Once Upon a Time in the Link

I have been remiss at sharing good stories and posts from around the web so I hereby return to it.

Pop Matters Jose takes another look at Marion Cotillard's work in Rust & Bone and contemplates Oscar
Pop Elegantarium Alexa loves the screwball comedy of David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook 
Sam Hiti Once Upon a Time in the West fans should check out this artists tumblr 
The Hot Blog David Poland on the NYFCC winners
Cinema Blend two Woody Allen classics coming to Blu-Ray this January 

EW top ten lists from popular critics Owen (Lincoln @ #1) & Lisa (Zero Dark Thirty @ #1). They both choose one Oscar hopeful among their "5 worst of the year" lists, too.
E! Online Rose McGowan is the latest actress trying to achieve Michelle Pfeiffer's now immortal Scarface look 
Antagony & Ecstasy wonderful piece on Life of Pi by one of the web's best critics 
The Carpet Bagger talks to the editor of Flight about the plane crash scene 
My New Plaid Pants who wore it best: animated decapitation
In Contention I totally forgot to mention the Golden Satellite nominations. Lots of love for Les Miz but also weird nominations for films that never opened in the States like Kim Ki-Duk's Piéta so I'm not sure what their criteria is for eligibility anymore

Coming Soon Anne Hathaway recently burst into tears when asked about doing a Catwoman spinoff, adding

...assuming there was enough Kleenex in the world, I would love to do a spin-off

poll by twiigs.com

Vulture Speaking of Anne Hathaway. Sort of. a screening of Les Misérables that I would've killed to be it for Academy and Globe members. Hugh Jackman sang and lap danced for birthday girl Amanda Seyfried 
Gawker on the 13 most powerful images of naked celebrities for 2012 
In Contention Pedro Almodóvar, as you know my favorite living filmmaker, will be getting an Academy tribute in London. I'm so jealous of Guy Lodge right now who gets to attend these London events
Stale Popcorn Glenn on Australia's film award nominations (formerly AFI and now called AACTA) . The musical The Sapphires leads.
Cinema Blend Casey Affleck stayin' creepy. He aims to play the Boston Strangler in a new film 

Finally, Grease superstars of yore, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John made a new video together for their Christmas album.

No comment. My inner child loves Livvy & Grease too much to comment. (Other than that John Travolta who not so unrecently commanded $20 million a movie maybe could have spared two hundred thousand dollar bills so this didn't look like it was made for two!)

The Edge of Linky

Geekologie What if Disney villains had won? Fun illustrations of our favorites including Ursula & Maleficent 
Pajiba reads my mind on the Olivia Newton-John / John Travolta Christmas Album !!! Well they read my mind except the part where the article is all obsessed about John Travolta's fake hair instead of Sandy & Danny reunited again! 
Film Dr 10 Notes on Looper and the reciprocal nature of violence
Fleshbot *NSFW* Daniel Radcliffe gets naked for The F Word and Kill Your Darlings. After this and Equus... maybe he's telling us he's a naturist? 

Gawker Liam Neeson does his naked part for charity on "Ellen"
Badass Digest interesting piece on the splintering of pop culture. Film may no longer rule, but neither does anything else.
Playbill Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, the musically inclined feature that starred Frances McDormand, Amy Adams and Lee Pace may be headed for the Broadway musical stage 
In Contention Beasts of the Southern Wild won't be honored at the SAG Awards who have ruled it ineligible. This could put a dent in Quvenzhané Wallis Best Actress hopes if you ask me since SAG has historically liked little girl performances even more than Oscar.

Team Experience
Pop Elegantarium Alexa loves Looper and Looper paintings by the director's brother
Stale Popcorn Glenn kicks off a miniseries 31 Horrors with Cat People (1982)
MNPP JA loves Barry Levinson's The Bay 
Serious Film Michael survives ocean storms with The Life of Pi 

Exit Music
The hilarious Rebel Wilson sang from her "breast voice" for her Pitch Perfect audition

Tall Tales. Short Links

Village Voice the five most dream-like sequences from the John Travolta sex-assault allegations. (Hint: The comment section is hi-lar-ious. I especially love the pizza delivery analogy)
YouTube has one of those Taiwanese "news" animations about it.
When Obama Endorsed Marriage Equality... (gif parties ahead -- love the '95 Clueless shout-out)
La Daily Musto Tippi Hedren (of The Birds fame) claims that Alfred Hitchcock put the kabosh on her Best Actress Oscar nomination for their follow up Marnie . Um, Tippi... how would he do that exactly? Ol' Hitch didn't even have enough pull with AMPAS to win one for himself!

Link Shop

Fandor Sheila O'Malley on Melissa Leo's career and her ship coming in.
Movie|Line 5 Ways The Social Network can reclaim its Oscar mojo.
Observations on Film Art Facial acting "less with the eyebrows" in The Social Network.
Playbill Actress Jane Lynch releasing a memoir in the fall. Fun.Vulture Harvey Weinstein's canny talking points to win The King's Speech votes. Not to be an ass but should anyone really hold up John Travolta as a taste-maker with a straight face? Yes, that filmography sure shows hisimpeccable taste in movies!
Movie | Line Sundance 11's Most Likely to Succeed

Self-Styled Siren "For the Love of Film Noir" blog-a-thon and restoration fundraiser in mid February
AV Club asks if they'd ever really give Banksy the doc Oscar for a heavily fictional oddity like Exit Through the Gift Shop
Pop Matters - Interesting piece on the fallible businees of naming "bests" and awardage in general.

We don’t sort art, it sorts us. Which piece of art tops the list says less about the quality of the art than who made the list. The shiny statuettes are shaped like human beings, because they signify the very human process by which they are awarded.

Finally, JA at MY NEW PLAID PANTS has begun to announce his annual Golden Trousers honors which includes "moments of awesomeness" like this one from Sofia Coppola's Somewhere...

My favorite part of SOMEWHERE

They're always good wacky fun to be had peering into JA's inimitable fever-addled brain.