Top Ten: Red Carpet Cate

Jose here. There's only a handful of things we can lock up for the upcoming Academy Awards and Cate Blanchett getting a Best Actress nod for Blue Jasmine is one of them.

The Australian goddess has been getting career-best reviews for her work in Woody Allen's latest, and considering she's played Bob Dylan, Kate Hepburn and Queen Elizabeth to perfection, she's been doing the right kind of press by being modest and saying she owes her success to Woody.

Tomorrow she's even getting a tribute at the New York Film Festival (read our festival coverage here)! Tributes are a key strategy in many Oscar campaign; she might finally win her second gold man. But let's not jump ahead of ourselves with that tricky Oscar fella and let's predict the other thing we can pretty much be assured will happen: Cate will be the best dressed woman on Oscar night. Doing the press rounds for Blue Jasmine donning everyone from Alexander McQueen to vintage Balenciaga, she has been on a roll (even when she goes for statements instead of "dresses"). Which forces us to wonder if she'll be out of ideas by spring! 

HER TEN BEST LOOKS OF THE SEASON
after the jump 

Click to read more ...

Top Ten Awesome People, 1980 Vintage

I suspect many of you weren't alive in 1980 but do you think of it fondly? To give you a little context, since we're discussing it in the Supporting Actress Smackdown: Jimmy Carter was having a rough last year as POTUS with the ongoing Iran Hostage Crisis and America was about to enter a neo-conservative phase; John Lennon was murdered; "Call Me" by Blondie spent the most weeks as the number one single; "Who Shot J.R.?" was insanely popular via Dallas, DC debuted the awesome 80s comic "New Teen Titans" to compete with Marvel's huge hit "Uncanny X-Men", while Marvel kept it young by adding Kitty Pryde and the disco-leftover superhero Dazzler; Sweeney Todd closed on Broadway and Evita debuted illustrating the shift in the musical theater landscape from the awesome challenging prolific 70s Stephen Sondheim era to the sing-along bombast of British mega musicals of the 80s epitomized by Andrew Lloyd Webber

a tiny sampling of popular 1980 things

But here's why we're here --  Let's savor 1980's cinematic crop for a moment. Are these movies (and people) and things aging well? Is there much left to savor? 

1980, the debut year of Yoda it wasBest Movies According To...
Oscar: Ordinary People*, Coal Miner's Daughter, Raging Bull, The Elephant Man and Tess were the best pictures nominees but they also really dug Fame (6 noms, 2 wins), The Stunt Man (3 noms) and Melvin and Howard (3 noms, 2 wins)
Golden Globe: Raging Bull*, Ordinary People, Tribute, The Stunt Man and The Elephant Man (drama) Coal Miner's Daughter*, Fame, Private Benjamin, Divine Madness, Nine to Five (comedy/musical)
Cannes: [tie] All That Jazz (USA) and Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (Japan)
Box Office: 1) The Empire Strikes Back 2) Nine to Five 3) Stir Crazy 4) Airplane! 5) Any Which Way You Can
Nathaniel: At the time I was obsesed with only Xanadu and The Empire Strikes Back... so I haven't matured much since then because I still am.

Adorable 1980 Babies after the jump

Click to read more ...

Top Ten Olivias

Here's a top ten stream of thought quickie for you. Let's just say it's in honor of Olivia Wilde who has been bouncing around in my head since that Boogie Nights live read last week and who won the StarMeter award from the IMDb last night. Congratulations on being so eminently, um, searchable, Livvy.

Olivia Wilde in Rush

I have to admit I don't quite get her appeal but Congratulations! Her career is white-hot right now (Rush is playing at TIFF and winningly surprisingly strong reviews) and she's engaged to Jason Sudeikis. Without further ado, off the top of my head and just for fun... 

The Ten Greatest "Olivia"s

10 Olivia Pope on Scandal
I don't watch Scandal (forgive) and the one episode I did see was atrocious and made me wonder what everyone is smoking when they praise it (blasphemy?) but I've been rooting for Kerry Washington since the very beginning of her film career (Our Song, holla!) and don't really wish to jump ship despite a few stumbles. Plus, she's up for an Emmy in this year's small screen Best Actress competition for this role, which is really quite historic if you check, television wise. If you love Scandal PLEASE explain why in the comments. [TFE's Interview]

09 Olivia Hussey
Romeo & Juliet need, desperately need, to be played by very young actors to maximize the authenticity and resonance of their tragedy. But it wasn't until Franco Zeffirelli's gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous 1968 adaptation that people finally understood this en masse. I am on record as complaining about the constant revivals of Shakespeare on stage and in the movies. But Romeo & Juliet I especially don't understand any more at least in movie form. [more...]

Click to read more ...

Team Top Ten: Biggest Awards Season Flops

Amir here, to bring you our newest edition of Team Top Ten. Festival season is in full force. Telluride just wrapped. Venice is going strong. And in just two days, Toronto will set the awards season ablaze (Nathaniel and I will be there covering the flames). So we thought we’d vote on something that captures the spirit of the season.

Sort of.

Looking ahead at this point, there are a lot of films that look like surefire Oscar contenders. Inevitably, some of them will miss out on nomination morning, but at this very moment, everyone’s got their hopes high. Even in a year where unfortunate circumstances led to widespread discussion of racism in America, one can’t expect Mandela, 12 Years a Slave, Lee Daniels' The Butler AND Fruitvale Station to be nominated, but all four films are certainly gunning for it. So has been the story with many films in the past couple of decades, since the Oscars became the most glamorous political race on the planet and the Weinstein’s at Miramax supercharged awards campaigning.  

We’re looking back today at the films of the past 25 years – let’s call it the Campaigning Era – that looked like major Oscar players this far out in the year, or hell, even five minutes before nominations were announced in some cases, but failed to make a dent of any size. This is Team Experience’s Top Ten Awards Season Flops. Note that this is not a qualitative judgment - some stank, some were superb. But, for one reason or another, they fell short of what The Golden Man deems "Best". In simple terms – borrowed from Team Experience member, Nick Davis – these are the ten films that have the largest gap between their Oscar hopes and their Oscar outcomes. Without further ado… 

Bobby and 9 more dashed-hopefuls after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Hitchcock Ten

If you haven't checked out the Guardian's very fun infographics on Hitchcock's oeuvre -- just in time for his birthday today! -- you should do that. This is my favorite part because I think it's just brilliant with the top tens from film fans, critics, and the general public overlapping and disagreeing.

What's more I think it's absolutely accurate in its overlaps and exclusions  for all three groups with the possible exception of The Birds not finding its way to the "film fan's top ten". But this can't have been easy to flip around with a stuck landing. 

As for myself I have six total favorites: Notorious, Psycho, Rear Window, Rope, Shadow of a Doubt, and Vertigo. But the rest of his output fights over my leftover affections and wins and loses depending on my moods and depending on which part of the movie we're talking about. 

Happy 114th Birthday, Hitchcock!

Recent Hitchcockian Goodies
Shadow of a Doubt Best Shot
Top Ten Memorable Performances
Great Moments in Gayness: Suspicion 
Oscar Horrors: Terrifying Mrs Danvers in Rebecca 
Introducing...Madeleine in Vertigo