Best Picture: October is The New December

one... two... three... do the release date shuffle ♬

Over the past couple of weeks the last quarter of the year has pulling its usual release date switcheroos, brushing detritus or unfinished masterworks (you decide) from its schedule. We can all act surprised if we so choose but we're only fooling ourselves when we do.

And they say, "Goldfish have no memory"
I guess their lives are much like mine
And the little plastic castle
Is a surprise every time

-Ani DiFranco "Little Plastic Castle"

This happens every year! So no more Foxcatcher in December. No more Grace of Monaco in November. Curiously both films had released trailers seemingly moments before they were pulled from the calendar. (Foxcatcher's trailer was quickly snatched back from view before I even had time to watch it but at least we had time to discuss Grace). 

In paradoxically more alarming / less surprising non-news [more]

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TIFF: Twelve Ye... Oh, Let's Just Oscar Update

Twelve Years a Slave is... God, I'm going to need some time to collect myself. Good grief but that movie is harrowing / amazing. That's all I got for now. Can we discuss later when I've stopp... I think I have something in my eye.

But since we're talking powerful and overwhelming emotion, our minds should naturally drift to actresses. Patsey the slave (Lupita Nyong'o) confides memorably to Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that she has no comfort in this world. But Supporting Actress is deeply comforting to us and we need comfort right now after this movie.

Reducing great movies to Oscar talk is awful. I know I know. I hate myself for typing this but LET'S TALK OSCAR'S BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS RACE (UPDATED CHART). I went in to 12 Years a Slave anxious to see what McQueen & Fassbender could do (I'm happy to report that they're three for three under the umbrella of utterly amazing director/muse collaborations) and wasn't thinking about the actresses much at all. A rarity. But still, once I remembered to think of them I was curious about Qu'venzhane Wallis (barely in it... in fact most people won't notice that she is) and Alfre Woodard. Alfre at least has a juicy and blessedly atypical scene to chew on. It's kind of a relief really from the scenes surrounding it and every harrowing story needs catch your breath moments. Especially if you've forgotten to breathe. Which kept happening to me.

As it turns out Lupita Nyong'o as the slave girl "Patsey" and Sarah Paulson as her cruel mistress "Mary Epps" are where it's at for supporting actressing in this movie. Their every scene together is knife's edge brilliant.

Also @ TIFF
Labor Day in a freeze-frame nutshell
Paranoia Mano-a-mano Thrillers Enemy & Pioneer
Jessica Chastain at the Eleanor Rigby Premiere
August Osage County reactions Plus Best Picture Nonsense
Rush Ron Howard's crowd pleaser
TIFF Vow: Dreaming of 2014
The Past from Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi & Cannes Best Actress Berenice Bejo
Queer Double Feature: Tom at the Farm and Stranger by the Lake
Boogie Nights Live Read with Jason Reitman and Friends
First 3 Screenings: Child's Pose, Unbeatable and Isabelle Huppert in Abuse of Weakness 
TIFF Arrival: Touchdown in Toronto. Two unsightly Oscars

Today in Stupid: 20 Best Picture Nominees & Standing Os for August: Osage County

Relax. The headline is misleading, thank the baby Jesus. Variety is merely wondering if there should be 20 nominees and the only argument they can see against it is that it would make the ceremony even longer?!? Why would anyone propose such a thing? Oh, yes, shameless traffic-baiting is always the why. A website gotta have hits. But since we're feeling generous we've indulged them with a link.

The Film Experience would rather go back to 5 when a Best Picture nomination meant something and was difficult to procure. Even with 10 slots available it's so diluted. One unfortunate side effect is the Best Director category which, despite some fascinating surprises last year, has lost some of its appeal since gone are the days when you could wonder about the "lone wolf" nominee. With any more Best Picture nominees all the tension and drama that comes with annual competition would instantly be sucked out of it, like a zigzagging balloon with knot untied, falling to the ground in a rubbery lump of no fun who cares.

In other stupid news there seems to be a weird notion floating around twitter that the Standing Ovation for August: Osage County is a big deal somehow or that it's "rare".  Standing ovations are the furthest thing from rare at festival screenings if the cast or director actually shows up... unless they went and changed the definition of rare while I was up flying the friendly skies. They're kind of expected... that thing you do to say 'thank you for coming, movie stars!' 

Julianne, Dermot, Julia, Juliette, Ewan & Abigail at the premiere

Nevertheless August: Osage County is clearly where your head is out (I read the comments sections) and where Twitter's been sl let's discuss the reactions after the jump

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Gurus of Gold Begins

What will Oscar love this year? It's the question that never quite leaves the mind of the Oscar fanatic. Especially not this time of year when the bulk of the baity films are about to reveal themselves at festivals and on movie screens. August is practically the last moment of "anything could happen" dreaming. Reality (or whatever passes for it in the land of Loud Opinions) is about to set in.

So it's a perfect time for the Gurus of Gold to begin. This long running group of key awards pundits, assembled by David Poland at Movie City News has a new member this year. Me. I'm truly grateful for the honor of a place at that table.

To "set the field" we were asked to submit our top fifteen (unranked) assumptions about which films might be Best Picture bound. My fifteen won't be difficult for you to guess since they're there on TFE's Updated Best Picture Chart but here is the Guru chart. The joy of group punditry is investigating where consensus emerges and where pundits are out on limbs alone. For instance, I'm the only Guru that named Ridley Scott's The Counselor as a Best Picture possibility and I don't have much company at all when it comes to Dallas Buyers Club either. Spike Jonze's Her, JC Chandor's All is Lost, and Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher, all featured in my top ten (not just my top fifteen) don't seem to be inspiring consensus opinion in terms of Best Picture heat either. As for the consensus titles that I'm cooler on than the almost all the other Gurus, that'd be Monuments Men (the trailer worried me) and Inside Llewyn Davis (I just don't see how the Coen Bros can hit gold every time) but I have good company in doubting those with Pete Hammond and Mark Harris, respectively.

12 Years a Slave was one of only 3 films to receive 14 of 15 votes

What'cha think? The Gurus of Gold chart (as well as my own) will invariably be shaken up by TIFF the festival that always changes everything by way of "First!"

UPDATED OSCAR CHARTS RIGHT HERE
Picture | Director | Actress | Actor | Supporting Actress | Supporting Actor

p.s. why aren't you following me on twitter? do it!
p.p.s. and while we're social media'ing - like us on facebook 

She's Gotta Link It

Deadline Happy news! Billy Magnussen, who is fabulously funny on Broadway in Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike (I reviewed it) will play Rapunzel's Prince in the film version of Into the Woods
Variety I started with happy news because ABC Family cancelled Bunheads which is just killing me right now. Another singular piece of entertainment shuttered too soon because networks don't have the guts to support shows that aren't entirely formulaic and interchangeable with other shows concurrently airing. They say "we took extra time to try and find ways to bring the series back for another season" but I see no evidence that they did that. 
Signs and Sirens a provocative think piece on Melissa McCarthy's aggressive rise to the top of film comedy

Los Angeles Times RIP Actor Dennis Farina (Get Shorty, Midnight Run, Law & Order)  
AV Club bless them for publishing this list of 22 Best Picture winners that were released in the first six months of their years. This topic is dear to my heart and I'm always trying to sell it to Hollywood and nobody seems to believe me. Maybe people will believe the AV Club? 
New York Times on Woody Allen's gift with vivid female characters 
Cinema Blend The Freddie Mercury biopic is falling apart because surviving Queen members want it to be PG clean? Oy. Best that this project falls apart!
Movie City News David Poland does some thinking aloud about Netflix. I love reading about this even though he loses me once he starts getting into a fast food analogy. But I wish someone would address the issue of accessibility. I really am having nightmares about this post-Netflix world when suddenly it's so complicated to find movies again. For a short while, the first few years of Netflix it seemed like ANY movie was available for watching and for only one monthly price. It was heaven. Now it's constricting again and you have to really search for movies and pay per view instead of subscription fees. I hate it! I do not want to have to look at Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix and godknows what else every time I want to seek out a piece of Oscar history. Each new technology change we lose pieces of the history of the movies. It happened with VHS to DVD and it's happening now with DVD to the splintering market of Streaming. It saddens me. 

Finally...
Another day, sorta disingenuous Kickstarter plea to get a rich celebrity funding for a movie that they claim they couldn't make within the system even though they got a lot of shit made through the system in years past!  Spike Lee is the latest millionaire asking his fans for cash. Now, I respect Spike Lee as a filmmaker far more than the guy who popularized this trend - Lee has made several provocative ballsy movies outside of and within the system that only he could have made. Some of his joints are even incredible movies (Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour) and even his failures tend to be interesting!

This is a mothafuckin body of work right here 

I like Spike Lee and  I am not against asking for money as my sidebar reminds but asking for money is for people who don't have it ;) People who earn a substantial living doing what they do -- should they really be the same ones shaking tin cans on the street? It's a distortion of the point of crowdfunding. The people who can't get movies made within the system are the ones that Hollywood doesn't know exist, not the ones Hollywood already supports with paychecks. I wouldn't find this trend so distasteful if even one of these celebrities would just speak the truth which is this:

'I COULD get the movie I wanted to make made within the system and get paid for it but it might take a longer time than I'd like and I heard this is an easy way to do it and I don't want to part with my own money  -- remember when Francis Ford Coppola went bankrupt with 'One From the Heart'? So just give me some, okay?

You know?