Catching up with Bond, Shaun, and Ava

If distributors are going to playing coy all November long with their hottest Oscar prospects, I'm going to play catch-up during the lull.

Back in the Spring, Alex Garland's dulcet sci-fi Ex Machina was making the rounds on the arthouse circuit, earning strong notices for its heady ruminations on consciousness and artificial intelligence, and especially for Alicia Vikander's enigmatic robotic performance.

It's a thoughtful, chilling, lingering chamber piece -- and what perfectly designed, minimalist chambers they are too -- that takes a refreshingly intimate approach to subject matter that would tempt most filmmakers to go big. We already knew Garland had a penchant for subtle speculative fiction based on his adapted screenplay of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go from 2010, and his authorial voice remains intact in this directorial debut.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 1: Overview

Well, the 85th Annual Academy Awards came and went, putting a cap on what has been one of the most unusual awards seasons in recent memory. To no one's surprise, Ben Affleck's Argo was crowned the Best Picture of 2012, also taking expected prizes for Chris Terrio's screenplay and William Goldenberg's editing.

Sifting through the Brits' tea leaves...

The British love their tea, wot? And the British Academy of Film and Television Arts have left all sorts of tea leaves for awards pundits to analyze from today's BAFTA Movie Awards. Even though BAFTA never matches up exactly with AMPAS, we might do well to heed their winners more closely this year, as they could bear more significance in the Oscar race than ever before.

Why is BAFTA significant? It's not so much the membership overlap between them and AMPAS (although that factor is appreciable), but a procedural change the organization made to mirror the Academy's voting practices. In the past, the entire BAFTA membership was invited to determine all the nominees, while only the specific chapters (or branches) could determine the final winners in their associated categories. This often lead to some baffling snubs (Tree of Life's Cinematography snub, anyone?) and peculiar winners (remember In Bruges winning Original Screenplay?).

One Category at a Time: Supporting Actor

This might take the cake as the year's most unpredictable category. Composed entirely of past winners, there are no narratives of “overdue actor still waiting for first Oscar” to be had. And with a pair of co-lead performances masquerading as supporting amongst true supporting players in popular Best Picture nominees, it leaves the contest as wide open as we've seen in years.

Golden Globes live blog

So yeah, like everyone else on the net, I'll be live-blogging the Golden Globes when they begin in about three and a half hours time. Check back for updates throughout the evening.

7:33 - Usual banter on the red carpet. The women look cold. Apparently it's chilly out on the West coast tonight.

7:53 - Got my laptop. Got my port. Let's get this party started.

7:55 - Shameless Quartet plug by Dustin Hoffman. Supose I shouldn't prejudge (but I heard it's awful).

8:04 - "When it comes to torture, I trust the women who spent three years married to James Cameron" ZING! Fey and Poeller were great. Laughed at almost every joke.

8:09 - Supporting Actor: Goes to... Christoph Waltz in  Django Unchained. Weinstein at work, as always.

Review - Django Unchained

In Quentin Tarantino's latest revenge fantasy Django Unchained, Jamie Foxx plays the titular slave who is freed from bondage by the eccentric Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) to become his partner in bounty hunting. As much as Django likes his new job of “killing white folks for money”, his bigger yen is to rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the plantation where she serves the childlike but intangibly dangerous Calvin Candi (Leonardo DiCaprio).

While a great deal of Django Unchained is very enjoyable, it is self-indulgent to a fault. I understand that criticizing a Tarantino film for being indulgent is like criticizing the sky for being blue, but the excesses of this movie really makes you feel the length of it. At 165 minutes, it's a picture as badly in need of a trim as our unshackled, unshaven ex-slave is at the beginning of it.