Zsa Zsa's Farewell and Other Links...

The Retro Set a "loosely autobiographical review" of 20th Century Women
Variety there's a documentary coming about the men behind the classic "Curious George" books
The Guardian Dick Van Dyke, who is 91 years old, has confirmed that he has a part in Mary Poppins Returns playing the son of one of his two characters in the original (the ancient banker guy apparently rather than the chimney sweep)

Browbeat BAFTA makes a bold move, requiring some degree of diversity to be eligible for awards starting in 2019 (they offer several ways in which you can do that for those worried about artistic freedoms for filmmakers)
Towleroad a list of retailers you should shop at this Christmas since the anti-gay right wing is targeting them.
Decider the year in cinematic smoking 
New Yorker their 16 most read stories this year
Coming Soon Legion, an X-Men spinoff TV series, gets a poster
Awards Daily Vancouver Critics favors Manchester by the Sea in 5 of its 9 categories

Zsa Zsa in the 1980sMore goodbyes... as is 2016's awful habit
Eye for Cinema remembers French actress Michèle Morgan who passed away today at the age of 96 - her credits included Port of Shadows, The Fallen Idol, and Pastoral Symphony (Cannes Best Actress win)
Variety Dick Latessa, who was so wonderful as Mr Turnblad in Hairspray on Broadway, has passed away
New York Times Zsa Zsa Gabor (Moulin Rouge), the last surviving member of the world famous Hungarian Gabor sisters (famous for acting, yes, but arguably more for the 20 marriages between them) has died. She was just two months shy of her 100th birthday! Her sisters Magda and Eva both passed away in the 1990s. Zsa Zsa's last two big screen appearance were cameo apperances as herself in the comedies Beverly Hillbillies (1993) and A Very Brady Sequel (1996). She was the only Gabor sister to have a child but she outlived her daughter Constance Francesca Hilton (yes, of that Hilton family) who died just 13 months ago.

Fun Oscar Trivia: One of Zsa Zsa's nine husbands was George Sanders (All About Eve) and she was married to him during that Oscar-winning career peak. She was considered for the role that went to Marilyn Monroe in that classic.  

Red Carpet Lineup: BAFTA w/ Cate, Rooney, Angela...

Jose here. London, bloody London, or rainy for that matter. It seems that as usual, it was either freezing, rainy or both at the BAFTA red carpet, and while sometimes the inclement weather makes for some truly adorable moments when actresses must accesorize accordingly (remember Marion's cute faces trying to stay dry in 2013?) sometimes it doesn't (Kate's gigantic umbrella in 2009 was a tragedy) This year we had two beautiful ladies showing us the right and wrong way to do it. Rooney Mara took on the red carpet in Givenchy Haute Couture which she chose to cover under a shapeless black coat. Once she removed it, there wasn't much to see either, she has worn this exact same dress at least 100 times by now. She gets points for being so funny/dismissive about the red carpet game though.

No, everyone's yelling at you"

...she said to a reporter who asked if she liked the experience.

more after the jump...

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BAFTA Winners Announced

Since BAFTA never televises live we learn the winners before we've seen any excerpts from the show. This kills the normal suspense (however non-suspenseful) of "and the winner is..." but if you're trying to preserve that we'll hide the winners until after the jump. We'll deal with the details later once we've seen clips!

THE WINNERS ARE...

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Red Carpet: BAFTA PreParty, Sci-Tech, and WGA

Eight beauties for you this afternoon as we get closer and closer to Oscar and more and more awards are handed out. We'll know the BAFTA winners in a few hours (though they still don't televise it live making it hard to take seriously in this day and age) but here are four women from the pre-party.

Sandy Powell (just interviewed!), Dakota Johnson, Cate Blanchett, and Bel Powley. Was the dress code black and white? 

Olivia Munn co-hosted the Academy's Sci-Tech Awards. Meanwhile at the WGA Awards, Adepero Oduye (gorgeous in yellow!) showed up to support The Big Short, Gina Gershon, and Diane Lane were also out on the red carpet. Olivia's busy but these other three deserve bigger roles than they've been getting -- they've got the talent and the charisma for them. Hopefully the guild members, all writers after all, will be inspired by their presence to create richer roles for them or actresses like them. 

WGA WINNERS
Original SPOTLIGHT
Adapted THE BIG SHORT
Documentary GOING CLEAR
Television FARGO

We've every reason to expect that Original and Adapted will tilt the same way at the Oscars on the 28th but what do you think is running second in both races? We're guessing Inside Out (Original)  in distant second and Room (Adapted) a closer second.

Sundance Buzz: Short Film Winners

The Czech queer short "Peacock" won Best DirectorWith the Academy Award short nominees opening in theaters today, it's a good time to note that the Sundance short film jury handed out their awards this week. This year's jury of three was Key & Peele's Keegan-Michael Key, MTV's chief film critic Amy Nicholson, and Amazon Studio's Gina Kwon. Since Sundance is a qualifying festival for Academy Awards you might hear the name of some of these shorts again in about a year. One of last year's big winners, for example, was World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt. That's an Oscar nominee right now for Best Animated Short. 

The 2016 Short Film Winners are as follows:

Grand Jury Prize Thunder Road (USA, Jim Cummings) an officer eulogizes his mother. Cummings is a producer/director with some shorts under his belt.
U.S. Fiction The Procedure (USA, Calvin Lee Reeder) a horror short about a captive man. Reeder has made several horror shorts and directed one of the segments in that anthology V/H/S
International Fiction Maman(s) (France, Maïmouna Doucouré) This one is about a young girl in a Parisian suburb whose father returns from Senegal with a surprise, a second wife
Non-Fiction: Bacon & God's Wrath (Canada, Sol Friedman)  an elderly Jewish woman cooking bacon for the first time and reflecting on her life. This short also received an honorable mention from the jury at TIFF in September so perhaps it's a legit long list contender for next year's Documentary Short competition?

Animation: Edmond (UK, Nina Gantz) see the teaser above. This short has been making the rounds for a bit now. It recently won the BIFA and it's a BAFTA nominee this year but it did not make the longlist cut to 10 finalists for the current Oscar competition. 
Outstanding Performance Grace Glowicki won for Her Friend Adam (Canada, Benjamin Petrie) in which her boyfriend's jealousy spirals out of control.
Special Jury Award for Best Direction: Peacock (Czech Republic, Ondřej Hudeček). Peacock bills itself as "a twisted queer romance" it's set in the 19th century and has something to do with the birth of an influential writer. The film promises "Suspense, laughter, violence, hope, nudity, sex, and a happy ending—mostly a happy ending."