List-Mania: Tim Burton x 5

by Nathaniel R

Since our Dumbo review didn't soar, or even materialize at all (oops), we should definitely turn some attention to Tim Burton today. Instead of a regular Tuesday Top Ten list... we're just going with LISTS plural. To make up for the lack of a proper Dumbo review, we're throwing FIVE of them at you today. While it's true that this decade of his work has left much to be desired, he's actually always been an uneven auteur. All throughout his filmography magic blooms in unexpectedly dire places OR weeds sprout up in otherwise magically lovely gardens if you catch our drift.

Burton is only 60 years old and since he's made films at a roughly one-every-other-year clip for his whole career, we hope he manages to rally his artistic instincts for one more classic before he retires in say, 2031 after another five pictures (spitballing!). He has directed 19 movies and we'd rank them like so...

ALL 19 TIM BURTON PICTURES RANKED

1. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
2. Ed Wood (1994) 
3. Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)
   Tier 1. Masterpieces of their genres really...  spectacularly niche genres but still! Few films have this kind of consistent magic and uniquely memorable visuals from first frame to last...

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Elton John 🎵

 Happy 72nd to Elton John today. With his biopic Rocketman just around the corner, let's list our favourite of his songs for a comment party.

Here are mine to get you started:

1. Your Song (1970)
2. Rocket Man (1972)
3. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)
4. I Want Love (2001)
5. Tiny Dancer (1971)
6. The Last Song (1992)
7. Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (1974)
8. Sacrifice (1989)
9. Don't Go Breaking My Heart (1976)
10. I Don't Wanna Go With You Like That (1988)

With apologies to This Train Don't Stop There Anymore (2001), Daniel (1973), The Bitch is Back (1974), I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (1983), and more...

Ranking the Oscar Clips

by Ben Miller

Of all the decisions the Academy Awards producers/directors must make, the Oscar clip decisions are surely the most covetous -- who among us wouldn't want to chose? They're fairly crucial, too.  I ranked all the clips last year, and Nathaniel was nice enough to let me do it again.  The clips preceding each of the categories ranged from brilliant to “what the hell was that?”  Let’s rank them 20-1…

Cringe-worthy

I sometimes wish I'd never been born at aaaaaaallllllll 🎵

20. Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
19. Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Woo boy.  I would personally defend the work of both of these performances, but the snippets shown on Sunday did not lend any firepower to those arguments.  Viggo gets to wax on like an idiot about not knowing the difference between Russian and German before laying on some casual racism. Malek has plenty of good moments in the Queen biopic, but a simple shot of him lipsyncing reads like an Oscar producer’s opinion on the performance itself seeping through.

Not Doing Anyone Any Favors...

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10 Days til Oscar... The Past 10 Years of Stats

Happy Valentine's Day y'all ❤️. It's officially 10 days until the Oscars so it's a perfect time to go list crazy and look at the past 10 years of Oscar honors (2008-2017) for multiple top tens, don't you think? Not that we need excuses to go list-crazy. We make them up when they don't present themselves!  How have the past ten years been for you? We hope you'll share in the listing fun. In addition to ranking the Oscar winners we've notated whether the same achievements medalled in our own annual film bitch awards that year.

PAST TEN BEST PICTURE WINNERS RANKED 

1. Moonlight (2017) *silver medal
2. The Hurt Locker (2009) *gold medal
3. Birdman (2014) *silver medal...

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14 days til Oscar - Costume Design Lists!

Photography by Brigitte Lacombe

With 14 days until Oscar we're thinking about Queen Sandy Powell, now with a towering 14 nominations for costume design via her double nod this year for Mary Poppins Returns and The Favourite.  We interviewed her in the year of Carol and Cinderella (2015), also a double nominated year. The only time she's ever won while double nominated was the first time...

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