Posterized: Marilyn Snapped, Cronenberg Triangulated, Puss Entranced

New(ish) Posters! Let's discuss (aka judge harshly).

It's actually nicely stylized. But note that the big sell is not Michelle Williams but Marilyn Monroe herself, whose font size towers over her pretenders. I wonder what this movie will mean to Michelle Williams career though? If it flops does Hollywood assume she can't carry a film, even though it's less a Michelle movie than another Marilyn nostalgia exercize? 

I swear to god that tagline for Footloose irritates me like little else. It can't be your time, when you're robbing the previous generation of one of their quintessential identifiers. Saying that Footloose represents "our time" (i.e. today's teenagers) is like seventies teenagers pretending that the 1950s (Grease) were their ti... oh wait... uh...

Meanwhile you can't tell it here but the Puss in Boots motion poster is brilliant. You simply must click over if you love cats like I love cats. 

Finally here are two European posters for David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, which each put the three star faces all in each other's headspace -- one of them literally -- as their guiding design principle. You can see what they're going for but don't the faces need to be more level and more obscured by one another to achieve that psychological note. It's a little pedestrian, right? May the movie be anything but.

Prediction Updates: Lead and Supporting Actress

Oscar obsessives around the web, including myself, have been hung up on the Glenn Close vs. Meryl Streep Best Actress '80s Rematch! narrative for quite awhile now with Albert Nobbs and The Iron Lady still without real movie trailers to give the already popular media angle extra flavor. Less often discussed, and it's been nagging me for awhile now, is which young actress the Oscars will glom onto this year. Best Actress is often, statistically speaking, a beauty pageant who's who of hot 20 and 30something stars. This is not to say that the main race can't be between two 60-something ladies (it can if their names are Close & Streep) but we already know that that won't be the whole story even if it does turn out to be The Story.

There are three more slots to consider and more than that if you include the possibility that Close or Streep might not happen, if you include the precursor awards (which have room for more players) and the Supporting Actress category which has slightly more diverse preferences but which is still a sucker for a new "it" girl.

Which young beauties will be competing for gold? There isn't room for all of them.

Fresh Faces.
Which will Oscar get a Mulligan / Lawrence style insta-crush on?
ROONEY MARA, 26, with sociopathic edge and punk styling in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
FELICITY JONES, 27, doing young romance drama in Sundance hit Like Crazy.
ELIZABETH OLSEN, 22, winning acclaim as cult member in Martha Marcy May Marlene and probably winning credit for being talented younger sibling of the gajillionaire Olsen twin sisters.
MIA WASIKOWSKA, 21, proving she can carry a film and also be excellent while doing so in Jane Eyre.
ANDREA RISEBOROUGH, 29, soon to be winning "best in show" attention for W.E. 
JESSICA CHASTAIN, 30, seemingly in every other movie released in 2011 and hardly recognizable from one to the next.  

Already Stars.
Oscar's sweet spot for Best Actress wins is late 20s to early 30s. 
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, 26, serving mental patient realness in A Dangerous Method.
KIRSTEN DUNST, 29, undoubtedly memorably victimized in Von Trier's Melancholia.
MICHELLE WILLIAMS, 30, doing biopic iconography for My Week With Marilyn and romance for Take This Waltz 
EMMA STONE, 22, who won't get nominated for The Help but the enthusiasm about her career this year is totally hogging some of the spotlight that the other hopefuls are going to need. 

Who do you think will be showered with love and media attention 'round the holidays this year? Who will come up wanting? Which of the newbies will ever have careers as big as the "already stars"? Share your projections / wild prophesies in the comments.

Best Actress chart | Best Supporting Actress chart

Reader Spotlight: Borja

Hey people! Sorry we missed the spotlight last week. This is a series where we get to know members of The Film Experience community!

This week I'd like to introduce you to Borja from Spain. He's a talent agent so if you're an actor or actress, maybe one day he'll be staring at your headshot or reel!

Nathaniel: Borja thanks for doing this. How did you discover The Film Experience?
BORJA:  I was googling an actress two years ago and clicked over. I love your point of view Nathaniel and it's a place where people are passionate but respectful -- something rare on the web.

Thanks. Do you remember your first movie?
The first I remember vividly was Raiders of the Lost Ark and I left the theater changed forever. I was only six and it was my true favorite for a long time, the benchmark for all action and adventure movies. All the people involved became my heroes: Steven Spielberg, who is directly responsible of my love for movies, Harrison Ford and, of course, Karen Allen. Marion Ravenwood is still one of the most fascinating female characters of all time.

So underrated! I'm feeling generous so I'm giving you FIVE favorite actresses. Go.
I´ll try…

Sigourney Weaver: My first favorite. I discovered her for the first time in “Ghostbusters”, a movie where she is funny, sexy, dark and intelligent. The definitive love came with “Alien”, logically. There is nothing I can say about Ellen Ripley that hasn't been said before. The idea of a woman taking control, being brave, tough and credible at the same time… Ufff… too much for me, I was trapped. Weaver is much more than Ripley though. Highlights on her career: “Year of living dangerously” (my personal favorite at the moment), “Working girl”, “Gorillas in the mist”, “Death and the maiden” or “A map of the world”. One word to describe her? Unique. No one before, no one after her.

Penélope Cruz. To understand my passion you must live in Spain. She became a national star at 18, with two movies: “Jamón Jamón” and “Belle Epoque”. Since then, she has had a career with up and downs, but being the most successful Spanish actress in history, becoming a big star in Hollywood, having problems with the English language and finally being nominated to three Oscars and winning. During that whole time I was supporting her from a distance. In Spain, the coolest thing you can say about her is that she is a bad actress, she is not so beautiful and looks cheap. It´s so tiring! I think she has the screen presence only the greatest stars of all time have.

Kirsten Dunst: The most underrated actress of her generation. I love how she takes the simplest way to create a character. You will never see her overacting or being selfish, she is always honest, transparent and clean. You can read everything through her eyes. I find her fascinating as a woman, I love the way she looks, the way she talks… everything ! She is not at the peak of her popularity these days but I´m sure that's temporary. Can't wait to see her work with Von Trier.

Michelle Williams: I was a "Dawson's Creek" addict and I remember being very mad because everything on the show was designed as a vehicle for Katie Holmes (nothing against Mrs. Cruise). But since the pilot I was in love with Michelle… in fact I remembered her from “Species”, that terrible Alien-with a hot blonde movie. Since then, she has proved not only that she is a versatile infinite actress but that she has taste and guts choosing projects. And it doesn't hurt that she is a class act in everything related with her exposed and difficult life.

Kate Winslet: Capable of everything. Period.

You work in the industry as an agent right? What do you look for in actors to decide to represent them?
Mmmm… difficult question. I could talk for hours about this and say nothing but I will try to be concrete: The perfect mixture of talent, intuition and charisma. Oh, and I try to work only with good people, this is fundamental for me.  

That's SO under-discussed. Let this be a lesson to all budding film professionals: it's not only talent or looks. If you're not good people, who will want to hang around you all day on set?

OK, wrapping up. The movie of your life. Title? Star?
The title should be: “La camisa del hombre feliz” (“The shirt of the happy man”, kind of…) and who I want to play me? Uff… Must be short, with dark hair and a big nose. Ben Foster comes to my mind, or Emile Hirsch. Those could work.

previous episodes of this series

April Foolish Predictions Complete: Actress & Picture

So my "April Foolish" Oscar Predictions are now complete. I rejiggered two tech predictions once I finally decided on my ten Best Pictures but honestly, any combo of the top 20 listed seems just as plausible as any other so long as the obvious get, War Horse, is there. (It's practically as obvious as The King's Speech was a year out.) We won't know until January how well I did but it's exciting this far out when anything seems possible yes?

BEST PICTURE
I didn't expect to get so fully behind Super 8 but sometimes your own predictions surprise you once you have to work every category out. My wishful thinking pick is David Cronenberg's psychoanalytic period drama A Dangerous Method which is a big old question mark for a number of reasons. But my hunch is that Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley will all bring it which will heat up the material which is already sexual conceptually speaking since it's about Freud and Jung. But Cronenberg has never been to the Academy's liking so I'm probably wrong. My wildcard guess -- as in something that's not an obvious contender -- is Oren Moverman's Rampart, a police corruption drama. This film will have the same challenge as My Week With Marilyn in that it will only win real Oscar traction if it feels much larger or more mythic than a telefilm on the same material since both cover topics that have been dramatized on television many times: cop dramas and Marilyn Monroe respectively. My guess for Smallest Nomination Tally But still Best Pic competitor is We Bought a Zoo (just a hunch). My guess for Film With Most Noms That Doesn't Get Nominated For Best Picture (whew) which was Alice in Wonderland last year and Nine the year before (i think?)  is The Adventures of TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn but if I'm wrong on that, I feel certain it'll be Hugo Cabret.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
Which film am I greatly overestimating?
Which movie am I greatly underestimating?
Where am I Goldilocks "just right"?
I'll admit I had NO idea what to make of Moneyball. You?

BEST ACTRESS
Elizabeth Olsen and Felicity Jones were the twin Sundance bids for this category in January and we know how last year and the year before (Bening & Lawrence, Mulligan & Sidibe) turned out: all were nominated. But in a fit of bravery, I'm not predicting either of them.

I'm going with a mostly Previous Nominees lineup. How do you deny Michelle Williams, Glenn Close or Keira Knightley for example this far ahead with juicy roles? As for never-nominated people, I'm totally curious to see what happens with Charlotte Rampling's film The Eye of the Storm.

ACTRESSY QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
Anyone think they'll pass on Meryl Streep this year? (I perversely wanted to predict it.)
Which actress am I underestimating?
Could you see Williams winning for Marilyn?

Note to New Readers
The navigation bar up-top has pull down menus for each Oscar charts or you can click on the Prediction Index and investigate from there. Join in the conversation!