Toy Story 3's Brilliant Oscar Campaign

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Let's talk about the best FYC campaign of the year. The one where Pixar tries to build a case for Toy Story 3 as the Best Picture of the year, not just a nominee. Pixar won't be happy to just get the annual ghetto Oscar for Animated Feature, they want the big one. Do you believe this is possible? I can't say that I do...

Or, rather, it's possible but not bloody likely. A good correlation might be the foreign language film category. They also have their own category and very few have ever been nominated for Best Picture and none have won (the closest to a "foreign" winner is Slumdog Millionaire which is technically a British film but is partially in Hindi).

But let's look at the ads themselves, from worst to best, which use "Not since _____ " to compare TS3 to previous Best Picture winners.

Here's the two I find most problematic. I can't think, other than gender, how Jesse connects to Annie Hall (1977)? From body language to clothing, speaking patterns to personality, Jessie and Annie couldn't be any more different. And I can't see the connection in the photo either. The "Not since Titanic" ad is gorgeously composed but...



...it seems rather tasteless to equate toys in the garbage dump to the who died at sea when the Titanic sunk.

I've heard the argument that it's okay to compare TS3 to the cheese-tastic epic that is Titanic and I heartily agree on that point. Both films are highly entertaining adventures. But the ad still screams "people who drowned!" only these toys don't actually die. Spoiler! TS3 is a lovely funny movie but it gets credit for really weird things, like for this scene which 'bravely confronts mortality'. The American animated film hasn't confronted death very often at all; it's a downer. Outside of Bambi and Up, when does it ever happen? Oh, sure, the villains die (usually accidentally or via a third party so that the hero/heroine isn't guilty of murder or manslaughter) but the audience is expected to cheer; it's not far removed from a knockout in a boxing movie. Characters regularly cheat death in animated films (by miracles, magical tears, kisses, luck, etcetera) but surviving the swing of the grim reaper's scythe is not the same thing as facing mortality. It's the opposite.

These two, referencing Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and The French Connection (1971) are a smidgeon better but the connections... The atonal torture stuff in Slumdog is not something to remind us of (worst part of that movie) and I'm blanking on the telephone thing. When we think of The French Connection, don't we think of car chases?  When I see the words French Connection and a big phone, I think immediately of Gene Hackman and so the phone makes me think of all those recording devices in The Conversation but that didn't win Best Picture. Still, it's one of the best films of the 70s which is saying a lot.

These are cuter. American Beauty (1999) uses American icon Barbie. And we readily forgive the literal toilet humor of this On The Waterfront (1954) gag because Pixar is one of the rare animated studios that doesn't regular subject us to that kind of desperate humor. And Woody spinning on that toilet roll was a really funny bit of slapstick.

The Platoon connection is obvious but the simplicity of the image is great and I think those anonymous green soldiers are insufficiently honored in discussions of the Toy Story movies. They're almost as great as the linking red monkeys. The Rocky (1976) joke is even better because it's not an exact parallel but it's the last man standing in the ring.

And from this point forward they're all brilliant. Big Baby and Lotso subbing for Clark Gable and Charles Naughton in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Love it. And not just because I think the movie is totally underrated. This bit using "Not since... The Sting " (1973) is just so smart. Pixar movies have such great camera angles. They do always shoot them like classic movies inside those computers.

UPDATE 12/28: Oopsie, I missed this Silence of the Lambs (1991) spoof when I posted this. Or perhaps it's new. Sick humor -wheeeee -- but isn't the Mr Potatohead tortilla gag the most memorably weird image in the movie?

Love the bold color and compositions of The Godfather Part II (1974) and Return of the King (2003) ads. The RoTK ad is especially choice because it's such a beautiful twin, visually, of such an indelible moment in another famous threequel.

And finally, my choice for the two best ads which use Shakespeare in Love (1999) and The Sound of Music (1965) so fondly. Who didn't love discovering the thespian tendencies of Mr Pricklepants and to imagine him getting another big Shakespearean moment? Heaven.

Finally, we have Ken as one of the Von Trapp children. I'm bravely confronting mortality because I just died and went to heaven.

Adieu adieu to you and you and you ♪ ♫ 

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Mad Men at the Movies: 'Adieu, Adieu, To You and You and You-ooo'

Previously on MM@M: 4.1 Live From Times Square 4.2 Sixties Sweethearts 4.3 Catherine Deneuve & Gamera, 4.4 Jean Seberg, 4.5 Hayley Mills & David McCallum, 4.6 Chaplin the Sad Clown 4.7 "No Bad Seats" 4.8 Peyton Place 4.9 "The Beautiful Girls"


In Mad Men at the Movies we investigate the cinematic references in the Emmy winning drama Mad Men. Though we accidentally took a one month hiatus from this series (due to a paucity of movie references) we shouldn't have. The series is mainly an excuse to talk about the show.  It's the best on television. In fact, I haven't loved a show as much as Mad Men since the heyday of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (circa 1998/1999)... inbetween those two titans only Battlestar Galactica and Once & Again got to me in similarly seismic ways. Which is to say, I love it madly. If I were to coincidentally receive an old engagement ring right before watching an episode, I would undoubtedly impulsively propose to it.

 "Mad Men, you make me very happy. Will you marry me?"

4.13 "Tomorrowland"
Season 4 has seen Don Draper (Jon Hamm) survive a tumultuous year filled with career highs intermingled with scary career scares but emotionally he's been hovering at the edge of the abyss for the entirety of 1965. In the season capper, he takes his kids to Disneyland (hence the title... and a sly one, too). He's already slept with his secretary Megan (Jessica Paré) in a previous episode but he invites her along as replacement babysitter since the ex Mrs. Draper has impulsively fired the children's life long nanny Carla. Don can't be expected to change diapers!

Though Don's sudden marriage proposal to Megan played like a shock -- I watched the episode at a party thrown by the Lipp Sisters and the room went audibly gaspy -- it shouldn't have; the whole season has been leading here.




Don has been flailing without a wife all season and, as Michael C at Serious Film brilliantly notes, Sally (Keirnan Shipka) already made the choice for Don in an incisive bit of foreshadowing in a previous episode.

Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) may be exactly what Don needed as a human being but his very opening up to her spelled her doom; she got way too close to the real Don a.ka. Dick Whitman. "Don Draper," using the original Don Draper's engagement ring, is trying to reboot just like Betty did. This is not personal growth. His parts were fusing but there's safety in starting the charade all over again, marrying another woman he barely knows and who barely knows him and stealing Don's identity all over again albeit in miniature circular form. It's the circle of his life.

Not that Megan is a terrible choice per se. He seems genuinely moved and surprised that she's so warm and relaxed around the kids (the anti-Betty?) and he clearly needs a wife/maid/babysitter. The Sound of Music reference, when Megan teaches the kids a French song to sing to their daddy is pure bliss.

You said you had no experience but you're like Maria Von Trapp!

♪ A captain with seven children. What's so fe ♪ ♫ An admen with three children. What's so fearsome about that? I half expected Megan to bust out into song as she exited. "I Have Confidence" indeed. She's a sly one and I expect we'll get to know how sly when we return to her in 1966 or 1967... whenever Season 5 takes place.

The mammoth movie. The rich baron and his young bride.

The Sound of Music opened in 1965 (the year this season took place) and was an immediate sensation, becoming the highest grossing film of all time (at the time). What's extra fun about the reference is that it's a spoken reference to an actual movie scene so Don is being clever and self aware to a point. He knows he's the Captain Von Trapp of this mirror scene but he hasn't grasped that he's just hired this young girl to be his governess and he's fallen for her while ostensibly in a serious relationship with a older woman who isn't fond of children but who is unquestionably more of a social equal.

Sound familiar? We've got Captain Von Draper (a man who loves his children but has trouble being present with them), the singing Megan a la Maria (the children take to her and she, in turn, enjoys them and is in awe of their sophisticated rich important father) and Faye is... The Baroness. It might sound cruel to Faye -- and Don is -- but it's important to remember that The Baroness is not a villain even in The Sound of Music. She's just a little frosty and not naturally maternal. But in the end you have sympathy for The Baroness... or maybe for Eleanor Parker because she's a damn fine actress.

Season 4 ends not with the Von Trapp duet "Something Good" but with Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" over the closing credits. Cher & Sonny were divorced by 1975.

Best Moment: Joanie & Peggy's sympatico giggle at their shared career-woman persona.
Second Best Moment: Betty Vs. Carla. Wow, was that intense. Deborah Lacey has been a huge quiet assett to the show as thoroughly observant maid/nanny Carla. So sad that we're now losing her but this series is not for people who need their favorite shows to regurgitate the same episode for years on end. Mad Men has never been content to stay the same or reboot to repeat itself. It just keeps barrelling forward. "There is no fresh start! Lives carry on." Henry Francis shouts. He's a smart man.
Third Best Moment: Megan realizing she still needs to answer Don's phone, post-engagement.
Fourth Best Moment: "I hope you have all the happiness that Peggy and I had signing this account." -Ken Cosgrove you delight me. I am so glad they brought Mr Cosgrove back. He's such a great "light" counterpoint to all of the crazy masculine angst in SCDP. He's the only man who understands work/life balance and not every character in a drama should be hopelessly f***ed up.
Low Key Pitch Perfect Moment: Don & Betty & the bottle.
Season 4 RIPs: Alison, Carla, Miss Blankenship.
Season 5 Question Marks: Faye? Cooper? Francine?
Sympathy For The Devil: I know I'm alone in this but Betty Draper continues to be one of the most fascinating characters and January Jones continues to be a fearless actress in exploring her, totally unconcerned with being loved (the great bane of so many actresses in sculpting complex characters). Betty really can't help herself. She's miserable but continually perplexed by her own misery, unable to see her own culpability in it.

 Goodbye Ossining.

How was Season 4 for you? Any favorite moments, developments, new characters or disappointments?

A History of... Julie Andrews

To celebrate the 75th birthday of the great Julie Andrews, our favorite singing governness, our favorite magical nanny, our favorite gender bending toast of Paris. Something big was in order. Why, she's practically perfect in every way... so in her honor, a resurrection of a long dormant exhaustively researched 100% true* series that was once the Film Experience's most popular feature.

1935 Julia Wells is born to Mrs. Barbara Wells in Surrey, England. Mr. Wells is not the father. Scandal! This bastard child will one day become the icon of squeaky clean family entertainment. She won't always enjoy it. At her christening the good fairy Fauna grants her the gift of song

One gift, the gift of song,
Melody your whole life long!
The nightingale her troubadour,
Bringing his sweet serenade to her door.

(We figure that's the only way you get a voice that lovely.)

1940 Having already recognized the fairy's generous gift, non biological daddy Ted Wells sends Julia to live with mom's new man Ted Andrews (also not her biological father --- so confusing!) who is better equipped to give her the musical education she needs.

1947 Julia -- now "Julie Andrews" -- makes her professional debut at the London Hippodrome singing the aria "Je Suis Titania" (i.e. 'I am Titania' -referencing the Queen of the Fairies in A Midsummer Nights Dream, no doubt an homage to generous Fauna) from the opera Mignon. She blows the roof off the place.

1951 Does not prick her finger and fall into an unnatural slumber but is, by now at 16, a British star of stage and radio. Waits impatiently, but sweetly, for love's first kiss total world domination.

1954 Start at the top: Debuts on the American stage on Broadway in the lead role of The Boyfriend.

1956 Wouldn't it be loverly if she originated the plum role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and concurrently became a superstar with the live television airing of the musical Cinderella? Statistics vary but her numbers are basically up their with the explosion of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and the final episode of M*A*S*H. We're talking everyone... or roughly 10 times the numbers that even the biggest "event" nowadays.

1959 Love's first kiss: Marries set designer Tony Walton who she met on the stage in London many years prior whilst playing the Egg in Humpty-Dumpty.

1960 Her eggs produce first child, Emma. Also creates the original Guinevere in the smash hit Broadway musical Camelot.

1962/1963 Julie, already a household name in America, is passed over for the movie version of the role she created in My Fair Lady because Jack Warner, in a typically lazy movie industry move (that we still see every day in 2010) only wants someone "bankable." Never mind that her first two movies become enormous "all time" blockbusters, each outgrossing My Fair Lady (which was also a hit with "bankable" Audrey Hepburn). Nobody can see into the future and most people aren't willing to risk casting based on rightness for a role... even though anyone in the right role at the time can become bankable as Mary Poppins will soon prove.

1964 Kill Audrey, Vol 1: Julie's movie debut Mary Poppins outgrosses My Fair Lady. So much for not bankable. She also stars in the acclaimed adult-oriented drama The Americanization of Emily, a film which she reportedly loves, though few notice in the enormous wake of that flying nanny.


1965 Kill Audrey Vol. 2: Julie wins the Oscar, besting Audrey Hepburn (who actually wasn't nominated but this isn't the way history remembers it. Shut up!).

As follow up, Julie spins around on a mountain top; billions of people all over the world get dizzy, and thousands of fairies are born. The Sound of Music outgrosses every movie that's ever existed including Gone With the Wind (if you don't adjust for inflation).

After defeating Audrey Hepburn, Julie targets Vivien Leigh. 'You can make one dress out of curtains? Amateur!'

Von Trapp play-clothes

1966 Hitchcock, having worn on Tippi Hedren's last nerve, has to find a replacement blonde. He tries Julie out for Torn Curtain. Outcome: Not icy and anonymous enough for Hitch. They never work together again. The film is a big hit. So is Hawaii that same year. Even outside of musicals Julie is beyond bankable.

1967 Julie stars as wannabe flapper Millie in Thoroughly Modern Millie. People remember it today as a misfire or flop but sorry: another huge hit, the biggest in Universal's history up till then. Julie + musicals = box office gold.

1968 Except when it don't. Oops. Star, a bloated biopic of Gertrude Lawrence becomes her first failure. Julie divorces Tony Walton and...

1969 ...marries Blake Edwards after filming Darling Lili (1970) for the director with Rock Hudson.

1970s After five years on the mountain top of global stardom, Julie bows out of the movies, making only two more films over the decade. She has two more children and then adopts two more still. She makes multiple television appearances.

1981 Blake convinces his wife to bare her breasts, which he had undoubtedly seen thousands of times already but he's a sharer. Her boob flash in S.O.B totally scandalizes Mary Poppins fans and my parents (also Mary Poppins fans). I remember the fallout vividly from my youth. They were furious.

1982 Despite her "betrayal" of squeaky clean loving fans, Hollywood and pop culture reembrace the icon when Victor/Victoria hits. Her multi-octave slide in "Le Jazz Hot" shatters glass and thousands more fairies are born. Julie is nominated for another Oscar for her woman-pretending-to- be-a-man-pretending- to-be-a-woman nightclub act wherein she falls in love with gangster King Marchand (James Garner again) or "Fairy Marchand" as his arm-candy girlfriend rechristens him in a jealous rage.



1983 Julie Andrews loses the Oscar to Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice as would anyone from any year in any film under any circumstance.

rest of the 1980s makes a few more movies with Blake Edwards but nothing ascends. Bares her breasts again opposite Rupert Everett in Duet For One (1986) but few notice. You only get a shock from that once.

1990s-1999 returns to Broadway, eventually revives Victor/Victoria in new form, refuses a Tony nomination for their "egregious" snubbing of her fellow cast members. Vocal problems begin. Undergoes surgery for throat nodules and something goes wrong and she is unable to sing again. A special new circle of hell is created for whomever is to blame though...

2000 ...here on earth the matter is settled in a malpractice lawsuit. Julie's Just Rewards: She becomes "Dame" Julie Andrews by order of the Queen.

2001 Speaking of Queens...  The Princess Diaries opens, surprising virtually everyone by becoming a smash with non-bankable Anne Hathaway in the leading role of the Princess and non-singing no-longer bankable Julie as the Queen of Genovia. The hit film will win her a new generation of young fans and set in motion a new career in children's films, albeit usually just as voice work. As in...

2010 Despicable Me wherein Julie Andrews plays the disapproving mother of super villain Gru. On October 1st, Julie Andrews celebrates her 75th birthday.

Here's to her next quarter century as one of the great entertainers of all time!

*or truthy, same diff.

The Links Are Alive...

In Contention Tapley's review of Conviction.
New York Magazine Mark Harris great piece on The Social Network in case you haven't read it yet. "I poked Aaron Sorkin..."
Cinema Styles "Coming Home to Tango" a look back at two seminal 70s films and how they age when you age. Interesting stuff. For the record I love Coming Home and don't care for Last Tango in Paris but saw them both in my early 30s.
MUBI remembers Arthur Penn (RIP) We've lost another film great. Time to watch Bonnie & Clyde again.

 Flames... on the Side of My Face pays tribute to the late Madeline Kahn, for whom the blog is titled, on her birthday. "Taffeta, darling"
Ruchome Obrazki late addition to the 'Best Shot' party featuring David Fincher's Se7en (1995). Check it out.
Some Came Running has a wonderfut bit on Sally Menke's eye for shots juxtaposed.
Movie | Line offers up my favorite title about the Star Wars in 3D news.
Serious Film 8 voice performances that were worthy of acting nominations.
IGN offers up some mainstream "summer movie awards" as we head into fall.

And finally, Playbill delivers Holy Playclothes-Made-of-Curtains shocking news. The cast of The Sound of Music is reuniting next month on Oprah !!! This will be epic even if we have to hear Ms. Winfrey screaming...

"Julieeeeeeeee AaahNDROOOOOOoosss"

...over and over again. Are you dying out there?  Now I'm going to have "The Lonely Goatherd" stuck in my head for the rest of the day because this is always what happens to me when someone mentions The Sound of Music.