In Contention

Category: Daily

  • Class of 1993

    There are a lot of reasons I wish I was 10 years old again — the free food and lodging, the still-tempered cynicism, the safe knowledge that there were only three Indiana Jones movies — but chief among them on this Oscar Nomination Eve is that if I was, I’d have the 1993 Academy Award slate coming my way.

    If you’ve forgotten that Oscar year — or if it was before your time — refresh your memory here. Seriously, has the Academy ever cobbled together quite such an impeccable lineup across multiple categories?

    Start at the top, with a Best Picture lineup that balances top-flight Hollywood prestige (“Schindler’s List”), daring international arthouse (“The Piano”) and peerless populism (“The Fugitive”). Move down through those hard-earned semi-surprise acting nods for the likes of Laurence Fishburne and Stockard Channing, down to the Best Supporting Actor race that I’ve already cited as the strongest in the category’s history.

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  • ‘King’s Speech’ cast to be honored in Santa Barbara

    Last SBIFF news before the fest.  I head up there Thursday.  The press release, in part:

    The 26th Annual Santa Barbara Film Festival will honor the cast of THE KING’S SPEECH as the best motion picture ensemble of the year, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling. The film, which features performances by an award-winning collection of actors including Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Derek Jacobi and Claire Bloom, has garnered critical and industry-wide acclaim, recently winning the Producer’s Guild of America’s Best Picture of the Year Award.

    The honor will be bestowed on Monday, January 31 at Santa Barbara’s historic Arlington Theatre, as part of the 11-day film festival. Firth, Bonham Carter and others are expected to attend the ceremony, along with the film’s director, Tom Hooper, joining Geoffrey Rush at his Montecito Award Tribute.

    [Photo: The Weinstein Company]

  • Wish list 2010

    Tomorrow’s the big day.  And there are always surprises.  But rather than offer a space for predicting shockers, I thought I’d ask for your wish list picks.  Name three nominations (in the major categories) that seemingly have no chance whatsoever, but are still in the acceptable realm of possibility, which would send you over the moon.

    For example, I might consider “Exit Through the Gift Shop” to be the best film of the year, but for these purposes it’s more appropriate to go with something like “Shutter Island” or, better yet, “The Way Back” for my “wish list” picks in Best Picture.  Make sense?

    I’ll start…

    Best Picture: “The Way Back”
    Best Director:     Mike Leigh, “Another Year”
    Best Original Screenplay:     “Four Lions”

    You?  (My final predictions are here if you missed them.)

    [Photo: Drafthouse Films]

  • 25+ years, 15 films, 50 actors, 96 characters

    Over at HelloMuller (via /Film), UK graphic artist Tom Muller has put together an info graphic detailing the Coen brothers’ acting stable over the years.  A diversion, but fun.  Check out the ful image after the jump.

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  • CONTEST: T-shirt giveaway!

    Alright, we have our last contest of the year.  But it’ll have a quick turnaround, so don’t snooze if you’re interested.

    First, the prize.  We have T-shirts for “Animal Kingdom” (you remember the one), “TRON Legacy,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and “Tangled” up for grabs.  And the contest will be predictions-based.

    This weekend I asked you all what you felt were the most difficult categories to predict for nominations this season.  Your top three picks: Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress and Best Original Score. So, that’s your task for the contest.  Give us your predictions in those three categories.  Hopefully that’ll provide enough information to steer clear of a tie-breaker, but in case we need one, also answer this question: Which film will lead with the most nominations?

    Got it?  Good.  Now, hit me with your best shot.  We’ll announce the winner tomorrow afternoon.

    [Photo: Kristopher Tapley]

  • ‘Black Swan’ music box contest winners!

    Thanks to everyone for participating in our “Black Swan” music box contest.  It’s tough to illuminate the pro and con of a movie and I think everyone gave it a great stab.

    Ultimately, I was most convinced by Bryan and Cat Scott’s entries.  So each of you drop me a line with your address and we’ll get your prizes in the mail.  Winning entries after the jump.

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  • 1/24 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Rich’s two Americas, meet the foreign film exec committee, Jonze interviews Russell

    • Frank Rich sees two Americas in “The Social Network” and “True Grit.” [New York Times]

    • David Poland sits down with the latter’s cinematographer, Roger Deakins. [The Hot Blog]

    • Meet the executive committee charged with saving esoteric foreign films hopefuls. [The Odds]

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  • Razzies aim typically low

    The Golden Raspberry (aka Razzie) Awards irritate me on an annual basis, largely because they’re such a joyless, unimaginative and, worst of all, cowardly execution of a neat idea: singling out the worst cinematic achievements of the year for a bit of a ribbing.

    Except they aren’t about genuinely failed artistry nearly as much as they are about piling on whichever easy celebrity targets happened to have a film out in the past 12 months. They’re intended as a bit of fun, obviously, but how fun is it really to beat up on tween idols like Miley Cyrus and the “Twilight” team? “The Expendables” isn’t that ineptly directed — but hey, it’s Sly, so it must be bad!

    Wouldn’t it be more subversive to aim at some higher targets who flubbed in 2010? (You’d think a “Worst Use of 3D” award would have been invented for “Alice in Wonderland,” but no — works from prestige directors are above the law here, apparently.)

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  • My dream Oscar ballot, part two

    Yesterday, I began my very far-fetched (and in some cases, frankly impossible) wishlist for Tuesday’s Oscar nominations with my favorite achievements in the technical categories. Today, I offer up my picks in the top races, and I don’t mind telling you things got pretty agonizing in some categories.

    “Why can’t I have 15 nominees for Best Supporting Actress?” one half of my brain asked earlier this morning, as I once more marvelled that any pundits could once have deemed that particular race “weak.” Cooler instincts prevailed, but it bears repeating just what a staggering, and pleasingly varied, year it’s been for female performances on both sides of the category divide. I was also surprised to see how many performances stood tall from films that weren’t necessarily on their stars’ level — I like to think there aren’t too many coattail picks here.

    I’ve veered from Academy format in one respect: I’ve dispensed with a Best Foreign Language Film category. Not only do I dislike the award in principle — it’s a different language, not a different medium — but my general picks are heavy enough on foreign fare that a ghetto category seemed superfluous. Check out my picks after the cut, and share your thoughts in the comments.

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  • ‘King’s Speech’ wins in PGA shocker

    Tonight’s PGA awards were the first stab at the preferential ballot for this year’s Best Picture hopefuls.  The big winner in the feature film field was…oh my…“The King’s Speech.”

    Considering this is a beefy organization (not quite as big as AMPAS but big) and its nominees are likely to match the Best Picture 10 pretty closely, I’d say this is one of the fairest indications of how things could play out in five weeks.  Last year, remember, the PGA went for “The Hurt Locker” rather than $2 billion grosser “Avatar.” I think it will prove, more and more, to be a reliable indicator, as long as it shares this voting method and breadth of nominees with the Academy.

    So does that apply this year?  Is there a major swinging of the pendulum under way?  Who knows.  And there is still the increasingly strong possibility of “The Fighter” taking the SAG ensemble prize.  Perhaps at the end of the day we’ll have a phase two to remember.

    Check out the full list of theatrical and honorary PGA award winners at The Circuit.

    [Photo: The Weinstein Company]

  • What is the most difficult category to predict this year?

    In your opinion.  I’ll be using the most agreed-upon answers as part of a contest Monday, so speak up.

  • Bridges does Ferguson

    He was off to film this Thursday after we had lunch, so I guess I can shed light on the Purell thing at the beginning.  Jeff’s pretty sick right now.  He’s been offering up elbow pounds in lieu of handshakes as a result.  Here he does a chest bump and Purell shake.  Part two after the jump.

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  • My dream Oscar ballot, part one

    For the past two years running, I’ve celebrated Oscar Nomination Eve by assembling my own ideal (and, usually, incredibly far-fetched) ballot, so here we go again. As well as a kind of last-ditch prayer to the Oscar gods, I also look on it as a salute to the worthy contenders who haven’t a hope in hell of hearing their names read out on Tuesday morning.

    At the request of some readers, I’ve bent the rules to accommodate several titles unfairly ineligible for Oscar consideration in any category: most of you are aware of the arcane ruling that has denied “A Prophet” the chance to ever compete in a non-ghetto category, while the TV airings of “Red Riding” and “Carlos” keep them out of the game too. I’m less clear on why the likes of “White Material” and “Fish Tank” aren’t on the Academy’s list of eligible titles, but they aren’t, and I must make my peace with that.

    Anyway, screw ’em: this ballot represents what I found most awards-worthy from all the theatrical features released in the US last year, and you can’t get fairer than that. I’ll begin, as usual, with the ten technical categories — in which I was pleased to end up with a healthy spread of 33 films across 48 slots. Jump in after the cut, and share your own thoughts in the comments. (Also, check out Kris’s very different ideal ballot here.)

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Globes chatter, Batman buzz, foreign Oscar surprises

    • The Golden Globes did their thing, with Ricky Gervais’s antics drawing more attention than the sweep for “The Social Network.”

    • David Fincher’s film continued its dominance at the Broadcast Film Critics’ Association Awards, which Kris reported from first-hand.

    • As if to remind us that there’s more than one film in the race, this week’s BAFTA nominations were ruled by “The King’s Speech” and “Black Swan.”

    • Sadly, we bade farewell this week to regular columnist Chad, who left us with his idiosyncratic Best of 2010 list.

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  • ‘Of Gods and Men,’ ‘Ghost Writer’ lead César nominations

    The film may be smarting from its widely (if not, ahem, entirely) unexpected omission from the Oscar foreign-language shortlist earlier this week, but Xavier Beauvois’s sombre religious drama “Of Gods and Men” found more love in its home country, where it scooped a leading 11 nominations for the César Awards.

    The so-called “French Oscars” also unsurprisingly took a shine to Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” which has dominated the European awards circuit and is angling for a surprise Oscar nod or two on Tuesday. Expect these two films to battle it out for the gold; I’d bet on the weighty prestige veneer of Beauvois’s film winning out, but sentimental loyalty to Polanski shouldn’t be underestimated — he is, after all, a previous winner for both “Tess” and  “The Pianist.”

    Beyond those two frontrunners, I’m pleased to see a strong showing for Mathieu Amalric’s scrappy burlesque comedy “On Tour,” though their other choices suggest the Césars can be as frustratingly MOR as their US counterpart.

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  • Evening Standard Award nominees, take two

    A couple of weeks ago, we reported on the nominations for the London Evening Standard Awards — a juried critics’ honor devoted to British films and talent. As it turns out, that “nominee” list was a bit of a false alarm; rather, it was a rough longlist of names considered by the jury that the Standard released prematurely.

    The official nominations for the awards were announced today, and I have to say, it’s my favorite such list I’ve seen all season. This year’s jury can’t be accused of playing it safe: it’s certainly ballsy to omit “The King’s Speech” in the top race.

    In its place, I’m thrilled to see my #1 film of 2010, Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist,” as well as Peter Mullan’s riveting youth drama “Neds,” which I reviewed back in October. Add in due respect for Mike Leigh, and I don’t think the field could better represent the year in British film.

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  • Gosling croons with Kimmel

    Promoting the film in which he gives the year’s best performance. Fingers crossed for him on Tuesday.

  • Gervais calls it like it is

    Piers Morgan started his new stint filling Larry King’s shoes this week, and last night it was Ricky Gervais across the desk: