Eight Hateful Links

• New Now Next Jesus. I can't believe we haven't mentioned this but the First Wives Club actresses are finally reuniting - Goldie, Bette, & Diane will star in a Netflix film called Divanation, as a former pop trio reuniting. I was going to shout "when can we buy tickets?" but it's Netflix so...
• Salt Lake Tribune the Utah Film Critics took Fury Road to Best Picture but how's this for fun: They gave Rose Byrne in Spy their Best Supporting Actress prize.
• Cinematic Corner Sati doesn't like Carol (wha!?!?!) but she still makes great lists so we'll pretend we hadn't just learned this about her. Anyway... this one is on her favorite things about Mad Max Fury Road

• Forbes suggests that Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth etc... give you the most ROI at the box office given their salaries per film. The list is kind of interesting but bankability is so intangible since many of today's stars don't have colossal box office because they are selling tickets but because they are playing characters who sell tickets -- notice how many Marvel superheroes make this list.
• MNPP Colton Haynes and Luke Evans have something in common
• /Film Star Wars may be the only franchise getting ink this month but James Cameron won't want to see his records destroyed. He is still promising Avatar 2 for 2017
• The Wrap has been experimenting with Oscar math for years trying to see if we'd ever get a 10 wide year under the new system. This year their experiment ended with 10 pictures. And this plays like sound reasoning on what type of year we'd need to get ten nominees:

A larger-than-usual number of films got votes, but a smaller-than-usual number of them had strong support.

So the question is: do you think it's that kind of year? Here's our current Best Picture Chart

• and finally... 
I don't plan to review Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight since I've been slagging it off on Twitter and gave it the #2 spot in my Worst of 2015 list and who needs to be so toxic during the holidays? In short my review goes like this: "the best part was intermission". So to make amends to the Tarantino devotees among you, please enjoy Joe Reid's 50 Best Performance in Tarantino Movies list. I would naturally quibble with the order. Bridget Fonda's awesome "Melanie" in Jackie Brown and Amanda Plummer's hysterical "Honeybunny" from Pulp Fiction are among my favorites and neither even make the top 35! Both are lower than Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained which is puzzling as he gives the weakest of leading performance in the Tarantino filmography (think about it). The top three are all marvelous Oscar worthy choices and I'm pleased that most of the Kill Bill players rank highly. Over the years Kill Bill has sliced such a distinctive but clean and familiar path through the center of Tarantino's filmography that I now consider it his best work, hands down. Or limbs off as the case may be for so many of its unfortunate extras.

If you must know I'd rank the principle performances in The Hateful Eight like so: Samuel L Jackson ≥ Walton Goggins >>> Kurt Russell > Demian Bichir >> Jennifer Jason Leigh (sorry, she's never done much for me as an actor. I'm aware that this is an unpopular opinion amongst film critics) > Bruce Dern > Tim Roth >> Michael Madsen (who sadly is given very little to do). If you plan to see the sadist western over the Christmas break, we would be interested in hearing your opinion despite feeling hateful ourselves. 

Visual Index ~ Jackie Brown's (Best) Shots

Twenty-one entries (!!!)  have come in for this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot featuring Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997). It's all to honor the popular auteur's 50th birthday. Jackie Brown is something of an anomaly in his filmography so it's a good one to revisit.

Unfortunately I've had some bad news today so I'm not sure when my own article will be up. In the meantime, and by all means, enjoy these fine articles. Click on the chosen Best Shot in our HMWYBS series and you'll be carried off to its corresponding article.

Enjoy all the shots (and their clickable articles) in semi-linear order after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Linky Brown

Vulture "How to Hug a Puppy" by Tom Hardy
Cinema Blend one man Disney Princess meets real world musical... after the ever after part
Pajiba best performances from SXSW films 

CHUD Veronica Mars and the invention of "pay to pay for play" 
i09 producers "notes" on Blade Runner... which they hated 
NPR on real life Ginger & Rosas in the 60s  
Empire on the latest big project director shuffle - Ang Lee considering a Spielberg drop and Tom Hooper looking at the Sacha Baron Cohen Freddie Mercury biopic
Coming Soon star portraits from the final day of The Wolverine production. Hugh Jackman and the ladies
Guardian the writer of the fake Haneke twitter account on Michael Haneke

Finally, if you're in Gotham, you should know that PAM GRIER, Jackie Brown and Foxy Brown herself, is getting the weekend festival treatment at the Walter Reade right now. She'll be appearing tonight for an interview before the screening of Jackie Brown (coming up on "Hit Me") and also making a midnight appearance at Scream Blacula, Scream. On Sunday she gets a full hour interview with film clips. Tickets are still available for some of the shows. And if you haven't seen any of her 70s blacksploitation movies, you owe it to yourself to see at least one.

Next on "Hit Me..."

Coming Next on “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” which we're pleased to see off to such a fine communal start with Barbarella and Oz. Join us. The more the merrier. All you need is any sort of webspace wherein to post your image (twitter, tumblr, blogger, etcetera) and eyeballs with which to choose a Best Shot from the chosen films.

Wed March 20th
Forbidden Games (1952). The director René Clement's centennial is this week so why not look back on this Best Foreign Film Oscar Winner which combines two of the Academy's favorite things in that category: Children and World War II (available on Netflix instant watch)
Wed March 27th
Jackie Brown (1997). That’ll be Quentin Tarantino week here at TFE as we celebrate the filmmaker’s whole oeuvre for his 50th birthday
Wed April 3rd 
I'm thinking a Short Film Special as time will be short. Details TBA but I'll make it/they are available online.
Wed April 10th
Jurassic Park (1993). Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster will be back in theaters in three dimensions. See it there and describe it or see it at home and screencap it. Or both but play along.

Top Ten: Greatest Lone Oscar Nods of the Past 20 Years

Glenn here with another look at one of my favourite bi-products of the Oscar season. They’re the nominations that we sometimes forget about (unless it’s Norbit – we all remember that one!), but which forever brand a movie as “Oscar nominated”. Sometimes they’re the result of one aspect of a film sucking up all the energy in the room, and sometimes they’re the result of a prickly film finding an appreciative consensus in one category. Oh sure, all of the films below probably deserve the sort of Oscar haul that will greet Les Mis, Lincoln, or Argo, but receiving just one makes for fun statistics and even more fun list making! Let’s count down the best films of the last 20 years to receive just one nomination* on Oscar morning, and take a look at the films of 2012 that could very well reap a similar fate in 37 days.

*We’re going to exclude films that competed only in the animated/foreign/documentary categories since the Academy assigns them a ghetto for reason.

serial killer films don't usually generate the multiple Oscar wins of Silence of the Lambs

Honourable Mentions: I couldn’t go further without mentioning Tarsem Singh’s The Cell (Best Makeup, 2000) and David Fincher’s Se7en (Best Editing, 1995) since these two audaciously constructed classics of the serial killer subgenre are such bold choices for the Academy in their respective categories. They make a particularly disturbing double feature, too. You’ll be disgusted at the world for weeks!

The Best Single Nominee Films of the Past Twenty Years

10. Monster (Lead Actress, 2003)
I’m most definitely on Team Nick Davis when it comes to this captivating portrayal of an unravelling American life. Told as if through hazy, overly orchestrated memory pieces, Patty Jenkins’ film about Aileen Wuornos arguably deserved more credit than just for Charlize Theron’s pulverising central portrayal. A makeup nomination was the least the Academy could have done.

And in 2012: Now that tsunami disaster drama The Impossible has been nixed from the visual effects category, surely its only strong shot at a nomination is for star Naomi Watts. Will the Academy recognise the desperate plight of a white woman in danger? Probably.

Nine more achievements and their possible mirrors this year are after the jump...

Click to read more ...