Great Scots!

by Jason Adams

It is always good news when the Coen Bros announce a new thing, even if the new thing turns out to be kinda hit-n-miss like I found their last new thing (that'd be The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which I reviewed out of NYFF last fall right here) to be. The hits are worth the misses. ("Pan shot!") But today's good news is more than good -- it's downright invigorating.

The Bros are taking on the Bard -- they're making their Macbeth, and it's going to star Denzel Washington (who previously played Don Pedro in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing, pictured) and Frances McDormand (who is Frances f'ing McDormand) as the Lord and his Lady. O, Vaulting Ambition!

And you're a better person than I if you're not already casting this thing in your head with a bunch of Coen regulars -- as soon as I landed on Tilda Swinton playing all three of the witches I might've passed right out. Who are you play-casting?

The Best of a Bad Lot: Oscar Winning Actresses in Bad Movies

by Seán McGovern

The shade of it all... the 1974 ceremony for the Best Actresses of 1973 (L-R from the bottom corner) Marsha Mason, Ellen Burstyn, Joanne Woodward, Glenda Jackson, Barbra Streisand

Christmas really brings out my contrarian side, and since it's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (awards season), permit me to be a humbug. Those who truly appreciate the Oscars understand that sometimes it is about the politics and not the performance. Academy voters are not infallible, but we shouldn't underestimate their other important role in taking the cultural temperature to find out what and who was hot in cinema in any given year. Without getting into a discussion of who did and didn't deserve their award, there are definitely some great female performances honored in films that may otherwise not have been so deserving. Some potentially controversial opinions after the jump...

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Remember "Miss Pettigrew"?

by Nathaniel R

Remember Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day? It opened 10 years ago on this very day starring newly crowned (again) Best Actress Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. All I remember about it actually is Shirley Henderson's high pitched voice and Amy Adams flouncing around before breaking my heart by singing a duet with the scrumptious Lee Pace...

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Red Carpet: Best Actresses Hug It Out

by Nathaniel R

Tonya, Mildred, Lady Bird, Eliza, and Katherine

Beauty! This season's five most celebrated leading actresses have 32 Oscar nominations and 5 statues between them. (Of course Meryl accounts for more than half of both totals but what can you do?). But readers hearts were elsewhere this year...

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Ranking the Oscar Clips

by Ben Miller

Oscar clips are a fun wrinkle of a ceremony.  Who could forget Cate Blanchett’s reaction to her Elizabeth: The Golden Age clip?  The actors and actresses can seem mortified or proud of anywhere inbetween, and it’s part of the appeal of the clips.  The clips preceding each of the categories ranged from brilliant to downright weird.  Let’s rank them 20-1…

The Weird

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