Who Were The Most Beautiful Men Ever To Hit the Screen?

If you're tired of all the bickering and partisanship from this very young Oscar season (We've got 8 more weeks of people fighting about Les Miz and whether or not Zero Dark endorses torture. Have...uh... fun!) why not choose sides on a much different less weighty topic? 

Boy Culture has launched a very extensive opinion piece on the History's 100 Hottest Movie Actors. It might be the perfect antidote right about now if you honestly can't take one more "Argo F*** Yourself" joke, Ode to Lincoln, or "Jennifer or Jessica?" blog post.

Only half of Matthew's list is currently up but there's already an impressive range of eras (a list which stretches from Rudolph Valentino through Colin Farrell is okay by me, clock-wise), nationalities, talent levels (from none to cup overflowing) and fame curve in the 50 men selected. If Takeshi Kaneshiro and Jude Law aren't top ten'ers I will pay for Matthew's next optometrist visit.

Who would you put in a top ten list?

Les Linkábles

Auteuse Theory has co-written a book on Mamma Mia! of all things "Mamma Mia! The Movie: Exploring a Cultural Phenomenon"
Gawker Audrey Plaza has a nude painting of herself on full display in her home 
The Wrap the best and worst performances by the same actor this year. Interesting concept but SO annoying to pretend Anne Hathaway is anything less than stupendous in Les Misérables 
Badass Digest Here's something unexpected. A piece on the vineyards of France and drinking in the time of Les Miz.

My New Plaid Pants obsession with Amanda Seyfried's 'magical slutty powers' is one of my favorite things on the internet, month in and month out.  I know everyone was excited to read me interviewing my Nicole but I'd honestly pay good money to watch a sit down with JA & Amanda
ME Says is disappointed with Jessica Chastain in The Heiress. This seems to be going around! That won't hurt but can't possibly help her Best Actress bid in Zero...
Awards Daily Sasha crunches numbers on Best Director and predicts doom for Tom Hooper without the Globe nod. Which might well be the case. But the thing I don't quite get, from other pundits, is why everyone has such sudden enthusiasm for Quentin Tarantino's chances. Tarantino movies ALWAYS open with a flurry of people crying "masterpiece" but that's because critics and bloggers are big stans of Quentin (with good reason but I hope you here my point.) Is this "late surge" for Django Unchained real or just a product of Weinstein Co's goodwill with the Globes?

The Playlist The NRA is blaming the movies again for all these gun massacres. I'd LOL if it weren't so terrible. Way to hang on to your destructive agenda in the face of ever more damning proof that it's just that! They are seriously a hideous blight on America. Speaking of...
Penny Arcade has a fine comic about this

Click on the image for more of the comic...

List-Mania
Pop Matters I am embarrassed for all my film friends who love Cloud Atlas but I have to link to Matt Mazur's top ten anyway because otherwise it's interesting!
Critic Wire asks film critics to share the best pieces of film criticism they've read this year. Lots of articles name-checked worth checking out
AV Club best scenes of the year
Pajiba has a great list of enjoyable supporting performances that won't win any awards... let alone Oscars
Screen Crave on the most disappointing films of the year from Django Unchained to The Avengers
Slate ten best of 2012 from How To Survive a Plague through Zero Dark Thirty 

And here is Kevin B Lee's 12 Best of the Year Video Essay from Fandor. (I keep meaning to do more video work and never get around to it. Argh.)

Even most of my critic friends love Silver Linings Playbook. I just don't get the love! But at least it's not a hideous bloated blight on the good name of cinema like Cloud Atlas. 

Welcome Home Linky Carmichael

Deadline "We own a hotel, Norman Bates" the trailer to spring TV series Bates Motel with commentary from Vera Farmiga as Mrs. Bates.
Clothes on Film looks at the subtextual costuming of Cabin in the Woods 
The Deleted Scene says goodbye to its DVD collection and owning physical copies of films in general 
LA Times five things to be gleaned from the Globe nods 

The Carpetbagger details the dancing and QT craziness of the Django Unchained party in New York. No, I was not invited but I'm happy to read that Uma made a strong showing.
CHUD on Quentin Tarantino's recommendation that you see Navajo Joe (1966) before you see Django
Guardian In a truly weird piece on Les Misérables, Hannah Betts wonders if US audiences can deal with its bad teeth and... here's the weird part... bromance. Errr... maybe I'm not getting a British joke here but Les Miz never had much of that to play or play down. 

List Mania
Vulture the ten best SNL sketches of the year from Disney Princesses to Lincoln 
New York Times Manohla Dargis weirdly makes her own top ten a sort of after-thought post-script to an essay about box office and independent filmmakers. 
Slant Magazine's top 25 films of the year including Magic Mike, Cosmopolis, Lincoln, Holy Motors and Oslo August 31st

Today's Watch
Here's Winona Ryder starring in The Killers new video "Here With Me" with Submarine star Craig Roberts which was directed by Tim Burton of all people. It's surprisingly non-baroque art-direction wise for a Burton production but I kind of love it. 

This is not Noni's first time at the rodeo (of music video) given her predilection for rock stars or, well, rock star like actors. Remember her Debbie Gibson in "Deborah Gibson is Pregnant With My Love Child" ?

P.S. Before anyone asks again I plan to have the Nicole Kidman interview up on Monday to celebrate the Oscar ballots going out. 

Djackman Unlinked

Hugh Jackman was honored at the Museum of the Moving ImageReviews Under the Influence on Pitch Perfect. I LOL'ed. Hence the share
Movie|Line talks to Christopher Nolan at the tribute to Hugh Jackman at MoMi
ET Amanda Seyfried on Channing Tatum "everybody wants to have sex with him" and her own reputation. Amanda is fun!
/Film Clint Mansell will score Noah for Darren Aronofksy - YES
Ultra Culture hates on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its drip-fed storytelling; only nine hours until the protagonists meet the antagonist!
Hollywood Reporter Sean Penn is mouthing off again. Not that he isn't partially correct. He just doesn't have enough of a sense of humor about his self-seriousness to always pull it off.
Advocate Our beloved Sir Ian McKellen's long battle with prostate cancer.
Gawker Hunger Games themed reality tv is on its way. Without the death. But still, i don't think we're that far away from a Series 7 world, do you?

Today's Watches
Quentin Tarantino's epic introduction to Django Unchained here in NYC. Courtesy of Gothamist.

Tarantino from katie sokoler on Vimeo.

and Amy Poehler & Tina Fey's first promo for the Golden Globes

List Mania
Eric Kohn at Indiewire Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning & Amour. Yes, they can co-exist on a list
Film Doctor chooses his worst films of the year from Savages to Battlefield (poor Taylor Kitsch!)
Stale Popcorn on the best movie posters of the year from The Paperboy to Gayby
New Yorker terrific year-in-review via Anthony Lane. Love the shout-out to Eva Green in Dark Shadows

Awards Mania
Split Sider The Globes ignore all your favorite comedies again
In Contention looks at category fraud. I'd love to believe I coined the term and maybe I did since I've been the loudest voice complaining about it for 11 years but who knows.
In Contention Sony still thinking Amour is going to happen. Me too.
Oscars the 104 eligible Motion Picture Scores and some composers have multiple chances including Alexandre Desplat (4) and Danny Elfman (4), and James Newton Howard (3)

The AFI Makes Its Oscar & Emmy Predictions

The annual unveiling of the AFI Top Ten List, which began in 2000 or 2001 as I recall, was originally an interesting effort to have a diverse prestigious panel select the ten key American films of the year. It, like most other year end lists, quickly morphed into something like a gratuitious press release celebrating everyone's favorite awards-buzzing titles (+ 1 requisite blockbuster). Now, they'll even cheat and include British movies. Les Miz is a British musical about France and was directed by a Brit and stars mostly British and Australian actors. I'm pretty sure that if someone lied to the panel and told them Michael Haneke was secretly born in Hawaii before being whisked off to Wiener Neustadt, Austria they would have found a way to include Amour too!

AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR
ARGO, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, DJANGO UNCHAINED, LES MISÉRABLES
LIFE OF PI, LINCOLN, MOONRISE KINGDOM, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and ZERO DARK THIRTY

AFI TV PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR
AMERICAN HORROR STORY, BREAKING BAD, GAME CHANGE, GAME OF THRONES, GIRLS, HOMELAND, LOUIE, MAD MEN, MODERN FAMILY, and THE WALKING DEAD

Again this is what I mean about too many groups. If you don't bring any individualism to the table just merge with other groups who already do this sort of thing and become a bigger supergroup, you're already part of the hive mind! (Note that the always enraging snub of Parks and Recreation by the Emmys continues here with the AFI as well.)

Having typed all that I must quickly admit that A) the easiest solution for those who are easily bored at all the repetition is to tune it out and B) my top ten list will have four or five of those titles on it.