Q&A: JLaw at the Top, Chris Pine's Future, Trans Characters in Cinema

Bob Fosse on the set of LennyApologies dearest readers about the slow rollout of various columns this month. April is such a weird month, isn't it? What can you do. So you recently asked a bunch of questions and here's 11 answers!  I hope you'll speak out on these same topics in the comments to make this more conversational. I do actually love to hear your opinions, too! xoxo

EDWARD: Have you ever wanted to make a movie?

NATHANIEL: The short answer is "no". The medium answer is I think it might be fun to work on one once, to have the experience (the areas that most interest me in terms of my own potential skills are casting and editing). But my basic feeling is that I love movies too much to commit to one only for years on end as so many filmmakers seem to have to do. The long answer is that I have fantasized about it but usually only in the context of becoming a great director of modern movie musicals since Hollywood so desperately needs someone who is inspired by / committed to that genre specifically. We need a new Fosse/Minnelli/Berkeley/Donen  roughly a billion times more than we need a new Scorsese/Spielberg/Tarantino/Malick/Kubrick/Whomever. There are always people trying to be that latter group of guys!

MARK: If you could bring back any movie star deceased back in a Peter Cushing Rogue One style cameo who would you choose.

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Fences & Elle now on DVD and Blu-Ray

By the end of April nearly all the Oscar's favorite 2016 films will be available on Blu-Ray and DVD (La La Land is the caboose on April 25th) in case you accidentally missed any. And if you purchase them from Amazon, by clicking over from TFE we get a teensy tiny cut as an Amazon affiliate (hint hint). 

Last Week's Fresh Batch
The Eyes of My Mother - Daniel recently paid tribute to this indie horror film's award winning production design film's
Jackie - We've sung its praises plenty and interviewed Pablo Larraín, too
Moana - a favorite among the podcast team

Brand New This Week
Elle - Verhoeven and Huppert's provocative collaboration had long legs at the arthouse and we called that Oscar nomination super early. Yay
Fences - Denzel & Viola reprising their Tony winning roles in this American classic of a black family in the 1950s from August Wilson's Pittsburgh cycle. The other nine will supposedly be filmed, too, albeit for TV rather than as theatrical features. Which is a pity since Fences proved the audience is there
Collateral Beauty - I swear Chris is obsessed with this film's badness. Will it one day be a camp classic?
Passengers -Daniel looked at its Oscar nominated production design. It did look like a million dollars despite its narrative problems.

How do you think these films will age? Will you be adding any to your collection?

The Furniture: Lost in Space and Time with "Passengers" and "Arrival"

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. This is the second of two columns discussing this year's Oscar nominees. Here's Daniel Walber...

On the surface, Arrival and Passengers appear to be the most similar of this year’s Best Production Design nominees. They’re both science fiction films set in the near future. Yet the similarities end there. Passengers is set entirely on an extravagant, colorful spaceship. Arrival splits its scenes between the interior of a minimalist UFO and densely packed military tents.

There is also one more essential difference...

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Two silly questions about dressing up and playing house with the Oscar contenders

Okay, one final round of question for Team Experience about the Oscar nominations. We've talked about people who didn't make the list and the nominations that delighted us. Now, two burning questions inspired by the Production Design and Costume nominations.

Which production design nominated picture would you most want to live inside?

GLENN: Hail, Caesar!, but only if Tilda Swinton and I find ourselves running around movie studio backlots set to a zippy orchestral soundtrack. I might just sneakily pop into Passengers' robot bar for a drink when we're done.

DAVID: The moment I saw the ridiculously giant Ingrid Bergman wall in La La Land is the moment I knew that film was definitely on my wavelength...

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Art Director's Guild Nominations

The Art Director's Guild can give us a taste of what's to come for Oscar but that's the reductive way of looking at it. By having multiple categories they give us a much better sense of what these craftsmen thought of the work done in any given film year... or at least told us which screeners they caught up with. Instead of 5 annual nominees like the Oscars, they have 15. Or in this year's case 16 titles (there was a tie in "period film").

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS won a surprise Academy nomination for Production Design (without an ADG nomination). Might CAFE SOCIETY (which *has* an ADG nomination) make the Oscar list despite a current low profile?

Which will go on to Oscar? (I'll have to rethink our chart which has four films which didn't score with the ADG in the top ten though one of them, The Handmaiden, still feels possible as a nomination since foreign films don't generally show up at guild awards before their Oscar nods) Oscar eventual lineup is remarkably similar from year to year in terms of how it pulls from the ADG nominations. For example, here is this decade thus far: 

2015: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 1 each from their contemporary and fantasy selections
2014: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 2 film from fantasy, none from contemporary. They filled the remaining spot with a film ADG had not selected (Mr Turner)
2013: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 1 each from their contemporary and fantasy selections
2012: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 2 from fantasy, none from contemporary.
2011: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 1 from fantasy, none from contemporary, and 2 films the ADG had not selected (Midnight in Paris & War Horse)
2010: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 3 from fantasy, none from contemporary.

The safest bet is that they'll do the same as usual this year with a 3,1,1 split for ADG's Period, Fantasy, and Contemporary fields. All the nominations are after the jump...

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