Welcome to Oscar Talk.
In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, a one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change on route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.
There’s a lot on the plate today as we dive headlong into the madness one more time. Summer is giving way to fall (though a check of the weather wouldn’t make you guess as much), and with it, the first major stage of the long haul: festival season. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…
• The summer movie season has wrapped itself up and, from our vantage point, there are four true standouts from the hot months that could make it into Oscar’s good graces: “Inception,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “Toy Story 3” and “Winter’s Bone.”
• With the Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York film festivals right around the corner, we preview the circuit. Anne (and our own Guy Lodge) will be covering the Lido in Venice while I’ll be making the trip to Telluride. There are plenty of titles looking to start their season at these fests so, sight unseen, we make our best guesses.
• The 300-films-in-11-days glut of Toronto raises the question whether there is just too much going on at that media circus of a festival. I put the question to Anne as I, of course, can’t really comment given that I’ve never attended.
• In the meantime, a handful of films have finally secured distribution (i.e. “Biutiful” and “All Good Things”), while a number of key potential awards contenders are still looking. We size them up as best we can.
• Finally, the documentary feature race looks more heated than ever as the submission deadline looms. We discuss what we’ve seen of the mix (Anne has seen more than me so far) and what could make a dent.
And with that, we’re off to the races. Have a listen to the first podcast of the season below. With docs in mind, I settled on Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” to open the discussion, which is nicely used over the opening credits of Charles Ferguson’s “Inside Job.” As always, remember to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here. We’ll report back again next week as I’ll be in Telluride and Anne will be in Venice.
REMINDER: I failed to mention this in the podcast, but Monday will bring the first weekly Off the Carpet column of the season with updated predictions and plenty to chew on. Be sure to check back then.
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28 responses to “OSCAR TALK: Ep. 29 — Summer’s best bets, fall festival preview, stiff documentary competition”
I LOVE YOU TWO.
And, as an Englishman not really used to Kris’ accent, I do have a good chuckle every time he says “Winter’s BONE”. Sad but true.
Wait, how do I say it?
BTW: the unfinished Spitzer doc played Tribeca, not SXSW.
What Patrick said
Great podcast. It was good to hear a rundown like that and get to hear both your thoughts on a lot of the contenders.
These podcasts have quickly become a highlight/necessity of the award season. Well done! You’ll eventually have to stop counting. Episode 29, episode 30, etc… You’re like one of those parents who say their kid is 26 months old.
I have a sneaking suspicion that by the way Anne says “hearsay” it’s in fact her own opinion on the film after watching it and that she can’t talk about it yet. Or maybe I’m just hearing things.
I still find the hesitation on Inception a bit strange. It’s sure to pick up DGA, PGA, GG nods and we’re talking about 10 BP spots. I would think the academy screenings would have to be more than muted or mixed for the film not to make the cut.
Oh and The Way looks like a mess Kris. I watched the trailer before I hiked the Camino de Santiago this summer, didn’t like the look and feel of the film (more so now after actually hiking the pilgrimage). I’m curious to read reviews on it.
Again, well done on the podcast.
I can tell you she has not seen Hereafter.
Speaking of SpaceBalls, My Step Dad is an extra in that movie. He’s the second scared spaceball close up when Dark Helmet first appears on screen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTJq8co38Pk
“Speaking of SpaceBalls…”
LOL
It’s probably worth pointing out for the sake Anne’s argument in regard to Biutiful’s commerical potenitial that Gonzales’s last feature Babel grossed over 130 million world wide inspite of making only 30 million in the states.
One stateside feature that I haven’t heard much about is The Descendants, another Clooney starer that is set to come out by the years end. Is there any word on the film at all in regards to it’s chances or to even if it will actually get released this year?
And it regards to the Spitzer documentary, as a new yourker I can tell you that Spitzers’ resignation made many empire state citzens pissed. I’m very intersted in seeing this doc abd curious to know how Wall Street targeted him asopposed to many other republican politicians who engaged in far more corrupt in actions in the state senate.
Drew: Brad Pitt.
And The Descendants will not be released this year, FYI.
Noted Kris.
I was wondering about The Descendants as well.
As for a film I recently watched that I think has some acting award potential is Get Low. I know it’s been nearly a year since it premiered in Toronto but it’s a great little film, a slow burn (no pun intended).
I still feel good about Duvall’s odds, because it gives me a Christie/Away from Her-sort of vibe: Premiered in Toronto, acclaimed performance, released the following year. I could see Duvall possibly nabbing the SAG award, although I’m less convinced of him winning the Oscar. He’s nom-worthy though, yessir.
Every time someone says “The Way”, I begin singing Fastball. Ah, the ’90s.
12-I figured. Summer would be a good choice for release. The only summer movies I look forward to seeing as of now are Midnight in Paris and Cars 2.
I know it’s rare for movies to get a BP nom without a slew of other (writing, acting, technical) … but I always just assume that the well directed, well written movies with big’ger’ stars and bigger prod. teams will get BP nods over, say, ‘The Winter Bones’, the ‘Get Lows’, etc..
That said, 2 examples that buck that thought are last year’s The Blind Side and A Serious Man. But I really feel like most other noms for BP will be the movies with 4,5,6,7,8 … number of nominations. The guilds are present and plentiful for a reason and they all vote for BP, correct?
I tend to assume that 7-8 of the 10 BP’s will have copious amounts of noms. But who knows, right? I love these early days before the January/February fatigue.
Great podcast. Keep ’em coming. ;-)
Surprised you guys didn’t mention The Tillman Story in the documentary race – it’s gotten pretty good reviews and mentions on some other film sites. I saw it at Silverdocs and thought it was very good – another one that makes you angry – even though I’m not much of a documentary guy.
Complete oversight.
Are we going to be seeing that on the poster?
INSIDE JOB
“A stiff bitch slap of a movie” – Kristopher Tapley, InContention.com
Inception and Dark Knight cannot be compared with regards to awards because Inception isn’t half the movie The Dark Knight is.
I was against The Dark Knight being nominated but have to acknowledge its a kinda very good movie but not Incpetion. Inception is a great, brilliant and original idea undermined by a weak screenplay.
Currently it seems to me that Kids Are All Right is a Top 5 movie meaning it would have easily made it in in a year of 5 too. And I think The Social Network is gonna beat Toy Story 3 for adapted screenplay.
Terrific work, as usual. I’m concerned that anyone listening to this podcast will think I have some kind of eating disorder! Having said that, I’m looking forward to lunching with Anne on the Lido as much as anything at Venice.
By the way, surely the fact that “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” premiered at Cannes gives it some festival cred?
Excellent podcast. It was very informative. I heard the word grim used a number of times to describe films that would be hard sells for the general public. Well, I will be there to support those films because for me they are usually some of the best films of the year.
You and Anne are off to a strong start, Kris. Nice work, looking forward to more and to the IC team’s reports from Telluride and Venice.
red_wine….I would politely disagree on “Inception” being a brilliant concept hampered by a weak screenplay.
I would have liked to see the secondary characters developed more, and some of the dialogue was heavy handed. Still, I felt like Nolan got across his multilayered structure. I don’t think I’m alone in that judgment.
A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips wished the movie was *more* confounding. Pulling off a labarynth narrative to a fairly large audience is quite an accomplishment.
As Jeff of CultureSnob points out, “The most amazing component of Inception is its narrative clarity. Confusion is the price of admission, but never unnecessarily. With five-ish levels of story — limbo within a dream within a dream within a dream within reality — the audience is challenged but able to keep up. ”
That narrative clarity makes me question the idea that this was a great concept that didn’t work because of a weak screenplay. I’ll grant that not a lot of folks didn’t find it that clear. Still, I’m reluctant to call it a great concept that didn’t work because of a weak screenplay since it got a multilayered narrative across in a mostly clear and accessible way.
I’m not trying to downplay the importance of characterization or dialogue, just saying that a lot of the concepts and narrative came across, which precludes me from endorsing the notion of a great concept hampered by a screenplay.
Chris, seriously, you should seriously consider reading the book for Never Let Me Go. There is such a sadness about it (which I think is unfilmable actually).
It’s a really great piece of work. The film can never do it enough justice.
By the way, I hope we get to see True Grit this year.
We will. Producers get a look in two weeks.
Yay!