Nicole & The Noise

Last week, I started prepping the 2012 "film bitch" awards pages and while staring at the rough draft of the acting awards which will be posted the week before the Oscar nominations, I kept thinking "something is wrong here." I slept on it. The next morning I realized with complete horrror that I had left Nicole Kidman off of my rough draft nominee list for The Paperboy. I, a self-described Kidmaniac, had forgotten "Charlotte Bless." If *I*  was able to forget Nicole, how could I rage at the non-adventurous critics and staid Oscar voters a month and a half from now when they presumably forget her in their year-end polling.

The Thanksgiving to Christmas movie season is filled with "Best of" Noise: big glitzy openings, highbrow movies, lists everywhere you look, forum discussions, critics org announcement. They're all reflecting "Oscar Buzz" whether or not they mean to. Oscar buzz is noisy and the noise can, paradoxically, drown out actual conversations and thoughtful consideration of who might qualify for the word "best"... not who is in the best movie or who is most likely to be nominated. It's understandable human error. Fact: it's easier to remember names you hear every day than names you don't. 

This past week while staring hard at the Supporting Actress Chart  (since revived), I kept staring at Nicole Kidman's photo and cursing the world that this amazing actress's about-face work as a trashy convict-loving beautician wasn't more firmly entrenched in the discussion.

Then a miracle occured...

Click to read more ...

My Fair Linky

The Poison Pen on the shifting gaze of cinema, objectifying men and, specifically, Gene Kelly's ass
Stale Popcorn Nicole Kidman goes totally 'My Fair Lady' for the races in Australia
The Advocate another gay role for Benedict Cumberbatch. He'll play the "fifth Beatle"  Brian Epstein in a new biopic
Movie City News David Poland talks to Sally Field for Lincoln 

Vulture considers the Looper effect. New time travel films are coming, one from Leonardo DiCaprio's company
Movie|Line talks to the LEOgend. She's in everything lately including Flight. 
/Film Paul Thomas Anderson screens 20 extra minutes of The Master, to be included on the DVD release 
Guardian Skyfall is breaking records well before its US box office debut 
Empire a look at Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 
Cinema Blend Maggie Smith's recent health scare was, very thankfully, much exaggerated by rumors. But there's still no word on whether she'll return to Downton Abbey for a fourth season.

Finally, have you seen Elizabeth Olsen on the set of Oldboy? She's giving you Maggie Gyllenhaal realness.

Right? I also love that she's standing by a Catering and Extras sign. As if.

It's a Wrap. October Highlights

We're doing this month's look back a bit differently. Though we wish all readers were year-round TFE maniacs, traffic always spikes during Oscar season so we welcome our fairweather friends back to us as we all link arms and beginning following that yellow brick red carpet road to the Wonderful Word of Oscars. In October we've been busy with plentiful limited series posts so here were some highlights from those batches.

NYFF
My single favorite moment of the NYFF is documented above. Shortly before The Paperboy screening for critics (with Nicole Kidman on hand afterwords to answer questions) the promo reel for the 50th anniversary of the festival froze on this image and stayed that way for minutes. I wasn't complaining. I like to look at her. As for the movies themselves, I was knocked out by three of the Best Foreign Language Films competing for Oscar: Austria's Amour, Chile's No and Bwakaw from the Philippines. Michael was dazzled by Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha with career best work from Greta Gerwig, and Denzel Washington's soon to be Oscar nominated performance in Flight. Meanwhile everyone was talking about Lincoln's Secret Debut "Secret" Debut including Team Experience on the Podcast.

007 Lists for 007 
Deborah has been getting us celebrating the 50th anniversary of the longest running film franchise with James Bond centric lists. Like her 007 favorite films or the *only* 007 femme fatales. And we're asking all of you to vote on your 007 favorites... LAST CHANCE. Voting ends tomorrow, November 1st.

Oscar Horrors
Team Experience was asked to choose from a list of every Oscar nomination bequeathed to the horror genre or thereabouts and write about it -- just one Oscar nomination per post. Pan's Labyrinth got you talking, Addams Family Values got us laughing again (I even watched it again because of the post), and we reminisced about creepy actressing in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Rebecca, The Spiral Staircase and Fatal Attraction to name just a handful of entries.

5 Random Favorite Posts
Which is Yummier?, "Lousy Lay", Guilt Trip Poster, Into the Woods reading and Monty meets Bernie

Happy November Everyone. Here's to the great (we hope) penultimate month of 2012 

Say What, Princess Nicole?

I asked you to amuse us by adding a caption or dialogue to this photo of Nicole Kidman on the set of Grace of Monaco. 

You obviously like Say What better when I choose a winning caption or dialogue but I'm stuck this time. Help me pick the winner!

poll by twiigs.com

Nic's No Nympho

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JA from MNPP here with some sad news - Nicole Kidman has dropped out of her reunion with Danish dare-monger Lars Von Trier for his next flick, the sexually explicit Nymphomaniac. She's too busy playing a Princess to mime unspeakable acts with Shia LaBeouf, it seems. The assumption is that the recently added Uma Thurman is her replacement, but (nothing against Uma) I'm hoping it's another name just added to the cast instead - let's see Willem Dafoe fill in Nicole's shoes!

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