Every day, Opening Acts highlights the best pieces of writing on film, television, and literature published around the Internet. Please share if you like what you see.
For your reading enjoyment …
At the Oscars, Best Actress and Best Picture Rarely Coincide by Joe Reid. Reid taks a look at how Best Actress winner and Best Picture aren’t often the same.
The five women who were Oscar-nominated for Best Actress Thursday morning represent some of the best-reviewed films of the year. Their films are inspiring, moving, finely crafted affairs. And with the exception of Felicity Jones’ The Theory of Everything, they’re nowhere to be found on the rest of the Oscar ballot.
Oscar Conspiracy Theories Debunked: Explaining the 5 Biggest Oscar Snubs by Kevin Fallon. Fallon looks at the big snubs and tries to explain them.
With the hangover from the hoopla of Oscar nomination morning subsiding—oh, you didn’t mourn Selma’s snubs with a bottle of whiskey?—it’s finally time to look at the year’s biggest snubs less from a place of ARE-YOU-KIDDING-ME-RIGHT-NOW??? burning passion, and more from a place of logic.
The Heat Wave: 20 Years of Michael Mann by Chris Ryan and Sean Witzke. Ryan and Witzke look at over 20 years of films by Michael Mann.
I think, because of how ubiquitous and popular Heat is, we try to downplay how much we love it. Heat has probably aired on cable once a week for the past 20 years. It introduced a lot of people to Mann’s hallmarks: violent professionals, existential masculinity, a no-earth-tones palette, parallel narratives that collide, long running times, an ensemble of great actors dialed in super tight, the theme of work — it’s all in there.
The 8 Roles Julianne Moore Should Have Won Oscars For by Bilge Ebiri. Ebiri takes a look at the career of the great Julianne Moore and showcase 8 performances she should’ve won for.
If the prognostications hold up (and really, when have they ever steered us wrong?), Julianne Moore is probably going to win an Oscar this year for Still Alice. There are two very good reasons for that: (1) Her performance has been acclaimed across the board, even by some who don’t like the movie itself; and (2) She has been snubbed a ludicrous number of times by the Academy in the past.
26 Things We Learned From David Fincher’s ‘Gone Girl’ Commentary by Jordan Raup. Raup picks out the highlights from the commentary on the new Gone Girl release.
Arriving on Blu-ray this week is a fiercely entertaining feature we named one of our favorites of 2014: David Fincher‘s Gone Girl. While the release is light on extras aside from an Amazing Amy book, it does include an engaging feature-length commentary from the director. While we’d recommend listening to it in full, today we’re highlighting some of the best portions from the track.
Video of the Day:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTWqLmnjt0&w=560&h=315]
Concession Stand:
