Who's Your Favorite Dame?

Imelda Staunton. Photographed by David Rose. [Source]Here's Murtada on his favorite subject; British ladies of a certain age who delight on screen and stage.

Happy New Year! Some Brits usher in the new year celebrating their newly bestowed knighthoods. This year Queen Elizabeth II honors, among others, Idris Elba and David Oyelowo. There are different designations to the honor. For example Imelda Staunton became a CBE i.e. not yet a Dame but well on her way. It’s obvious The Queen hasn’t ventured out to the theater in 2015 or Staunton would be Dame Squared for her triumphant Mama Rose alone.

This year’s newly minted Dames are British TV stalwart Barbara Windsor (EastEnders, the Carry On movies) and Welsh stage veteran Sian Phillips (Daniel Day Lewis’ mother in The Age of Innocence), who was once Mrs. Peter O’Toole.

But when we talk dames we mostly talk about the holy trinity who still have vibrant movie careers: Judi, Maggie and Helen. No last names necessary if you say Dame first. Oscars and other awards, big successes on the boards on both sides of the Atlantic and long thriving careers for all three.

But who is your favorite? To help you decide let’s dig a bit deeper. [More...]

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Oscar Race: How Crazy Are Those SAG Awards, Really?

Coco here, ready to talk about the current Oscar race and those crazy SAG awards in particular.

As you already know, the Screen Actors Guild decided to honor the best acting of 2015 in the most bizarre way possible; handing the most nominations to blacklist Hollywood drama Trumbo, and nominating a number of performances whose inclusion range from surprising to outright insane. 

Don't worry, I'm not here to defend SAG's ridiculous choices. I'm here to do what The Film Experience best at: speculate about Oscar nominations. See, the other day I saw someone on Twitter say he'd be surprised if any of this year's SAG categories are repeated 5-for-5 at the Oscars. This comment got me thinking...

Although the amount of correlation between SAG and Oscar has gone down a bit in the last couple years, the math still says that at least one of Oscar's acting categories will look identical to SAG's. The question I'm here to answer is: which one?

Lots of awards spaculation after the jump. 

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Holiday Podcast Part 1: The Ballot Rush

Nathaniel, Nick, Katey, and Joe all return for a two part discussion -- something you can listen to while you're travelling for the holidays, a gift from us to you. This was recorded on December 13th (apologies for the delay) so it predates the Critics Choice nominations and subsequent Star Wars kerfuffle which is why we don't discuss those. But we're here to talk precursors and more. (Part Two will be up tonight)

42:30 minutes 
00:01 The Big Short is suddenly a factor. Why?
07:30 Helen Mirren in Trumbo and Woman in Gold
11:00 Sarah Silverman and Best Actress
15:00 Randomness and SAG voters
22:00 Spotlight and the Globes
24:30 Rooney Mara & Alicia Vikander & BFCA
32:00 Best Director & Picture Possibilities
35:00 Original Song Contenders
40:20 Weird Stats plus Hair and Makeup

Further Reading for Context:
SAG Nominations
Globe Nominations
Original Song's 74 Contenders
Oscar Charts

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Holiday Podcast Pt 1

SAG Award Nominations

Early this morning while waiting for the Screen Actors Guild Nominations to come i wondered out loud "what will be the insane 'Naomi Watts in St Vincent' nomination today?". No one could have expected that the answer would be "all of them".

Ladies and gentlemen the weirdest bunch of nominations ever for the SAG AWARDS which will be broadcast on Saturday January 30th on TBS/TNT. Many people will be rethinking their Oscar predictions this morning but it's important to remember that there is extremely little overlap between nominating committee members of SAG (chosen at random each year from their huge membership) and Oscar's acting branch (a few thousand elite people). 

In fact, Melodipopvision is correct when she suggests "Isn't SAG basically now an annual list of "prestige actors I've liked in some other stuff"?"

Normally we love surprises during awards season but when they're as unfortunate as so many of these surprises this morning, the terror begins to set in. What kind of Oscars are we going to get this year?

Nominations with commentary & statistics after the jump...

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Top 10 Delights from the Gotham Awards

Chris here. If you weren't watching last night's live stream of the IFP's Gotham Awards, you missed a delightful night of more surprise and unfiltered humor than most televised awards ceremonies.

Director & Muse reunited

Everything is still feeling optimistic with the awards season, so the fun moments and surprise winners were as fresh and intriguing as ever for the Gothams!

10 Takeways From the Gothams

• Julianne Moore Gave Todd Haynes A Tribute Award And It Was Everything You Could Imagine: There's no video available yet to share, but what a treat. Moore was effusive in her affection for her frequent collaborator, sharing [safe] anecdotes and praising Haynes's warmth. Haynes's speech was career-spanning, but not longwinded, with the highlight being his praise of producing partner Christine Vachon. Carol went home empty-handed and didn't feature much in the tribute reel but the love in the for the filmmaker was palpable even through the playback feed. Here's hoping the Gotham tribute adds a little more steam to the film's increasing momentum.

• Our New Favorite Besties, Shugs and Fats: Nadia Manzoor and Radhka Vaz's show walked away Breakthrough Series - Short Form and best speech of the night, where they joked about not thanking their families.

• The Juries: Each category had a unique panel deciding the winner, with the members listed out before the prize is awarded. Bel Powley doesn't feel like such a surprising winner if you consider her jury included the likes of Lisa Kudrow and John Waters. Imagining them discussing the film is heaven!

• Paul Dano: His work in Love and Mercy is among my personal favorite sof the year and he was charmingly sincere and understated in his speech. I fear this is as far as he gets with recognition for the film, though the Youth team is out and about, but it was exciting to see him take home a prize after a more than a decade of undervalued work.

• We Don't Hate Anything Yet: The tide of viscious takedowns has not reached us yet and lets keep our fingers crossed that it takes longer this year to get a million thinkpieces on what is bad about a single frontrunner.

• Dirty Jokes About the Queen: While Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel bombed with dirty jokes about Her Royal Highness and Helen Mirren in particular, Mirren showed the boys how it's done with a charmingly naughty anecdote about seeing herself in the role.

• So How About Helen Mirren's Dress??: I joked about its juvenile print, but I unashamedly LOVE it. If we all could have fun like Mirren has fun, the world would be a happier place.

• The Missed Opportunity of a Mya Taylor Acceptance Speech: She won the Breakthrough Actor Award for her work in Tangerine, but director Sean Baker had to accept on her behalf due to her missing her plane. He took the moment to champion trans performers, but it would have been heartening to hear the woman speak for herself.

• Indie TV: While quality television dominating isn't a new topic, it was interesting to note we don't have much discussion or recognition for TV that's independently produced. Let's see if there is more conversation around this as our viewing options continue to grow.

• Awarding the Angelika: The First Gotham Appreciation Award was given to Ellen Cotter of the Angelika Film Center, an independent theatre chain with its flagship in NYC. Theatres themselves play such a part in our relationship to the movies we love, and independent cinema houses especially deserve recognition for nurturing our passions - this prize is swell!