Beauty vs Beast: Why Must EVERYTHING Be a Contest?

Jason from MNPP here - I'm sure if Faye Dunaway were to come to The Film Experience and stumble upon us wishing her a happy 78th birthday here today with a Mommie Dearest themed edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" poll she'd roll her eyes in that certain way she does that makes you quake in your slippers and utter some four-letter word... and that's just why we love her. She may not love the movie that turned her knobs up to Full Camp and then snapped right off, but we do, and we always will - her stratopheric take on Joan Crawford has the stuff of myth about it, as if she squeezed heaven and hell like a wet rag and drank down every last drop right before they said "Action!" That said... Joan's a tough vote all the same! 

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PREVIOUSLY I think this is the first time this has ever happened, y'all - we ended with a tie on last week's poll! Mahershala Ali's performance in Green Book & Rami Malek's turn as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody came down 50/50. So I guess we'll go with the most magnaminous comment then... said lylee:

"Recognizing these were both problematic movies, I still really enjoyed them - and these performances. Fine acting by a couple of fiiine men. I pick Don because I have a soft spot for brilliant pianists and Freddie seems like he'd get exhausting after a while."

FYC: "A Simple Favor" for Best Costume Design

Please welcome new contributor Mark Brinkerhoff

A simple favor to ask members of the Academy (its costume branch, in particular): don’t miss your opportunity to nominate A Simple Favor, simply one of the finest showcases of contemporary costuming in years. How so? Let’s examine.

First off, it’s only natural to zero in on Blake Lively’s character’s frankly stunning series of sharply-tailored suits with vertiginous stilettos. But while my own love of ladies in menswear knows no limits there is much more happening front and center (Anna Kendrick) and around the margins (Linda Cardellini, Jean Smart, Lively’s other character) to pique the interest of sartorially-minded viewers...

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FYC: Nicole Kidman in "Destroyer"

Eric here, with a brief plea for Oscar consideration for a dark horse candidate for Best Actress:  Nicole Kidman for Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer. For harmony in numbers, here’s five reasons why Nicole should be one of our final five when nominations are announced next Tuesday...

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Podcast: Sorry to Bother You about Oscar's fifth spots!

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl and Nick Davis talk Oscar races

Hello! No new movies to review but plenty to talk about.

Index (56 minutes)
00:01 Glenn, Regina, Olivia, and Patty saved the Globes
05:16 What we've been watching lately: Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother, plus Support the Girls, Minding the Gap, Eighth Grade and A Star is Born (again).
18:00 Supporting Actress / Actor: Foy or Robbie, and King? Sam, Sam, or Timothée?
29:22 Actor & Actress: Hawke or Washington? Blunt, Aparacio, or Kidman?
35:45 Screenplay confusions / Score weirdness
42:30 Foreign Film: Never Look Away or Burning?
45:50 Nick is thumbs down At Eternity's Gate
47:20 Director / Picture and Pawel Pawlikowski and Spike Lee
55:00 Wrap-up

Further Reading / References
• Oscar Charts
• Golden Globe Speeches
• KCRW's "The Business" interview with Spike Lee
• Nathaniel's Ben Foster interview

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Sorry to Bother You about Oscar's fifth spots

Interview: Toni Colette on horror, grief, and her prismatic performances

by Nathaniel R

Toni Collette gives one of the year's great performances staring into the abyss of her own life in "Hereditary"Toni Collette doesn't like horror movies. We relate but there are exceptions: horror films starring Toni Collette are events. Her resistance to the genre,  she refers to both of her biggest horror hits as "classic dramas", may be the strange key to why she's so superb in them, grounding them in emotional truths while simultaneously having the kind of stylistic range as an actor that can lift right off with them into otherworldly places. 

We recently sat down after an encore screening and lively Q&A of Hereditary. Her sole Oscar nomination came early in her career as the grieving mother of little Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999) and in a way, twenty years later, she's bookended that great early success with another very different grieving mother. This one's much harder to love but the performance is even better. Even if you don't love horror movies, it's impossible to miss the fact that her Annie, a self-indulgent artist and resentful mother, is a tour de force performance from an actress at the top of her game. Annie's life is traumas stacking up on traumas but Toni's performance keeps stacking brilliance upon brilliance.

Though she's played her share of narcissists or flighty women, the actress herself comes across as generous and grounded, thrilled by the collaboration of filmmaking. She rolls her eyes about herself and other actors if anyone gets too precious or self-involved about the craft. Though she loves acting dearly, she hilariously refers to it as her "day job" as we're making small talk before the interview.

In a rare turnabout, as we sat down, Toni asked the first question. So we'll begin right there....

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