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. 

Black Mass and Acting Beats

If there's a surprise SAG Best Ensemble nominee this year on December 9th, you should fully expect it to be Black Mass. Not that something can be a surprise when you fully expect it but let's not split hairs. Especially not hairs carefully threaded through bald caps.

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Critics Choice TV Nominations 2015

The BFCA's sibling, the BTJA (Broadcast Television Journalist Association) has released their nominations for the 2014/2015 television season. Let it serve as your annual reminder that for as much as the world likes to complain about official industry-insider nominations each year, sometimes critics don't improve it a whole lot. I mean this is a whole separate organization and they still can't bother to nomination RuPaul for reality television categories? The Shade of It All. They're still nominating Jessica Lange for American Horror Story even though she looked fairly bored to be there this year doing the same ole thing (faded has been beauty desperate to hold on to her glory) in a show that's meant to give its actors new characters to play each year. They also skipped on Mad Men's final season which is pretty unforgiveable if you ask me given how excellent it's been. But perhaps with the nominations hitting this early, they voted before they had seen much of it. 

The best thing I can say for them is that they don't seem to be trying to predict the Emmys at all (witness the low showing for Game of Thrones and Modern Family for example) which we can only hope will happen one of these years with the BFCAs in relation to the Oscars. Their nominations, which you've already guessed horrify me beyond a surprise nod for horrified Eva Green are after the jump...

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"Poor Ivy”: August: Osage County’s Underappreciated MVP

Here's Andrew to celebrate the release of last year's embattled August: Osage County newly arrived on DVD. Significant spoilers ahead.

Each year there's at least one film which wins middling to good reviews and manages Oscar nods but is promptly forgotten as soon as it's released. August: Osage County was 2013's victim of that unfortunate annual tradition. Sure, it earned those two acting nominations it seemed assured early on but no one was particularly interested in talking about any aspect of August: Osage County, but for its Oscar belly-flop elsewhere and the Oscar queen at the centre. Perhaps, it was an automated response to Meryl Streep usually being at the centre of films with little else to offer than her star turn (The Iron Lady, Julie & Julia, Music of the Heart, etcetera). It's a shame because the former awards’ hopeful had so much more to celebrate than just the fire-breathing matriarch in the middle.

The strongest asset was undoubtedly that excellent cast. Aside from Streep and Roberts, only a few players picked up significant praise and even then the one most deserving was the one afforded hardly any attention: Julianne Nicholson as middle-child Ivy.

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AFI Fest 2013 - Part 1 Disney, Actresses, and Accidents

I would like to personally thank Anne Marie for being an awesome L.A. tour guide, personal GPS, and screening companion during my week long trip. Here's her first of two roundups from the festival that just wrapped. I'll have more to say myself over the weekend - Nathaniel

Walt courts Mrs Travers for the hand of Mary Poppins in cinematic marriage

Last week AFI invaded Hollywood Blvd for the 2013 AFI Fest, a free film festival presenting a handful of buzzworthy features and old classics. Though it may not be the largest festival in Los Angeles, it is one of the flashiest given the star-studded evening galas and tributes, and it made good use of the newly renovated and renamed TCL Chinese Theater. This, my first festival on the job, saw me running up and down Hollywood Blvd like a film-obsessed Alfred P. Doolittle yelling, “Get me to the Chinese on time!” By the time I’d wiped the glitter from my eyes and caught my breath, I’d seen 9-ish movies in 7 days. Not bad for a neophyte with a day job! Here’s what I saw:

Day 1: Saving Mr. Banks - A Disney movie about a Disney classic is going to be heartwarming and sweet in all the ways you’d expect. Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks have delightful chemistry. Considering how long we’ve been missing these two (am I the only one who feels like Emma Thompson’s been mostly absent since at least An Education?), having both Thompson and Hanks triumphantly return together in the same film is a Disney-manufactured miracle. Nathaniel actually chatted with Emma Thompson and Colin Farrell, so he can fill in the rest.

Day 2: August: Osage County - I saw the play in 2008, and I’m still wondering if that helped or hurt my viewing of the film. Tracy Letts blessedly adapted the play to the screen, so the biting language that made the original so good remains intact. There’s a definite nomination in store for him. Of course the most buzz surrounds the actresses: Meryl is Meryl is Meryl so enough said there. Continuing this year’s trend of strong performances from actresses I don’t usually like (the first being Sandra Bullock in Gravity), Julia Roberts gives her best performance in a long while. I think that fact is what might be overshadowing Margot Martindale buzz-wise, which is unfortunate because Martindale rips through her role like a tornado on the prairie.

Julianne & Juliette at the AFI premiere

As for the sisters: I was partial to Julianne Nicholson, while Nathaniel seemed to prefer Juliette Lewis. One thing on which we both agreed was that nobody does the film festival dress like Juliette. Hot. Damn.

Day 3 Part 1: Cleo From 5 to 7 - The Godmother of the New Wave Agnes Varda was AFI Fest’s honored icon this year. Here's more on her pre-screening interview. But I would like to take this opportunity to say again that Cleo From 5 to 7 remains a masterpiece. If you haven’t seen it already, watch it while you’re waiting for the rest of these movies to open.

Day 3 Part 2: Out of the Furnace - The second film by Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper is a relentlessly bleak portrait of the death of smalltown America. Christian Bale and Casey Affleck play two blue-collar brothers, one imprisoned for a mistake and the other out of the army and into illegally boxing for money. Both play their parts admirably (assisted by Zoe Saldana and Forrest Whitaker) but are overshadowed by the shockingly terrifying Woody Harrelson playing a sociopathic redneck. Harrelson’s performance, as well as haunting desaturated cinematography and gritty production design, made this a movie that stuck with its audience after the film ended.

Day 3 Part 3: When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism - A happy accident led me to this film by Romanian writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu. I stood in the wrong line, and was surprised to find myself watching a movie perfectly suited for people who are on their fourth movie in twenty-four hours. When Evening Falls… is a simple movie framed in unbroken master shots: a fictional director and his lead actress discuss nudity in film, eat together, have sex, and argue over a single wordless scene they’re supposed to shoot the next day. The motivations of the scene are so constantly debated back and forth - why would she eavesdrop coming out of the shower? why does she put on clothes? - that the audience is primed and waiting. Eventually, the much-debated action happens in reverse - the director steps out of the shower to eavesdrop on her - and the audience comes to its own conclusion. As concept films go, this is the simplest I’ve watched in a while, and I appreciated it for its simplicity.

Thus concluded the first half of AFI Fest. Old Hollywood and New in Part 2!