Release Date Shuffle: Oscar Players, Musical Wars, Franchise Heroes

I know most film blogs make a post for every teaser, release date, and every last press release. I frankly don't have the time but even if I did... why encourage Hollywood's itchy trigger fingers when they're constantly fussily rescrambling their pieces on the puzz--I'm mixing too many metaphors--  Moving on to the Release Date Switches/Announcements. We're less than 200 days away from Oscar nominations! So yes, we gotta update those charts again soon, I know.

Oscarable Switcheroos
August: Osage County has, as you now, moved to Christmas day, despite its summer friendly title. And Saving Mr Banks, the Mary Poppins related Disney flick is opting to get out in front of the Christmas crowd a bit with a December 13th bow. Meanwhile Twelve Years a Slave, from director Steve McQueen and Grace of Monaco, the new Kidman flick, both move from the Dread Oscar Eligibility Dump Week (that awful New Years week) into airier mid October. And October is getting busier and busier, really because Ridley Scott's The Counselor (just discussed) has also moved from its intended mid November start to late October.

Contrary to popular belief this does not automatically mean that the studios are less gung ho about their Oscar chances. Oscar watchers (and, yes, distributors sometimse) often forget that you don't have to open in late December to be a player. It helps to open in the last third of the year though, sure! But MANY MANY films have had good luck in September (your Argos and your American Beautys), October (your Departeds) and November (your Slumdogs and your No Countrys) among other months. 

Your Oscar calendar is currently looking like this... [Oscar Types, Superheroes and Meryl vs. Annie after the jump]

woo woo ♪ here comes the life of the Oscar partay

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Welcome to the Academy!

Every time I see a grumpy post on the internet about how the Oscars don't matter or the Oscars are irrelevant or passe or [insert gripe here] my face contorts into a 'oh, that's cute' type of look, the one you might give the very naive if possibly well meaning transfer in your high school comedy.

I love her, she's like a Martian.

The Oscars have always mattered. The very fact that people can't stop bitching about them, for 80 some years now, suggests that they still very much do and always will. The Oscars have been synonymous with movie greatness for so many generations that whether or not any greatness is actually happening in their selections is the point of discussion. It's also why one wishes the governing body of AMPAS wouldn't act like such nervous jittery freshmen themselves, forever worrying about what they're wearing ('does this rule-change make me look fat?') and if they're listening to the right music ('no, yeah, i totally love that ____. Didn't you see my expanded BP playlist?!'') .

The Oscars are the cool table that everyone wants to sit at and 276 new kids (after the jump) have been invited to do just that.

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Today's Watch: "The Counselor"

We don't do "yes no maybe so"s for teasers (and I realize we're behind on a couple juicy trailers) but here's the new tease going around for a legal drama (? & zzz) with an all star cast (drool) directed by the still unOscared Ridley Scott (yay... sort of). Do you think this'll win Oscar traction this year or just drama for the multiplexes? What'cha think?

A delicious collection of actors at least, right? So let's do an impromptu poll!

poll by twiigs.com

If they had to announce the Oscar nominees right now...

...which 2013 releases (thus far) do you think would be the Best Picture nominees? And which sure thing nominees right now won't have a prayer come January? True, it's only June 26th and we've 204 days left until nominations are announced for realz but play along would'ya? Because speculative fantasy is fun.

Would blockbusters or indies rule the noms if the year ended today?

P.S. We'll review the year's first half next week. Woohoo.

Why Do Zombie Movies Never Win Makeup Nominations With Oscar?

This is a question I've never been able to fully answer but one that I've asked myself (and probably you) on occasion. Since "Best" quite often means "Most" when it comes to awardage of any kind, what does the Oscar's makeup branch have against the undead?  This question came to mind again while watching Warm Bodies, a minor hit earlier this year which is now on DVD.

Please consider this post an early FYC

After the movie I found myself watching the extras and especially enjoyed "Extreme Zombie Makeover" which charts the evolution of the makeup design by Adrien Morot (who was Oscar nominated recently for Barney's Wedding). It's easy to make Nicholas Hoult look beautiful but how do you make him look sexy AND undead? It's a silly question but the answer is crucial to the success of this particular horror/romance hybrid. Adrien had to make sure he looked like the same species as the other zombies but also sexier. Where do you place the scars? How do you keep the veins in the same exact spot every day? How do you keep your leading man's mouth looking unhealthy without making him unkissable? 

The answer to the latter question involves "zombie juice" --black food coloring with mouthwash! After the juice, the makeup artist would then fuss over Hoults mouth with a q-tip to clean his teeth so you'd still wanna makeout with him despite him being, you know, a rotten corpse. 

The inside of the lip being black is still considered to be sexy somehow but having green teeth that doesn't work!

Hoult preferred his zombie juice strawberry or vanilla flavored. The more you know... ⌒★

P.S. Since zombie movies are still all the rage I loved this little aside from the director when watching the big makeup team transform 100 or so extras at once.

You know it's funny because extras -- when they're playing humans, sometimes extras can overract a little bit. But when they're dressed as zombies and in zombie makeup, they're all like Meryl Streep. They're all just really in character and amazing.