Link Man

Oscar Stuff
NY Post bad press for the lucky Weinsteins. It waited till just after the Oscars to surface. Just like that King's Speech porn set situation happened after voting. Hmmmm.
Your Movie Buddy shows his Oscar night party food. Consider it a sequel to Alexa's Curio on Oscar snacks.
Gold Derby wonders if Hugh Jackman will be back to host Oscar soon. Quotes from Jackman.

Enough about that shiny gold man. Next!
Cinema Blend Is it Jennifer Lawrence vs Hailee Steinfeld for Hunger Games? They're very different choices.
Quiet Earth ranks every Philip K Dick screen adaptation in honor (?) of the opening of The Adjustment Bureau.
Pajiba assesses the career of Michael Biehn (The Terminator) post James Cameron. If you ask me it was super lame of Cameron not to squeeze him into Avatar somehow.
The Ampersand here's one for you TV buffs. "The Ghosts of Sitcoms Past" Can you name these characters?

Finally... Nicks Flick Picks wants your help on a class assignment. He teaches a film criticism course and he wants to know which of these "teasers" would entice you to read a full review and why? So click over and leave your (positive) comments. These are student reviews. They need encouragement. It's a good exercize if you've ever written a review yourself or just to suss out why you respond to the ones you do respond to.

"I think, Evelyn, that we've lost touch..."

Evelyn: Why, what's wrong?

Patrick: I need to engage in homicidal behavior on a massive scale, cannot be corrected, but I have no other way to fulfill my needs. We need to talk.

Evelyn: Talk about what, Patrick?

I'm pretty sure that a fresh Oscar gets you an 8:30 res' at Dorsia any night you want.

Three whole days have gone by and I haven't mentioned how pleased I was to see Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) receive his Oscar from former fiancé Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon). And they still don't seem very important to each other!

Patrick: It's over Evelyn. It's all over.

Evelyn: Touchy Touchy. i'm sorry I brought up the wedding. Let's just avoid the issue, all right? Now.. are we having coffee?

Patrick: I'm fucking serious. It's fucking over, us. This is not joke. I don't think we should see each other anymore.

Evelyn: But your friends are my friends and my friends are your friends. I really don't think it would work.

If you don't know what the hell we're talking about your assignment is to watch American Psycho (2000) immediately. For maximum time capsule pleasure, try to find a store that still rents VHS tapes so that you can return some videotapes later.

Bale's performance as the psychopath is justifiably classic already but less often discussed is how much Reese nails her vacant pseudo human fiancee. Reese has always been so great at comic stylization. When are the great directors and screenwriters going to give her something worthy of her gifts again? It's been way too long.

Christian Bale's Oscar was 10 years late but at least it arrived. Speaking of which, under the decade too late rule, who is due for a statue in 2012? Whose coronation should we obsess over next?

James & Anne & Mickey & Judy

Editor's note: This is my final Oscar column for Tribeca Film to wrap up awards season. Thanks for your patience. I'd intended to do a lot more right here but I'm in day 3 of flu and about to pass out again. If you're not done talking Oscar night, let me know by commenting. But here it is.

Early on Oscar night, the legendary actor Kirk Douglas took to the stage to present Best Supporting Actress. (Oscar producers wisely throw one of the big awards near the beginning each year lest the least committed viewers click away.) "Spartacus" himself, still an entertainer at 94, didn't make you wait for the envelope reveal for a show—he was hamming it up from his cane-walking entrance to his purposefully distracted, drawn-out announcement of the winner. Before he even got to the nominees, he stopped to joke with the youngest hosts Oscar has ever had, 32-year-old James Franco and 28-year-old Anne Hathaway. To the giggling, girlish Hathaway, he said, "Where were you when I was making movies?"

The irony, if you stop to think about, is that she was around back then. Not “Anne Hathaway,” exactly, mind you, but earlier incarnations of her...

Read the rest at Tribeca Film

Now that the 83rd Oscar dust has settled, how are you feeling about them?

Before They Were Mutants

As much as we may lament the all superheroes all the time movie culture (variety is the key to life) this June offering, X-Men First Class, as you know, we're looking forward to. Blame X-fandom and (hopefully) strong casting. So here's McAvoy & Fassy as Professor X and Magn sorry as Charles and Erik.

The New Teaaer Posters

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender both have movies coming out prior to this one though: McAvoy stars in The Conspirator (April 15th) about the Lincoln Assassination and Fassy stars in Jane Eyre (March 11th) with Mia Wasikowska so perhaps they'll own the spring/early summer.

Before they are mutants. they'll be...

Which incarnation of each of them are you most looking forward to? And which are you previous favorite incarnations?

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" Returns

This series was a big hit last year so we're bringing it back for round two in exactly two weeks time. Participating is easy. You just rent the movie, take a screencap of your favorite shot in the film and post it on your blog, journal, flickr, wherever. You can write an explanatory essay, a brief note or nothing at all. Let us know you posted it and we'll link up at 10 PM EST when The Film Experience post goes up.

Wed March 16th  -  MEMENTO (2001, Tenth Anniversary Celebration)
Wed March 23rd - A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951, Tennessee Williams Centennial Week)
Wed March 30th  -  PSYCHO  (1960, in celebration of the excellent debut novel "What You See in the Dark" by Manuel Muñoz that comes out that week. I read it in galley. More on that book/author soon.)
April Titles - TBA

So put those films on your queue. If you have other visually motivated friends that you think would enjoy this 'group gaze,' challenge them to participate. Last year we covered the following films: Requiem for a Dream (2000), Se7en (1995), Black Narcissus (1947), Pandora's Box (1929), Bring it On (2000), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Showgirls (1995),  Mean Girls (2004),  Night of the Hunter (1955), X-Men (2000) and Angels in America (2003).