Red Carpet Convos: Critics Choice Easter Eggs

Awards season is truly upon us. The red carpets are unfurled and waiting for the glitterati to trample them. Tomorrow night is the Golden Globes (we'll be here live-blogging it old' style if you'd like to join us!) but for now one last look back at the Critics Choice Awards held Thursday night. For this edition of Red Carpet Convos I've invited Joanna Robinson from Pajiba to join me. Joanna is a longtime reader of The Film Experience (she even won a contest once years ago!) and a delightful person, too. 

Nathaniel: Hey Joanna. Welcome. Let's start with the pastel field and uh... HAPPY EASTER!?!

Olsen, Pyle, Woodley, Miller, and Kruger

Joanna:  ‪As faberge as Elizabeth Olsen looks, I think she looks better than her "fashion plate" sisters have looked in years‬.

Nathaniel: ‪Give her time. If the Olsens practice hand-me-down fashions she's in trouble.‬ 

Joanna:  ‪I see burlap sacks in your future, girl!‬ Also, whoever designed Diane Kruger's dress hates both women and their anatomy.

This is Joanna! Go read her stuff.Nathaniel:  ‪Speaking of women and their anatomy. We've gone so "exotic" for this red carpet convo. I'm speaking to a biological woman.‬ 

Joanna:  ‪I have anatomy!‬ 

Nathaniel: What IS going on with that dress though. It's like her breasts are being caged in.

Joanna:  ‪And around her, um, lady garden?  Are those horns?  I am baffled.‬ 

Nathaniel:  ‪I was thinking it was a rare moment of restraint. The designer wanted to ‬‪trap her vagina in as tight as her breasts but decided to go "subtle"‬ 

Joanna:  ‪Speaking of subtlety, I actually think Missi Pyle looks lovely.  Really sweet.‬

Nathaniel: Agreed. Though sweet, lovely, and subtle aren't the adjectives I normally think of with Missi for which I entirely blame her for being so convincing and hilarious as a crude perpetually drunk and horny partier in Spring Breakdown. Tell me you've seen it!

Joanna:  ‪I haven't!  But her larger than life performances in Dodgeball and Big Fish are enough to make me a Pyle fan.  And her Lina Lamont impression in The Artist was perfection.‬ 

Nathaniel: Yes. I almost wanted there to be sound just so she could say "I CAINNNNNNtSTANNIT."‬

Funereal Black, Dashing Men, and "Team Help" after the jump...

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Say What? Jessica & Chloe

Amuse us. Add a caption or dialogue for this photo of Jessica Chastain and Chloe Moretz from last night's BFCA red carpet...

You know you want to!

Interview: Jessica Chastain's Big Year / Big Future

Jessica Chastain was in Morocco when we spoke, jurying on a film festival. Or was she in Toronto filming a movie? No, maybe she was right here in New York City or in Los Angeles for a premiere or event? Who can say. It's been a dizzying year. Her definition of "staying put", I quickly discover, is staying in one place for a whole week. "I don't think this is a normal year for an actor," she says understating the case.

Chastain reigns over 2011's movies

She sounds bright and cheerful and ready for more movies, believe it or not, though she admits that the year has been tough on her personal life. This past summer she starred in two of the most talked about films of the year (The Tree of Life and The Help) and in the fall she was doing press for four more (The Debt, Take Shelter, Coriolanus, The Texas Killling Fields). 

Though her characters are already multiple, she is but one woman. The movies we're seeing all at once she made over the span of a few years and she helpfully provided the order when asked:

• Wilde Salome ("My first film. It hasn't come out yet")
• Jolene 
• Stolen ("very small role")
• The Tree of Life
• The Debt
• Coriolanus
• Texas Killing Fields
• Take Shelter
• The Help ("I went straight from the set of Take Shelter")

I figure her sudden ubiquity is a good place to start the conversation...

"I'm fine right here" 

Nathaniel R: It's almost like you've sprung full grown from the head of Zeus for moviegoers.

JESSICA CHASTAIN: Which is so funny because I've been working so long!  But it does feel like this year with people starting to see my films they're asking "Where did you come from?" Well, I trained. I have been working for a long time.  You guys are just getting caught up . I didn't come out of nowhere.

NR: It just feels that way for us! I want to ask you about Take Shelter first. Long suffering wives of male leads -- how shall I put this? This type of part always runs the risk of feeling like a thankless stock role. How did you make it feel as specific as it does? That marriage is so vivid.

JC: It's funny. I think I teased Jeff [writer/director Jeff Nichols] quite a bit when we first started working together. I'm sure they were like "oh no…" because I do a lot of work before i show up on set. My script, it's not necessarily filled with answers but there are a lot of questions that I write down. In a scene in Take Shelter I might write down 'When's the last time he told me he loved me?'  Something like that which gets me thinking 'hmmmm, okay...'

For that movie I did that throughout the whole script. I had to make it so specific because my entire subtext in that film is "what's wrong with you?" but I can't say that the same way in every scene so I had to look for what's happened before each scene to make it as specific as possible. I really wanted to grasp it so much that on our first day I really embarrassed Jeff and Mike [Michael Shannon]. We're at lunch. The three of us sat down and I've got some questions. I looked at Jeff and said 'When do they have sex? I just wanna know.' Mike's mouth opened up, Jeff turns beet red.

'what's wrong with you?' Now, ask it in multiple unspoken ways.

[The Help, The Tree of Life and Chastain's future plans after the jump.]

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Jessica Chastain Geeks Out Around Celebs, Loves Madonna

I had a really fun chat with the suddenly ubiquitous Jessica Chastain recently. We had to reschedule twice as she galivanted 'round the Globe.

Jessica in Morocco earlier this month!

I'll post tomorrow but given that she's been racking up the precursor award nominations for The Help and winning critics prizes for the rest of her films, I had to ask her about her virginal prize this year, which she received in Venice... from MADONNA.

What a heady way to start your breakthrough year. Here's what she had to say about Madonna.

The first song I always think of is "Like a Virgin" [Laughs] I remember being a little girl and watching that music video. My aunt was obsessed with Madonna. I remember learning to dance and it being so inappropriate. I didn't even know what it meant "like a virgin" but I remember the dance moves and "touched for the very first time", all of that stuff!

There's something about Madonna. I look at her now and her whole career and all of the incarnations she's had and forms of self expression and it's so empowering, especially for a woman. I look at her and think if I could have a smidgeon, a small percentage of the power she has within herself, the strength and desire to tell a story through song, through film? That's what i aspire to.  

Meeting Madonna.

Meeting everyone.

Working with Brad Pitt...

How is she handling being thrown into this world of superstar celebrity?

I geek out on people all the time. I've embarrassed myself in front of Meryl Streep! I've embarrassed myself in front of Zach Galifanakis! I stutter a lot when I first meet people. When i first met Helen Mirren I think I only said 'Hi. Nice to meet you' and three hours later 'Goodbye.' I am not the most comfortable in the beginning!"

She tells me she has to push herself through the uncomfortable shyness. Push away, Jessica, push away. Given the year you've had and the career that's likely to follow, this will clearly need to change.

more Jessica | more Madonna | more interviews

P.S. If you've never seen clips of that award she received in Venice and Madonna's presentation you can do so after the jump.

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It's Michelle/Marilyn for Dallas, Florida, Vegas and Chicago

The critical map continues to unfold with only three films scoring repeatedly: The Artist, The Descendants and The Tree of Life. All of them recently picking up another "best of year" prize. I had expected Hugo to feature more prominently after its high profile NBR win but that hasn't come to pass. But isn't it awfully nice to see a year with three major critical players even if you don't much like one of them (for me that's The Descendants). In short: Death to sweeps!

Michelle Williams is dominating the critics awards

While she's not quite a sweeper Michelle Williams is going to be on a lot of airplanes if she intends to attend all of these critics ceremonies that plan to honor her work in My Week With Marilyn! After the jump prizes from... Chicago and St. Louis who both just announced, Dallas Ft Worth, Florida, and Las Vegas (which I missed last week oopsie).

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