Link Catches Us

NOTE: Sorry about the delay in the top ten -- probably tonight. maybe tomorrow morning. Depends on how the day goes. The writeups take awhile. But now... news and linkage.

• The Advocate Rabbit Hole's John Cameron Mitchell (He never ages. 47!)
• A.V. Club interviews Aaron Eckhart, also of Rabbit Hole. And in case you missed it...
• The Film Experience ...that's my 11th favorite of the year
• The Telegraph Bond is not a director's franchise, Tim Robey, reminds us as Sam Mendes preps Bond 23 (to be titled later obviously)
• In Contention DGA's documentary nominees. YES on Lixin Fan for Last Train Home. The Academy really botched that one. It's one of the best films of the year.
• Rotten Tomatoes gives out its Golden Tomatoes for the best reviewed movies of 2010. Naturally the animated films dominate as they're generally critic proof if they're any good at all. Though we're slightly weirded out that the best reviewed ten is very very close to the expected Oscar ten. What happened to the days when Oscar ignored critical darlings? My guess is both Oscar and Critics have changed, everyone moving to the center.
• Serious Film Great use of pop songs in recent movies

Kerry catches usIf it interests you, Reel Talk has the complete NAACP nominees. Night Catches Us gets some nominations but no Best Picture bid? Just Wright is there, though with For Colored Girls, The Book of Eli, Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too and... The Kids Are All Right (???). Confusing. So for what it's worth, here are the actress nominations. You know how I obsess on the actressing.

Best Actress

• Halle Berry Frankie & Alice
• Janet Jackson Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?
• Queen Latifah Just Wright
• Zoe Saldana The Losers
• Kerry Washington Night Catches Us

Best Supporting Actress

• Kimberly Elise For Colored Girls
• Whoopi Goldberg For Colored Girls
• Phylicia Rashad For Colored Girls
• Anika Noni Rose For Colored Girls
• Jill Scott Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?

The message of the nominations is simple: join Tyler Perry's creative entourage. (I wish I'd seen For Colored Girls. I like almost everyone in it.)

Centennial: Butterfly McQueen

Today is the Centennial of Butterfly McQueen, she of the famously squeaky voice, immortalized in her very first picture Gone With the Wind (1939). She died from an unfortunate kerosene heater accident 15 years ago but since it's the 100th anniversary of her birth today we send her a warm "Thank You" to the great beyond. Butterfly was a staunch Atheist but we think she'd approve of our church. In the church of cinema, everyone involved with classic films lives on for eternity (provided the negatives weren't destroyed).

"Gone With the Wind" (her first) and "Mosquito Coast" (her last feature film)

McQueen quit early, discouraged by endless servant roles. That's all black actresses could get in the Golden Age of Hollywood. In short: it wasn't golden for people of color.

"I don't know nuthin' bout birthin' babies!"

...which she shrieked hysterically in Gone With the Wind (1939) may have been her most famous cinematic moment, but you can also spot her in early classics like The Women (1939) and Mildred Pierce (1945). Her last feature film arrived when she was in her seventies. Peter Weir cast her in a key role opposite Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in The Mosquito Coast (1986).

Broaden the Biopics!
Hollywood has such insatiable true story fever, that you wish filmmakers would broaden their scope a little about who to dramatize in non-fiction based films. Most biopics are about über famous entertainers or political leaders. Perhaps that's for box office reasons but maybe it's just a lack of imagination. Couldn't biopics about lesser known players involved with some hugely famous historical event or milieu, be both marketable and aesthetically riveting for the fresh light they would cast on our familiar mythologized histories?

Nobodies ever planned a Butterfly McQueen biopic so cross your fingers that last year's Supporting Actress winner Mo'Nique (Precious) actually gets to do that rumored biopic about another Supporting Actress winner, Butterfly's Gone With the Wind's co-star Hattie McDaniel. Think how fascinating that film could be. It's enough to give you shivers.

But who would you cast to star opposite Hattie/Mo'Nique as "Prissy"/Butterly and "Scarlett"/Vivien in that sure-to-be interesting film?