A Year With Kate: Mary Of Scotland (1936)

Episode 10 of 52 wherein Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order.

In which Kate dons some regal duds.

Stick with me, folks. The next three weeks are going to be rough, but if we can get through it together, the last week in March will be Stage Door, and from there on it’s nothing but Kate classics. In the meantime, however, we’ll have to slog through three films which, if I’m totally honest, rightly earned Kate her “box office poison” moniker. But we’re jumping ahead of ourselves.

First we have to get through Mary of Scotland, a misbegotten, misdirected, miscast movie. “Misbegotten” because it dumbs down the political intrigue of Queen Mary of Scotland’s reign into a bad romance novel plot. “Misdirected” because John Ford clearly would rather have been out in Monument Valley with John Wayne and a wide angle lens. "Miscast" because how in the name of all that is holy did we miss the chance to cast Katharine Hepburn as Queen Elizabeth I??

Elizabeth is a great role for actresses, especially redheads with good cheekbones. You know where I’m going with this. Since everybody loves pitting Cate vs Kate Elizabeth I vs Mary Stewart, I decided to rank four stand-out Lizzies and Marys (some good, some bad, all unique).

VS

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Red Carpet Lineup: Oscar Beauties, 86th Edition

We're almost done! Only 35 more Oscar posts before w--- No for reals though we have to talk about fashion at least briefly. There sure was a lot of granny froufrou beading fussy texture on trend this year, huh? Which works on some people but not everyone. And weirdly it doesn't work at first and then totally works by the end of the evenin on some people. By some people I mean the happy Blue Jasmine twosome, whose gowns worked really well once you saw them all snuggly together in their seats. 

SUPPORTING LADIES FIRST

America's Sweetheart 90s Edition, Sally, America's Sweetheart 10s Edition, Sensation, Squibb

I think Julia Roberts should've gone younger/sexier to combat the visual drabness of the Barbara role in August and because Jennifer Lawrence, red hot, has already stolen her Sweetheart crown (in fairness Julia abdicated the throne after her Oscar win so no one really took it from her). Sally Hawkins! (Why do I feel like her bohemian signature characters Ginger & Poppy both would not approve of what their creator is wearing?) I was going to do a poll of best dressed but I figured Lupita Nyong'o would get 100% of the votes making it the most boring poll of all time. I know this is June Squibb's favorite Christmas Party Dress getting a surprise airing in March. 

BEST ACTRESS - AKA FOUR OF THE MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN THE BIZ

5 Times, 18 Times, 6 Times, 2 Times

Judi Dench never shows. Do you think she watches overseas?

Amy Adams has never looked better and that dress was so tight that visual effects were employed to show her jumping up to dance with Pharrell in it. Because: impossible. Meryl Streep with a little off the shoulder glam. But white blouses are risky when you're eating pizza. Cate Blanchett looking like an ethereal elf quee... hey, wait a minute. And Sandra Bullock also looking sensational. The Best Actress shortlist did the red carpet proud.

But which among them wins your "best" votes. Tough call. right? 

Backstage at the 86th Oscars

The people who are lucky (or random as Cate Blanchett might say) to win an Academy Award get their moment on the stage and then dive headfirst into a throng of press backstage who proceed to ask them generally innocuous, occasionally offensive, usually bland, nationally-biased questions. This year was no different, but there's usually at least one tasty lil bon mot hidden amongst the winners' videos so while the Academy haven't released the full videos yet, we can still use what we've got to find those anecdotal morsels and quick quips.

All the acting winners, Frozen, Cuaron, Jonze and the make-up artists after the jump...

Cate Blanchett:

This is an auction! I'm for the highest bidder."

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An Open Letter, Some Linkage, Blurry Photos

The Dolby Theater was quick about getting 12 Years a Slave up in their awesome atrium of Best Picture winners in Hollywood. I stared at that so much while I was in LA, trust. But naturally it must prompt my annual outrage again.

Dear, Internet. If the Academy themselves understand that we just watched the 2013 Oscars, so can you! - Love, Nathaniel R

This is really all the IMDb's fault and then Google, too. Now virtually everyone except the Oscars and The Film Experience calls the Oscars by the wrong year, which will wreak so much havoc at future trivia nights and in every way of documenting film history. I have a friend who did really great work on several Wikipedia pages and people kept trying to change his dates to the wrong year so now it's a mess of conflicting pages. This madness must stop. Cate Blanchett is not the Best Actress of 2014... (at least not yet. Will Carol be ready in time?). She's the Best Actress of 2013. The Oscars aren't like a Beauty Pageant where you get a title andtour the country for the following year before you pass on the tiara. It's not like that. It's for a movie you did. Pretending that Cate is the Best Actress of 2014 puts you in People's Choice territory where people just win prizes even if they sat at home that year but are still popular. It's not really territory you want to be in. 

Five completely random links (more time to catch up what's happening elsewhere tomorrow)

• Vanity Fair on their Oscar Party 
• Daily Mail on that pizza guy and the tipping situation at the Oscars
• Buzz Feed if John Travolta had to pronounced other people's names at the Oscars
• Vulture Pharrell's Happy performance gifs of the stars joining in. This was SO smart to include so early in the show. The energy was perfect. 
• Vanity Fair [LONG READ] I bookmarked this story about trying to find out what happened to the real "Patsey" from 12 Years a Slave and I haven't had time to finish it yet but it's totally an interesting subject. I WILL carve out time to read it this week and so should you. 

After the jump my favorite blurry photos I took of my TV last night. But why blurry photos, you ask?

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The Winning Moment & The Loveable Losers

Oscar night is still rich with the thrill of victory but not, I'd argue, with the agony of defeat. At least not anymore. The Oscar race has never been as sports-analogous as some would like but the victory part in the modern awards season maybe. That requires true endurance... months of campaigning and appearance and interviews and people whisking you here and there. The agony of defeat is surely now lessened by way of expectations. There didn't use to be all these signposts along the way that you're never going to win which might account for how polite and calm the losers are in their little live-television grids. Nevertheless we still love to slow-mo the shit out of those moments.

We're doing three and a half categories (Supporting Actress, Director, Actress, and ?)  starting now...

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