Links: Descendants By Poster, Friends With Benefits, Uma in Blue

Lookie. It's the first poster for The Descendants starring George Clooney in which a man in Hawaii tries to reconnect with his young daughters. Will it be an Oscar player? It sure looks good on paper with Clooney leading and Alexander Payne (Sideways) in the director's chair but time will tell. I'll update the current Oscar predictions this weekend.

Brandon Ney looks at the famous "Hush" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from a Zen Buddhist perspective.
Stale Popcorn on the different posters for Friends With Benefits. Australians do do it dirtier.
In Contention chooses the top ten performances in Terrence Malick films. The director tends to hog the accolades for his film but that doesn't mean the performances aren't top notch.

Off Cinema Time Out
Drawn! "Where do ideas come from?" This is true. They are elusive little buggers.
Loldwell.com A true story about coffee (I can't quit!).
Critical Condition Lady Gaga and her "Dark Idealism" -good piece on the new record.

Finally...
Go Fug Yourself investigates Uma's Blue Period at Cannes. Love this quote on the dress to your right.

It's the type of thing you can't wear unless you are SUPREMELY sure that you are smoking hot, because basically the only design element to the dress is: your boobs, your abs, your bum. Fortunately, Uma appears to be architecturally sound there.

Plus: Uma suddenly has new film projects lined up.... although I'll believe Kill Bill Vol. 3 when I see it.

And if you feel you just didn't get enough Cannes coverage, IndieWire has a huge index of writings and interviews, Cineuropa has links to film trailers and awards reactions and Sasha tries to keep an open mind about Oscar and Cannes over at Awards Daily.

This & That: Ryder, Swank, Clooney, Allen

Buzzfeed has "20 celebrities who used to be hot" which is mildly amusing but at least a couple of the choices are people who still definitely have it goin' on -- hi, Helen Mirren! -- so deduct points for ageism.
MovieCityNews asked you to rank all of Woody Allen's films
New York Times Glowing Sutton Foster profile. Love her. Is Tony #2 coming in June? Anything Goes.

Vulture this brief piece on Winona Ryder's co-starring role with James Franco in The Stare is almost amusingly vague with a capital V. It tells you nothing. Neither will Noni!
Art of the Title Sequence YAY. I've been hoping for this. They've interviewed Angus Wall (who TFE interviewed round Oscar time) on the opening credits to HBO's Game of Thrones.

Ultimate Addict wonders which George Clooney effort will hit with Oscar: The Ides of March or The Descendants. If you're curious my next Oscar chart update will be directly after Cannes. No time for it this week. Busy busy.
Anne Thompson briefly checks in with Hilary Swank on her new role as a producer (Something Borrowed). Sayeth La Swank:

I don't read reviews.

Girl, maybe you should. You know, if you're going to be on the filmmaking side of the equation. Just a thought (It's a pet peeve of mine when stars act like they're above reviews. You can a learn a lot from film criticism, provided that the critic is a good one.)

Birthday Man George Clooney

We probably shoulda done some celebrating but today was the big "5-0" day for one of the world's most justly beloved stars, George Clooney.

Today offered up 50 Reasons to Love Him and if we had time we'd list 50 more. But we've always enjoyed his betting with Nicole Kidman & Michelle Pfeiffer about his private life and the fact that he starred with both of those goddesses early in his film career (Lucky man). They each owe him $20,000 because they keep losing, the last winning bet that he'd still be childless at 50.

Our ten favorite George Clooney performances presented without comment.

1. George Clooney
2. "Ryan Bingham" Up in the Air
3. "Michael Clayton" Michael Clayton
4. "Everett" O Brother, Where Art Thou?
5. "Danny Ocean"
   
6. "Mr. Fox" Fantastic Mr. Fox
7. "Archie Gates" Three Kings
   
8. "Dr. Ross" E.R.
9. "Seth Gecko" From Dusk Till Dawn
10. "Sparky" South Park

Which are yours?

Oscar Predix: Best Actor and Leonardo DiCaprio

It's that foolish time of year - April Foolish to be precise. I try and suss out what's going to happen nearly a whole year from now without having seen any of the films. I am actually better than most at the year-in-advance thing... it's only later when my skills and prediction ratios put me a bit further back in the Best Prognosticators pack. Must be letting my familiarity with the films cloud the actual buzz! (They do always say that people who don't follow the race closely win Oscar pools just by casually parroting the buzz.)

The big year in advance question that people are already talking about of course is whether Leonardo DiCaprio can finally win for J. Edgar (if the film is released this year as I firmly expect it will be.)

THE PREDICTION CHART

Whether or not Leo is truly overdue is another matter. I was a very early disciple (1993, baby) but I have been losing interest over the years. I may be the only one who thinks that he's actually kind of bad in Inception. That performance just gets clunkier on repeated views, and he's not nearly as successful at making the exposition sound natural and conversational as the other actors are. But then again. That may just be the problem of "The Dead Wives Club," previously discussed. When actors get in role-ruts, it sometimes dulls the range of their imagination.

Still and all, biopics may suit him. (And they definitely suit Oscar.) He was very good in The Aviator (2004) but here's the other odd thing about his "overdue" status. It comes more from the fact that he's his generation's biggest star than from "should've won!" issues. I personally don't think he's ever come close to winning (which is usually when overdue status sets in). In 1993 the race was between Fiennes & Jones, in 2004 there was no race at all with Jamie Foxx sweeping in one of those Helen Mirren/Colin Firth style inevitabilities. 2006 was a "just happy to be nominated" situation and for the wrong film to boot.

Though he has to be considered a contender for a multiplicity of reasons, the year has barely begun. Other major stars that may have roles tailor-made for their persona or skill set include George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Mel Gibson, Ryan Gosling and there's always the reliably strong actors like Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Woody Harrelson or the rising stars like Michael Fassbender who already seems to be staking claim on 2011 and His.

I have lots more to say about the actors but I'll save some of it for the supporting actor post.

What do you make of The Film Experience chart or Leo's "winning" chances?