Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 9:00AM Relatable content!
AFTER THE JUMP, awards season nuttiness, Mary Poppins Returns, Aquaman, and Harvey Fierstein doing Ursula the Sea Witch which was always clearly meant to be...Nicholas Britell: 🎺
— kathryn hahn & paul giamatti @ applebee’s (@bkkirby) December 19, 2018
Me: 😭
Monday, December 17, 2018 at 3:12PM This link roundup was intended for last night, hence the title. We cannot be bound by time here at TFE
• Jake Gyllenhaal omg he's joined instagram and on his second post he's singing Sondheim with Annaleigh Ashford. L-O-V-E
• Vulture a fun interview with Patrick Wilson on Aquaman and much more
• Talkhouse Bruce LaBruce on underknown Canadian Christmas thriller The Silent Partner
• MNPP Stephan James eight times
• Jezebel Oscar-nominated actress/ sometime director Sondra Locke (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter) has died but the obituaries are all about her turbulent relationship with Clint Eastwood
• THR Netflix is making a Dark Crystal prequel with Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nathalie Emmanuel as the lead gelflings
• AV Club more Emmy rule changes around what counts as a TV movie
• Deadline Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan to star in a lesbian romance
• Variety Lumiere award nominations from France (not to be confused with the Césars which are the Oscar equivalent but announce later)
• The New Yorker a convincing pan of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (and you don't see that every day!) that ends with a recommend list of other 'high-feminine mythmaking' worth checking out
• Polygon talks to Phillipa Boyens about the best moment in Return of the King for its 15th anniversary
Finally...
The IndieWire Critics poll has been released. I continue to be dumbfounded that critics support, nay, EMBRACE, category fraud as if they, too, have no respect for any actor who isn't the lead of a movie. You'd think critics (of all people) would be the check and balance on this sort of anti-art gamemanships. It's dumbfounding because they have nothing to gain by kowtowing to the whims of publicists and the egos of movie stars, rather than voting with integrity. They get access either way. I know as one such critic who everyone knows rejects category fraud wherever I see it. As with SAG, 60% of the Supporting Actress list is leading ladies. If you're wondering why Bradley Cooper missed the Best Actor list please know that for some reason he was left off of the pulldown list during voting. I wrote him in but I imagine a lot of people would not have gone to the trouble, not for any nefarious reason but because he slipped their mind when they did not see him on the list of choices. I do not support these kind of shenanigans! But the winners are Roma, Alfonso Cuarón, Olivia Colman, Ethan Hawke, Rachel Weisz (for best leading supporting actress), and Steven Yeun.
Monday, December 10, 2018 at 1:00PM Jason Adams from MNPP here, serenading us "Beauty vs Beast" style - tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of John Madden's Best Picture winner Shakespeare in Love, aka the Oscar win that broke every straight boy's heart. Don't believe me? Go find one and mention how Saving Private Ryan was robbed and watch the fire and fury rise in their pupils. (I really shouldn't make fun, seeing as they got their revenge in 2005.) But the contest of 1998 films is always a good one to stir up arguments excuse me conversation, and since that's what we're here for...
PREVIOUSLY Although of Saoirse love is strong it wasn't enough to tackle the one-two punch of The Green Dress and Briony being a little snitch-monster, and so Keira Knightley's Cecelia took top honors in our Atonement poll last week, with about 3/4s of the vote. Said par:
"In fairness to Briony, i'd do a lot worse if somebody got between me and the housekeeper's son. But I voted for Cecilia cause, damn, that girl had some bad luck."
Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 10:35PM 
The story is familiar. We’ve seen it many times on both film and TV. The queens are familiar. We’ve seen them being embodied by many actresses we love and admire. Now it’s time for Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie to play Mary and Elizabeth I in Mary, Queen of Scots. Familiarity can breed contempt. We’ve seen this before so why do we need another version? But familiarity can also help us absorb a story when we know the beats of its narrative. We can take in the performances, the costumes, the setting and not worry about following the plot. Director Josie Rourke and screenwriter Beau Willimon understand that they need to freshen up the material, give it a new spin. And so they try.
Their story concentrates squarely on Mary and starts with her return to Scotland from exile in France, threatening Elizabeth’s reign because of her strong claim to the crown with Elizabeth being unwed and childless...
Monday, December 3, 2018 at 12:40PM Jason from MNPP here with another round of "Beauty vs Beast" for you people. This weekend Mary Queen of Scots hits theaters and I'm sure you'll hear more about it here being, you know, a movie starring two impressive young actresses being impressive once again - one of those actresses, the one called Saoirse, well she's spent 11 straight years now impressing us, and today we're looking back at the place that started, i.e. with Joe Wright's Atonement. Saoirse should face down female relatives more often - her "cousin" Queen Elizabeth, her mother Laurie Metcalf, her sister Keira Knightley... it works out well for her.
PREVIOUSLY We tackled the parental figures of Moonlight last week (they could both use a good tackling, honestly) and y'all clearly thought the Oscars got it right, giving Mahershala Ali almost 70% of you vote. Said AlexD:
"Performance wise they're hand in hand for me. Both superb, both brilliantly adding depth and emotion to their characters. Ali shines all the dark and less flattering qualities of a character with whom we mostly sympathize on screen, while Harris humanizes a character with whom we don't (on screen)."
