'April Foolish' Oscar Predix In All Categories But...

...Best Actress.

I know. I know. I'm like those annoying repetitive "coming up on _______" interstitials which tell you what you're about to see about 20 times before you actually see it. But these Oscar charts are lots of work, y'hear? So don't only read the Best Actress page (yes, it's the most visited Oscar page. Always). Read them all. There's not much text yet (time constraints but the charts are up. Wheeeee

Here are twelve pressing questions about the five new Oscar chart pages for this film year

The first teaser poster for Les Miz embraces the original stage sensation logo and promises "THE MOTION PICTURE EVENT OF 2012". Can it deliver on all this promise?

BEST DIRECTOR 

• Can Tom Hooper win a second Best Director Oscar with film number three? That seems unlikely even if Les Misérables pushes all the Oscar buttons; multiple director wins in tiny time frames are not unprecedented, just rare.
• Or am I barking up the wrong tree and is it Kathryn Bigelow who'll be gold hunting again with the Osama hunting actioner Zero Dark Thirty?
• Don't you think Ben Affleck becomes more of a Clint Jr. threat each year? Can he find a place with his true story political thriller Argo?
• Can David Cronenberg, a director's director if there ever was one, ever find a way to win Oscar traction? It's not like outre auteurs are always ignored.   

BEST SCREENPLAYS 

• My statistics as an Oscar pundit over the years prove that Original Screenplay is one of the toughest categories to predict a year early. So much depends on critical response. Do you think I'm on the right track here with Brave, Hyde Park on Hudson, Imogene, The Master and Seven Psychopaths or is that too many potential critical darlings in one category?

•What do you make of Life of Pi's chances in Adapted? Or any category for that matter. 

MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Curio: Jacks of All Trades

Alexa here. I couldn't let Jack Nicholson's 75th go by without weighing in. In the past I've spied some curios that feature moments from his long career, like an Academy's Players Directory from 1961 that featured him as a young actor, and some amazing finger puppets inspired by The Shining that are, alas, no longer available. So here are some that feature my favorites of his performances, along with a odd little item from my own collection.  

Chinatown poster by Claudia Varosio, available here.

Czech poster for Prizzi's Honor, designed by Zdeněk Ziegler, available here.

German poster for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, available here.Click for more, including Heartburn matches and an As Good As It Gets hankie...

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A Drowning Woman Takes Down Those Nearest

JA from MNPP here. Well it's official! As rumored slash threatened, Lindsay Lohsan will be playing Elizabeth Taylor in a Lifetime channel bio-pic centering on Liz's back-and-forth paparazzi-bait romance with Sir Richard Burton. I thought maybe this would go the way of Linds playing Lovelace and end up no more than hot air, but it appears it's for real, and she's maybe cleaned her act up enough...?

I'm forced by the sheer weight of the past several years sordid history to end that sentence with a question mark. Nevermind if this is even a good idea or not - skepticism regarding any project involving LL has become too deeply ingrained in me. Until this thing's actually on my TV screen, I will doubt.

What say y'all? Is it too soon after losing the legend to even contemplate this? Does Lindsay have what she needs to nail this... or to even walk away unscathed? Is it a gutsy move on her part or just a symptom of derangement? And who would you cast as Dick? So many question marks.

Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock, and Alfred Hitchcock

Look! It's Anthony Hopkins and Toby Jones as the great Alfred Hitchcock and the great Alfred Hitchcock in the upcoming movies Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho (2013) about, you guessed it, the making of Psycho, and The Girl (2012... post production but I'm guessing also 2013) about the making of The Birds. We keep forgetting that the second one exists (Cinema Blend recently reminded us while talking to Tippi Hedren at the Tribeca Film Festival) which is the second time that's happened to a Toby Jones biopic. First Capote, now Hitch? Poor guy.

All of which begs for us to make it a trinity...

 Who else should play Hitchcock and which movie other than Psycho & The Birds deserves this "making of" dramatization. For some reason I'm tempted to say Frenzy (1972) to get a late career trying to keep up with the times mixed reception drama but I could go for Torn Curtain (1966) just to see who they'd cast as Julie Andrews and Paul Newman. Or maybe my ol' favorite Rope (1948) for the one shot technical challenge and lots of queerness courtesy of Farley Granger. 

You?

Take Three: Anne Heche

Craig here with this week's edition of the character actor column "Take Three". Today: Anne Heche

Take One: Birth (2004)
Whilst watching Birth I’m sure you, like me, were thinking: just what the heck is Anne Heche doing in Central Park? Near the start of Jonathan Glazer’s reincarnation baffler Heche acts in mysterious ways. She suspiciously sneaks out of a hotel lobby and onto the snowy streets of Manhattan. She’s rustling around in the bushes, digging a hole. Is she burying the gift intended for Anna (Nicole Kidman)? Is it even a gift? It looks like some sort of proof, evidence. Her character, Clara, holds the film’s secrets from the get-go. In accordance with the way Glazer structures the script in these early scenes, fragmented by Sam Sneade and Claus Wehlisch’s editing, Clara becomes an enigma we know we'll worryingly come back to later.

Heche’s scenes with Sean (Cameron Bright) after the friction of the plot has been replaced by psychic damage throw a puzzling curveball (the buried package!) to the remainder of the film. These moments provide us with Heche’s best, and most tense, work to date. Insidious, slightly witchy and perverse, Heche reveals a reverse deus ex machina that shows Clara to be the queasily spiteful and questionable presence of the story. Her face, shot in extreme close-up, displays a deliciously evil sheen as she devastates the young boy. On evidence here, I’m baffled as to why filmmakers aren’t snapping Heche up to play the kinds of complicated icy queens usually reserved for Tilda Swinton. Birth features an all-round stellar ensemble but if you haven't seen it recently watch it again to see Heche wrench entire scenes away from the lot of them.

Two more Heche triumphs after the jump including Psycho (1998). Yes, that Psycho...

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