Thoughts I Had... While Staring at the Best Actress Luncheon Photo

They are my sunshine... my only sunshine... they make me happy when skies are gray ♪ ♫

Oscar did real good by Best Actress for once, huh?

It's almost like they color-coordinated their outfits and all agreed that Julianne should be the focal point. But will any of them actually vote for her or does everyone in the Academy vote for themselves?

Spice up your life ♪ [From left to right: Posh, Sporty, Ginger, Scary, and Baby]

Have you voted yet on who SHOULD win?

COMMENT FUN #1: Which clip should they use for each Actress at the ceremony?

COMMENT FUN #2: Quick --  trade roles for these actresses. If they had to play someone else's role who would it be? I'm betting Pike could do early onset Alzheimers since she has that ability to completely empty out her face. Enigma! We've already seen Marion in a differently abled wheelchair bound romance so it's easier to picture her as Mrs. Hawkings. Hmmm what else.

I'm the one standing in the background painted gold [/fantasy]

I've also added in the "how'd they get nominated?" percentages* on the chart for your pleasure

*for entertainment purposes only. No one can know the deepest hearts of Oscar voters. Perhaps not even Oscar voters themselves. 

Sundance: Oscar Hopeful "Brooklyn" is Beautifully Old-Fashioned

Nathaniel's final review from Sundance

Late last year while interviewing Yves Belanger on his lensing of Wild (2014) and his ongoing working relationship with Jean Marc Vallee I noticed he had a non-Vallee project on his forthcoming filmography called Brooklyn. He spoke highly of the experience, an about face from Wild's all natural light mandate. He said it was much more stylized lighting, an 'old fashioned romantic drama'. He hoped people still wanted to see that sort of thing.

If the reaction at Sundance is any indication (and a word of caution: Sundance fever is 50/50 for the real world at best) the people will welcome it with open arms... and tear ducts.

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Sundance: Lily Tomlin's "Grandma" is a Sharp-Tongued Joy

Nathaniel reporting from Sundance. Or, rather, from Manhattan, while still thinking of Sundance and possibly my favorite film from that trip...

The first chapter of Grandma, an ornery new female-driven comedy, is called “Endings” a counterintuitive opening title, perhaps, but appropriate. Elle Reid (Lily Tomlin) doesn’t have much taste for beginnings. A year and half before our story begins, this "writer-in-residence," who had a brief period of reknown as a feminist poet,  lost her life partner of nearly 40 years to cancer. She’s still bitter about it. We know that her new girlfriend of four months Olivia will soon be shown the door because she's played by Judy Greer who is contractually obliged to never have more than 3 scenes in a movie. [More...]

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GALECA Loves Transparent (and a little of everything else!)

The Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Journalists Association have chosen their winners from the film year and, like so many other awards bodies they've opted for a Savage Grace mother/son reunion with Julianne Moore & Eddie Redmayne taking Actress & Actor of the Year for film. (The primary difference being only that they have probably heard of / possibly seen Savage Grace.) Lisa Kudrow & Jeffrey Tambor took the television version of those prizes and though there was significant spreading of the wealth elsewhere, Transparent, Amazon's Golden Globe winning breakout show about a retired father (Jeffrey Tambor) who comes out to her children as a trans woman thoroughly dominated the TV field winning five prizes. [More...]

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The Teachings of Juli

Jose here. Why do I keep forgetting how funny Julianne Moore is? Perhaps because not counting 30 Rock and Maps to the Stars (yes, that is a funny performance) the movies always give us tragic, sad Juli.

Photo credit: Jose Solis

She is the one actress who has perfected the act of onscreen suffering, if you only knew how many times I’ve played that scene with the late night phone call in Far From Heaven to help me cleanse my soul...anyway, once you think of it, outside the movies she always seems to have a huge smile on her face and emanates ginger joy wherever she goes, which wasn’t the exception at a Still Alice press conference I attended yesterday, where she along with Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, author Lisa Genova and co-director Wash Westmoreland discussed the film.

Not one to keep my obsessive fan questions to myself, as Nathaniel has pointed out in the past, I pitched Juli my DVD boxset called “Ill Juli” which would feature Still Alice, The End of the Affair and Safe. She laughed the biggest Moore laugh I’ve had the joy to witness and said “hey, I do comedy too!”

More Juli after the jump...

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