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Randomness
Salon Rashida Jones clarifies her earlier statements about pop stars #actinglikewhores 
Washington Post Shirley Maclaine gets the Kennedy Center Honors. What a career
Variety The Square takes the top prize at the International Documentary Awards. The doc Oscar race is really really competitive this year!
In Contention European Film Awards. We shared the winners earlier but Guy has extensive coverage
Daily News Madonna's daughter Lola plays Rizzo in Grease at NY's performing arts high school (aka the Fame school) 
Salon has a really interesting piece on the Coen Bros obsession with failure via Inside Llewyn Davis though I would suggest not reading it before you've seen the movie since it reveals virtually every pivotal plot point and punchline. Save it for later

CoSign!
Jonathan Rosenbaum on "the season of critical inflation" Yes, to this. Just yes.
John Forde on the loud reactions to diver Tom Daley's coming out
i09 Wicked imagined as an animated musical (no, not Frozen) 

Tis the Season of List-Making
Slant Kurt looks at 20 great shots from the film year from Spring Breakers through undersung indies like Mother of George and new treats like Her
Guardian looks at the best screen "robbers" because I guess The Great Train Robbery is coming to TV or something? (I'm not clear) from Mr Pink (interesting choice) through Bodhi (duh)
NY Post Lou Lumenick and Kyle Smith battle it out over their top ten lists - they share only Mud and Gravity
Time Magazine Richard Corliss loves The Hobbit (again? ugh) but my favorite bit is this line on Spike Jonze Her...

In a future Los Angeles so near-Utopian that no scene takes place in a car...

hee!

Uh Huh, it's "Her" for the NBR

The National Board of Review didn't even split their Picture/Director prizes. They're all in for Spike Jonze's Her melancholy sci-fi tinged meditation on romance starring a man (Joaquin Phoenix) and his operating system (Scarlett Johansson). Because I love variety, I'm thrilled to report that only three major prizes (except animated, first feature and documentary) went the same way as the NYFCC yesterday, though the groups are not exactly correlative in anyway apart from happening within 24 hours of each other. Complete list of winners after the jump...

Best Film: Her
Best Director: Spike Jonze (Her)

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A Call From Samantha

Coming out of Her, Spike Jonze futuristic (but very "now") drama about human connection and intuitive Operating Systems I felt a little of the mood hangover that accompanied Lost in Translation. You know the way certain movies, particularly atmospheric singular ones, can do that... leave you feeling melancholy but considering or even seeing the world in a new way?

It's too fresh to say much more -- I'm still mulling it over -- but Scarlett Johansson's "Samantha", a disembodied voice that wants to be bodied, is crucial to its success. If you don't fall for Samantha how can you buy that Joaquin Phoenix's Theodore Twombly would? 

We've loved ScarJo's voice since she first hit the movies.  What other movie star voices could you fall in love with? Let's make a list in the comments!

P.S. Karen O's "Moon Song", attached to this post, is performed by Scarlett and Joaquin in the movie and by Karen O in the end credits and it better be Oscar nominated for Best Original Song! 

P.P.S. When the movie screens in your city make sure to watch the end credits. No, there's not an extra scene or anything. It's just a scroll but there are a couple good laughs and I loved the names of the characters played by this guy and his scene partner (no, it's not how IMDb lists it). 

Moon Song

Oscar's Songwriters Have a Difficult Task in 2013

Glenn here and it's the weekend, which means there is no better time to discuss Oscar's original song category (er, right?). Much like that other much-maligned category, animated feature, The Academy's songwriting branch somehow need to come up with five nominees even if there aren't enough worthy contenders. Last year's introduction of a guaranteed five nominees produced "Academy Award Nominee Ted!", although it did allow for the beautiful song from Chasing Ice (performed by ScarJo!) to come to our attention so maybe it's not such a bad thing after all? I strongly believe that this is their penance for not nominating "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" from Burlesque a few years back. Diane Warren's music branch voodoo doll works in mysterious ways, folks.

At least one song we can all be pretty confident about is "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen. Apparently the studio will only be submitting this one song from the film despite a wide roster of contenders. They're going for the win it would seem and, at least at this stage, unless reception to the film isn't particularly positive it's probably the best bet for the win based purely on history. The video below isn't the best, but it's all we've got at the moment that isn't a Demi Lovato pop version. 

The Butler, The Great Gatsby, Belgian bluegrass and Tom Cruise after the jump!

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NYFF: A Few Thoughts on "Her"

Jose here. The New York Film Festival is coming to its end this weekend and earlier today we were treated to Spike Jonze's Her, which has its official world premiere at the festival tonight.

The film takes place in a not so distant future where human communications have evolved into something quite fascinating: people get paid to write handwritten letters, video games push your buttons and force you to try harder and computer operating systems have personalities that you can even fall for. This happens to the film's protagonist Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls madly in love with his OS named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

The film is a small masterpiece that will undoubtedly appear on endless Top Ten lists at the end of the year and here are a few random thoughts I had about the film and at the press conference that followed which included appearances from Jonze, Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde.

More Jonze, Phoenix and ScarJo after the jump!

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