Eight Links: Unhinged Women, Union Protests, Unctuous Celebrity

Awards Daily "Women Unhinged" fun piece on all the bat-shit crazy lady characters fighting for Oscar recognition. We're glad to see Lesley Manville (Another Year) getting some attention in her week of snubs.Movies Kick Ass sees and loves Paprika Steen in Applaus. What a performance that is.Disney Blog I hadn't heard of this but apparently there's a union protest against Toy Story 3 outside of

Today's Must Watch: 14 (Silent) Character Types

Oh to have the New York Times arts budget. They've asked 14 actors to recreate classic character types in 1 minute segments and the results are at turns breathtakingly gorgeous (Natalie Portman), funny (James Franco), exciting (Javier Bardem), questionable (Jesse Eisenberg?) and sometimes plain old garden variety awesome (Tilda Swinton's Falconetti?) Yes please.Tilda SwintonNoomi RapaceAnthony

EFA Noms: Of Gods and Ghost Writers with Secrets in Their Eyes

The European Film Award nominations have been announced and what we have this year is an interesting mix of two separate years of Oscar's Foreign Film contest alongside one English language feature: Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer. Side note: I had thought that the film was simply called The Ghost in Europe (?) but perhaps I misremembered.The Ghost sizes up his competition at the European Film

LFF 2010: And It Hurts With Every... Cannon

David from Victim of the Time, reporting from the 54th BFI London Film Festival.I've been engrossed in this festival for so long now, it already feels like it's winding down; in fact, there's another week to go, with Danny Boyle's 127 Hours the closing night gala next Thursday evening. Perhaps my feeling comes from the fact that my most anticipated film is just around the corner: yes, I too fell

TIFF Capsules: Let Me In, Tamara Drewe, The Illusionist and Stone.

Normally my friend txtcritic who must remain anonymous just, well, texts me. Usually in the form of pithy sentence long reviews or moviegoing observations. But this time he sent capsules of his Toronto experience thus far. Enjoy. "The Illusionist" shifts downgear from the infectious exuberance of "Triplets of Bellevile" to a more melancholy, low-key thing. It's largely lovely and endearing, but