What If There Were Five...?

The thought occurred to me early this morning when perusing the Oscar lists that we may have perhaps been wrong about which five films were in leading position. Last year for example the top five were tremendously clear; had there been only five nominees as had been the way of it for five decades plus, you would have been left with Basterds, Locker, Precious, Avatar and Up in the Air.

which movie came in 5th? which was 6th?

But this year, do we know? It's an indulgent question but what is Oscar-fanaticism but indulgent conversations about things one can never know the final truth of. Like who came in 6th? who was snubbed on purpose? who wasn't really snubbed but justmissed?

COMMENT TOPIC: Which five do you think it was? I think we can safely assume that The Fighter, The Social Network, True Grit and The King's Speech would have been there given their big nomination tallies. But then... 

Black Swan could have held the 'lone director' spot since its nomination tally was smaller than expected. Inception could have been there without Nolan like another summer director-driven genre blockbuster Jaws without its fabled auteur. Could #5 have been Toy Story 3 or even The Kids Are All Right? Your theories please!

Countdown With Us...

Now you can always know how far away Hollywood's High Holy Night is. This clock is counting down to Oscar's red carpet arrivals on Sunday February 27th, 2011 and you can embed it on your own blog or webspace. [If you already embedded it, do nothing since the clock has automatically change. And pssst, maybe on Oscar night it'll start counting down to next year's nominations. Ya never know!].

Oscar night is Second Christmas (First Christmas being Oscar nomination morn'. See all related posts here.) Plus if you ever get lonely for Santa Claus The Film Experience's company you can click on it and come straight here. Wheeeee.

Happy countdown to all.

And the Link Goes To...

General Entertainment
Big Shiny Robot is AMC going to bring all three of their big shows (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead) back at once? That'd be a switch.
Movie|Line hot trend at Sundance: Actors directing movies. I'm hearing good things about Vera Farmiga's efforts.
Focus Features ooooh pretty Jane Eyre photos.
Go Fug Yourself Well Played Kirsten Dunst

Telegraph Tim Robey gives a rasberry to the lazy Golden Rasberries.
Mr Hipp X-Women. Yay.
Kenneth in the (212) Hugh Jackman taken a cab. Just cuz.
Zombie Toenails [NSFW] the only reason to see Love and other Drugs right here on loop. I never talked about that movie once I saw it but my goodness it was a mess.

Oscar Stuff
LAMB looks at the Oscar Foreign Film race.
New York Magazine a fine profile on Darren Aronofsky
The Hollywood Reporter Mark Zuckerberg on The Social Network's Oscar nods
Movie|Line The Social Network backlash is officially in full swing. Even James Franco is taking shots at it! Although if you want to bitch about "conventional" films, why choose that one when The King's Speech has more nominations? This is what sometimes happens to films when they're out front for too long. People get uppity about their "status".
Reddit Coen Bros ensemble infographic... fun! It's kinda like my "familiar faces" series only more visually enticing.
Alt Film Guide discusses the preferential balloting system and what it means for Oscar.
Antagony & Ecstacy offers up "The Antagonists", Tim's own awards.

Finally, have you seen this clip from Newsweek about pregnancy at the Oscars? I love The Bening's humor and Natalie's wonder about her own experience as well as Nicole Kidman's minor interjections "golly!" haha. Cuteness. 

Happy Australia Day, Jacki Weaver

I know we have many Australian readers here at The Film Experience because I hear from you. I didn't realize it was your special day and making it doubly special, Jacki Weaver got nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her incredible work in Animal Kingdom! I had a wonderful time interviewing her a couple of weeks ago.

Here's what she said about this morning's nomination (courtesy of Variety).

"I'm elated to the point of euphoria. I feel like I'm in a walking dream. I'm so relieved that all those millions of Australians who wanted me to get this nomination aren't disappointed. Happy Australia Day."

Other Australians getting happy news on the national day were Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)  and the team behind Animated Short nominee The Lost Things.  

Did your countrymen snag any nominations this morning?

Curio: One Hundred Characters

Editors note: Soothe your eyeballs for a moment -- you've read enough articles on Oscar this hour -- with Alexa's beauteous Curio series. We'll get back to Oscar just after dinner. Yum-yum.

Alexa here. Recently, while doing a google image search (I can't even remember for what), I came across the illustrations of a Spanish artist named David Peña (a.k.a. Puño).  As a personal project, David has set out to arm himself with pen and paper (and a little digital artistry) and record his memory of certain characters from his 100 favorite films of all time. He's inspired by everything from 80s heartwarmers to French nihilism to Hong Kong Martial Arts comedy.  You can see all the characters he has completed to date here. Here's a selection of some of my favorites.