Young Clint, 1956

Clint Eastwood at 26 years of age, lounging in his pool. He was still doing TV guest spots and uncredited teensy tiny roles in movies. Courtesy of NY Mag's Magic Mike inspired gallery of famous shirtless men through the ages. 

In related news: Summer is suddenly unmistakably here. Have such a good one that Clint will want to make a movie about you next year. He can surely cram it in between other projects. 

The Girl With the CDG Statue

Awwwww, Clint Eastwood looks so happy at the Costume Design Guild Awards. They were honoring Deborah Hopper (second from left) and the man himself with their "Distinguished Collaborator" Award. (Many of the guilds like to honor directors outside their own profession at their particular ceremonies... but we like this joint award definition since films are such team efforts.) 

This photo is giving me such 2003 flashbacks with Mystic River's Marcia Gay Harden and The Last Samurai's Ken Watanabe all snuggled up with Clint and Deborah.

Strangely Hopper has never been Oscar nominated despite working with such an Oscar magnetized director. Not even those cloche hats from Changeling won her a shortlist spot. She's been working with Clint since Space Cowboys (2000).

This year's winners, more photos, and a fun "Revenge" moment after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Links, Fences, Songs, Brainnnnns

Free Unqualified... The Artist = Anchorman ?
SuperPunch for your next horror movie party with friends, zombie chocolates with cherry brainnnnns! 
Carpetbagger talks to Stuart Craig on the challenges of art directing Hogwarts over eight Harry Potter films 
Antagony & Ecstacy offers up a great top ten list: ten best Oscar slates ever from 2009's animated feature to 1939's best actresses and everywhere inbetween.
Senses of Cinema looks at the question of identity in Splendor in the Grass (1961) 

Flavorwire Disney Princess tattoos. Why the hell not?
Movie|Line on Clint Eastwood vs the ever-nuttier GOP after his Superbowl commercial
Towleroad  No song performances at this year's Oscars? Christ, AMPAS really needs to call me. They could've had such a watercooler live tv moment with "Man or Muppet". I explain how.

Complex the '25 Hottest Women on Horror TV shows'. Fun list with shoutouts to two of the best TV shows of all time Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks 
World of Wonder three things
Empire clears up that silly rumor that Harrison Ford was going to be in the Blade Runner sequel that nobody should be making to begin with shame on you Ridley Scott do you really want to turn into George Lucas I'm just saying... 

Today's Must Read
Grantland Mark Harris writes a fabulous column on Viola Davis's extraordinary gift, the Best Actress race and Hollywood's race relations.

Faced with the peril of that archetype, Davis did the hardest job of anyone in the Best Actress category: She made the movie better — much better — without playing against it. Much of The Help is bright, candy-colored, and loud: It’s full of silly wigs and garish costumes, sitcom slapstick and shit pies, wicked old dears like Sissy Spacek, finger-snappin’ Designing Women tell-offs, and the kind of steroidal pivots from comedy to poignancy to melodrama that would shame an episode of Glee. What Davis gives the film is humanity. Aibileen is a gentle but wary woman — she’s lived long enough to know that in her world, you survive by bending, not breaking, by keeping your thoughts to yourself, by seeing and hearing everything while appearing to register very little, and by trying to apply your own sense of decency and kindness to a badly needed paying job in an often indecent and unkind world. When she’s on-screen, the hummingbird shrieks of the movie’s other characters are hushed; you’re reminded that the human toll of daily, casual racism doesn’t really get addressed by making Bryce Dallas Howard eat poo. Because Davis is a physically gifted actress who can incorporate the exhaustion and strain of being Aibileen into every motion and muscle, and also the rare performer — even in this year ofThe Artist and Max von Sydow — whose silences draw you even closer, she seems to correct The Help’s excesses without ever standing self-protectively outside it. At every turn, she un-simplifies the movie.

Nick and I keep wondering when Hollywood is going to make August Wilson's Fences (for which Viola won a Tony opposite Denzel Washington) into a movie and everyone I know who is into theater keeps wondering why this hasn't happened for Fences or really any of August Wilson's plays. So it's nice to see that subject is revived again here. Seriously what time like the present Hollywood? Get on that. How many times do we have to ask?

NBR Awards. Old Favorites Clint, Clooney & Marty Triumphant Again

Though the NBR finally gave up their "first!" crown -- and without so much as a fight! -- they were true to form in other ways. George Clooney & Clint Eastwood can't even sneeze without 92% of the NBR crowd shouting gezundheit so naturally their films won top ten placements and Clooney's film (The Descendants) won three other prizes, too.

But Martin Scorsese, another previous NBR winner, was the man of the hour. Or the future hour when the banquet takes place since he showed up on the Documentary top five list with George Harrison: Living in the Material World (review) and his film Hugo won both Best Picture and Best Director. A double win for those categories is not common at the NBR. It's true that it happened last year with The Social Network but before that it hadn't happened since 1997 when Curtis Hanson did the trick with LA Confidential.

PICTURE Hugo

(top 10 ...the rest are in alpha order)
• The Artist
• The Descendants
• Drive
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2
• The Ides of March
• J. Edgar
(Clint Eastwood hasn't missed their top ten list since Blood Work, 2002)
• The Tree of Life
• War Horse 

FOREIGN FILM A Separation

(top 5 additional foreign films in alpha order)
•13 Assassins
• Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
• Footnote 
• Le Havre
• Point Blank 

DIRECTOR Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTRESS Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
ACTOR George Clooney, The Descendants
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
SUPPORTING ACTOR Christopher Plummer, Beginners
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE Felicity Jones, Like Crazy and Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo
DEBUT DIRECTOR JC Chandor, Margin Call
ENSEMBLE The Help

How Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene keeps losing these "breakthrough" and "debut" categories is beyond me. And NBR also shunned it even in the top ten indies list. 

many more prizes, top ten indies, and awards history after the jump.

Click to read more ...

The Adventures of Linklink

You may have heard that Ricky Gervais will be hosting the Golden Globes again. I don't have the stomach to give this its own post but let it suffice to say what I already said on twitter... Gervais smug superiority is so offputting. You have to back that shit up and was Gervais the funniest best awards show host ever? No. 

Link Time
Tom the Dancing Bug on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin
The Advocate fun interview with Dylan McDermott on American Horror Story, nude scenes and sexuality and Steel Magnolias
Ad Age wowee but those Oscar ads are expensive. $1.6 million for 30 second of air time please. 
The Playlist the competing Linda Lovelace porn star biopics. It's Amanda Seyfried vs. Malin Akerman. You'd think that was an easy call but for the news that Sharon Stone will play Mama Lovelace in the Akerman version. Sharon Stone!
Empire Will Amy Adams sign on to co-star with Clint Eastwood in The Curve, a father/daughter drama? He plays an aging baseball scout. We're betting that he won't be portrayed as indelicately as the "they're fossils!" approach in Moneyball. (A film we love, don't misunderstand. It's just hard on the old scouts.)
BuzzFeed 63 Reasons why Bradley Cooper is not the "Sexiest Man Alive". No matter what People magazine says. 
Speaking of Bradley Cooper...

In Ye Olden Times when I used to watch Inside the Actors Studio I couldn't help but make immediate "you'll never make it!" assumptions about many of the audience members seeking professional advice. So it's totally crazy to see an actual future star asking one. 

Puppet Mania
Flickr Muppet illustrations covering the whole alphabet
YouTube Clever Inglourious Basterds/Fantastic Mr Fox mashup

Finally, Drew McWeeney at HitFix had his son Toshi interview Kermit and Miss Piggy on the eve of the release of The Muppets. So cute...

It's a great angle for an interview since The Muppets biggest marketing muscle might well be partents taking their kids who missed out on the Muppet phenomenon to "meet" them on the big screen.