And the Link Goes To...

Daily Mail Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman reunite... but for an interview series, not a film
The Muse Rich Juzwiak talks to Anne Hathaway about Colossal and the very tired subject of 'Hathahaters'... as I've always said: their loss, she's awesome.
Deadline omg Toni Collette has a lead role again (opposite Thomas Haden Church)
Criterion Director Amy Heckerling (Clueless) visits the Criterion Closet. She loves Federico Fellini, the story of Billy Wilder and Tokyo Story

Coming Soon Director Sam Mendes is considering a movie based on the graphic novel My Favorite Thing is Monsters  about a little girl trying to solve her neighbors murder
Towleroad there's a new documentary about Heath Ledger
This is Not Porn and speaking of... polaroids from the set of Brokeback Mountain
Hollywood Reporter 4 Japanese actresses discuss Ghost in the Shell. This is a fun conversation but I wish they'd engaged more with the central twist of the Scarlett Johansson character because that's something I would love to hear people discuss apart from the white-washing issue. It is a separate thorny issue actually and not entirely unlike Get Out's existential horror about race relations and bodies at odds with souls... or "ghosts" in this film's parlance.

Oscar Dates 
I'm not sure why the internet treated the news that the next Oscars would be held on March 4th, 2018 as "news" today but they did. The Academy announced the date two or three years ago (they normally announce multiple dates at once). For example: in the latest press release they've added the next four Oscar ceremony dates. It's the other dates (nominations, luncheon, etcetera) that we never know until we're in the film year

Next Four Oscar Nights

• 90th Academy Awards - March 4th, 2018 (nominations on January 23rd)
• 91st Academy Awards - February 24th, 2019
• 92nd Academy Awards - February 23rd, 2020
• 93rd Academy Awards - February 28th, 2021  

Off Cinema
MNPP on the subtle importance of Zachary Quinto's public romances
Variety the Lucille Lortel nominations (Off Broadway)
Theater Mania I've been so bored that NYC's free summer theater tradition Shakespeare in the Park has been strictly Shakespeare for a few years now. Despite the name they used to mix in non-Shakespeare stuff which made it less basic. But they get good casts. This summer: A Midsummer Night's Dream with two of Broadway's very best performers (Danny Burstein & Annaleigh Ashford) and Julius Caesar with Corey Stoll, Nikki M James, Elizabeth Marvel and more
Vox interesting piece on Sanrio's most popular character since Hello Kitty
Mic new study suggests cats like humans more than food. Great article punchline.
EW Lots of online furor when Marvel VP suggests that their recent diversity push has hurt comics sales. Oh Marvel. That is not the problem. You have so many of them but that ain't it. 

Link by Day

Coming Soon Beauty and the Beast has an original song called "Evermore," sung in the film by Dan Stevens and in the end credits by Josh Groban. Uff, I've never liked Disney's "do overs" in the end credits. They're always worse than the in-film version
Variety Beauty and the Beast also got character posters
MNPP a pic of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal we'd never seen before!
The Playlist on 30 breakouts of the Sundance Film Festival 
David Poland La La Land backlash and why you should give the movie its due

 

Boy Culture celebrities pay tribute to Mary Tyler Moore
MTV Teo Bugbee on Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People (1980) 
The Daily Beast Lois Smith has a breakout role at 86 in Marjorie Prime
Film Mixtape Chris Feil's top fifteen of the year
Art of the Title looks back at Madonna's Who's That Girl (1987) opening credits. Loved those
/Film Sing already set for a sequel for Christmas 2020
Unicorn Booty 100 intriguing LGBT artists, characters, and people to watch
Awards Watch shares the GALECA winners with prizes to Moonlight, The Dressmaker, Christine, The Handmaiden, and more 
Gurus of Gold rank the Oscar nominees in order of likelihood to win... 
Film School Rejects The Flash movie is going back to the drawing board. No script. No director.
MNPP on 'the tell' in tense films and Asghar Farhadi's crazy skill with them in The Salesman 
Variety Ben Affleck's Live by Night is a big financial loss for Warner Bros  

Q&A: Iconic Couples, Vote Counts, Favorite Kurosawas

There were so many good questions this week for the Q&A that we had to do this twice. Here are more questions asked of your host Nathaniel, and now answered. Thanks for being engaged readers!

Nicole & Ewan at MTV Movie Awards 2002Since there's been talk of how sweet it would be to see Leo and Kate both win Oscars this year, I've been thinking about recent screen couples that have captured audiences' imaginations in that way, that people would love to see win Oscars at the same time and I couldn't think of any quite on that level. Are there any post-Titanic screen couples you think of as legendary pop culture pairings? -EDWIN

Had Nicole Kidman & Ewan McGregor ever reteamed post Moulin Rouge! I think they might have become a screen couple like that. The fact that they haven't is a tragedy since we will love them until their dying day. You could argue that Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling (The Notebook) qualify. I think if Heath Ledger were still alive this might have happened with him and Jake Gyllenhaal since they're both such tremendous actors and liked each other quite a lot. It would have been fascinating to see them co-star in a second film in a totally different genre. 

The Film Experience is 1000% behind today's Hollywood realizing that reteaming stars who had insane chemistry is one of the best traditions of Old Hollywood. It's not only fun for fans, it's also marketable! Wouldn't you be so excited if Kate & Leo made a comedy together in 2018?

What's your favorite performance given by an animal actor? -TYLER

Asta as "Mr Smith" from The Awful Truth (1937) which is my first or second or third* favorite screwball comedy of all time. (It's hard to decide because they're so many great ones)

If it was up to you to decide, would you release the official vote counts from old Oscar ceremonies? Or would that take away the fun of endless speculating? is there a particular race you would want to know the official tally? - MARCELO

The answer and more after the jump...

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Remember When... (via Australia)

...Heath Ledger (sniffle) and Naomi Watts were a thing? 

at the premiere of The Ring (2002)

Aussie movie stars really have been ubiquitous for a long time. Though there were important actors before our contemporary time that hailed from the land down under (Erroll Flynn, Judith Anderson, Coral Browne to name a few), the Australian takeover really began in the mid-80s when, in the space of just a few years (1983-1986), Mel Gibson ascended, Bryan Brown had a mega TV hit, Judy Davis snagged a surprise Oscar nomination and Paul Hogan wrote and starred in his own blockbuster. Australian actors have only become more ubiquitous since with more of them coming to prominence each decade.

*Oscar nominated (or winner)

1980s: Mel Gibson*, Paul Hogan*, Judy Davis*, Bryan Brown
1990s: Nicole Kidman*, Toni Collette*, Russell Crowe*, Rachel Griffiths*, Geoffrey Rush*, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Anthony LaPaglia
2000s: Cate Blanchett*, Hugh Jackman*, Naomi Watts*, Heath Ledger*, Eric Bana, Abbie Cornish, Ryan Kwanten, Isla Fisher, Simon Baker
2010s: Jacki Weaver*, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Rose Byrne, Jason Clarke, Chris Hemsworth, Joel Edgerton, Sam Worthington, Ben Mendelsohn, Mia Wasikowska, Liam Hemsworth. If you include New Zealanders in the mix (Lynskey, Neill, Paquin, Lawless, Urban) it's even more crowded! 

Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson on the set of The Year of Living Dangerously -released in 1983, the year the Aussie invasion truly began

Who is next? Besides Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) and Sarah Snook (The Dressmaker)... anyone have any suspicions about the next wave?

Black History Month: Monster's Ball and Representation

We were just wrapping up Black History Month when I heard from longtime reader/commenter Philip Harville who wanted to discuss Monster's Ball (2001). I wasn't touching that one with a ten foot pole (!) but here's Philip with a guest column on this perpetual hot potato. -Editor

As we know, black films are hard to come by and good black films can be even harder to come by.  This raises the question of what exactly a black film is. Is it simply a film that focuses on black characters? Or do we need to also have a black crew telling the story? The conversations unraveling from that thought are endless, but watching a certain film recently got me thinking. Monster’s Ball’s Leticia (Halle Berry) really suffers from a white male perspective behind the camera. The film gained a wide audience crowning Halle Berry as the first black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar, but did it create the conversation it should have? Good black films aren’t exactly churned out with the frequency of superhero movies (or Tyler Perry movies), so a flawed complicated film is a gift in its own right.

The film isn’t set in a definitive year, though it seems to be in a time where lynching and protesting were out of style, and casual racism has become the norm. We see the generational divide on the issue between the three males in the central family. [More...]

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