Re: Ben Affleck

I would like to go on record... as saying that this hideous idea of a "write-in" vote for Ben Affleck which is making the webrounds should not be humored by any Academy member or Oscar pundit who respects that the votes are what the votes are come what may. We all have disagreements each year. I mean I think it's ludicrous / embarrassing / etcetera that Crash won best picture but I haven't demanded a recount or a retroactive do-over. The Oscars are what they are: a historical document of a given moment in time and what an elite group of people in Hollywood in those fields valued at the time. 

To deny the directors their ability to choose the five Best Directors is tantamount to overthrowing the entire system in which the nominations come from their own branch of expertise. What's next, actors being able to choose which 5 sound engineers should be up for awards? Documentarians choosing which 5 costume designers should be nominated because, they themselves understand so much about character and clothing?

If I were Ben Affleck I would shut this down immediately somehow. No one likes a sore loser. 

10 Things I Link About You

Deal Central Anne Hathaway will star in a modernized version of Taming of the Shrew. Good luck besting braying fab Elizabeth Taylor, Anne. 
Movie|Line Michael Haneke is actually aware of that lolz twitter account in his name. Too cool or perhaps too Haneke to care.
AV Club Mike D'Angelo on the art of compression in Moonrise Kingdom (the letter sequence is my personal favorite in the film)

Vulture attends a slew of parties and eavesdrop on Jennifer Lawrence (who loves Kara Hayward from Moonrise Kingdom) and Damian Lewis who does it gangnam style... no really.
Pajiba on new television series in the works including a Heathers adaptation and a new drama from... Cher (!)
A Blogwork Orange on the director blame game regarding Oscar snubs
Movies on Demand has a ton of  nominees for your instant renting perusal. I almost didn't link to this because their press release was so condescending. Why yes, Movies on Demand, I do actually know just how Quvenzhane Wallis made history this week. Duh!

GLOBES MANIA
Jane Fonda recounts her red carpet weekend 
Stale Popcorn Glenn appreciates a gorgeous raven-haired threeshot of Lucy Liu, Marion Cotillard, and Salma Hayek. And the Globes surrounding it.
Nicks Flick Picks valiantly live-blogged the whole Globes experience (unlike myself who tried to go mobile and failed) in his usual entertaining way. Abilify!

10 Big Surprises of Nomination Morning: From Batman to Ben

Before you can ever delve deep into the nominated fields, you have do the requisite double takes to process the surprises. Herewith the most shocking turns of events this morning. If I haven't included something you found truly eyebrow-raising and faith-shaking ('how can I ever turst the pundits again?!') make sure to share it in the comments. 

poll by twiigs.com

10 The Supporting Actor List is All Previous Winners
In the entire history of the Oscars, I can't recall any acting category having been composed entirely of men or women who already had Oscars. At least one newbie always manages to join the celebrated. Other than that it's not a surprising list really given that all five of the men had precursor support (typical) and two are leads masquerading as supporting (typical) and all are veterans (typical). This is the kindest category to acting veterans and the most impervious to actual excitement. Year in and year out, it's the dullest major Oscar category even when the field to choose from is brimming with electricity. And to think we could have had a rising star playing an android, a rising star singing and crying his heart out, a rising star shaking what his mama gave him while stoned in Mexico, an A list reaching a career peak with nothing but a G string and a great great performance, and a baker turned actor among the dozens of possibly more thrilling choices.

The Legend Ends... and so do Batman Oscar Dreams09 The Dark Knight Rises with Zero Nominations
It's a beautiful symmetry. Batman f***ed Oscar over by sending them into a tizzy of low-confidence voting rule changes after the infamous 2008 snub (presumably to include more populist choices in Best Picture) and now Oscar has f***ed Batman over by ignoring The Dark Knight Rises altogether -- this despite the series being very popular with voters since long before Chris Nolan took over.  

Eight more increasingly startling morning alarms after the jump.

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Oscar Nominations Announcement

[DRUM ROLL PLEASE] 

8:03 The nomination announcement begins in half an hour. My synapses are firing wildly, the coffee is brewed, and in a failed attempt to feel like a sane normal person going about one's daily routine a load of laundry was started. This was perhaps a bad idea since I'm likely to forget said laundry exists in 1/2 an hour. Once again, to borrow Tiffany's sound advice from Silver Linings Playbook I warn myself "Calm down, crazy." 

8:05 If you're as touched as I am in the head by those 13 ½ inch gold men you're up watching this

COMPLETE LIST OF NOMINEES AND MORE EARLY MORNING FREAKOUT AFTER THE JUMP (BUT HERE'S A VISUAL CHART INDEX IF YOU'D PREFER... AND HOW I PERFORMED PREDICTIVE-WISE and the TEN BIGGEST SURPRISES )

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The "Makeup and Hairstyling" Seven

Another day, another Oscar decision. The Academy's Makeup branch has narrowed the field in their annual bakeoffs and selected the following seven films as the best of the best in the Oscar category of Makeup and Hairstyling. They'll be whittled down to three for Nomination Morning on January 10th.

Will it be Les Miz's abused poor or Lincoln's bewigged politicians for the Hair and Makeup Oscar?

They are:

• Hitchcock
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Lincoln
• Looper
• Men in Black 3
• Les Misérables
• Snow White and the Huntsman 

HAPPINESS! I'm shocked ("Best" usually meaning "Most" with Oscar) but ever so relieved that I'll never have to look at those hideous faces from Cloud Atlas again; Tom Hanks' yellow buck teeth and various facial hairdonts will haunt me forever even without clip reels!

Among these potential nominees I think Les Misérables and Lincoln are obviously worthy choices for films with extensive and great spell-casting in this particular arena of movie magic. I'm also glad that my early pundit insistence that Snow White and the Huntsmen would be taken seriously by the guilds has come to pass despite some people feeling I was high at the time.

INDIFFERENCE! I don't really thrill to the makeup work in Hitchcock, but I realize that that might have more to do with my issues with Sir Anthony Hopkins who isn't particularly gifted at mimicry, than at the prosthetics aimed to create the illusion of the ressurection of The Master of Suspense. 

SADNESS! I had hoped against hope to see Holy Motors among the actual nominees on January 10th since so much of the film's narrative involves Denis Lavant's makeup applications. (I hoped for it in the way I hoped for The Devil Wears Prada to win a rare contemporary nomination for costume design but that time there was a happy ending.) And I even had a only-in-my-imagination debate about who would get the nomination if The Paperboy made it to the finals. After all those statements about Lee Daniels forcing Nicole Kidman to do her own hair and makeup, would Nicole Kidman be eligible for two Oscar nominations for her latest flirtation with her own bonafide genius?