Academy Presenters & Our Annual Academy Nudging

Will Anne & Hugh sing together again this year?UPDATED WITH NEW PRESENTERS
We're getting so close to the big night. Here's who we know will be lighting up the Oscar stage on February 27th thus far for various reasons, mostly as presenters.

Alphabetically speaking...

• Annette Bening
• Halle Berry
• Cate Blanchett NEW
• Russell Brand NEW
• Jeff Bridges
• Sandra Bullock
• Celine Dion (perforrming) NEW
• Robert Downey Jr.
• Florence and the Machine (performing)
• James Franco (host)
• Tom Hanks
• Anne Hathaway (host)
• Hugh Jackman
• Nicole Kidman
• Jude Law
• Zachary Levi (performing)
• Alan Menken (performing)
• Helen Mirren NEW
• Mandy Moore (performing)
• Randy Newman (performing)
• Gwyneth Paltrow (performing)
• A.R. Rahman (performing)
• Marisa Tomei
• Oprah Winfrey
• Reese Witherspoon NEW

Some of those names are gimmes of course. We all knew this time last year that Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges would be asked back and more power to them. They're fun celebrities and completely worthy of our collective eyeballs. The inclusion of both Marisa Tomei and Jude Law fills my heart with joy. Not only because I love them both but because they belong to that small class of celebrity that are far more famous and far more talented than people ever remember them to be. When people (i.e. Academy producers) think on the Household Name set, they don't often go to this unique group of perpetual surprises like... 'oh yeah, THEM, love!' As we've seen in several previous years, the Academy is loathe to have only mildly famous people on the stage unless there is a very very specific reason that they're there (usually performing or because they won an Oscar the previous year.) They'd rather have someone who has no business being equated with the movies who happens to be very famous than someone like Pedro Almodovar or who contributes so much to the cinema.

When they announced the Hallowed name of Hanks two weeks back my heart sank a little. Not only because it's so so predictable but because I immediately assumed that that meant "Best Picture" and as I've stated annually and will continue to state annually in the absurd hope that someone in the Academy will listen just once, they really and truly need to break out of their ruts when bestowing this particular honor. Other awards shows sometimes throw a curveball or allow a woman to do it but the Academy is notoriously samey-samey in regards to Best Picture, regularly choosing the same people year after year hoping perhaps that their dwindling viewing audience will be so comatose with boredom that they are physically unable to change the channel.

Herewith a completely sensible generous reminder /suggestion list of Household Names that have never had the honor so how the hell you gonna have Nicholson-Hanks-Streisand-Spielberg do it AGAIN? There's no excuse for such laziness when Hollywood has abundant glitterati available!

THEY'VE NEVER PRESENTED BEST PICTURE

Kidman, Cruise and Streep at the Oscars in the 1990s. None have ever presented Best Picture.

• Meryl Streep
• Jane Fonda
  
• Michelle Pfeiffer 
• Julia Roberts
• Nicole Kidman
• Tom Cruise
• Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio
• Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie
  
• Dame Maggie Smith (give the Harry Potter fans, the anglophiles, the Oscar buffs and the cinephiles a thrill! You've covered a lot of audience base there.)
• Goldie Hawn
• Jodie Foster & Anthony Hopkins (20th reunion of Silence of the Lambs, why not?)
• Will Smith
• George Clooney
• Liza Minnelli
• Drew Barrymore
• Johnny Depp
• Susan Sarandon
• Matt Damon with Ben Affleck

George & Julia have never presented Best Pic either.I could go on. But do I need to? The point is Step Away from the Nicholsons, Hanks, Spielbergs and Streisands who have all done it multiple times.

ENOUGH.

(P.S. My guess as to who it's going to be? I think Michael Douglas. He's done it before and they love the repeats. He'll be a sentimental favorite.)

Link in Sixty Seconds

Carpetbagger Oscar envelopes get a makeover. Er... it looks like McDonalds is handing out the prizes.
AV Club Michel Gondry is adapting Philip K Dick's Ubik. I predict that before the end of civilization every sentence Philip K Dick ever wrote will be put on the big screen.
The Wrap Adrianne Palicki will be TV's next Wonder Woman. I wish nothing but happiness and success for everyone who has ever been on Friday Night Lights. I do.
Just Jared another collaboration for Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. They just won't stop!
i09 Zach Snyder's Superman may be in trouble.
fourfour "wagon wheel watusi" Oh, Burlesque.
My New Plaid Pants the moment I fell for.... Andrew Garfield
Scott Feinberg is still pushing Melissa Leo for the gold. Here are some statistics to consider.

Finally Empire Online is hosting a "Done in 60 Seconds" contest in which readers have submitted one minute films spoofing some of hte greatest movies of all time. There are 20 finalists, one is even made by a regular Film Experience reader (who alerted me to the contest -Congrats!). Quite a few of them show real ingenuity but my favorites are the ones that don't merely recreate but remold the film in some other image. There's a spoof of The Terminator that cleverly uses Toy Story characters. It obviously cost nothing but, then, neither did the original Terminator. Ghost is similarly lowfi with teddy bears but totally works and I loved the voicework even if it did seem to be taking its cue from those 30 second bunny films.  The Wizard of Oz short is really more of a redo of a trailer of a hugely popular 90s movie (I'll leave you to guess which one). And there's two Social Network films. One of them (contestant #9) is an amusing send up of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher rather than the movie itself.

Did you like Benjamin Button? Do you wanna go back to that?

It totally had me giggling. The last musical cue is hilarious. So, that's the one I voted for. Are you going to vote?

The Interviews, Goddesses and Craftsmen Alike

A big "thank you" to readers who commented on the recent spate of interviews here at The Film Experience. We don't do too many of them but you've been quite complimentary about the ones you do get. If time allows and other variables improve this year we'll do more for 2011. But in case you missed any of the interviews covering the 2010 film year, here's the rundown:

AND THE OSCAR NOMINATION GOES TO...

Jenny Beavan, Costume Designer, (The King's Speech)
Roger Deakins, Cinematographer (True Grit)
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, Editors (The Social Network)
Eve Stewart, Production Designer (The King's Speech)
Jacki Weaver, Actress (Animal Kingdom)

...FROM THE OLD BLOG: Four of Nathaniel's 100 favorite actresses in one calendar year? Too rich! And a couple of talented men for good measure.

Kirsten Dunst, Actress (All Good Things)
Alexander Desplat, Composer (The Ghost Writer, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
Javier Fuentes-Leon, Director (Contracorriente aka Undertow)
Juliette Lewis, Actress (Conviction)
Patricia Clarkson, Actress (Cairo Time)
Julianne Moore, Actress (The Kids Are All Right)

Beloveds: Juliette, Patty, God and Kiki

Who should we pursue relentlessly in 2011 until they're on the phone or grabbing a cup of joe?
Which Old Hollywood legend would you like to hear from?

"Chan" Tatum

Do any of you read GQ? I can't say that I read any magazine religiously anymore (my how things change) but I read this cover story. It's one of those celebrity profiles that makes you wonder why the star's personality offscreen doesn't transfer more to the silver screen.

One of the problems with The Eagle (full review) I think is that Channing Tatum is so serious in it that there's not a lot of tones to vary the star turn. Except, that is, for the tail end in which he cracks a smile and it suddenly feels like a different movie entirely. And one set in 2011 no less. But my point is that he sounds funny and loose and uninhibited in person -- here and elsewhere -- if not quite "wild" as the cover suggests and those things don't seem to be transferring to his performances.

I'm hoping some director can tap into this other engaging fun side of him in a future performance. But unless a male actor is a genius and adds lots of colors on their own to their performances, Hollywood rarely asks for the kind of emotive range from them that it regularly expects of the women. So for now masculine good looks and the ability to hold the camera will have to do.

Maybe his team is keeping him to buttoned up? I don't mean that literally since he still takes his shirt off with generous frequency. On his stripper past for example he says.

"I had wanted to tell people. I'm not ashamed of it. I don't regret one thing. I'm not a person who hides shit."

I'm not sure his people will be pleased with the copious alcohol imbibing in the article, but his delight in giving the journalist plenty of crazed details to work with is pretty funny. As is his virtual boasting at the article's end that the interviewer is not going to find a celebrity to top him any time soon.

More photos here.  I totally want this striped shirt so the advertisement (aka the photoshoot) worked its consumerist magic.

My First (Three) Dean(s)

JA from MNPP here with my follow-up to last week's query regarding the fact that I'd never seen a James Dean film and how you all should tell me which one to watch first, by poll. And tell me you did - with 44% of the vote Rebel Without a Cause, his second film with his most iconic performance, came out on top, besting East of Eden (at 37%) and Giant (at 18%). I wasn't exactly surprised by these results.

Most likely when you think Dean, you think this:

That red jacket / white tee / jeans ensemble is Marilyn's white dress flying up on the subway grate; it's Elvis' bedazzled jumpsuit and Audrey Hepburn's little black dress eating a danish in front of Tiffanys. If you're gonna start somewhere with James Dean this seems like the likeliest place to start. Which... well knowing I'd thrown myself at having to write about something so iconic it's sold more stamps than my college education cost, probably squared, was a little intimidating. What is there left to say?

Thankfully the film, while dated, does remain a fascinating, loose, alive thing. Fifty-six years of rebellious teenagers later the movie that crafted the mold somehow manages to remain just enchantingly weird. There is an otherworldly sort of spell it casts over you - there's something very apt about the planetarium setting that the film uses repeatedly. It gives you this epic space - literally all of outer space - with the beginning and the ending of the world exploding around you. But it's a manufactured apocalypse at the same time - you're not under the night sky at all. You're enclosed in a tomb of sound and fury - an echo chamber of gee whizz bang. That sounds a lot like what most of my teenage dramas all turned out to be.

Not that these kids don't have real problems. But the melodramas they play out, coupled with the actors very serious performances, takes the film into a very odd space. It's as heightened as a Douglas Sirk film, only you swap out the acting style of Rock Hudson for James Dean, which... well that's a swap. Having only seen clips of Dean's films before but never a full from-start-to-finish performance from him until now, I've got to say it really and truly was a revelation. I'm sure he was astonishing to watch on stage as well but the man was made to be placed in front of a movie camera. His face is so alive! From every angle - shoot him from the back and you can feel what he is feeling, as if he's shooting pulses of emotion from his scalp.

It seems vulgar to just straight-up gush, but as some of you said would happen in the comments I was so enamored with Dean that as soon as Rebel was finished I put in East of Eden and as soon as East of Eden was finished I put in Giant. And I've now seen them all! (That's why it took me a couple extra days to get this to you - it took me two nights to finish Giant. That is a very long movie.) And now that I've seen them all Dean's legend makes complete sense to me.

I made a joke before having seen the films about the similarity of his characters names - Jim Stark, Cal Trask, and Jet Rink - what seems amazing now, having seen the films is how completely separate these three fellows are to me. It struck me about half-an-hour into East of Eden (what a marvelous film East of Eden is, and how ashamed I feel for having only just seen it) that the Dean I was watching didn't at all seem to be the icon of teenager rebellion that I'd just been confronted with in Rebel and I'd been expecting out of all of Dean's performances. And then you get to Giant and you're watching something completely different still, and yet no less hypnotic, pour out of him.

Oh sure there are the loose similarities that connect the three - young men who seem incapable of fitting in with their surroundings, battling against the forces they see closing in on them, the slights real and imagined, all while maintaining a glorious head of hair - but the details that Dean carves out with body language and with his voice, with Jet's easygoing horse-rider's strut or Jim's tendency to jump around like an extra in West Side Story or the seemingly unwitting cruelty that coils Cal up, it was a surreal and exhilarating experience, watching all in one fell swoop.

So whaddya know? Dean was no fluke, no false advertisement. And when his scenes in Giant came to an end I felt the shadow of sadness that audiences since 1956 must sense, knowing that's all there will ever be. Still, even though the thought of all that could've been is maddening, it feels as if there's so much I'll be able to wring from just these three in repeat viewings. It'll be a pleasure.