The Trailer

Our Full Oscar Predictions 2012

Who we think will win

Who Matt wants to win

Who Ellen wants to win

BEST PICTURE

The Artist

The Help

Hugo

The Descendants

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

BEST DIRECTOR

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)

Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)

Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) 

BEST ACTOR

Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

George Clooney (The Descendants)

Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

Gary Oldman (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)

Demian Bichir (A Better Life)

BEST ACTRESS

Viola Davis (The Help)

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)

Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)

Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn)

Jonah Hill (Moneyball)

Nick Nolte (Warrior)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)

Berenice Bejo (The Artist)

Jessica Chastain (The Help)

Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash (The Descendants)

Stan Chervin, Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian (Moneyball)

John Logan (Hugo)

Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)

George Clooney, Grant Heslov (The Ides of March)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris)

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)

Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids)

J.C. Chandor (Margin Call)

Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Artist (Ludovic Bource)

Hugo (Howard Shore)

War Horse (John Williams)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias)

The Adventures of Tintin (John Williams)

The Nominees: Ranked (III)

Ellen / Matt

1. The Descendants / The Descendants
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close / The Artist
3. The Help / Midnight in Paris
4. Midnight in Paris / The Help
5. The Artist / Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
6. Moneyball / Moneyball
7. War Horse / Hugo
8. Hugo / War Horse
9. Tree of Life / Tree of Life

*2010, 2011

Relevant Magazine: Blue Like Jazz

Let me just warn you now, until April 13th, Matt and I will be posting a lot about Blue Like Jazz.  We are so excited for this movie to finally be out and could not be more proud to be a part of it (I'm a small part of it right?).

If you want to keep up with everything about this movie too, check out this site hosted by Relevant Magazine.  They will be updating it constantly so keep checking in!

Another Pilot Season, Another Blog

Photo from here

It seems like every time January and February roll around I'm writing another blog saying how difficult it is to be an actor in LA, especially during pilot season.  I'm not complaining; I love being an actor.  I even (occasionally) love how difficult it is, love feeling like a struggling artist.  (These masochistic thoughts immediately flee when I realize I want a family!)  I'm honestly just happy to have already auditioned for two pilots this year, from writers and networks I respect.  But it's also a huge bummer to get your hopes up about something or go through rounds of callbacks just to hear you didn't get the part.  That you were too tall, too funny, not funny enough, or exactly right for the part but the other guy was friends with the director.

Gavin Polone is a producer (Zombieland, Gilmore Girls) and Ellen just sent me this article he wrote a few days ago.  If you're at all interested in what goes on behind the casting director's door, please click here to read it.  It's an amazingly accurate picture, and it's really encouraging to me to hear such a prominent producer sympathize with the actor during pilot season.

Blue Like Jazz at South by Southwest

Check out the new poster for Blue Like Jazz. And this awesome news that was released today!

Picture Post: Double Date at the Aquarium

Goodbye, Annie Hall

This post is a hard one for me to write.  How emotionally attached can you be to a dog you've only had for a month?  How much can you really love that dog?  Well, as Ellen and I have found out over the past few weeks of heartache, frustration, and exhaustion, the answer is SO much.  As you know, about a month ago we rescued Annie from an animal shelter.  She's as sweet of a dog as I've ever seen, and literally every single thing we wanted in a dog was fulfilled in her.  She matches our lifestyle.  She loves to play but she's also content to just sit on our laps and relax with us.  She even wormed her way into sleeping in our bed, which neither of us wanted but as soon as she crawled under the covers and went straight to sleep, it's hard to say no.  She's loving and calm, and what she wants more than anything in the world is to sleep on your lap and maybe eat a piece of roast chicken.

The problem actually presented itself immediately, but I didn't recognize it.  She was impossible to contain in any crate, cage, or blocked off room.  I bought 3 different pet gates - one almost 4 feet high - and she jumped over all of them.  I bought 2 different crates and she escaped both of them.  I didn't really think much of it, but in hind sight I can see that the problem wasn't her being contained, it was her being away from us.

Since no containment method worked, we decided to simply leave her in the house.  For the first couple times of this, everything went fine.  Then one day we went to lunch with friends and when we came back we were in for one of the biggest scares we've ever had.  We opened the door and immediately saw that everything - lamps, books, wine bottles, keys - had been knocked over and thrown about the apartment.  At first I thought we'd been robbed.  By the door was a huge pile of vomit, and chunks of our door frame had been eaten away.  The really odd thing though was that Annie didn't come running up to us.  We didn't hear her tags jingling.  Everything was way too quiet. We quickly found that she'd also gone to the bathroom in every room, something that's very unlike her, and actually kind of strange seeing how small her stomach and bladder are.  I started rushing around the house, looking under the beds, checking every one to see where she was.  That's when I saw the open window and the broken window screen.

I immediately knew she had fallen out of the window which we had stupidly left open.  We didn't think anything of it because the window is so high up and even when it's open it still has the window screen on it.  We live on the second floor, which I think is about a 40 foot fall.  I called out to Ellen that she had fallen out of the window but was afraid to even go to the window and look down.  I was sure she would be at the bottom, dead.  When I looked I didn't see anything, so I rushed outside and searched the surrounding area.  Nothing.  I was encouraged by this because I knew she hadn't died from the fall, but I felt sure she would have broken legs.

I started running around the neighborhood yelling her name, following the same path on which I take her on walks.  Sure enough, about a block away from our house, I saw her in front of me walking down the sidewalk.  Thankfully no car had hit her and she seemed ok.  I called her name and she turned and waited on me to run to her.  She was covered in mud but seemed able to walk.  I checked all her bones and nothing seemed broken.  I texted Ellen that she was safe and brought her inside.  We bathed her and took her to the vet.  Miraculously she had no internal bleeding and no broken bones.  Essentially, she was totally unharmed.  The vet gave her the name "Annie The Flying Dog."  So then Ellen and I turned to the mystery of what happened while we were gone.

We chalked it up to a loud noise that scared her, causing her to knock over some stuff which then scared her more.  We thought it was a fluke.  Unfortunately, we were wrong.  Over the next week or so, we noticed her attempting to stop us from leaving.  She would block the door when I picked up my keys or she would bite my socks when I tried to put them on.  I had to resort to crating her again if we left, but she howled and banged herself against the bars so hard we were afraid she would injure herself.  It was clear she had separation anxiety, but we still hadn't quite grasped how bad her case was.

We began to feel like we could never leave the apartment without her hurting herself or everything we owned.  Plus, we rent our place so we couldn't allow her to destroy it.  Thankfully I work from home, so I was able to be with Annie almost all the time.  Her separation anxiety was getting worse though, because even if I'd leave her in the apartment for 2 minutes for me to run down and throw a load of laundry in the washer, when I came back she would be whining, panting, or shaking. 

Then about a week ago we were invited to a screening of Tree of Life at The Academy, and we decided to try again leaving her at home while we went to the movie.  We were on edge the entire time.  After the movie we rushed right home to check on Annie.  Our stomachs were in knots.  When we walked in the door we immediately knew things did not go well.  She had eaten more of our door frame and thrown up much more.  She had gone to the bathroom so much that it actually covered a large part of our living room floor.  She had fallen in it and then jumped all over the walls, so our walls were covered in poop.  We had to literally clean every surface in our apartment.  We had to wash chair covers, scrub floors, clean walls... It was a disaster.  And the worst part was walking in in the door and seeing her shaking so violently.  But she became completely calm just minutes after we walked in the door.

It was clear she was in considerable distress when we were gone.  Something had to be done.  Of course over the previous weeks we had read every article and watched every video about separation anxiety imaginable, but the scary thing was each one said the same thing: severe separation anxiety is extremely difficult to rehabilitate and should only be attempted with a certified animal behaviorist.  So I called our vet, got her advice, and then started calling animal behaviorists.

Then we really got depressed.  It turns out there was no way we were going to be able to afford a behaviorist and possibly medication for Annie.  And neither of those options came with a guarantee.  Everything started to seem hopeless, and we became more and more emotional.  We were extremely attached to Annie and loved her very much, but we simply couldn't afford to treat her.  We also couldn't afford to keep her like she was.

So we began the difficult process of looking into no-kill animal shelters or finding another family who could take care of her.  We were told by our vet and behaviorist that having another dog companion would most likely fix Annie's problem, so our goal was to find a family that was either home all the time or had another dog.  I can't even explain adequately how emotionally drained we were at this point.  Ellen would literally cry at the mention of finding Annie a new home, and I felt the need to fix this situation as soon as possible.  I spent the next two days non-stop calling animal sanctuaries and posting ads.  No one seemed to have a place for Annie Hall.

Until a couple of days ago I got an email from someone saying they were interested in meeting her.  We talked back and forth for a while and I explained all of Annie's issues.  She still seemed interested and even felt like her home might be a perfect one for Annie.  She's married and has a 4 year old son, and her father lives with their family full-time.  She would take Annie to work with her, but even when Annie must be home her father is always there.  He doesn't leave the house.  They even have a cat to keep Annie company.  I took Annie to their house yesterday just so everyone could meet.  The husband came home from work to meet her as well.  Their little boy was fascinated by her, and everyone really fell in love with her - just like Ellen and I had done.  Annie even was calm around the cat, who nonchalantly appeared for a moment to check things out, then disappeared again.  They let me know they definitely wanted to adopt Annie, and after checking with their vet to make sure things were on the up and up, we decided this would be Annie's new home.  So this morning I brought Annie there to live full time.

Last night was a hard one, since it was our last night with this dog we've come to love so much over the last month.  It's so hard to make the decision to rescue a dog, find out she's everything you wanted her to be, then discover she has a psychological condition you can't fix and you can no longer keep her.  Even though we love Annie, our home still isn't a good one for her.  But we are resting in the fact that her new home will be great - someone will always be there so she doesn't have to be alone.  And all she needs is a friend around at all times.

"Art" at ABryanPhoto Studio, Feb. 23-25

I am really, really excited to announce that at the end of this month I'm bringing a cast from LA to Birmingham to perform Yasmina Reza's Tony winning play, Art.

We studied this play in college and I fell in love with it and in particular one character.  I've learned that if you want something in your career, you might as well make it for yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you.  So here we are.  I cast two of my best friends in the other roles, we've done our rehearsing out here, and we're bringing the play to my favorite place to see a show in Birmingham - Bryan Johnson's downtown loft/studio space.

Bryan and I have worked together before, on Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years.  It turned out really well, and ever since then we've been saying we need to do another show.  Well, I'd love for you to come see the play.  It's funny, dark, fast-paced, and pretty short - so if you're prone to getting bored, this is the play for you.

Click here for more info.  Click here to purchase tickets. Hope to see you there.