Snapped Tuesday afternoon over lunch at the Four Seasons. Interview to come, maybe next week/over the holiday. Fascinating discussion on “The Contender,” “Starman,” “Heaven’s Gate,” etc., including, of course, plenty of talk about “Crazy Heart.” Stay tuned.
I’m only posting this because it cracks me up how, I don’t know, disinterested Chris Weitz appears at the beginning of this clip (courtesy of MakingOf). “One more big pay day before hanging it up. Just get through it. Go through the motions.” Probably the wrong read, but anyway:
And this thing bitch-slapped “The Dark Knight”‘s opening day record with something like $70 million. Sadness…
Chalk “The Cat Piano” up as a nominee pronto. Probably the win, too. EVERYONE loves that short.
So says regular reader Glenn in the comment thread on the Best Animated Short Oscar shortlist. Having now watched this 8-minute Australian gem in all its noir-tinged, Nick Cave-narrated splendor, I can’t disagree. Take a look.
Via press release:
• “The Cat Piano,” Eddie White and Ari Gibson, directors (The People’s Republic of Animation)
• “French Roast,” Fabrice O. Joubert, director (Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films)
• “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty,” Nicky Phelan, director, and Darragh O’Connell, producer (Brown Bag Films)
• “The Kinematograph,” Tomek Baginski, director-producer (Platige Image)
• “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte),” Javier Recio Gracia, director (Kandor Graphics and Green Moon)
• “Logorama,” Nicolas Schmerkin, producer (Autour de Minuit)
• “A Matter of Loaf and Death,” Nick Park, director (Aardman Animations Ltd.)
• “Partly Cloudy,” Peter Sohn, director (Pixar Animation Studios)
• “Runaway,” Cordell Barker, director (National Film Board of Canada)
• “Variete,” Roelof van den Bergh, director (il Luster Productions)
You can watch one or two of these on YouTube I think. Anyway, thoughts? Anyone?
• The shortlist of contenders for the documentary Oscar was announced, surprising many — we dug into it a little.
• The season’s first Oscars were handed out, as Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis, Roger Corman and John Calley were celebrated at the Governors’ Awards.
• This week’s Off the Carpet column broke down the wide-open Best Original Screenplay race.
• The Long Shot lived up to its name, spotlighting a few of the season’s most deserving outsiders.
In one of the weakest years in memory, not just for performances but for great films, 2001 saw Denzel Washington and Halle Berry knock “two birds out with one stone,” as the former declared on Oscar night, as two African Americans won the top acting prizes for the first time ever. And it was difficult to argue with either.
Washington was superb in “Training Day,” clearly loving his role as crooked cop Alonzo, walking the line without ever going over the top, blowing everyone off the screen. In many ways it was a make-up award for his having lost for “Malcolm X” in 1992 to Al Pacino’s ranting work in “Scent of a Woman” and perhaps, though lesser so, for his loss for “The Hurricane.”
Berry gave a raw, sexually charged performance in “Monster’s Ball,” one of such searing truth and rage you could never look away from the screen. Robert Duvall called her performance the finest by an American actress he had ever seen and was not the least bit surprised when she won the Oscar for Best Actress.
My question remains: Should Denzel Washington have won over the non-nominated performances of Gene Hackman in “The Royal Tanebaums” or the vastly under-appreciated Jack Nicholson in “The Pledge,” one of his finest recent performances? Don’t think so.
There was a lot of love shown to Tom Wilkinson for his heartbreaking work in “In the Bedroom” as well as Russell Crowe (again) for his performance in “A Beautiful Mind,” which eventually won the Best Picture Oscar. I was very surprised that Sean Penn was nominated for his performance in “I Am Sam” because though I consider Penn one of the greatest actors in the history of the cinema, his work in that film represents one of the very few times I could “see” him acting.
Since I made my first Oscar nomination predictions in early June, I’ve had a weird hunch about Nancy Meyers’s “It’s Complicated” being something of a surprise package in the race.
Now while I’ve known all along that Best Picture and Best Actress nods for the film were in the extreme wild-card class of prediction, a Best Supporting Actor nod for Alec Baldwin always felt comfortably right to me. Well-loved character actor, successful career reinvention, showy comic role in a probable December hit … all that’s needed is for the performance to be terrific, and the work is done.
Over the months, Baldwin has crept onto more pundits’ predictions lists, with the news of his Oscar hosting gig being taken as a good or bad omen from various angles. Now Jeff Wells quotes two industry insiders who’ve seen the film, and say Baldwin not only has a nom in the bag, but potentially even a win:
A non-vested writer-director guy told me this afternoon that he can “absolutely confirm” that Baldwin is the shit in Meyers’ film and a prime candidate for Best Supporting Actor. A vested party who nonetheless tends to be blunt said Baldwin is “a lay-down hand for a nom, Jeff. And he could win. Total breakout performance. Bet on it.”
A few hours ago, we mentioned James Toback’s allegations of “extortion” within the Academy’s doc branch being responsible for the failure of his film “Tyson” to make the Oscar shortlist. I wrote that the lack of detail provided made it difficult to know how seriously to take him.
As it turns out, the answer is: not very. Steve Pond has done a little digging, and come up with the following:
[The] Academy’s executive director, Bruce Davis, tells theWrap that Toback’s “concern was that one of the documentarians voting to pick the shortlist bore him a grudge and should have recused himself/herself from the balloting.”
The accounting firm, he says,” quoting PwC’s report, “has assured us that ‘no single voter was responsible for [“Tyson”’s] failure to make the shortlist….’”
Thus ends the very brief conspiracy theory. Sour grapes, anyone?
Rob Marshall’s hotly anticipated movie musical adaptation “Nine” played before a jam-packed SAG Nominating Committee crowd at the Pacific Design Center Wednesday night, and judging by the response, we’ve got a real player on our hands.
Of course, one can never tell with these things. Especially SAG Nom Comm, which tends to be a bit, shall we say, star-drunk when it comes to these seasonal screenings. The evening’s Q&A boasted most of the cast — Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard — so it was inevitable that standing ovations would occur.
But even still, given the mood of the crowd, I’d say they sincerely ate it up. One guy even said the film was better than “8 1/2” (make of that what you will) before asking a question about Fellini when the session was turned over to questions from the audience. And everyone was certainly in awe of the stars (or their careers, at the very least — gee, I’m cynical.) It seemed that nary an opportunity to applaud was missed.
As I wrote yesterday about the Best Documentary Feature shortlist, I didn’t think the list’s much-ballyhooed omissions were indicative of much more than the rather particular tastes of one Academy branch. That, and perhaps an inclination to shine a light on worthy, but lower-profile, work.
Not everyone feels the same way, however — not least James Toback, director of one the most surprisingly slighted titles, “Tyson.” Speaking to the New York Times, Toback (a one-time Oscar nominee for his “Bugsy” screenplay) has made some rather astonishing insinuations about “irregularities” in the voting process:
At a time when the validity of even presidential elections is questioned, Mr. Toback said, “how is some tiny, dirty covert weirdly protective little group within the Academy going to be immune?”
Pressed for details, Mr. Toback said only that he had experienced something connected with the selections process, “which I put fully in the category of extortion that I did not go along with.”
Do you know how many people saw The Assassination of Jesse James?…You and seven other people. Paul Blart grossed nearly $200 million worldwide. I’ll take Paul Blart all day, every day.
–Producer/financier Ryan Kavanaugh in a recent Esquire profile. Does this make anyone else PROFOUNDLY sad? Are guys like this and other hedge fund types really going to pan out as the future of this industry? December 21, 2012 can’t get here soon enough if that’s the case.
• With his directorial debut “The Merry Gentleman” on the way, Michael Keaton gets a profile across the pond. [The Guardian]
• Laura Almo sits down with “Up in the Air” editor Dana Glauberman. [Editors Guild Magazine]
• “Avatar”‘s Sigourney Weaver remembers the days when James Cameron’s crews didn’t live in fear. [Vulture]
There seems to be a bit of uncertainty among several bloggers and commenters about the Golden Globe category placement of a number of titles. What it highlights, rather interestingly, is just how many heavyweight contenders straddle the line between comedy and drama this year.
For the record, then, the following films are all aiming to compete in the Drama races at the Globes: “Up in the Air,” “An Education,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Crazy Heart.”
“A Serious Man,” however, is on the Comedy/Musical side of things. (Thanks to Tom O’Neil for confirming this.)
I’d say I agree with all these classifications except for that of “Basterds.” Anyway. As you were.
Perhaps inevitably, the bulk of online chatter about the Best Documentary Feature shortlist unveiled yesterday focused less on the films that made it, and more on those that didn’t.
It’s par for the course for the Academy’s documentary branch to ignore a major title or two, but even by their severe standards, the list of high-profile snubs was a long one: “Capitalism: A Love Story,” “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” “Tyson,” “The September Issue,” “We Live in Public,” “It Might Get Loud,” “Rough Aunties” and so on.
But for every blogger or commenter complaining about the dubiousness of the list, I can’t fight the urge to ask whether or not they’ve seen all 15 titles that have been included. In these cases, it’s always easier to say what should have got in than what should have been left out.
After “Amelia” took in just £49,000 (just over $82,000) in 133 theatres — less than “The White Ribbon” managed on 18 screens — last weekend, the film’s UK distributors are trying a new strategy:
Oh dear.
Thanks to Sasha Stone at Awards Daily for a pretty sweet find this Oscar season.
We are, of course, very proud of our dedication to the crafts categories via Gerard’s Tech Support columns here at In Contention. It’s been a concentrated effort on our part to help carry the flag for folks who deserve as much credit this time of year as the major stars, yet don’t receive it.
Fortunately, over the last two years or so, I’ve noticed a number of major outlets pumping up their crafts coverage. It’s nice to see the notion taking.
Anyway, over at SoundWorks Collection, a site “dedicated to profiling the greatest and upcoming sound minds from around the world and highlight their contributions,” according to their literature, there is a great new weekly feature spotlighting the sound of various contenders throughout the season.
Paul McCartney was in the thick of the Best Original Song race back in 2001 for his title track from Cameron Crowe’s “Vanilla Sky.” Unfortunately, the film was a pale reflection of Alejandro Amenabar’s “Abre Los Ojos” and didn’t register with voters enough to push that truly great song far enough. Not that I’m arguing with Randy Newman finally winning his Oscar that year, mind you.
Well this year, McCartney is back in the race with “(I Want to) Come Home,” yet another breezy nostalgic ditty that, once again, was written for a film that doesn’t really work: Kirk Jones’s “Everybody’s Fine.” But it’s a great song. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it sounds like some undiscovered Beatles B-side, a warm and catchy tune that plays over the film’s closing credits (visually accompanied by the photos Robert De Niro’s widower character snaps on his journey around the country reconnecting with his children).
One would think Paul McCartney’s presence in a race like this would be a no-brainer, but then again, Bruce Springsteen proved that logic wrong last year. Have a listen to the track below and tell us what you think.
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Woody hustled off to CBS to film this appearance on The Late Late Show right after I spoke with him Tuesday. So it’s surreal, from my point of view, to see him wearing the same stuff he was when we spoke. Anyway, just one of those things. Wonderful interview, a Teddy bear, great heart, and, it goes without saying, a hell of an actor. I really hope his brilliant work in “The Messenger” gets a fair shake this season.