FYC Best Supporting Actress Michelle Pfeiffer

Too early?

In all seriousness though, the only thing we know for certain about the 2012/13 Oscars is that Dark Shadows will be up for Costumes (Colleen Atwood) and Art Direction (Rick Heinrichs). The Burton Factory can usually bank on those honors. I'd also personally like to thank Ms. Atwood ahead of time for La Pfeiff's plunging neckline with fancy Medieval cross necklace. Love.

Sorry! As you were. Back to the 2011/2012 Oscars for 33 more days. Every Oscar chart is updated.

Oscar Prediction Updates & Calendar

As someone who is absolutely not feeling it today -- why do some days torment us, so? -- I thought I'd best *finally* finish updating the Oscar predictions. So I'm working on it. As ever I'm sure you'll tell me exactly where I'm right and wrong.

Even though I'm not technically feeling it today, I am most definitely feeling it in terms of the Oscars this year. It's SO exciting for once. Lots of confusion in each category I think. Just the way we like it. If predictions aren't difficult, they aren't fun.

Picture I'm guessing 8 nominees though I think Moneyball is stronger and War Horse weaker than my chart suggests. Though perhaps this is wishful thinking? 
Director If Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg are all nominated here, that would be madness. I need to do the statistics but I am pretty sure that that would be the most previously nominated group ever assembled in Best Director since they're the 3 most nominated living / working directors. But as of this writing I don't think Spielberg is in.
Actress Tilda and Glenn aren't invulnerable for very different reasons. Rooney Mara was surging while ballots went out but it's not really an Oscar type role so who knows? And then there's still Charlize (just interviewed) sneering at all of them in her Hello Kitty shirt. Everyone else is toast.
Actor I'm taking a risk because I keep hearing Michael Shannon's name even though his movie is basically gone. But then so is Leo's.

Shannon got one nomination by surprise. Can he pull off surprise #2?

Supporting Actress I still think this category is VERY difficult to predict. Someone with a lot of precursor attention isn't going to make it. People always say it's easy to predict this one until you remind them that six women have won plentiful precursor attention. Six ≠ Five.
Supporting Actor totally diffuse if you ask me beyond the Branagh-Plummer-Brooks triangle. Wouldn't it be a hoot if Corey Stoll or Viggo Mortensen made it in?
Screenplay Original is still super crowded and impossible to figure with at least five major contenders ineligible for the recent Writer's Guild noms. Adapted is easier but not completely simple.

CALENDAR FUN!
Today, I got the hugest package in the mail. I mean it was enormous. And this thin calendar to your right was all that was inside. HA! Here's to killing trees for nothing! But it did immediately remind me that I need to nail down my calendar for 2012. I want it to be the best year ever here at The Film Experience. I really do. The Bext Exotic Marigold Hotel promisese to open on May 4th. In worse news, The Wettest Country has been moved back AGAIN. Now they're saying August. Let's face it: that movie is never going to open. If both do open as intended who knows. Oscar 2012? The Help, The Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris, all summer releases, are still in play for 2011's race.

Here's some dates you should know about as we move forward into our busiest month.

JANUARY DATES

• Sat. 7th National Society of Film Critics... ending critic prizes.
• Mon. 9th Directors Guild Nominations ... which was once the most accurate predictor of anything-ever as to what would be Best Picture nominated. The last few years have made those statistics useless with all the changes as to # of nominees.
• Thur. 12th BFCA "CRITICS CHOICE" AWARDS (yes, we'll live blog or something)
• Fri. 13th Oscar Ballots due. Nothing on this day or forward can affect who gets nominated. 
• Sat. 14th LAFCA Awards Ceremony (not televised)
• Sun. 15th GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS (yes, we'll live blog or something)
• Mon. 16th ACE Eddie Award Nominations (Editing) and we'll do Oscar chart updates .
• Wed. 18th BAFTA nominations - not the fake ones.
• Thurs. 19th Costume Designers Guild Nominations
• Sat. 21st Producers Guild Award Ceremony (not televised)
• Sun. 22nd FOLLIES closes on Broadway... heading to Los Angeles but without Bernadette Peters. *sniffle* Do not miss it! Oh and also this is the day when we'll post our final predictions for nominations in all Oscar categories.
• Tues. 24th OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
• Sun. 29th SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS (Yes, we'll live blog or something)

 What are you looking forward to? 
Oscar Prediction comments? 

A Heart Full of Uh-Oh... Taylor Swift for "Les Misérables"

Last night while innocently checking Facebook, a reader forced me -- literally forced me -- to read unpleasant news, reaching through the screen, yanking my eyeballs out and plopping them right down on this news that Taylor Swift was joining the cast of Tom Hooper's Les Miserables as Eponine.

I said "Don't make me think about THAT!!!". I mean, I'd just shared my top ten list so I was still hooked up to an IV joy drip and he wanted me to focus on THAT. I couldn't do it! THAT would have to wait until tomorrow, I said.

But here we are in tomorrow and THAT is still whatever it is. So let's recap what's going on with the casting of the most important movie musical in the pipeline.

The Three Roles The Whole Thing Rests On
Jean Valjean.......................... Hugh Jackman
Inspector Javert .................... Russell Crowe
Fantine ................................  Anne Hathaway

We know that Jackman and Hathaway have spectacular golden age quality movie musical voices and that all three of these movie stars can really act. That's a crucial thing since Les Misérables is actually an epic weepie and not the more commonly seen musical comedy. If "Bring Him Home" (Valjean) and "I Dreamed a Dream" (Fantine) don't ruin you emotionally, Les Miz will lose 87% of its dramatic potency.

Crowe? Have we heard him sing outside of rock music? Hooper is supposedly NOT doing this musical in the typical way of pre-recording and then lipsynching / acting later on. Instead, or so we hear though it sounds complicated given the chaotic milieu of the story, that the actors will actually be singing while they act. This might make for an electric movie experience (I mean the source material is already great) but who knows.

the rest of the cast after the jump

Click to read more ...

We Should Read "The Paperboy"

Herewith a few notes on the newly released poster for The Paperboy which looks good enough to... read. The movie is about a reporter (Matthew McConaughey) and his troubled brother (Zac Efron) investigating a death row inmate (John Cusack) who is involved in a steamy correspondence with a femme fatale (Nicole Kidman).

Is Zac Efron sending me a personal message by working with La Pfeiffer & Nic' back to back? 

        [plugs ears] lalalalalalalala ican'thearyou

I was once a paperboy. It's true. For years! Paperboys have gone the way of the milk man but when I was a kid this was a common job for suburban boys and girls to have. Then you'd do your collecting and spend all your hard-earned quarters at the arcade.

Nicole Kidman looks trashy delishusssss. Love the lusty smirk, like she's going to eat Zac right up --  not for his pleasure (!) but just to wield her own sexual power. Billing is always an interesting matter. If you can't be first, be last. Or rather "AND..." last. So Matthew & Nic' win.

Speaking of billing... I find it kind of interesting that the poster preferences the novelist and screenwriter above the Oscar nominated Lee Daniels (Precious) like it's a subliminal reminder of how great Precious was. Implied titles  The Paperboy: Based on the Novel "The Paperboy" by Pete Dexter.

I think the color scheme is really helping. It's like the movie is summertime hot but someone left the paperback on the beach and it got all washed out. The retro craze for teaser posters is really on, isn't it? Just like the retro craze is really on onscreen (at least three of the Best Picture hopefuls). I suppose ANYTHING is better than dread contemporary poster aesthetics: big floating movie star heads or those imagination-prison horizontal stripes. This poster manages to include all the stars (if that's McConaughey out of focus but I can never recognize him with his shirt on) without resorting to the stripes at all. Well, except for that last insert of John Cusack's threatening eyeliner. But even that plays like a fun "to be continued" comic book panel.

If the movie is as good as this poster, I shall write it steamy letters from my apartment prison.

I think we should read the novel while we wait for this because you know Lee Daniels isn't a copy & paste kind of director but someone who likes to play with visuals.  Who is with me? If so, say so... we need lots of blog projects to do it up real big like for 2012 before the apocalypse.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Dark Knight Rises"

It's our practice to break trailers down to their components which make us eager / annoyed / unsure. But for this sort of event we're aware we're supposed to be all YES, already in the (bat) tank. But let's break this down anyway. Batman would surely appreciate the importance of rituals and this is how we do.

The Greatest Logo in the History of Super Logos

YES

• That friction between Anne Hathaway's menacing whispers and that young choirboy's national anthem is perfect. But then Chris Nolan movies are always good with the sound.
• The chanting at the end is also hot: Best Sound Editing #2 here we come.
• Oooh Escher-like staircases inside. Where are we? Let's go to there.
• The brief glimpses of Inception players Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard are welcome. Because movie trailers are future movies invading our dreams, right? Come on in.
• Anne Hathaway's Hepburn hat. This is so girly for a Nolan movie. They better bring it with Catwoman. That's sacred ground!
• I'm fond of the trailer's and possibly the movies interest in vertical points of view rather than horizontal spaces. Batman should be vertiginious. He is Gotham City.
• It also makes me happy that he is fighting during light snow flurries for some reason.
• That collapsing football field is sick. Also reminds me of Sunnydale as sinkhole at the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And anything that reminds of Buffy...
• "Ward" the quarterback, eh? I hope that's a Dick Grayson/Robin injoke because these movies need a few jokes.

 

NO 

• Football? for a second I thought I was watching the wrong trailer.
• Ugh where is Aaron Eckhart?! I feel cheated.
• Um... Anne Hathaway doing Catwoman at a masked ball? Is this a Batman Returns homage? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. I love me some Hathaway but #PfeifferPforever. Don't risk direct comparison!

MAYBE SO 

• Christian Bale looks so haggard. Is this an intriguing aestethic choice or is he just bone tired from all the weight loss muscle gain flip-flopping of the past ten years?
• Speaking of weight loss/gain. Can someone give Tom Hardy a role where he is forced to lose the steroid look and the alien trapezius. He looks so much better human.
• Speaking of... what kind of voice is he doing? And will I be able to decipher the words under that mask. Covering up the best pair of male lips in the movies is such a crime!
• More politics with the Mayor and such zzz
• I'm not sure I trust Chris Nolan with political plotlines/metaphors. As I recall The Dark Knight was quite muddled in the messenging arena. And we REALLY don't need martyr heroes made of the 1% in the movies nor the 99% as angry crime mobs and that's kind of what the visuals and Catwoman's speech suggest, right? Is this Iron Lady 2: Right Wing Harder !? 

Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So?
This tweet from Matt Patches is a perfect joke about how wild people go for every glimpse of future event movies, particular movies by the blogosphere's favorite human person director Chris Nolan.

Hee.

So perhaps for this one we should just ask how much of a "Yes" you are?

And since we've got Oscar on the brain (tis the season) why don't we go there, too, in the comments. Batman Begins received one nomination (Cinematography) and The Dark Knight eight bids with two wins (Supporting Actor and Sound Editing). What's the ceiling for this one without the elevating force of Heath Ledger (RIP) but with the momentum of this franchise's epic epicness and ever expanding Nolan mania ?