Links: Oscar, Kubrick, Jones, Knightley, and Ado Annie

Playbill Reviews are in for Keira Knightley's Broadway turn in Therese Raquin
Variety Nicole Kidman lines up a new thriller Silent Wife. The good news is the director is Adrian Lyne who is great with actresses: see Fatal Attraction & Unfaithful
Just Jared Jonathan Groff dies of happiness when Beyoncé pays him a compliment 

Brooklyn Mag pornish art films before Gaspar Noé's Love
Pajiba Patton Oswalt ranks the GOP candidates with D&D statistics 
Pajiba Quentin Tarantino vs. Cops. Ugly business.
My New Plaid Pants Rachel McAdams, Serious Journalist (via Spotlight) 

The Superverse
Variety talks to superhero loving TV megaproducer Greg Berlanti (The Flash and Supergirl are big hits ... but they aren't even his first superhero shows - remember that Incredibles/Fantastic4 ripoff called No Ordinary Family?)
Empire lots of new Suicide Squad photos 
Coming Soon Matthew McConaughey turns Marvel villain role down - I mean wouldn't you? Their villains suck
Tracking Board Li Bingbing (not to be confused with fashion icon X-Men actress Fan Bingbing) will supposedly headline a superhero film called Realm which is an original idea of Stan Lee's. It's a long ways off since the script isn't even written yet. Li Bingbing has previously appeared in action films like the recent installments of the Transformers and Resident Evil series

Oscar Mania
Movie City News Why The Martian is the movie to beat for Best Pic at the Oscars
Awards Daily Time to take Room seriously as a Best Pic winner? 
In Contention on the costume design Oscar race

Trailer Tease
After lots of teasing -- and we're sick of teasing! -- a real trailer finally emerged for Netflix's Daredevil followup, Marvel's Jessica Jones starring Krysten Ritter. ICYMI it goes like so...

(On a personal note it'll be interesting to watch this one as for once I have no connection to the comic books. So much of contemporary comic book cinema and television is based on characters who've been around since before most of us were born. Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are practically octogenarians. Most of the Marvel superstars at the movies recently hit the half century mark. Etcetera. Jessica Jones didn't emerge in comic books until 2001 long after I had stopped reading them so I have no idea what to expect. )

Must See Mashup
This one is from some place called "GumpTV" which I hope isn't inspired by Forrest himself (blech). The short is called "The Red Drum Getaway" and it pits Hitchcock's Jimmy Stewart against the sinister auteurism of Stanley Kubrick. Terrifically edited, well paced, and that finale. Wowee.

The Red Drum Getaway from Gump on Vimeo.

Showtune to Go
Did you know that Oklahoma! (1955) is coming back to movie theaters for its 60th anniversary? Here's Kristin Chenoweth singing "I Cain't Say No" in celebration.

Trailers for Short Oscar finalists

AMPAS has selected 10 documentary shorts from their undoubtedly long (unpublished that we know of) eligibility list to compete for the 5 nominations in the category. For those who are unaware the short film race at the Oscars each year can be a hodgepodge of years (no release dates apply obviously) because the shorts qualify for the competition by winning prizes at Oscar-qualifying festivals around the world. (The short film categories are often as international as the Foreign Language Film Award.) And the festival journey can be a long one for tiny low profile films. 

Doc trailers after the jump and a few Animated shorts, too...

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Morning Truth Tell: Tom Hanks...

Tom Hanks is giving way better performances recently (Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies) than the ones he used to win Oscars for. 

Mad Max & Fashionable Kate lead the 'Australian Oscar' nominations

The AACTA Awards, essentially the Australian Oscars, are in their 5th year. But the "5th" business they're promoting is misleading. It's the fifth year under their new name, AACTA, but they've actually been giving out prizes since 1958 when they were called AFI Awards... not to be confused with the AFI events across the Pacific, America and Australia both starting with "A" and both having Film Institutes. But they're obviously promoting a reboot mentality since they consider the 2011 AACTAs the "inaugural" awards.

Leading the pack this year are Kate Winslet's fashionista revenge comedy The Dressmaker (still awaiting news on a US release) and the critically beloved Max Mad Fury Road with 12 and 11 nominations respectively. George Miller's action masterpiece could even win since AACTA doesn't have the genre bias Oscar does -- Australia's industry is to small to have such silly biases! -- giving Best Film to The Babadook last year. If Mad Max Fury Road could repeat this trick at the American Oscars -- 11 nominations (!) -- 95% of cinephiles would experience the rapture and never be heard from again.

The film nominees are after the jump...

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Iris, a great subject.

With Oscar's documentary longlist out, we're catching up with a few. Here's Deborah on Iris.

Sometimes all you need is a great subject.

To say this does a disservice to documentarian Albert Maysles, who has created a visual feast with Iris, but the primary delight of the film is Iris herself. Iris Apfel, at 94 years old, has lived a life of visual feast. If your tolerance of eccentric little old ladies is low, you won’t love this film, but phooey on you in that case. This woman is a prize, a person who celebrates her own uniqueness, who takes joy wherever she can, and the film focuses on that joy...

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