Two Oscar Front-Runners Get Awesomely Silly As Movie Villains

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Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne probably wish their new movies were coming out after awards season. But they’re both a scream in Seventh Son and Jupiter Ascending.

Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin in Seventh Son

Legendary Pictures/Universal Pictures

Eddie Redmayne as Balem Abrasax in Jupiter Ascending

Warner Bros.

Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore are this year's Oscar favorites for a pair of performances in which they recreate what it's like to be in the grip of devastating diseases. In The Theory of Everything, Redmayne plays the famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking through different stages of his physical deterioration due to ALS, showing impressive control and precision. In Still Alice, Moore portrays a brilliant linguistics professor and mother of three grown children who finds her memory, then her awareness, then her very identity slipping away because of early-onset Alzheimer's.

They're both nuanced, tasteful performances from drama's classiest redheads, which is why there's something especially delightful about seeing the same pair camping things up so spectacularly in a pair of doomed fantasy and sci-fi spectaculars coming out this week. As far as Academy Awards campaigns go, Redmayne and Moore would probably have preferred their respective turns as the villains in Jupiter Ascending and Seventh Son not see the light until after the Oscars. It's not like anyone's been in much of a hurry before — both films arrive in theaters having already been subject to major delays. Jupiter Ascending was pushed from July of last year to February of this one, while Seventh Son was originally slated to open in theaters back in 2013.

But them's the breaks, and this vamping from both Redmayne and Moore is a vivid reminder that, despite what the industry pretends this time of year, Hollywood does not exist entirely on exquisitely rendered suffering, and thank god. Jupiter Ascending is a beautiful, sometimes brilliant mess and Seventh Son's a garbled, nonsensical helping of generic fantasy soup, but Redmayne and Moore are both tremendous fun as the films' villains, cinched into elaborately regal goth outfits and chewing scenery with verve admirably equal to that with which they approach their more serious work.

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What “Parenthood” Taught Us About Mourning And Celebrating Those We've Lost

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In the NBC family drama’s series finale, the Bravermans celebrated the life of their patriarch through baseball and laughter, something my family did last year too. The show perfectly depicted how important it is to find joy in the darkest moments of the grieving process.

NBC / Via nbc.com

It's been a week since Parenthood fans sat down to watch the Bravermans spend their last hour on television doing what they do best: grappling with life's struggles and celebrating its triumphs. While the NBC family drama's series finale was filled with a number of important moments — like Sarah (Lauren Graham) marrying Hank (Ray Romano), Amber (Mae Whitman) settling in with her new baby Zeek, Crosby (Dax Shepard) deciding to keep The Luncheonette open himself, and Max (Max Burkholder) graduating from high school, to name a few — Zeek's (Craig T. Nelson) death was arguably the most resonant of all.

Given his poor health, surgery, and hospital scares throughout the show's sixth and final season, Parenthood fans likely saw it coming, but how the writers would illustrate this end-of-life event remained to be seen until the last 10 minutes of the series. After showing Camille (Bonnie Bedelia) discover Zeek had died while sitting in his chair in their living room, there was no scene depicting an ambulance coming to the house to wheel his body away, there was no scene showing his children and grandchildren receiving the sad news, nor was there a scene of a formal funeral or memorial service in Zeek's honor.

Of course, that doesn't mean those things didn't happen, but the harsh and somber mourning process was not what viewers saw from the Bravermans. Instead, we saw the family members, standing in a circle on a baseball diamond where they spent so much of their time, spilling Zeek's ashes onto center field while Sam Beam and Rhiannon Giddens' cover of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" (Parenthood's theme song) played in the background. After taking turns pouring out Zeek's ashes, the family runs out onto the mound and cheerfully plays a game of baseball, a passion of the Braverman family patriarch, who considered the sport a religion. There's lots of laughter and joy among Bravermans as they each takes their position, go up to bat, and run the bases. For a few moments, you forget that they're playing the game without Zeek because his presence is so strongly felt, and because there is no bitterness in the sweetness of their game.

NBC / Via Netflix

Not only that, but fans watched them pay homage to Zeek's time on Earth by carrying out his very own wishes: Earlier in Season 6, Zeek told Adam what he wanted the family to do in the event he didn't survive his surgery: "If I die, just take my ashes, you scatter them in center field at Marine Park, and you play a game of baseball over me. 'Cause I'm going out on my terms." And the deliberate choice to show the Bravermans celebrating Zeek's life as he wanted and commemorating him by creating new, happy memories is what made the Parenthood finale so satisfying. It was a very honest look at another side of the grieving process that rarely gets depicted, but one that anyone who's lost someone has experienced.

Last year, my Great Uncle Dan died. Since he and his wife Rose never had any children of their own, he was extremely close to his sister's (my grandmother's) kids. My mom and her siblings grew up across the street from Uncle Din Din, as they called him — they ate dinner together every night and went on vacation during the summer, and he never missed a single holiday or birthday. Given the nature of their relationship, he was essentially like a surrogate grandfather to me and my cousins. Uncle Din Din is a part of every one of my childhood memories — we too ate family dinners together and went on vacation during the summer, and he never missed a single holiday or birthday of ours either.

But after a year of struggling with a weak heart, countless hospital visits, and slowly deteriorating in hospice care, Uncle Din Din's 91-year-old body finally failed him in early January. I was making a grilled cheese sandwich in my parents' kitchen and goofing around with my sister in the middle of the night when my Grandpere called to deliver the news — and I had to be the one to wake up my mom to tell her that Din Din was gone.

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A Groundbreaking Coming-Out Story Was Told Entirely In Japanese On "Days Of Our Lives"

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Paul Narita (Christopher Sean), a closeted professional baseball player, came out to his family in a scene spoken entirely in Japanese with English subtitles.

NBC / Sony

The same day that Fresh Off the Boat, the first Asian-American sitcom in 20 years, debuted on ABC, another groundbreaking moment took place on the 50-year-old daytime drama Days of Our Lives.

For months, Christopher Sean has played the role of Paul Narita — a half-Japanese professional baseball player visiting the town of Salem for arm surgery. When it was revealed that Paul was a closeted gay man, and the former love interest of out and married Sonny Kiriakis, he became one of two prominent gay Asian characters on broadcast television. (The other is Oliver Hampton on How to Get Away With Murder, played by Conrad Ricamora, who is only recurring and not a contract cast member like Sean.)

As Paul began an affair with Will Horton, the writer assigned to do a cover story on his return to baseball post-surgery, he made the decision to come out publicly. Knowing that he would be coming out to the entire world, he attempted to get his mother and his grandfather to Salem to come out to them in person. When he was unable to, he made a heartbreaking phone call.

NBC / Sony

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Sony Pictures Chief Amy Pascal Leaving Job In Wake Of Hacking Scandal

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Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal and actor Jonah Hill at the premiere of 22 Jump Street on June 10, 2014

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Amy Pascal, the longtime co-chairman at Sony Pictures, will step down from the job she's held for roughly 15 years to launch her own production company, the studio announced in a release on Thursday.

The decision comes two months after Sony Pictures suffered a massive and unprecedented hack that plunged the studio into a month of embarrassing and damaging stories, especially for Pascal. The ordeal reached a climax of sorts when Sony pulled The Interview from movie theaters after the group that claimed responsibility for the hack issued a threat against theaters showing the movie. The Interview was eventually released in a limited number of theaters, and received a far more lucrative digital release on many VOD platforms — but it could still take years before the film could see any substantial profits for Sony.

The hacking scandal was a true nightmare for Pascal, who faced a level of intense scrutiny — including from the White House — that most studio chiefs never face. In a statement to the press regarding her decision to leave the position, however, Pascal noted that she had been discussing it with her fellow co-chair Michael Lynton "for quite some time," and that, after finalizing Sony's slate for the next two years, "it felt like the right time to transition into this new role."

“I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home,” Pascal said. Her new company, which will focus on film, television, and theater, will be based at Sony's Culver City, California campus.

The studio has not yet made an announcement about who could potentially succeed Pascal.