Red Carpet Globes Pt 2: Ursula's Daughter & Brad's Show Cane

In Part 1, Kurt and I discussed the Best Actress fashions Tilda's alien goddess versatility, Steven Sodebergh and Paula Patton's obsession with yellow, Rooney Mara's lack of humor, and more. Read it. Vote on the polls! Now we move on to a Supportizzzzzzzzzzzz

PART 2

Nathaniel: Sorry. Sorry Propping eyes open! The Globes were mostly an all the colors of the rainbow affair which is just how we like our red carpets. "On trend" is a death rattle for awards show excitement. The Supporting Actress lineup was definitely on trend, what with all those faint blush colors.‪ I had to include Evan Rachel Wood, so as to add the drama.‬

...With Evan there's always drama.

Evan, Chastain (one of them at least), Janet, Shai, Octavia

Kurt: Is she not the scariest thing? i'm getting such a fletsom and jetsom ‬‪vibe here. Come pick up your daughter, Ursula‬
Nathaniel: Ha. I kind of love it. It's so fecund. She's some sort of sea creature all right. The thing that would have really made this look work for me is more drama in her hair. I want the wildness to continue up top. This might have been the most supernatural horrifying and therefore the very best if, say, Jessica Lange's lions mane were up top or a weave for slickness and length. 
Kurt:  ‪Oh, jessica lange. No, Evan looks good, and it's a very cool dress. i just think she's terrifying.‬
Nathaniel: In general? Evan?

Kurt:  ‪LOL. Pretty much, yeah. She'll eat your first born.‬

Nathaniel: And not put on a single pound!

Kurt:  ‪Truth.‬

Nathaniel: ‪I don't really want to discuss this lineup. Why did I spend the time photoshopping? Harvey may be the Punisher but I'm all about self-abuse. I really want to rearrange the dresses at least.

Kurt: Well someone's gotta put something else on dear Jessica Chastain. That poor woman.
Nathaniel: Or maybe put all of them in Evan's dress!‬

Nathaniel: Ahhhhh. Anyway... Janet McTeer is a very handsome woman with an amazing rack.
Kurt: Don't we know it.
Nathaniel: She's also the very best thing about Albert Nobbs and also: her man is hot. Just had to put that out there. 

Speaking of amazing racks, MADONNA!

SMG, Macdonald, Garai, Madonna & Muse

MORE INCLUDING THE MEN!

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Globe Winner Predictions. A Nail Biting Night?

I normally look forward to Golden Globe night with the feverish pitch I otherwise save for Oscar Nomination Morning and Oscar Night itself. They're the holy trinity of awards season Father (Oscar Noms), Son (Oscar Night) and uh... Holy Ghost (The Globes). Well, there are spirits involved. I expect that the drunkest table will belong to The Help or Bridesmaids. Here's to inebriated ladies!

And here are my predictions. I'm just going for it and predicting a return to... January 2003. Wait, what? Read on!

MOVIES

BEST PICTURE, DRAMA

• The Descendants
• The Help
• Hugo
• The Ides of March
• Moneyball
• War Horse 

With most of the attention swinging towards The Artist, Best Picture Drama feels like a free for all this year. Three films (The Descendants, Hugo and The Help) look like feasible winners since they've retained heat after the nominations. Common wisdom points to the inexplicable near-universal love for The Descendants but for whatever reason I'm imagining a repeat of the 2002/2003 Globes season wherein the throbbing heart of a female epic (The Hours) beat out an expensive Scorsese film and the Alexander Payne film about the widower dealing with his angry daughter whilst having spiritual awakenings. (Gangs of New York and About Schmidt)
Prediction: The Help
Spoiler: The Descendants 

BEST PICTURE, COMEDY or MUSICAL

• 50/50
• The Artist
• Bridesmaids
• Midnight in Paris
• My Week With Marilyn

This one seems all sewn up for The Artist but I think it's worth noting that the Comedy or Musical category tends to be where the Golden Globes house their biggest surprises on average. That said a defeat for the Artist would be the kind of shocker that only happens once a decade. 
Prediction: The Artist
Spoiler: Bridesmaids (imagine the uproar!) 

BEST DIRECTOR 

• Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
• George Clooney, The Ides of March
• Michel Hazanavicus, The Artist
• Alexander Payne, The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Hazanavicius may or may not be the frontrunner for the Oscar. It's tough to say with lesser known directors when they're battling cinematic giants who win awards based on their whole filmography rather than the specific film they're up for. But I'm guessing that the presence of Woody Allen pulls enough votes from Martin Scorsese to keep Hazanavicius in the lead.
Prediction: Hazanavicius
Spoiler: Scorsese

PREDICTIONS IN ALL CATEGORIES after the jump...

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "In the Land of Blood and Honey"

A few readers have expressed dismay that I never talk about Angelina Jolie's directorial debut. There have even been suggestions that I have it in for Angelina. If by "in" you mean LOVE HER, than yes, I most definitely have it in for her. She once walked right past me and made eye contact (in a non-professional setting -- i.e. i wasn't reporting on anything and she wasn't promoting anything)  and I absolutely treasure the memory. The reasons for not covering her film before are several but dull and almost all of them boil down to two things:

1. This is not the kind of blog that fawns endlessly on every detail of pre production and filming and multiple marketing events before a movie is released. The Film Experience prefers actual movies -- even old ones (gasp!) -- to theoretical and future movies, as out of fashion as that may be on the internet. 

2. I really didn't expect it to come out this year!

I never plan to change my ways on #1 but I have totally been proven wrong about #2 so let's do a Yes No Maybe So 

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY

YES

• Looks sensitively directed, shot, edited*, scored ** and acted (from both of the leads. Some of those looks just break your heart). Sensitivity is something such films need in abundance lest they hit the atrocity notes too hard. War films -- particularly modern war films -- tend to wallow so much in the atrocity that it's almost desensitizing in addition to being just fucking depressing. Our capacity for violence is worrisome as is the capacity for watching it and than just going about your daily business like it's nothing.
  
  * it's impossible to tell anything about a films editing from a trailer. We know this but it's still easy to pretend that trailers have all the  same qualities as their movies.
  
  ** it's usually impossible to tell anything about the way a film is scored, too... since most trailers don't use their final score. But the temp music they were using was good.

NO 

• n/a

MAYBE SO

• The dialogue is very straightforward, with characters speaking themes and situations aloud. That's not always inappropriate in heightened settings like war where subtext generally becomes text,  everything being stripped down to its most primal parts... but will it be too on the nose?
• The trailer works well with its pinpoint focus on the Lover as the Other but it hits the note repeatedly. This begs the question of what else there is to the movie and can a once passionate love affair, destroyed by fear and suspicion, be enough to sustain the whole narrative?

"In the Land of Blood and Honey"

Are you a yes no or maybe so? My mind flashed briefly to Shot Through the Heart that Linus Roache television movie: anyone remember that one?

Do you see Oscar potential here? I'm doubtful mostly (and cynically) due to the lack of Hollywood glamour on screen and the lack of American characters. Many well meaning foreign war films are made each year and Oscar rarely takes notice.

What would you like Angelina Jolie to do for an encore? 

Oscar Submissions: Serbia, The Netherlands, Angelina Jolie & the Austrians

The Oscar Submissions continue to trickle in.

THE NETHERLANDS (7 nominations, 3 wins)
For about a decade from the mid 80s to the mid 90s Dutch-language films were the rage with Oscar voters with 3 nominations which all went on to win the big prize. The country last nomination was for 2003's Twin Sisters but given their track record (at least one nominee a decade since their first) they'll be golden again soon. This year they've selected Maria Peter's Sonny Boy which is a true scandalous story based on a best selling book about a 40 something married woman and her affair with a 19 year old black student. The couple get pregnant. Trivia note: Their child --  "Sonny Boy" being the Al Jolson inspired nickname they gave him -- is supposedly still alive and an octogenarian now!

Oscar does like a true story. And they like epics involving World Wars. Here's the dialogue free teaser and you can decide for yourself how Oscar might respond.

SERBIA
They've never been nominated but there's got to be a first time. Dragan Bjelogrlic's Montevideo God Bless You which seems, from descriptions, to be a nostalgia soaked period piece about 1930s Belgrade just as much as it's a sweeping inspirational story of young men with big (sports) dreams, in this case football (soccer). To be specific their dreams take them to the  First World Football Championship in Montevideo, Uruguay.

If IMDb can be trusted on Serbian film industry goings on (they sometimes get foreign film info wrong) they're already filming a sequel  which is this movie. Can anyone translate that title for us?

This is quite a bit different than the type of film Serbia usually submits. They've never submitted a film by this director before and the films don't usually skew this young either. The film stars two relative newbies Milos Bikovic (previously on Serbian TV series) and Peter Stager (film debut).

Milos Bikovic and Peter Stager

Will Oscar take a longer look this time?

The closest Serbia has come to a nomination was The Trap in 2007 which made the finals but not the shortlist.

AUSTRIA (3 noms, 1 win)
Austria's entry this year also trains its lens on a young man, the 19 year old Roman (Thomas Schubert). Roman, though, doesn't have big dreams but is just trying to build a new life after prison.  Guilt haunts him for his teenage crimes. The film is directed by the actor Karl Markovics (most recently seen in the international hit Unknown).

It's worth noting that the movie is already an award winner. Schubert won Best Actor at the Sarajevo Film Festival and who handed him the prize but global icon Angelina Jolie, who was honored herself (and accepted tearfully) at the very same event. So should Breathing (Atmen) be Oscar nominated, Schubert might have another chance to share oxgyen with her. He's already experienced one embodiment of Hollywood glamour, just not the gold plated kind. 

Angelina Jolie at the Sarajevo Film FestivalPREVIOUS SUBMISSIONS AND SPECULATIONS

Lazy Stupid Link

Links starring the cast of... u guessed it.
My New Plaid Pants 'Today's Fanboy Delusion' featuring Ryan Gosling.
Film Dr thinks the movie is "mostly stupid" 
La Daily Musto in praise of Marisa Tomei. Nearly twenty years since that Oscar win and still going strong.

Movie|Line 9 milestones in the evolution of Julianne Moore
Grantland on Julianne Moore's adulteress film tendencies. 

At this point, her very presence in a movie alerts us to an unstable sexuality lurking just below the surface — or at least at the bottom of that extra glass of Chardonnay. She’s a marriage-wrecking, conflict-creating, ginger-haired Jezebel.

It's true. The adulteress thing is getting as default mode as the Bad Mommy thing we've discussed repeatedly.

Miscellania
Bat Blog Tom Hardy on the set of Dark Knight Rises 
Boy Culture Abel Ferrara and his DP remember Dangerous Game. Lots of Madonna stories.. and yes, she was good in that film, detractors be damned. 
Television Blend Rosie O'Donnell gets a show on Oprah's network.
The Wrap Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt plan to do less acting. Sigh and also: hasn't Angelina already been doing less acting even as she's continued to make films ;) ?

And finally just a heads up that Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking is now available on DVD. It's funny. My favorite part was the celebrity genealogy section that sprung from the Elizabeth Taylor vs Debbie Reynolds Eddie Fisher scandal.