Linker in the Rye

WTF w/ Marc Maron talks to Peter Bogdanovich
Yahoo! has the first image of Michael Fassbender in Assassin's Creed but don't get too excited because it could be anyone, given that the character loves those face covering hoods
EW everything Mads Mikkelsen wore on Hannibal thanks to costume designer Christopher Hargadon. So much fine suitage!
Awards Daily Nicolas Hoult to play JD Salinger in a biopic Rebel in the Rye. Danny Strong is on writer/director duties
Variety Penny Dreadful S3 adds Wes Studi (remember how good he was in Last of the Mohicans), Shazad Latif, Jessica Barden, and Patti LuPone (!) as a regular now, albeit in a new role since her witch died last season

Deep Dish [nsfw] celebrates 66 factoids about Richard Gere for his recent birthday - I didn't know a lot of the off-movie stuff
Tracking Board Michael J Fox is voicing a robotic canine for a new film called A.R.C.H.I.E. as befits an 80s sounding high concept comedy
Empire Sam Worthington and Ruth Wilson to headline a new sci-fi picture called The Titan about a military family participating in an experiment in space
Empire French filmmaker Pascal Chaumeil (Heartbreaker) dies at 54 
Film School Rejects has a bathe with A Room With a View... such a great movie 

We ♥ to Watch
Gizmodo Amazon Prime now first subscription service to offer download / watch offline
Cinematically Insane looks at the changes at TCM and what that might mean down the road. I'm so wary of this because even if they rebrand to be less about "old" movies then agreed upon "greats" how will we see the really old movies that are harder and harder to find with the death of DVD? I know I'm not alone among cinephiles in the desire to see less-than-great films regularly so as to get context for a career (director or actor) or timeframe at the movies 
/Films warns you about all the films leaving Netflix in September. (I'm so glad i never gave up my dvds since the range of their streaming options get grosser and grosser beyond their original content)

For LOLz
The Toast A League of Their Own inspired thinkpieces. Inspired silliness.
MNPP Michel Huisman strutting around New Orleans 
Back of the Cereal Box discovers an old Meryl Streep joke that still holds up 

Off Screen
Boy Culture a-ha's "Hunting High and Low" to receive 30 year anniversary rerelease. Such an amazing album - pity that people only think of "Take On Me"
Playbill Jim Broadbent returns to the West End toplay Scrooge in A Christmas Carol this season
Towleroad author Oliver Sacks who wrote Awakenings (which became an Oscar nominated movie) recently died (RIP)

Finally
The trailer to the final season of Downton Abbey. So many big shows wrapping up lately.

Best Live Action Short: Sally Hawkins Takes the Lead

Glenn here again, and as if yesterday’s look at the Best Documentary Short category didn’t prove it, there really aren’t any hard and fast rules when predicting the short categories. In live action short especially they go with serious issues, except when they don’t. They frequently go foreign, except when they don't. They're not overly thrilled with big stars or Hollywood directors, except when they are. It’s all a bit of a gamble, really. This year’s contenders, however, seem a little easier to decipher in terms of what has the potential to win and what hasn’t a hope in hell. Sorry, Butter Lamp, but I think that means you. You will always be my winner.

The Nominees:

Aya, dir. Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis (40mins)
Boogaloo and Graham, dir. Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney (14mins)
Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak), dir. Hu Wei and Julien Féret (16mins)
Parvaneh, dir. Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger (24mins)
The Phone Call, dir. Mat Kirkby and James Lucas (21mins)

Right now it seems pretty hard to look past The Phone Call given it stars an Oscar nominee (Sally Hawkins) and an Oscar winner (Jim Broadbent) and is emotional in ways that many will find belies its 20-minute runtime. Despite the curio factor of both doc and live action short Oscars potentially both going to films about suicide prevention hotline operators, I still feel rather confident over that prediction. It's certainly feels like a more complete film than, say, Boogaloo and Graham, which has wisps of nostalgia floating through its brief runtime and its cute children with pet chickens, but feels relatively light-weight compared to the rest (it gets to The Troubles right in its final shot, which seems like a more logical place to begin, but maybe that's just me).

I was a fan of Parvaneh about an Afghani girl in Switzerland and her friendship with a partying street kid, which feels like the most likely usurper to the throne given the Academy has shown an affinity towards films that bridge between the races. Maybe my hatred of the Israeli nominee Aya is clouding my judgement on that one, but what I do know for certain is that the best of an okay bunch is the sublime Butter Lamp, set in Tibet and focusing on a nomadic photographer who arrives in a village and who, in vignette form, has to deal with locals for whom photography isn't that common. It's wonderfully observed and it's an amazing example of how a film can thrill with restraint. I audibly gasped in the final shot despite it being so very simple. If it pulls a highly unlikely win out of the hat then I will scream with joy, but I think it's impressive festival haul (plus win at the Golden Horse Awards) will have to suffice.

Will Win: The Phone Call
Could Win: Parvaneh
Should Win: Butter Lamp

Sundance: Oscar Hopeful "Brooklyn" is Beautifully Old-Fashioned

Nathaniel's final review from Sundance

Late last year while interviewing Yves Belanger on his lensing of Wild (2014) and his ongoing working relationship with Jean Marc Vallee I noticed he had a non-Vallee project on his forthcoming filmography called Brooklyn. He spoke highly of the experience, an about face from Wild's all natural light mandate. He said it was much more stylized lighting, an 'old fashioned romantic drama'. He hoped people still wanted to see that sort of thing.

If the reaction at Sundance is any indication (and a word of caution: Sundance fever is 50/50 for the real world at best) the people will welcome it with open arms... and tear ducts.

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All The Short Film Oscar Finalists. Plus Sally Hawkins!

With yesterday's announcement of the live action short film finalists we have our finalists in all three of those miniature categories. You can read more about all of them on their Oscar chart. It's exciting to see how many debut filmmakers or people who've never been recognized before are in the running. Some of them are about to have a life-changing experience. Take Shawn Christensen who won the 2012 Live Action Short Oscar for Curfew. He's just taken that all the way to his first feature which is an expansion of that. It's called Before I Disappear and it hits On Demand AND iTunes a week and some theatrical later I believe.

If the nominees don't have a life-changing moment -- it's hard to get a movie made period. Even if you've won awards -- they can at least have a glamorous one in the Dolby with all the movie stars.

As per usual in the live action short film category we have a handful of films about young children (always a favorite Oscar subject in foreign and short categories) but the one I'm most excited about is naturally the one that stars Mike Leigh regulars Sally Hawkins & Jim Broadbent. You can watch that in full right here. Hooray.

After this short trailers for five more of the shorts if you click to continue...

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Interview: Olivia Colman on "Tyrannosaur" and Mumsy Meryl Streep

British actress Olivia Colman speaks softly and with great modesty but perhaps that's wise. Her talent speaks loudly on its own behalf by way of ntroduction. Though British audiences have embraced her comic talent for years now, international audiences are just now getting to know her as a dramatic force. She's utterly devastating as a meek Christian shop owner in the violent drama Tyrannosaur. The film, directed by the actor Paddy Considine (In America), is gathering a small but very vocal fanbase who think Colman really ought to have a Best Actress nomination in her very near future. Later this month, she'll be onscreen again as Carol Thatcher daughter of The Iron Lady, but even if you exited the first movie only to immediately enter the latter, you'll scarcely recognize her from one film to the next.

We spoke briefly on the phone recently about her rising stardom, drama and comedy acting muscles, and having a living legend as a co-star.

Olivia Colman is a true believer in "Tyrannosaur"

Nathaniel: Have you been able to soak in all of this attention from Tyrannosaur? Your name being on the awards radar here in the US and such?

OLIVIA COLMAN: Not really. it's quite surreal. Because it's not my first job. I'm 37 and i've been working for a long time. So... [long pause]  This job means so much to me that I'm thrilled that people are liking it. That's the best thing about it, that other people are taking it to their hearts as much as we all did.

Nathaniel: Your involvement with Tyrannosaur goes way back. You were also in Paddy Considine's short film "Dog Altogether" about the same characters. Did this feel like a do-over? What was it like going back?

COLMAN: lt felt different. A lot of the scenes from the short were also in the feature and the reshooting of those scenes that we'd done years before were the hardest to film. It's weird because it's like an echo. You can hear yourself. You've already said it but years ago. It felt very different apart from that because we suddenly had a sense of a much longer journey. In the short I didn't know about Hannah's backstory at all. 

Nathaniel: This gave you a chance to dig deeper then?

COLMAN: Yes. It's lovely to get your teeth into it.

Nathaniel: In terms of Hannah's religiosity and her generous nature. How did you approach constructing her? A lot of religious characters in cinema aren't, well, sympathetic like this. 

COLMAN: It was so clear from the page. Paddy had written it so beautifully you just had to do what was written, really.  I knew who she was straightaway. Even if she hadn't been a Christian of good faith, she would still have been a good person. Her faith is sort of her protection and her armor but even without it, I would have known who she was.

Nathaniel: Paddy is such a brilliant actor but he's not in front of the camera for this one. So what it was like being directed by a fellow thespian?

COLMAN: Amazing! It made such a difference. I don't imagine all actors can direct at all. I think probably a lot of them would be terrible but he was so comfortable on that side of the camera. He knew how difficult he found it in front of the camera and he made sure we never felt like that. We always felt safe. He's an extraordinary creature. He would say exactly the right thing to get you to the right place. I've said this before but I think he could get a performance out of a log. He's amazing, just taps in. Everybody wanted to make him proud. And he's a great leader of people. A little thumbs up at the right moment would made someone feel 10 feet tall.

For those of us who don't act, we always assume that sets of intense brutal dramas like this one must be sober or difficult to be on. But maybe it's not like that exactly. 

The "jolly" Tyrannosaur team

[Olivia on working with Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer... AFTER THE JUMP.]

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