Mad Max & Fashionable Kate lead the 'Australian Oscar' nominations

The AACTA Awards, essentially the Australian Oscars, are in their 5th year. But the "5th" business they're promoting is misleading. It's the fifth year under their new name, AACTA, but they've actually been giving out prizes since 1958 when they were called AFI Awards... not to be confused with the AFI events across the Pacific, America and Australia both starting with "A" and both having Film Institutes. But they're obviously promoting a reboot mentality since they consider the 2011 AACTAs the "inaugural" awards.

Leading the pack this year are Kate Winslet's fashionista revenge comedy The Dressmaker (still awaiting news on a US release) and the critically beloved Max Mad Fury Road with 12 and 11 nominations respectively. George Miller's action masterpiece could even win since AACTA doesn't have the genre bias Oscar does -- Australia's industry is to small to have such silly biases! -- giving Best Film to The Babadook last year. If Mad Max Fury Road could repeat this trick at the American Oscars -- 11 nominations (!) -- 95% of cinephiles would experience the rapture and never be heard from again.

The film nominees are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Link and I

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the greatest sitcom?
I've been really impressed with Vulture's #sitcomsmackdown which has made all sort of insightful points about the state of the situation comedy throughout the past quarter century, even if I wish Vulture had been more clear about how much rewatching they've asked their selected writers to do. Glenn at Stale Popcorn sounds off on the uproar that greeted Sex & The City's win over 30 Rock. But, as Glenn points out, if you read the actual original essay the writer clearly loves both series and makes really salient engaging points about why she chose Sex as the winner. But alas, people don't read. They just choose sides and fight. I'm thankful I don't have to choose the ultimate winner from the past 30 years but many of the shows battling it out for the top slot would make my top 10.

weird coincidence
So this week while instant-watch surfing a few films I'd seen before, which I do on occasion to refresh my memory, I watched a few scenes from both Head On (1998) and from Trainspotting (1996). Both films were critical hits and bold in-your-face indies about hard-living young men. The two films served as major launching pad for two exciting actors (Alex Dimitriades and Ewan McGregor, respectively) though their careers didn't exactly turn out the same. And then yesterday while link surfing, I chance upon a piece about how hard it is for men to turn 40 that featured Alex Dimitriades and the news that Danny Boyle still wants to do a Trainspotting sequel and that, finally, Ewan McGregor may say yes. The article suggests that one hurdle has always been residual director/star strangement dating back to the days when Boyle threw his young start-up muse (Ewan had also been with him for his debut Shallow Grave) overboard for Leonardo DiCaprio on The Beach? I felt like the internet was reading my mind!