14 Days Til Oscar: "All About Titanic"

[Our countdown to Hollywood's High Holy Night continues. Here's abstew with a fun "battle"]

We've only 14 days to go. It seemed like the perfect time to take a look at the two films that jointly hold the record for most nominations (in case you hadn't guessed, that would be 14). One is a fabulous Actressexual's dream about back-stabbing in the theatre world and the other a small indie about a boy and girl in love. Oh, yeah and something about a ship. 

Technically, Titanic holds a higher place in Oscar history, having won 11 of its 14 nominations while All About Eve went home with only six statues (though 12 was the most it could have won with double-nods in Lead and Supporting Actress). But haven't you always wondered what film would come out victorious if they had gone head-to-head?  No? Well, let's find out anyway

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Seasons of Bette: Of Human Bondage (1934)

ICYMI - We announced last week that as a sidebar series to Anne Marie's "A Year With Kate", Nathaniel will be discussing each of the Oscar Roles of Bette Davis, 11 in total or 10 if you're a purist, as they appear within Kate's chronology. There will be spoilers.

You should know as we begin this new mini-series that I am not, like Anne Marie with Kate, a Bette historian. My knowledge of Bette Davis is something like the cliff notes version that most people who love movies absorb along the way. The earliest and only pre-Jezebel (1938) Bette Davis performance I had seen before beginning this series was Three on a Match (1932) which didn't, in any way, prepare us for the Bette we know; she's not the MVP of that racy pre-code girls-gone-bad drama. So I'm happy to report that Of Human Bondage (1934) gives us the Full Bette-of-Legend Arc. She goes from unsatisfying bit player to unforgettable star to terrifying disintegrating old harpy all in the space of 83 minutes! It's quite the retrospective ride. [More...]

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"Seasons of Bette" Coming Soon

Surprise! As a side bar series to Anne Marie's brilliant "A Year With Kate" project, I present to you "Seasons of Bette". Together with Streep, who we talk about a lot, Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis form the Holy Trinity of Oscar's Best Actress category, with 41 nominations and 9 statuettes between them. Streep is bound to have another big year in 2014 with The Homesman, The Giver and Into the Woods all arriving but we're finally giving the other two their due. 

"Seasons of Bette" won't be a comprehensive film-by-film study like Anne Marie's (Bette made 80+ features and a ton of television so, uh, no.) but I will personally be visiting each of Bette's Oscar nominated star turns, as they come up within Kate's timeline. When Anne Marie pitted them against each other in her last episode, I realized that they'd only squared off four times at the Oscars but that I had not seen all of Bette's nominated work. So join me. It's the perfect opportunity for us to fill in Best Actress viewing gaps together. Titles in red represent the years where Kate & Bette competed head on for Oscar gold. If you'd like to play along that means you've got to watch Of Human Bondage (1934) right away on Netflix Instant, Dangerous (1935) by February 24th, Jezebel (1938) by March 30th, Dark Victory (1939)  by April 14th, The Letter (1940) and The Little Foxes (1941)  by April 21st, Now Voyager (1942) by April 28th, Mr Skeffington (1944) by May 19th, All about Eve (1950) by June 30th, The Star (1952) by July 14th, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) by August 18th.

Join us?

A Year With Kate: The Little Minister (1934)

Episode 6 of 52 wherein Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order.

In which Katharine Hepburn has a little Scotsman in her.

Who’s up for a catfight? The Little Minister is seriously lacking in drama or conflict, so I decided to invent some of my own. 1934 was a low point for Kate, but a certain blonde fury came roaring to the top that year, one Miss Bette Davis.

more...

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Short Link 12

Today's Must Read
The Dissolve Nathan Rabin discusses his own group home experience and his relationship to Short Term 12 which is now out on DVD and BluRay

General Linkage
THR Garrett Hedlund offered the plum Captain Hook role in Joe Wright's Peter Pan adaptation Pan
Ken Levine, inspired by Quentin Tarantino, makes a major announcement 
Variety Scott Thorson (played by Matt Damon in Behind the Candelabra) just sentenced to 8 to 20 years in Nevada! Yikes. 

AV Club Her trailer recut to replace Scarlett Johansson's voice with, uh, Philip Seymour Hoffman's. It's terrifying. you have been warned.
IAR interviews Destin Cretton on Short Term 12
THR a non controversy at Oscar on that strange Original Song nomination from Alone But Not Alone. Pity that Oscar is such sticklers about the rules on some classic important films like Moulin Rouge! and then lets things slide in weird cases like this
Coming Soon the Oscar winning doc Man in Wire could get the narrative feature treatment from Robert Zemeckis
/Film Disney's Frozen getting a sing-along version next weekend
BuzzFeed Rachel McAdams shares her two favorite lines from Mean Girls, 10 years later
Pajiba Chris Pratt sings a song about Jean Claude Van Damme's Sudden Death on Parks and Recreation

Finally...
EW Grace of Monaco pulled from the Weinstein Company's release schedule?!? Don't they realize I need biannual doses of Kidman like Virginia Woolf needs exhilarating trips to London? Readers who've asked how I'm coping should know that I have not yet loaded my coat up with stones. But there will be a reckoning if we never get to see it. 

P.S. Bette Davis thinks you're a vile sorry little bitch*

*show of hands: who thinks Bette is saying "sour" rather than "sorry" - I can't decipher it