Podcast: 'Hottest Guy in the Room' (Not 'The Boy Who Lived')

Post Oscar Podcast Part 2! We left off talking about Meryl Streep's win in Part One. We pick that back up for a wee bit before a grab bag of shiny golden goodies to send you on your way.

Topics include but are not limited to...

• "the hottest guy in the room"
• Christopher Plummer and the best 'Best Supporting Actor' run ever
• Busy Phillips ♥ Michelle Williams
• Who will be the holdover nominee this year to next?
• Brad Pitt. Nathaniel tries to let go. Everyone else resists
• Best Original Song Death Watch
• Oscar Hosting & Oscar Blogging
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Shunning Part 3
• Goodbyes

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post.

And that's a wrap on this Oscar year. We hope you enjoyed the coverage. I want to give a shout out to everyone who helped out during The Film Experience's biggest year ever. In addition to these podcast pals, big love to Michael, Kurt, Amir, Alexandra, Jason, Joanna, Robert, Jose and all of you reading whose passion for the site helps keep it going even when movies go sour or finances and times are tight.

Mwah! Now some sleep.

Regularly scheduled blogging resumes on Tuesday. Until then enjoy the podcasts and any pieces you might have missed along the way. Click around.

Oscar Post-Mortem Part 2

4 Days Till Oscar. Flashback to "A Dignified Superstar"

It's all right. You can get your cheap laughs. I shall remain the dignified superstar that moi am."
-Miss Piggy to "Jonathan" at the 52nd Oscars 

What was Miss Piggy so miffed about in April 1980?

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LA, NY, HI, AE, LINK

The Film Doctor makes a passionate case for Hawaii and The Descendants... but I'm still having trouble. I just don't think it's very good. And also it's hard to be receptive to the arguments when they start by dissing The Artist. 'Can't we all just get along?' That said I do agree that the final shot is pretty wonderful. Just wish the rest of the movie was.

They Live By Night Awww, there was an Amadeus Blog-a-Thon and I didn't even know about it. Blog-a-thons just don't have as much outreach as they used to. Totally would've done that one.
The Awl  (speaking of the 80s...) remembers The Thorn Birds in a funny piece. OMG. I was so into priestly Richard Chamberlain when I was a wee boy. 
Cineuropa Iceland's Volcano didn't go the distant with Oscar this year in the Best Foreign Film Category but it's doing very well at home to augment its critical reputation. 14 nominations at Iceland's own Oscars!

Coming Soon. So wait let me get this straight. Will Smith turned down Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) but signed up to work with M Night Shyamalan? Has he never seen these things we call movies? Here's Will & Jaden on the set of After Earth (formerly titled One Thousand Years A.E.). They're filming in beautiful Costa Rica.

Oscar 2012/13 Notes (Too Early?)
Playbill Les Miserables... will all the Oscars belong to it. Apparently they have their sights set on Best Original Song as well. They're giving Hugh Jackman a new number as Jean Valjean.
Empire Tom Felton of Potter/Malfoy fame will play another spoiled kid, Glenn Close's in fact, in Therese Raquin. Now that Close is about to tie Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter for Most Losing Oscar Nominated Actress (6 times) ... I am kind of excited for her to try to beat Peter O'Toole (8 times. no competitive wins). Think she can win attention again for this classic story? I know SHE would prefer to win but it's kind of exciting for US to have someone fighting for these records. Kind of. I mean, we still feel for her. Don't misunderstand

Goings about town(s)...

Los Angeles Readers
Recover from the Oscars in a couple of weeks with some classic animation. On March 7th-11th, the LA Animation Fest happens and there's special screenings of The Iron Giant and Akira, two unmissables. Both are presented by Sean Lennon who is this year's artistic director. Would that the Akira screening could convince Hollywood to abort their current plans and only pursue this live action adaptation madness with Asian leads. More on the fest at its official site.

New York Readers
This Friday the Film Society of Lincoln Center starts a four day tribute to 70s sex symbol Raquel Welch. The brunette bombshell will be appearing at some of the screenings over the weekend. The big ticket is undoubtedly bizarre cult camp object Myra Breckinridge this Friday. She'll be interviewed by Simon Doonan (!) after the screening. No word yet on whether actor turned critic Rex Reed will appear but it would be kind of hilarious for Raquel and him to pose for a photo op I think. The actress will also be at the One Million Years BC, Last of Sheila, and Three Musketeers screenings. You can read more about Welch's allure and legacy at the New York Observer.

Need a suggestion for next weekend? You can't really go wrong with a Barbara  Stanwyck Double Feature. Author Dan Callahan (full disclosure: a friend) just released a new book on the legenadary actress and he's introducing two of her most beloved films, the screwball comedy The Lady Eve (heaven) and the western Forty Guns.

Links, Fences, Songs, Brainnnnns

Free Unqualified... The Artist = Anchorman ?
SuperPunch for your next horror movie party with friends, zombie chocolates with cherry brainnnnns! 
Carpetbagger talks to Stuart Craig on the challenges of art directing Hogwarts over eight Harry Potter films 
Antagony & Ecstacy offers up a great top ten list: ten best Oscar slates ever from 2009's animated feature to 1939's best actresses and everywhere inbetween.
Senses of Cinema looks at the question of identity in Splendor in the Grass (1961) 

Flavorwire Disney Princess tattoos. Why the hell not?
Movie|Line on Clint Eastwood vs the ever-nuttier GOP after his Superbowl commercial
Towleroad  No song performances at this year's Oscars? Christ, AMPAS really needs to call me. They could've had such a watercooler live tv moment with "Man or Muppet". I explain how.

Complex the '25 Hottest Women on Horror TV shows'. Fun list with shoutouts to two of the best TV shows of all time Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks 
World of Wonder three things
Empire clears up that silly rumor that Harrison Ford was going to be in the Blade Runner sequel that nobody should be making to begin with shame on you Ridley Scott do you really want to turn into George Lucas I'm just saying... 

Today's Must Read
Grantland Mark Harris writes a fabulous column on Viola Davis's extraordinary gift, the Best Actress race and Hollywood's race relations.

Faced with the peril of that archetype, Davis did the hardest job of anyone in the Best Actress category: She made the movie better — much better — without playing against it. Much of The Help is bright, candy-colored, and loud: It’s full of silly wigs and garish costumes, sitcom slapstick and shit pies, wicked old dears like Sissy Spacek, finger-snappin’ Designing Women tell-offs, and the kind of steroidal pivots from comedy to poignancy to melodrama that would shame an episode of Glee. What Davis gives the film is humanity. Aibileen is a gentle but wary woman — she’s lived long enough to know that in her world, you survive by bending, not breaking, by keeping your thoughts to yourself, by seeing and hearing everything while appearing to register very little, and by trying to apply your own sense of decency and kindness to a badly needed paying job in an often indecent and unkind world. When she’s on-screen, the hummingbird shrieks of the movie’s other characters are hushed; you’re reminded that the human toll of daily, casual racism doesn’t really get addressed by making Bryce Dallas Howard eat poo. Because Davis is a physically gifted actress who can incorporate the exhaustion and strain of being Aibileen into every motion and muscle, and also the rare performer — even in this year ofThe Artist and Max von Sydow — whose silences draw you even closer, she seems to correct The Help’s excesses without ever standing self-protectively outside it. At every turn, she un-simplifies the movie.

Nick and I keep wondering when Hollywood is going to make August Wilson's Fences (for which Viola won a Tony opposite Denzel Washington) into a movie and everyone I know who is into theater keeps wondering why this hasn't happened for Fences or really any of August Wilson's plays. So it's nice to see that subject is revived again here. Seriously what time like the present Hollywood? Get on that. How many times do we have to ask?

Farewell Oscar Hopeful! (Snubs That Hurt Us)

Last night at 4 AM this was the only image my brain would settle on...

I don't normally spend time in the middle of the night thinking of Fassbender lying naked in bed (Shush!). It's just that I had the worst insomnia I'd had in months. As I stared down at this still image in my state of delirious sleep deprivation I'm reasonably certain that he stared back, his eyes shifting just a little. He must have seen a mirror image of his vacant orbs and haunted zombie expressionless. Only with less handsomeness.

Brandon's addiction was sex and mine is the Oscars but either way we are powerless against our disease. Perhaps it was all the Oscar Morn Excitement catching up to me? Fassy's frozen image reminded me that I forgot to offer my condolescences to the Oscar Forgotten yesterday. Some people and cinematic contributions you'd be really happy to spend another 32 days celebrating but the time has come to say goodbye. [sniffle]

Farewell Oscar Hopeful. Better Luck Next Time
8 Snubs/Omissions That Hurt The Most

08 Melancholia Best Anything
Given that mad Dane Lars von Trier's sole nomination is in songwriting (find a more hilarious Oscar statistic, I dare you!) we never suspected that this would be an Oscar film. But the tiny scattered awards crumbs for his dreamy apocalyptic depression metaphor, arguably his best film in a decade, allowed us to pretend in a feverish bipolar sort of way that miracles would occur and it would wake up as the nomination leader. No, not really. But it's a shame that that masterful Cinematography and Kirsten Dunst's spooky narcoleptic bride won so little traction.

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