Sandra and The Kiss

We're celebrating Sandra Bullock as she hits 50. Here's Matthew Eng on her most infamous awards show moment - Editor 

I'm not sure why exactly the Critics' Choice Movie Awards need to exist, except as another obvious precursor ceremony for glorified Oscar season star-baiting with ridiculous genre-segregated acting categories (so glad we all got to rightfully recognize Evangeline Lilly in The Hobbit as a nominee for Best Actress in an Action Movie!) and a prime airtime on the CW, and whose only (only!) difference from the Teen Choice Awards is that the former hands out actual trophies, whereas the latter gives out surfboards.

That being said, I remain eternally grateful to this over-bloated awards pageant for providing us with perhaps the single greatest, or at least most-rewatchable moment of the 2009 Oscar season five years back: the Meryl-Sandra kiss...

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Celebrating Sandra with "Hope Floats"

With Sandra Bullock's 50th birthday approaching we'll be looking at a few of her films. Here's Andrew Kendall on a little discussed '98 picture. - Ed.

Is it strange that when asked to celebrate Sandra Bullock’s birthday with a film from her oeuvre I immediately turned to the 1998 (ostensible) romantic drama Hope Floats? Despite the 80 million dollars at the box office the film was not quite a hit and critics were not impressed. Yet, whenever I’m asked to stump for a Bullock performance I tend to turn to Birdee Pruitt not necessarily as the “best” Bullock, or not even quintessential Bullock but my favourite Bullock.

The well-intentioned, sometimes – oftentimes – too treacly Hope Floats from writer Steven Rogers (who did a better job handling domestic dramas that same year with Stepmom) and direct Forrest Whitaker (who helmed his strongest film three years earlier with Waiting to Exhale) is a movie I feel warmer towards than I should. It gets a bit turgid in the middle falling prey to the lazy, but not necessarily inaccurate, complaint that it’s probably too long. But I can’t turn my back on the easy warmness of the film, mostly because of its able bodied cast – Harry Connick Jr being just the right amount of cocky and charming, Mae Whitman giving one of the best children performances of the nineties, and Gena Rowlands giving the type of performance that would net an aging actresses an Oscar nomination if this was 1940s (think Gladys Cooper in Now, Voyager). And, of course, Sandra Bullock – the lead performance the film lives and dies by. [More...]

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Speed Freaks

TFE is really into 10th, 25th, 50th, and 75th anniversaries and elsewhere you see mostly 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th business. I assume this is because recent stuff gets more traffic, but whatevs. I can only do me. So I didn't even consider Jan de Bont's Speed (1994) for celebrations here though I liked the movie quite a lot and Keanu Reeves was my (imaginary) boyfriend at the time.  There's a lot of good stuff 'round the web on Speed today if you're so inclined. Crave has a road map tour of L.A. so that you can retrace the movie's drive and derailments (that seems dangerous!), In Contention has an indepth report with Keanu, Sandra and the director and Huffington Post interviews Joss Whedon who did uncredited writing on the movie. My point is this: There are a lot of Speed freaks celebrating today.

I have only one thing to share but it's the most important of things.

LITTLE REMEMBERED FACTOID

Speed (June 10th, 1994) followed Little Buddha (May 25th, 1994) into theaters. It was all Keanu all the time in the summer of 1994, with and without guyliner... with and without pop quizzes.

Have you seen both?

'The World is Round, People!' But Can It Spin a Little Differently?

Blue Jasmine was one of Woody Allen's biggest hits, earning $94 million globallyGeena Davis and I have been harping on gender disparity in film for ever and I've also spent a lot of time on its sister problem: ageism focused on women. But in the past couple of years it feels like the conversation has finally reached the mainstream. 

Every website, even the most misogynist-friendly, now knows what the Bechdel Test is and that the majority of movies still fail it even though it's super easy to pass. Cate Blanchett's Oscar speech got a lot of attention and Kevin B Lee recently had a major cinemetrics piece in the New York Times about women's limited screen time and now, as The Wrap reports, a new study out of San Diego State's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film shows how bad the problem is not just in lead roles (only 13% of the films in the top 100 of last year) but in ageist double standards (women over 40 account for only 30% of female roles while 55% of male roles are for the over 40 set) and in racial representation (73% of all female roles are for caucasian women).

All of this despite the fact that Cate's Oscar speech was total righteous truth-telling. [More...]

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Red Carpet Lineup: Oscar Beauties, 86th Edition

We're almost done! Only 35 more Oscar posts before w--- No for reals though we have to talk about fashion at least briefly. There sure was a lot of granny froufrou beading fussy texture on trend this year, huh? Which works on some people but not everyone. And weirdly it doesn't work at first and then totally works by the end of the evenin on some people. By some people I mean the happy Blue Jasmine twosome, whose gowns worked really well once you saw them all snuggly together in their seats. 

SUPPORTING LADIES FIRST

America's Sweetheart 90s Edition, Sally, America's Sweetheart 10s Edition, Sensation, Squibb

I think Julia Roberts should've gone younger/sexier to combat the visual drabness of the Barbara role in August and because Jennifer Lawrence, red hot, has already stolen her Sweetheart crown (in fairness Julia abdicated the throne after her Oscar win so no one really took it from her). Sally Hawkins! (Why do I feel like her bohemian signature characters Ginger & Poppy both would not approve of what their creator is wearing?) I was going to do a poll of best dressed but I figured Lupita Nyong'o would get 100% of the votes making it the most boring poll of all time. I know this is June Squibb's favorite Christmas Party Dress getting a surprise airing in March. 

BEST ACTRESS - AKA FOUR OF THE MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN THE BIZ

5 Times, 18 Times, 6 Times, 2 Times

Judi Dench never shows. Do you think she watches overseas?

Amy Adams has never looked better and that dress was so tight that visual effects were employed to show her jumping up to dance with Pharrell in it. Because: impossible. Meryl Streep with a little off the shoulder glam. But white blouses are risky when you're eating pizza. Cate Blanchett looking like an ethereal elf quee... hey, wait a minute. And Sandra Bullock also looking sensational. The Best Actress shortlist did the red carpet proud.

But which among them wins your "best" votes. Tough call. right?