Oscar Night Crumbs, Mysteries and Endearments

Here we are, the final Oscar night review post. Except for the ones coming tomorrow so, um, no never mind. Can I take that intro again? The Final Oscar Night Review Post... Tonight! Tomorrow a few more tidbits. I'm still debating but I can probably keep at it longer than you can stand to read about it.

Is that a threat?"
- terrified reader.

A random collection of thoughts is the only way I'll get through this this year because my mind is more scrambled than in year's past when it comes to Oscar night. I seriously need a team like "you get this topic", "you take that one." "You! Everything Meryl, go!" (that hypohetical person wins the assignment sweepstakes obviously). Bear with me and continue the conversation in the comments. 

Ready? Here we go on the whirlwind review

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Beauty Vs Beast: Death Becomes Them

JA from MNPP here, starting off a new week with a brand new round of Beauty Vs Beast! I hope everybody enjoyed the Oscars last night - there were highs (Lupita!) and there were lows (another year of ill-incorporated montages) but there is one thing we can all agree upon: seeing Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep in the same room like that made us all wish we were watching Death Becomes Her instead.

I was really hoping they'd present together, or maybe Meryl would just randomly scream out "NOW, A WARNING?" while Goldie was on-stage, or maybe Jennifer Lawrence would tumble down the theater's stairs and break into pieces in an elaborate tribute to the nearly twenty-two year old film? ...Something. Anything! Isabella Rossellini could've been carried out onto stage by some muscle men, perhaps? Alas it wasn't to be, save my imagination.

Thankfully I can trot out my imagination here, then. I give you this week's competition...

poll by twiigs.com

As always go ahead and make your cases for and against Robert Zemeckis' forever-living nut-cases in the comments, and in one week's time we'll down the potion and crown our new eternal queen.

And speaking of, crowns and queens and golden things with icy-cold skin, we've got to name our winner from last week's Frozen poll! It was pretty much a blow-out - Princess Elsa had too much diva-draw and strut herself to an easy win against her less flashy sister. As Anne-Marie said in the comments:

My vote is entirely colored by how badly I felt for Anna when I went to Disneyland in January. Literally every Elsa doll in the park was gone, so there were just all of these abandoned Anna dolls all through the park and it just made me so sad for this fictional character. Always living in her sister's diva shadow."

And so she shall remain. Team Elsa for the win!

Red Carpet Lineup: All of Meryl Streep's Oscar Looks

a better photo of the Silkwood Oscar dressThis is the last Streep-centric post for this Oscar season (unless she does something crazy at the Oscars), promise!

I used to always make a point of saying that Meryl Streep gets nominated for 39% of her performances, having appeared in 46 features and being nominated 18 times. But in truth her record is better than that. Once you eliminate the performances that couldn't have been nominated her record is an even more incredible 53% (a good example is her leading role in Plenty released in 1985 since she was nominated for her leading role in Out of Africa and an actor may only have one nomination per category unlike behind-the-camera people who are allowed to double up). So, fact: as soon as she reports to work on each new film she is more likely to be nominated than not for whatever it is she is about to do.

Is this the best record ever? Among actors, yes (once you eliminate the people who only made a few films and died/quit). But, otherwise, nope. John Williams has the closest thing to infallibility since he's nominated for virtually everything he does but let's not get sidetracked. Let's look at Streep's past in gown form and her future in role form after the jump. 

All of Meryl's Oscar Nominated Looks 1978-2012
With thanks to Google Image Search and Simply Streep 

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18 Days Til Oscar. 18 Nominations For Meryl Streep

Here's a piece of trivia that even people who are clueless about the Oscars can recite: Meryl Streep is the most nominated actor of all time. Sometimes those same people will say she's won the most Oscars but you can't know everything if you don't pay attention. But, any way you come at it, her record is astounding (18 noms / 3 wins) 

Today I'm having fun repurposing her bitchy dialogue from August: Osage County and pretending its mockery of her fellow nominees and their (comparatively) puny Oscar histories.

You ever been married nominated before?
...More than once? 

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Links

Vidiocy Karina Longworth on the great Pauline Kael vs Meryl Streep wars
In Contention London Film Critics choose Cate Blanchett and Barkhad Abdi for honors (among others)
The Guardian on the Australian Oscars basically being one long party for The Great Gatsby (which won nearly every award it was up for)
Tom & Lorenzo what Cate Blanchett was wearing to that same event

Thompson on Hollywood TIFF is laying down the law with studios/filmmakers -- no more sloppy seconds due to Telluride "surprises"
Vulture how hot is Anna Kendrick? Improv class hot 

More on Philip Seymour Hoffman
TFE Amir already honored him here in case you missed it.
Kenneth in the (212) covering every major newspaper
Punch Drunk Critics told us that Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal for depression era creepy drama Ezekiel Moss...but this was the day before P.S. Hoffman died so who knows what will happen now. Sounds like a good project though
E Online tells that he hadn't yet finished filming his scenes for the two Hunger Games: Mockingjay films.

Slate strong piece positing that one particular scene in Boogie Nights made the actor a star
The Atlantic has a piece on PSH's talent that fascinated me. It's very well written but its thesis is EXACTLY the opposite about how I always felt about him as an actor, claiming that his greatest gift was understatement. I think he almost never understated anything... which is why he thrills people so much in big moments but also why I did not like his performance in Doubt at all (way too bold when that role needs exceptional restraint to cloud the issues, hence the title) and why my three favorite performances of his I consider very atypical because they have these lovely quiet non red-faced & screaming layers and subtle details. But it's a really good read.