And the Links Go To...

People say such strange things when they're talking about Oscars
• Bwin predicts Leo will lose the Oscar. One especially weird bit of reasoning is that all of the Actor nominees are playing good guys. Um, did they watch Steve Jobs?
• The Guardian says a "conservative" estimate is that Australians will win 10 Oscars tomorrow. Conservative? Have they not heard of The Revenant?
• /Film Stunt people want their own Oscar and recently protested again. Unfortunately they also felt the need to belittle other industry talents saying: 

 People love action; that’s why people go to the movies. No disrespect, but who goes to the movies to see the hairstyles?”

*raises hand*

More Oscar Mania
• Vanity Fair fun interview with nominated Jenny Beavan, Mad Max Fury Road costume designer, with a choice Charlize Theron quote
• Boston Globe really interesting piece from Ty Burr on "what if the Oscars didn't exist..." and it takes you to place I personally wasn't expecting
• Psychology Today on why we're obsessed with the Oscars. STOP PSYCHOANALYZING ME! 
• IndieWire Ira Deutchman suggests changes to make the Academy more diverse. "First film" would be interesting and skew young but I am adamantly opposed to breakthrough since that is too easily gamed -- see the "breakthrough" prizes Charlize Theron won for Monster after several years of stardom. We'd have a whole new category fraud problem with that.
• The Guardian has an interesting take on the Short Film categories -- why don't people watch them when they're increasingly available -- and why do they feel like commercials for features? 
• Variety beautiful reminiscence from Alfre Woodard on her earliest theatrical success and her 80s Oscar nomination 
• Tim Brayton's Oscar Predictions 
• Movie Motorbreath's Oscar Predictions 

General Film
• Interview ZOMG Julianne Moore interviewing Christina Vachon!
• Instagram The Sleeping Beauty dragon via LEGOs! 
• i09 JJ Abrams is claiming Star Wars will feature gay characters. I'll believe that when I see it (but until then it's fun that Oscar Isaac winked to queer fans with Poe Dameron. And also the Star Wars Saga is largely asexual anyway so...

Off Cinema
• Pajiba nails Marco Rubio with a great Turing Test joke
• i09 Bram Stoker Awards -- for horror fiction. Which of these will end up as movies?
• /Film Tom McCarthy is going to follow up Spotlight with a Netflix series called 13 Reasons Why... it's based on a bestseller but honestly the suicidal premise sounds atrocious / reductive. Already worried!
• Jeanne the Fangirl amazing find - a letter to Marvel from 1974 complaining about Iron Fist's whitewashing. Here we are in 2016 and Marvel is STILL planning a white Iron Fist even though the story is Asian by origin
• Playbill.com has a badly needed redesign. Check it out if you love Broadway 

Today's Watch
A Cat predicting the Oscars. (Monty, TFE's Oscar predicting cat, wouldn't cooperate this year but he's always been temperamental about his psychic duties. Also: he's very very old now and only wants to sleep.) So anyway here is some random cat who thinks he can do it. Rampling, eh?

Link Roundup and a "Trumbo" Shout-out on the Hill

David Poland on why certain films overperform or underperform come Oscar time. Much of this is both true and frustrating. Why couldn't Warner Bros see what they had in Creed for example?  
Comics Alliance on the fan campaign to make Iron Fist an Asian hero in the new tv eries. So far Marvel/Netflix has rejected the idea which is just maddening since the origin story is pretty racist in modern context.
The Envelope interviews Julianne Nicholson who was so so good in Black Mass
Word and Film An interview with actress Ileanna Douglas (we've missed her) about her new memoir "I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories From a Life Lived In and Out of the Movies"

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw picks his favorite films in multiple categories
Variety Guy Lodge's top ten list. It won't surprise you to hear that it's a good read. And Joy and Magic Mike XXL are on it keeping things provocative.
Pajiba John Krasinski is on his way to a Chris Pratt like reinvention. Trying to keep up with wife Emily Blunt perhaps?
Variety Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette reprised their famous roles at Jason Reitman's live reading of True Romance. How fun.
The Playlist says Jennifer Lawrence is going to play Robert De Niro's dad in the next David O. Russell film. Now they're just purposefully antagonizing us now, right? 
Awards Daily Spotlight takes the Las Vegas Film Critics prize for Best Picture
Daily Herald Mad Max Fury Road takes Best Picture from the Chicago Film Critics Association 
AV Club Sean Penn to play Andrew Jackson in an HBO miniseries. Sadly it is not a remake of the Broadway musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" but we'd rather see that! ...albeit with its original Jackson, Benjamin Walker in the lead role

Off Cinema
Rolling Stone Readers Poll of the 10 best songs of the year: Adele, Madonna, Drake and more 
Boing Boing Matt Haughey is a genius -- he started photoshopping dildos where guns were in photos of GOP candidates and it's both funny and satirically pointed 
The Daily Beast best TV shows of 2015: UnReal, The Knick, Empire and more...

Star Wars ♫  give me more Star Wars...Nothing but Star Wars ♬  don't let them end...
Thrillist unearths a time capsule of photos from the premiere of The Phantom Menace (1999). Dakota Johnson is just a baby!
Pajiba "a serious discussion of which original trilogy Star Wars character is best in bed" Hilarious. The gif game is strong with this one. (I agree with the rankings pretty much but I'd still do Luke.)
Screen Crush on the diversity of casting in The Force Awakens 

Today's Watch
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) honored Kirk Douglas on the floor for his 99th birthday! It's always shocking when someone in Congress does something cool but apparently this Cohen fellow is a good guy with a strong civil rights record so there you go. But mentioning a screening of Trumbo in DC? That movie's reach has been such a surprise this month.

ICYMI we sang the praises of New Zealand actor Dean O'Gorman who plays Kirk Douglas in the movie here. 

Tilda, The Ancient One

Tilda Swinton has said that had she not met the avant-garde filmmaker Derek Jarman in the 1980s she might never have become an actress. He was unorthodox enough to understand her unusual path...

brilliant news after the jump

Click to read more ...