Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Julianne Moore's Birthday

Kieran, here taking a brief respite from the holidays (read: Oscar season) to wish a very happy birthday to Julianne Moore. Between her tribute to Todd Haynes at the Gotham Awards and her very funny “Billy on the Street" segment it’s a good week to celebrate the Academy Award-winning actress. Just glancing at her filmography, she’s gifted the world of cinema with so much to be thankful for and she’s surely got a lot more left to give. It’s far too rare that the great actors of any generation also become Oscar winners. Before Still Alice many had assumed it was over for Moore in terms of ever copping the statue. Seeing her ascend the stage to collect her Academy Award earlier this year, it never felt so good to be so wrong.

So, on this, Julianne’s birthday...

Appropriate Ways To Celebrate

1. Relax with some yoga.

 2. Bake a cake. Watch the sifting flour. "Isn't it pretty? It's just like snow."

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Required Viewing: Julianne Moore Acts for Tips in Times Square

I was hoping to hear a little Boogie Nights! But this will more than do. Billy Eichner is a national treasure. Or at least a regional treasure. Does he go over well in the southwest?

P.S. Mark Harris made a funny about this video on twitter.

ALL Oscar campaigns are basically this brilliant @billyeichner segment w/ Julianne Moore acting for tips in Times Sq.

It's funny because it's truthy.

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!

Moore and Haynes, Reunited At Last

Manuel here. In news that seem tailor-made for The Film Experience readership in general and Nathaniel in particular, Julianne Moore* is teaming up once again with her Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes. 

(Pause as we all gay gasp).

As you'll remember, Nat was already ecstatic about this project back when it was announced earlier in the year and while our host has been having a ball lately — in Los Angeles he overheard some Oscar whisperings, hob-knobbed with Adepero Oduye (!), Gena Rowlands (!!), Ian McKellen and The Lovely Laura Linney (!!!), and caught various films, you have to be sure that the news will surely knock him out all over again with glee.

Wonderstruck, for those of you who managed to regain consciousness after hearing "Moore" and "Haynes" in the same sentence, is Brian Selzknick's 2011 picture book/novel hybrid that follows two interconnected narratives, one set in 1927 and one in 1977 (in true Selznick fashion, one is told purely in pictures, the other purely in words) and involves a little girl obsessed with an actress and a boy intent on finding some family history that remains a mystery to him. For those of us who have already seen Carol, there is no doubt that Haynes is at the top of his game, so the fact that his next directorial project is coming together so quickly (no more waiting 8 years for another film!) is a welcome development. That it includes Moore? Well, that's just the juiciest cherry on top.

*This is your weekly reminder that Julianne Moore won an Oscar.

Belated Thoughts on "Freeheld"

Freeheld, the civil rights drama based on the Oscar-winning documentary short of the same name, hasn't made an impact at the box office or with critics but it really should've been featured on The Film Experience of all places. We apologize for the delay but better late than never... especially when it involves dying wishes!

First a wee bit of background: Autospell keeps trying to change the title to "Freehold". For what it's worth the Freeholders, a local county governing board, are the antagonists of the picture. They're a group of men who deny local hero cop Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore) her dying wish that her pension go to her domestic partner Stacie Andree (Ellen Page) when she dies. The only thing that keeps the Freeholders in the human realm and away from cartoon moustache-twirling is Bryan Kelder (Josh Charles), the most conflicted of them who doesn't see what the big deal is about granting her wish but also isn't conflicted enough to put his career on the line and he's running for a bigger office soon. The boards refusal stirs up a firestorm of activism in her home county in New Jersey

Here are a handful of thoughts on the movie...

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