The Lord of the Links: Two Jacksons

Cracked uses that late minute reworking of the Red Dawn remake as a jump off point for a very funny article on "6 Groups Who Don't Work as Movie Bad Guys Anymore". I'm not proud but I even ended up LOL'ing at a poop joke.
Boy Culture Jesus. I was on to something posting that "stars as other stars" post just a few days back. Now Madonna went and did Charlie Chaplin for Purim. Cute.
Little White Lies has a nice piece on double readings of Blade Runner depending on whether you view Deckard as a Replicant or regular human man.
My New Plaid Pants Tom Hardy on the other hand is no machine but man. He's got the peen to prove it in a new digital short [NSFW].
Ester Goldberg is that Barbra Streisand Gypsy movie really dead? Some people aren't letting the ghost go.
Cinema Blend has an alarmist headline "No More Nudity For Ewan McGregor". I'm not sure that the quotes support the headline but made me look. You win.

And finally Awards Daily shares the first photos from the set of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. I know it is probably my duty as a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as a denizen of planet Earth to be excited about this movie... er movie²... but I think it's a terrible idea.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was so Aughts-defining in a way and why not go out on a high note like, I dunno, sweeping at the Oscars? Just a thought, Peter. I can't see how this won't feel like either

a) a rerun retread reboot
b) nostalgia exercize / faded glory
c) The Lord of the Rings Episode IV: The Phantom Menace.

Oh shush. I feel that "C" is a fair barb given the tonal "I completely forgot how to direct" chaotic atrocity that was The Lovely Bones. But I'll allow that maybe this is just cynical fretting. As a huge fan of LotR and Heavenly Creatures even moreso and even as an admirer of that Meet the Feebles gusto, I'll always hope that Jackson can work new magics.

12+ Nominations. An Elite Club Gets a New Member.

How many films have been nominated for 12 or more Oscars in their calendar year? Only 25 across the eighty-three years of Oscar history. The King's Speech is the latest initiate of this very exclusive bunch. The films, along with their number of noms/wins, in chronological order are...

• Gone With the Wind (1939) -13/8
• Mrs. Miniver (1942) -12/6  
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) -12/4
• Johnny Belinda (1948) -12/1
• All About Eve (1950) -14/6
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) -12/4
• From Here To Eternity (1953) -13/8
• On the Waterfront (1954) - 12/8 
• Ben Hur (1959) -12/11  
• My Fair Lady (1964) -12/8 
• Becket (1964) - 12/1 
• Mary Poppins (1964) -13/5
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) -13/5
• Reds (1981) -12/3
• Dances With Wolves (1990) -12/7 
• Schindler's List (1993) -12/7 
• Forrest Gump (1994) -13/6 
• The English Patient (1996) -12/9 
• Titanic (1997) -14/11 
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) -13/7
• Gladiator (2000) -12/5 
• The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -13/4
• Chicago (2003) -13/6
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -13/3
• The King's Speech (2010) -12/???

 

Biggest Winner Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Ben-Hur nearly made a clean sweep, winning all its categories but Adapted Screenplay which went to the romantic drama Room at the Top instead. Ben-Hur is tied with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with most wins of all time... but curiously enough of the three-top Oscar earners only the fantasy epic made a clean sweep of it winning in every single one of its categories.

Biggest Loser Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Johnny Belinda which took home only one Oscar for best actress (Jane Wyman). Beckett also took home only one prize but it had a huge disadvantage in that 1964 was the most monotonous year ever nomination-wise with three (!) films clearing the obscene 12 nom hurdle. Most years don't even get one film that dominant. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins in an infamous singing duel to the death devoured 13 Oscars between them. Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!

CHARTS
But what you really want to know his how many of them won Best Picture, don'tcha? Well, I bolded them above so that's 15 of the 25... with 1 undetermined.

So let's do a pie chart...

God I love pie charts. And pies.
[Tangent: omg. I gotta start thinking about the Oscar party menu]

What does all this mean for The King's Speech?
Well, you'll be the judge of that in the comments, won't you? If you're just eyeballing those pie charts, and not really think about the particulars of this race , the likeliest scenario is that The King's Speech wins Best Picture and four to five other Oscars. But that seems like a lot, doesn't it? With a film as strong as The Social Network hanging around.

Before this rather shocking tally (seriously sound mixing, and cinematography???) most armchair and professional pundits assumed it was heading to only two sure wins: Actor & Screenplay with a lot of competition coming for its expected nominations in Costuming and Art Direction. But given the charts above -- not too mention the 12 nominations -- I'd say we underestimated its pull. Can it steal Best Picture from The Social Network? That would be Grand Theft Oscars.

Related Reading: Best Pictures From the Outside In
and current Oscar Race articles