The Linking Daylights

Variety's "The Vote" looks at all time great film scores
NYT remembers voice actress Lucille Bliss (RIP) the voice of Smurfette and Anastasia in Cinderella. 
Art of the Title Sequence has a cup of fresh coffee with Cabin in the Woods
EW watch Anthony Hopkins become Hitchcock in under a minute (though in real life it took an hour and a half each day 
In Contention Angelina Jolie campaigning for Ewan McGregor's work in The Impossible. Whoa

Unreality Marvel superheroines as Bond Girls
Salon uh oh Activists claim that 27 animals have died making The Hobbit films 
Pajiba shows us Val Kilmer and Joann Whaley's kids all grown up. Think they'll be actors? I always wished that Whaley had had a better career. Loved her in Scandal and Willow.
Movie|Line Ryan Gosling's beat up face on the Only God Forgives poster 
IndieWire first Joaquin and now Anthony Hopkins calling Oscar campaigns "disgusting" 
French Premiere the semi-finalist list for the Best Newcomer prizes at the Césars in France. Expect a nomination at least for Matthias Schoenaerts for his awesome double attention-grabber Bullhead and Rust & Bone  
The Playlist fun gallery of behind the scenes shots from Kill Bill
Awards Daily James Franco made a music video. Lindsay Lohan is in it 

And finally here's Jeremy Renner making fun of Hawkeye on SNL...

It'd definitely been the year or archery what with Brave, The Avengers and The Hunger Games among the top blockbusters. And now we have gifted archers on two television series: Revolution and Arrow... which is also about a guy who shoots arrows. That's kind of his thing. Before this trend dies a swift death from ubiquity, can someone please give actual archer and awesome actress Geena Davis a good role and combine the two?

Was Oscar Horrors Your "Frieeeeeeend"?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !

Here Lies... bits and pieces of thieves and murderers all stitched together to form the Robert DeNiro version of Frankenstein's Monster. 

Yes, we close this year's season of "Oscar Horrors" by celebrating the gruesome Oscar-nominated makeup in...(deep breath)... Columbia Tri-Star Picture's Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) . So many possessives! And the film, if I remember it correctly, is possessed. Kenneth Branagh has never been a wallflower as a director and his version of Frankenstein has the exuberant gonzo abandon (i.e. shameless confidence) that also characterized his far more artistically successful reincarnation noir Dead Again (1991).

The makeup designs by Daniel Parker, Paul Engelen and Carol Hemming won Oscar's attention but the team lost to a black and white celebration of a more infamous gonzo director, Ed Wood. 

Now. You might be asking "why, Nathaniel, are we looking at shirtless (briefly) buff Kenneth Branagh and his Bride of Frankenstein instead of the Frankenstein Monster?" I may answer. "Have you seen this Frankenstein Monster? He is DIS-GUST-ING. I don't want to look at him anymore." To the make-up teams credit he really does look like bits of thieves and murderers stiched together the skin being different textures, different elasticities, different stages of decay. The stitches look painful and threaded by unsterile instruments. The makeup effects err on the side of gruesome realism. He looks nothing like the traditional Frankenstein monster with a caesar haircut, green skin and bolts in his neck and Branagh even brings him to life in his birthday suit so the makeup team designed borrowed man parts, too; this monster has nuts but no bolts. 

P.S. I also went with Kenneth & Helena photos because other than the Frankenstein experiment (slimy, nude, mad, clumsy -- an original take from Branagh) the only thing I ever remember about this movie is that it marked the end of that most awesome early 90s film couple Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson as he threw her over for Helena Bonham-Carter before Helena then left him for Tim Burton... or something like that. Consider this film Helena's "Bridge to Burton". Here in one film she's yanked from her then familiar Victorian doll iconography and lands painfully into the now familiar decayed gothic doll aesthetic.

The Complete Season 2 of Oscar Horrors  
Psycho -Director 
Carrie - Supporting Actress
The Nightmare Before Christmas - Visual FX
The Spiral Staircase - Supporting Actress
Ed Wood- Supporting Actor

Return to Glennescaul - Short Film
Aliens - Visual FX
Jaws - Editing
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte - Supporting Actress
Phantom of the Paradise -Original Score

Shadow of the Vampire - Supporting Actor
Dogtooth - Foreign Film
Rebecca - Supporting Actress
Monster's Inc - Animated Feature

The Virgin Spring - Foreign Film
Pan's Labyrinth - Art Direction
Them! - Visual Effects
American Werewolf in London -Makeup
Addams Family Values  -Art Direction

Oscar Horrors: Best Transformation Scene... Ever

[In the returning daily October series "Oscar Horrors" we look at those rare beasts. Film contributions in the horror genre that went on to Oscar nominations. Here's new contributor Peter Swanson...]

HERE LIES ... An American Werewolf in London, which won the 1981 Academy Award for Best Makeup, the first year that award was given in regular competition.

Peter from Armchair Audience here. A quick story first. As a film-obsessive I've tried hard to not be that guy (you know the one) who insists his/her friends watch all their favorite movies. However, a few years ago and in a mildly intoxicated state, I forced my wife and dinner guest to sit through An American Werewolf in London, accompanied by my own personal commentary track. When werewolf-bitten David Kessler (David Naughton) first turns into a hairy beast I (allegedly) repeated the phrase,"Best transformation scene ever," about twenty times. That phrase has come to haunt me through the years--my wife likes to spring it on me any time I suggest watching a movie to friends.

Here's the thing: It is the best transformation scene ever.

No amount of CGI wizardry will ever match Rick Baker's amazing use of latex and air bladders to convey the bone-popping pain of turning from man to beast. But even if An American Werewolf in London never had that transformation scene, it would still be deserving of the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup. There's so much good stuff, from the werewolf itself that rampages around on four legs, to the decomposing Griffin Dunne, to the Nazi mutants that appear in David's terrifying dream. 

Rick Baker has since gone on to receive eleven nominations in this category and to win seven times. But even his recent state-of-the-art digital work on the sub-par The Wolfman doesn't come close to matching the grisly perfection of what he did for John Landis's cult hit. It's crucial to the film, as well, since horror-comedy, now a staple of genre-filmmaking, was a pretty new concept in 1981. It wasn't just the notion that comedy would be mixed with horror elements (Abbott and Costello at one point cornered this market) but that the horror elements were so genuinely terrifying and gruesome. Griffin Dunne, playing David's ill-fated traveling companion Jack Goodman, kills in the movie because of his droll commentary, but his make-up work, especially the early scenes with his face half torn away are truly disturbing.

Make-up isn't the only reason to re-visit this film. Sure, David Naugton is a little hammy and stiff as the title character, but the movie works on all the different levels it aspires to: gothic tale, slapstick comedy, gore-fest, tragic romance. Griffin Dunne delivers his funniest role, and Jenny Agutter, currently playing a kindly nun on The Midwife Calls, elevates the material as a sad and sexy nurse.

And, of course, 'the best transformation scene... ever.'

AMPAS Continues To Change Rules, Add Members

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka AMPAS aka The Oscars aka "That Organization That The Media And Public Are Constantly Calling 'Irrelevant' Whilst They Disprove Their Point By Talking About Said Organization Incessantly") has changed their rulebooks yet again and opened their figurative doors to new players. Their reasoning and criteria remain, as ever, a mystery to those of us with strong opinions on the matter.

Here's what happened...

Visual Effects
The bakeoff system is a bit different now. Ten films will be selected as semi-finalists. The branch will then vote and five will become nominees.
TFE DECREES: Smart, humane move after those years with only 6 or 7 semi-finalists... which was embarrassingly like being "the last one picked" when you didn't end as a nominee.

Makeup (and Hairstyling!)
New Rule: It's a name change from Best Makeup to Best Makeup and Hairstyling. 
TFE Decrees: Good Move But Entirely Cosmetic. The award was already meant to include hairstyling if it greatly contributed to the film -- you'll remember that Meryl Streep's longtime hairdresser won for The Iron Lady last year. The name change will only matter if the branch that's voting takes the name change to heart and starts conveying, through their nominations, that they care about things other than werewolf makeup and old age latex. The last few years have shown a bit of willingness to shake up this category for the better so good on them.

Best Foreign Film
New Rule: Films still have to be submitted in 35mm to AMPAS for consideration but they no longer have to screen that way in their home countries.
TFE Decrees: Good, though only 0.000001% of Oscar watchers will ever notice. But anything to loosen restrictions up for the committees in other countries who have to decide which film best represents them.

Best Original Song
New Rule: In special circumstances four songwriters can now become nominees. The number was three.
TFE Decrees: Excuse me .... [raucous laughter] ... how does this even matter since the system as is keeps refusing a full slate of nominees? It's as if the music branch is completely ashamed of their craft and considers nothing worthy. The only thing that would fix this category is a complete overhaul of the rules and maybe even the branch members. The voting system, in which you can actually torpedo viable popular contenders by giving them terrible scores, is the problem... not the number of songwriters credited.

176 NEW ACADEMY MEMBERS!
This is the best part of AMPAS changes each year, since it's fun to look at who is finally "in" and scratch your head at what took so long. Trying to parse meaning behind the newbie invites is a fool's errand since their criteria are suspicously vague. Non-distinguished actors, for example, are invited each year and yet sometimes they don't invite one of the actual Oscar nominees. Michelle Williams was a strange example as she was not an Academy member until some years after Brokeback Mountain.

New AMPAS Members: Yeoh, Kulcher, Martindale, Kar Wai, and Djurkovic

Ten invitees I was extremely happy about... (excluding last year's nominees which are too obvious to chat about): ACTORS - Fine character actors Margo Martindale ("Carol"!!!! from Paris Je T'Aime) and Clifton Collins Jr (Traffic), gorgeous actresses who should be much bigger stars like Kerry Washington and Michelle Yeoh, and Andy Serkis who will undoubtedly be in the history books given his pioneering role in a newish form of acting; VISUAL TALENTS - Production Designer Maria Djurkovic who did such surpassingly excellent Oscar snubbed work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Cinematographer Alwin Kuchler who recently wowed with Hanna, MAKEUP ARTIST -Toni G (who did the Oscar statue worthy Oscar snubbed work on Charlize Theron's Monster); DIRECTORS -Wong Kar Wai and Terrence Malick (!!! Perhaps he's refused them in the past?)

How are you receiving all this Oscar news? With indifference or excitement?