Cheers, Frannie. And Other Links

Awards Daily pays tribute to Jane Fonda (Youth) and Lily Tomlin (Grandma) as we all should. Weekly. (Daily? Hourly?)
People introduces new princess 14 year old Auli'i Cravalho who voices Disney's Moana
Jezebel "Today we are all Frances McDormand drinking wine on a toilet" Amen!

Interview Magazine has really been really topping itself lately. Now they've got Jeff Bridges talking to the iconic cinematographer Roger Deakins (Sicario). Thus begins the hard push to get him his long overdue Oscar I suppose. We interviewed him for True Grit and he was a good chat!
The Bitter Script Reader thinks The Martian screenplay is a great example of how to write obstacles for characters that engage the viewer in the same "oh shit" living of them as plans fall apart
Film School Rejects tears up over Room and appreciates the Mother & Child thread running through many films this year
i09 is (rightly) horrified by what Frank Miller has done to Superman in a new comic book cover
Variety thinks its time Oscar voters caught up to Love and Mercy and Straight Outta Compton

Taylor (left) and Rodriguez (right) the stars of TANGERINEP.S. First Trans Actress Oscar Campaign
You may have heard (from everywhere) that Magnolia Pictures is launching the first ever Oscar campaign for transgender actresses - the spirited girls from the awesome Tangerine (a film which we've recommended often). TFE actually broke this news first (albeit in early "we might do this" planning stages) but we were asked to remove the reference to it, post publication, from our James Ransome interview since he wasn't supposed to talk about just yet. We get no respect I tell you -- even when we heartily support a film from its first screening!

Anyway, if you haven't seen the film yet do so the first chance you get. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez (who plays vengeful hot-tempered Sin-Dee) will be pushed for Best Actress and Mya Taylor (her much calmer best friend Alexandra) will be campaigned as a Supporting Actress but... you know how these same gender movies go, that's total Category Fraud bullshit since you can't have one without the other. They're like a trans Thelma & Louise only with less of a crime spree and no wheels of their own; these girls have to settle for the indignities of public transport (those bus scenes. LOL) and walking in L.A.

6 Questions. Best Actress / Supporting Actress Races

With the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress (or "Best Actress Pt 2" if the category fraud forces have their way!) charts updated, all Oscar charts are now up to date. Next update is...? Well, we'll see. But October tends to be instructive. Here are question prompts for the comments after you've checked out the charts.

1. Will it help to be the first FYC screeners out?
Blythe Danner (72) who carries I'll See You in My Dreams and Lily Tomlin (76) who drives Grandma already have screeners out. I can't wait to watch both again. I'd hold them in my hands to prove my eagerness for you but then how could I type? As previously expressed in "either/or" paranoia (The Martian vs. Mad Max or Truth vs. Spotlight situations) "either/or" is often a false lose-lose game. But it will be interesting to see how much room the Academy has for stellar older women nonetheless. Speaking of...

2. Older Titans or Fresh Excitements?
For the senior set, there's also Charlotte Rampling (69) in 45 Years but she's risking being the last person out of the gate, as Marion Cotillard tried (successfully) in a much thinner field last year.  Even if Oscar decides it wants all fresh young things this year -- and there are plenty of them with Saoirse Ronan and Alicia Vikander leading that particular pack -- and none of the enduring thespians end up nominated how refreshing is it that we have three senior women in the running this year whose names are not Mirren or Streep or Dench?  Answer: very! 

3. How can we ever stop Category Fraud?
Alicia Vikander is The Danish Girl (but, yes, so is Eddie Redmayne so it's a perfect title) UPDATE: But the studio has confimed to us that she's running in supporting. The same is true for Rooney Mara who is 100% definitively absolutely totally inarguably a lead in Carol (there should be no doubt as to how we feel) no matter what the campaign strategists claim. I firmly believe both Mara & Blanchett could be nominated if pushed as a box set in Carol, a la Thelma & Louise... if Thelma & Louise had been excited about bedding each other on their road trips instead of, say, Brad Pitt.  Romantic dramas, requited or unrequited, usually require two leads... it's the nature of the beast. Pretending Mara is supporting in Carol is like pretending that Kate Winslet supported Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine or Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic (or vice versa) or like pretending Blanchett supported Dench in Notes on a--- oh ah. DAMNIT!

With Mara & Vikander both in high rising star demand and Oscar's history of LOVING to crown young beautiful actresses near the beginning of big careers, Supporting Actress could well be Best Actress 2 with these two leads battling it out for that win. IF Oscar is okay with the fraud that is... which they usually are, yes. (sigh)

4. Among the actual supporting players/characters this year who could win traction? 
Category Fraud tends to be a bigger problem in years when memorable actual supporting characters show up late in the year. And 2015 is definitely having that problem. Usually I have a full list by this point that I'm eager to hold on to but it's been a weak year for female parts in the ensemble. Case in point: It's exciting to think of Elisabeth Moss squaring off with Blanchett in Truth, but she only has a few lines here and there. And Sarah Paulson is as wonderful as everyone has come to expect in Carol but as with 12 Years a Slave, other much more famous or less famous actresses have much larger roles in her movies. When will a filmmaker give her THE key female role, supporting or otherwise, in a movie? She's earned it.

Jane Fonda has just one scene in Youth (and a flash cut from another scene) but boy is it a doozy. Half of the movie points right at this scene.

I'm currently predicting Jane Fonda in Youth, Julie Walters in Brooklyn, and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hateful Eight for the more traditional type of strong candidates, making big marks in well liked movies either by way of the script blazingly focusing on them or by way of scene stealing or by way of being the key woman in a man's movie. All three of these are risky bets for different reasons (Leigh mostly because people haven't yet seen the film ... and because she has historically proven easy for the Academy to ignore even when she had juicy big roles) but the supporting actress race is looking like the last of the four acting competitions that will come into proper focus.

5. Who do you think we're underestimating and which chart position do you think is spot on?
Sound off. 

6. Remember that New Best Actress Hierarchy we published in February?
Jane Fonda (#6), Cate Blanchett (#11), Maggie Smith (#12) and Kate Winslet (#18) could all move up a rung or two this year if Oscar voters embrace their latest roles.  

Posterized: Lily Tomlin

with Paul Weitz. Photo via Getty Images

The great Lily Tomlin hits the road literally and figuratively this weekend in Paul Weitz's terrific Grandma, previously reviewed right here by both myself at Sundance and Joe Reid at Tribeca. The movie just opened in the major markets and more cities will follow soon. For my column at Towleroad published earlier today I ranked the ten movie roles that I think of as her best from her now 40 year old movie career. I hope you'll read it.

Consider this weekend the ignition of her Oscar campaign engine, too. It's Lily's first leading role in a feature since (gulp) 1988's Big Business so this doesn't happen very often at all and we must take notice! Go see it I'm so proud that The Film Experience is on the poster for this one.

Lily was Emmy-nominated last month for Grace & Frankie and if Grandma can continue building on this moment of newfound appreciation of a 75 year-old living legend, an Oscar nomination for Best Actress could well follow. You know how that goes sometimes when the culture rallies around an actor in a particular moment like "Oh, right. We've always loved you -- here you go, diva!" (see Diane Keaton's easy nomination rode for Somethings Gotta Give or Julianne Moore's win last seaon)

Let's take a trip through Lily Tomlin's spotty film career via movie posters (with a couple of excerpts from my Towleroad piece)! How many of her 24 features have you seen? 

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Miscellania: Mad Munn Mortal Minority Musicians

Newsweek Before Straight Outta Compton: race and the black musician biopic
Awards Daily makes a great case for why Mad Men should win the Drama Emmy
MNPP playing lumberjack with Patrick Wilson
Vanity Fair Katey and Richard survey the summer movie season, get nostalgic for Mad Max Fury Road already
The Envelope talks to Lily Tomlin on her great year "If one looks at years that way."
Instagram Olivia Munn wire training for her superheroic antics as the X-Men's Psylocke. Physicality is getting to be so essential in the CG action age that I hope aspiring actors are taking gymnastic and dance courses

Vox why The Chronicles of Prydain is the best literary fantasy series (when do you suppose they'll try to film it after Disney's 80s botch job?) 
Interiors Film Journal looks at the dance scene in Tom at the Farm
THR looks back at unlikely hit Mortal Kombat when videogame movies were ridiculed
Towleroad Trans bodybuilder Aydian Dowling now a top 5 finalist for Men's Health "Ultimate Guy" cover contest
Self Styled Siren on an old book about a possibly violent but definitely tumultous John Barrymore marriage
i09 gets excited for the Minority Report tv show
Film Stage deleted scenes from Mad Max Fury Road
Starf*cker Matthew Rettenmund's (Encylopedia Madonnica, Boy Culture) new book is available for pre-order 

Today's Watch
On baffling uses of CGI... I didn't know this about 50 Shades of Grey or John Wick and definitely blocked out the "pear" from Star Wars. Repressed memory!  

Emmy Noms 2015 ~ First Impressions, Comedy

While yours truly hasn't done the full statistical research to back this statement up it seems at cursory glance that the Comedy Series portion of the Emmys is ever so slightly less set in stone year to year than the Drama side. But with Orange is the New Black, last year's strongest new comedy, vacating the premises for Drama contending with Season 2 there's a bit of wiggle room here and there in addition to their usual eenie mini mo playfulness in the sixth slot in most categories. More importantly this past TV season was particularly strong when it came to new comedies. So many freshmen or revived series won strong reviews and/or much media attention (Transparent, Jane the Virgin, Black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat, The Comeback, Grace & Frankie, etcetera) that it stands to reason that the Comedy nominations will look much different than they usually do. 

But do they? Find out after the jump...

COMEDY

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