This Link Roundup Will Soon Be Adapted Into a Stage Musical

Towleroad Far From Heaven being adapted into a stage musical. I've been burned on this sort of thing too many times but at least it's by the composer of Grey Gardens and that had a few lovely tunes.

 

And would make a good stage-to-movie candidate actually...

NYT the latest injury from the set of the Spider Man musical on Broadway. Wednesday matinee cancelled. I am 100% certain that someone will one day write a bestseller about the behind-the-scenes of this disaster prone production
Cinema Blend Peter Weir not interested in a sequel to Master & Commander. Awww. Maybe they should just adapt it for a stage musical instead. Kidding.

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Movie|Line has a jolly interview with Mike Leigh on the eve of the release of Another Year. I love this bit on why he'd never make a superhero film (no, really. the question was posed to him in a way that's not as crass as it sounds)

I use film to make a personal kind of film in a very specific, particular way. And there is no more reason for me to do what I think you're suggesting than there would for me to give up being a film director an become the pilot of a jumbo jet flying across the Atlantic. Or a brain surgeon or, indeed, a coal miner.

I love thinking of Mike Leigh as coal miner. Tee hee. Come to think of it. He would make a GREAT director for a coal mining movie or a... wait a minute. I have it. Topsy-Turvy demonstrated that Leigh can sell a musical number. So... Mike Leigh, directing the acclaimed musical Floyd Collins about that explorer trapped in a cave!

Floyd Collins is so pretty. Let's listen to a couple of its songs.

Her Awesomeness Audra McDonald & Hair's Will Swenson doing
"Through the Mountains" from Floyd Collins. 

Matt Doyle (Gossip Girl) doing "How Glory Goes" from Floyd Collins.
This song is perfection but it must be hard to sing because there are a lot
of bad versions on YouTube. This version gets better as it goes.

My brain does like to wander. Obviously needed a break from thinking / writing about Oscar Oscar Oscar Oscar Oscar...

Moving On...
Pop Eater have you heard this crazy story about 80s star Marilu Henner? Seems she has something called "superior autobiographical memory" - fascinating story really and totally unrelated: I've always thought Marilu was a hilarious celebrity.
Go Fug Yourself Fug or Fab Style: Mila Kunis
In Contention Jafar Panahi banned from making films. So terrible. As Guy says, this puts the silly annual Oscar bitching into perspective.
AV Club Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg offered $1 million to box each other for charity cuz they both starred in boxing picture, see? This story cracks me up on so many levels. Like, no movie stars would risk their billion dollar faces for charity. The only risk movie stars take with their moneymakers is plastic surgery.

Tired of critics awards yet? You can say so if you are. The London Critics Circle have offered up nominations. Sadly, The King's Speech -- the only British film that doesn't need any Oscar boost -- is the only one they're willing to back for crossover attention; it shows up on both their "Film of the Year and "British Film of the Year" lists and doubles up on Helena Bonham-Carter and Colin Firth in two acting categories, too. (sigh) Whew... I thought Colin Firth was in danger of losing his Oscar momentum there for a second. Thank god, they threw their weight behind him.

Never Let Them Go. A Video Essay by Matt Zoller Seitz

Beautifully constructed video essay for L Magazine on 2010 cinema. Worth your ten minutes. I'd embed it here but it's one of those videos that starts immediately without pressing a button. Hate that!

Kathleen Turner Checks Out "The King's Speech"

Look it's Kathleen Turner attending a screening of The King's Speech. (The woman to her right is Jean Doumanian who produced many of Woody Allen's 90s pictures)

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Kathleen has one of the most famous speaking voices in the entirety of cinematic history. How could she possibly relate to the king's predicament?

I kid. Perhaps she loved it. How much would you love to see Ms. Turner's Oscar ballot?

I liked The King's Speech (though the "best of year" kudos puzzle) but if there were ever a biopic called The Kathleen's Speech which was all about Ms. Turner's husky pipes and how she developed her amazing line deliveries, I would totally campaign for it to win every award.

Curio: My Holiday Wish List

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly arts and crafts.

Every year I dutifully make up a wish list for Christmas, filled with things that I need (cozy socks, a blogging muumuu). But here is a wishlist of things to satisfy my filmic flights of fancy this year. In fact, I may have already bought one of these for myself. Merry shopping everyone!

Inception spinning top totem. Available here.

A nerdy filmstrip tote...

or button...

...or better still, some reel-to-reel projector hand towels.

And finally, something for me to wear during our balmy Chicago winter.

Charting Oscar's Age Preferences.

Please Note: The Film Experience has moved to a brand new home.

As an addendum to last week's popular Tribeca Film article on the limited age range of Oscar's taste in Best Actresses and a footnote to the is this Hailee Steinfeld thing really happening (?) gripe,  I thought a few charts were in order to better illustrate the Academy's distinct age biases from category to category. Let's get this totally out of the way so that we can move on to fresher topics. It's like when a song is stuck in your head. The best way to remove it is to just sing it, right?

(These charts would be more interesting with 82 years of nominee statistics as well but I don't have a free month for that much research. That'd be well over 700 birthdays to look up.)

So let's take the male acting winners first, since they were only alluded to in the article.

There is no "most common" single age to win Best Actor but the years between 37 and 45 are especially rich.  46  is the most common age to win Supporting Actor though anytime in your 40s is your best bet.

In that chart you can see that honoring actors near the beginning of their career is anathema to them. They're completely happy to start passing out the gongs once actors have demonstrated their ability for several years and especially in the forty-something years, they are ready to honor the men. More men win during their forties than in any other decade of life (in both categories) and it's easier for senior citizen men to win than anyone under 30. (Adrien Brody is the only male actor to win for lead while in his 20s.)

It's an entirely different story with the women...

29 is the most common age to win Best Actress. It's most common to win Supporting Actress at either 33 or 45 years of age.

With actresses, as aforementioned, it's next to impossible to win the leading statue once you've exited your forties (for various reasons). On rare occassions they will honor a senior diva but no fifty-something ladies, please! (Shirley Booth is the only 50something woman to ever win in the lead category.) They're more forgiving of actresses of any age (yes even prepubescent) in the supporting category, though whether in leading or supporting, more women win during their 30s than in any other decade of life. But after 49 there's not much hope.

And here are the charts combined for comparisons sake.

Does any of it surprise you?

Or maybe this seem completely instinctual as to the kinds of roles and amount of media coverage actors get at the various stages of their career. Either way the gender disparity of Hollywood honors is obvious and disturbing; younger is always better for actresses, while middle age is best for actors though older is still golden.

What does all this mean for this year's Oscars? If you isolate the "age factor" for argument's sake -- one should never isolate any factor other than for argument's sake since all factors work together --  that means the following people are closest to the "right" age to win among the suspected contenders.

• Actor: Colin Firth (50).  Update: He Won.
• Actress: Natalie Portman (29). Update: She Won.
• Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo (43) or Jeremy Renner (40 in two weeks time). Update: They lost to Christian Bale in The Fighter
• Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham-Carter (44) or Amy Adams (36). Update: They lost to Melissa Leo in The Fighter

Something that you can't see on the charts (since the charts cover ten year spans) further accentuates this. Percentage of wins in all acting categories for people 35 and under:

• female: 55%
• male: 14%

Isn't that crazy?
Older is better for men is true even as old as death: Five male actors have been honored posthumously with nominations (2 of them won) and only one woman has been so honored (Jeanne Eagels nominated for The Letter from 1929).

Come see the brand new site! 
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Oscar's Music Branch Might Need Some Fine Tuning.

As you may have heard the Academy's music branch has made some rulings about this year's original score eligibility issues. Variety reports that Clint Mansell's Black Swan score (too much Tchaikovsky), Carter Burwell's True Grit score (too many Protestant hymns), and The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter scores (too many pop/rock songs) are officially out of the running.

All of these rulings make sense if you skim the surface, but as is usually the case with eligibility rulings, they make less and less sense the more you think it over or the more you notice the inconsistencies in Oscar rulings. The King's Speech, which has an original score by the brilliant Alexandre Desplat, but uses a lot of Beethoven for its finale was not ruled ineligible. And a few years back Gustavo Santaoalalla won the Oscar for Babel despite quite a lot of music used in the film that he didn't write.

The larger problem is simply that film scoring has changed quite a lot over the years and it's rare now to hear a movie, that doesn't use a mix of pre-existing and new material. Oscar might want to think of a way to incorporate the changing aural landscape of movies into their awards. Should Mansell and Burwell be penalized for doing right by their film's? Should Jonny Greenwood, who wrote one of the best and most innovative scores of the past decade  (There Will Be Blood) have been ruled ineligible because he was smart enough to use some previously written stuff of his own with new stuff that worked so perfectly for the movie?

But back to this year: How exactly do you do a psychological riff on Swan Lake without using Tchaikovsky and why on earth wouldn't you use Protestant hymns for True Grit. We suspected when we broke the news online that Burwell was planning on hymns for the score, that it would feel just right in the movie and it does.

One score that might be snubbed (Eek!). One that just might win.

So where does that leave this year's Oscar race for Best Original Score? It was never a done deal that Clint Mansell would be nominated for Black Swan despite the critics awards. Oscar's music branch is notoriously insular and Mansell, one of the movie's most provocative composers, has been shunned before for brilliant work. Who is to say whether his luck would have changed this year? The other film winning "best music" awards is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's The Social Network but that's always felt like a long shot for a nomination, however deserving. It will be quite a shocking new time in AMPAS history if they embrace it. It's so very different than what they embrace.

Score prizes for far this year.

• The Social Network won 4 prizes (Boston, LA, St. Louis, Vegas) 
• Inception won 3 prizes (D.C., Houston and Golden Satellites)  
• The Ghost Writer won 2 prizes (LA, EFA)
• Black Swan won 2 prizes (New York Online and Chicago)
• Never Let Me Go won 1 prize (San Diego)
• films that have been precursor-nominated: The Fighter and True Grit (both now disqualified), I Am Love, Burlesque, The King's Speech, How To Train Your Dragon, Alice in Wonderland, Tron Legacy and 127 Hours.

What kind of future do you see for Oscar's Original Score category?
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Chicago Critics: Collegiate Men and Serious Little Girls Dominate.

The Chicago Film Critics are the latest critics association to announce their awards and they've gone, like virtually everyone else, with The Social Network.

 These 52 critics love Sorkin & Fincher's warring young entrepeneurs. They also like their actresses real young and their prizes spread out.




Best Picture The Social Network
Best Director David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor  Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Supporting Actress Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the captain of True Grit's ship.

• If you assume that Helena Bonham-Carter, and The Fighter girls are safe in the Supporting Actress race, does this rush of Hailee Steinfeld wins prophecy that she'll be stealing Jacki Weaver's spot? If so how will we ever forgive these (and other critics) who inexplicably ruled in Hailee's favor? Or will Hailee take Mila Kunis's spot? Or does it signify only that True Grit was the last film to screen for critics groups and they tend to love Coen Bros movies more than just about anybody? Your verdict please in the comments.

Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale, The Fighter

• Since I was taken to task for only bitching about Hailee's category fraud I should note here again that I think this is a lead role too. More bitching! Wheeee. (still and all... Hailee's is the single most fraudulent categorization this year with Bale & Rush doing the Jeff Bridges co-lead thing in their movies. Notice how no one thinks Jeff Bridges is "supporting" in True Grit.)

Best Screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop
Best Foreign Film A Prophet
Best Animated Film Toy Story 3
Best Cinematography Wally Pfister, Inception
Best Original Score Clint Mansell, Black Swan
Most Promising Performer Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
Most Promising Filmmaker Derek Cianfrance, Blue Valentine

The Blue Valentine trio.

A few observations...

• The median age of the female actress winners is 21. (The median personality is humorless. Seriously... Hailee, Natalie and Jennifer are allergic to smiling in those movies.) Those Chicago critics sure do like 'em young. At least they have for the past four years (each year the youngest nominee has won). For what it's worth, I do promise to stop talking about age biases for at least a couple of weeks but there's one more comprehensive Oscar trivia post about it coming tonight which covers the men, too so it's stuck in me brain.
• Hmmm. How is Jennifer Lawrence "more promising" than Hailee Steinfeld but can't defeat her in direct battle? Maybe Jennifer slipped like Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring with Christian Bale? Oh no wait, that's right... they demoted Hailee to supporting. Argh. I honestly keep forgetting because it's so ridonculous.
• Chicago tends to stick with presumed Oscar categories, even if it looks ridiculous; they also named Kate Winslet "Best Supporting Actress" for The Reader.
• Happy to see an honor for Derek Cianfrance for Blue Valentine. The first step in getting great performances is to cast great actors but you do still have to direct them afterwards. That he did with a confident hand.



Can Rapunzel fend off challengers?

• Toy Story 3 has all but won the animated Oscar even before nominations are announced, but it's getting hard to suss out what it's ostensible competition will be isn't it? How To Train Your Dragon, The Illusionist and Tangled all have devoted fans so which of those three films gets the snub? It becomes really hard to say when one film dominates the discussion to such a degree that you hear of little else.

 And finally, thanks to In Contention for pointing this out but it's so brilliant.