Important Dates. Beautiful Shoes.

There's nothing duller than a post consisting of dates culled from press releases so, as you read, please to enjoy this brand new photo of Michelle Pfeiffer.

Her fingernails won't match anything once she takes the shoes off!

She's one of many celebrities involved in the fifth annual Celebrity Shoe Auction. Proceeds go to the Small Steps Project. Since this very very recent photo is proof that she lives, we must again beg her to take another job. Geez, lady. Your kids must've just left for college. Get back to work!)

Important November Dates
19 - SAG Nomination Ballots Sent Out
25 - Spirit Award Nominations 
26 - Golden Globe Nomination Ballots Sent Out, Happy Thanksgiving

Important December Dates
1 - NYFCC Awards
2 - NBR Awards
7 - LAFCA Awards
8 -  OFCS Nominations, Globe & SAG Nomination Ballot Due Date, BFCA Ballots Sent Out
10 - SAG Nominations
11 - Golden Globe Nominations
12 - BFCA Nomination Ballot Due Date
15 - OFCS Winners
16 - Happy Hanukkah for the next week
25 - Merry Christmas, a million movies come out today
29 - Oscar Ballots go out
31 - Happy New Year, Have A Most Violent Year ... er...

I like his signature. Quick all you handwriting analysis experts: GO!

Important January Dates
5 - NYFCC Awards Gala
7 - Last day of Globe Voting, ASC Nominees Announced (Cinematographers)
8 - Oscar Ballot Due Date
9 - BAFTA Nominations
11 - Golden Globe Awards
13 - Last day of BFCA voting and DGA Nominations Announced
15 - Oscar Nomination Morning
15 - BFCA Awards ("Critics Choice")
23 - Last day of SAG voting
24 - PGA Awards (Producers) 
25 - SAG Awards (Actors)
30 - ACE Eddie Awards (Editors)
31 - ADG Awards (Art Directors)

Important February Dates
4 - VES Awards (Visual Effects)
6 - Final Oscar Balloting begins
7 - DGA Awards (Directors)
8 - BAFTA Awards
14 - Happy Valentines Day
15 - ASC Awards (Cinematographers), MPSE Awards (Sound Editors)
17 - CDG Awards (Costume Designers)
21 - Spirit Awards
22 - OSCAR NIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which dates do you most look forward to each year?

Top 10 Things We Learned from the 52nd New York Film Festival

To close out our New York Film Festival coverage for the year, a quartet of takeaways from this annual highly curated celebration of international cinema. NYFF doesn't have a broad selection like a lot of festivals but there were goodies. I've asked each member of our team to send me a top ten list of things they learned (we did not consult each other on our lists).

I'll start

NATHANIEL'S TOP TEN NYFF TAKEAWAYS

1. 17 years after Boogie Nights, Julianne Moore is still 'the foxiest bitch in the world'

2. Birdman has a smorgasbord of quotable lines. My favorite on first viewing:

Popularity is just the slutty cousin of prestige."

3. Marion Cotillard is getting so mesmerizingly authentic onscreen pretty soon she's going to walk right off of it in character like she's reenacting The Purple Rose of Cairo. (I apologize for the image: no one wants to think of the Dardenne Brothers going 3-D.)

4. You should never ever sit in the middle of a row of a long-ass Mike Leigh movie if you are feeling sick. My half-apologies to my row mates who you have no right to take up aisle seats if you're uncomfortable moving for the people in the middle.

More including Whiplash, Birdman, Inherent Vice, and Channing Tatum's boots after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Curio: Kino Kicks

Alexa here with your weekly film craftiness.  During my search for Powerpuff-Girl-related paraphernalia for my daughter's birthday I've been running into loads of hand painted shoes. And I mean LOADS.  I am not one to wear one-of-a-kind art on my feet; the weather here in Chicago is not kind to footwear so it seems a waste of cash. But I have to admire the artistry of some of these selections. So if you are a lover of Vans, TOMS or Converse, and are perhaps already planning your fashion for next year's Comic-Con, these are for you. And as an added bonus, most of these sellers create any custom pair you'd like; maybe I could be tempted by a pair of Werner Herzog tribute Vans?

The Notebook Vans, Star Wars Converse, and LOTR Vans, all from this etsy shop.

More after the jump, including Casablanca, Disney villains and Jaws...

Click to read more ...

AFI Memories: Emma Thompson's Shoes

If you want to know why I have had such a hard time sharing my adventures in Los Angeles in real time from the AFI festival which wrapped on Thursday, blame Emma Thompson. She killed me!

Emma the night I met her / Mary Poppins party decor

The truth is that I get far less starstruck these days than I did a handful of years ago when I first began interviewing celebrities regularly. But sometimes my inner child still spazzes out, and comes bouncing to the surface like a squealing fanboy. I know I'm supposed to be embarrassed by this but the truth is that it feels good.

Enthusiasm is a form of social courage"
-Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Guru 

I never want to be one of those jaded film critics who has seen it all and doesn't enjoy anything. So... back to that Saving Mr Banks party. After chatting with Colin Farrell I was introduced to Emma Thompson who is holding up really well at 54. She looks, I apologize in advance, practically perfect in every way. And as one of my formative actresses, I was quite taken aback to be face to face with her, sipping cocktails.

Small talk: we both love the decor at the party, little drawings from the making of Mary Poppins on each table and I pretend to lift one and shove it under my jacket. Eventually -- because I am me -- the conversation drifts to Howard's End (1992). I don't remember quite how we got there but Emma, politely sidestepped the questions about the past and, like a consummate pro, pulla  it back to a soundbite ready encapsulation of both my movie nostalgia AND the theme of her new film, in which the author P.L. Travers (Thompson) has a really difficult time parting with her fictional nanny Mary Poppins:

Sometimes you just have to let things go." 
-Emma Thompson 

And then Emma Freaking Thompson places her hand on my shoulder ...and I died. Using me for balance, she removes her shoes! As if on cue, her assistant materializes from nowhere to grab them. What should she do with them?

"Throw them away. They're garbage." Emma instructs.

"Speaking of letting things go!" I interject awkwardly, amused that the theme has been literalized. As it turns out Emma quite likes the shoes and it's not from lack of sentiment but practicality - she got cement on them across the street at her handprint ceremony. I help her find Colin Farrell for a smoke break and they're off, Emma weaving through the cocktail party in her stockings.

I love this shot of Emma via HitFix (wish it were bigger!)Half an hour later director John Lee Hancock introduces his cast at the front of the giant Chinese Theater. Emma, who apparently can't let a running motif go, removes her new pair of shoes while walking to take her bow, doing a little sideways hopping dance in the process. At this point, though, I'm happily back where I belong, munching on popcorn in my movie seat dreaming about movie stars. The movie begins in the clouds but I'm already there.

Previously at AFI:  "Harbringer of Hope" Colin Farrell, Agnes Varda's Cleo From 5 to 7, Anne Marie's Fest Part 1 and Part 2,

Tweet-Bits: Nathaniel & Niecy Nash share an awkward moment, Overheard in Movie Theater Lines pt 1, pt 2, and pt 3

Nicole Kidman is Indestructible

Two items appeared on Page Six's feed back-to-back today.

Photo 1. A paparazzi on a bike reportedly "plowed" into Nicole Kidman here in NYC. Curse him. Memorize the face. Worst person ever. 

But no matter. Brush it off.

Photo 2. Moments later the actress is seen consuming/giving Fashion Week beauty with Rooney Mara & Naomie Harris, three peas in a goddess pod.

NOW, YES, I KNOW I KNOW.

These events actually occurred in the reverse order (and look at the grace with which she rises and brushes herself off in those photos!!!). An ambulance was called, she had some shoe trouble and was shaken up a bit.

But just go with my preferred order for a better story: the diva eternally unfazed by cruel media sabotage. We're running with a fantasies about Nicole Kidman theme. Indulge us. And get well soon, Nicole. Walk it off!