Oscar Luncheon Photos

The Oscar luncheon was held today. So most of the nominees assembled to be a part of the big class of 2011 photo. Well done, all. Congratulations. 

I love that the naked gold man is just standing right smack in the middle of all of them, the reason for the season. 

This one goes out to @AwesomeRob --- What do you think Meryl and Rooney were saying too each other? Or maybe they weren't saying anything. Guess away in the comments.

George Clooney & Jean Dujardin get along famously after the jump.

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Readers' Ranking: Streep's Oscar Noms, #5-1

We started this blogging experiment by asking readers to rank all the Streep Oscar Nominated performances they'd seen. Then we shared reader stories of how you first discovered Streep. I tabulated all the results, weighting the ballots so the readers who had seen the most films counted for more. Now we've reached the tippity top of Streep performances!  For what it's worth, the top six (including Kramer Vs. Kramer) were the clear winners of your collective hierarchy and numbers two through four were closely bunched together in your estimation, each threatening to take spot #2 with each new ballot that arrived, though eventually they settled into their current positions. 

STREEP'S OSCAR-NOMINATED PERFORMANCES RANKED 
According to Film Experience Readers  (We didn't include The Iron Lady since it's brand new)

16-11
Music of Heart, Ironweed, One True Thing, French Lt's Woman, Deer Hunter, Doubt
10-6
Julie & Julia, Out of Africa, Postcards, Cry in the Dark, Kramer vs Kramer

05. Adaptation (2002)
Role & Balloting: Streep's terrifically clever performance as a heightened version of Susan Orlean, the real life writer who wrote the non-fiction book The Orchid Thief that Nicolas Cage's fictional screenwriter (and Charlie Kaufman stand-in) tries to adapt into a movie in this twisty comedy [whew], is the one many fans point to as "this is what she needs to do more of!" This role was in first place on only 3% of ballots, less than any of the other films in the top six, but it was on nearly every ballot (widely seen) and usually in the upper half.

Who Won the Oscar: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago
Other Nominees in Guesstimate Order of AMPAS Love: Meryl (Adaptation), Julianne Moore (The Hours), Kathy Bates (About Schmidt) and Queen Latifah (Chicago)
The Dread Sixth Place Finish?:  It was Michelle Pfeiffer, SAG nominee, on the outside looking in for White Oleander. I still blame the Golden Globes for that one as they stalled her momentum by fawning over a miscast and dull Cameron Diaz for Gangs of New York. 

Reader Notes and Four More Greats after the jump...

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Link Nation

CineEuropa Melancholia wins big at the Danish Oscars including Best Actress for Kiki!
Daily Notebook Iranian hardliners not too happy with the Oscars and A Separation. (It still seems surprising that A Separation was submitted by Iran, but thank God.)
MCN Jean Dujardin kills on Leno. Clooney had all the precursor heat but Dujardin and Pitt aren't giving up ~Three way race!
Scanners on The Artist. Everybody loves/hates a frontrunner
LA Magazine Viola Davis goes couture 

Towleroad Daniel Radcliffe covers Attitude magazine and continues to establish his PFLAG-style advocacy
Awards Daily Art Directors Guild wins go to Hugo (period), Harry Potter 7.2 (fantasy) and Dragon Tattoo (contemporary) 
Gold Derby still thinks Meryl Streep is going to win the Oscar for The Iron Lady. Five reasons why.
Cinema Blend Marc Webb wants to differentiate his Amazing Spider-Man from Sam Raimi's blockbuster. Promises Spidy with a sense of humor. 
NPR good piece on Madonna's endurance and the difficult process of aging in public.  

Toon Town!
Rango took top honors at the Annie Awards though there was a Pic/Director split there with Jennifer Yuh Nelson taking the latter for Kung Fu Panda 2. The Adventures of Tintin won Best Score for John Williams. Best short went to Minkyu Lee for Adam and Dog which I bring up because I was just looking at its tumblr and though "huh. I want to see this" and it surprised to beat out more high profile entries like three Oscar nominees La Luna, Wild Life and Sunday. Here's the teaser...

Adam and dog Trailer from Minkyu on Vimeo.

And for those readers that are always suggesting a voicework Oscar category, that particular prize at the Annies went to Bill Nighy for voicing Grandsanta in Arthur Christmas. He beat out Oscar nominee Gary Oldman's peacock villain "Shen" in Kung Fu Panda 2 and five other nominees in that category. No, I don't know why there were so many nominees. There were twice as many in the television voicework category...14 nominees in one category? That is too much people, calm down. 

©Ty Templeton's "Bun Toons"

Parting Shot
Bun Toons comic strip about DC comic's decision to make Watchmen prequels. A must read if you're into comics or Watchmen in any iteration. It applies to basically anything re: Fans Who Loved Too Much. 

Channing Tatum Wins

You always win when you a) look this good and b) have this much of a sense of humor about yourself and c) are willing to shuck off your lame franchise* to work with Steven Soderbergh on your semi-biographical male stripper movie**.

P.S. I don't actually ever catch Saturday Night Live. Were there skits worth seeing this time?

P.P.S. * To be fair to G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation, it does seem like it might have a sense of humor about its own ridiculousness, which the first film was sorely lacking.

P.P.P.S. ** 144 days until Magic Mike loses his pants for moviegoers everywhere.

Madonna Bowl

I was trying to make Sunday the ultimate day of productivity but finally I succumbed to laziness/excitement and just tweeted through the Superbowl. Or, well, half of it at any rate en route to Madonna's much awaited Half Time show.

So let's relive the whole experience right here (in case you aren't following me on Twitter and if you aren't, why the hell not?) since I am too lazy to write up a whole article and there are movie ads and movie references to discuss. Though strangely Madonna's whole Cleopatra inspired entrance didn't occur to me till just now. I was too excited to process anything (still reeling from meeting her).

Below are tweets from me and others. 

• my entire adult life I've heard the Oscars referred to as "the gay superbowl"... so I'm trying to watch 'the straight Oscars for the 1st time
• so far it's really boring. they didn't open w' a comedy routine. no beautiful gowns. you can't even see the celebrity faces. (Helmets. Boo!)
• Tom Brady=the prettiest football star of all time! That's an assumption but a confident one.
• I don't like 'The Straight Oscars' ... too many ugly old men, not ANY pretty actresses #GaySuperbowlOnly21DaysAway
• @StevenMCuevas: If the Oscars at the Gay Superbowl and Rooney Mara's dad owns the Giants, does this mean Rooney wins an Oscar?

One of many incomprehensible Battleship images that could be Transformers cutouts

• @ZeitchikLAT: thank you Battleship, for bringing back large-scale, incoherent school of movie advertising.
• It went away?
  
  MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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