Finding Linky

LA Times the Academy has clarified some of its new rulings on membership due to confusion from within its own ranks - very useful info
In Contention Kris Tapley has some thoughts on that as well and depressingly mentions there is still talk of "expanding" the acting categories. This will be very hard for yours truly to stomach if it happens. Traditions are important (and no I dont mean traditions of discrimination - don't confuse the issue!). Changing an 80 year tradition of a set of five slots in no way helps diversity and may actually serve to make the Academy look much much worse sending an accidental message (you weren't good enough for five but maybe with seven -- oops you weren't good enough for seven either!) so I pray to all the cinematic gods that wiser heads prevail and they reject it. 
Fistful of Films... speaking of working through something by talking about it. Fisti takes on the subject of Leo's Oscar baiting through the years and denies it! Interesting and entertaining though he's totally crazy that his work in The Revenant will be the best leading actor win in some time. (Noooo. I mean, he's fine but good ≠ great) 

Guardian $17.5 for Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation a record Sundance sale
TFE ICYMI we were just discussing that film's buzz last night
Pajiba reminds us that Blade Runner 2 is about to start production so Harrison Ford is reviving another one of his classic roles
Pajiba also tries to decipher Kristen Stewart's much misquoted outrage producing "stop complaining - do something" quote by transcribing the interview. (This serves as yet another reminder why the outrage factory is so annoying and boring itself. People contradict themselves ALL THE TIME when they're talking on at length about complicated subjects and sometimes they dont even know what they're saying. And if you lift a few words out you can make anything look worse. Give everyone a f***ing break. Chances are they weren't trying to offend anyone.)
Comics Alliance I keep hearing competing things about Thor: Ragnarok. First that it's the "darkest" film yet (ugh) and second that it's going to be the funniest. Usually those things dont go hand in hand so who is telling the truth? But Taiki Waititi the new director has a good sense of humor (see What We Do In the Shadows) so let's hope for the second one.
i09 Speaking of Taika... the sequel to his great vampire mockumentary has a title We're Wolves (get it werewolves) but he has to wait until after Thor to do that.
Vulture Sir Ian McKellen would like to remind you that the Academy could be more inclusive with gay people too. Thank you Sir Ian, Hero.  
Playbill well that didn't take long. Hamilton, Broadway's new mega hit, has already announced its tour plans to kick off in 2017
Playbill Jonathan Groff's turn in A New Brain -- which I don't think we discussed here - has been recorded for posterity. He was just superb in that staged reading and Saturday Night Live's Ana Gasteyer was sensational as his mom... can we get them both in movie musicals please? 

Cinematic Corner reacts to a bunch of recent news but I'm linking up because it's always fun when Sati drools on Tom Hardy and she's so enthused about his enthusiasm over the Oscar nomination
Towleroad okay this is adorable. One of the dancers from Kinky Boots celebrates his 29th birthday by doing 29 death drops around Manhattan
Vulture has a longread on the fall of Ryan Kavanaugh and Relativity's bankruptcy
Variety Abe Vigoda, the film (The Godfather) and television (Barney Miller) actor has died at 94
John August... responds to that but encourages us not to dismisses the story as opportunism or embrace it as cautionary tale.

Today's Teaser
Awww, it's Ellen DeGeneres signature film role, returning to us in Finding Dory. In which we will find out if a character that was so wondrous in short comic relief doses can handle carrying a whole film...

Michael Caine Just Like All of Us: Assumes Leo Will Win Oscar

Dancin' Dan here with your latest Best Actor Oscar news.

In an interview with with Britain's Radio 4, the venerable two-time Oscar winner dared to step in the #OscarsSoWhite quagmire (let's just not go there, shall we?), asking people to be patient "Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar."

More importantly, he reminded everyone about the best part of not being nominated: You don't have to attend the ceremony.

24 hours on an aeroplane and I've got to sit there clapping Leonardo DiCaprio. I love Leonardo, he played my son in a movie, but I'm too old to travel that far and sit in an audience and clap someone else.

And even more importantly, he said aloud what everyone else knows but have mostly refrained from saying out loud: Leonardo DiCaprio is winning the Best Actor Oscar this year. Not that he's voting for Leo, or that this feels like Leo's year, but that he IS winning.

And certainly it seems like Leo's to lose. Who could pose a serious threat to the raw bison liver-eater?

Oscar in Panic Mode. This Rarely Ends Well...

Readers I'm getting nervous. I love the Oscars. Ever since I saw the shiny gold man on a TV guide cover as a little boy and was all "what is that?" I've been hooked. So their history means a lot to me.

It's actually because of that history that it's fun as well as uplifting to chart their progress over the years in dealing with diversity -- and there has been a lot of progress no matter what the current cultural rage would imply. It's been a thrill to see the "first this" and "first that" over the years. 

But this year things are getting ugly. The Academy often makes terrible mistakes when they're criticized (note all the 'we can't make up our minds' volatility with the rules following The Dark Knight year) and now they'll be meeting on possible rules changes including returning to 10 Picture nominees. President Cheryl Boone Isaacs promises "big changes". Some people are even floating acting fields as big as 10 nominees. This is probably the worst idea I've ever heard in relation to the Oscars. [More...]

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: Stabbin' in the Woods

Jason from MNPP here with this week's round of piping hot "Beauty vs Beast" action -- I find myself in a strange position this awards season. Alejandro González Iñárritu, a director whose films have time and time again made my skin crawl thanks to their blowsy self-regard, has gone and made a movie that I don't entirely loathe? I don't know that I can be much more open-hearted towards The Revenant than that, but there are big, short, spot-lit movies gunning for Best Picture that I find oodles more offensive than this silly thing. Heck if the bad taste of Birdman hadn't poisoned the well last year I might, dare I say, be even slightly less ambivilent. (But it did, it did, it did poison the well. Damn you, Birdman.) But which uglied up tough guy carved out a horse carcass in your heart?

PREVIOUSLY Well I guess it's for the best that we did Todd Haynes' Carol last week before the Oscar nominations, because now that it's been snubbed for Best Picture and Director it will never be heard from again. (Kidding, people, put down the pitchforks.) While some of you admitted to slightly less-than-lesbian longings for those sturdy Harge (Kyle Chandler) shoulders, it was Sarah Paulson's performance as Carol's salty best friend Abby that you ultimately locked arms with. Said Paul Outlaw:

"Sorry, Harge. I can't help you with this."

London Calling. Kate wants Leo to win his Oscar

The London Film Critics Circle Awards were held last night across the Atlantic as something of a calmer arthouse alternative to the multiplex-lusting Critics Choice Awards here in the States, though they did share one winner: George Miller took Best Director for Mad Max Fury Road. We're trying not to think of him as the frontrunner here at TFE because it would be the most anomalous Best Director win of our lifetimes and too satisfying. Could it actually happen?

Judging on photos of the event, Kate Winslet was the main attraction of the night.

The Winners 

• FILM: Mad Max: Fury Road
• BRITISH/IRISH FILM: 45 Years
• DIRECTOR: George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
• ACTRESS: Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
• ACTOR: Tom Courtenay, 45 Years
• BRITISH/IRISH ACTRESS: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
• SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
• SUPPORTING ACTOR: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
• YOUNG BRITISH/IRISH PERFORMER: Maisie Williams, The Falling (supposedly this girls boarding school drama headlined by the Game of Thrones star will be released in the USA by Cinedigm)
• BRITISH/IRISH ACTOR: Tom Hardy (for multiple roles: Legend, London Road, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant)
• SCREENWRITER: Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, Spotlight
• TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT: Ed Lachman, for the Cinematography of Carol
• FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: The Look of Silence (nominated for the Doc Oscar)
• DOCUMENTARY: Amy (also nominated for the Oscar)
• BRITISH/IRISH SHORT: Stutterer, Benjamin Cleary (it's also nominated for the Oscar)
• BREAKTHROUGH BRITISH/IRISH FILMMAKER (The Philip French Award): John Maclean, Slow West

A Fun Titanic Takeaway
Kate Winslet, who can add the London prize to her Golden Globe this year, doesn't seem to be thinking about her own Oscar run for Steve Jobs. Perhaps she doesn't care about a second statue (and Alicia Vikander could be tough to beat -- the advantage of being a leading lady in a supporting category... *sigh*).

With the cameras shoved in her face (seriously back off reporters) Kate is just loving on Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant (it's clear where her Oscar vote is going). There are also props to her current co-star Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs as well.