Flavorwire TV inspired nail art. Dexter! (sidenote: omg how bad was season six?)
College Candy super cute video of Melissa McCarthy freaking out about encounters with Brad & Angie and Meryl Streep
Carpetbagger talks to Oscar nominated cinematographer Jeff Cronenwerth (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). He met David Fincher on the set of Madonna's "Oh Father!"
Rope of Silicon a new very risque poster for Shame in its international release. 
Kenneth in the (212) enjoys Armie Hammer's mug shot a little too much.
24 Frames Brad Pitt is not one of the nominated producers of The Tree of Life, after all (it was "TBA") so only two Oscar nominations this year for Our Brad. 

Blooper Reel for The Artist anyone?

And because it's super annoying, but you might want to see it, I've added the 3D Avengers poster after the jump.

This will mark the first Oscars appearances for all six actresses"

Hmmm. That must mean on the stage since hasn't Maya Rudolph been there with her man Paul Thomas Anderson for like There Will Be Blood or something? I can't remember. 

This news filled me with a rainbow burst of happiness but I'm going to be so sad if they don't sing at least one bar of Wilson Phillips.

Which category will they present? Give us BOTH your best guess and the category you most wish they'd present in the comments! I'll pick a winner and send you a Wilson Phillips CD*

*not really. But play along anyway!

These unlikely pairs of hopefuls may seem like they were separated at birth, but there's no relation aside from their mutual hunger for Oscar gold."

So here we go...

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY GLENN CLOSE

MICHEL / MICHELLE

CLOONEY / ROONEY

Ha! Well Lisbeth definitely could use some sun. Though I can't imagine Hawaii would suit her exactly. Though she probably wouldn't flinch at berating defenseless coma patients or investigating ex-lover real estate agents.

Kurt had two more ideas that I visualized to wrap up (after the jump)...

France's Best Picture lineup has homegrown hits, successful exports and their Oscar submission

The Artist is up for 10 awards at the Césars... same number as the Oscars! The Cesars allow more than 5 nominees a category so it seems a bit like everyone is nominated. Other favorites from the French industry are two female-helmed films: Valerie Donzelli's gutsy vivid memory piece War is Declared (opening today in the States. Highly recommended!) and another actress turned director Mäiwenn's Polisse. (I always feel the need to remind people that Mäiwenn was the blue opera diva in The Fifth Element.) 

Film Experience favorite Carmen Maura is also up for a statue for her work in Women on the Sixth Floor.

Finally, in this quick take, we always get a kick out of the "foreign film" categories across the oceans when things are suddenly flipped and Hollywood itself is the foreign entity. Incredibly, The King's Speech is still with us (ARGH!) and it's up against other previous / current Oscar nominees like Black Swan, Incendies, and A Separation as well as films that were far too auteurist or contemporary for Oscar like Melancholia and Drive. Rounding out their foreign category is The Dardenne Brothers The Kid With the Bicycle. Great lineup, eh?

Full list of nominations after the jump and sexy pictures of a few "newcomer" nominations, since we love the French and we love eye candy. Who would you love to run into if you had a ticket to the Césars?

Trivia: The two longest double supporting runs (though 47-50 actually had a year with two double noms."Pinky" is not pictured by accident. Apologies). In both one actress appeared multiple times (Amy Adams and Celeste Holm) and one of those times she played a nun!!!

Last year’s winner, The Fighter’s Melissa Leo, was accompanied by her co-star Amy Adams, who had been nominated along with Viola Davis for Doubt two years earlier. When Adams was taking time off inbetween, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick filled in for her for their performances in Up in the Air. Had it not been for 2007's spread of wealth, the record could have been extended another two years since Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza were both nominated for Babel the year before.

If you look back through the history of the shiny gold man you'll find that in the 76 years since the Supporting categories were introduced 28 films have managed two supporting actress nominations. That’s an astonishing number but here’s what's more interesting. (Continued... with Pie Charts!)

But while I have your eyeballs, I want to talk about one film in particular. Film is a visual medium so you'd think it would be a given that filmmakers would convey their themes and moods and characters visually. But many of them don't, relying on dialogue as exposition or voiceover profundities or leaning heavily on the gifts of their actors to get themes and nuances across. In other words, we have too few Pedro Almodóvars behind the camera.

In the two stills above from The Skin I Live In (which went without any Oscar nominations and was not submitted by Spain for Best Foreign Film) you can see how visually rich and how carefully planned every beat in an Almodóvar film is [MORE AFTER THE JUMP]

Bejo, Hazanavicius, Dujardin and Langmann watching the nominations

Of course if they were in France during the announcement, it would have been 2:30 PM and that would be a strange time to be sleeping. 2:30 PM is a much more reasonable hour to be wide awake with champagne bottles uncorked! VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

I don't normally spend time in the middle of the night thinking of Fassbender lying naked in bed (Shush!). It's just that I had the worst insomnia I'd had in months. As I stared down at this still image in my state of delirious sleep deprivation I'm reasonably certain that he stared back, his eyes shifting just a little. He must have seen a mirror image of his vacant orbs and haunted zombie expressionless. Only with less handsomeness.

Brandon's addiction was sex and mine is the Oscars but either way we are powerless against our disease. Perhaps it was all the Oscar Morn Excitement catching up to me? Fassy's frozen image reminded me that I forgot to offer my condolescences to the Oscar Forgotten yesterday. Some people and cinematic contributions you'd be really happy to spend another 32 days celebrating but the time has come to say goodbye. [sniffle]

Farewell Oscar Hopeful. Better Luck Next Time
8 Snubs/Omissions That Hurt The Most

08 Melancholia Best Anything
Given that mad Dane Lars von Trier's sole nomination is in songwriting (find a more hilarious Oscar statistic, I dare you!) we never suspected that this would be an Oscar film. But the tiny scattered awards crumbs for his dreamy apocalyptic depression metaphor, arguably his best film in a decade, allowed us to pretend in a feverish bipolar sort of way that miracles would occur and it would wake up as the nomination leader. No, not really. But it's a shame that that masterful Cinematography and Kirsten Dunst's spooky narcoleptic bride won so little traction.

Click for 7 more

Okay. Back to Oscar. Stop Slacking!
Tom and Lorenzo on Jennifer Lawrence's unfortunate morning as the nominee announcer.
Ultra Culture on the best typography among the Best Pic Nominees. Love this.
Towleroad "Hot Movie Moment" from one of my favorite Best Pictures Wings (1927) the first one!
Indiewire The Oscars are moving to electronic voting in 2013. Cue: thousands of articles about whether or not This. Changes. Things. Oscarologists are so excitable.

In Contention looks at the Art Direction category
Examiner plays an "Oscar Replacement" game for the nominations 
Carpetbagger on Glenn Close and her makeup and wig team for Albert Nobbs 
MNPP A rarity: JA sounding off on the Oscars. Yay. He's one of the only blogging voices we love that have virtually no interest in them. (No interest in the Oscars? I know. I know. Difficult to comprehend.)   

Finally... a sad goodbye to British actor Nicol Williamson (1936-2012), my very first "Merlin" (though I've lost track of how many actors I've seen as the sorcerer since).

Mirren and Williamson owning Excalibur (1981)

Daily MUBI has the roundups of obits for the Excalibur (1981) actor. My most vivid memories of that film, aside from the Lancelot nudity (gasp) was the Merlin/Morgana Le Fay rapport. I was way too young to know that Helen Mirren and Williamson had... history. 

Remember that moment at the BFCA "Critics Choice" Show when Patton Oswalt took the stage, owned it, said somewhat interesting things (I forget what but it's been a long month), got laughs. Everyone was all 'why isn't he hosting?' in the twitterverse. Apparently that moment was not lost on Hollywood.

ANIMATION NEWS
Oswalt has not one but two upcoming hosting gigs in February. First "Remy" himself (Ratatouille!) will host the animation industry's Annie Awards on February 4th, 2012 about which he says:

The Annies are where the real weirdos hang, and it’s a visual feast just to have a drink with them—I can’t wait”

VISUAL FX NEWS
...and just three days later he'll host the Visual Effects Society Awards. Those people did a good job on his damaged legs in Young Adult, you must admit.

Neither of these awards shows are televised but baby steps. One day he'll be hosting the Oscars! I can see it now. But he has to get more famous first. Oscar is picky about the Q quotient.

P.S. One thing I'd totally forgotten about the VES Awards is that their trophy and logo are totally "Papa Georges" lovin'

Advantage: HUGO after the jump!

Too early?

In all seriousness though, the only thing we know for certain about the 2012/13 Oscars is that Dark Shadows will be up for Costumes (Colleen Atwood) and Art Direction (Rick Heinrichs). The Burton Factory can usually bank on those honors. I'd also personally like to thank Ms. Atwood ahead of time for La Pfeiff's plunging neckline with fancy Medieval cross necklace. Love.

Sorry! As you were. Back to the 2011/2012 Oscars for 33 more days. Every Oscar chart is updated.

It took Gary Oldman *forever* to get an Oscar nomination. Do you think he'll return for a second?

That year I polled readers who voted Transamerica's Felicity Huffman, Good Night and Good Luck's David Straithairn, Crash's Matt Dillon and (OOPS) Junebug's Amy Adams least likely to return. Readers had the most confidence in return engagements for (OOPS) Cinderella Man's Paul Giamatti... but weird that he hasn't been back, right?, Syriana's Clooney, Capote's Phillip Seymour Hoffman and (OOPS) Hustle & Flow's Terrence Howard! So some of y'all got it pretty right in the polling and also way wrong which just goes to show you that you never know!

The Streeps and Winslets are a true rarity. Even major movie stars across the decades have had to settle for one. And sometimes people just get snubbed forever.

P.S. Have your say in the comments: why'd you vote the way you voted? 

New Oscar Post - Snubs That Hurt 

But here are six that stood out for me from all the emails that I'd like to say one or two sentences about.

I woke up to a text and thought, 'Am I still dreaming?' What an absolute honor to be nominated. Thank you to the Academy on behalf of the entire cast, crew, our swashbuckling cat and his boots! This is beyond a thrill...and I'm pretty sure I'm awake."
-Chris Miller (Animated Feature) Puss in Boots 

Funny is always good. And we're always suckers for that old standby classic intro 'I just woke up' . P.S. I'm pretty happy at the way the animated category worked out, aren't you?

It's an honor to be nominated a second time, it is a personal accomplishment and triumph for women and women of color. I'm so glad the film has been recognized, it was a labor of love from the moment it was conceived and it is rewarding to see the impact it is having."
-Viola Davis (Best Actress) The Help

This one is fairly standard until you realize how rare this truly is and why shouldn't Viola point it out!

Only one other woman of color has been twice nominated and that would be Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg (The Color Purple and Ghost). Women of color seem to only get one shot at the Oscar. The same is fortunately not true for the men, who have had better luck with career longevity and multiple visits with Oscar.

Four more after the jump...

Thinking about it while listening to the nominations I was reminded of another one of my favorite spy-intrique films with a 70s setting, Three Days of the Condor, similarly ignored by the Academy in its time (save for an editing nomination), despite its timely post-Watergate release. Sydney Pollock's film is certainly the sexier of the two, with Redford and Dunaway in their heyday, but one glance at Max Von Sydow's glasses and you know you're in a similar landscape to Tinker Tailor.  Here is a cheesy Rona Barrett's Hollywood magazine I bought simply for it's coverage of the film, and its entertaining barely-there tidbits about the filming of this classic, 35+ years ago.  Add it to your queue if you haven't seen it.

[Filming of] Condor took place entirely on location in and around New York City...During one exterior scene that called for a winter rain, the co-eds of the nearby Finch College cut classes to gawk at the publicity shy REDFORD and scramble for his discarded paper cups! But ROBERT's presence was felt [also] by the appreciative crew, which got careful instruction from the superstar-ecologist on how to defoliate the plant life used in the scene without harming them.

Co-star MAX VON SYDOW gingerly commuted between Denmark and Manhattan while finishing up [on a] Scandinavian film. FAYE DUNAWAY seemed not only to enjoy doing the film but loved having the chance to love a few weeks in her beloved New York City. She and her husband, PETER WOLF, maintain a Central Park West apartment where married life definitely agrees with them.