Oscar Horrors: "Max Schreck"

HERE LIES... The actor-or-is-he Max Schreck, brought to vivid undead-or-is-he life by Willem Dafoe in 2000's Shadow of a Vampire, nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

JA from MNPP here. When I started rewatching E. Elias Merhige's 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire the other day for the umpteenth time I was convinced that we first see Willem Dafoe's Max Schreck is when he's first being filmed by Murnau & Company - when he emerges from his deep dark tunnel, aka the hole where Murnau says he found him. I was wrong. The first time we see Schreck is a few minutes earlier when Murnau leaves a caged mink sitting outside said hole as tasty bait and Schreck's hands - white as moles, fingers long and sharp as stalactites - appear in the background and snake their way around the bars, enveloping their innocent prey.

Now I'm not one to talk about how an actor uses their hands - it makes me feel like Guy Woodhouse telling Roman Castavet about that "kind of an... involuntary reach" - but Dafoe's performance demands it...

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Nic's No Nympho

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JA from MNPP here with some sad news - Nicole Kidman has dropped out of her reunion with Danish dare-monger Lars Von Trier for his next flick, the sexually explicit Nymphomaniac. She's too busy playing a Princess to mime unspeakable acts with Shia LaBeouf, it seems. The assumption is that the recently added Uma Thurman is her replacement, but (nothing against Uma) I'm hoping it's another name just added to the cast instead - let's see Willem Dafoe fill in Nicole's shoes!

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Have Link Will Travel

New York Times on Paul Thomas Anderson's secretive new movie The Master. It's about... something.
MNPP Charlize Theron and Alexander Skarsgård are dating? The Mayans were right about 2012 
Your Movie Buddy interviews The Hunter's storied leading man Willem Dafoe 
Draw Adrian Draw isn't happy about Anne Hathaway as Catwoman but is sketching her anyway
Michael Musto "who's your favorite Taylor?" fun question except there's only one appropriate answer. La Liz! Not that I don't appreciate Taylor Mac...

The Incredible Suit unexpectedly loves The Avengers ... even the Hulk part.
Awards Daily Sasha Stone loves HBO's Girls and Lena Dunham in particular
Stale Popcorn meet the Cannes class of 2012. Serious Thespians (lol) 
Flavorwire always finds interesting things. Did you know that crazy auteur Werner Herzog didn't realize that crazy auteur John Waters was gay for 30+ years. lol
Gold Derby who will Laura Dern (Enlightened) knock out of the Emmy Best Comedy Actress race this season? 

Today's Most Oscary Discussable:
Stranger Than Most looks at the oddest Best Picture snubs of all time. i.e. films that were nominated in the always Best Picture related fields (Dir+ Editing + Screenplay + Acting) and still missed out. Incidentally I love every single one of the "top five" that weren't actually top five (They Shoot Horses Don't They, Hud, Thelma & Louise, Bullets Over Broadway, and My Man Godfrey)  Like crazy 'would run away with them for lost sex-weekend' kind of love. That's how much!

Hud (1963), for example, is a movie I continuously feel guilty about not forcing upon people at every opportunity -- we should totes do it for "Hit Me" but I keep forgetting to put it in the schedule. It's just a freaking masterpiece. And it's weirdly underdiscussed given how many of Paul Newman's films endured.

Jamie, Gary and Emile for Prada

Thanks to TFE reader Grace for pointing this out. While some Hollywood male stars were walking the red carpet at the Globes, still more were walking the red and black carpet for Prada.

Globe snubbee Gary Oldman, Emile Hirsch, Garret Hedlund, Tim Roth, Our Jamie Bell (what? we've claimed him... the extended TFE family I mean which of course includes Glenn, Jamie's #1 fan), Willem Dafoe and Adrien Brody. The stars come out for Prada.

Some of them are more comfortable doubling as male models and not necessarily the ones you'd think. But you can't be rich, famous, good looking and good at everything... now can you?