And The Link Goes To...

Oscar Stuff
Movie City News collects some nominee reaction quotes
Carpetbagger looks at the green (box office) of the gold (nominees)
Nashville Film Festival "I was Slumdog when Slumdog wasn't cool"
AWFJ thinks the two best female performances weren't nominated at all
In Contention Tapley thinks that The Reader's nomination is a tragedy and that the movie is pornographic. Who knew that he'd never seen a porno before? ;)


In Contention also shares a typical egotist quote from Harvey Weinstein. He's aiming for a win for The Reader. We all know it won't but the clever strategy thing about this sort of 'we can beat Slumdog!' cock waving is that it really does damage Slumdog Millionaire which Fox Searchlight has always been positioning as the "little film that could" In order to maintain its scrappy underdog charms they need the illusion that it's not the 300 pound gorilla of Oscar season. Which it is. Anyone think its vulnerable at all?
Time on the Best Actor race. Preference: Penn
Welcome to LA on those 2 nominations for Wanted
The Playlist on the web reactions to The Dark Knight snub including some homophobic ones of course (figures since Milk made it. How would the world spin without scapegoats?). Sigh. Would that moviegoers understand the history of Oscar better. Eight nominations is A LOT. I realize it's not in best picture but that is a huge haul as movies go. I keep hearing words like "shut out" which is a laughable description of what happened. 8 nominations is a ringing endorsement. Only Best Pictures and just-miss Best Picture hopefuls ever reach nominations numbers that high.

Off Oscar (in case you need the break. you need the break)
Low Resolution makes a funny with Pfeiff
Fabulon "art appreciation with Julianne Moore"
Lazy Eye Theater come back Billy Bob!
Club Silencio picks its five favorite films of 2008. There's only 3 Oscar noms among them
i09 on the Watchmen's rape scene. I really loved the remake of Dawn of the Dead but after 300 I do not trust the base panderings of this Zach Snyder fellow
Coosa Creek Cinema a review of Gran Torino that actually helped me understand why people love the movie

Off Cinema altogether. (Whaaaa?)
<-- two badass blonde chicks 2 love: P¡nk & Katee Sackhoff

The Post Game Show 80s pop music vs. 00s pop music. Funny
Braniac shares conservative anger (and sour grapes) over Starbuck and Battlestar Galactica. Apparently women should only be birthin' babies! Ugh. Serious question: How do such rabidly anti-woman right-wingers end up finding women to marry and impregnate, anyway?

DVD Releases: Billy Bob, Mads and Ziyi

<--- After the Wedding Susanne Bier's Oscar nominated Danish drama about an orphanage manager, Mads Mikkelsen. Bier's first English language movie Things We Lost in the Fire (with Halle Berry & Benicio Del Toro) wil be out later this year but the language doesn't matter: Bier knows drama.
The Astronaut Farmer Billy Bob Thornton pursues a crazy dream and builds a baseball field rocket. Virginia Madsen co-stars for warmth. Sideways has typecast her in the insanely gorgeous supportive wife/girlfriend part now but I suppose that's better than not working.
The Last Mimzy I never understood what this is about mainly because I didn't pay attention. Whenever trailers showcase a lot of CGI I get bored (unless it's big blockbuster epics entirely suited to CGI)
The Page Turner a psychological thriller from France. With pianists... something of a French trend lately, non? The Piano Teacher, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, this...
Sweet Land an immigrant drama that won the Best First Feature award at the Indie Spirits. The cast includes Alan Cumming, Lois Smith and Ned Beatty.

And finally...

Princess Raccoon by Seijun Suzuki. Ziyi Zhang stars in the bizarre musical love story about... um what the title says. Reviews are filled with adjectives like "insane", "hilarious", "risky", "joyous", "colorful", "lively" and "hallucinatory". So, um, yeah: putting that on the DVD queue!

A History of... Angelina Jolie

"A History Of..." is my most popular feature but what with all the painstakingly accurate research required [*chortle*] it can take days to prepare. So you may have noticed that I've been neglecting this duty. Sorry.

Without further ado...


1973 James Haven is born to Oscar-nominated Midnight Cowboy Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand in Los Angeles, California. He has his father's lips.

1975 Haven gets a baby sister, Angelia Jolie Voight, a month after his second birthday. She has her brother's lips.

1979 Jon Voight wins the Oscar for Coming Home in March. Angie and Haven celebrate at home. with knives.

1982 Little seven year-old Angie gets her first screen credit for Lookin' To Get Out.

1989 Begins modelling. Feels full and sensuous lips are much better fit for modelling where it's totally acceptable --nay, required!-- to sexualize 14 year-olds. Hollywood is so stingy with good roles for natural born Lolitas.

1993 Getting long in the tooth for modelling, Angie re-debuts in cinema with Cyborg 3. Auspicious beginnings.

1995 She lands her first role that anybody notices. On the set ofHackers she meets and soon...

1996 ...marries Trainspotting star Johnny Lee Miller, hubby #1. Finding wedding dresses too bourgeois and veils too sexist, she paints his name in blood on her T-Shirt for the ceremony. Haven turns green, and consoles himself thinking about one of Angie's earliest tattoos "H". Tattoos are forever.

1998 Mrs. Johnny Lee Miller causes minor Hollywoodquake in the title role of the HBO film Gia playing her first glamorous sociopath. Follows it up with touching ensemble work as a party girl looking for love in Playing With Heart, further proving that beneath the pout lies a persuasive acting gift.

1999 She portrays "Lisa" in Girl, Interrupted and turns Winona Ryder's intended comeback into her own star-making vehicle. Noni too stoned to notice the hijacking. (Unclear if she yet realizes that Angie is the one with the Oscar.) Lisa = glamorous sociopath #2.

In this fertile star-making period she also films Pushing Tin where she meets Billy Bob Thornton. Out with Johnny Lee (divorce). In with Billy Bob Thornton, soon-to-be hubbie #2 and tattoo #welostcount. Billy Bob was dating Laura Dern at the time but I think we can all agree that knives + tattoos + blood vials are hard to trump in the "hot girlfriend" arena. Sorry, Laura.

2000 The breakthrough starlet attends the Oscars as Morticia Addams and makes out with brother Haven (not dressed as Gomez but maybe he spoke French?). Sets new millenium trend of following up Oscar win by starring in shitty blockbuster-- Charlize & Halle: nothing but copycats! Angie's next project is co-starring with Nicolas Cage in Gone in Sixty Seconds. But that's cruel of me to mention. You were probably relieved to have forgotten about it.

2001 Angelina's giant breasts get their first starring role in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Roger Ebert turns digits 'way, way up.'

2003 Ms. Croft travels the world for Beyond Borders.She adopts the world's cutest boy Maddox abroad. Dumps Billy Bob back home in America. Angelina's baby fever begins but contrary to early Mia Farrow media snarking, her international period soon reads a little more Audrey Hepburn dogooder.

2004 She pops up in a couple of crappy movies just so she can be the best thing about them and remind the world that she's a bonafide movie star.

2005 BRANGELINA fever begins with hit movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith and even bigger hit gossip. Brad is married to Jennifer Aniston at the time but I think we can all agree that tattooed mindblowingly gorgeous movie star with cute international brood beats hard bodied pretty TV star. Sorry, Rachel. Brangelina spends the year playing pointless "no comment" games with the press despite the fact that everyone in the known universe (including each citizen of Namibia the year before the Jolie-Pitts invade) knows. Meanwhile Jennifer Aniston milks her feels-sorry-for-me moment for all its worth, smiling on endless magazine covers and trying. to. stay. strong *sniffle* oh and go see her new movie(s)!

2006 OMG. You think I'm even gonna even try? If you need this history as full as her luscious lips, check out the Angelina pages @ Gawker, Defamer, popbytes and WWTDD for much more ∞

2012 Jennifer Aniston continues to stay strong and appreciates your support in this difficult time. oh and go see her new movie(s)!


Say, while you're here check out the full blog, vote in the current poll, or read previous Histories...
Blue Freaks * Tarzan * Missions: Impossible * Dakota Fanning *Bunnies * Sharon Stone * Jodie Foster *Gender Bending * Bald Women * Sarah Jessica Parker * Gay Cowboys * Juli's Screen Kids * Gyllenhaal

tags: Angelina Jolie, movies, cinema, Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Aniston, Maddox, celebrities, adoption, tattoos, Brangelina, Lara Croft, gossip,