In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Education,’ ‘Hurt,’ ‘Avatar’ lead BAFTA nominations

    Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard in An EducationFor once, my predictions weren’t too shoddy … though the field-beating haul I anticipated for “An Education” didn’t quite pan out. Instead, Lone Scherfig’s film ties for the lead with Oscar frontrunners “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” all three films securing eight nominations.

    “An Education” still looks like the one to beat here, though it’s not quite as strong as I might have thought. (I’m especially disappointed that Rosamund Pike fails to show up, despite being one of the BAFTA acting branch’s top five picks.)

    However, the especially robust showing for “The Hurt Locker” (I didn’t see that FX nod coming) suggests it could give the British pic trouble. Both films, meanwhile, scored directing bids, marking the first time BAFTA has nominated two female helmers in the category.

    Of course, “Avatar” also poses a threat, though when it comes to the win, it doesn’t strike me as BAFTA’s cup of tea. It’s worth bearing in mind that Cameron’s last awards behemoth, “Titanic” went 0-for-10 at the 1997 ceremony. (Before you ask, it lost Best Visual Effects to “The Fifth Element.”)

    More discussion, and a full list of nominations, after the cut.

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  • CAS nominees

    The Hurt LockerIronic that his release drops tonight just as I’m transcribing an interview with sound mixer Greg Russell for tomorrow’s Tech Support column.

    The list of nominees for the Cinema Audio Society doesn’t exactly hold any surprises.  The only film on the list that isn’t being predicted in the sidebar as of right now is “District 9” (I have “Inglourious Basterds” in there at the moment).  Michael Minkler and his team could still slide in, but given the names involved, this really does feel like a safe batch of films to predict for all you office poolers.

    The CAS doesn’t always match up with the Academy on winners, of course, because no one outside the sound branch of the Academy has a friggin’ clue what quality sound mixing is (or the difference between that and sound editing, for that matter).  But regardless, I would expect “Avatar” to win both this time.  The makings of a juggernaut, all of that.

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  • SAG on the way

    Meryl Streep at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild AwardsSaturday night the Screen Actors Guild Awards will go down, televised on TNT, and I can’t really believe the race is THIS sewn up.  Right down the line, most are calling it for Bridges, Streep, Waltz and Mo’Nique.  There are some differences of opinion on the ensemble performance category, but for the most part, those four Oscar favorites are the expected victors with the guild.

    The last time SAG went four-for-four with the Academy’s ultimate winners was 2004.  The last time before that was 1997, which actually featured a tie between Gloria Stewart and Kim Basinger, so it’s a bit less definitive.  And in point of fact, those are the only times things have matched up.

    The reason for this is fairly simple.  The Screen Actors Guild (a 90,000-member body of people) votes for the winners at large, while the nominees are decided upon by a roughly 2,000-member nominating committee, 1,200 of them based in Los Angeles.  The nominating committee obviously sees more of the contenders than the vast membership.  For that reason, generally speaking, you can expect the unexpected.

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  • Tom Hanks and his Woody

    Tweeted this afternoon by “Toy Story 3” director Lee Unkrich, who is working on ADR for the film in Los Angeles:

    (from left) Tom Hanks and Lee Unkrich behind the scenes on Toy Story 3

  • Foreign notes

    The Milk of SorrowWell, as I suspected, my predictions for the Academy’s foreign film shortlist were mainly off the mark, though I maintained my 4-from-9 strike rate from last year … so, yay for consistency.

    That said, I’m not terribly surprised by the films that did make the cut. As I wrote earlier today, I knew one of the WWII-themed films in the mix would make the cut — but plumped for Norway’s “Max Manus” instead of the Netherlands’ “Winter in Wartime.” And festival hit “Samson and Delilah” was high on my radar, a film I suspected the executive committee might save (as I’m sure was the case).

    I foolishly blanked on Argentina’s “The Secret in Their Eyes,” a romantic thriller that was extremely well received at Toronto in the fall, and may yet be the spoiler in this race. I’d received word that this was one to watch, but it slipped my mind this morning.

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  • Academy’s foreign shortlist unveiled

    Samson and DelilahWell, Guy nailed down four of them.  But you just never know what this controversial branch is going to do.  I’d love to know what the secondary committee had to re-institute (probably “A Prophet”), but nevertheless, we have our nine.

    The only films I was predicting that didn’t make the cut are “Backyard” from Mexico and “Forever Enthralled” from China.  Replace those with “Ajami” from Israel (which I JUST took out of my predictions Monday in favor of “The Milk of Sorrow”) and “The Secret in Their Eyes” from Argentina and that would be my bet.

    I’ll leave it to Guy with further thoughts later on.  I need to catch up on the rest of films now that it’s a more, shall we say, manageable list.  Check out the full list of nine, from an original list of 65 submissions, after the jump.

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  • The home stretch

    Oscar ballotsPete Hammond’s story concerning Academy members tapping out before listing a full slate of 10 nominees on their ballots is getting some traction today, but it’s hardly new news.  Many voters never even bothered to come up with five nominees, so the switch to 10 was always going to yield a number of incomplete ballots.

    However, the point Hammond makes concerning there being a great many outstanding ballots less than a week before polls close is worth talking about, because the events of the last week or two could have more of an impact than they have in years past.

    But back to the incomplete thing, what this means, more than anything, is that fringe titles like “District 9” or “Star Trek,” or even “Crazy Heart” and, hell, let’s use Pete’s example, “Drag Me to Hell” could have a presence on the Academy’s eventual slate.  With more slots to fill, those left-field #1 and #2 choices have a fighting chance and could actually register.  Which is why it’s important to note that now, more than ever, the passion vote counts.

    So to those who vote with your heart: do it with gusto this year.  You might actually have a voice in this thing.

  • Creating the world of Pandora

    (Courtesy: Yahoo! Movies)

  • 1/20 Oscarweb Round-up

    Helen Mirren in The Last Station• Melena Ryzik chats with “The Last Station” star Helen Mirren. [The Carpetbagger]

    • On the breakthrough performances of 2009. [The Playlist]

    • Dave Karger tries to suss out the three slots that seem u[ for grabs at the bottom of Oscar’s 10. [Oscar Watch]

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  • Waiting on Oscar’s foreign language shortlist

    Niels Arestrup and Tahar Rahim in A ProphetLast Saturday, the Academy concluded four months of screenings of the 65 films in contention for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film award. Today, that tall pile of titles will be culled to a shortlist of just nine contenders, from which the eventual five nominees will be chosen.

    Making predictions here is a pretty thankless task, given the regularity with which this branch of the Academy slights seemingly sure-fire nominees in favour of less visible, and less acclaimed, fare. Indeed, a high-profile snub, with ensuing media outcry, has virtually become an annual Oscar tradition.

    The furore over the omission of Romania’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” two years ago even prompted a change in the voting system – to safeguard against such controversies, a smaller executive committee was appointed to add three titles to the six elected by the branch voters.

    It didn’t work: when last year’s critical darling “Gomorrah” failed to impress even the new committee, the Academy was raked over the coals once more. The bottom line, then, is that even the mightiest title can’t be called a shoo-in in this race.

    (More analysis, and shortlist predictions, after the cut.)

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  • Buy it

    Cover of the Crazy Heart motion picture soundtrackThe “Crazy Heart” deluxe edition soundtrack hit stores today along with a streamlined, standard version, and it’s a must own if you like the movie or this kind of music.  There are little treasures sprinkled throughout that you get for a couple extra bucks, like a modified instrumental version of “Somebody Else” from Stephen Bruton, the killer “Joy” from Lucinda Williams, some lovely accompanying tracks from George Jones, Kitty Wells, The Delmore Brothers and Lydia Mendoza.  Oh yeah, and Thomas Canning’s piano riff from the film.

    I’ve been listening to Waylon Jenning’s “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” for a few weeks now, but I’m all over this.  In case you missed it last week, Ryan Bingham recently performed “The Weary Kind” on The Late Show with David Letterman.

    Last year when I walked out of “Slumdog Millionaire,” one of the first things I asked was if the soundtrack was going to be released, because it was fantastic.  This after “Juno” had already covered similar terrain a year earlier.  “Crazy Heart” was obviously a no-brainer on that front, so the studio should have another hit on its hands (thanks especially to T Bone Burnett, of course, for putting it all together).  Someone give that music division a raise.

  • Snakes on a dame

    Slow news day, and I’ve been at a “Tonight Show” taping this afternoon, so, apologies.  (Though Tarantino is quite good on the show, while Paul Bettany is also great in his segment.  Give it a look.)

    Anyway, I did stumble on to this.  Of all these Alamo Drafthouse specialty posters, I think the one I’d most like to have is this one for “Clash of the Titans.” Love the colors:

    Clash of the Titans

  • R.I.P. Robert B. Parker

    Robert B. ParkerThis is one of those fleeting AP reports that causes a double take, since I wasn’t aware of any illness or anything.  Apparently it’s a sudden death, natural causes kind of thing, when the universe just decides your time is up.

    I had a nice email exchange with Parker, who is most famous for his series of “Spencer” novels, roughly a year ago.  He agreed to a few questions on the western genre, the subject of my thesis at the time, and as I had already spoken to Warner Bros. honcho Alan Horn and actor/filmmaker Ed Harris, I thought the author of “Appaloosa” would be a nice addition to the piece.  His perspective on the future of the genre and its evolution (the precise topic at hand) differed slightly from mine, but nevertheless was refreshing in its honesty and, most importantly, its confidence.

    I dug back through my old emails to see if I could find our exchange, and there it was.  One excerpt was particularly indicative of the man, as far as I could gauge him from afar and electronically…

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  • James Cameron’s ‘Laser Cats 5’

  • 1/19 Oscarweb Round-up

    Robert Downey Jr. at the 2010 Golden Glone Awards• Searching for meaning in Robert Downey Jr’s Stark-esque Globes beard.  Perhaps too much meaning. [CHUD]

    • Roger Ebert dives back into the enigma of Michael Haneke’s “Cache.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Stretching to compare “Avatar” to “Slumdog Millionaire” because of it’s “out of the blue” success. [24 Frames]

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  • Sketches of ‘Star’

    Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw in Bright StarAs the season has broken down some pundits to the point of pondering whether or not “The Hangover” has a shot at a Best Picture nomination, it really does seem an eternity ago that “Bright Star” was even in the conversation.

    With Jane Campion’s film ridiculously failing to secure even technical Guild recognition so far, it’s really looking like one of the season’s great lost causes.

    Yet to weigh in, of course, is the Costume Designers’ Guild, which announces its nominees in a week’s time. If the film misses there, designer Janet Patterson would be well within her rights to torch their headquarters.

    We’ll be profiling the film’s craftspeople in Tech Support eventually: for now, courtesy of Refinery 29, two of Patterson’s original sketches should remind you of the year’s finest threads. Check them out after the cut.

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  • Sight for sore eyes

    Three weeks into the new decade, the flood of lists rounding up the last one seems to have abated, but I enjoyed Stale Popcorn’s countdown of the decade’s best film posters, whose #1 coincides with that of a similar list on The Auteurs last month. (They have an interesting interview with designer Akiko Stehrenberger here.) The same poster is one I’m starting to see crop up on the walls of assorted designer/cineaste locales — plainly a modern classic, even if the film is plainly not.

    Funny Games

  • ‘Avatar’ leads VES nominations

    Zoe Saldana in AvatarNo surprises there.  James Cameron’s film landed 11 separate mentions from the Visual Effects Society (some more specifically indicated than others).  “2012” and “District 9” each landed three nominations, while “Sherlock Holmes” and “Star Trek” each landed two.

    The nominees in the main field, “visual effects in a visual effects driven feature motion picture,” are:

    “2012”
    “Avatar”
    “District 9”
    “Star Trek”
    “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”

    Check out the rest of the nominees (feature film categories only) at our somewhat more streamlined Circuit page.