, not a traditional cradle to tomb biopic of the man, but focusing on the Voting Rights marches in Selma, Alabama in 1965, has been in development since 2007 when British screenwriter Paul Webb completed his script. Various directors had been attached at one point and it was almost made in 2010 by Lee Daniels, who dropped the project due to lack of funding and to make The Butler instead. It finally comes to us from writer/director Ava DuVernay, who could make history by becoming the first African-American female director nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

British actor David Oyelowo had been attached to play Dr. King when Daniels was on board to direct (the two had previously worked together on The Paperboy and again in The Butler). And it was Oyelowo who suggested DuVernay to the producers after they worked together on her 2012 film, Middle of Nowhere. Oyelowo has stated that when he read the script back in 2007, that God told him he would play the part. [more...]

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Podcast: Golden Globe Predictions

HOORAY! It's Golden Globes weekend.

Inbetween rushing to the movie theaters to catch up on any nominees you missed, listen in as Nathaniel, Nick, Katey and Joe reveal their "will wins" and "should wins" as they travel up the Globe ballot toward Best Picture, doubled. We love the Globes, don't you?

Running Time (42 minutes)
00:01 Song & Score. Hating on Big Eyes
04:07 Foreign & Animated. 
10:57 Screenplays
13:56 Director & Ava DuVernay 
16:09 Supporting. (Some Ethan Hawke & Keira Knightley love circulates through the room)
22:22 Lead Acting: St. Vincent detour / 'Team Foxcatcher'.
32:38 Best Actress Drama / Best Picture Finale
38:40 Fav "Into the Woods" Numbers

You can listen at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments! The 72nd Annual Golden Globe® Awards, will air on NBC Sunday night LIVE coast-to-coast 5:00 PST /8:00 PM EST.

Please note: this was recorded one week ago so Selma hadn't had the rough week it just had with guilds

Referenced: Nick's hilarious mocking of The Imitation Game

GG Predictions, January 2015

A Short Detour: Best Actress 1977 Anyone ?

With Oscar ballots in and BAFTA nominations announced we'll shortly proceed to final predictions and finish the Film Bitch Categories that correlate with Oscar. In short, prepare for a busy week! But for tonight, before Golden Globes weekend, why not a brief detour from the right now?

The current Beauty vs Beast poll (ending Sunday night so get your votes in) on Annie Hall, has been prompting some unrelated Liza Minnelli comments regarding her Globe nominated / Oscar skipped work in New York New York. I also wish she'd been in the running that year since it's an amazing performance, much closer to her Cabaret brilliance than Oscar history would tell you. This threw me for an unexpected 1977 flashback. The average ticket price was $2.25. Hot damn. And it was a great year for Actress-led movies.

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