In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ACE nominees

    They sure cranked these out early this morning.  Thanks to N8 for posting in the comments section.  This year’s American Cinema Editors (ACE) nominees are:

    Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)
    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter)
    “The Dark Knight” (Lee Smith, A.C.E.)
    “Frost/Nixon” (Mike Hill, A.C.E. & Dan Hanley, A.C.E.)
    “Milk” (Elliot Graham)
    “Slumdog Millionaire” (Chris Dickens)

    Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical)
    “In Bruges” (Jon Gregory, A.C.E.)
    “Mamma Mia!” (Leslie Walker)
    “Tropic Thunder” (Greg Hayden)
    “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (Alisa Lepselter)
    “WALL-E” (Stephen Schaffer)

    Best Edited Documentary
    “Bush’s War” (Steve Audette)
    “Chicago 10” (Stuart Levy, A.C.E.)
    “Man on Wire” (Jinx Godfrey)

    No surprises whatsoever, really.  Except maybe some love for “In Bruges” and “Tropic Thunder” in the comedy category.  After a discussion earlier this morning about “the five” dominating the guild circuit so far, the dramatic nominees prove to solidify the mixture even more.  I don’t think we’ve ever seen a consensus like this develop, with five clear-cut industry favorites popping up everywhere like clockwork.

  • Disney sneak peek at ‘Up’

  • Tina Fey gets cornered by Tom O’Neil after bashing Envelope readers on stage

  • 1/12 Oscarweb Round-up

    Kate Winslet at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards• Jeffrey Wells responds to last night’s Golden Globe Awards. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • David Carr gets some choice quotes from twofer victor Kate Winslet in the press room. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Guy Adams, meanwhile, comments on the actress’s “downbeat” role choices. [The Independent]

    • Karina Longworth’s eight Globe moments that transcended cynicism. [Spout Blog]

    • Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond yak about the evening’s surprises. [Gold Derby]

    • Moving away from the circular Globes talk, Gene Seymour takes stock of today’s African-American filmmaking talent. [New York Times]

    • Philip Seymour Hoffman calls his trade “tortuous.” [The Guardian]

    • Welcome to the new indieWIRE. [indieWIRE]

    • Speculation on the fate of Two-Face in “The Dark Knight,” reported plenty in this space, turns up elsewhere. [/Film]

    • Continuing on the geek beat, Geoff Boucher talks “Watchmen”‘s Rorschach with actor Jackie Earle Haley and director Zack Snyder. [Los Angeles Times]

  • “Tell me can you ask for anything more?”

    (from left) Mickey Rourke and Bruce Springsteen at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards

  • Attention Rob and Eunice

    I need your mailing addresses, chaps.  We’ve got contest goodies to send to you.

    I hope everyone enjoyed the Globes telecast.  Guy’s live-blogging was a great read but I decided to lay low tonight (though in hindsight, I clearly should have hoofed it over to that Fox Searchlight after party — they cleaned up).

    My extended thoughts on the show and the race as it stands now in tomorrow’s Off the Carpet column.

  • Golden Globe winners, as they are announced

    If you feel like hanging out here and pondering, kvetching, bitching or (here’s a novel idea) enthusing over the results, we’d love your company.  For those wanting to watch the show live, catch the stream here.

    OK, that’s a wrap, guys. Sorry for the delay in posting those last results, but your generous and frenzied readership meant the server was a little tricky to handle this past half-hour. I’ll offer more ordered thought and commentary tomorrow, but for now, let me say I’m pretty thrilled with how the evening panned out overall. Right now, however, it’s 4:30am where I am, and my bed looks like a pretty inviting place to be. See you in the morning.

    Best Picture – Drama: “Slumdog Millionaire”

    It is written.

    Best Actor in a Drama: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”

    Yes, yes, yes and yes again. I knew if Rourke could score anywhere it would be here, but still, I didn’t trust the Foreign Press to be that cool. Congratulations, HFPA members, for getting it right where most of the major critics’ groups got it wrong. Are you paying attention, SAG?

    Best Drama Series: “Mad Men”

    Well, duh. Nice to see Matt Weiner get his Globe moment after last year’s win went unseen, though.

    Best Actress in a Drama: Kate Winslet, “Revolutionary Road”

    Wow. I mean, just… wow. Who saw that coming? Unprecedented, I should think. (EDIT: Not quite. Sigourney Weaver accomplished the same feat in 1988. My bad.) In any case, a fair reward for a fine performance — so was that undeserved supporting award really necessary, HFPA?

    (More winners after the jump.)

    (more…)

  • Guessing the Globes

    UPDATE: That pesky Best Actor (Comedy/Musical) category has been running through my head all day, and I’m still not happy with my conclusion. So I’m making a last minute switch to Colin Farrell. I’ll probably be proved wrong in a few hours, but hey — there’s gotta be a surprise somewhere. Right?

    EARLIER: Well, hello there. After laptop theft has left me in the offline wilderness this past week, I’m back, albeit on borrowed facilities. (Thanks Alec, if you’re reading!) And not a moment too soon – any longer, and you’d have been deprived of my uninformed, inconsequential and in some cases wildly guessed Golden Globe predictions. Whew.

    The Globes come at a delicate point in awards season, just as consensus, or even a sense of inevitability, is building around certain prospective Oscar victors – but their timing, especially in the condensed awards season of recent years, means they don’t always catch the wave. So, while they frequently hop on an Oscar-bound bandwagon, as bellwethers, they can also be left behind – as in 2005, when they missed the momentum shift from “The Aviator” to “Million Dollar Baby.”

    Of course, their distinctive taste can also be a complicating factor, as we saw last year, when they bypassed long-established favourite “No Country for Old Men” for the rapidly cooling “Atonement.” And who can account for what happened in 1993, when they bizarrely crowned “Scent of a Woman” ahead of “Unforgiven,” “Howards End” and “The Crying Game?”

    What I’m saying, in a long-winded fashion, is that I’m finding this year’s Globes harder to call than they may appear. “Slumdog Millionaire” may be the obvious frontrunner, but I can’t shake a nagging suspicion that it’s not really an HFPA sort of film, that as with “Atonement” last year, the more stately, romantic “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” may be more to their taste. It’s a toss-up to me, but I’m ultimately playing it safe, and guessing that Danny Boyle’s Mumbai fable has too much momentum to overcome.

    (more…)

  • Schedule of tonight’s award presentations

    Golden Globe awardNabbed from Gold Derby:

    OPENING MONTAGE
    Set to the song “When I Grow Up”

    FILM SUPPORTING ACTRESS
    Presented by (unknown).

    FILM ORIGINAL SONG
    Presented by Sting

    MISS GOLDEN GLOBE (Rumer Willis)
    Introduced by Demi Moore

    TV SUPPORTING ACTOR
    Presented by Simon Baker and Eva Longoria

    TV SUPPORTING ACTRESS
    Presented by Simon Baker and Eva Longoria

    FILM CLIP FOR “BURN AFTER READING”
    Introduced by Don Cheadle

    (more…)

  • Golden Globe predictions

    The Globes come back tonight in all their boozning and schmoozing glory.  There are a few parties going on during and after the show, but I have to say, I’m tempted to pack it in, watch a few football games and catch the awards on the couch.  It’s been a busy week.

    Anyway, here’s my stab at predicting the winners.  I’m hearing a few unexpected names might pop up.  Have your say as well in the comments below.  My guesses:

    Best Picture (Drama): “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Picture (Comedy/Musical): “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
    Best Actor (Drama): Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”
    Best Actor (Comedy/Musical): Dustin Hoffman, “Last Chance Harvey”
    Best Actress (Drama): Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
    Best Actress (Comedy/Musical): Meryl Streep, “Mamma Mia!”
    Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
    Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”
    Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Screenplay: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Animated Feature: “WALL-E”
    Best Original Score: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Original Song: “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E”

  • Oscar watch 2009: Paul Greengrass talks ‘Green Zone’

    Matt Damon in Green ZoneIt’s no secret that Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” is one of my most anticipated films of 2009.  Part of a slew of Universal product that could find itself in the running for Oscar this time next year, the film is a loose adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s best-selling “Imperial Life in the Emarald City” and hopes to break the recent streak of popularly challenged dramas reflecting the conflict in Iraq.

    L.A. Times journo John Horn has filed a brief but interesting back-and-forth with Greengrass about the production, which has been in the editing lab for nearly a year because of the amount of footage the director has shot on location around the globe.  Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear and Amy Ryan, “Green Zone” might just be the film to bring audiences into the cinematic Iraq War discussion — or maybe it won’t.

    I’m also looking forward to Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” this year, which grabbed major raves in Toronto last September.  Here’s a bit from Horn’s piece:

    “It is not a movie about Iraq,” Greengrass said on the London set of his film last spring. “The hope is to make a strong, contemporary thriller that is set in Iraq. Thrillers thrive on extremity, and there is no more extreme environment than immediate post-invasion Baghdad,” he said. (Indeed, the cinematographer’s slate used during production titled the film not “Green Zone” but “Green Zone Thriller.”)

    The film follows Roy Miller (Damon), a warrant officer leading a team of 18 Army soldiers searching for weapons of mass destruction in late 2003, just after the American-led invasion.

    Instead of a cache of deadly chemicals, though, Miller’s team finds disorganization and ineptitude, and Miller soon grows desperate.

    “It’s a race against time to find those weapons,” the 53-year-old British filmmaker says. “It’s a race against time to catch Saddam Hussein. It’s a race against time to establish essential services. And it’s a race against time to win the confidence of the Iraqi people.”

    Check out the rest here.

  • New Yorker Eustace Tilley ‘Watchmen’ cover

    New Yorker cover design

    Designed by pop artist Marcus Parcus for The New Yorker’s Eustace Tilley cover design contest.  From the mag’s website:

    Eustace Tilley appeared on our first cover, in 1925, and has returned for nearly every anniversary issue since. Create your own version of our iconic dandy by January 15, 2009, for a chance to win and be featured in a slide show curated by The New Yorker’s art editor, Françoise Mouly.

  • Contest winners!

    Congratulations to Eunice, Rob, Justin Gonzalez and Jordan Raup for winning this week’s trio of contests!

    The haiku competition brought in the most entries.  It was the easiest to enter but it showed a love for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” amongst our readership to say the least.  Before mentioning the two winners, I have to give shout outs to Andrew L., for telling the whole story of the film with a series of haikus, and EVE, for writing all of her haikus backwards as well as forward.  Very creative.  But ultimately I settled on entries from Eunice and Rob:

    What if winter comes,
    In the spring of discontent?
    What then, happens next?

    How sad life would be
    To die without the chance to
    Reminisce of Youth

    The “Dark Knight” contest, meanwhile, brought in a slew of contestants.  I was impressed by a number of Batman memorabilia collections (props to Diego ortiz for organizing his collection in the shape of a Bat) and wardrobe ensembles.  But the winner became clear early on.  It takes some dedication to commit the Bat to your skin for life, and Justin has the ink to prove it:

    Dark Knight tattoo

    And finally, Jordan was quickest to the punch, correctly answering our “WALL-E” triva question on the origins of the film way back in the summer of 1994.

    Congratulations once again to the winners!  Emails will be sent shortly requesting mailing addresses.

  • If nominated, will Clint win Best Actor? I think so…

    Clint Eastwood in Gran TorinoThough it ain’t over till it’s over, I think the five nominees for best actor have all but been decided.  Come nomination morning, I expect to hear the names of Clint Eastwood, Sean Penn, Frank Langella, Mickey Rourke and Richard Jenkins.

    Of course I have no way of knowing if this is how things will end up, but I have a pretty good feeling (which means nothing). Left off the list will be Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which will garner the most nominations of any film, and Leonardo DiCaprio for “Revolutionary Road,” a brilliant, dark and troubling masterpiece, destined to be re-discovered in years to come as perhaps the best film of the year and certainly DiCaprio’s best work to date.

    Eastwood is in partly because he is Eastwood and partly because he does fine work. The role is tailor made for him in the manner Rooster Cogburn was written for John Wayne in “True Grit,” which won The Duke his only Oscar back in 1969. Eastwood gets to growl, cuss and throw out all sorts of racist comments in portraying a nasty old son of a bitch who turns out to have a heart. For anyone who has ever met or spoken to Eastwood, they will realize this character is light years away from the man, making it a startling performance.

    I am so tired of reading that he is playing himself. Sure he is portraying an extension of himself.  All actors do that (and always have), but Eastwood is also portraying a variation on the sort of role that made him famous. Could Walt be “Dirty Harry” after retirement? Damned straight he could and perhaps this is why the film has been greeted so warmly in some quarters, because the reviewer sees Eastwood’s character as an older version of Harry, a much loved character from years gone by, and a reimagination of his screen iconography.  It is sort of like seeing an old friend again.

    Well…sort of.

    If nominated, Eastwood will be a major threat to win the award. In fact, no, I’ll just say what Kris has been saying for a few months, now that I’ve gone back to the film a third and fourth time: if nominated, Clint WILL win.

    (more…)

  • 1/10 Oscarweb Round-up

    Nicole Kidman in Australia• “Milk” composer Danny Elfman has signed on to score “Terminator Salvation.”  Eh. [MTV]

    • Jeffrey Wells keeps the quoted-out-of-context game running with that Nicole Kidman “squirm” story. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Regarding said story, Michael Cieply reports it properly, indicating the “perils of candor.” [The Carpetbagger]

    • Alicia Lozano writes up the resurrection of the Golden Globes. [The Envelope]

    • Tom O’Neil has some backstage interviews from Thursday’s Critics’ Choice Awards. [Gold Derby]

    • Anne Thompson reports on Oscar hopes from the AFI Awards. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • T.L. Stanley stakes a claim for her Golden Globe bets. [Gold Derby]

    • Guy Adams has a preview of the upcoming Globes, with a bit about that Anne Hathaway win slip-up. [The Independent]

    • Exciting times for indieWIRE: a new design and, apparently, a newly imagined site is on the horizon. [indieWIRE]

  • Contests closed

    Thanks everyone for participating in the contests.  We already have one winner declared in the “WALL-E” giveaway.  I’ll announce the winners in the “Dark Knight” and “Benjamin Button” contests over the weekend.

  • Nice lede

    Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire

    On a hot summer night last June at the L.A. Film Festival’s opening night party, I ran into Picturehouse President Bob Berney, an independent film whiz and great awards campaigner. We talked about the imminent demise of his company (merged into Warner Bros. and then dumped), but he mentioned the possibility of releasing one more film, an oddball title he really liked that the defunct Warner Independent had produced but now those at (big) Warners admitted they didn’t know what to do with. It was the cinematic equivalent of leftovers and problematic because it was small and partially in the Hindi language.

    When I asked him if the movie, which I had never even heard of, “Slumdog Millionaire”, had any awards potential, he said probably not, proving once again that nobody knows nothing, even as savvy a guy as Berney, who brilliantly guided Charlize Theron and Marion Cotillard to Oscars.

    From Pete Hammond’s recent “Notes on a Season” column.

  • Agreed

    Because this was an embarrassing moment to many of us.