Release Date Shuffle: Oscar Players, Musical Wars, Franchise Heroes

I know most film blogs make a post for every teaser, release date, and every last press release. I frankly don't have the time but even if I did... why encourage Hollywood's itchy trigger fingers when they're constantly fussily rescrambling their pieces on the puzz--I'm mixing too many metaphors--  Moving on to the Release Date Switches/Announcements. We're less than 200 days away from Oscar nominations! So yes, we gotta update those charts again soon, I know.

Oscarable Switcheroos
August: Osage County has, as you now, moved to Christmas day, despite its summer friendly title. And Saving Mr Banks, the Mary Poppins related Disney flick is opting to get out in front of the Christmas crowd a bit with a December 13th bow. Meanwhile Twelve Years a Slave, from director Steve McQueen and Grace of Monaco, the new Kidman flick, both move from the Dread Oscar Eligibility Dump Week (that awful New Years week) into airier mid October. And October is getting busier and busier, really because Ridley Scott's The Counselor (just discussed) has also moved from its intended mid November start to late October.

Contrary to popular belief this does not automatically mean that the studios are less gung ho about their Oscar chances. Oscar watchers (and, yes, distributors sometimse) often forget that you don't have to open in late December to be a player. It helps to open in the last third of the year though, sure! But MANY MANY films have had good luck in September (your Argos and your American Beautys), October (your Departeds) and November (your Slumdogs and your No Countrys) among other months. 

Your Oscar calendar is currently looking like this... [Oscar Types, Superheroes and Meryl vs. Annie after the jump]

woo woo ♪ here comes the life of the Oscar partay

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Oscar Date Trivia Attack. But Another Long Phase Two? Noooooo

By now you've undoubtedly heard that AMPAS has opted to bypass the February Winter Olympics in 2014 not by attacking the Globes & SAG in their comfy January berths but by waiting it out patiently until March. Sunday, March 2nd 2014 to be precise.

ESSENTIAL TRIVIA: Only one Oscar ceremony has ever been held on a March 2nd. That night the Oscar went to... Casablanca (1942) so that's good company for the upcoming winner to be in.

March is of course the most common month for Oscars to be held (with April and February taking silver and bronze). The most common night for the Oscars to be held is a tie between March 25th (From Here to Eternity, Amadeus, Dances With Wolves, Braveheart and Gladiator) and March 29th (All About Eve, Cuckoo's Nest, Chariots of Fire, Rain Man, Unforgiven) ...so if you were born on either of those days, Oscar loves you most u cute liddle adorable golden-baby!

March 2nd is a week later as shows go for his year but so are the nominations (January 16th, 2014). Which means that the 2013 Oscar race will be nearly exactly like the one we just experienced in terms of timing. What we probably won't see is all the OMG-WTF-IS-HAPPENING drama because those kind of curveballs we were thrown (Bigelow & Affleck, Les Miz's ecstatic premiere to sharp drop, Lincoln's weird frontrunner to "anything but!" trajectory, Ang Lee's second Oscar without a noisy campaign, etc...) are mighty rare.

All of which is a long way of saying that once again the time period between Nominations and Hollywood's High Holy Night will be much longer than anyone can deal with*. I've updated the embeddable widget should you love the countdown to nominations as much as I... 

but if you'd already had it on your page you know that I change it each year so that the countdown never ends.

It can't because the Oscars are eternal!

P.S. Somewhat curiously they've also announced the Oscar ceremoney date for 2015 as if to remind all of us that they have no intention of returning to March in the future. It'll be held on February 22nd, 2015 which is only 698 days from now. Set your watches. (The only other previous February 22nd Oscars went to Slumdog Millionaire. Uh oh)

*I much prefer a long Phase One, short Phase Two but what'cha gonna do?

Life of Link

Movie Line could The Canyons revive Lindsay Lohan's film career?
The Onion "Area Woman's Baseless Hatred Of Anne Hathaway Reciprocated" LOL
Awards Daily Oscar Post-Mortem. Great 2012 movies that received no Oscar nominations this season. Will you remember them, anyway?  

Wet Dark and Wild what is Jake Gyllenhaal up to? Prisoners
The Carpetbagger explains what's going on with Visual Effects in the wake of that Life of Pi speech so unceremoniously cut off by Jaws music on Oscar night
Vulture a timeline of Oscar weekend parties with appearances from Quvenzhané, Chastain, John Hawkes, a reunion for The Help.  I love this bit on Tommy Lee Jones... I mean who knew:

11:58 p.m. The most romantic moment of the night comes from Tommy Lee Jones, of all people. He's holding up an In-N-Out burger for his wife Dawn to graze on, while looking at her lovingly. She's literally eating out of the palm of his hand right now.

newsy
Coming Soon the new Annie, starring Quvenzhané Wallis will hit movie theaters on Christmas day, 2014 
Hollywood Carrie Fisher hospitalized after bipolar meltdown :(  
i09 Chris Cooper joining The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as Norman Osborne. Studios never learn their lessons and this one is getting as crowded as X3!
My New Plaid Pants Annie Wilkes herself, Kathy Bates, is joining the new season of American Horror Story 

Two Animated Films I'm Excited About (Will Oscar Be, Too?)

This year I had made a silent goal to myself to talk about animated films more often at The Film Experience since I sometimes really enjoy them even if I don't say so and you definitely enjoy them but we tend to not cover them. So far so getting better. Here are two films I'm looking forward to that I didn't even realize I was excited for because I almost forgot they existed.

1. Me and My Shadow (2014) 
This upcoming effort released a teaser poster a few days ago and has a cute concept. It will reportedly be a blending of traditional animation and CG animation with the traditional being the shadow world and the CG being for the "real" world. From the official synopsis...

Stan (Bill Hader), our hero's shadow, yearns for a more exciting life but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb (Josh Gad), a timid guy with an extreme aversion to adventure. When a crime in the shadow world puts both of their lives in danger, Stan is forced to take control of Stanley...

 My mind immediately lept to Steve Martin's body controlled by Lily Tomlin's spirit in All of Me (1984) and Linguini's body going all marionette for Remy in Ratatouille (2007) so the concept is just rich for potentially golden physical slapstick and awkward charm. Not that it's easy to be as good as either of those pictures!

More after the jump including Oscar potential...

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Looks Like Rain! Aronofksy's "Noah" is Coming

The publicity for Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014) -- the first big name biblical epic since, what, The Passion of the Christ? -- is a light drizzle now. Here's the first photo from the set tweeted Wednesday by Darren Aronofsky himself who writes:

I dreamt about this since I was 13. And now it's a reality. Genesis 6:14

So that scripture in case you don't have a Bible (no judgments) is along these lines 'Make yourself an arc with ribs of cypress: cover it with reeds and coat it inside and out with pitch.'

Jennifer Connelly wearing one of her Noah's Ark co-starsMore Noah news
Anthony Hopkins was recently announced in the role of super-ancient Methusaleh who (SPOILER ALERT) dies right before the Flood. Maybe he can borrow Guy Pearce or Cate Blanchett's impossibly old old-age makeup from Prometheus or Benjamin Button.

Russell Crowe plays Noah and Jennifer Connelly as his wife (making this a double reunion for her with her A Beautiful Mind co-star and her Requiem for a Dream director). The cast also includes Emma Watson (zzz), Logan Lerman, two animals of every kind and Ray Winstone as the "villain". Does this mean Winstone plays God? Cause, let's be real, isn't God the villain in the Noah's Ark scenario? 

The publicity drizzle will presumably soon be a flood. It gets like that for filmmakers after they have their first smash crossover hit. In Aronofsky's case that was Black Swan. And what better way to follow up a hallucinatory fucked up ballerina nightmare and Best Picture nominee than with a biblical epic involving mad prophets, animals, and Oscar winning actors?

If you were filling Aronofsky's ark which two animals (or actors) would you start with?