50 Days til Oscar, Ally!

Ladies and gentleman.... ALLY"

Not a still from the movie. They've actually put the Ally billboard up in Los Angeles in the same location it's supposed to be seen within the movie.

You have to hand it to the Warner Bros teams behind A Star is Born publicity both during its leggy run (now with a nearly $400 million global gross on a $36 million budget) and during awards season where it has consistently performed. They keep thinking of new ways to keep the film in people's minds, too, like this funny specific stunt pictured here. Will it feel like overkill by the time Academy members are voting. To some, sure, but those are likely the people who weren't going to vote for it anyway.

Links: Letitia, Lists, Lady Gaga, and 'Live-Action' Remakes

• Slate a rant about Vice's insulting post-credits sequence. A *lot* of people really hate Vice. Will that stop the Academy from voting for it? The studio controlled the conversation for a long time with the embargo and it built up real awards steam. We shall see.
• Cartoon Brew looks into Disney's weird stance about their Lion King remake. They keep saying "it's not animated" but we all know it is!
• /Film the live action remake of Japanese hit Your Name will be 'Americanized'

• Deadline Dame June Whitfield of Absolutely Fabulous fame has died at 93
• Into the Spider-Verse the screenplay is online if you're interested
• Vulture a survey and exploration of what Asian-American art meant this past year featuring Burning, Crazy Rich Asians, Searching and more...
• The Atlantic has a series of articles called "And Scene" that's worth checking out zeroing in on great scenes from the year
• Coming Soon supposedly Bird Box had the best first week of all time for views on Netflix but the company is still totally cagey about stats and numbers so it's hard to trust. We don't even know what counts as a view really - did you have to finish watching it for example?
• The Root Letitia Wright crowned box office queen of 2018 (it helps to be in the top two grossers of course)
• Vulture "horror is not defined by what scares you"
• MovieWeb More news on what Disney+ streaming service is planning (i.e. tons and tons of Marvel shows)

List-Mania
• IndieWire 52 directors choose their favorite films of the year. This is a good read and the variety of titles cited is noteworthy, reminding you more than critics lists have how different each person's experience of cinema in a particular year can be.
• Cinemablographer chooses 20 best performances of the year and Nicole Kidman makes the list twice! Some unusual picks here but thankfully no category fraud!
• Furious Cinema top 20 of the year, in no particular order featuring Suspiria, Spider-Verse, and more
• Jesse Knight best movie taglines of 2018 beginning with... Dog Days (lol!)
• Vulture 10 best podcasts of 2018
• The Guardian Mark Kermode's top 10 list with BlacKkKlansman, Leave No Trace...
• Vulture 10 best film scores of 2018

Exit Video
Lady Gaga performs inside a mecha-robot in her new Las Vegas residency show "Enigma"

I’m gonna be thinking about this for a few days... the POWER... #ENIGMA pic.twitter.com/4Yj9orazre

— LG Updates (@LadyGagaVegas) December 29, 2018

10 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate "A Star is Born"'s $200 Million Triumph

We're skipping the box office charts this weekend since Christmas falls on a Tuesday. The last two weeks of the year are always heavy moviegoing times as families look for entertainment breaks in between their visits and feasts and shopping. New pictures Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee,  last week's champ Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse and costume pics The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots (which both added hundreds of theaters) are all going to have big weeks. But the only news we care about right this very second is that, on this very day, 12 weeks into its run, A Star is Born crossed the $200 million mark on its leggy run into America's hearts.

❤️ 10 ways to celebrate A Star is Born's $200 million dollar milestone weekend

1. Stroke the outline of your boyfriend or girlfriend's nose
2. Sing along with your favorite song from the soundtrack again that isn't "Shallow"
3. Admit that A Star is Born has other great songs.
4. Watch Willam on "The Beatdown"
5. Decide who your favorite supporting character besides Sam Elliott is in the movie, even if they were shafted in the "Outstanding Cast" nomination.
6. Watch one of the other versions of A Star is Born because you probably haven't seen them all. 
7. Introduce each of your friends who enter the room with "Ladies and gentleman... Ally!" until someone makes you stop (someone surely will)
8. Wonder anew how Lady Gaga will ever top her world premiere in Venice look at the Oscars.
9. Go to a drag show.
10. Steal Sam Elliott's voice.

Eight Links Out

• Deadline 10 upcoming films that were given by funding from the British Film Institute... including a new meaty role for Sally Hawkins
• Filmmaker picks the 10 best films directed by women this year from Kenya's Rafiki through the US indie Madeline's Madeline. The biggest grosswer on the list is You Were Never Really Here by Lynne Ramsay...
• TFE <-- which, in case you missed  our year in review of box office hits, is only the 8th biggest grosser among female helmed films this year just behind Leave No Trace and Can You Ever Forgive Me?
• The Muse "Penny Marshall and the Movies That Shaped Me" 
• Gold Derby if Lady Gaga wins two Oscars this February she'll be the fifth woman to accomplish that trick in one night (but first actress).
• Pajiba picks some favourite movie costumes of the year and thankfully doesn't ignore contemporary films
• Electric Literature why recent movies about queer friendships are so revolutionary
• Awards Daily talks to Black Panther's editor Michael Shawver about some of the movie's best scenes and a compliment from Francis Coppola
• /Film you have just one week to watch Pixar's animated short finalist Bao online. It's soooo adorable

Learning iMovie and Making Lists with Chris

Chris here with some more listy goodness that Nathaniel wanted me to pass along: my own! This year rather than going the normal listicle route for my Best Of, I tought myself iMovie to make a video montage as both a love letter to the cinematic year and present my Top 20. Consider this a Soundtracking side quest, because I lean hard into my song choices. One thing I learned from teaching myself something new (aside from the technological mishaps - but hey, staring at films you love sure does ease all frustrations), is how to find similar narrative threads in the movies that move us, which I was able to do through song choices shared over multiple films.

Consider this a small peek into my ballot (which is in full here) for next month's Team Experience Awards, or hopefully just a quick way to bask in the past movie year as it comes to a close. We all love a montage, but I hope you love this one too! (NSFW for language)

2018 Film Year in Review from Chris Feil on Vimeo.