Every Oscar season, the focus falls on the top actor races, how many times Meryl Streep has been nominated, and what people might wear to the ceremony. The award for best documentary of the year is often overlooked; the announcement often coincides with the time during the Oscar party when everyone lines up for the bathroom.

Why is this? Everyone is obsessed with depictions of “real” events through reality television, yet there is little to no interest in seeing real life through a highly-stylized, well-researched, authentic lens. We’ve talked about the life-changing potential of documentaries before, and still bet that you will be able to find something that will touch you, challenge you, or transform you in this year’s Oscars shortlist. Check out the 15 contenders!

Art and Craft

A “cat-and-mouse caper” that follows art forger Mark Landis and the man who is obsessed with exposing him.

The Case Against 8

A behind-the-scenes look at the unlikely group that took Prop 8 all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

Citizen Koch 

A look at how money and the influence of two of the world’s richest men, David and Charles Koch, has changed the Republican party and the country’s political system at large.

CitizenFour

Already awarded the Gotham Independent Film Award and the New York Film Critics Circle Award, this documentary takes a look at Edward Snowden and the leaks that rocked the nation.

Finding Vivian Maier

After a trunk full thousands of negatives is snatched up at auction, the story of a nanny, who was secretly an amazing street photographer, comes to light.

The Internet’s Own Boy

The story of Aaron Swartz, the prodigy who helped found Reddit and whose information access activism ensnared him in a two-year  legal battle that ended with his suicide.

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky was on the verge of creating a Dune adaptation starring Salvador Dali, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger, but it fell apart. This doc takes a look at what could have been.

Keep On Keepin’ On

Shot over three years, this doc follows music legend Clark Terry, who was Quincy Jones’ first teacher, mentor to Miles Davis, and the first African-American staff musician at NBC on The Tonight Show, as he connects and mentors a blind piano prodigy.

The Kill Team

This story is about Specialist Adam Winfield, a 21-year-old infantryman in Afghanistan who tried to alert the military to heinous war crimes his platoon was committing. Nothing is done about the information, his platoon finds out, and things spiral out of control.

Last Days in Vietnam

Directed by Rory Kennedy for American Experience Films/PBS, this doc counts down the last days of the Vietnam War. As the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon and an official evacuation of South Vietnamese is held up in Washington, some Americans take it in their own hands to get their allies and friends to safety, however they can.

Life Itself

Based on his bestselling memoir, this film explores Roger Ebert’s legacy, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning film criticism to his on and off screen relationship with Gene Siskel, and beyond.

The Overnighters

Winner of the Special Jury Award for Intuitive Filmmaking at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and lauded as a modern-day Grapes of Wrath, this movie tells the story of a small town in North Dakota that struggles to deal with the thousands of unemployed newcomers hoping for a better life.

The Salt of the Earth

A visual ode from co-directorJuliano Ribeiro Salgado in honor of his father, photographer Sebastião Salgado.

Tales of the Grim Sleeper

The story of a 25-year-long killing spree in South Central Los Angeles, the man accused of the crimes, and the community that supports him.

Virunga

In this film executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, a small group of park rangers try to protect eastern Congo’s Virunga National Park, home to the last remaining mountain gorillas, from the oil industry and poachers, in the midst of a war.

This morning at the ungodly hour of 5:30am, the Oscar nominations were unveiled (and an heir to Adele Dazeem was born). You would think that, this late in the award season, most of the nominations would be locked in, but, as anyone involved with Selma can now attest, sometimes the unexpected happens and a surprise contender sneaks in and throws everything off. Here’s how this year’s nominations shook out:

Best Actress:

Marion Cotillard (Two Days One Night) Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) Julianne Moore (Still Alice) Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

Now we have another reason to feel sorry for Jennifer Aniston. Nominated for the Golden Globe for her role in Cake, she was expected to get another nod here. This stings even more for those who’ve been binge watching Friends on Netflix recently (me). Amy Adams, who won a Golden Globe for her role in Big Eyes, also landed short. Blame it on Marion Cotillard, who most people thought would split the vote between her two performances in Two Days One Night and The Immigrant. Comment dit-on “Get it, girl” en francais?

Best Actor: 

Steve Carell (Foxcatcher) Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) Michael Keaton (Birdman) Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)

Everyone is talking about the exclusion of David Oyelowo for his role as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, a snub which contributed to the fact that all 20 contenders in the acting categories are white — the first time this has happened since 1995. Pretty egregious, especially in the wake of Ferguson. Some were also expecting Jake Gyllenhaal to get some love (maybe the voters didn’t like what they heard about him in Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well“?).

Best Supporting Actress:

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) Laura Dern (Wild) Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game) Emma Stone (Birdman) Meryl Streep (Into the Woods)

Another year, another Meryl Streep nomination. No surprise there, but some critics are starting to get annoyed that even a meh appearance by Streep has the power to push out worthier performances by other actresses, in this case Rene Russo for Nightcrawler and Jessica Chastain for A Most Violent Year. On the bright side, Laura Dern came out of nowhere to nab her first nomination since 1992. Somewhere out there, she is making this face.

Best Supporting Actor:

Robert Duvall (The Judge) Ethan Hawke (Boyhood) Edward Norton (Birdman) Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher) J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

No real surprises here. Everyone assumes Simmons will win, but our hearts will always belong to Ethan Hawke. Read more on that undying love and everything he taught us about boys.

Best Picture:

American Sniper Birdman Boyhood The Imitation Game The Grand Budapest Hotel Selma The Theory of Everything Whiplash

This year, the Academy only went with eight picks for best picture (they usually go for nine out of the possible ten), which doesn’t exactly send a positive message about the state of the film industry. Gone Girl got a lot of attention in the past few months, yet no sign of it here. More unusual is that Foxcatcher, which was nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor, was deemed not good enough to make this list. Oh, and Selma is considered one of the best pictures of the year, but isn’t worthy of any other nominations except for Best Original Song? Academy voters, when asked what the hell they were thinking: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Best Director:

Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) Richard Linklater (Boyhood) Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher) Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel) Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game)

Everyone was prepared for history to be made in this category, with a nod for Ava DuVernay, who would have been the first African American woman to be nominated for her expert work on Selma. Not so fast, says glacial-paced arc of the moral universe. Sigh.

Best Original Song:

“Everything Is Awesome” (The LEGO Movie)  “Glory” (Selma) “Grateful” (Beyond the Lights)  “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” (Glenn Campbell: I’ll Be Me) “Lost Stars” (Begin Again)

If you were hoping that Lorde would do some weird zombie dancing at the Oscars this year to The Hunger Games‘ “Yellow Flicker Beat”, you can stop now. Lana del Rey won’t be there to listlessly spin in circles either, for “Big Eyes.”

Best Animated Feature:

The Boxtrolls Big Hero 6 How to Train Your Dragon 2 Song of the Sea The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

There is no typo here. The LEGO Movie, which was the frontrunner to win this category, didn’t even get a nomination. The Academy voters are apparently snobs and a half.

Okay, that’s enough outrage for one post. Check out the full list of nominees. And tune in to the Oscars on February 22, 2015.

Dame Angela Lansbury, she of the gentle consonants and quintuple Tony Awards, has landed in San Francisco! The beloved, 89-year-old star of stage, screen and television is starring in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit at the Golden Gate Theater, reprising her award-winning turn as madcap spiritual medium Madam Arcati. For anyone who only knows the monumentally talented Dame (literally and figuratively: in 2014, Queen Elizabeth appointed Lansbury a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) from her 12 seasons as sleuth Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote, here’s a necessary tutorial on the star’s greatest moments throughout the years that should send you right to the box office for a chance to breathe the same air as the Hollywood and Broadway legend.

Young Lansbury

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born to English politician Edgar Lansbury and Irish stage star Moyna Macgil in the Regent’s Park area of London in 1925. When Lansbury was nine, her father died. While still a school girl, she fell in love with her mother’s life onstage and those fleeting images of actors in the new talking movies. In 1940, teenage Lansbury escaped the London Blitz with her mother and siblings to study acting in New York. By the time she was 16, the Lansbury family had made it from the East Coast to Hollywood, where she landed a contract with MGM Studios.

Early Hollywood

Here’s where you should start paying close attention: At 16, Lansbury landed the role of scheming maid Nancy in George Cukor’s suspenseful Gaslight. The film is about a man (Charles Boyer) who psychologically manipulates and tortures his wife (Ingrid Bergman) to the point where she nearly goes mad. It was such a popular film that we now have the term “to gaslight” in the lexicon, meaning “to cause (a person) to doubt his or her sanity through the use of psychological manipulation.”

Lansbury’s nasty little domestic is such a far cry from her current image as Earth’s favorite grandmother that you have to see it, if only to watch her inflict torment on the gorgeous Bergman, a far more experienced actress than the teenage ingénue. Lansbury got her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the role and immediately followed it up with another nomination for her turn as music hall singer Sybill in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Sadly, Hollywood didn’t quite know how to use the versatile young performer. Although she worked steadily through the ’40s and ’50s, she was always the supporting player. But what support: The sexy young blonde (I know! She was a dish!) played good girls, bad girls, frumps, social climbers and everything in between, usually cast years older than her actual age.

For highlights from these years, be sure to check her out as old West saloon hussy Em (who lives to insult Judy Garland’s good girl Susan) in The Harvey Girls (1946), as Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister in National Velvet (1944), singing a dirty ditty (on a swing!) in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) and as a hard-boiled news publisher opposite Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn in State of the Union (1948). Extra credit if you watch her scantily-clad role in Cecil B. DeMille’s Sampson and Delilah (1949), where she meets her spectacular end via a spear to the gut in the falling temple.

Wives, Mothers and General Harpies

By the 1950s, Hollywood’s old studio system was collapsing and dependable contract players like Lansbury were let go and either fled to television or looked for movie roles as free agents. Lansbury did both and frequently found herself cast as wives, mothers and general harpies, until breaking through as the worst mother of all time in John Frankenheimer’s Cold War assassination masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate in 1962.

Seriously, if you think Faye Dunaway’s Mommie Dearest or Mo’Nique’s Mary in Precious were bad parents, Lansbury’s Mrs. Shaw will leave you reaching for the Xanax quicker than you can say “Medea made me do it.” Mrs. Shaw not only taunts her son with gems like “Raymond, why do you always look as though your head was about to come to a point?” (delivered so casually you feel like a casualty), she also brainwashes him into becoming a sleeper Commie assassin with a vague connection to North Korea! How contemporary is that? Lansbury received another Oscar nomination for the role. When better roles didn’t follow, she decamped for the musical theater and old Broadway.

Light the candles!

If you have a gay uncle of a certain age obsessed with Lansbury, I’m about to explain why and it’ll all make sense. Dependable movie character Lansbury rocketed to theater stardom in 1966 in the title role of the musical Mame, where she played the lovable, free-spirited Auntie Mame, who inherits an orphaned nephew and sets out to teach him to “Live! Live! Live!” As Mame, she cakewalked, shimmied, belted and razzle dazzled her way to her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, followed in 1969 by her second as the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World. While doing Mame, Lansbury became close friends with co-star Beatrice Arthur (Yes! That Bea Arthur!) and the duo’s duet “Bosom Buddies” became a showstopper.

In 1974, Lansbury won a third Tony for her portrayal of Mama Rose (another bad mother, but with singing) in Gypsy, where she reinvented the stage mother from hell, originated by Ethel Merman.

But Lansbury was just getting started on the stage. In 1979, she created the role of human pie chef Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and won her fourth Tony for her dangerous, wicked portrayal of the maker of the “worst pies in London.” Thankfully for fans, unlike her three other Tony Award winning roles in musicals, this one exists in its entirety on film.

Bedknobs, the Nile, Unicorns and Wolves

Don’t think during her most fruitful years in the theater that Lansbury was neglecting the world of film. Highlights of these years include her appearance in Death on the Nile as the fabulously named Salome Autobahn (opposite Bette Davis and Maggie Smith, which is a lot of grand white lady in one film) in 1978, her beloved Disney musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks (as a witch who fights off a Nazi invasion while singing) in 1970, as the voice of another witch in The Last Unicorn in 1982 and as a fierce fairy tale grandmother in the adaptation of Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves in 1984. We can safely say that Lansbury conquered both stage and screen by this point, but that wasn’t enough.

“I do believe our guest was…murdered!”

In 1984, Lansbury soared to her greatest pop culture heights when she started her 12 year stint as mystery writer/amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher on the television series Murder, She Wrote. While the show brings up problematic questions now (how many people had to be murdered in Fletcher’s town of Cabot Cove before someone declared a state of emergency? Why did anyone ever invite her to dinner when they knew it meant there would likely be a murder before dessert?), it was a mega-hit and continues to run forever in syndication. With her sensible sweaters, accuracy on a typewriter and great detective skills, Jessica Fletcher won a place in the pop pantheon to the point where whenever I hear the clattering of typewriter keys (not often), I think of Dame Angela.

Tale as old as time

If you still need a reason to appreciate all that is Lansbury, I offer my trump card. In addition to all that’s come before, Lansbury is also your favorite talking teapot. Yes, children of the ’90s, I’m talking about Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. I’m still disappointed when my French press doesn’t offer me sage advice in motherly tones because of this performance, and, whenever I hear her rendition of the title song, I want to waltz with a hairy man in a CGI ballroom.

Now, run, don’t walk, to the stage door of the Golden Gate to pull Dame Angela’s carriage through the streets! Blithe Spirit runs through February 1, 2015.

There are some movies that you can watch a gazillion times and still find something new to laugh at. Bridesmaids is one of these movies (if you disagree: what is wrong with you?!?). Kristen Wiig has, on numerous occasions, said that there will never be a sequel. But it looks like we just got pretty darn close.

Bridesmaids director Paul Feig is set to take on the Ghostbusters reboot. Who he gonna call? Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy, that’s who! Rounding out the all-female cast are hilarious SNL castmembers Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. In case this all seems too good to be true, pinch yourself and then check out this tweet from Feig:

pic.twitter.com/LBtv2YXfv6

— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) January 27, 2015

Dreams really do come true!

In 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote, “The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care,” and we’ve gone about proving this inscrutable wisdom true ever since. Each of us is a patchwork; who we think we are and what we think we want is often much more complicated than we can understand or admit. The heart wants what it wants, we joke to navigate the contradictory and inexplicable within us.

In no small way, our popular culture is how we learn to fall in love. It’s not just the impressionable age when we see John Cusack holding a boombox aloft, or Jordan Catalano moving in slow-mo to Buffalo Tom. Throughout our adult lives we are met, again and again, with images and evidence of what love is or might be.

Is romance more accurately captured by images of girls on The Bachelor hyperventilating on the floor in a bid to win true love or by husband and wife rockstars making out with each other in their music videos? Is it even possible to fully examine romance in all of its myriad forms, the sad, sexy and sublime? The long-term and the fleeting. The depressing and the awesome. How do we admit that our love lives are wild, knotted up, unknowable things? And once we’ve admitted it, how do we go about depicting or explaining the mystery?

Much has been made of the recent vampire film, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, and deservedly so. Nothing in recent memory has illustrated the heart’s desires with such style, or with such a killer soundtrack. This is the love story of a feminist skateboarding vampire known as The Girl, and a sweet James Dean-esque boy named Arash, who dresses up like Dracula, but is not a vampire himself.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” he says when they bump into each other at night on the street, and the audience I was watching with all chuckled nervously at his obliviousness. When discussing the fact that they don’t know each other at all yet, Arash asks The Girl to name the last song she listened to. And who among us has not determined our one true love based on their record collection? The strength of the movie is that each moment offers layers of what it means to connect with one another. The silence, the danger, the intimate spaces are all keenly felt. The Girl and Arash must weigh the risks, the consequences, both of being themselves and of choosing each other.

There is something of a shared sensibility between A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Buffalo ’66, Vincent Gallo’s 1998 film about an ex-con and a ballerina falling love. Both movies have urban landscapes, which serve as desolate backdrops for the flawed lovers who exist there. Prolonged vignettes, often of dancing or singing or silence or staring, create evocative spaces. And it’s in these quiet spaces where we can concentrate on what it means to fall in love and why we even do. We are allowed to fully feel the mystery for awhile, if not to be granted any sort of lasting clarity.

A recent Modern Love column detailed the psychological study by Dr. Aron, which examined whether or not intimacy can be “accelerated” by people asking each other a series of 36 questions. These questions culminate in four minutes of looking into each other’s eyes, something that happens a lot in A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Falling in love has long been considered to be part soul mate destiny, part statistical happenstance. In Dr. Aron’s questions and their seemingly magical ability to draw two people together, both fate and pragmatism co-mingle. Partly we want to know each other’s fears, and partly we want to sit and watch them flit across each other’s faces. Love might be simply creating the space in which to truly see the other person. So much of A Girl… is about this act of looking, what is hidden and revealed within it.

Our vampire girl and non-vampire boy discuss what they do and don’t know about each other late at night beside an oil refinery, where he later gifts her a pair of stolen earrings and pierces her ears so she can wear them. They’ve both done bad things, they admit. But perhaps love is possible, anyway. Dr. Aron’s study suggests that a shared sense of vulnerability plays a role in creating intimacy. Arash’s vulnerability is of course that he might be eaten alive at any moment, but The Girl’s is that she might be discovered for who she really is. These concerns are relatable.

In 40 Days of Dating, a blog project between two friends (which as of January is now a book as well), Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman document their experiment of dating for 40 days. Similar to the love questions experiment, this project plays with the suggestion that love and chemistry are not merely magical things outside of our control, but can be the result of conscious decisions and actions. My favorite part of the “rules” of their project was the daily questionnaire, which they both answered, and seemed to inspire a sense of objectivity and honesty. Though they didn’t end up together, the endeavor was worthwhile in terms of taking the time to examine our own inclinations and ability to create intimacy. In what ways might we take control, look more closely, attempt to understand?

The 40 Days of Dating blog states, “Love is a central theme in humanity across time and cultures. It’s one of the main topics in music, film, novels, poetry, and art. But what exactly is it, and why do we all approach it so differently? How does it affect us so deeply that sane people have gone mad over it?”

These are unanswerable questions, I suppose. It can be fun and illuminating to map and analyze the heart in as many ways as we can dream up, through vampire stories and psychological experiments, through dating our friends, and staring at each other for long periods of time. Though at the end of the staring, the experiments, and the silences, I think no one has gotten much further by way of articulating our desires than Emily Dickinson did those many years ago. The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care.

After what has seemed like a longer than usual awards season, the Oscars are upon us at last (Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 4pm). Even if you’re not into this year’s batch of movies, let’s be real: you will be watching. So the question is where. Whether you’re a TV orphan or just like company, you’re in luck ’cause the Bay Area is serving up a bunch of Oscar parties where you can be star struck for 20 minutes and then complain about how boring everything is for the next 3 hours and 40 minutes.

If you like dressing up and being surrounded by books:

Head over to Novella, which is worth visiting just for the gorgeous display of books. The bar is encouraging people to dress up as their favorite movie or character. If you stop showering right now, you might be able to pull off Reese Witherspoon from Wild. Better yet, dress up as the hiking boot she accidentally dropped and lost forever. Just make sure to thank me for the idea when you win the costume contest.

If you hate commercials and Hollywood in general:

Head over to the Roxie for Up the Oscars Benefit Bash!, which is replacing the ads you would normally ignore in favor of dipping anything and everything in hummus with “recently unearthed shorts, twisted music videos, film clips and banned commercials.” You’re going to really appreciate those artistic respites, when you’re entering the third hour of the telecast and the CEO of the Academy comes out to give a corporate speech.

If you love Neil Patrick Harris and mimosas:

Head over to SoMa StrEat Food Park for Funcheap’s 2015 Oscars Party, where you can walk the red carpet and meet a wax version of NPH, being unveiled for the first time by Madame Tussauds. $4 mimosas are pretty sweet, but free popcorn is sweeter. Make sure to RSVP.

If you like supporting small theaters:

Head over to the Balboa. People love complaining about small theaters going out of business more than they like going to them. Break the cycle!

If you’re a really rich humanitarian:

Head over to the San Francisco Design Center Galleria for the Academy of Friends’ annual Academy Awards Night Gala. Tickets are a steep $250, but you can feel good about the money going towards Bay Area HIV/AIDS services.

If you live in the East Bay and want to stay in the hood:

Head over to the New Parkway for all-you-can-eat finger food. Or Hotel Shattuck Plaza for A Night in Berkeleywood, where Stephane Tonnelier, executive chef of FIVE restaurant, will be preparing your grub.

If you live in Napa or just happen to be wine drunk in the area:

Head over to Robert Mondavi Vineyards for the Napa Valley Academy Awards Telecast Viewing Party, where  over 25 (!) local restaurants will collaborate on the food with wine pairings right from the vineyard.

Know of a good Oscar party? Leave it in the comments!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a gif must be worth at least a million (math!). With the advent of this bite-sized animated wonder, award shows have become less about who won what and more about who made what face. Here are the gifs from last night’s Oscar Awards that will be finding their way into your texts and gchats soon.

Many have tried to make sense of Lady Gaga’s red carpet outfit (most have settled on kitchen cleaner). Instead of puzzling over it, Oprah just got the hell out of there.

Mere seconds into the broadcast, Neil Patrick Harris didn’t waste any time saying what everyone was thinking.

NPH then roped Octavia Spencer into a bit about watching a briefcase all night long. And thus, #FreeOctavia was born.

To make up for screwing up Idina Menzel’s name at last year’s Oscars, John Travolta came out of obscurity to…grab and pet her face. Guess we’ll be seeing him again next year, where he will try to make amends for whatever this was.

Jennifer Lopez somehow topped her Versace palm frond dress, proving that it does in fact get better.

Nicole Kidman responded to all those who say she can’t move her forehead.

Graham Moore, winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, shared his attempted suicide story and encouraged all the cool weirdos out there to stay that way.

Fresh off an In Memoriam segment that included dearly missed greats like Robin Williams, Lauren Bacall and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the theater couldn’t keep it together for Common and John Legend’s performance of and win for Selma‘s “Glory.”

While we’re thinking about Oprah, this is her receiving a Lego Oscar because she deserves it, while Stedman tries to figure out why he’s sitting in Gayle’s seat.

Instead of spending all her airtime thanking this agent and that publicist, Patricia Arquette got real and preached about gender inequality in this country.

Meryl Streep and J. Lo (perfect combo, by the way) were feeling it.

Eddie Redmayne cranked up his adorable dial, making it nearly impossible for Michael Keaton fans to be upset with him.

Lady Gaga performed a medley of songs from The Sound of Music for the movie’s 50th anniversary and actually proved a lot of haters (myself included) wrong. Her prize: Julie Andrews’ priceless approval.

Julianne Moore dodged becoming the female Leonardo DiCaprio and finally got her Oscar. She then proceeded to brag about her young, hot arm candy.

Whether you thought the show was awesome, like Miles Teller…

…or just so-so…

…we’ve reached the end of the line! If you want even more Oscars, check out our live blog. If you’re over it, then I suggest taking Benedict Cumberbatch’s advice. Bye!

Some actors are so ingrained in our popular culture that it is difficult to imagine things carrying on without them. Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Mr. Spock on Star Trek, is one of these actors. He died this morning due to complications from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 83.

Compiling all of his best moments is nearly impossible, but one must start somewhere. Since his work on Star Trek is well-documented, let’s  celebrate his long and prosperous life through some of his other work.

Nimoy’s first major role was in a movie called Kid Monk Baroni, in which he played a street punk turned boxer who needs to overcome his misshaped face through plastic surgery. Unsurprisingly, the movie tanked and Nimoy has said that it was the kind of film that “made unknowns out of celebrities.” But sometimes something bad can travel over the border into good. You be the judge:

Before Star Trek, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy shared the screen in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., playing characters from either side of the Iron Curtain. They were meant to be!

After Star Trek, he joined Mission Impossible. This video compilation captures some of the sleuthing and all of the making out with hot girls the role required:

Columbo kept it together most of the time. Nimoy played a murderous doctor that was able to get Columbo really pissed:

Leonard Nimoy singing about hobbits and Bilbo Baggins. I repeat: Leonard Nimoy singing about hobbits and Bilbo Baggins! This clip is too good to be true, and yet, here it is!

Nimoy memorably got a bottle smashed over his head in Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Is it wrong to root for the “bad guy”?

In 1982, he received an Emmy nomination for playing Morris Meyerson in A Woman Called Golda, opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda Meir in her final role. He was also nominated in 1967, 1968, and 1969 for his work on Star Trek. He never won. Let’s never watch the Emmys again, okay?

Fringe is a show that explores the existence of a parallel universe, so who better to get to star as a mysterious doctor than Leonard Nimoy? Answer: No one is better!

In his later years, Nimoy preferred voice acting. In this cameo from The Big Bang Theory, he voices a Spock doll, making so many geek dreams come true.

I’m not sure how Nimoy ended up in a Bruno Mars music video, but I’m glad it happened. Nimoy flips people off, buys dirty magazines, plays with nunchuks, and roams around town in his robe and long johns. This is what perfection looks like:

This post could go on and on because Nimoy’s career was so vast. Feel free to leave any favorite Nimoy moments I missed in the comments.

The only way to sign off is with Leonard’s last tweet. I advise you to grab a tissue before reading it.

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

Right alongside whiskers on kittens and warm woolen mittens, The Sound of Music is one of my favorite things, and arguably the best musical of all time. What’s not to love? You have Julie Andrews in her prime, Christopher Plummer at his most smoldering, children singing and dancing while wearing curtains, epic Austrian landscapes, automobile-sabotaging nuns, and so on.

Today marks 50 years since the film’s release on March 2, 1965. The best way to celebrate is obviously to leave work right now with a “headache” and go watch it. Second best: learning some little known facts about The Sound of Music!

In the famous opening sequence that features Julie Andrews spinning in the hills, you can tell that there’s a considerable downdraft from the helicopter. So considerable that it kept knocking Julie Andrews over. After over a dozen takes, she finally signaled to the director, Robert Wise, who was overseeing in a nearby tree. He signaled back a thumbs up. They had finally gotten the shot!

Christopher Plummer was not thrilled about being in the movie, referring to it as “The Sound of Mucus” and comparing working with Julie Andrews to “to being hit over the head with a big Valentine’s Day card every day ” (don’t worry; they’re still friends). He resorted to eating and drinking a lot during the shoot to drown his sorrows. This led to his costume needing to be refitted and him being drunk while shooting the “Edelweiss” music festival scene.

When approaching the von Trapp mansion and singing “I Have Confidence,” Julie Andrews accidentally tripped. The director decided that it added an endearing, nervous quality to the song and put it in the movie.

Charmian Carr, who played telegram-obsessed eldest daughter Liesl, injured her ankle during the “16 Going on 17″ sequence. Despite the best efforts of a makeup artist, the bandage could be seen in early versions of the movie. The bandage was digitally removed when the film was remastered for DVD. Another tidbit about Carr is that she was 21 when shooting the movie and had a huge crush on Christopher Plummer, who has said that he felt the same attraction but didn’t act on it. He did however “teach her to drink.”

There was a lot of interest in The Sound of Music from young actors. Some actresses who auditioned or tested for the role of Liesl are Liza Minnelli, Mia Farrow, and Sharon Tate. Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn were considered for the role of Maria, Grace Kelly for the role of the Baroness, and Fred Astaire as Uncle Max. And Julie Andrews almost didn’t do the movie because she didn’t want to be typecast as a nanny, in light of her work on Mary Poppins. Thankfully, she snapped out of it.

In between takes, Julie Andrews sang “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to the children. Mary Poppins hadn’t been released yet, so they assumed she had just made it up.

Kym Karath, the actress playing Gretl, couldn’t swim so Julie Andrews was tasked with reaching her as quickly as possible after all the actors were supposed to fall out of a rowboat. One take went swimmingly (har har), but Andrews and the child fell on different sides of the boat the second time around. Thankfully, Heather Menzies-Urich, the actress who played Louisa, came to the rescue and got vomited on by Karath as a reward.

At the end of the movie when the von Trapps are hiking over the Alps to safety (the real von Trapps just took a train to Italy), the child hanging on Christopher Plummer is not the actress who played Gretl. She had gained a bit of weight during filming and Plummer requested a stunt double.

That’s all, folks! The von Trapp kids thank you for your time! So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

Do you want to build a snowman…again? Disney is hoping your answer is yes. The announcement of a sequel to the absurdly popular film was made at the Disney shareholders meeting this morning. Unlike the direct-to-video sequels of the ’90s (Siri, remind me to rewatch Aladdin: The Return of Jafar), this effort seems to be major, with creators Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee returning for a second visit to Arendelle.

The only official cast announcement so far is Josh Gad, who has already signed on to return as Olaf, the summer-obsessed snowman. But, if Kristen Bell’s latest tweet is any indication (see below), it appears as though the whole gang will be getting back together. So to all those parents out there sick to death of hearing this soundtrack blasting in the car, brace yourselves.

Dreams really do come 2!!! #FROZEN2 #itsofficial pic.twitter.com/qF6qTQlnqi

— Kristen Bell (@IMKristenBell) March 12, 2015

Fans of this blog know that we are huge devotees of the Iranian vampire spaghetti western, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. We’ve drawn a line between it and Emily Dickinson and just straight up obsessed over it. I likened the afterglow of the film to a pesky high-school crush. You can’t stop thinking about it. Your friends get sick of hearing about it. And it’s all thanks to Ana Lily Amirpour, the writer and director behind the film.

She’s currently working on her follow-up, The Bad Batch, which will star Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, and Jason Momoa. The movie is described as “a post-apocalyptic cannibal love story set in a Texas wasteland” and will feature “a wicked techno & western-laced soundtrack.” It sounds amazing enough to be an April Fools joke. But, rest assured, it’s real. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to feast our eyes on that bad boy for a while, so we have two options.

First, our buddies at Film School Shorts just YouTube premiered I Feel Stupid, a 2012 short—written by Amirpour and directed by Bay Area native Milena Pastreich—about how awkward and stupid puberty can be. In addition to being super relatable, the film features this Angela Chase-esque angsty rant on Facebook: “We’re all already fake so Facebook is just kind of like Be even faker! so now real people have to be fake to be real.” So deep. Check out the short in its entirety:

Your second option is to watch A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night again or for the very first time (I’m so jealous of you, if this is the case) at Oakland’s The New Parkway Theater tonight or on April 2, 4-5 or 7-8, 2015. You won’t regret it.

Here’s a Spotify playlist of the soundtrack to get you in the mood:

If your childhood family vacation felt like less comical versions of the National Lampoon’s Vacation series, trust me, you’re in good company. Between the stories I could tell of epic nose bleeds in any location even slightly more elevated than sea level to the time a flock of birds unleashed a wave of bodily fluids that would make that scene in Bridesmaids seem tame, I’ve come to accept my family is just not very good at traveling together. And, while some trips with friends over the years have improved my personal travel juju, I often find I have little time, money, or energy to spend on getting away from it all.

Instead, I find myself more and more often being an armchair traveler—happy to spend a weekend in with a bottle of wine, some popcorn, and a new place to visit through the powers of the internet. So, if you’re like me and can only travel as far as Netflix can take you, here are some different “journeys of a lifetime” (to every continent except Antarctica) that you can take in just a few hours:

The Road Trip

The road trip is the classic American travel story. And these films are the best of them—from the buddy film Thelma and Louise to the hilarious holiday travel nightmare Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. If you’re looking for a more offbeat trip, there’s always To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar about three drag queens (Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo, no less) who travel cross country in an old Cadillac convertible to compete in the “Miss Drag Queen of America Pageant” in Los Angeles. If Westerns are more your speed, it’s hard to go wrong rooting for outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And, of course, there’s the ultimate road trip—the surf documentary The Endless Summer, which just might convince you to spend your own life pursuing the elusive perfect wave until you realize a) you don’t know how to surf and b) Northern California’s water is really, really cold.

The Internal Journey

If you’re in the mood to reflect about the meaning of life, try Into the Wild (the true story of Chris McCandless’ fateful solitary journey to Alaska), Wild (the true story of writer Cheryl Strayed’s solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail) or Tracks (a woman’s 1,700 mile trek across Western Australia with just four camels and a dog). If the thought of even going solo to the grocery store makes you break out in hives, there’s always the opposite story: the journey back to love. Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (the food alone will make you feel surrounded by warmth), How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Under the Tuscan Sun will make even the most cynical viewer feel a little better about the world.

The Stories to Wistfully Tell Later Trip

Of course, not all travel romances can result in happy endings. Two of the most beautiful films ever shot—Out of Africa and The English Patient—are also among some of the most heartbreaking.

The Epic Adventure

Forget romance. When you’re more in the mood for explosions, great world scenery, and witty one-liners, there’s nothing wrong with traveling with James Bond (any film will do, although Pierce Brosnan is still my personal favorite), Indiana Jones or Crocodile Dundee. Hats, knives and whips are optional for viewers, but martinis (shaken, not stirred) are mandatory.

The This Won’t End Well Trip

I save these next films—The Talented Mr. Ripley, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Italian Job—for my bad days, when everything is going wrong and I need reassurance that someone else has it far worse off than I do. Of course, all of these films feature gorgeous locales (and even hotter actors) that might make you jealous, but then there’s also the fact that at least one person ends up dead.

The Fantasy Trip

If traveling to another country doesn’t seem like enough of an adventure, you can always visit a whole other time, world, or reality. The animated film Up about a trip to Paradise Falls in South America might leave you cheering, while The Lord of the Rings trilogy will have you googling prices for real trips to Middle-Earth (a.k.a. New Zealand) and Midnight in Paris will almost have you wishing for insomnia.

The Whole New World Trip

Want to feel like your time on the couch is educational? Learn new things about other cultures with these Oscar-winning films Lawrence of Arabia (based on Lawrence’s experiences during World War I), Doctor Zhivago (based on the classic Russian novel by Boris Pasternak), The Last Emperor (the first Western film shot in the Forbidden City), and Lost in Translation (featuring the bright lights of Tokyo through a sad Sofia Coppola filter).

The Classic Holiday

There’s a reason why these next films are classics. 50 years later, people are still visiting the scenes in Salzburg from The Sound of Music, while Audrey Hepburn fans wish they were the ones being led around Rome by reporter Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) in Roman Holiday. Of course, for the more adventurous viewers, there’s the thrill of a ride on a rickety old riverboat manned by Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen or traveling by hot air balloon in the 1956 version of Around the World in 80 Days.

The Staycation

But, of course, as Californians, there’s sometimes not as much incentive to travel because we live in the one of the most beautiful places on Earth! Need a reminder of why so many millions travel to our golden state each year? There’s always Sideways, a film about a middle-aged slob who happens to love wine (yes, I realize it’s no Napa, but Santa Barbara is gorgeous too) that might remind you that, despite your love of travel, there’s nothing quite like the views of home sweet home.

By Rachel Noelle Wood

Superhero movies have grown up. Gone is the campy strangness of the ’90s and the adolescent angst of the 2000s. The recent Marvel superhero movies have managed to find a smart combination of action, complexity, adventure, self-awareness and wit.

Their latest offering—The Avengers: Age of Ultron—comes to theaters this Thursday and is set to be the blockbuster of the year. So if you haven’t been on board before, now’s your chance! Wondering where to start now that there are 10 interconnected movies in the Marvel universe?

Here’s what’s worth watching:

Marvel’s The Avengers (2012)

If you only watch one movie to prep, it should be the first Avengers film. (But you should obviously consider watching the other movies on this list as well.) It’s the first movie to bring all of the Avengers together and is directed by master storyteller Joss Whedon, which means that the story has a perfect combo of complexity, heart and wit, and it will surprise you at least once.

If you’re still on the fence, this clip should convince you (unless you hate everything good):

     Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Another essential. Over the course of the preceding movies, Marvel carefully builds a world, and then, in this movie, COMPLETELY TEARS IT DOWN. A surprise turn of events will leave you gasping in shock.

The Winter Soldier dives unexpectedly into the darker implications of everything set up in the first Avengers. I don’t want to spoil anything, but this is the superhero movie that our modern era deserves, a movie which tangles itself in questions of government surveillance and freedom vs. privacy.

Also, there’s intense homoerotic subtext. Try to finish this movie thinking that Captain America is straight. I dare you. There is amazing chemistry between Captain America and Falcon, as witnessed in their lingering, flirtatious glances in this clip:

Other reasons to check this one out: Samuel Jackson is in it, there’s a car chase that is simultaneously the funniest and most heart-stopping scene of its kind, and this elevator fight scene:

The Solo Films

Most of the other Marvel offerings are solo films, usually origin stories or character studies. They add nuance and depth to the ensemble Avenger films, but aren’t completely necessary to understanding the movies. Here’s a quick guide:

The Thor Series

The Thor movies are solid, fun action flicks, and they are actually my favorite of the solo movies. They aren’t afraid to make fun of Thor, and that keeps them fresh and surprisingly funny. Also, all of the movies explore the relationship Thor has with his sometimes villainous brother Loki, a relationship that is infuriating, complex, violent and tender. 

Thor (2011):

The first Thor movie is a great prequel to The Avengers.

If you want to get deep with it, its kind of like a retelling of the events leading up to the second Iraq war. A cocky young ruler decides to end the stalemate his father brokered with a rival country by preemptively attacking it. Only in this retelling, George W. has the universe’s most amazing abs, and he is banished by his father to Earth, where he has to deal with the consequences of his arrogant jingoism.

A sample of the humor that makes these movies great:

Thor 2: Dark World (2013)

As the title suggests, this one is darker in tone, although it still manages to put in some humor. This is the third movie with Thor and his brother Loki. They’ve seen many battles, some against each other, some on the same side. Their ability to simultaneously hate and care for each other makes them one of the most interesting sibling relationships ever portrayed onscreen. They are also the subjects of quite a lot of slash fiction which imagines them as lovers (just sayin’).

I think it’s also important to mention (and I say this as a card-carrying lesbian) that Chris Hemsworth’s abs deserve their own film.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

None of these guys will be in Avengers 2, but they will show up in later movies. The movie has an amazing ’70s soundtrack, some great characters, and features the best dance scenes in Marvel movie history. See for yourself:

That said, I have major beef with Guardians.

The plot resolution was weak and the romance lacked chemistry and didn’t really make sense.  It went something like this:

Him: I use women and don’t care about anyone but myself.

Her: I have no time for love and I dislike you.

Him: Now that we’ve spent like 20 minutes together, I love you.

Her: I love you too.

Me: 

I was bummed out by the sexism in the movie. Early on, women are props to establish that the main character is cool. (He beds women and then forgets about them. Neat!)

Then, despite the fact that he is an averagely-powered bandit, when he encounters an intergalactically-known elite assassin, he outmatches her. She obviously becomes his love interest by virtue of being someone who doesn’t like him.

Also, there’s the cliche inspirational speech by Chris Pratt, a.k.a. the guy who is now the leader of the group by virtue of being a white human male. Sigh.

But Guardians isn’t a complete loss. It doesn’t matter that the two human(ish) leads are meh because the breakout stars of this film are Groot, a kind-hearted, barely-verbal warrior tree, and Rocket, a crass, hyperactive, genetically-modified raccoon. Their chemistry is out of this world (zing!), but this isn’t some Disney stuff. They are funny, rude, well developed, and kick ass. Even with the problems listed above, they make this movie worthwhile.

Black Widow

HA! Did you think you lived in a world where females can carry an action movie? Oh wait, you do live in that world. Just look at Hunger Games or Divergent. Somehow, the producers at Marvel Studios have their heads too far up their you-know-whats to realize that female superheroes sell. So no Black Widow movies for you. But Iron Man gets three movies…

Black Widow is in the Avengers movies and she plays a big role in Captain America: Winter Soldier, so if you want more of her, that’s your best bet. She also plays a supporting role in Iron Man 2, if you are absolutely desperate for a fix.

Maybe someday we’ll get a whole movie.

Iron Man

Iron Man is like if that mansplaining Libertarian from class was actually as witty as he imagined he was (but was still a jerk) and he also got to punch stuff in a robot suit.

I’m going to be real with you and say that I’m not that into these movies, which I understand is a borderline treasonous statement, since these are the most successful of the solo films. But there it is.

Iron Man (2008)

Standard origin story. Terrible facial hair.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Classic insufferable Tony Stark. Our first introduction to Black Widow. Some cool fight scenes.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

The most relevant to the new Avengers movie. It’s also the most interesting of the three because of the cracks in Tony’s glossy persona.

Captain America

We’ve already established that Winter Soldier is a must-see. But Captain America also has an origins movie.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

This is a quiet, thoughtful origin story, nostalgic for WWII, while also being somewhat aware of the complex forces of a war machine.

Watch it if you love the 1940s or if you want to see more evidence that Captain America is a closeted gay. Never has a superhero been more reluctant to kiss women. How I wish Marvel would commit to it and let him come out already! It would be so powerful and subversive. Until then…

The Hulk (2008)

The origin movie is out of date and occurs before Mark Ruffalo took on the role. So, full disclosure: I didn’t watch it.

_____

Now you have the tools to dive into the Marvel universe! Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out April 30th.  See you at the theater!

The cultural debate over having kids vs. not having kids continues strong, with impassioned think pieces, statistics and the word “selfish” bandied about in both directions (even the Pope has weighed in!). I used to read these articles with some interest, as if they might hold answers for my own profound ambivalence on the matter, but I do so less these days. It turns out, of course, the answer isn’t there, and the whole discussion begins to feel a little bit noisy after a while. It’s all more personal than this giant public display.

There are a lot of complicated decisions in our lives, ones that take a really long time to make and matter a great deal. Then there are the narratives spinning around us as we do. This happens in a very particular sort of way for women, with a lot of judgement and rules. Our real life decisions and roles are complicated and full of paradox and our popular culture ought to reflect that, rather than simplify or dictate.

The photographer Sally Mann’s recent essay in The New York Times got me thinking about all the rules women must follow, both those shouted loudly from the rooftops and those sneakily, silently believed in the darkest parts of our hearts. We believe mothers embody certain characteristics or they ought to. They are either meant to be earth mamas knitting booties on a loom or harried soccer moms in ads for laundry detergent. They are barren witches or asexual caretakers with no desires of their own. They take naturally to the role of mother as they should or they are stricken by disconnect and a failure of their biology and femininity.

In Mann’s essay, she eloquently, and somewhat defensively, discusses being both an artist and a mother, how the critiques of the former intersected with those of the latter. She famously photographed her young children on their Virginia farm, which caused some serious hoopla over what some deemed the indecent and pornographic quality of the images. Mann’s essay describes the controversy with insight and clarity for the most part, but the claims of those branding her a bad mother clearly rile her. And we do seem particularly ready, as a collective, to label mothers one thing or another, too much of this or not enough of that.

Despite its soapy ridiculousness, the country soap Nashville sometimes reflects some surprisingly accurate versions of ourselves, albeit in the guise of country music stars. A recent storyline has former country starlet Juliette Barnes struggling with a postpartum yearning for country music fame, rooftop concerts, and elevator sex, instead of longing for mother-daughter bonding and bliss with her new baby. The scenes where the baby cries, and Juliette’s face gets all cold, and she wants to go to a party instead sort of give me a wonderful thrill. And not because I’m rooting for the darkness, but because I think the darkness needs to be illuminated a little bit more.

I hope this is the only place on the internet where Nashville and The  Babadook are uttered in the same sentence, but there’s an important thread connecting them. The Babadook inspired Anthony Lane of The New Yorker to declare, “Let a law be passed, requiring all horror films to be made by female directors.” The Babadook is an entirely discomfiting look at motherhood. It examines the all-consuming nature of grief, the sometimes totally annoying demands of a child, and how a mother’s identity fits into those heavy things, exploring whether she will even survive. All of this leads to an admission: being a mother is really, really hard sometimes. As with a lot we don’t readily admit, it seems that just saying this out loud is a great place to start.

Personal essays often seem to be where the complexities of motherhood begin to get the attention they deserve, where some of the tropes break down and make room for more interesting details. Ayelet Waldman’s controversial essay from 10 years ago is a good example, in which she states that she loves her husband more than her children, and subsequently caused the world to freak out. I appreciate her willingness to thoughtfully explore an unpopular point of view and her reminder that there are countless experiences of love and motherhood. She writes:

“And if my children resent having been moons rather than the sun? If they berate me for not having loved them enough? If they call me a bad mother?

I will tell them that I wish for them a love like I have for their father. I will tell them that they are my children, and they deserve both to love and be loved like that. I will tell them to settle for nothing less than what they saw when they looked at me, looking at him.”

There is also the amazing Megan Daum, whose essay on social work, miscarriages, and the decision to be a mother (or not) is one of the most interesting things I’ve read in a long time, about any subject. Much like Waldman’s piece, I felt grateful and reassured by the voice of a woman so truly and specifically sharing her individual experience.

Ditto Maggie Nelson’s essay on childbirth, which mixes transcendence and death in equal measure. She considers the idea of childbirth as a way to feel a certain closeness with death. At first glance, it might seem like a morbid notion, but I don’t think it is. We are born and we will die. It makes sense that a woman deeply engaged in the act of giving birth would be profoundly, physiologically reminded of the counter-pose.

My own mom once told me that, when I was first born, she cried because she realized that someday I would die. Who among us might know that in their bones more than our mothers? It isn’t sweet or sentimental, it isn’t an ad for laundry detergent, or a lifestyle blog with a handmade bassinet, or a pink glittered card to send on one day of the year. It’s far darker, deeper, and more profound than all that. It’s much more about love. We should all be willing to tell these stories, and we should all want to listen.

Mothers’ Day is right around the corner, a day about finally remembering to return your mom’s phone calls and crafting bad macaroni art that expresses your appreciation for her. It’s also a day to remember those other women that helped mold you into the dazzling creature you have become. No, I’m not talking about your first grade teacher or your great grandmother (although I’m sure they’re really spectacular women); I’m talking about those fictional moms that made an impact through television or movies, the ones that you sometimes wished were your mom and the ones that made you thankful for your own.

Here are the most frightening and most beloved fictional mothers in the history of forever:

THE FRIGHTENING

Joan Crawford: Mommie Dearest

Joan Crawford isn’t technically a fictional character, but there is some dispute over how accurate her daughter’s depiction of her is so I say it counts (also, why would we forgo any opportunity to talk about Joan Crawford?). So we all know that Joan is not a huge fan of wire hangers (who is really?), but that’s the least of it. Crawford also ties her son to his bed, says “I’d rather you go bald to school than looking like a tramp!” while cutting off her daughter’s hair, forces her daughter to stay at the dinner table overnight until she finishes her undercooked steak, says “YOU LOVE TO MAKE ME HIT YOU!” while slapping her daughter in front of a reporter, and then leaves them both out of her will. Way harsh, Tai.

Margaret White: Carrie

Some teens lock themselves in their rooms and write bad poetry about how absolutely horrible their mother is for grounding them or taking away phone privileges or whatever. These whiners obviously haven’t seen Carrie, a movie that makes most mothers look as gentle as Dumbo’s mom. Margaret White has a lot of opinions on what is suitable behavior for her daughter, Carrie. Let’s go over some of them: she should never wear red (that’s for hell-bound whores), she should only refer to her breasts as “dirty pillows,” she should think of pimples as “the Lord’s way of chastising you,” she should pray and ask forgiveness for her sinful period, she should be cool with getting tea thrown in her face, and she should heed the mantra: “They’re all going to laugh at you!” It’s enough to make anyone become a pyromaniac murderer!

Mary Jones: Precious

While there’s a degree of campy comedy to Joan Crawford and Margaret White, there’s nothing funny about Mary Jones (except maybe this genius creation). Not only does she facilitate her daughter’s sexual abuse, Mary also mentally abuses her and tries to drop a television on her head. The only capable person to negotiate a train wreck like this is a social worker played by Mariah Carey.

Betty Draper: Mad Men

Remember that time when you were a real brat during your puberty era? Well, Betty Draper seems to have gotten stuck there. She’s petulant, self-involved and never satisfied, all characteristics that keep her from being a good mother. Like when Sally showed up wearing a plastic dry cleaning bag over her head and Betty warned that the clothes better not be in a pile somewhere. Or when she told Bobby to go bang his head against a wall after he said he was bored. Or when she dragged Sally into a closet and locked her inside (“You’re hurting me!” “Good!”). You get the picture.

THE BELOVED

Clair Huxtable: The Cosby Show

Before Beyonce had the trademark on being perfect, it was all Clair Huxtable, a tough, elegant lawyer and mother of five children. While her husband believes he holds the power in the household, it’s usually Clair who gets to the bottom of things with a lecture about why you can’t just run off to Baltimore without permission or a perfect lesson on feminism (if you only click on one link for the rest of your life, let it be this one).

Molly Weasley: Harry Potter

The epitome of a mother hen, Molly Weasley is an encouraging, doting mother, who loves to make everyone feel at ease, despite, you know, the world possibly ending and everyone dropping dead and all of that jazz. But that doesn’t mean she’s just a domestic goddess; she will kill your ass if you threaten one of her children (see animated gif above).

Lorelai Gilmore: Gilmore Girls

Best fictional mom? Duh. Best fictional TV character ever? Quite possibly! Lorelai Gilmore is an impressive mom for more reasons than I can get into at the moment, but here are a few:

• named her daughter after herself because a. men do it all the time and b. why not?
• left a life of privilege with a baby in tow at the age of 16 and worked her way up from a maid at an inn to running the joint.
• put aside her pride and made a deal with her estranged parents to send her daughter to a good prep school.
• provided a sanctuary away from a scary religious Korean mother for her daughter’s best friend.
• sang “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Middler instead of getting upset after finding out her underage daughter attended a kegger and was the cause of severe property damage.
• did not kill her daughter when she dropped out of college and stole a boat.

But the best way to sum up the greatness of Lorelai Gilmore (apart from rewatching the entire series every year which I totally do) is through her daughter’s valedictorian speech (grab a tissue!):

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

Queen Mother: Alien

Take Molly Weasley’s protective vibe and multiply it by 7000 (plus buckets of slime saliva) and you get the Queen Mother from Alien. Sure, she’s frightening and monstrous and mutilates everyone who crosses her path, but she has her reasons! They pose a risk to her babies and she is not having any of that. No one said being maternal was always pretty.

Lucille Bluth: Arrested Development

Sure, she has a pill problem and drinks before most people wake up in the morning and is real about not particularly liking some of her children, but somehow all of that doesn’t keep us from falling in love with Lucille every time she’s on screen. Maybe she’s not one to help you with your geometry homework or pack you a healthy, well-balanced lunch, but you should really be doing that for yourself anyway. Cheers and winks to this wonderful woman!

And there you have it, ladies and gentleman! Which fictional moms would make your list? And when are you going to call your mom? (Answer: right now).

A version of this story was originally published in 2013.

The trailer for Jem and the Holograms has landed. And it’ll leave you wishing air control hadn’t given it permission. The only time I wasn’t cringing, while watching my childhood being ravaged, was when Molly Ringwald unexpectedly showed up and I briefly thought Oh, hey, Molly! before going back to making this face.

I get that this is a reboot and that films of this nature often deviate from the source material to stay current, but there’s something about this that feels hollow and uninspired. The storyline is so generic that it could have been about anyone. Why get Jem and all the nostalgia that comes along with her involved? Why rankle everyone born in the late ’70s/early ’80s?

Perhaps the reason this movie doesn’t seem to have the same feminist spark as the cartoon is that everyone working on it is a dude. Jem and the Holograms creator Christy Marx wasn’t asked to consult on the film, let alone write for it, despite the majority of Jem’s world being a product of her brain. Here’s what she had to say about this whole thing on  her Facebook page:

“I don’t think I can hide that I’m deeply unhappy about being shut out of the project. That no one in the entertainment arm of Hasbro wanted to talk to me, have me write for it, or at the very least consult on it. I wouldn’t be human if that failed to bother me.

My other unhappy observation is that I see two male producers, a male director and a male writer. Where is the female voice? Where is the female perspective? Where are the women?

Now, as far as not bringing me on-board, that’s the reality of franchise IPs. It’s their property, they can do whatever they want with it, and they have no obligations whatsoever to me. Was it a smart decision? You decide.”

People (a.k.a. Twitter) have decided…that this movie is a piece of *insert smiling poop swirl emoji here*. Take it away, William Shatner!

Yeah. What they said.

Sony is remaking The Craft.

Be right back, gotta work some witchcraft to stop this from happening.

I bind you, Sony, from doing harm, harm against other people and harm against yourself.

Okay, while we wait for that spell to kick in, let’s start with the obvious question for those responsible:

At this point, Hollywood’s unoriginality isn’t exactly surprising. Remember when they wanted to ruin Reality Bites and 10 Things I Hate About You? Or how about when they sucked all the sci-fi feminist goodness from Jem and the Holograms?

On one level, it’s nice that people in positions of power are acknowledging cult classics that didn’t get the respect they deserved upon initial release. Looking to the past for inspiration on what kind of stories resonate is an understandable move. By all means, take the idea of four bad ass teen witches gaining agency and dealing with all the date rapists, racist bullies and abusive stepfathers in their lives. But think of your own characters and circumstances. Use a different title. Come up with something new.

The argument that movie execs just want to bring films like The Craft to new generations is not good enough, seeing as those who missed it could just watch the original. They don’t even have to figure out how a VHS tape works; last time I checked, it was streaming on Netflix.

The one silver lining is that this reboot is set to be written and directed by Leigh Janiak, an up-and-coming horror filmmaker. Having a woman tell the story of other women shouldn’t be so revolutionary, yet Hollywood rarely allows this to happen. A study conducted by the University of Southern California found that a mere 1.9 percent of the top-grossing 100 films from 2013 and 2014 were directed by women.

So yes, it’s great that this reboot will benefit from the experience of a woman who probably is a big fan of the original herself. But what would be even greater is if Sony gave her the same amount of money to write and direct her own story. How are today’s teens supposed to have cult classics of their own 20 years from now, when everything they’re offered is a regurgitation?

That spell I cast earlier isn’t working, so this might call for a bigger appeal.

Hail Manon, serpent of old, ruler of the deep. I invoke thee to convince Hollywood to invest in new narratives from all kinds of people (even those with ovaries) and to stop pillaging our childhoods to make a quick buck. Amen.

Living in the Bay Area, we are used to weather shifting sporadically between cool windy days pinching at our cheeks and unexpectedly sunny stretches that have everyone shedding layers. Any time a heat wave descends on San Francisco, I can predictably be heard grumbling about it and retreating inside to look at pictures of Scandinavian countries in wintertime.

When weather has you down, a little bit of escapism with movies can help. At least, that’s what works for me, which is why I’ve made this list to share. In an effort to mix things up a bit, I include not just movies I love that have great scenery, but also those that capture the feeling of a particular season in mood and plot.

SPRING

Enchanted April

Filmed in Portofino, Italy,  Enchanted April is a perfect armchair vacation set in the 1920s. Four women with distinct life situations come together to escape the rainy gloom of England and share a medieval chateau overgrown with wisteria. Personalities clash a bit at first, but the beauty of the coast does its work, as each guest finds herself confronted by memories and thoughts left unexamined. As much as the film is a lovely postcard of the perfect spring in Europe, it is also a poignant look at the challenges faced by women who tried to step outside their expected social roles of the time.

Cold Comfort Farm

In this film adaptation, Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale) is a recently orphaned young writer of clunky prose who moves to Cold Comfort Farm, a gloomy estate belonging to her relatives, the Starkadders. A city slicker who thinks she knows best, Flora decides to tidy things up at the Farm, particularly when it comes to its residents. Set against the backdrop of dewy pastures and rolling hillsides of East Sussex, the movie could work for spring or fall, but the spirit of it makes it vernal for me. The cast includes Ian McKellen, as the hellfire-obsessed preacher Amos Starkadder, and Stephen Fry and Ab-Fab‘s Joanna Lumley in small but comical roles.

A Little Romance

While abroad, a 13-year-old American girl meets a Hollywood-obsessed French boy, and they go on to evade adult supervision to the best of their ability, frolicking around Paris and Venice. This is Diane Lane’s film debut in a charming romp about first love. It’s a bit saccharine, but sometimes a lighthearted movie about precocious teenagers is just the ticket. And the scenic locations of the baroque Château de Vaux le Vicomte, the green city squares of Paris, and the canals in Venice really don’t hurt.

My Neighbor Totoro

With Miyazaki’s animated movies, you could go in any direction and find beautiful scenery and vibrant colors, even if the plot might be sad at times. Totoro, the story of two young sisters and the forest spirits who provide a distraction and help the girls cope with the fact that their mother is sick in the hospital, is quintessential viewing. I dare you not to wish every bus was a Catbus, after you watch this film.
 

SUMMER

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Peter Weir’s 1975 cult classic is like a pretty but slightly ominous dream you have when you fall asleep outside in the grass on a hot day and wake up feeling headachy and a little bit confused. Taking place in 1900 in Victoria, Australia, it’s the story of what happens when several teenage girls go missing, while at a St. Valentine’s Day picnic with their school mistresses. Their disappearance mistifies the community and makes for unsettling but beautiful viewing. Don’t go in expecting resolution; the story is as elusive as the memory of that dream you just woke from.

The Station Agent

Before he was a Lannister, Peter Dinklage was Finbar McBride, an introverted man very interested in trains and absolutely not interested in other human beings, mostly because they can be real jerks. When Fin moves into an old train depot he has inherited, he becomes reluctant friends with a chatty food truck driver (Bobby Cannavale) and a lonely, somewhat scatterbrained artist (Patricia Clarkson), both looking for a way to connect with someone. They drink, have awkward conversations, sit in the sun and watch trains pass by, and it all makes for an understated, lovely film.

Mr. Hulot’s Holiday

Although Jacques Tati’s film is black and white, it captures the feeling of a summer vacation perfectly, with its seaside beach and stripy tents, a lazy dog that likes to lie in the middle of a hot dusty street, and a rambling cast of sunbathing characters. Tati’s Mr. Hulot makes a bit of a mess of things, which becomes the character’s stock-in-trade, and the movie doesn’t have a particular plot and very little dialogue. The best way to watch Tati’s parody of the vacationing French is to simply give in to the sunny languor without trying to figure out why anyone does anything.

Chungking Express

Wong Kar-wai’s story, told in two parts, takes place on sweltering days and nights in the bustling Lan Kwai Fong neighborhood in Hong Kong. Both segments tie together nicely, but my favorite is the second part, with Faye Wong as a snack bar worker obsessed with The Mamas & The Papas’ “California Dreamin”.

FALL

Gosford Park

Before Downton, Julian Fellowes teamed up with director Robert Altman to make Gosford Park, a star-studded murder mystery set in the 1930s during a hunting party. You’ve got the same Upstairs, Downstairs type of characters, the landed gentry and the household staff, as well some wonderful tweedy outfits and rolling fog. While much of the film takes place indoors, what’s more perfect for that fall feeling than a little bit of intrigue?

The Last September

The Last September, meanwhile, takes place in the midst of the Irish War of Independence. The film is sensationally beautiful, awash in rich tints signature to cinematographer Sławomir Idziak. It’s not, however, light viewing; there is violence and political conflict, and underneath every perfectly composed shot is a sense of foreboding and unease.

Hedgehog in the Fog

This is a piece of my childhood. Yuriy Norshteyn’s short animated film is about a little hedgehog, who goes to visit his friend the Bear for a cup of tea and some stargazing, only to get lost in thick fog on the way there. There’s a giant rude owl, gently falling leaves and a mysterious white horse. The link above has the full cartoon.

Eyes of Laura Mars

Eyes of Laura Mars stars Faye Dunaway as a fashion photographer who begins seeing a serial killer’s murders through her eyes. The setting is New York in the fall, and there are some beautiful shots of the Hudson and autumn foliage, as well as Dunaway’s glamorous outfits—turtlenecks and woolen capes galore.
 

WINTER

Orlando

Sally Potter’s Orlando only has a section that takes place in the winter, but it’s my favorite depiction of winter in a period film. It’s beautiful and cruel: the frozen Thames, Elizabethan nobles ice skating at a winter festival decked out in brocade. This interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s novel stars Tilda Swinton as a eternally young noble Orlando, who experiences lifetimes as both a man and a woman. There are gorgeous costumes, wit, poetry, and lots of different types of scenery and seasons.

Dersu Uzala

Akira Kurosawa had actually been considering making this film since the 1930s, but it wasn’t until his later years that this joint Japanese and Soviet production took place. In the sprawling Siberian wilderness, Russian explorer Captain Arseniev meets an elderly nomad named Dersu Uzala (played by Tuvan actor Maksim Munzuk). Dersu and the Captain may come from different walks of life, but the two men develop a friendship and great respect for each other. The natural landscapes of Russia’s Far East under Kurasawa’s singular direction make for great viewing, especially as a commentary on encroaching modernization.

Let the Right One In

The past few years have been a great time for fresh takes on vampire movies, and this 2008 Swedish horror film sits at the top of the list. In a snowy suburb of Stockholm, a bullied 12-year-old boy named Oskar develops a fierce friendship with Eli, a vampire who appears to be his age. The two find the solace they don’t get at home in each other; Oskar has a fractured family, while Eli’s only companion is an older man who harvests blood for her. The gore in the movie—as should be expected when vampires are concerned—stands out against the stark whiteness of Scandinavian winter in a way that’s almost beautiful.

Groundhog Day

I’m pretty sure this one doesn’t require much explanation, but in case you’ve somehow missed it, Groundhog Day is about a grumpy weatherman (Bill Murray), who is forced to live the same freezing day over and over while in Punxsutawney, PA. At first he gets frustrated, even morbid and self destructive, but eventually he figures out that, to get it right, he just needs to stop being a jerk, have fun and get to know the people around him. Well, OK, he’s still a bit of a jerk, but the movie always manages to make me smile and wish I could make snow angels.

What’s your go-to seasonal movie? Leave it in the comments!

The heartstring-tugging animation wizards over at Pixar are known for slipping winks and visual references to real Bay Area locations into just about every one of their films. It makes sense, since the company’s based in Emeryville, and the little in-jokes — like Oakland ice cream parlor Fentons’ guest appearance in Up — make the movies that much more fun for us locals.

But this time? This time they’re hitting where it hurts: They took a swipe at San Francisco’s foodie culture.

In this clip from Inside Out, which opens June 19 with an all-star cast of voice actors (Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Lewis Black), and which is sure to be delightful as all hell (despite your most valiant attempts to maintain a wall of cynicism and/or disdain for so-called children’s entertainment), a family that has recently moved to San Francisco attempts to grab some pizza. Some normal, average pizza. They are not pleased with what they find.

Watch the clip below. Is it just us, or do a few clues (the absence of tomato sauce, the employee’s appearance, the racks of bread in the background) wink rather pointedly toward our beloved Arizmendi, in particular? Their Emeryville location is, incidentally, literally next door to Pixar studios. Discuss.

The trailer for the very last Hunger Games movie has landed! This is an historic moment and the end of an era so what better way to experience it than with a live blog of the minute and 46 seconds?

0:08 – The first shot is of a wedding. Theme: heaven is a place on earth. It’s been a while since I had the flu and read the books in four days so I’m gonna go with Haymitch (Woody Harrelson). Can you imagine how open the open bar would be at that shindig? RSVP me right up!

0:10 – A brief crowd shot delivers all the feels. You have the dearly departed Philip Seymour Hoffman (*lip tremble*), Miss Congeniality Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) rocking all the accessories, Haymitch with clean hair and Johanna (Jena Malone) without any.

0:11 – That girl with the skull tattoo is using some device. Maybe she’s Instagramming the mystery wedding?#CutesyWeddingHashtagThatIncludesACleverPun

0:12 – Oh, it’s Finnick (Sam Claflin), a.k.a. the hottest guy to brandish a trident since Ariel’s dad. He somehow has two dimples just in case the first one didn’t scream I AM DESIRABLE AND YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ME enough. He’s getting married to a Jessica Chastain clone.

0:14 – Effie approves of their tasteful first kiss (just the right amount of tongue). Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) are bored in the background.

0:17 – The nuptials inspire District 13’s very first honky tonk.

0:20 – Effie pets Katniss’ dominatrix outfit, while wearing a layered weave dress. Katniss looks in the mirror, wishing she were in sweats.

0:24 – Jennifer Lawrence uses her gravely I-just-woke-up-hungover-and-super-thirsty voice to say that President Snow (Donald Sutherland) must pay for what he has done, mainly stinking up the place with his rose smell and bleeding everywhere.

0:29 – Someone tells Katniss that “one way or another, this war is going to come to an end.” Translation: no, you cannot make a Mockingjay Part 3.

0:30 – Katniss watches a speaker, looking as pissed as she did at Finnick’s wedding. Such an ISTP.

0:34 – Katniss smiles! Haymitch touches her knee! I ship this!

0:39 – Philip Seymour Hoffman again. Stop trying to make us cry, Lionsgate!

0:41 – President Snow is wearing gloves indoors surrounded by his white friends, with dark-skinned servants standing in the background. With a name like that, it makes sense that he’s racist.

0:44 – Storm troopers stand on moving vehicles cause they saw that M.I.A. video, where she’s straight up chilling on the side of a BMW, filing her nails, and thought Hey, I wanna do that!

0:45 – Katniss dances with her little sister, Prim (Willow Shields). It’s really cute, but would be cuter if her cat was in on this. If Romy and Michele have taught us anything, it’s that three is not the loneliest number, but actually the perfect formula for a killer dance sequence.

0:49 – A pissed off Charlize Theron in Monster looking lady flares her nostrils.

0:52 – A rocket launcher blows up an important looking building. Have we learned nothing from the Library of Alexandria? This is why we can’t have nice things or historical records.

0:59 – Katniss walks to the Capitol. I don’t think they get America’s Next Top Model in Panem because her walk needs a lot of work. Where’s the side tooch?

1:04 – Oh, no. Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is crying. Don’t cry, Peeta. I was confused when I said I was Team Gale after reading the first book. And I shouldn’t have said that I ship Haymitch and Katniss before. It was always you.

1:06 – Katniss is nuzzling into Peeta’s neck. He isn’t trying to murder her anymore! Hurray!

1:10 – Young rebels throw up their Mockingjay gang sign and Katniss is pleased with her brand. Take that, goop.com!

1:11 – An armored car explodes and flips over. They were probably just trying to merge onto the freeway. Driving is really hard! Just ask Dionne.

1:14 – Katniss rocks an emerald hooded cape. Yaaas, Katniss, you look so good. Oh my god, yaaas.

1:16 – Gale looks like he’s about to do something wrong, like break Miley Cyrus’ heart again.

1:17 – More explosions because that’s the way to American movie-goers’ hearts.

1:18 – President Snow smells.

1:21 – Some girl gets stuck on a land mine or finds a hidden hatch or something?

1:23 – Everyone runs from a flood of black liquid. Your move, elevator in The Shining.

1:35 – Finnick smolders and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 76th Hunger Games.”

1:41 – November 20, 2015 appears out of flames. You have nearly 6 months to figure out which Effie wig you’re going to wear.