"I'm gonna ask you, okay? And you say yes, okay? Are you my mom?" / "Yes, sweetie"

This is your daily reminder that Julianne Moore won an Oscar* 

A lot of actors have played Juli's screen kids over the years. Hopefully not all of them have been too traumatized by it since she plays "bad mommy" more often than good one. In fact, here's a list of them because a) it's fun to make lists and b) we go above and beyond here at The Film Experience. We really do. So you should like us on facebook, follow Nathaniel on twitter, and sign up for the forthcoming newsletter pretty please!

Julianne's Screen Kids... It's a Boy / Girl / Ghost

1. Uncredited (Newborn) - Nine Months (1995)
2. Chauncy Leopardi (Stepson) - [safe] (1995)
3. Mark Wahlberg "you're my baby boy" & Heather Graham "I love you mom!" (Honorary Children) - Boogie Nights (1997)
4. Haunting Offscreen Presence (Child She Isn't Allowed To See) - Boogie Nights (1997)
5. Liv Tyler - Cookie's Fortune (1999)
6. Victoria Rudiak (Dead Child) - A Map of the World (1999)
7. Hayley Lochner (Other Child) - A Map of the World (1999)
8. Tom Cruise (Stepson) - Magnolia (1999)
9. Haunting Offscreen Presence (Imaginary Child) - World Traveller (2001)
10. Will McAllister - The Shipping News (2001)
11. Ryan Ward & Lindsay Andretta (Ignored Children) - Far From Heaven (2002)
12. Jack Rovello & Ed Harris (Same Character) - The Hours (2002)
13. Christopher Kovaleski & Matthew Pleszewicz (Dead Child - Or Did The Child Ever Exist At All ???) - The Forgotten (2004)
14. Trevor Morgan, Ellary Porterfield, Monté Gagné, Robert Clark, Michael Seater, Erik Knudsen, Jake Scott, Jordan Todosey, Ryan Price, Shae Norris, Abigail Falle, Luca Barbaro, Brando Barbaro, Jack Murray, Evan Rose, Jessica Pollock, Emily Persich, Maxwell Uretsky, Brendan Price, Melanie Tonello, Julia Megan Thompson, Connor Sharp (Impossibly Large Brood) - The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)
15. Marlon Sherman (Missing or Dead Child ???) - Freedomland (2006)
16. Haunting Offscreen Presence (Dead Child) - Children of Men (2006)
17. Barney Clark & Eddie Redmayne- (Same Character) - Savage Grace (2007)
18. Max Thieriot - Chloe (2009)
19. Mia Wasikowska & Josh Hutcherson - The Kids Are All Right (2010)
20. Emma Stone - Crazy Stupid Love (2011)
21. Paul Dano - Being Flynn (2012)
22. Onata Aprile - What Maisie Knew (2013)
23. Haunting Offscreen Presence (Dead Child) - Don Jon (2013)
24. Chloë Grace Moretz -Carrie (2013)
25. Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, and Kristen Stewart - Still Alice (2014)

And now the first of them (Eddie Redmayne) has just won an Oscar! As I said in yesterday's New Oscar Trivia post it's the first time our Best Actress & Best Actor winner have previously costarred as mother & son.

Which of her screen kids will be next?

Maybe Emma Stone who was so delightful while practicing with a LEGO Oscar? Or Wahlberg or Moretz or Stewart or.... what'cha think?  

* How long can I keep this up d'ya think?

On Birdman and Suicide

by Sebastian Nebel

(Spoilers.)

What do we talk about when we talk about Birdman?

I guess people latch onto things they can relate to, things they recognize. For a lot of professional reviewers I follow online and elsewhere, that would be how the film portraits their line of work, notably in the form of the theater critic and talk of Twitter, social media, and things 'going viral.'

Others – including, I'm assuming, the filmmakers themselves – see the main focus of the film in the struggle of the artist, the search for meaning and relevance, the divide between supposedly empty blockbuster entertainment and high, respectable art.

I am neither artist nor critic, as much as I like to pretend to be either at times. So while I recognize that Birdman has something to say on these subjects, it's not saying it to me, at least not directly.

We latch onto the things we relate to, we recognize. What I saw in Birdman was a deeply troubled man who finds himself so tortured by depression – in his case personified by a long gone superhero alter ego that serves as constant reminder of the fame, the power, the endless possibilities that the march of time has taken from him – that he desperately clings to a last-ditch effort to revive some of the past's glory, only to find that this, too, does not liberate him from his mental anguish.

During the course of the film, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) engages in a variety of self-harming acts and tries or gets close to trying to take his own life three times, finally achieving the desired result.

We hear of another, possibly first failed suicide attempt in a story he tells his ex-wife (Amy Ryan). It's one of his many cries for help, some cryptic, some explicit, all unheard.

Suicide attempts on screen are not rare, but what I found remarkable was that in Birdman, unlike most films I can think of, trying to kill yourself isn't the turning point, the traumatic abyss you climb your way out of to start the healing process, now with concerned loved ones at your side and no longer inflicted with the wish to end it all.

Riggan's on-stage bullet to the face is greeted with many things, actual concern for his mental state being least among them. His family and friends quickly dismiss looking for a deeper motivation behind the incident, highlighting instead all the ways he finally got what he wanted all along: the play is a hit, he himself has gone viral. The people love him, the critics respect him. Everything worked out fine. It's a happy ending that most movies would gladly indulge in.

But it's a false one, as we and Riggan are reminded of by the reappearance of Birdman in the actor's hospital room.

Because Birdman isn't Riggan's depression. Birdman is the shape that Riggan gives his anxiety, the costume he puts on it, trying to give form to something that's entirely beyond his grasp.

He's not depressed because he's not as famous as he was, because he's grown older, or because he feels unloved and unadmired. These are just the things his depression claims as reasons because they are easy targets.

Real depression has no inherent focus, no singular triggers. Like one of those plasma globes it stretches out its feelers in all directions until it finds a surface to land and concentrate on. Easy targets, usually: feelings of loneliness, of heartbreak and loss, of insecurity and insignificance. But take those away and it will just look for other ones.

This is what Riggan learns in that hospital bathroom. The love of his family, his newly acquired flood of Twitter followers, the positive review in the Times. None of it matters. None of it solves anything.

The only solution Riggan can see is the one he has been coming back to over and over again. And while some or all of his prior attempts may have been deliberately botched because they were intended as cries for help more than definite, final acts, there is no ambiguity this time. He is done with life and done with clinging to the Birdman fantasy he used to disguise his depression with to make it seem like a slightly lesser and therefore possibly solvable problem.

Michael Keaton is not in every single scene of Birdman, but I do believe that we are experiencing things from Riggan's perspective even when he's not present. Scenes between Emma Stone and Edward Norton are at the same time projections of Riggan's fears (his daughter getting involved with the actor) and hopes (her being brought to the realization that maybe he wasn't such a bad father, after all).

Similarly, the scene between Naomi Watts and Andrea Riseborough is all about their characters needing to define themselves through his approval. It's his vision of how a conversation between them might play out - big kiss at the end and everything - just like many of the film's fantastical scenes are clearly his version of events, not what is actually happening.

And so the last shot of the movie is not the filmmakers telling us that Riggan Thomson really was Birdman all along, flying away into a happy ending.

Instead, we see what Riggan would have wanted to see: his daughter, finally appreciating the pain her father was in, and taking comfort, joy even, in the fact that he found a way out of it.

And that's the real tragedy.

---

Asking for help is never easy, and it can be devastating when even the people closest to you don't recognize how much pain you are in. Depression is a serious and complicated issue, and thankfully there are trained professionals who know how to recognize and approach it in ways friends and family just can't be expected to.

There is no shame in being depressed or suicidal.

There is no shame in seeking help.

Red Carpet Lineup: The 21st Annual SAG Awards

Greetings, fashion followers and actress admirers! Anne Marie and Margaret here with the Screen Actors Guild Awards edition of Red Carpet Lineup. We're carrying on without Nathaniel this time, since he's over at Sundance walking some red carpets of his own.

Anne Marie:  Last night held few surprises awards-wise, but the red carpet looks were as wide-ranging as Tatiana Maslany's clones in Orphan Black. Without further ado, let's talk fashion!

Margaret: Color-wise, it was a subdued red carpet, so let's start with some of the ladies in black and white: our queen Viola (VIOLAAAAAA), it-girl Emma Stone, the Supreme Sarah Paulson, and proud "complicated woman" Maggie Gyllenhaal. Which neutral getup is your favorite?

Anne Marie:  VIOLAAAAAA! Damn, she looked good. She sounded good, too. That speech was wonderful, and almost made me forgive How To Get Away With Murder for its grievous faults. Sarah Paulson, queen of my heart and the master of photobombs, is also rocking that black and white dress. I don't, as a general rule, like two-piece separate dresses like this, but she is... dare I say... bewitching. (Groan all you like but it's true.)

Margaret: I have to say, all four of these ladies' makeup artists deserve a serious bonus. Their faces look magnificent.

Anne Marie: True. Although, what the heck is going on with Emma Stone's dress? She looks like she's wearing an oversized suit jacket with a gauze skirt stapled on.

Margaret: Perhaps it's an avant-garde nod to her Birdman role, an abstracted fashion cape?

Anne Marie:  Sort of a Lois-Lane-by-way-of-Morticia-Addams kind of thing?

Margaret: Sure looks like it. If I'm honest, I hope her people pull her something twice as kooky for the Oscars. Liven things up a smidge.

Anne Marie: Any final thoughts on our first 4 ladies in white-and-black?

Margaret: Just that Maggie Gyllenhaal's cleavage keyhole amuses me, and that I'm almost sorry that Frances McDormand beat her last night because after the glorious stoneface Ms. McDormand produced after losing at the Golden Globes, I can't help but mourn for the gifs that might have been.

Now, on to our second lineup, the theme of which is WINNERS. 

Maternity couture, OITNB, and casting ideas for a gritty Little Mermaid reboot after the jump...

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Supporting Actress: The Chart, The Poll, The Stats

It's funny how little news coverage there is now each time Meryl Streep breaks her own Oscar records. With her 19th nomination she's just 5 more away from DOUBLING the previous record holders (Jack Nicholson & Katharine Hepburn) whose record of 12 nominations she broke a dozen years back with Adaptation (2002), her 13th. Five would seem like a ridiculous number remaining to even mention (only roughly two dozen actresses have managed five nods in entire careers in the history of the world) but it's Meryl and she's nominated each time she makes a movie and makes them (almost) every year. Maybe she'll reach that big number before her 75th birthday in the summer of 2024?

Supporting Actress nonsense, The Arquettes, and more trivia after the jump...

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Big Eyes Surprise? Final Best Actress Predictions

One of last night's most unnerving moments may well have been hearing Big Eyes mentioned multiple times. It's easy to forget that the movie is out in theaters now, since it didn't make big Christmas waves in the media or the box office (it's likely to end its run as Burton's second least successful film of all time after Ed Wood which is 100 times better), didn't earn rave reviews (it's sitting at 70% on Rotten Tomatoes which is, shall we say, generous) so Amy Adams surprise upon winning is entirely understandable.

To say that I am ill prepared for this moment is a huge understatement. Huge."

The surprise win reminds us that she's been generously adored by nearly all the awards communities for years now, an embryonic-Meryl perhaps. This season provides the biggest test yet of how much of a default nominee she truly is with AMPAS. If she manages an Oscar nod this year against much stronger competition in much better films (Reese, Julianne, Felicity, Marion, Rosamund, Hilary, and Emily) and a much more willful campaign for another performance that's better than its movie (Hi, Jennifer Aniston!) you should expect her to be nominated for every film going forward, as you would Meryl herself.  

Nevertheless I don't think it's going to happen and the dye is set on this category. Our nominees will be

Best Actress Oscar Predictions
Jennifer Aniston, Cake
Felicity Jones, Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild

A few critics groups made a valiant stand for Marion Cotillard but in the end Two Days One Night killed that dream itself by arriving in theaters way too late to build any presence of its own as an impressive movie, which would have bolstered support for the shockingly real performance at its center from an actress that keeps topping her Oscar-winning role without the Academy paying her any mind. 

In conclusion, may Big Eyes greatest pop culture legacy be the opening monologue joke from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. They announced that there was a live Margaret Keane painting at the ceremony. Cut to: Emma Stone. Well, they are gigantic. They take up her whole face like an anime character. What really sold the punchline was its coda; Tina & Amy are great at those little joke extenders when you're already laughing.

Emma reactions to a BIG EYES joke aimed at her gif via Vulture

It's cute. But it's creepy."

We might say the same of Amy Adams Awards Haul!