Best of '15: Hunkalicious Screen Beauty

Our Year in Review party continues! Cue mood music.

Since The Film Experience obsessives over actresses almost daily, the actors could use a little spotlight from time to time. So this entry into our year in review party is a beauty break starring the year's best man candy in cinema ...with a little TV thrown in for extra flavor.

15 A superhero... but which one?
Any of The Avengers will do but if actors are going to be expected to be on special diets and grueling workout routines daily for those spandex ready bodies, you'd think Marvel would let them go shirtless for more than 10 seconds each movie. Chris Evans is still the most delicious among them but we'll give this round to Paul Rudd for the sleeker non-steroidal fitness regimen (which we hope becomes more the norm because Henry Cavill's Superman body is so cartoon weird; it's like a giant chest and shoulders with random stick appendages and face).

Runner up goes to Chris Hemsworth When Wet: in that silly pool of visions in Age of Ultron; shipwrecked and starving but still somehow maintaining the workouts in In the Heart of the Sea; or even just those carefully wet stray Blackhat bangs

Fourteen more people or categories after the jump. But fair warning... it's slightly nsfw. So it's a good thing you're on Christmas break. In the immortal words of Tina Belcher...

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Oscar's Foreign Race Pt 4: "Hey, I know that face!"

"everything u ever wanted to know about the foreign film category
*...but were afraid to ask"
Pt 1 All 81 Trailers | Pt 2 Women Directors & Debut Filmmakers | Pt 3 Zoology 

Actors You Know & Possibly Love
Successful actors really rack up the frequent flyer miles. The savvy ones cultivate relationships wherever they go. The very smartest of them pick up a second or third or fourth language and actually use those languages in their careers. Viggo Mortensen doesn't have quite the Hollywood career he deserves but notice that he doesn't settle - he's truly in love with his craft and uses his Spanish, English, Danish, and French in films all over the world. When the Danish Connie Nielsen was starting to look basic after lots of unsatisfying American films, she reminded everyone that she was actually gifted by going international with France's demonlover and returning home for Brothers. Actors who are bilingual and never use that onscreen are a mystery. It would be fun to see Sandra Bullock in a German movie or Hugh Jackman or Bradley Cooper in a French flick... even if it was only cameos since we know none of them are hurting for work. Why did Mira Sorvino not really capitalize on her Mandarin during her long dry spell? It's no accident that Charlotte Rampling and Carmen Maura never stopped working or that Kristin Scott Thomas only quit working when she wanted to; they speak multiple languages and make films outside their home countries often.

Let's look at the actors with a strong international presence that pop up in this year's Oscar submitted foreign-language films after the jump...

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'said everybody's gonna link today, link today, link today'

Pop & Hiss Reeve Carney, who previously appeared in Julie Taymor's Tempest and Julie Taymor's Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, has signed on to play Jeff Buckley in a biopic. Sure he looks right enough for the part, but sadly, at least thus far, he doesn't seem to be much of an actor. 
In Contention loves the motion picture soundtrack cover for Drive more than the movie posters. Fair enough... but omg what's inside!!!. I'm buying the crap out of that CD when it becomes available. I kept wishing the songs were originals so that I could be incensed when Oscar ignored them.

Reeve Carney as himself. Ryan Gosling in fetishized scorpion jacket.

Time Out HK has a good lengthy interview with Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu of Bishonen fame. He's starring opposite fighting Russell Crowe (literally) soon in The Man With the Iron Fists
Cinema Blend has a funny thought. What if Channing Tatum's stripper movie Magic Mike is the first film wherein Matthew McConaughey (who just signed on as the boss man) doesn't take his shirt off? 
Cineuropa Lars Von Trier's next picture Nymphomaniac will detail a woman's sexual life from birth til she's 50. Good luck with the, uh, casting of that one Lars. 
Playbill Cyndi Lauper & Harvey Fierstein's stage musical adaptation of the drag movie Kinky Boots (yes you read that sentence right) will get a big workshop in September. I didn't even like the movie and I'm so excited for it.
Via Twitter omg. Enver Gjokaj (Dollhouse) is in The Avengers. Yay! I have no idea how this photo is supposed to prove it but it is.
Hollywood Reporter Oscar buzzing Viola Davis (The Help) may star in a new HBO series. First Julianne... now Viola? Pretty soon no actresses will be left for the movies ;) 
The Cut the cast of Glee is in Vogue. Why no Mercedes or Santana?  

Music Video Break
Do you like Mika? I do muchly. Here's his latest music video "Elle Me Dit" but I only share it on this film blog because he's moved on from Grace Kelly to... Frenchsuperstar Fanny Ardant (8 Women, Ridicule, Roman de Gare). The video seems vaguely inspired by Wes Anderson (does Fanny then equal Anjelica Huston?) divided by François Ozon because if he was going for Wes, there's not enough center frame closeup.

What'cha think?