Curio: "we went skinny dipping and did things that frightened the fish!"

Yes. that's a quote from Steel Magnolias. I apologize as this is entirely unrelated. It happens.

Are you familiar with "Fish Love"? It's a not-for-profit company from Nicholas Röhl and the actress Greta Scacchi. The goal? I'll just quote them here:

to raise awareness of the unsustainable fishing practices that are destroying the the earth's marine ecosystem. Since then, the Fishlove images have succeeded in bringing the subject of over-fishing to the front covers and pages of the world's media many times over. 

This year's catch is the adorable Emma Thompson and Greg Wise shot by photographer Jillian Edelstein to promote the endangered. But there's more (slightly nsfw) after the jump...

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On Deadpool's Overhyped Sexuality

Social justice warriors argue that "Straight White Male" ought not to be a default setting and they're right - it's a wide & diverse world. Arguably nowhere is this default more set in stone than in superhero movies.

I actually rushed out to see Deadpool this weekend because it promised to be something different in this regard. This, despite no real desire to see the movie since the hard obnoxious sell felt like flop sweat (though it sure as hell worked and no flopping occurred). I didn't end up reviewing the film but this piece I wrote for Towleroad is as close as I got. It's called "Pansexual Antihero or Gaybaiting Joke?" because the buzz surrounding the smart ass mutant's sexual desires is empty.

Here's an excerpt but I hope you'll read the whole thing...

Deadpool fits comfortably in the X-verse, being a mutant, but also by selling the troubled 'otherness' that is the X-Men's chief inclusive draw for moody adolescents and beyond. He's neither hero nor villain, but an amoral guy who discovers he has cancer. His superpowers are unlocked through a sadistic experiment to rid himself of the cancer which leaves him badly disfigured but incapable of being killed. This anti-hero has been described as "omnisexual" by the writer of his comic and the media has consistently referred to him at "pansexual". But is he either of those things, or just a typical straight guy who loves a good dick joke?

extra random thoughts about the movie after the jump...

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Blog Wars Episode VIII: Some New Links

• AV Club loves on the dearly departed Bunheads
• Guardian Cynthia Nixon, who plays Emily Dickinson in a new film, thinks she'd have loved social media
• E! Online Dakota Johnson wants Jamie Dornan to bare all in Fifty Shades sequel. (I mean, why not? It's not like he's NSFW shy about it.)
• EW looks at a handful of AMPAS ballots Supporting Actress and Picture votes are all over the place

• Awards Daily on two previous shakeups in Hollywood (the late 1920s) & Academy (the late 1960s) business
• Towleroad Gay Iconography: All About Bette Davis 
• Film School Rejects Ben Stiller's most iconic characters from best to worst 
• Coming Soon Ghostbusters gets a teaser poster. Don't get excited. It's basically just the old logo. Trailer coming on March 3rd
• Coming Soon Salt, Angelina Jolie's would be franchise that never became one headed to TV in series form - without Angie of course
• /Film Alexander Payne lines up his next next film. It's called My Saga, a road trip movie. He still hasn't shot Downsizing with Reese Witherspoon though.

Today's Watch
Daredevil Season 2 Trailer - Pt 1

Elektra and The Punisher get their own trailers, looks like. I'll be disappointed if we don't get a follow up on Madame Gao though, since she was fierce/mysterious. 

• And finally, Star Wars Episode VIII: As Yet Untitled began filming this morning at Pinewood Studios in the UK aiming for the Christmas friendly release date of December 15th, 2017. All the major players, sans Harrison Ford of course, will return. The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) and all the major cast members return (sans Harrison Ford *sniffle*). New cast members will include Benicio Del Toro, newcomer Kelly Marie Tran and 'The Face,' herself Laura Dern! No, wait, that deserves more exclamation points. Laura Dern !!!!!!!!

Best Acting, Male Division: Personal Ballots & Oscar Charts

In the war of scene-stealing antagonists this year, Oscar Isaac's Nathan (Ex Machina) > Tom Hardy's Fitzgerald (The Revenant). We love both actors here at TFE and loved them before the rest of the web did (brag brag) but when it comes down to awards season you have to make tough choices.

That's just a handy way of saying Oscar and I go our separate ways more often than not in the acting categories but now both lists are available for your (hopeful) entertainment... 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
On the subject of category placement antagonists are often tricky. They definitely move the plot -- neither The Revenant or Ex Machina can function without these devious men, but often you can see either argument for lead or supporting. While Ex Machina arguably has three leads being such a chamber drama I occasionally relax the soapbox for performances that straddle the divide. A recent rewatch of Ex Machina confirmed that Oscar Isaac would make whichever shortlist we put him in (and I'd switched him back and forth during the year in drafts). It's such an inventive approach to a thoroughly imagined character so I tossed the dice and supporting he went. Now watch him tear up this fucking dance floor...

Only one of Oscar's men makes my own personal ballot (just posted) with apologies to Mark Rylance who I thought would place but he fell in the dread sixth spot! It happens. I've completed the Oscar chart as well and included trivia for this golden sausage party. Speaking of sausage parties... I think this is the first male Oscar lineup ever in which ALL the men have gone full frontal in other movies. Weird, right? It's an exhibitionist group this year. This only occurred to me to check because I was a big fan of Intimacy (2001) back in the day which starred Mark Rylance and everyone knows that Sly starred in a porno before Rocky (1976)

The charts also include our "How'd they get nominated" fun. So here's a sample -- the Tom Hardy in The Revenant edition: 

25% Leo's bro power pulls his main men in w/ him
21% Spicy Bait: Villains prioritized in this category 
20% Timing. 'The Revenant' was the shiniest new toy
15% Everyone wishes they could have punched Iñárritu in the face
10% Performance - they like 'em BIG to shake up slow epics (see also: The Zeéeeee in 'Cold Mountain')
9% 'Mad Max Fury Rd'

P.S. I should not that though Hardy didn't make my top 12 in supporting I appreciate his go for broke attempts to save The Revenant from its own grandiose self-importance with a little cured ham.

Matt Damon a nominee at both the Oscars & the Film Bitch AwardsBEST LEADING ACTOR 
Given the weirdly unanimous "meh" factor that Oscar's shortlist has produced in audiences, at least on the web, it's hard to imagine it coming to be at all. But then you remember the media complicity in producing these sorts of safe groupings of all-stars whether or not people were actually hugely impressed with their work. Oscar produced a list of five major players who unfortunately could have been nominated based on the roles themselves before anyone saw the work (always a problem!). You've got your reigning Best Actor (Eddie Redmayne), your mega stars (Leonardo DiCaprio & Matt Damon), and your highly-revered thespians (Bryan Cranston & Michael Fassbender) with all but one of them (Damon) playing real life people. That's the baitiest of bait to awards types -- not just Oscar! --  though after 15 years of covering movies and awards seasons I still can't fathom why playing someone who really exists/existed is so much more likely to be lauded than creating a character from scratch with only the screenplay, director and your imagination to guide you. 

But anyway that's Oscar's list. Only two of them survive to make my personal ballot and I had to correct some category campaign problems too to put Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Paul Dano (Love & Mercy) where they belonged. Since DiCaprio's fans can be quite touchy I should note that he's solid, as ever, in The Revenant. He's locked up to win the Oscar finally but sadly the film just isn't asking very much of him, emotionally, beyond grief and anguish which he's been playing with minor variations for at a dozen years now. Sorry Oscar campaign narrative but tough physical working conditions and weird diets ≠ acting triumph. 

Best of '15: Hunkalicious Screen Beauty

Our Year in Review party continues! Cue mood music.

Since The Film Experience obsessives over actresses almost daily, the actors could use a little spotlight from time to time. So this entry into our year in review party is a beauty break starring the year's best man candy in cinema ...with a little TV thrown in for extra flavor.

15 A superhero... but which one?
Any of The Avengers will do but if actors are going to be expected to be on special diets and grueling workout routines daily for those spandex ready bodies, you'd think Marvel would let them go shirtless for more than 10 seconds each movie. Chris Evans is still the most delicious among them but we'll give this round to Paul Rudd for the sleeker non-steroidal fitness regimen (which we hope becomes more the norm because Henry Cavill's Superman body is so cartoon weird; it's like a giant chest and shoulders with random stick appendages and face).

Runner up goes to Chris Hemsworth When Wet: in that silly pool of visions in Age of Ultron; shipwrecked and starving but still somehow maintaining the workouts in In the Heart of the Sea; or even just those carefully wet stray Blackhat bangs

Fourteen more people or categories after the jump. But fair warning... it's slightly nsfw. So it's a good thing you're on Christmas break. In the immortal words of Tina Belcher...

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