Have you missed the Q&A series? I have so it's back. You asked questions so I chose two handfuls to answer. Let's just get right to it.
Andrew: What actors would you like to see Wes Anderson work with in the future?
As you all know, directors who reuse actors delight our particular cinephilia. There's something that's wonderfully fantasy sandbox about it. Like you're inside that auteurs head when they're playing and these are their favorite toys. So I hope Anderson keeps reusing his regulars but especially I hope he reunites with Anjelica Huston (who seems to have been replaced by Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton). Three actors he's only used once were total surprise revelations within his diorama world: Gene Hackman & Gwyneth Paltrow (Royal Tenenbaums) and Ralph Fiennes (Grand Budapest Hotel) so more surprises like that would be welcome. Therefore I am naming eight actors that I either can totally picture within his worlds or can't picture at all: Donald Sutherland, Christina Ricci, Jake & Maggie Gyllenhaal (together!), Tommy Lee Jones, Michael Shannon, and finally Viggo Mortensen and Nicole Kidman simply because they're both impossible to imagine!
Lyn: In the last six months, what is the moment you've had in a cinema that has left you the most exhilarated / surprised / excited?
the answer and nine more questions after the jump...
Let us pause for a moment to take in the absolute gorgeousity of the new poster for Carol.
SWOON. Swoon until you can't swoon no more. You have no idea how much I long to see a Double Best Actress nomination again.
*sniffle* I am so sad about impending category fraud.
Oh the question. Um... The entirety of Carol but especially Cate Blanchett's extremely deliberate editorial body language. Most of Mad Max Fury Road, but definitely that moment when they ride into that impossibly hellish sandstorm tableau. The last half hour of The Witch had me completely paralyzed at TIFF. Seeing Tangerine for the second time with my two best friends many months after Sundance and hearing them laugh throughout as much as I laughed at Sundance. I knew they'd love it but you know when you cherish something and you want people you cherish to feel the same?
Hmmm, what else? Oh, to be honest probably the birth of The Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I went to that Marvel Marathon with my bestie and we were so tired from all the movies and the sameness and so on but that was the single moment in the new film that was most magical for me and turned me into an awestruck little boy reading comics which is I guess what I'm always hoping for with superhero pictures.
I'm suddenly sad to realize I haven't been going to many revivals this year. Must correct that.
Volvagia: Odds on Marvel Studios pulling a 6-10 nomination eventually?
Eh. I'm on record as predicting that the superhero bubble will burst before people think it will -- I mean I'd argue that the genre has already peaked (you can't get more audience-popular than The Dark Knight (2008) and The Avengers (2012) and oversaturation will burst any bubble. Now every TV network has superhero shows in development or already on the air. And I was on record about the bubble bursting before Age of Ultron premiered and people started grumbling about "maybe we're a little tired of this?" I don't think Marvel is auteur friendly enough to end up with a Dark Knight situation to be frank. The current state of affairs suggests that they would never be hands off enough to let a director make a stand alone triumph that got Oscar voters excited.
Bhuray: What are your 5 favourite animated TV shows of all time? And what is your favourite episode from each of them?
This is a hard unexpected question. Even though I can still sing the theme songs of several animated shows from my childhood I am not one of those people who is super nostalgic for childhood entertainments and they all sort of run together in my head. Specific characters, for example, obsess me more than whole shows and that's been true from childhood until today. If Looney Tunes had a Pepe Le Pew or Speedy Gonzalez episode, I was all about that! I love Marge Simpson and Bart sometimes, too. I love a few Smurfs but not The Smurfs. I love certain characters in just about every superhero show but never the whole show. One show I remember being really into when I was tiny was something called Battle of the Planets and I went through a huge South Park phase (didn't everyone?).
But these three I have more affection for than any others and are the only animated series that I have ever felt I had to see every single episode of for fear of missing something that was made with the sole purpose of delighting on every level. They are...
• Archer (2010-). "Swiss Miss" because I hurt from laughing?
• Bob's Burgers (2011-) "Bad Tina"... because of 'erotic friend fiction'
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998-2005) "Bubblevicious"
(Those were just the three episodes that came to mind. These answers are non-binding.)
Evan: If AMPAS put you in charge of the foreign language category, what changes would you implement?
People complain about this category too much. Imagine how hard it would be to actually make the rules that are so easy to complain about! You have to have rules. I think in the past five years the nominations and wins have proven that the many tiny changes they made have really improved things and the Academy deserves a round of applause.
[pause for applause]
The only change I would implement is that in addition to each country getting one representative film to submit that any foreign film that played during the calendar year in regular US theaters, would also be eligible in this category even if it was not submitted by its own country. One film per country helps equalize the field for countries without major cinemas but it also has the problem of not really representing the year since you know French, Chinese, and Indian films for example are fairly well represented in the marketplace and that maybe ought to be reflected at the Oscars.
Craver: what do you think of SCREAM QUEENS? I love its stupidly hilarious thrill and Niecy Nash is suprisingly the MVP so far, but JLC hasn't got any great showdown I think.
1000% agree that Niecy Nash is the MVP. Not that the bar is high -- I've watched every episode (for reasons) but I think it's garbage. But Nash is just fantastically funny in it with her reams of expositional sleuthing dialogue. In fact I'd go so far to say that she's Emmy nomination worthy though nothing else on the show has any right to even know what the Emmys are let alone be in the conversation.
Steve: How can Grace and Frankie be improved in its second season?
Dump the ex-husbands except for cameos. Many problems solved!
Andrew: Which film would you like to see a film about 'the making of said' film?
I am such a sucker (theoretically) for this largely barren subgenre of movies about movies. Wasn't someone going to make a movie about the filming of the Monroe-Gable-Clift classic The Misfits (1961)? That would be a-ma-zing. I'm such a sucker for this genre that I can't imagine not being interested in just about any film that was the subject. Hell, I'd probably love watching a making of Braveheart and I hate that movie. But, hmmm.
on the set of "The Misfits"
For fun I will add these movies because I imagine the making of would offer plenty of tasty scenes: Steel Magnolias (1989) or Witches of Eastwick (1987) because both had DRAMA and SHENANIGANS with their actresses vs director wars; Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) because of Bette vs Joan, duh; One From the Heart (1981) because the movie is so weird and there are characters (Francis Ford Coppola! Teri Garr!! Tom Waits!!!) and because it was such a studio-killing bomb; The Women (1939) why Hollywood ever wanted to remake that one instead of doing a making-of is such a disappointment; An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) mostly because the stars apparently hated each other but they have great chemistry in it and because we're all still Searching for Debra Winger, aren't we?
And I would happily give up a nut for a TV miniseries narrative version of Mark Harris's "Pictures at a Revolution" because the drama from all those sets was jaw-dropping to read. If I have to pick one of those 1967 movies to get its own making of movie than I choose Doctor Dolittle because those stories are insane and outrageous + unruly animals.
I could be here all day with this question: Cleopatra, Dancer in the Dark, Xanadu, Eyes Wide Shut, Titanic, anything Hitchcock, and The Revenant (haha).
Drew: Are they're any classic Hollywood actors or actresses you have a bit of a blind spot too?
There are plenty! Over the years I've fixed many blindspots slowly. I know I need to work on seeing more Susan Hayward, Gena Rowlands, Jeanne Moreau (who is sensational in Bay of Angels but she left me cold in Jules et Jim - I know I know. That is not how 99.9% of people throughout time have reacted), Kay Francis, and Fredric March (who I really love so far).
Fredric March in the Royal Family of Broadway (1930)
Kay Francis is amazing in Trouble in Paradise (1932) but I haven't seen much else.
You didn't ask about directors but I have a huge blind spot in Jean-Luc Godard (I've been resistant because I'm not naturally drawn to him). I have always loved masters like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Vittorio de Sica and Federico Fellini but the truth is they were all prolific and I have key titles left to investigate from each of them. Generally speaking, I could be far more informed on Pre-Code, Noir, and Westerns than I am. The problem with the last of those three is that I don't really care. (sigh)
Patrick: What recent Criterion Collection films have you recently purchased?
Hmmm. Haven't purchased many movies lately. The last three were Robert Altman's Nashville, James Ivory's A Room With a View and Agnes Varda's Cleo From 5 to 7 (which are all three perfect movies, people. Y'hear?)
Cash: Name the 10 best child performances in movie history.
I don't do top tens for the Q&A series. Top tens need their whole own posts. And I think I've written a list of best child star performances before I think?
Regardless everyone's lists are soon out of date when Jacob Tremblay arrives in Room this weekend! For serious. What a performance! I know I've shared my love for Victoire Thivisol in the French grief drama Ponette (1996) before which was released in the states in 1997. True story: she absolutely wrecked me and before The Film Experience was a thing she was my silver medalist in Best Actress that year just behind Helena Bonham Carter in Wings of the Dove. And a performance I often think of as an example of great child performances that no one ever talks about and that admittedly I barely remember but was impressed when I saw it on VHS in the late 80s was Nicholas Gledhill in Careful He Might Hear You (1983)
YOUR TURN.
What are your favorite child performances? animated series? Which making of movie would you love to see?