• Pete Hammond can’t let go of this notion that “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” is a Best Picture contender. A bunch of number 10 slots aren’t going to cut it, Pete. [Notes on a Season]
• Adam B. Vary notes the curious absence of Gene Hackman from the silver screen since the 2004 bomb “Welcome to Mooseport.” [Pop Watch]
• Criminally underrated composer Clint Mansell spills a little on his plans for Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” [Little White Lies]
The year of the woman. The year of animation. The year of science-fiction. Depending on who you read (and believe), the final year of the decade has been an awful lot of things.
If you’re with Kris, it’s also the best cinematic year of the last ten. If you’re with an awful lot of others, it’s quite the opposite. I’ll stop short of rewriting the first page of “A Tale of Two Cities,” but suffice to say it’s been different things to different people.
What kind of year has it been for me? I think I’ll need another year to figure that out in detail. But as I compiled the list you’re about to read, I happily concluded that it’s been, at the very least, a good one: the 25 titles gathered here were jotted down with minimal brain-racking, with still more fighting from the sidelines.
None of them are grudging inclusions, either: I sincerely liked most of these titles too much to allow room for popular or critical phenomena that are worthy of respect, but nonetheless didn’t connect with me personally. There was a sufficient range of quality work in 2009 (following a lean 2008) that any film lover could afford to construct his own playlist of future treasures without resorting to consensus.
Before we begin, a note on the construction of the list. In addition to my Top 10, there are 15 honorable mentions here, five of them singled out for extra consideration. Some of you will quibble that I opt to include international or festival releases that have yet to surface in the U.S.
Every year I like to keep track of personal favorites throughout the Academy’s designated categories (plus one of my own addition, Best Ensemble). At the end of the year, my “if I had a ballot” post is the result.
Of course, for the most part, I follow Academy designations here. If something is ruled ineligible, I play along. It’s not that often that something like that is egregious anyway, though the music branch consistently tests my resolve on the matter. In years past I’ve tried to make it an AMPAS/critics’ awards hybrid kind of thing, but this makes it easier.
I know, I know. “Why don’t you just list what you think should be nominated, the rules be damned?” Because then I couldn’t call it “If I had a ballot?” But I guess I’m contradicting myself by adding a category. I don’t know. I’m just trying not to be too lamely definitive or authoritative with something like this, I suppose.
Anyway, I’m also abstaining from offering up a list of foreign language nods. Firstly, I feel it’s been a rather weak year in general there, but I also haven’t made my way fully through the list of submissions either. So I’ll address that another time. The same goes with he doc features, as I’d rather push through more of the eligible titles first.
This year the top 10 is the Best Picture field, obviously, and from there, I toss my two cents into a variety of discussions. Here’s what I came up with…
Jeez, give us some breathing room. Anyway, the American Film Institute has revealed their annual selection of the year’s best U.S. titles, and as usual, it’s a pleasingly diverse, idiosyncratic list.
My heart sings to see Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s marvelous “Sugar” make the cut, at the expense of heavily-hyped titles like “Invictus” and even “Avatar” — Anne Thompson reports the latter got a special citation for technical achievement, though it’s not in the press release.
From an awards-watcher’s perspective, however, the most interesting inclusion here might be “The Messenger,” whose higher-than-expected precursor profile suggests some may be underestimating its Oscar potential.
Those looking for correlation with the Academy’s eventual Top 10 should bear in mind that a foreign title like “An Education” isn’t eligible for inclusion here. Even so, I’d say there are plenty of American titles not included here that are more likely to land Best Picture nods than, say, “The Hangover.”
But that’s the beauty of the list — it’s always a joy to see a set of year-end honors with more on its mind than mere Oscar prognostication. Check out the full Top 10 after the cut.
As the year winds down, and critics and entertainment journalists search for neat blanket tags with which to label the year that was, “the year of animation” is a phrase that is getting increasingly bandied about – some going so far as to declare 2009 the greatest year of all time for animated product. (Certainly, TIME magazine has fed that narrative, by naming a trio of ‘toons the year’s three greatest films.)
It’s up for debate whether such talk is a result of extraordinary across-the-board quality, or sheer numbers. Make no mistake, this year has turned up more visible animated titles, in a broader range of artistic formats, than any in recent memory.
Confirmation of this deluge comes in the Academy’s official listing of 20 titles in the hunt for the Best Animated Feature Oscar – the largest number since the category’s inception in 2001, and one that ensures the first five-strong slate of nominees since 2002.
Of course, 2002, despite the higher-than-usual proportion of contenders, was hardly a banner year for the medium: “Spirited Away” may have taken a well-deserved Oscar, but the amount of filler it had to beat in the process – including such already forgotten snoozes as “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” and “Treasure Planet” – was proof positive that quantity doesn’t equal quality in this particular race.
• The National Board of Review offered the season’s first major precursors, with “Up in the Air” sitting pretty.
• The Independent Spirit Award nominations were topped by “Precious” and, more surprisingly, “The Last Station.”
• Indie award rivals the Gotham Awards, meanwhile, crowned “The Hurt Locker” as the year’s best.
• Fresh off his Spirit nomination, we served up an extended interview with the great Jeff Bridges.
“Coraline” and “Up” both received nominations in eight categories. “The Princess and the Frog” showed up in five while “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” showed up in four.
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (3), “Monsters vs. Aliens” (3), “9” (2), “Astro Boy” (2) and “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (2) brought up the rear with mentions in three and two categories respectively. “Ponyo” also only landed two nods, for music and direction, so that’s probably worth noting.
I’m listing per category, by the way, because it’s weird to me to have two separate “nominations” in fields like character design and production design, one per person. Why not just one for the film with the artists listed as nominees? It makes sense for vocal performance nods, but not really otherwise. Anyway, to be fair, I guess “Coraline” leads the whole field with 10 total nominations, while “Up” has nine. “The Princess and the Frog” has eight, with that in mind.
Anyway, check out the full list of feature nominees after the jump (and the full list of all nominees at the Annie website).
As always, the year’s adapted screenplay race is much more competitive than the original screenplay race. But what’s intriguing to note is that of the anticipated “big four” still to be widely screened, three of them are right in the thick of this discussion.
In the case of “Nine,” there is a chance for Anthony Minghella to receive his second posthumous Oscar nomination in as many years, something I don’t think we’ve seen since James Dean. But sometimes the razzle-dazzle of a movie musical can overshadow what craft there might be on the page, so it’s no slam dunk. Michael Tolkin is co-writer on the script, and even though I’ve seen the film, I’m prohibited from offering my thoughts on the work.
“The Lovely Bones,” meanwhile, is adapted from a beloved novel, looks to feature a more reserved and refined Peter Jackson than we’ve seen in recent years and could see the lovable trio (Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh) back in Oscar’s good graces. We’ll know when we see it.
The Royals and invited British press get their look on the 24th. Harry Knowles has received his typical peek (as Paramount continues to nurture the relationship as if it’s 2002 and AICN still moves the needle). The rest of the US press corps has to wait until the other side of the holiday on the 27th to judge. Hopefully we’ll still care by then. I heard some scathing criticisms out of an exhibitor screening last week.
There’s nothing like an Oscar season to prove what a small number five (or even ten) is.
We may only be in November, but already, months of conversation, covering a broad canvas of Oscar sure-shots and long-shots alike, have devolved into a ruthless mathematical elimination process, as previously five-wide categories fill up with safe bets. Before you know it, scores of previously fancied contenders are jostling for a mere one or two supposedly “free” slots on the ballot, and with each week that passes, the pool of possibles is culled further.
This is, of course, hardest on independent or leftfield contenders. Having fought mightily even to enter the discussion in the first place, they must then rely on a flaky combination of precursors, DVD screeners and prayer to stay afloat.
Miracles do happen, of course, thanks largely to the Academy’s weighted ballot system, where a number-one vote is all. (Nobody was talking about Tommy Lee Jones to take the last Best Actor slot in 2007, but there he was nonetheless. Ditto the recent likes of Michael Shannon, Samantha Morton and “City of God.”)
With that in mind, I’d like to spotlight one contender in each major category that deserves a similarly happy outcome. Many of them are names I’ve championed before. Most of them are sitting on the furthest reaches of the sidelines. All of them deserve better.
Two months ago Randy Thom was announced as this year’s Cinema Audio Society Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Now comes word that Henry Selick will receive the guild’s Filmmaker Award. Recent recipients have included Paul Mazursky, Bill Condon and Gil Cates.
The press release, in part:
Multi-faceted stop-motion filmmaker Henry Selick will receive the CAS Filmmaker Award at the 46th CAS Awards on February 27, 2010 at the Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium-Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles.
“The Cinema Audio Society is delighted to be honoring one of the vanguards of stop-motion animation as this year’s Filmmaker Recipient and, once again we are thrilled we have synergy between our Career Achievement Recipient Randy Thom and our Filmmaker Honoree through their collaboration on CORALINE. We look forward to another year of honoring the best in the Sound Mixing field at this year’s dinner,” said CAS President Edward L. Moskowitz.
It’s only hitting me today that we haven’t offered up any Halloween-y content yet. Strange. This is my favorite time of year, though season-less Southern California certainly does it no favors.
Last year we got the contributors together to name the top 20 horror films of all time, an installment of The Lists I’m quite proud of. This year I’ve been settling in each night to a new perennial favorite. Last night it was “Beetle Juice.” I took another look at Carpenter’s “Halloween” earlier in the week and I expect Ill be tossing in the “Coraline” Blu-ray once again, maybe a little Romero. “White Zombie” with Bela Lugosi was a novel distraction the other night.
I don’t worship at the altar of genre, but I do enjoy getting in the spirit, so to speak. Rather than cook something up for the holiday, I figured I’d point you to a pair of UK stories spotlighting the best in horror. The first, in the Daily Telegraph, announces Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” theme as the scariest horror theme of all time.
Yesterday we covered the animated feature film race and the potential for the category to have five nominees this year, largely dependent on Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol” being submitted as animation (a decision completely in his hands). As it turns out, the film will indeed be submitted for consideration.
That, along with “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure” brings the tally up to 16 titles. Some are expressing doubts that “Tinker Bell” can qualify, but I’m told the film “looks great, is made professionally, and will receive a theatrical run in LA, so those are the criteria.” Still, being right on the edge, this thing could go either way.
I’m still waiting on confirmation that the French film “A Town Called Panic” had a qualifying run or will have one (mass confusion), and ditto Summit’s “Astro Boy,” but that would be 17 and the absolute ceiling (by my calculation) on the number of submitted titles.
Assuming five nominees, here’s what I’m thinking…
Over at The Odds (The Wrap’s new Oscar blog, in case you haven’t been reading), Steve Pond brings up the fierce competition of this year’s animated feature category and brings up an intriguing tidbit worth considering.
In looking through Time Out London’s list of the 50 greatest animated films of all time, collected by the magazine’s editors and filmmaker Terry Gilliam, Pond takes note of the complete absence of both “Up” and “Ponyo.” These are two films considered very much in the thick of this year’s toon Oscar race, of course.
However, after that aside, he comes to the two animated films from 2009 that did make the list. The first is Henry Selick’s “Coraline,” but, well, hopefully the other note will provide some insight to those puzzled over my animated feature film predictions.
Last month I mentioned that the Venice Film Festival is making a rather large gesture of faith in the current 3-D fad by introducing a new award for the best 3-D film of the year. The prize will be awarded by a separate three-person jury comprising critics Dave Kehr and Scott Foundas and experimental filmmaker Nadia Ranocchi.
The award is not limited to films competing at the festival — but in case you didn’t get that, the point is made abundantly clear by this frankly bizarre 9-title shortlist for the gong that was unveiled yesterday. Via Variety:
“Battle for Terra” (Aristomenis Tsirbas)
“Coraline” (Henry Selick)
“The Hole” (Joe Dante)
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (Carlos Saldana)
“Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience” (Bruce Hendricks)
“Journey to the Center of the Earth” (Eric Brevig)
“Monsters vs Aliens” (Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon)
“My Bloody Valentine” (Patrick Lussier)
“Up” (Pete Docter)
I’m going to sound about three times my actual age for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: I could not care less about 3D.
I know it’s important, I know it’s fun, I know it’s the future. I know all this largely because almost 20 years ago, a group of cheery traveling 3D promoters visited my elementary school in New Jersey, and told the packed assembly exactly the same thing.
“Hey, 3D! Yay, 3D! Everybody see in 3D!” they sang, before showing us some jazzed-up motocross footage in the third dimension. Does anybody else remember sitting through the same demonstration?
I wasn’t thrilled then, and while I’m aware of the massive leap and bounds the technology has made since I was 7 years old, I’m not particularly thrilled now. I like a gosh-wow gimmick as much as the next man — a stupid part of me wishes I’d lived through Smell-O-Rama — but once the novelty of items popping off the screen settles in, I find 3D a dispensable accessory: an extra “D” doesn’t amount to a lot of beans in the cinematic departments I really care about — writing, storytelling, performance.
Another month, another step closer to the awards season. As the summer winds down and the industry slowly begins to square itself with the off-season’s bombshell Oscar news, the picture becomes a little clearer. Kind of.
Universal Pictures, in a move speculated upon endlessly by now, shuffled two of its contenders — Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” and Joe Johnston’s “The Wolf Man” — off to 2010. As Anne Thompson shrewdly noted in a recent item, the decision likely has everything to do with a numbers game. The studio has experienced a rocky two quarters this year and things aren’t necessarily looking up. Some think, in the case of “The Wolf Man,” the shift was made to avoid another box office misfire in 2009 (as by now, with push after push, the film is beginning to smell fishy). Others say the “Green Zone” shift had a lot to do with “The Hurt Locker”‘s release pattern.
Whatever the case, the evacuations change the Oscar landscape ever so slightly, giving us just a few more talking points in the vacuum of August before we have anything of value worth discussing when the fall festival season hits in less than a month’s time.
Universal is now left with two critically divisive, commercially dubious titles in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” and Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” to hawk for awards consideration, effectively (if you’re asking me, though I realize no one is) taking the studio out of the game this year — or, at the very least, making the hill steeper.
But taking note of the studio awards landscape, it doesn’t seem to me that anyone else is on surer ground. As I look out at the many contenders and the campaigns being prepared for them, it appears the entire industry will be dealing with unconventional approaches and product to go along with the new changes in the Best Picture category (and all the headache that comes with them) this season.
Like the rest of the web geek world, I guess, I’m gearing up for this year’s San Diego Comic Con International, which begins with preview night on Wednesday.
All eyes, of course, are on Thursday’s slew of events, a treasure trove of goodies that made for a ton of Sophie’s choices when putting together my personal schedule. I’ll definitely be at the Disney panel, with glimpses of Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol” in 3D and a taste of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” among other things. Speaking of 3D, perhaps the most anticipated panel will be James Camerons “Avatar” event. I’m definitely looking forward to that, but the likely crowd of humanity that will be doing same? Not so much. Trying to wrangle some VIP consideration as we speak.
The Peter Jackson-produced “District 9” isn’t as high on my to-do list as most, but I’ll probably park it for Paramount’s “Iron Man 2” Panel on Saturday. The film just wrapped a 72-day shoot over the weekend, by the way. Warner Bros. also has a panel, on Friday, but Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” is the only thing that has me interested there. Focus Features also plans a considerable presence with “Coraline” (the Blu-ray and DVD of which hits shelves tomorrow) and “9.”
Oh, and Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” I suppose I should check that out.
Neil Miller over at Film School Rejects has an exclusive clip from one of the special features on the forthcoming “Coraline” Blu-ray/DVD. “This little sequence is called ‘Wrapping Up Coraline,’” Miller writes, “and it focuses on director Henry Selick talking about the final stages of work that went into creating this wonderful little film. He also speaks a bit about the incredible amount of work that was turned in by countless artists and animators.” Take a look below. The disc hits shelves July 21: