Waiting For Link Man

efilmcritic Erik Childress's wonderful annual list of Blurb Whores of the Year
THR August Osage County wins big at the Capri festival in Italy, winning four prizes. Harvey Weinstein and Chris Cooper were also honored at the festival. In non Weinstein awards they honored 12 Years a Slave, Saving Mr Banks, and The Great Beauty as well as Valeria Golino (remember her?) as European actress of the year
EW Downton Abbey on the cover. Can't wait for its return this weekend
Variety 3 time Oscar winning producer Saul Zaentz (Amadeus, Cuckoo's Nest and The English Patient) has passed away
i09 Disney Princess themed lingerie from Japan! 

MNPP vicious but true takedown of Ron Howard's Rush
Cinema Blend The Rock for a new iteration of Green Lantern? There are worse ideas, casting-wise I suppose but DC movies are so hopeless!
The Guardian finds that The Wolf of Wall Street uses the naughty F word 506 times, which "breaks down to Scorsese giving 2.81 fucks a minute." LOL. But who spent the three hours counting? That's what I want to know.
USA Today Character actor Joseph Ruskin (Prizzi's Honor, The Magnificent Seven) has passed away
The Wire as we move into the dumping ground of each film year (that'd be new January releases, not platformed holdovers) Joe Reid looks back at ten January releases that didn't suck
Vanity Fair funny Proust questionnaire with T Bone Burnett whose latest movie music work I can't stop listening to. That'd be Inside Llewyn Davis

Hitchcock with Barbara Harris on "Family Plot"Finally...
My friend Matthew Rettenmund who writes Boy Culture has compiled a list of all of Hitchcock's leading ladies who are still alive. (Make sure to note the punny captions). I found this list of ten surprising even though I recently made that oldest 100 screen actors of note list. He's right though that at least two of the major leading ladies (Doris Day & Julie Andrews) don't seem like Hitchcock heroines at all. I forget every time that they headlined one. Those moments were just so atypical in their careers, don't you think? 

Cartoons for a cold winter's night

Tim here. With a huge portion of the United States either under a heavy cover of snow, or about to become that way, it’s been hard to think about anything else but the deepest, coldest kind of winter. And with Frozen in a shockingly good place to win the weekend box office (in its sixth weekend!), even the movies themselves seem in on the act.

So I figured, why not give in? Frozen reminds us, after all, that wintry conditions can make for some beautiful cinema in the hands of the right artists. Think of Roger Deakins’ unmatchable cinematography in Fargo, or the vivid frozen hell of The Shining. [more...]

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On This Day in History...

Have you seen 12 Years a Slave yet? Head count!

poll by twiigs.com

 I've seen it twice and people always seem surprised when I say that as if it's a film you can only watch once. I loved it even more the second time. Curiously though, unlike many strong pictures, I do not enjoy watching individual scenes... I need the full thing to play out. Have you ever had that with a movie, where you only wnat the full thing. Other movies are so fun to watch in tiny pieces. Thoughts? 

WGA Prefers 'Buyers Club' To Llewyn Davis Inside Greenwich Clubs

The Writers Guild of America has spoken, choosing their favorite scripts of the year in film and television. They repeat an interesting move from yesterday's Producers Guild Awards in that they've (somewhat) unexpectedly acknowledged Dallas Buyers Club, which few people thought was a strong contender outside of the male acting categories, while skipping the Coen Bros Inside Llewyn Davis for honors.

The nominations with commentary are after the jump...

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Nebraska, Finely Aged and Potentially Oscar Record-Breaking

I'm sure you've seen the melancholy yet uplifting new spot for Nebraska that points out the ages of its principal cast and how long they've been acting. It's inspiring, for sure, as longevity often is. Hollywood and the Oscars often favor the sprinters (note all the stars, particularly actresses, who won too soon and all the films that opened in the rush of awards season that were only hot for two months) but life is a marathon.

Assuming Bruce Dern and June Squibb are both nominated on January 16th (and smart money says they will be) they'll both be among the top three oldest performers ever nominated in their categories. It will break down like so...

OLDEST BEST ACTOR NOMINEES
01 Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story (1999) who was 79
02 Bruce Dern, Nebraska (20) who is 77*
03 Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond (1981) who was 76
04 Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby (2004) who was 74
05 Peter O'Toole, Venus (2006) who was also 74
06 Morgan Freeman, Invictus (2008) who was 72
07 Sir Laurence Olivier, The Boys From Brazil (1978) who was 71
08 Frank Langella, Nixon (2008) who was also 71
09 Paul Newman, Nobody's Fool (1994) who had just turned 70

Those are the only 70somethings ever nominated for Best Actor... if Robert Redford and Bruce Dern are both nominated we'll have a perfect full top ten of 70something Best Actor candidates; they're only two months apart in age (with Dern born first). Among these senior men Henry Fonda was the only winner. If Dern wins --  and I've long thought he might with that magic combo of a likely Best Picture nominee, a moving performance, and a stellar campaign --  he'll become the oldest winner ever in the Best Actor category. 

OLDEST BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES
01. Gloria Stuart, Titanic (1997) who was 87... and the oldest in *any* category actually
02. Ruby Dee, American Gangster (2007) who was 85 *but there are conflicting reports on her age*
03. June Squibb, Nebraska (2013) who is 84
03. Jessica Tandy, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) who was 82
05. Eva Le Gallienne, Resurrection (1980 - recently discussed) who had just turned 82

Those are the only 80somethings ever nominated in Supporting Actress and none of them won. Can June Squibb break the pattern this year? (The current oldest winner ever in this category is Dame Peggy Ashcroft for A Passage to India (1984) who was 77). Speaking of Squibb, have you been watching the American remake of the British nursing comedy series Getting On? Squibb guest stars in one episode as a foul-mouthed cigarette-smoking patient. She and Niecy Nash are pretty great together.

What do you make of Dern & Squibb's Oscar chances?