Last Minute Oscar Linkage

Serious Film 3 wishes for the ceremony aside from wins
Wild Lines roots for a movie they weren't rooting for. "I take it all back" interesting post
<--- James Franco Oscar Morning footage. Adorable.
THR six things to watch for tonight.
Wesley Morris if you suffer for your art (Natalie Portman) you end up celebrated for it. In depth piece about the perceptions of screen acting changing. Liz Taylor, today's birthday girl, even gets a casaul shout out.
NPR good informative listen as Andy Trudeau runs down the nominees for Best Score. Did you know that How To Train Your Dragon uses a penny whistle and a dulcimer at the same time in its score? I did not.
Bohemea Best thing about the Spirit Awards? John Hawkes and Dale Dickey (Winter's Bone)
IndieWire Melissa Leo has a breast tattoo. #thingswedidntknow
Sunset Gun "Bette Davis Defines... Oscar" Love this.

And if you're just tuning in, YES, we will be live-blogging the Oscars tonight. See you at 6 PM EST. It's also the last couple hours to vote on the readers choice "should" wins so get clicking through the categories.

Kidman at the Spirits. Three Moments.

UPDATED POST. My friend Michael snapped this photo yesterday of Nicole Kidman & Naomi Watts holding hands outside the Spirit Awards tent yesterday. Fun! 

He tweeted:

just saw Nicole Kidman & Naomi Watts share a warm hug & walk off hand in hand like schoolgirls. Awesome. 

Awesome indeed. I suddenly realized an hour ago that there will be no 'Nicole Kidman caught lipsynching to Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream"' moment tonight at the Oscars and this truly saddens me. Nicole Kidman reaction shots for the win. Hope we get some.

THREE more after the jump!

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Liz Taylor is 79. Here's Hoping For 80.

Liz Taylor is still the diva of the silver screen. I confess that every time I see her face on the news now I fear that she has passed away. Some people should never die. Normally on La Liz's birthday we'd do a huge post a la "78 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Liz Taylor's Birthday" so for this her 79th, let's add just one more to that old list.

79. Live to see another Oscar night.

Liz is such a diva that her birthday falls during Oscar season each year. This year it's actually ON Oscar day.

Liz famously won the statue twice and for her first win, BUtterfield 8 (1960) -- which I keep meaning to write about as I firmly believe that performance's bad rep is unjustified -- voting followed a very publicized sickness. She was  actually pronounced dead at one point. Needless to say she lived. Even after she dies, she'll live given the size of her on and offscreen legend.  On the YouTube video of her speech you can see that she was such a diva that she spends more time walking up to her coronation (1 minute and 10 seconds) than she does accepting the damn thing (17 seconds).

I don't really know how to express my gratitude for this and for everything. I guess all I can do is say thank you. Thank you with all my heart.

That's how you do!  Always leaving the audience wanting more.

First and Last. Starts on a Bridge

Season 5 starts now.

The first image of a film and the last line of dialogue.

"Breathe. Live."

Can you guess the movie?

Thanks to all you commenters for guessing. The answer is after the jump.

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Mainstream Oscar News Segments Are Silly

Through inertia I was watching CBS this morning (must have been the last station I looked at last night) and I perked up because they were reporting on Banksy's street art spreading around Los Angeles in the buildup to Hollywood's High Holy Night (They didn't call it. But I always have).

So the lead in was this little preamble about stars and campaigns. 'Oscar campaigns. Though it can be embarrassing to beg for votes Oscar winners do' -- I'm paraphrasing. So in the video edit lead in they show Julia Roberts (okay, I get it) and two other super famous made themselves ubiquitous winners (I forget who. sorry) and... Mo'Nique? Really, CBS? Mo'Nique didn't beg for votes, baby!

"First I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance, and not the politics."

Then they had on an "Oscar Expert" (everyone calls themselves that on TV) and he predicted The King's Speech, Firth, Bale and that Leo's going to lose (he didn't settle on who would win instead)... and Annette Bening. I wish people would stop getting our hopes up about the Bening. It's like Billy said in the Spirit Awards comments...

To quote Teri Garr in Tootsie, "I just want my pain now.". That is how I feel about Bening's inevitable defeat at tomorrow's Oscars ceremony.

P.S. I will be blogging and tweeting tonight. Stay tuned.