The Scarlet Linker

Hollywood Reporter on the highlights from the Gotham Awards. Patton Oswalt and Elizabeth Olsen were apparently big hits.
Tom Shone Best Performances of 2011. Love this fluid quick take annual feature.
I Need My Fix Is Christopher Meloni joining True Blood for Season Five? Could that show possibly contain yet more explosive sexiness?
GQ interviews director Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows) and yes he actually talks about Madonna and the divorce.... which...
Lainey Gossip has an interesting take on what he means when he says "I'm glad I made money" in the interview with which I would totally agree if that's what I was sure he meant. But it seems highly interpretable to me. Maybe that's not what he meant at all. 
Stale Popcorn Glenn speaks out on Meryl Streep's anti-auteur tendencies and what's going on with the quest for that third Oscar. Good piece.

Coming Soon Lizard concept art from The Amazing Spider-Man 
Alt Screen get yourself to Film Forum over the next two months and bone up on the silent film masterpieces they're showing.
Liz Smith shares a funny e-mail from showbiz widow Tita Cahn about J. Edgar.

Worst line ever spoken between two men in a movie -  'will you be my number two?' "

Hee. That's just one piece of it.

Telegraph TFE friend Tim Robey pays tribute to the one and only Ken Russell, remembering their last encounter at a screening of The Devils. 
Perez Hilton Wow. Apparently Meryl Streep donated her Iron Lady salary to the National Women's History Museum
Movielicious offers up this poster comparison, Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War (which I'm not hearing good things about) and Angelina Jolie's In the Land of Blood and Honey (which I am).

Hmmmm... 

My New Plaid Pants Have you heard about this reboot of The Munsters. I'm trusting JA to keep me informed as he's knowledgable on all things Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls) one of the best and most idiosyncratic TV minds out there.
MTV Charlize Theron's 2011 Tour of Comedic Movie Star Amazement continues whilst discussing Snow White and the Hunstman.

I haven't really worked with [Kristen]. I've done some small things with her, but we're about to shoot our big showdown, and fingers crossed for me. It's the big battle. I'm just really, really, really hoping I get to kill her. That is how the story ends up, right?"

[For more on her awesome Tour of Tours check out the Actress Roundtable post and the DGA screening of Young Adult.]

Finally...

 Movie|Line has a great interactive Shame map. You can follow Brandon's ritual around the city. It beats an expensive trip to the Museum of Sex here in NYC. 

Gotham Award Winners

The Gotham Awards are going on at Cipriani's even as I type this. As you know Charlize Theron, Gary Oldman, David Cronenberg, and Tom Rothman are being honored with career tributes but competitive prizes are also being handed out.  

Tilda, Charlize, and Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) glam up the event

Awards...
Breakthrough Actor Felicity Jones (Like Crazy)  
Breakthrough Director Dee Rees (Pariah) 
Ensemble Performance Beginners 

So it hasn't been a good night for Martha Marcy May Marlene which was nominated for all three of those prizes despite no Best Feature nomination.

Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You Scenes of a Crime directed by Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock
Audience Choice Girlfriend directed by Justin Lerner 
Best Documentary Better This World

Best Feature ***TIE*** BEGINNERS and THE TREE OF LIFE
The tie between Beginners and Tree of Life is a strange development. According to IndieWire the jury debated for 2½ hours. Though I am against ties on a fundamental level, it couldn't have happened to nicer movies ;) and it's kind of a great tense way to kick off the season. Let more strange "we can't decide!" developments follow. Total agreement for 3 consecutive months is B-O-R-I-N-G.

Eeep, we're here. It's happening again. Awards season has begun. Tomorrow morning the New York Film Critics Circle announces their honorees.

Gotham Awards: The Tree of Marcy May's Sheltered Descendants

The Gotham Award nominees were announced today. Though they're not affiliated I like to think of them as the East Coast Spirit Awards on account of the similar types of films they tend to honor (independent and lower budgeted films) and the slightly confusing windows of eligibility. The ceremony will be held on November 28th, 2011 here in NYC which is the same day that the New York Film Critics Circle have just announced as the date on which they'll name their winners. So mark those calendars. Awards Season begins in earnest on Monday November 28th, 2011. So the season will be almost exactly three months long this year what with the Oscars arriving on Sunday February 26th, 2012.

Best Feature:

• Beginners (Mike Mills)
• The Descendants (Alexander Payne)
• Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt
)
• Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols
)
• The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

'One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is not the same.' The black sheep of this shortlist family is The Descendants which is decidedly more mainstream than the other contenders: big movie star, crowd-pleasing rather than crowd-risky, obviously on its way to Oscar nods.

Several categories and few opinions after the jump.

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