You Only Link Twice

Broadway World the SNL cast does "One Day More" from Les Miz to celebrate their lame one-day weekend. With Anne Hathaway as host. For the third time, bitches.
Vulture Joaquin Phoenix's apology (of sorts... if you stretch the definition of the word) for his comments about the Oscars
Cinema Blend Joe Wright talks about restored confidence and directing Anna Karenina. Calls the release of The Soloist "heartbreaking" 
Film Drunk on Channing Tatum the "Sexiest Man Alive" ... and other prizes
Awards Daily Ben Affleck to receive the "Modern Master" award at Santa Barbara Fest after only three films. (I think it's time you all bowed down to my stunning predictive powers about Monsieur Affleck. I predicted his ascendance to Eastwood Jr. status years and years ago!)

In Contention Skyfall's amazing un-Oscared tech team 
The Envelope overhears a "Who is that?" question in relation to... Jennifer Lawrence?!? Also: The Best Actress race.

Retro
Criterion Collection Ira Levin on the origins of Rosemary's Baby and what he worries about in terms of the film's legacy 
MNPP on the infamous and still-censtored 'Rape of Christ' sequence from Ken Russell's The Devils.  

Off Cinema For Fun
Fantagraphics Illustrator Wilfred Santiago illustrates Victoria Jackson's Election Night tea-party addled tweet meltdown
i09 studies suggest that mankind is getting dumber and dumber
The Advocate the internet's fascination with gay geek / political prophet Nate Silver of "Five Thirty Eight" fame
Boy Culture a new wax replica of Madonna for Madame Tussauds  

Our Kind of Voting Pt. 2

image shamelessly grabbed from My New Plaid PantsI'm feeling anxious today -- everyone around me is too.

We won't know who won the Presidential Election until late tonight but since all I can think of today is voting, we'll continue with our actual favorite kind of voting: Oscar voting.

Or, rather, retroactive hypothetical Oscar voting. See part one if you missed it or enjoy this exercize

So tell me who wins your vote in some of the most famously divisive, contentious, or just plain fabulous categories ever! Explain your choices in the comments.

2003 BEST ACTOR
SEAN PENN (Mystic River) vs. BILL MURRAY (Lost in Translation) vs. JOHNNY DEPP (Pirates of the Caribbean) vs JUDE LAW (Cold Mountain) vs BEN KINGSLEY (House of Sand and Fog)

1974 BEST ACTRESS
ELLEN BURSTYN (Alice Doesn’t…) vs. DIAHAN CARROLL (Claudine) vs. FAYE DUNAWAY (Chinatown) vs. VALERIE PERRINE (Lenny) vs. GENA ROWLANDS (A Woman Under the Influence)

1939 BEST PICTURE
GONE WITH THE WIND vs DARK VICTORY vs GOODBYE MR CHIPS vs LOVE AFFAIR vs MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON vs NINOTCHKA vs OF MICE AND MEN vs STAGECOACH vs THE WIZARD OF OZ vs WUTHERING HEIGHTS

2007 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
CATE BLANCHETT (I’m Not There) vs. AMY RYAN (Gone Baby Gone) vs. SAOIRSE RONAN (Atonement) vs. RUBY DEE (American Gangster) vs TILDA SWINTON (Michael Clayton)

Ready? Set. Go!

Our Kind of Voting. Pt 1

I did my civic duty -- I amend, my civic pleasure at 7:40 AM this morning after about an hour of queueing. If you're from the US, get to it. VOTE. If you're not, well, this is a film site and film has no borders and no president... but it does have elections that everyone obsesses over.

So let's have fun with our other favorite kind of voting: Oscar voting.

Tell me who wins your vote in some of the most famously divisive, contentious, or just plain fabulous categories ever! Explain your choices in the comments.

1998 BEST ACTRESS
GWYNETH PALTROW (Shakespeare in Love) vs. CATE BLANCHETT (Elizabeth) vs. FERNANDA MONTENEGRO (Central Station) vs. MERYL STREEP (One True Thing) vs. EMILY WATSON (Hilary & Jackie)

Sunset Blvd is just out on Blu-Ray TODAY in a remastered edition with a ton of extras 1950 BEST ACTRESS
BETTE DAVIS vs. ANNE BAXTER (literally… in All About Eve) vs. GLORIA SWANSON (Sunset Blvd) vs. JUDY HOLLIDAY (Born Yesterday) vs. ELEANOR PARKER (Caged)

1993 SUPPORTING ACTOR
TOMMY LEE JONES (The Fugitive) vs. LEONARDO DICAPRIO (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) vs. RALPH FIENNES (Schindler’s List) vs. JOHN MALKOVICH (In the Line of Fire) vs. PETE POSTLETHWAITE (In the Name of the Father)

1976 BEST PICTURE
ROCKY vs. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN vs. BOUND FOR GLORY vs. NETWORK vs. TAXI DRIVER 

Who gets your vote now and did they always have your support in their races or have your allegiances shifted?

see also part 2

Joss Whedon "Endorsing" Mitt Romney

One week from tomorrow we choose America's future. Every time I see a statistical tie or tight race type of poll I hear Giles' weary dismay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The earth is doomed."

Hee!

NYFF: "Amour" & "No" Are Worthy Oscar Contenders

The Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film is particularly exciting this year. We have more contenders than ever (71!) and so many strong films that the Academy's always controversial foreign language branch will undoubtedly piss various contingencies off when they announce the finalist list and then the nominees. They could lessen the size of the outcry each year if only their finalist list were 12 films long. It's so strange that they make it small enough (9 films) that those films which miss the nomination are in the minority and, thus, look particularly snubbed... numerically speaking. I've already raved about the Pinoy movie "Bwakaw", and here are two other worthy candidates for this annual honor. Don't miss them if you get a chance to see them

AMOUR (Austria)
“Ladies and Gentlemen, people die. That’s all you need to know.” This line, a recurring catchphrase from aging chanteuse Kiki (Justin Bond) in the now departed Kiki & Herb act, used to make me howl with laughter. It was a perfect punchline, soaked as it was in booze and tragicomic matter-of-factness. People do die. Death is a fact of life but we spend so much time denying it that it often feels completely abstract, an imagined fate rather than an eventual one. But as Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), the elderly woman at the heart of Michael Haneke’s new film reminds us:

Imagination and reality have little in common.”

At first Haneke keeps his customary distance. Were it not for early publicity or the disturbing pre-title sequence that shows us a woman's decomposing body surrounded by flowers, we wouldn't even know who the principle characters were during the post-title opening shot, a crowd watching a piano recital. As in the finale of Haneke's best film (Caché) the director doesn't help you decide where to look; it's your job to find the narrative. But one of the strongest directorial impulses in Amour is Haneke's barely perceptible but undeniably tightening focus on the couple. Each scene seems to bring us closer to Anne and Georges (Jean-Louis Trigninant), a happy well-off couple in their eighties who enjoy literature, cultural events, and visits from their daughter (Isabelle Huppert) and Anne's former student (the pianist Alexandre Tharaud who appears to be playing himself). The first close-ups of note, an utterly captivating shot/reverse shot of the couple as Anne all but vanishes from a conversation in progress, is the bomb dropping...

Michael Haneke with his actors on the set of "Amour"

I don’t want to go on”

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