YNMS: The Light Between Oceans

Lynn here, offering a little break from the frenzy of this year’s Oscars homestretch to ponder a possible future awards contender…

Fall, it seems so far away!  But it’s never too early to start thinking of the potential Oscars slate for next season, especially when you’ve got an adaptation of a popular book that features two mega-hot rising stars coming off fresh Oscar nominations and one Oscar winner who’s a bona fide screen goddess.  That would be The Light Between Oceans, which just dropped its first trailer yesterday.  Based on the bestselling novel by M.L. Stedman, it’s directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) and stars Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz.

Let’s break down the trailer, YNMS-style after the jump...

Click to read more ...

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...

Click to read more ...

Interview: Alicia Vikander on Modern Girls, Talking Robots, and Scandinavian Celebrity

Vikander at the SAG Awards where she won Best Supporting ActressWhen I sat down with Alicia Vikander to discuss her career she was full of surprises, and not just in the way she answered questions. She approached in what looked like the simplest black dress, nothing special at all, until she turned around and the dress had an elaborately elegant back with a trailing bow. She promptly plopped down in a chair, opened a small bag of chips, and began munching away. She's a vision, alright, but the vision kept shifting: Unadorned Beauty, Glamorous Star, Girl Next Door. 

This hard to pin down picture shouldn't come as a surprise. In the short time we've been watching her she's been equally believable as a sly robot, a conflicted Danish queen, a debutate Russian aristocrat, a bohemian artist whose world is turned upside down, and a British writer during wartime.

But she's been so ubiquitous this year, both on screen and red carpets, that we're wondering which sides of herself she's yet to reveal. So we begin, counterintuively, with her future.

[The following interview was conducted before she won her SAG Award else we'd have talked about it.] 

NATHANIEL R: You've had so many movies released in the last few years. If you don't slow down, what's going to be left to accomplish?!? 

more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Q&A Pt 2: Comic Winners? Revisiting Characters? Oscar Darlings of 2026?

Yesterday we got all the Leonardo DiCaprio questions out of the way so now on to other Reader Questions. Let's jump right in. Here's eleven questions from readers. You asked. I'm answering.

EUROCHEESE: What's your favorite comedy to win Best Picture?

NATHANIEL: Toss up between It Happened One Night (1934) and Tootsie (198---Damnit. Tootsie is >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Gandhi)

CHRIS JAMES: Sylvester Stallone now holds the record for the longest time between Oscar nominations for the same character (39 years between 1976 nomination and 2015 nomination). Which nominated roles would you love to see a sequel of 39 years after their original film with the same actor reprising the role? Is there some from the past year or are there any characters this year you would love to check in with 39 years down the road?

NATHANIEL: What a cool question! Unfortunately a lot of these characters might not be alive in 40 years... so we'll have to stick with (mostly) the younger players and wonder who still has story left in them? Brooklyn ends so winningly in the golden sunshine, so let's leave Eilis there. I'd say Ma & Jack from Room but I don't wish them anything but completely normal non-eventful lives after Room. 

Some of the "true life" characters died or died much sooner than 39 years after the events of the film.Which leaves us with Therese Belivet from Carol which is the correct answer. Rooney Mara will be 69 years old in 39 years so that puts her at the same age as Charlotte Rampling now...

Click to read more ...

Vanity Fair's 2016 Hollywood Issue Cover - A Close Look

Someone's been paying attention to every single media firestorm in Hollywood this past year from ageism to equal pay to diversity. Gracing this year's cover of Vanity Fair's Hollywood Issue is political showbiz icon Jane Fonda (2 Oscars), the inspirational crusading awesomeness of Viola Davis (1 phantom Oscar -- well, everyone knows she deserved it!), "the world is round people" diva Cate Blanchett (2 Oscars), and equal-pay-demander Jennifer Lawrence (1 Oscar).

VF's "Hollywood Issue" tradition is one of the key attractions in the showbiz circus of Oscar season. Though the covers aren't tied thematically to the Oscars they usually include current nominees. The primary form is a "predict the future superstars" covers in which they lean into the young in-demand crop who are having good years. The less common form is a survey of A listers and legends and a few people that scream "now"  and that's the type we got this year. And girl, it's a beauty.

The only real gripe is that even when the media is actually trying to express diversity (presumably to "help" Hollywood though the media, including this Vanity Fair cover tradition, has its own problems in that arena) they are still thinking in binaries of black and white. Why not include an Asian or Latina actress or let Ellen Page have a place on the cover again since she's still headlining films and working hard to stay in the game after coming out? 

Let's take a closer look after the jump...

Click to read more ...