Links. And Not *Just* Oscar Post-Mortems

The Playlist Jessica Chastain joins the increasingly star-studded cast of The Huntsman - pretty soon no one will remember this started as a Snow White franchise (which is probably why they keep adding big stars).
Vanity Fair Katey wonders if Netflix can stay in the original programming business when its obsessed with nostalgia 
Empire Calista Flockhart and Laura Benanti join TV's Supergirl for the fall as boss and mom respectively (sigh). Benanti is so mega-talented and freaking hilarious. Doesn't anyone want to build a series around her?
US Weekly AHS's "Meep" actor Ben Woolf has died after being hit by a car 
My New Plaid Pants you're probably giving Bryan Singer some side eye for casting yet another super twink beauty in X-Men: Apocalypse. Meet Ben Hardy.
i09 looks at the troubled comics history of Aquaman and the challenges Warner Bros faces in resurrecting him
i09 Something hilarious you've never thought of. The designers on Guardians of the Galaxy spent a lot of time worrying about Groot's crotch. 

Oscar Oscar
Slate on Graham Moore's problematic but well intentioned acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay
IndieWire why the Spirit Awards need to stop mimicking the Oscars 
LA Times was Boyhood, an unusually quiet unfolding drama, undone by the usual outsize Oscar campaigning? 
The Carpetbagger bids the season "adieu" 
Awards Daily I'm with Sasha on this one. Patricia Arquette has been treated horribly after her speech with people willfully misunderstanding. Our outrage culture is doing no one, least of all the progressives (who are so easily outraged and willing to turn on their own) any good. A real pity since Patty has been a wonderful activist over the years. The people leading the hate brigade would do well to step back for a little perspective: guarantee you she was fighting for trans awareness and other social causes before they were.  
In Contention sings the praises of Fox Searchlight and New Regency. They've got two back to back Best Picture winners now. And that aint easy to do.  
The Dissolve just two days after the Oscars, the American Sniper trial ended with a guilty verdict for the man who killed Chris Kyle  
Vulture Michael Keaton stashing his acceptance speech when his name isn't called *sniffle*  
Variety Iñárritu on his own Oscar wins 

And this just in...
The stunt-casting veers away from Oscar winning/nominated beauties of a certain age to...

Make your reservation now. #GagaAHSHotel https://t.co/o9ixi5TaFy

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) February 25, 2015

Apparently they are promising a major renovation to the American Horror Story brand this October. I hope said renovation is giving up that infinitely tired and kinda misogynistic in its relentlessness storyline about the faded vain beauty who wishes she was still in her prime. Is this Gaga peak, Is that enough for you to make reservations after this season's expected downward spiral?  

"Spirit Awards" Live Blog!

A great and gracious good evening everyone! Anne Marie here, slightly late and very winded. While the Spirit Awards may not suffer TV delays, the LA Metro system is not nearly as reliable, so I sprinted three blocks trying to get here on time.

The Spirit Awards are an odd group. Ostensibly, the rule is that any "indie" is eligible, but as often as not they end up looking too much like the rest of awards season. This was an especially strong year for small (by Hollywood standards) films, so it looks even more homogenous. Still, I support the effort to celebrate the smaller side of Hollywood.

I turned on the TV right as Kristin Bell and Fred Armisen broke into song, so I'm still trying to play catch up. Awards and more after the jump!

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Birdman Leads Spirit Nominations 2014. Discuss!

Sony Pictures Classics leads the nominations for the Spirit Awards this year with an incredible 15 nominations though Fox Searchlight's Birdman leads all films with 6 nominations. And rather ridiculously even at the Spirits we have to play category fraud with Alfred Molina dubbed supporting in the marriage drama Love is Strange while his screen hubby John Lithgow is declared lead. (sigh). But we're happy that Love is Strange did so well wtih 4 nominations including Best Feature.

In case you forgot last year's nominations and would like a comparison, you can see them here as well as the eventual winners. Of all the awards shows you'd think that Spirit Awards could at least be a little different but last year they weren't with Best Picture and all four acting prizes repeating on Oscar night. Will this year have a greater and thus more exciting and wealth-spreading disconnect? We'll see but given the nominees in the acting categories (many from presumed Oscar hopefuls, we could well see a four for four again. 

Complete list of 2014 nominees is after the jump... 

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Spirit Award Winners

The first national live television broadcast in the US took place in 1951 but sixty-three years later, certain awards shows are unaware that this technology has been invented yet. The Spirit Awards will be broadcast on IFC tonight at 10PM EST the tent in Santa Monica will be cleared and we'll know all the winners and we'll have probably have lost interest completely, this being Oscar weekend when time is precious and tight.

That's Greta Gerwig left on the red carpet (that's where the stream froze so that's the expression you get!) where she said...

The Spirit Awards are my jam."

The best moment on the red carpet was definitely birthday girl Lupita Nyong'o evading questions about what she's doing on Monday once the Oscars are over.

I'm getting away from here."

She wouldn't say why, what for, or where. Smart girl.

THE WINNERS

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Interview: Julie Delpy on the ideal way to watch the "Before" trilogy

Julie Delpy speaking in West Hollywood in NovemberStargazing sometimes leads us to believe that we really know the faces who act out our human dramas onscreen. Or that we know the characters they portray as if they were neighbors. It’s a false intimacy and a fantasy, fiction being fiction and strangers being strangers, but sometimes the illusion is too perfect to deny. Such is the case with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke as Celine and Jessie in the “Before…”  trilogy. The actors cowrote and costarred in the decades spanning trilogy under the guidance of Director Richard Linklater and the films, perfectly spaced out every nine years, have allowed audiences to age along with them, which has only added to their ephemeral mystique. The films are grounded in reality through their short single day stories and long takes - real life happens one day at a time and without a lot of fussy crosscutting – and the only fantastical element is that every day conversations are rarely this thrilling and this wide ranging and this funny simultaneously for 90 minutes straight without some dud moment or mundane distraction breaking the spell. For that kind of perfection you need miraculous writing and great acting.

Julie Delpy is not, of course, Celine. And though I know this as I settle into our conversation over the telephone I’m temporarily stunned when she, unasked, repeats her trilogy’s most famous line when I bring up the ending to Before Sunset (2004, for which she won a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination though not, tragically, the Best Actress nod she deserved as its companion). She sounds just like Celine… only somehow not...

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