• Steve Pond offers up some random observations of the Oscar nominations announcement. [The Odds]
• James Franco weighs in on Ricky Gervais’s hosting job at the Golden Globes. [MTV Movies Blog]
• “Unusual number of Oscar nominees feature severed extremities, oral sex.” [The Race]
• Harvey Weinstein considers cutting “The King’s Speech” to make a PG-13 rating and open the film to a broader audience, aka, get more money. [Los Angeles Times]
• The Gurus o’ Gold (well, all but one) are resigned to a Best Picture victory for the film. [Movie City News]
• Speaking of which, 5-2 odds for it to win in Vegas? I’d make that bet. [The Carpetbagger]
• Sasha Stone has “simply been at this game way too long to not see what’s coming down the road.” [Awards Daily]
[Photo: The Weinstein Company]
Comments
17 responses to “1/27 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Franco on Gervais, Weinstein may cut ‘King’s Speech’ for PG-13, Gurus like it to win”
“Darren Aronofsky has done something I’ve never seen any male director do – crawl inside the neurotic female brain.”
I guess Sasha Stone has never heard of Repulsion.
Besides the fact that much of the film wouldn’t make sense by cutting the f bombs out, I don’t think many kids were planning on seeing TKS without their parents anyway.
I don’t buy that Weinstein wants to cut down the film. For one, it’s already turning a huge profit ($110m worldwide so far and it’s only getting started). There’s also no reason to go to all that trouble to make it available for the audience least likely to want to see it, since there wouldn’t be much to gain, money-wise, by doing it.
Not to mention it’d go against pretty much everything he crusaded for against the MPAA. Why would he do a 180, lose all his credibility, for a very small reward?
I doubt Weinstein is going to pull the original King’s Speech from theatres for an edited version. What they may do is have an edited version for a re-release down the line, or (what I think makes the most sense) is have two versions available on dvd, similar to how plenty of films have a PG-13/R theatrical cut and an unrated version on dvd.
Interesting that the sex/violence article about awards contenders forgets foreign language nominee Dogtooth, since that has some bloody scenes and I think could’ve gotten an NC-17 for sexual content had it been rated.
Steve Pond notes: “with four of the Best Actor nominations going to Javier Bardem, Jeff Bridges, Jesse Eisenberg and James Franco, this marks the first time in history that four of the five nominees in a lead acting category have had first names starting with the same letter.”
Is this the moment when we are officially over-saturated with Oscar stats?!?
When the presenter says, “And the Oscar goes to Colin Firth,” the split second of anticipation that would accompany that initial “J” sound won’t make any difference (especially not to Javier Bardem).
How have the Gurus suddenly gone unanimously for The King’s Speech? All because it won the nomination count? If that’s the reason, I don’t know how any of them are considered experts at all. And don’t get me started on the idiots who think True Grit has a better shot than The Social Network.
“And in Toy Story 3, Mr. Potato Head [Don Rickles] loses just about every appendage”
Well that’s just silly xD And before reading this, I was already trying to remember if in Black Swan somebody lost a limb, but no. It was in Toy Story 3, of all things.
Yes, it’s not for Best Picture, but what about Toothless’s tail and Hiccup’s leg in How To Train Your Dragon? Those are amputations in the literal meaning of the word :(
How come they don’t mention Uncle Boonmee for movies with oral sex scenes?
That moment came and went long ago, San Fran.
Craig: The PGA win is a bigger deal. Preferential ballot.
Kris, LOL, but I”m still reading all this stuff…
The PGA win/12 Oscar nod one-two punch of The King’s Speech propelled it to the front. It wasn’t just one or the other but the combination. It is the frontrunner but still isn’t a lock.
Yeah, but Little Miss Sunshine won the PGA AND the SAG and still lost best picture. If TKS wins SAG ensemble, I’ll believe it’s frontrunner status a bit more, but at this moment, I still think (and hope) that The Social Network wins. As for True Grit, it doesn’t have a shot in hell at BP. This is a two film race.
So Rea’s evidence of an “unusual number of nominees” featuring oral sex includes four movies with no nominations and for some reason three TV shows? Well, I’m sold.
goddamn, you idiot pundits will be eating crow when The Social Network wins. WELLS POWER.
Craig, Little Miss Bland-shine didn’t have directing and editing nods that year. The Departed was the clear frontrunner to anyone who was paying atention.
That may be, but the Oscars and PGA can clearly go different directions, and to me, the PGA is the only reason TKS is still considered a frontrunner at all. The lead in nominations is all well and good, but it means next to nothing. In predicting TKS as BP victor, the Gurus are also predicting a split in director and picture, which hasn’t happened since 2005 (and was a bit of a shock then, if I remember correctly). No matter which way I decide to go on my predictions, I won’t be predicting a split, so I’ll probably be going with TSN until the end. Then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking.
What the heck is James Franco talking about ? I watched the Golden Globes- the audience were dying of laughter and also clapping enthusiastically . It was very obvious Gervais’ award audience was eating up his jokes.