Halfway Pt. 1: What if They Voted on the Oscars Right Now?

Oscar Chart Note: I'm experiencing some coding problems with the charts so I apologize for the update delays. Until it's fixed, please to enjoy this hypothetical discussion as we begin our Halfway Mark Review...

Happy July! We're now officially done with the first half of the year. There are MANY films to come including the bulk of Oscar contenders given Hollywood's preferred release patterns. But that doesn't mean the film year hasn't already delivered enormous pleasure. All conscientous Oscar voters, cinephiles, and critics ought to keep a list so they aren't tricked into believing that the thing they saw 5 minutes ago is the only thing worth voting for six months from now.

Which naturally begs the question: If the voting was sprung on everyone right now, which films would AMPAS go for? It's worth jotting them down because they have a head start and they'd be smart to capitalize on it somehow. They need to settle in the mind and hearts as viable options as it were so that the forthcoming biggies will have to unseat them rather than trample them on their way to Oscar thrones.

I'm thinking mostly of Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel and Ralph Fiennes as Best Actor. They'd both surely snag nominations if the voting were held today. But at this date, some 17 years into his career, Academy voters haven't yet fully embraced Wes Anderson. Comic performances are always trickier sells so Ralph Fiennes will need to capitalize on the fact that he's playing against type (in a way) and voters respect that. If Budapest hangs on for real Oscar play that should make the waters safe for all future Wes Anderson films (see also: David Fincher, David O. Russell, and Paul Thomas Anderson who all struggled to win attention until Oscar finally caught up with the critical passion and devout public fanbases and now they're automatically "in the conversation" before their films arrive.) 

Let's fantasize about what might be nominated if the voting were cut off right now when so few expected contenders have opened. My guesses as to the nominees go like so...

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Links, Kids

Broadway World James Whale's Showboat finally on DVD
AV Club whoa. The Grand Budapest Hotel made entirely out of Legos
Antagony & Ecstacy reviews The Fault in Our Stars with the best review title going anywhere. The rest of the review is another reminder that Tim Brayton is one of the essential online critics.

AP "Dame" Angelina Jolie? She just received an honorary title in England
Deadline Keanu Reeves will take the role vacated by Daniel Craig in that Courtney Hunt (Frozen River) Renée Zellweger picture The Whole Truth so it's back on
In Contention is The Judge with Downey Jr and Duvall an Oscar contender?
Deadline Tom Hiddleson will star as Hank Williams in an upcoming biopic and do his own singing!
The Black Maria looks back at the brief swing music renaissance in 90s cinema. Oh I used to love Swing Kids
Employee of the Month interviews the incomparable performance artist Taylor Mac
Yahoo horrifying slapstick bathroom humor of Paddington teaser will break the hearts of anyone who loved the actual dignified humble character of Paddington in book form. Sigh... here's another flop for Nicole Kidman (who does not appear in the teaser)
Pop Watch wants blockbusters to lighten up and return to fun times. Agreed. Love the list of who is to blame.

Finally...
Though we already gagged over this on Twitter, if you haven't yet seen it because you were mainlining OITNB or (gasp) offline, here is Sarah Paulson introducing her new character... excuse me, new characters on American Horror Story season 4. Meet "Bette" and "Dot"...

So excited to be playing Bette AND Dot this season. Two heads are better than one! #AHSFREAKSHOW pic.twitter.com/jdZJSPercn

— Sarah Paulson (@MsSarahPaulson) June 12, 2014

I can't think of an actress on TV that I'd like to see two of more right now, can you?

Some Came Linking

Vulture dreams up sequels for The Fault In Our Stars. We'll obviously take the Laura Dern one
The Awl "The Tortured History of Entertainment Weekly" - god I was so in love with that magazine when it debuted in the 1990s. The first issue I remember buying was #5 with Jamie Lee Curtis on the cover for Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel
Pixar Times Pixar teases the first five minutes of Inside Out their June 2015 release
Theater Mania Laura Benanti auditions for Peter Pan Live! 

Boy Culture RIP supporting actress Martha Hyer, Oscar-nominated for Some Came Running (1958) 
Kenneth in the (212) teases a new stage production with the music of the The Go-Gos?
Comics Alliance a giant statue of Spider-Man in Korea is causing a stir thanks to its Spider-Manhood
Empire there's a new trailer for The Boxtrolls
Variety expects crazy ladies to dominate the Guest Actress race at the Emmys 
THR has a lengthy cover story on the suicide of the director of Searching For Sugar Man 

Foreign Film Oscar Watch
The Great Beauty, Italy's Oscar winner just lost its home-field Oscar race to a film called Human Capital which also won three acting gongs. Human Capital wasn't eligible for submission by Italy last year (since it hadn't yet opened by the cutoff date) so it could well be Italy's submission this year.

P.S.
I'm not sure how I missed this excellent interview with Lori Petty over at The Daily Beast on Sunday but it's a must read if you have any affection at all for Lori or the 1990s when she just kept doing her inimitable thing all over now classic movies like A League of Their Own, Point Break, and... well, the interview weirdly neglects Tank Girl but what can you do? She talks working with Jodie Foster, Madonna, discovering Jennifer Lawrence and how she got her cameo part in Orange is the New Black despite definitely being off the radar in recent years. 

Lori Petty & Naomi Watts in Tank Girl (1995)

Why do you think the roles started drying up after Tank Girl?

Well, because I was thirty-something and I hadn’t married my agent, married any guy co-stars, or gotten fake titties or Botox. I never wanted to be a bombshell; I wanted to be an actor. I would much prefer to be a woman than a man, but if I was a dude, maybe I’d have Johnny Depp’s island because women in this industry after a certain age definitely don’t get to do Pirates of the Caribbean. Poor Keira [Knightley], they even airbrushed huge tits on her on the poster, and she’s flawless! I was trying to play football with a baseball, and you can’t really do that.

Box Office Haiku: The Fault in Cruise's Budget

Cancer romance tops
Critics loved expensive "Edge"
Maleficent's legs!

Mutants or Monsters - 
What did you see this weekend?
Time for Tonys. Bye!  

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
01 THE FAULT IN OUR STARS $48.2 NEW Review
02 MALEFICENT $33.5 (cum. $127.3) Podcast
03 EDGE OF TOMORROW $29.1 NEW
04 X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST $14.7 (cum. $189.1) Review
05 A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST $7.1 (cum. $30) Guest Review
06 GODZILLA $5.9 (cum. $185) Review & Podcast
07 NEIGHBORS $5.2 (cum. $137.8)  Review & Podcast
08 BLENDED $4 (cum. $36.5)
09 CHEF $2.6 (cum. $10.3)
10 MILLION DOLLAR ARM $1.8 (cum. $31.3)

P.S. Good Captain
Finally lapped those Legos
Champion of the year

Review: "The Fault In Our Stars"

This review originally appeared in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Shailene Woodley is everywhere. Which... well, I hope you like looking at her face. Not content to be the face of the post-Hunger Games YA dystopia fever (Divergent), she's also continuing that other everygirl thread in her career. She reads more like a girl next door, someone you know, than a STAR!; pretty but not intimidatingly gorgeous, relatable not charismatically mysterious.  She's specalized in earnest portrayals of ordinary teens getting their first taste of the tough stuff in life: death and desertion (The Descendants), disease and disappointment (The Spectacular Now). Hazel Grace Lancaster, her character in The Fault in Our Stars, doubles down and has to deal with all of it. 

Hazel is a 16 year old with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. She needs an oxygen tank to breathe, which she drags behind her like a depressing carry-on she wishes she could check. Though she's outlived the initial prognosis she's acutely aware that she'll never grow old. Inbetween flashes of well earned self-pity and sarcasm, she worries about her parents (the well cast Sam Trammell and Laura Dern, who is reliably excellent) and how they'll survive her death. She attends a cancer support group for teenagers, at her mother's prodding. Mrs Lancaster hopes it will lift Hazel's depression and help her make friends.

Enter the Dreamboat Boyfriend... 

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