I’ve always thought Tilda Swinton was a fascinating woman, but ever since the Oscars, I’ve upgraded her to amazing. While the fashionistas ripped her makeup-free face and Hefty-bag chic, I though she was one of the most striking women on the red carpet (OK, fine, the trash bag was weird, but she still managed to almost pull it off). That blaze of red hair and those porcelain angles make it nearly impossible not to stop and stare. And have I mentioned the suits?

Tilda graces the cover of Out magazine’s April “Transgender Issue.” While the Oscar-winning actress isn’t trans, she does delightfully blur the boundaries with her style, attitude and roles. Anyone who saw her in 1992’s avant garde epic Orlando knows she can gender-bend with the best of them. Also, sweet fancy Moses, does she ever look good in a suit.

And what’s great about Tilda is that the more I read about her, the more amazing she becomes. Like, what did she want to eat during her Out interview? Mashed potatoes or “anything I can eat with a teaspoon, basically. I’m not really up to a fork.” How delightfully weird. But there’s nothing weird about Tilda’s take on making art.

“I’ve never been comfortable calling myself an actress or an actor. It sounds pretentious to say, but it’s actually me trying not to be pretentious. I just don’t know how to act, particularly. I think of myself more as an artist’s model than anything.”

That self-analysis may be one of the best descriptions of her I’ve ever read. Throughout her career, Tilda has tended to make art, and not necessarily entertainment. Her films are sometimes difficult to watch, sometimes bordering on awful. But she has this way of turning herself into a canvas where the character paints itself with bright, vibrant tones. … continue reading

The shine isn’t even off the 2008 Academy Awards yet, but I say on to 2009! What? No point dwelling in the past. While it’s still an entire year until the next set of statuettes gets handed out, it’s never too early to be totally wrong with your Academy Award predictions. Here’s a quick look at 10 upcoming projects that caught my eye and maybe, possibly, with any luck, might catch Oscar’s eye as well.

The Argentine/Guerilla: An ambitious two-film project by Steven Soderbergh about Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, starring Benicio Del Toro, Franka Potente, Benjamin Bratt and Catalina Sandino Moreno. Viva la revolucion!

Australia: Moulin Rouge maestro Baz Luhrmann returns with an epic love story set during World War II, about an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) who teams with a ranch hand (Hugh Jackman) to herd cattle across the outback. Sounds like Far and Away meets City Slickers. I kid, I kid.

Burn After Reading: All you need to know is Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and John Malkovich in a political comedy-thriller about top-secret CIA information falling into the wrong hands — and it's directed by the Coen brothers. Yes, please.

The Changeling: Angelina Jolie may get her 2008 Oscar snub revenge with this Clint Eastwood–directed Prohibition-era thriller about a woman whose kidnapped son is returned, but he could be the wrong child. Clint has been money when it comes to Oscar nominations these past few years, so Angelina, start thinking up a snappy speech. … continue reading

Hey, did something happen in Hollywood last night? Oh, right; a bunch of people went home with shiny naked golden men. While some may quibble with a few of the winners, last night’s Oscars telecast was a night when Tinsel Town pretty much got things right. Sure, I would have loved for Juno to sneak in and steal No Country for Old Men’s Oscar for Best Picture. But that might have incurred the wrath of Anton Chigurh, and the last thing you want to do is to make a man with a Dorothy Hamill haircut and a compressed-air gun angry.

The evening was largely a classy affair, with lots of first-time winners, loads of heartfelt speeches and even a couple genuine surprises. So in the spirit of honoring excellence, here are a few awards of my own. May I have the envelope, please?

Best Straight Allies: Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth

The filmmakers won for their short documentary Freeheld, about a lesbian couple’s fight to win survivorship benefits. (Look for more details in Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. this Friday.)

Best Upset I Didn’t Know I Wanted: Marion Cotillard

I thought I’d be mad at Marion for upsetting my personal favorite Julie Christie for Best Actress, but after hearing her exuberant, charming and sincere speech, I’ve fallen in love instead.

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If you still need to catch up on your Oscar-nominated movies before the awards show Sunday and you live near an AMC Theatres chain, you’re in luck. Though, given the bleak subject matter in most of this year’s nominated films, I’m not sure if “luck” is the right word. On Saturday, AMC will screen all five films up for best picture in a row. The marathon will start at 11 a.m. and end at 11 p.m.

Now, I’ve seen all five films, and I watched three of them within a 24-hour span recently. Just that alone was rough. So I really can’t imagine seeing all of them in one day, particularly given most of their unrelentingly nihilistic takes on humanity. There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men are definitely not what I would call feel-good films. While Atonement and Michael Clayton are slightly more hopeful, little ray of sunshine Juno is the only one with the audacity of fun. It’s also the only nominated film centered on a female lead.

Both There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men are practically devoid of female characters. It’s a man’s world, and those men are bad, really bad. Seriously, Daniel Day-Lewis’ oilman Daniel Plainview and Javier Bardem’s hitman Anton Chigurh are two of the scariest psychopaths ever committed to film. … continue reading

The BAFTAs took place in London last night. If you’re American, this is your chance to say, “What are the BAFTAs?” If you are British, then it was your chance to feel embarrassed as journalists ran right and left on the red carpet, trying to persuade the major Hollywood actors who had flown over for the occasion to say that the event was as big as the Oscars.

The BAFTAs — or annual film awards given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts — aren’t as big as the Oscars, but they are the closest we Brits get to an equivalent. And, in their favor, they’re usually a lot more concise than the Oscars, clocking in at a neat two hours rather than a bum-numbing four.

I’ll admit I love awards ceremonies — the women, the gowns, the often incomprehensible choices by the Academy, and the awkward acceptance speeches — so without further ado, here’s a rundown of what went down last night:

Sienna Miller was nominated for the Orange Rising Star Award (voted for by the public):

As were Ellen Page and the beautiful Lust, Caution actress Tang Wei. But they lost out to Shia LaBeouf. Yawn. … continue reading

The nominees for the 80th Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning. The big question, though, is whether the Oscars broadcast will happen at all. It's slated for Feb. 24, which is, like, 5 minutes from now in writers' strike years. And the stakes are very high. As Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly puts it, "If putting the kibosh on the Globes put the hurt on NBC and made the world pay attention to the strike, imagine what stopping the 80th Annual Academy Awards would do?"

I hope they find a way for the show to go on. Meanwhile, here are the Best Picture nominees:

Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

That's right, Juno! Woo hoo! I still haven't seen Atonement. I liked Michael Clayton well enough, but not more than Juno. And I won't be seeing those last two very male-oriented films. So, yay, Juno!

Several other AfterEllen.com favorites nabbed some nods. Here are the actress categories: … continue reading

With less than a week to go until Christmas, Santa has come through with at least one thing on AfterEllen.com blogger Jamie Lynn's list.

The trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian has been released and, to the delight of Tilda Swinton fans everywhere, the White Witch is as terrifying as ever. … continue reading

Disney's panel at Comic-Con gave Narnia fans some good news (well, probably). Besides talk about Prince Caspian (set to be released in 2008), the company officially announced intentions to make the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia into movies, releasing one a year. I'm sure I'll see Prince Caspian (one of my favorite moments from the entire series is Susan beating the dwarf in an archery match in the ruins of Cair Paravel, not to mention Reepicheep!). But what I'm really waiting for is The Magician's Nephew.

I just have one request. Please, people, please — remember that Jadis is the White Witch who must be Tilda Swinton.

I've been a Swinton fan for awhile, at least since she cross-dressed her way through the centuries in Orlando. Her turn as bisexual in Female Perversions didn't hurt (though it did nothing for the crazed bisexual stereotype). And even though I nodded off in every other scene of the movie, I really loved her sociopathic angel in Constantine. Nobody plays deranged quite like Swinton. … continue reading

Entertainment Weekly recently issued a list of the 25 best action movies. I skimmed it so fast, I almost sprained something, because very few of the movies appealed to me. I'm just not big on big exploding things. There are exceptions, of course (like The Matrix and the original Star Wars trilogy), but I tend to prefer films in which character development prevails over plot development — or at least doesn't disappear entirely in a flaming fireball or a rain of bullets.

So here's my list of inaction movies. In these films, the fireworks occur inside the characters' heads. Maybe the characters talk a lot; or maybe they think a lot but say very little; or maybe they actually do a lot, but the doing is less important than how they feel about what they've done. Or maybe it's not so much about a lack of action as an abundance of brain activity. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. Nah! Anyway, here they are. (The quintessential inaction movie is, of course, My Dinner With Andre (1981), but I'm not including it here because, hello? No women.)

13. Clockwatchers (1998)
It's right there in the title: In this movie about temporary office workers, all the characters do is watch the clock and plan to prepare to get ready to change their lives. It's like 9 to 5 on quaaludes. But I can't think of four people I'd rather watch do nothing than Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach (she also happens to be my favorite part of Legally Blonde). Don't miss Debra Jo Rupp (the mom from That '70s Show) as the paranoid, pernicious head of personnel.

The trailer even crows, "In a world where nothing ever happens ..." … continue reading