Months of Meryl: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

Meryl talking to director David Frankel during shooting

#34 —Miranda Priestly, ferocious editor-in-chief of Runway magazine.

JOHN: How do you solve a problem like Miranda Priestly? Or, more specifically, The Devil in Prada? How do you make walking into a room a distinct and indelible character trait? How do you continue assembling a mannequin’s outfit while simultaneously delivering a brutal lecture about the color cerulean? How do you not only resist but upend the misogyny inherent in your role? How do you grip the audience by their necks while still having them root for your victory? When your name is Meryl Streep, such issues are not problems or challenges, but more like Smith & Wollensky porterhouses, plump, juicy, bloody gifts, presented to you on a plate...

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Feud: Bette and Joan. "The Other Woman"

Previously on episode 1

On the second episode, Bette and Joan fight for the affections of Robert Aldrich, Hedda Hopper has a feud of her own, and Kiernan Shipka goes full Sally Draper. Here's Jorge Molina...

Your autograph please Ms Crawford

For both of his latest anthologies, Ryan Murphy has tried to focus every episode on a different aspect of the overall theme of the series in question. With People vs. OJ, we got racism and sexism-centric episodes. On Feud it seems we'll be exploring different sides of the destructive Hollywood machinery. This week that's how women in the industry are pitted against each other for monetary and publicity gain.

The second episode also gives us an excuse to call Stanley Tucci "Big Daddy." Not that we needed one...

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Matthias of Linkland

In Contention Lion is using T****'s unconstitutional travel ban its advertisements
Boy Culture 70s star and Battlestar Galactica hunk Richard Hatch has died
Awards Daily Jazz talks to Joel Harlow about the Oscar nominated Hair and Makeup of Star Trek: Beyond
Towleroad a close-up of Glenn Close returning to Sunset Boulevard

Cottages & Gardens the Grey Gardens estate is up for sale  
Variety Stanley Tucci has directed a movie about Alberto Giacometti starring Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer
Tracking Board the Coen brothers are polishing the remake script for Scarface (which was made twice already in the 30s and 80s)
Towleroad Finland is the first country to release their own national emojis and one of them is for the gay artist Tom of Finland 
MNPP "Smile like Trevante Rhodes"
New Yorker Oscar Spotlight: The Actresses
World of Reel a synopsis of Nicolas Winding Refn's new Amazon series
AV Club "Johnny Depp close to completing his transformation into mole person"
Interview Jay Baruchel talks Man Seeking Woman and his first time as director on the sequel to Goon
Comics Alliance weirdest Aquaman moments in comics 

MNPP How hot is Matthias Schoenaerts? So hot he's steaming.
빛나는 special Korean posters for Moonlight - Chiron drawn at all ages
Theater Mania Meryl Streep to present Stephen Sondheim with the PEN Award in April in NYC
/Film Mary Poppins Returns has officially startedc production with Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Dick Van Dyke, Emily Blunt as "Mary Poppins" and Meryl Streep as Mary's eccentric cousin "Topsy" 

Oscar's One Hit Wonders or When Bad Nominations Happen to Good Actors

[Here's abstew to talk about a semi-annual Oscar tradition. Even if you disagree with the picks you surely recognize the curious problem. Will any of 2013's future nominees qualify for this list? -Editor]

When it comes to acting nominations, let's face it, not everyone can be Meryl Streep (17 nominations and counting). And with only 20 acting nominations to hand out each year, there's always going to be people left out. So many factors affect nominations: how well the actor is liked in the industry, whether they've been nominated (or won) before, how visible they've been promoting the movie, whether or not it's their "time". Sometimes the actual performance doesn't weigh in as heavily as it should.

Which is why the Academy gives something I like to call the "Oh, sorry we didn't nominate you for that great movie you were in a couple years ago, but let's call it even by nominating you for this instead" nomination. For many actors their body of work greatly out-weighs the single nomination. (For purposes of this list, I'm focusing only on actors who've received their nomination in the past 25 years or so but this has been happening since the beginning of (Oscar's) time.)

With so many greats yet to receive a nomination, perhaps we should be grateful that the following actors can precede their name with "Academy Award Nominee", but knowing how much better they are than this single nomination implies... 

Single Nomination: Best Actress, Catherine Deneuve Indochine (1992)

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Year in Review: The Bad, The Worse, and the Ugly

I used to make a big fuss over my CINEMATIC SHAME list but this year I'm mostly just feeling the love (see also that "most moving" list share). Nevertheless tradition is tradition, so herewith a few dubious "honors" and outright dismissals from the worst of 2013

WORST MAINSTREAM FILMS
One can avoid a lot of dross if you select your own movies rather than have them assigned to you by an editor. But true terror always finds a way. Let's call this a three way tie. Identity Thief is so stuffed with uncecessary scenes and filler -- the stars don't even meet for half an hour! -- it's practically built to be ignored on cable for decades to come while you putter around your house with your phone in hand and your mind entirely elsewhere -- at least until you notice some bright color combination on Melissa McCarthy and chuckle at a line reading or two before instanteously losing interest again.

Unfortunately there's more. The Counselor, Oblivion, Diana, The Lone Ranger, Jodie Foster and more dishonors after the jump... 

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