Acceptance Speech Nerdgasm & Oscar Party Tiebreakers

who will be in a group photo THIS year? And will they look as much like the top of a wedding cake as this quartet did?What will Matthew McConaughey say first after he wins the Oscar? I mean after "all right all right all right". Statistics suggest that he'll either thank the Academy or launch right into the Leto or Vallée appreciation. (Or maybe DiCaprio or Dern will win in a shocking upset)

Jennifer Lawrence started her speech at the last Oscars with "This is nuts" and if she wins again over Lupita  'this is nuts' won't even begin to describe it. If you want a fun tiebreaker for your Oscar party prediction pool, go with the speeches!

Four Tie-Breaker Questions: 

1 "Who will forget a totally key person?"
(JLaw forgot her director last year!)
2 "Which of the acting winners will thank the most people by name?"
(Hathaway rattled off 23 names last year)  
3 "Will anyone thank God?" Other than their God
(i.e. the director)  
4 "How many of the four acting winners will get a standing ovation?"
(this is actually harder to predict than you'd think because sometimes who gets one and who doesn't is confusing when you're in the living room and not in the Kodak)

Over at Slate I've updated my massive acceptance speech analysis project. Even if you've seen it before, look again because I die for those interactive graphics they include. They are so fun to play with and I'm super proud of this now annual tradition.

Interview: Lupita Nyong'o on 12 Years, Non-Stop and Her Future

On Lupita Nyong'o's Instagram account she captioned this one:

Yes, a chocolate BAFTA will do quite nicely, thank you!

A golden BAFTA woulda been better but what can you do?

Recently it came to me in a flash: Lupita Nyong'o is the new Jessica Chastain!  Think about it: classically trained movie actress in her early 30s goes from complete unknown to everyone's favorite in the blink of an eye in a critically acclaimed movie (movies plural in Chastain's case) and proves herself a complete and utter natural at celebrity, red carpets, fashion, and social media. 

Of course I didn't know all this when I first sat down with Lupita in the fall in the first rush of acclaim for Twelve Years a Slave, a meeting I shamefully neglected to tell you about until now. Looking over the transcript it occurs to me that the past few months have been so eventful that pieces of our conversation barely make sense. We're conversing as if she isn't a huge celebrity. But the right role at the right time can permanently change things for an actor. [More...]

Click to read more ...

A Year With Kate: Alice Adams (1935)

Episode 8 of 52 wherein Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order

I’ve spent a long time looking at photos of Kate for this blog. It’s not just that she’s beautiful. She just radiates confidence from every perfectly-posed angle. Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine that she could be touched by failure or anxiety. If she’s not relatable, she’s admirable. I’ve certainly idolized her. Earlier I worshipped Kate as Jo March, the success who tomboys aspire to be. But if Jo March - or Kate - is who young girls want to be, Alice Adams is who they so often feel like they are. And as such, Alice Adams is a shock for Hepburn fans...

Click to read more ...

11 Days Til Oscar. Bette Midler & Original Song

Bright and early this morning they announced that Bette Midler will be performing at the Oscars for the first time. That's shocking to type since she's had so many great movie musical moments in her career and she's obviously been to the Oscars as a nominee or to present. But, alas, her material was generally not original* and thus unnominated in the one category that regularly prompts performances.

Though it seems highly likely that they'll have her as underscore songstress for the In Memoriam visuals (zzz. Love that segment but it's never about the singer so they're interchangeable... something you can't usually say for Bette Midler) It's more fun to fantasize about recreating one of her musical moments from a movie on the main stage. So... vote!

poll by twiigs.com

* A Shocking Memory
Yes, it's true. The classic "The Rose" from The Rose (1979), written by Amanda McBroom, was NOT nominated for Best Original Song even after winning the Golden Globe. It was not expressly written for the movie though it had never been recorded before that point -- the same tragic reasons for disqualifications as Moulin Rouge!'s "Come What May". That category has been fucking us over for decades - this year's controversy was the least of it, really. The ideal song line up for 1979, an unusually good year for the category, would have probably would have been some combination of the two lists since the Oscar winner "It Goes Like It Goes" from Norma Rae, unnominated at the Globes, is also lovely.

But when you remember that "The Rainbow Connection" was nominated at both awards shows and lost twice, the point becomes moot. Truth: that eternal classic deserved multiple Oscars. An Oscar for 1979 and then an Oscar for every random year thereafter that failed to produce a worthy nominee. As an encore, you know? 

What would you have voted for?

I hope you've been enjoying the Countdown to Oscar! We're having so much fun with it so please check out any episodes you missed. Remember this truth: Comments are fuel for more blogging. 

Previously
12 Days - A twelve-wide Best Picture field!!! What does 1934 tell us about "Oscar slots"? 
13 Days - Matthew McConaughey and 2000's Best Actress Race?
14 Days - All About Eve vs. Titanic. The two all time nomination leaders face off!
15 Days - Supporting Oscar Chart fun "how were they nominated?"
16 Days - Irene Sharaff's 16 nominations 
17 Days - Looking back at The English Patient, Sal Mineo... and 1917?
18 Days - Meryl Streep's 18th nomination. Like whoa
19 Days - Julianne Moore's awards history
20 Days - Flashback '93: Age of Innocence, Farewell My Concubine, The Piano
21 Days - What's your favorite Billy Wilder? 

Link Commando

Vanity Fair Bradley Cooper's commando White House trip
Theater Mania a screening of West Side Story on Sunday at 5 PM in New York. Rita Moreno will speak to the crowd. Who's going?
PopBytes Pushing Daisies might be coming back... as a musical! 
1:37:1 How often are entire Oscar nominated shortlists absent a Best Picture nominated film? Rarely. And almost always in the same category. I'll give you one guess  

Broadway World somehow I missed these images in early February from the set of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard so maybe you did, too?
Guardian films that use both black and white and color sequences
Film School Rejects looks to Foreign Correspondent, not Rebecca (both 1940) as the prototype for Hitchcock's Hollywood films 
NYT Neil Patrick Harris prepares for his Broadway turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch
/Film Roger Deakins is not returning to the land of 007 post Skyfall for the the as yet untitled Bond 24. This is going to be a tough movie for all of them: how do you follow up that 50th anniversary behemoth?
NPR talks to Steve McQueen and the Oscar nominated editor of 12 Years a Slave about assembling the movie
MNPP Jake Gyllenhaal doubled up in Enemy, a behind the scenes look
In Contention an oral history of Reality Bites (1994) for its 20th anniversary 

Finally...  The Film Stage reminds us that Tom at the Farm, Xavier Dolan's wonderfully tense queer thriller still doesn't have US distribution but it has a new poster. Bam

I miss the days when US audiences went to the arthouse and talked about subtitled hits... *sniffle* Now people only binge-watch American television. We're a nation of shut-ins!