Linker's Game

Pajiba on the fall of the once brilliant Orson Scott Card. How is this the same man that wrote Ender's Game (coming soon to a movie theater near you)?
New York Times "Nora Ephron's Final Act" this piece about her death was written by her son.
Gothamist chooses the 12 Best Movie Theaters in NYC. Solid choices though I do think Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza are just so uncomfortable seating-wise, and the latter isn't one-of-a-kind like Film Forum so I try to never go there.

Vulture a sitcom smackdown between Sex & The City and 30 Rock. As someone who loves both shows, I thought this was a fascinating comparison but the readers got really super ultra angry
CHUD on the upcoming werewolf Netflix series Hemlock Grove. (I do think it's interesting that Netflix is moving into production but I fear for audiences. After years of getting a lot of things for free the model seems to be moving towards having about 14 different subscriptions to see all the stuff you wanna see.)
In Contention I've tried to write about everything that's going on with Steven Spielberg a million times this week (He's so busy! Those Lincoln losses must have lit a fire) but I'm giving up and now linking you over to Tapley who will explain it all.

two thing that are not happening
In closing I'll just be let it know that I think it's very smart that Sam Mendes has opted to pass on directing Bond 24 which is wise since the series might not be able to top Skyfall given the billion dollar gross and the 50th anniversary hoopla and the Oscar stats which more than doubled the franchise's entire history with the Academy! I think it's very sad that Disney is not developing any handdrawn animated feature.

Podcast: Oscar Night Season Wrap

For the final podcast of the season, Joe Reid, Katey Rich, Nick Davis, and me, your host, Nathaniel R let reader questions be our guide for this spontaneous Oscar Night Review.

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Musical Performances: Adele, Shirley Bassey, Babs, Jennifer Hudson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones's Jazz
• Future Nominations or Backlash for the winners: Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Lawrence or Anne Hathaway?
• Ben Affleck's speech
• Can Michael Haneke ever return?
• What were the best reaction shots and when did we do our best reaction shots from home?
• On Naomi Watts' career choices and Oscar's love of "it" girls
• Documentary and Costume Design
• Seth Macfarlane versus Jokes and Musical Theme
• Emmanuelle Riva cutaways

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the end of the post. 

All That (85th Oscars) Jazz
The Big Night: Fun Arrivals, Winner's List, Jennifer Lawrence in the Press Room
The Look Back: Seth's Hosting, Funniest Tweets, & This Podcast
The Fashions: Fifteen Men, The Ten Nominated Ladies, Goodbye Glamour

Oscar Night Season Finale

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

Final Oscar Predictions

This article has been cross-posted at Towleroad

Yesterday on Kathy Griffin's new show she began with an Oscar monologue and brought out a gold trunks-clad model with his hair cropped tight and his body sprayed gold. I'll let it slide that he wasn't actually bald but he stood with his legs spread far apart and his hands behind his back. 

Had he never seen an Oscar statue before?

UR DOING IT WRONG! 

As you may have guessed I hold the Oscars sacred. You might call it my religion. I've been watching them since I was a little kid and as an adult I have spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over them and even made something of a career out of it. [A struggle!]  But never before in my life have I had such a hard time predicting the winners.

Oh sure, Argo will win Best Picture and Daniel Day-Lewis who many of us first fell in love with as a blonde gay punk working in that Beautiful Laundrette will win for becoming President Lincoln but elsewhere in Oscar's 24 Categories there's an awful lot of room for pundits to embarrass themselves this year!

Best Director, for one, is baffling. The tech prizes look like a very bloody battle between at least three pictures (Anna Karenina, Skyfall & Life of Pi). And so on. AFTER THE JUMP my Oscar predictions. If I get everything wrong please forget we ever spoke of this! 

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Things to Ponder Before Making Finally Final Oscar Nom Predix

I'm trying to decide how much to alter some of my current predictions when I post my final predictions (Tuesday night).  Here are some things I'm pondering. Ponder with me in the comments. It's a Ponder Party!

The Academy ♥ Tarantino? OR...
The Internet ≠ The Academy
The Globes ≠ The Academy
Quentin Tarantino is indisputably a god of the internet. Were the internet a person it would be his insatiable whore, his dresser, his boyservant, his entire yes man entourage. But the Academy is not the internet. They never have been. (If they were Chris Nolan would have five directing nominations and not zero and The Social Network and Brokeback Mountain would have trounced The King's Speech and Crash). Consider: zero nominations for Kill Bill Vol. 1 (my choice for his best film and unarguably worthy in technical fields even if you don't much care for it as a whole). Zero nominations for Kill Bill Vol. 2. One measly nomination for Jackie Brown. "But they loved Pulp Fiction (7 nods, 1 win) and Inglorious Basterds (8 nods, 1 win)" - shouts everyone in the universe. They did, it's true. [more...]

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