Is Black-and-White the Path to Gold?

by Cláudio Alves

Lately, it seems every time a film shot in black-and-white is even tangentially associated with Oscar buzz, it becomes an immediate contender for the Best Cinematography trophy. Even if many were skeptical (not Nathaniel, who predicted it), The Lighthouse proved this once again when it conquered a nomination for the work of DP Jarin Blaschke. In this case, at least, the nomination is amply justifiable with The Lighthouse looking like a series of haunted daguerreotypes, full of shiny fluids and battered bodies, ominous tempests and the enticing flame of the titular lighthouse.

Still, that's not always the case. Here are all the black-and-white Best Cinematography nominees of the 21st century…

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Posterized: The films of Alexander Payne

by Nathaniel R

Nebraska's most successful auteur son, 56 year old Alexander Payne is back with his seventh feature. Downsizing, his new satire about a man (Matt Damon) who joins a community that have shrunk themselves, premiered at Venice to the kind of reviews that seem startling until you remember all the reviews for all the other Payne directed movies. Raves are par for the course. He's won two Globes and two Oscars for his screenplays. His films have won an incredible 3 Best Picture prizes and he's also won four personal prizes from the normally spread-your-wealth folks at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association over the past 20 years.

The film opens in movie theaters on December 22nd and is expected to be both a box office hit and a major Oscar player. Could it finally be his year to win Best Picture?

How many of his films have you seen? The posters (and more about Oscar) are after the jump...

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Her Royal Majesty, The Queen of Link

This collection was meant to publish some 24 hours ago. Enjoy these links you might well have seen already!

Decider tracks Channing Tatum's expanding neck 
MNPP Jason calls a Happy Hobbit Ending for Lee Pace within six months. I think this is optimistic. 
Pajiba thoughtfully creates an anti-superhero-movie-diversity Bingo board. Love it!
AV Club Jeff Goldblum participated in a Jurassic Park themed wedding photo. It's great
The Dissolve Epix is airing a color version of Alexander Payne's Nebraska. What the hell?

Arts Beat Helen Mirren to play the Queen again on Broadway. Will the third time be the charm for a first Tony? If she wins she will have won the Oscar, Emmy and Tony all for playing Queen Elizabeths I & II. Quite a specific niche, eh?
The Wire a very bad day for the creator of True Detective Nic Pizzolatto who doesn't handle criticism very well and is now accused of plagiarism as the Emmys approach
The Film Stage shares Akira Kurosawa's 100 favorite films list (originally published in a book from 1999 apparently). Like me his favorite Scorsese is King of Comedy!
The Wrap DC has adjusted its Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice schedule to avoid Captain America 3. That sentence would have unthinkable years ago but Marvel has really made it work.
MNPP "Gratuitous Teddy Sears" I 100% approve and I would like to point out that I raved about him all the way back during his very tiny role on Dollhouse and so glad he got such a plum gig on Masters of Sex 

Ooh look, Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges (Emmy nominated for Masters of Sex) talking about their acting process at an event in LA. (There's also a clip of them talking about The Fabulous Baker Boys but it's not about Michelle Pfeiffer at all - sacrilege - so I lost interest)

There's no point in even linking to a story about this but how terrible is it that they've opted to call the next Terminator film, a needless reboot when time-travel narratives can reboot themselves while also not stupidly pretending that other films didn't exist, Terminator Genisys. That's the actual title, people, purposeful mispelling and all. 

Finally, i09 shares ten lessons we can learn from the surprising success of Guardians of the Galaxy. Even though I think the movie has really pulled off a conjob on critics (it's winning rapturous ignore-the-obvious-flaws praise I think because it gets a couple of important things very right), most of these are bullet points are true. But I have to shake my head and roll my eyes hard at this bit about its cross-gender appeal at the box office:

How can a movie appeal to both of these groups? Because they both want the same thing, more or less — fun adventures in which both the male and female characters are fully realized.

Oy. If Gamora is our new standard for "fully realized female characters" in blockbuster cinema our standards have hit rock bottom and the future is going to be BLEAK. The ongoing gender problems in mainstream cinema have really taken a toll on people's expectations. 

Does Box Office Affect The Golden Globe Wins?

Amir here, with something vaguely resembling the weekend’s box office report. You're surely more interested in the Golden Globes this weekend than how many tickets Lone Survivor sold (it's winning the weekend - did you see it?) or whether Frozen is now on course for two gajillion dollars (why, yes, it is), so let’s have a look at how the Globe nominees have fared at the box office and whether or not that matters to HFPA voters historically. All that plus my Globe predictions after the jump...

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Editors' Picks.

Jose here. Today we have the announcement from the American Cinema Editors who - shocker - went for more of the same movies! For almost 40 years, the Eddies were awarded to a single motion picture (their first winner was The Parent Trap and their last was the acclaimed Saving Private Ryan) but then they decided that they too needed to include as many movies as possible and split their award into Drama and Musical & Comedy. Now excuse me if I sound ignorant (I did go to film school and all...) but isn't editing exactly the same for both? It's not like you use different equipment and/or need to have different skills to do each, right? Isn't the editor's job actually (along with the director of course) to decide just how funny or how dramatic each movie will be? So I really don't get why guilds need to invent such categories. I don't see the ASC doing that, but god I love the cinematographers for being the classiest guild...anyway enough with my complaining.

Here are the nominees for this year's Eddies:

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