Happy 10th Anniversary, Mr & Mrs Smith

Mr. & Mrs. Smith celebrates its tenth year anniversary today so in lieu of diamonds (which we hear is what's customary on this occasion), here's Manuel offering up some choice words about the lovely couple -- who knew they'd make it this long!? Or that it would take them another 10 years to co-star again (By the Sea, opening this November)

I remember it vividly. Some friends and I caught a weekend screening of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the film that had brought two of Hollywood’s biggest stars together (yes, cinematically, but also, as it turned out, romantically). The gossip mags had gone insane but we were obviously more excited about the film itself which we’d heard was slick and enjoyable. This was peak charming Brad (Snatch, The Mexican, Ocean’s franchise) before we’d lose him to more highbrow fare that only sporadically allows him to slap on a smirk and a winking look. It was also a transitional moment for Jolie coming as it did after a string of artistic and commercial flops (Life of Something Like it, Sky Captain, Alexander) and reinvigorated her career as an action star beyond Lara Croft. In a way, it was lightning in a bottle...

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"Critics Choice" Flies With Keaton, Checks Into the Grand Budapest & Stands with Jolie, Unbroken

(We interrupt your Missi experience this morning to bring you more awards news. Missi returns this afternoon for two final posts.) 

If you missed my predictions and would like to mock them, they were here. The Critics Choice which will be broadcast live on A&E this year from the Iconic Hollywood Palladium (a new home and venue) on January 15th at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST. I shall try and attend again. If I can get a better table. What? Travel expenses must be justified!

BEST PICTURE
Birdman - leading with 13 nominations
Boyhood - 8 nominations
Gone Girl - 6 nominations
Grand Budapest Hotel - second place with 11 nominations. wow
The Imitation Game - 6 nominations
Nightcrawler - 3 nominations
Selma - 5 nominations
Theory of Everything - 5 nominations
Unbroken - 4 nominations
Whiplash - 4 nominations

I suspected (aka predicted) that we'd see Unbroken and Gone Girl resurface in the conversation here. In fact the only prediction I got wrong was I didn't foresee Nightcrawler happening, fearing that the AFI love for American Sniper was significant. I think Boyhood will probably win in the end (especially given the weird halfhearted "comedy" section of the awards pulling votes away from Birdman) but good on Birdman for that astounding level of support.

I was really hoping for one non-Oscary thing though. I thought Under the Skin might have an outside chance for a shocker (and yes I voted for it).

JAKE GETS THE JOB and more after the jump...

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Honey, time marches on and eventually you realize it is marchin' across your blog.

Stereogum interviews musician Tunde Adebimpe, the groom from Rachel Getting Married. He says Paul Thomas Anderson (!!!) was originally going to play his part.
Dissolve the Russo brothers who did such a great job with Captain America Winter Soldier may be staying with Marvel unto infinity. And Infinity Wars
BadAss Digest kind of a dick move that DC announced a Flash movie shortly after The Flash series opened to great numbers but with a different actor. The star of CW's Arrow objects

Geek x Girls Dance off from Guardians of the Galaxy takes a detour with Lee Pace
Coming Soon Interstellar prequel comic
/Film 30 movies coming to TV from worst to best ideas
THR Madonna isn't done directing Her next project Ade: A Love Story has a writer
MNPP LMAO! Which is hotter, Andrew Garfield or...?
Film School Rejects shares 7 movie scenes where actors imitated other actors. Amusing but why no ladies?

Angelina Madness
Variety the long journey of Unbroken to screen 
In Contention Angelina Jolie premieres Unbroken, gets emotional
Vanity Fair new photos of the exquisite Jolie via Mario Testino 

The Gay
Me Says defends the gay (or lack of?) content of The Imitation Game 
Buzz Feed asks the cast of The Imitation Game to cast their own biopics 
Gay Vancouver Congratulations to Film Experience reader since way back, actor Michael Azevedo, who is premiering a short film in Canada
Towleroad Paul Bettany corrects a troll's grammar and homophobia. Paul Bettany is so perfect. I only wish he had a filmography to match. 

Today's Must Read
Steel Magnolias celebrates its 25th anniversary on November 22nd. I'm surprised at how many of these "12 Things You Didn't Know About Steel Magnolias" I didn't know. Usually those article titles are so misleading. Like this juicy anecdote implying that we could have had an all Old Hollywood version! Bette Davis wanted Shirley Maclaine's role. Can you imagine this version suggested?

Davis hadn't yet seen the play, but Elizabeth Taylor had. (Police were forced to shut down the street outside the theater because so many people were rubbernecking Taylor's arrival.) Davis wanted to play Ouiser, and she suggested Taylor for M'Lynn and Katharine Hepburn for Clairee. "It was fantastic, "Harling recalled. "If I ever write a book, it’s a complete, incredible chapter. She basically, bless her heart, wanted to show that she was up and at ‘em and doing it. There was nobody else and she was looking fabulous."

Today's Listen
If you have 50 minutes, hear David Fincher talk about the movies in this wide ranging interview from Studio 360. Have just 5 minutes?  The second listen is Hobbit Billy Boyd singing the theme song for The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies. It's called "The Last Goodbye"

Tim's Toons: The CGI spectacle and unrealism of Sky Captain

Tim here. This week marks the ten-year anniversary of one of the most important milestones in modern feature animation, though it’s a form of animation that tends to make itself invisible. But when most of the sets, and several of the major characters in movies from Avatar to Gravity to Guardians of the Galaxy are created entirely in a computer by digital artists, can we really keep blithely calling these “live-action movies” without briefly wondering if our pants have just burst in flame? It’s not Disney/Pixar-style cartooning, but these are partially or wholly animated worlds by any definition I can come up with. And it was on September 17, 2004 that Paramount released Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which made history as the first Hollywood movie made entirely on green screens, with every single location created artificially in post-production...

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Thoughts I Had...While Admiring the Beauty of Brangelina in "By the Sea"

abstew here with some random thoughts on the just released new stills from the newest directorial effort of Oscar winner Angelina Jolie, By the Sea. EW received the exclusive pics (hence the magazine's watermark on the photos) and a mini-interview with the writer/director/producer and star that pairs her up on screen with new husband Brad Pitt (their first on-screen partnering since the film that brought them together and launched a million tabloid magazine covers, Mr. and Mrs. Smith). Set in the 1970's, Jolie stars as a former ballet dancer travelling France with her American husband (that would be Pitt, naturally). Their marriage is beginning to show signs of strain and they find themselves drawn to the inhabitants of a small costal town on their journeys...and comedy ensues! (But probably not):

• Damn. I feel like they just announced this film was in the works and we already have photos after one week of shooting...and just three weeks after a super secret marriage? Beautiful, talented, and hyper-organized. That Jolie-Pitt household must run like a well-oiled machine. Which I guess it would have to considering how many children there are to juggle as well.
• I love that instead of going on a traditional honeymoon, Brad and Angelina chose to spend 8 weeks filming a domestic drama together. Apparently Angie's calling it a "Workingmoon". Ugh.
• God, they're both so pretty. Just look at that face. If Madonna were singing about movie stars of today it would be, "Angelina: Gave Good Face."
• I'm getting serious Sophia Loren vibes from Angie in this pic. 
• Everyone is always complaining that Angie is a movie star without the movies to back it up. After the commercial success of Maleficent, could this be the critical hit that boosts her film legacy?
• Film about a failing marriage, starring Hollywood's biggest real-life couple - is it too much pressure to already compare this to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 
• Although the last time we had Angie in a lush European setting we got everyone's favorite Musical or Comedy The Tourist, so...yeah, maybe too much pressure. I should settle for something in between the two.
• But how great would it be if Brad and Angie were both nominated for acting Oscars in the same year for the same film? Maybe throw Jon Voight in there too just to make it a complete family affair.

• Honestly, can we get Brad Pitt an acting Oscar already?! They can keep it on a separate shelf away from the producing Oscars and give Angie's Best Supporting Actress acting statue some company. And Zahara, Shiloh, and lil Vivienne can dress them up in doll clothes.
• Sideburns, creepy sunglasses, and pornstache? Yep, this is definitely set in the 70's.
• Although staring into that mirror, I half expect him to reenact the final scene in Boogie Nights. "I am a star..."
• Isn't Mélanie Laurent in this as well? I want a picture of her, too! God, she's so good in Beginners and Inglorious Basterds (with Pitt!).
• I actually didn't like Brangelina's last on-screen pairing, but there was no denying their combustible chemistry. I'm curious if after almost 10 years together they'll still be able to make that spark between them light up the screen. And I know we generally wait for an actual trailer before utilizing Yes, No, Maybe So, but I'm already a Yes...

Universal is releasing By the Sea sometime next year (most likely in the Fall). But in the meantime, we'll have countless red carpet and awards show appearances this season for both stars as Pitt has Oscar hopeful Fury opening October 17 and the Angelina Jolie-helmed Unbroken opens Christmas Day.