Ladies and Gentlemen and Kidmaniacs, I Give You The Cannes Jury

Cannes is just three weeks away and the final jury lineup has been announced. We knew Steven Spielberg would head the jury but his team was still semi-secret. They are...

Just months after competing for an extra Oscar, they'll be discussing other people's movies

Competition Jury

• Daniel Auteuil (French actor/director)
• Vidya Balan (Indian actress)
• Naomi Kawase (Japanese director)
• Nicole Kidman (Australian actress/producer)
• Ang Lee (Taiwanese director/producer/scriptwriter)
• Cristian Mungiu (Romanian scriptwriter/director/producer)
• Lynne Ramsay (British scriptwriter/director/producer)
• Steven Spielberg (American director) PRESIDENT OF JURY
• Christoph Waltz (Austrian Actor)

Only one thing is certain about the outcome based on the composition of the team: By May 26th, Nicki's auteur lust will devour their collective imagination and they'll surely be competing for her hand in filmmaking. Which one of these directors will she work with next? (I mean, besides Steven Spielberg who Kate Capshaw aside, isn't particularly excited by actresses.) Can her first Romanian picture be far off? I'd most love to see what Lynne Ramsay could wrangle out of Kidman but I assume that Ramsay might have difficulty getting funding for her next picture given the ugly fallout from her sudden departure from Jane Got a Gun. 

Some years ago I made this visual and it still applies. But you just change the names as the years go by and Kidman recalibrates her attacks. Always plotting for legacy, that one!

Despite the media blitz that accompanies Cannes headliners, the competition jury is never the only jury at Cannes. It's just the one with all the headliners. There are multiple less glitzy but not necessarily less talented juries overseeing other prizes as well. 

Short Films Jury

• Maji-da Abdi (Ethiopian actress/producer)
• Jane Campion (New Zealand, director) PRESIDENT OF JURY
• Nandita Das (Indian actress/director)
• Semith Kaplanoglu (Turkey, writer/director/producer)

Un Certain Regard Jury
This jury decides who to spotlight in the realm of up-and-coming filmmakers (the ones Cannes isn't yet ready to include in the Competition lineup. Last year their prize went to the Mexican feature After Lucia which Amir wrote about here.) This jury lineup has not yet been announced but Thomas Vinterberg that handsome Dane who made the dogme masterpiece Festen (A Celebration) in the late 90s and whose current  feature The Hunt is winning him the best reviews he's seen since that startling debut will preside over this jury.

Can't wait to see which films they all embrace... and which auteurs win Nicole Kidman's hand. 

Reader's Choice Factoids & Acting Oscar Trivia

I thought I was done posting about the 85th Academy Awards but here's one last takeaway post. See I realized we hadn't yet discussed YOUR votes and it is Reader Appreciation Month now (more to come). Plus one Best Actress Supremacy battle I think you'll like to ponder! 

Reader's Choice Stats Takeaway
Biggest Landslide: Anne Hathaway (Supporting Actress for Les Misérables) was the only Oscar winner to nab more than 50% of reader votes here. Though she was obviously the most polarizing actor, male or female, during Oscar season that didn't stop her from crushing her competition at the Oscars or here.
Poorest Showing: Denzel Washington's (Actor) return to form in Flight (seriously he's so good in that film) was, remarkably, in last place only 2% of the votes in his field. Yes even Jacki Weaver 4% and Alan Arkin 3% in the supporting categories won more of your love. What gives?  
Poorest Showing from an Oscar Winner: Though Christoph Waltz was also only third place in your ballots for Supporting Actor, Jennifer Lawrence actually had a weaker 3rd place showing - she took only 19% of your votes in Best Actress
Most Divisive Polling: Best Picture. Votes were all over the place with the winner (Argo) only managing 19% of the votes which was a very slim margin among the top four vote getters (readers also loved Amour, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty)
Agree to Disagree: Best Actress, always our marquee category here at The Film Experience, had the most votes of any of the polls and there was no agreement between Oscar, Nathaniel and The Film Experience readers: Oscar chose Lawrence; Nathaniel chose Riva; Readers chose Chastain. 

Ben Affleck's odd stats and Jennifer Lawrence vs. Joan Fontaine after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Ang Lee at 28. Ang Lee Now

Here is the two-time Oscar winner working on a Spike Lee documentary all the way back in 1982 when he was 28 years old!!! 

(The woman he's with there is painter Ann Yen who posted the photo recently on a social network site, prompting some coverage in the Asian press. Yen and Lee are still friends - I hear that she played one of the Mahjong women in Lust, Caution (2007).

His whole life and career was (way) ahead of him. Ang was one year away from getting married to his charming wife who got a little air time this weekend at the Oscars. He was still ten years away from making his first feature as a director (Pushing Hands), still eleven years away from his first Oscar nomination (Best Foreign Film, The Wedding Banquet) and basically a whole lifetime away from becoming the legendary two-time Best Director Oscar winner (Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi) that he is today.

Well done, Ang Lee. Have a hamburger. You deserve it!

Morning After Links

BuzzFeed "The 16 Most Epic Faces Jennifer Lawrence Made on Oscar Night" ...my favorite (pictured below) is the "i can't remember your name" face
Slate who was wrongest in their Oscar predictions?
Gawker all of Seth MacFarlane's sexist, racist and homophobic jokes collected
i09 Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 wins all the Razzies... speaking of did we ever figure out why Kristen Stewart was on crutches... was it the crushing weight of her own celebrity?

Salon on why Lincoln lost
Nick's Flick Picks I think in the Oscar Glut yesterday, a lot of you missed this fun group party wherein a bunch of us picked our favorite wins from past years. Super fun. And more to come. 
Nick's Flick Picks also live-blogged the whole show. I haven't read this yet but since it's Nick, you know it'll be good. 
Pop & Hiss Adele and Dame Shirley Bassey saved the Oscars
The Great Showdown celebrates the Best Pics in Scott C's wonderful way 
Hulu for the first time you can watch the Oscars online in full (for a limited time)
IndieWire watch Quvenzhané Wallis get down at the after party!  

And behold, my favorite photo I've yet seen from the After Parties

Answer me these questions three:

• How much do you love both of these men?
• What do you suppose they were saying to each other here? 
• Which Ang Lee movie do you think Daniel Day-Lewis loves most? 

The Oscar Winners

Previously: Arrivals
Next: Tomorrow begins the extensive post-mortem mania!

And The Oscars Go To...

SUPPORTING ACTOR Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
"Respect" to the fellow nominees... "Unlimited Gratitude" to Tarantino
Three Best Pics introduced
ANIMATED SHORT John Kahrs, Paperman 
ANIMATED FEATURE Brenda Chapman &  Mark Andrews, Brave
CINEMATOGRAPHY Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi 
VISUAL EFFECTS Life of Pi 
COSTUME DESIGN Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
MAKEUP Les Miserables
James Bond Tribute -Dame Shirley Bassey killed it. 
LIVE ACTION SHORT Shawn Christensen, Curfew 
DOCUMENTARY SHORT Sean Fine, Andrea Nix Fine for Inocente 
Three more best pics introduced

If I know Haneke & Chastain, she was more excited by this win & kiss than he was! #oscars twitter.com/nathanielr/sta…

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) February 25, 2013

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Searching for Sugar Man
FOREIGN FILM Michael Haneke for Austria with Amour 
Musicals Tribute with performances from Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Hudson, and the cast of Les Misérables
SOUND MIXING Les Miserables
SOUND EDITING (TIE !!!) Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall  

It came true."
-Anne Hathaway's opening words 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables 
FILM EDITING Argo 
Adele Performs "Skyfall"
Last three Best Pictures introduced
PRODUCTION DESIGN Rick Carter, Lincoln
Governor's Award Clips
In Memoriam & Babs "The Way We Were"
ORIGINAL SCORE Mychael Danna, Life of Pi 
ORIGINAL SONG  Adele & Paul Epworth (hello!) for "Skyfall" from Skyfall
With this prize, Skyfall's second of the evening the Bond franchise doubles its Oscar win tally. It had only won two Oscar previously, one for Sound Effects for Goldfinger (1964) and one for visual effects for Thunderball (1965).

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Chris Terrio, Argo
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained 
DIRECTOR [drumroll...] Ang Lee, Life of Pi
I'm not into that movie at all but I love him. I'ma just pretend it's a prize for Crouching Lust Hidden Caution. For what it's worth Ang Lee is both the first and the second (and therefore the only) non-caucasian director to win this prize. He is not however the only director to win twice despite having never directed a Best Picture winner. That trick was also performed by Frank Borzage in the late 20s/early 30s (his two wins: Bad Girl lost to Grand Hotel, and Seventh Heaven lost to Wings), George Stevens in the 50s (his two wins: Giant lost to Around the World in Eighty Days and A Place in the Sun lost to An American in Paris). [Note: John Ford actually won Best Director without winning Best Picture THREE times. But for How Green Was My Valley he won Best Director and the film also won Best Picture]
ACTRESS Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook
ACTOR (Meryl Streep should just give this Best Actor Oscar to herself to get #4 overwith) And the Oscar goes to ... Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln

Finally... Jack Nicholson came out to present Best Picture which led to a weird and shocking moment when The First Lady appeared via satellite to congratulate the nominees and talk about art teaching us to overcome our problems. Fun tweets followed:

If the First Lady presents Best Picture, does that count as crossing the boundary between Church and State?

— Nick's Flick Picks (@NicksFlickPicks) February 25, 2013

   

Pigeons. They make such a mess. RT: @guylodge Due respect, Mrs Obama, but what obstacles did AMOUR teach us we can overcome?

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) February 25, 2013

PICTURE Argo
Grant Henslov spoke first cracking up about the three sexiest producers as he stood between George Clooney & Ben Affleck. Ben spoke second, teared up with a speech that was kind of endearing kind of annoying and all over the place (more on the speeches tomorrow). George Clooney never spoke.

And hey, to everyone reading. You survived another Oscar Year. 

You da man!

Good night!
Wrap-Up Party Blogging tomorrow after some sleep.

P.S. Don't forget to like The Film Experience on Facebook. Please and thx