Through Her Lens: 2012 (The 85th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Introduction / Explanation

Come Oscar nominations announcement, the Best Director category was one of the most discussed among Oscar fans and predictors. Perceived frontrunners Ben Affleck (Argo), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), and Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) missed out on nominations while two legitimate shockers came in their place:  Michael Haneke for the arthouse drama Amour and Behn Zeitlin for the fantasy drama Beasts of the Southern Wild. This led to one of the most chaotic Oscar races of the decade, leading to Argo winning Best Picture even without its director Affleck nominated.

While she was a strong force in that category leading to nominations, previous winner Kathryn Bigelow was the only female director given considerable awards attention that season...

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'I volunteer as tribute for Covergirl!'

In October just in time for Hunger Games: Catching Fire, CoverGirl is launching a new makeup line.

This reminds me of that 'what are they thinking?' time when Hilary Swank was trying to sell a fragrance or as i09 memorably puts it...

Want to feel like you're part of a decadent crumbling society that oppresses the working classes and forces children to kill each other for your amusement?

Hee.

But, bizarre morals aside (and, really, when have the fashion or beauty industry been interested in morality?) this got me to thinking about other films which really deserve their own cosmetic lines. I hereby submit to you three ideas. 

poll by twiigs.com

Win Lola, Win. Germany's Oscars.

The nominations for Germany's Oscars, or "The Lolas" have been announced. Barbara, which didn't excite Oscar voters this past season, won the Lola last year. Which film will it be this year for Germany? Cloud Atlas won the most nominations, nine, which is quite a haul for a non German picture. But ⅓ of Cloud Atlas's directing body is named Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) so it's German enough.

Germany's Best Pictures this year. Will we see any at Oscar next year?

BEST PICTURE

• CLOUD ATLAS (Lana Wachowski & Andy Wachowski & Tom Tykver)
• HANNAH ARENDT (Margarethe von Trotta)
• LORE (Cate Shortland, Australia's Oscar Submission)
• OH BOY (Jan Ole-Gerster)
• QUELLEN DES LEBENS (Oskar Roehler)
• THE WALL (Julian Roman Polsler) 

Oscar submission chatter after the jump...

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Link-Link

Chris Sanders unused storyboards from the new animated film The Croods 
In Contention which Sundance films have Oscar potential?
CHUD What's next for David Fincher? Gone Girl or 20,000 Leagues or...
John August ooh listen here. A whole podcast on the wonderful Raiders of the Lost Ark
Empire Rosario Dawson nabs another female lead role. This time it's Queen of the Night from Atom Egoyan. To what do we owe this sudden upswing in her career? We want to thank whoever/whatever is responsible.

Awards Daily a trippy poster for Danny Boyle's Trance starring James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson
Studio Briefing 39 minutes of Cloud Atlas cut for its Chinese release. Maybe if it were 39 minutes shorter I might not have... no, never mind. Let's not go there again!
Coming Soon The Marvel Studios tv series "S.H.I.E.L.D." has begun filming
Gothamist wonders if TV's "The Carrie Diaries" (i.e. Sex & The City: the Prequel) is getting 1980s NYC all wrong
Bleeding Cool posters for 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves getting the whitewashed leading Japanese samurai role (fwiw: Keanu has some Asian ancestry so this is kind of like the Johnny Depp as Tonto thing)
MNPP Everyone's favorite moment in Skyfall 

... or maybe you have a different one?

Finally... Have you seen this amazement? 

A dress made up of pictures of Natalie Portman crying twitter.com/milesmaker/sta…

— Miles Maker(@milesmaker) January 22, 2013

Beau's 2012 Bests

Nathaniel's top ten hits this weekend but he's invited TFE correspondents to share their own, so here are my personal loves of the year. [Disclaimer: I have yet to see Holy Motors, Amour, Rust and Bone, and On the Road.]

honorable mentions...  

13) Arbitrage -Nicholas Jarecki's feature debut is a whopper, a palate cleanser for the John Grisham crowd and a showcase for Richard Gere's most effortless work in this thirty-five year career. Coupled with Zemeckis' Flight, you'd be hard pressed to find two more similar and dissimilar anti heroes who crowded the multiplexes this year. Charisma carries the Devil on its cape. You've never wanted the bad guy to win more.

12) Flight -The messiest of messes, a meditation on faith, humanity and temptation that true to form, sways and stumbles and remains standing, a loud, brash bombardment of the amoral and their blinding pain. Washington is Everyman to Goodman's Satan. And who the fuck is James Badge Dale? He pulls a Beatrice Straight and basically walks away with the film.

11) Ted -There is something deeply unlikeable about Seth McFarlane, an addictive toxicity that repulses you and engages you simultaneously. With 'Ted', his watermark (read: pissmark) on network television transfers over to the big screen with a spring in its step and a grenade in its pocket. Defaming the stunted lifestyle of men all the while celebrating its appeal, Ted made me laugh harder and feel worse about myself than anything else I saw this year. It establishes Macfarlane as the newest, crudest uncle of American comedy - you hate him when he's sober, but goddamn, there's nobody else you'd rather get hammered with.

 
top ten from 'Cloud' to 'Cabin' is after the jump...

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