Sunday Breakfast Anyone?

Until Oscar season is over I won't have time for those lengthy "Ask Nathaniel" Q & A columns but I sure do miss 'em. Why not a live chat right here on Sunday morning, 11 AM EST? We tried this for the Critics Choice Awards and it was way too chaotic so I jumped back to traditional live blogging for the Globes. But breakfast should be more suitably conversational.

I'll be eating pancakes -- maybe with funny shapes -- and while I'm doing that you can ask me any question you want about the final Oscar predictions (which I'll have finished by Saturday), current movies, and whatnot. Join the morning fun!

Naked Gold Man: Final Oscar Predictions !

I've never been good at math so predicting this year's Oscar race feels especially challenging. You can tell me that a picture requires 5% of #1 votes or that it's 10% or 406 votes or that you need #2 or #3 placements on 69.3% of ballots with odd #1 choices that weren't already tossed aside... None of it will really sink in. For the first time in well over a decade, I had a flashback to my high school algebra class and how my friends (who were in calculus) kept teasing me about my "polynomials?" confusion.  I hate math!*

But in the end what does it matter? Buzz, also an abstraction, is more fun to play with and closer to the truth for non-mathematicians. Best Picture nominations have long required #1 votes, maybe not in the same configurations but they've always required them. And as Joe recently pointed out on the podcast, we're tricked into thinking too deeply about this each and every year. Who thought Frost/Nixon was the best movie of 2008? Who would ever have voted for Chocolat as the best film of 2000? And yet it happens year in and year out. Focusing too much on #1 votes can cloud this certainty: Any film still being discussed as a possibility this late in the game has a fanbase. The question is just 'is that base big / loyal enough within the Academy to secure it a best picture nomination?'

Mo'Nique reading the Best Picture nominees last year!

What Happens With The Screens Behind the Presenters?
For the first time in modern history we'll have no idea until the names are read whether there will be five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten nominees. In past years when they announced the nominees you'd see the blank boxes where the nominees would be revealed while they read out the names. You knew, for instance, if there would be 3 or 5 animated nominees by how many boxes were there even if you hadn't been paying attention to the number of eligible pictures released.

My current hourly obsession is wondering whether we'll be tipped off to how many pictures there are seconds before we hear the titles...

When we knew there would be ten they simply appeared as they were read but there weren't actually boxes behind the announcers to be filled in as there were in years with five. You follow? So this year if there are, say, 6 nominees will we first see the empty boxes and KNOW there will be six before the names are read? 

PICTURE
If we only had five nominees, this race would be easy to call. Our nominees would be: The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, and Midnight in Paris. And in that order of likelihood. (My preference order, just as reminder from my year in review, would be The Artist, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Hugo and The Descendants.) I believe the nomination tally hierarchy is going to be Hugo, The Artist, and The Help way out in front of other films. Moneyball would, I think, be the spoiler in a traditional shortlist year. No matter how you feel about those films on an individual basis, as a group that's a pretty beautiful spread of the film year: message movies, family dramas, cinematic novelties, smart comedies and releases stretching from summer to Christmas, from critical triumphs to sleeper hits. It's representative and we like the Oscars that way.

More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: One Last Golden Globe Gala!

You thought the Golden Globe festivities were over didn't you? Nope. There's one more left. It's time for the Film Experience Golden Globe Podcast. Katey, Nick, Joe and Nathaniel all met up for one last pre-Oscar nomination chat. We still don't agree on the movies but we all love the Globes unironically. It's always such a party for people who love celebrities and movies. We're sad it's over!

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post.

Topics include...

• Crowd shots and nominee closeups.
• Introducing... Katharine McPhee!
• The unintentional eroticism of the DeMille Award
• Leonardo DiCaprio's tipping point.
• Johnny Depp, Original Song and other Unnecessaries
• Seating charts, surprise marriages
• Calista and Harrison... and Harrison's earrings. 
• No sloppy Globe seconds for Oscar.
• Uggie up to his old tricks
• What will happen with The Help at SAG?
• Viola Davis vs. Meryl Streep, the problematic narrative
• Octavia Spencer and David Fincher
• Brad vs. George and Mr CrankyPants Joe Reid
• Goodbyes

We'd love to hear your takes on any of the issues discussed in the comments.
We do a lot of theorizing and questioning!

Giddy for the Globes

Scene Work: Corey Stoll On Ernest Hemingway and Woody Allen

With the SAG Awards fast approaching, Oscar nominations hitting on Tuesday and "Original Screenplay" wins and Best Director nominations piling up for Woody Allen how about a little trip back to Midnight In Paris? Specifically to that magical hour when all of the movie's best moments take place. On the first of Gil's (Owen Wilson) midnight adventures he meets the Fitzgeralds who then introduce him to Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll). This introduction -- Stoll pisses off the Fitzgeralds (on purpose) and then badgers and ingratiates himself with Gil, who is reeling from meeting his hero. It's one of the movie's most memorable scenes and Corey Stoll immediately establishes himself as the film's MVP despite a plethora of famous actors in showy cameos.

If you're a writer, declare yourself the best writer! But you're not as long as I'm around unless you want to put the gloves on and settle it."
-Stoll as Hemingway. 

This introduction was also, not so surprisingly, the rising actor's most satisfying scene to shoot. When I spoke to him in December about that bizarre SAG rule which prevented him from technically being part of the movie's Best Ensemble nomination, we discussed this introduction in particular and his working relationship with comeback kid Woody Allen.

"That's the scene I was most nervous about," the actor recalls about his memorable introduction. He loved how 'commanding and unapologetically self-centered' this fictionalized Heminway was. "It's actually the scene where Woody let me do a number of takes. I think often he just lets actors find it themselves. They either find it immediately or not and he still moves on."

He recounts the speed at which Woody works. He doesn't want the actors to obsess too much on the work and wants to keep things more spontaneous. "With this I lucked out. At a certain point after my final take of the closeup he said 'that's 100% what I was looking for'."

I can't help but register surprise that Allen spoke to him at all. You hear stories. His funny response:

That was the only praise that I heard the entire time! He's not big on ass-kissing."
-Stoll on Woody Allen 

Amusingly enough, Allen's purposeful steering of the actors away from actual biography towards communal fantasies presented a slight obstacle for Stoll after the fact. "I've sort of been asked a lot of questions about Hemingway." When he did a public reading of Hemingway's letters he worried that he'd be "a bit of a fraud" in front of scholars. "I knew the basics of his life," the actor says about the famous author, but that isn't what he used, creatively, for the performance.  "What was most important in this context was having his rhythm and cadence and his use of language be the driving force of the performance. As a reader that's what you get.  That's where I put my energy and attention."

The work paid off and the actors career is on the upswing. "All this attention and praise is really nice," he confesses. "But the role itself is so much more satisfying. Whatever happens, I played Ernest Hemingway in a Woody Allen movie!"

Two Stoll Roles: North Country with Charlize Theron. Intimate Apparel with Viola Davis

Currently Stoll is enjoying running into old co-stars on the awards circuit including Charlize Theron (North Country). His "Intimate Apparel" stage partner Viola Davis is also on the campaign trail this year. Would he like to reprise that for a film? "Any day. Any time. Wonderful experience." He's up for Best Supporting Actor next month at the Spirit Awards and one can't help but pray that he'll be a shock surprise on Oscar Nomination morning this year in the same category.

Before we wrap up, I had to ask him about his role in the upcoming summer blockbuster Bourne Legacy opposite Jeremy Renner, also a former co-star

"Please don't tell me you're playing a villain, " I say sharing with him one of my major movie pet peeves. "They always make bald men villains!"

"I can't tell you anything," Stoll says laughing. "I'm contractually obligated! They weren't specific about how they were going to ruin me but there's nothing to be gained."

Interview Index | Nathaniel's Supporting Actor Ballot

Sing "Far From Heaven", Sing!

Far From Heaven, one of our favorite movies here at TFE, is stage bound. Musical stage bound to be more precise. Not every property was meant to be reinterpreted for the musical form but you've generally got a head start on greatness if the story or appeal is already heightened as it were...

Some emotions are too deep to speak. You have to sing them. Imagine Cathy Whitaker's voice soaring over some poignant melody while her heart is quietly breaking? Imagine the opportunities for a great 11th hour duet that maybe becomes a solo at the train station.

Gives you chills it does.

Viola Davis in "Far From Heaven"But this could all go horribly wrong. Perhaps big brassy pastiche numbers like "Mr & Mrs Magnatech" await us? And Mr Whitaker's gay escapades in musical context could veer way too far into unintentional camp rather than 50s homage. The musical will premiere in July 2012 at the Williamstown Theater Festival but no cast has yet been announced.

Do you think they'll give the best sidebar song to Sybil the maid (the Viola Davis role) or Cathy's evil bestie Elle (the Patty Clarkson role)?

Invent song titles in the comments. May the best amateur composer win!

The musical is being written by the team behind the musicalized Grey Gardens. If you've never heard any songs from that show I've included the best one after the jump "Around the World".

Click to read more ...