GALECA & GLAAD: Gay 'Best of the Year' Honors

Though I complain about the proliferation of awards groups some of them serve more of a purpose than others, even if they're also lining up to honor the same things as every other group. Like AIDS related Best Picture nominee Dallas Buyers Club twhich some gay critics don't like at all and on principal but which factors into both of the gay-specific awards recently announced.

Now, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has made really suspect endorsements over the years (Let us not speak of I Know Pronounce You Chuck & Larry) but they've also highlighted and fought against a very real problem so you have to respect their greasy wheel existence if not always their execution of message. 

As per usual, GLAAD will hold a bicoastal bifurcated awards ceremony, first in Los Angeles in April and then in New York in May, long after Oscar season is over. GLAAD's film (and other medium) nominees as well as the nominees and winners of GALECA (the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) are after the jump with commentary and in some cases links. It's always bugged me that when magazines, blogs, and web articles are nominated for prizes the nominations list rarely have an easy way to check out the nominees so I figure I'm doing a public service by including them. You're welcome. 

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We Can't Wait #2: The Grand Budapest Hotel

the brilliant new poster[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Michael Cusumano on The Grand Budapest Hotel.)

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ralph Fiennes plays Gustave H, romancer of wealthy old ladies and concierge extraordinaire at a hotel in a fictional European country caught between wars. Told through the eyes of Zero Moustafe, Gustave’s lobby boy protégée, the tale concerns the theft of priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for a tremendous family fortune.

Talent
Wes Anderson’s latest rivals Gosford Park for the sheer volume of the cast. There are the returning Anderson champs like Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe and the grand marshal of every Wes Anderson parade, Bill Murray, alongside newbies to Wes World like Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan and Léa Seydoux. Equally exciting is the reunion of Wes and Moonrise Kingdom production designer Adam Stockhausen. (The title Stockhausen squeezed in between Anderson films? A little project called 12 Years a Slave.)

 

Why We Can't Wait
Even if you’re an Wes Anderson agnostic up to this point I don’t know how anyone can resist the ornate visual splendor promised by this film. The trailer was so beautiful I was tempted to put it on my top 10 list for 2013.

Grand Budapest looks like a perfect culmination of Anderson’s career up to this point. Rather than reinventing himself, Wes appears to be trying to see how far he could push his signature style, a choice I’m entirely on board with. Grand Budapest has the potential to be the director’s most purely farcical film that doesn’t feature stop motion woodland creatures. Even operating at his most screwball, though, I would be surprised if Anderson omitted the melancholy soulfulness that has become his trademark.

On a non-Wes related note this looks like the most fun Ralph Fiennes has had on screen since In Bruges. Comedic Ralph is my favorite Ralph Fiennes and it comes along all too rarely.

But We Do Have To Wait
The early months of the year can be a dead zone for interesting film but at least we won’t have to wait long. Anderson’s latest will open Berlinale in February before hitting theaters on March 7.  

Previously
3 Foxcatcher 4 Under the Skin 5 Inherent Vice 6 Into the Woods
7 Snowpiercer 8 Nymphomaniac 9 Boyhood 10  Big Eyes 11 The Last 5 Years
12 Gone Girl 13  Can a Song Save Your Life 14  Veronica Mars 
runners up

Cesar Academy Nominates French President's Mistress! (Who cares about movies anyway?)

Julien, your french correspondent, here to discuss the César nominations.

OUTRAGE ! Twitter was in uproar this morning when the nominees for the Best Actress César were announced, and the name Adèle Exarchopoulos was nowhere to be seen. While Léa Seydoux made the cut for her arguably supporting role, Adèle’s astounding lead performance in Blue is the Warmest Color was relegated to the Most Promising Actress category.

Before you raise your pitchforks, consider this perfectly logical explanation: since Tahar Rahim won both the Best Actor and Most Promising Actor gongs for A Prophet in 2010, the rules were altered so that a single performance can only be nominated in a single category -the one which collects the most votes. Fair enough César, but when a category which is supposed to promote new talent prevents the year’s most celebrated performance to be nominated in its rightful place, you’re clearly doing something wrong.

All the nominees and a lot of gay drama and political mischief after the jump...

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We Can't Wait #3: Foxcatcher

[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Glenn Dunks on "Foxcatcher"]

Mark and Dave Schutlz played by Ruffalo and Tatum respectively

Foxcatcher 
Based on the true story of Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), Foxcatcher tells the story of how John du Pont (Steve Carell), member of the millionaire du Pont family, murdered Schultz's brother, wrestling champion Dave (Mark Ruffalo). 

Talent
Director Bennett Miller, unlike the David O. Russells of the world, is switching his casts with each movie. Here he is working with a screenplay by Oscar-nominated Dan Futterman and Emmy-nominated E. Max Eyre. Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum take the three major roles, but the peripheries are filled out with such names as Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller, Anthony Michael Hall and prolific character actor Brett Rice.

Why We Can't Wait
Appearing, at least on first inspection, like a cross between the real life sport drama of Moneyball and the small town true crime drama of Capote - Foxcatcher looks like another winner from Bennett Miller who is three for three and that's before you even count his arguable best work (the bscure and bonkers documentary The Cruise). The eclectic cast should be interesting and it'll be exciting to see what Carell does with darker more challenging character material. The trailer that was released last year (and then pulled) looked disturbing and creepy and Carell appears to be on fire with the weight gain and voice weak like watered-down tea.

But We Do Have To Wait
Sony Pictures Classics will distribute later in 2014, which perhaps suggests that it's a smaller movie than many will expect with a cast such as this (and hoping for Oscar attention). It seems likely that it will premiere at one of the big festivals (Venice would suit).

Previously
Under the Skin, Inherent Vice, Into the Woods , Snowpiercer , Nymphomaniac , Boyhood , Big Eyes ,The Last 5 Years , Gone Girl, Can a Song Save Your Life, Veronica Mars and those that just missed the cut

Will the real Maleficent please stand up?

Tim here. We’ve all had a few days for the recent trailer for Disney’s upcoming pillaging of former glories live-action Sleeping Beauty riff Maleficent to sink in (full disclosure: all I get is a big rotten whiff of Snow White and the Huntsman with a bigger role for its face-saving Prima Donna as the villain). So I’d like to take a moment to rewind 55 years back to the first Maleficent, for no better – and certainly, no worse – reason than that she’s one of the very best villains not only in the Disney canon, but in cinema as a whole. And while it’s never the wrong time to pay attention to one of the finest pieces of draftsmanship in the whole of American character animation, it’s nice to have an excuse.

The question, “Why is Maleficent so damn awesome?” has many answers, but here’s the easy one: black. 

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