• The French lose their marbles not just over the exclusion of “Of Gods and Men” from this year’s foreign film shortlist, but the INCLUSION of Algeria’s “Outside the Law.” [The Carpetbagger]
• Elizabeth Snead talks to a number of costumers on this year’s awards circuit [Deadline]
• Is this Banksy? [Cinematical]
Gerard will address this category in tomorrow’s Tech Support column, but I did want to say something about Best Costume Design — partly because the Guild dropped some rather interesting nominations today, and partly because it’s the technical category that’s still prompting the most head-scratching as I work towards my final predictions.
We all know the Academy favors lavish period productions with corsets and hoop skirts a go-go in this category, but 2010 served up remarkably few possibilities in this vein. Even “The King’s Speech,” the year’s default well-dressed prestige title, is hardly a sartorial showcase in the vein of “Marie-Antoinette” or “The Duchess” — Jenny Beavan’s crisp 1930s wardrobe is functionally stylish rather than spectacular.
As if to illustrate the lack of conventional historical options, the Costume Designers’ Guild found only three films to nominate in their period category, instead of the usual five — and one of them, I’m thrilled to say, is the 1990s-set “The Fighter,” whose threads I was plugging just the other day.
Save for the Academy, of course. And you can find sound editors’ picks at The Circuit. Just about every possible competitor was chalked up (and it’s the sound effects and foley category that tends to shed the most light). Check out the breakdown of hopefuls, as always, at the film’s dedicated Contenders page here.
“Black Swan” and “Inception” are officially the most-recognized films of the year when it comes to the guild/society circuit. Each film was chalked up by every group.
Totally spaced it. We record in roughly an hour. So I’ll try to amass a few questions for the show here. Free-for-all. Ask as many as you want. Go! Fast!
Yesterday I dug through the 15 documentary feature short-listers to offer an idea of how that race might turn out. Over the weekend, the perceived heavy of the crowd, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” (which is the most awarded doc of the year), was taking down yet another prize at the Cinema Eye Honors. Director Banksy was not on hand to deliver his speech, natch, but the film’s producer, Jaimie D’Cruz, read it to the crowd and Matt Singer was on the ready with a recorder. Here’s the speech:
Now’s not the time for long, rambling speeches. I’ll leave that for the director of ‘Waiting for Superman.’
I’d like to thank the Cinema Eye awards. It’s great to be recognized by people who are so obsessed with the documentary genre — in other words people who are even more socially retarded than myself.
I guess some of you may be getting a bit suspicious about me. How can you know that this award is real? But I’d like to categorically assure you that this evening’s awards are not being staged by actors for a parody I’m making about film awards.
I’d like to thank anyone who worked on the movie. Almost all of them did a great job. And I’d like to dedicate this award to anyone out there who’s ever looked at the state of this world and thought: “I can’t just stand idly by and watch this happen. I need to get it on tape.” Thank you and have a good evening.
[Photo: Producers Distribution Agency]
Today “Black Swan” and “Inception” maintained their uniquely perfect guild status (having been cited by every single guild and society) by nailing down nominations in the contemporary category from the Costume Designers Guild. Every frontrunning possibility was chalked up, so the task is still pretty daunting to predict how that will go with Oscar. That leaves just one industry precursor, the Motion Picture Sound editors, which should announce nominees tomorrow.
(Someone do the math for me. Has a film ever been nominated for EVERY industry precursor? PGA, DGA, WGA, SAG, ACE, ADG, ASC, CAS, CDG, MPSE and VES?)
Meanwhile, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) spoke up with its list of nominee. I’ve noted only the three film categories.
• Eight milestones in the evolution of Natalie Portman. [Movieline]
• Carolyn Giardana notes a rare Best Visual Effects nomination for an animated film at the BAFTAs. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Nathaniel Rogers argues against the notion that Best Director must equal Best Picture. [The Film Experience]
For the past eight weeks, I’ve been spotlighting nomination-worthy names, in all major Ocar categories, from the first half of the US release calendar. Today, we close out the series with an alternative January-to-June Best Picture 10, though it comes a week after ballots closed — timing was never my strong suit.
A look at this category on the Oscar side of things proves why I felt this series of columns necessary in the first place. Of the films currently being mooted for a place on the Academy’s Best Picture list, only two — “Toy Story 3” and “Winter’s Bone” — were released prior to July 2010. If the latter does wind up making the cut, it raises hope that small-scale indies can override voters’ perilously short memories. If it doesn’t, well, we must just accept that the first six months of the year contained no Oscar-worthy adult drama. Or, you know, not.
There’s no doubting nine of the films on my list below are wild long-shots to show up in Tuesday’s nomination announcement — indeed, several of the titles aren’t present on the Academy’s list of eligible productions.
I feel compelled to pass this along in the midst of the usual Oscar talk because, well, you know me.
I looks like Anne Hathaway has been confirmed for the role of Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Christopher Nolan’s final Batman chapter, “The Dark Knight Rises.” Tom Hardy, meanwhile, who was cast in an unnamed role a few months back, has been confirmed for the role of Bane.
Yep, “Batman Returns” and “Batman & Robin” in one movie, despite a bevy of villains that could have been much more intriguing in this new direction the character has taken. On top of which, as much as I love Hathaway, I don’t like her for Kyle. At all. But you know what they say about opinions…
Anyway, on Hardy (who was speculated for the role of Dr. Hugo Strange in a take on the “Prey” storyline), I’m equal parts intrigued and disappointed by the character choice. Bane was infamously misused in Joel Schumacher’s 1997 craptastic vision, but if you’re looking to close out your trilogy (and three is as far as Nolan ever planned to take it), Bane is a nice character to use — if you’re faithful.
“Dogtooth.” That’s the title an every Oscar pundit’s lips right now, as Greece’s critically beloved but super-outré submission — which includes inter-sibling sex and feline homicide in its curious bag of tricks — stunned pretty much everyone by showing up on the nine-title shortlist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. I can hardly believe I’m typing this myself.
There can be no doubt whatsoever that this is the work of the Academy’s executive committee, which was set up two years ago to give more challenging fare a leg up in the Oscar race by hand-picking an extra three titles to go on the shortlist compiled by general voters in the category. They’ve certainly done their job on this occasion — bravo, guys. (Japan’s reportedly edgy “Confessions” appears to be the second film they saved; the third is open to question.)
As it turned out, I predicted only four of the nine — not hard in the case of Denmark’s Golden Globe winner “In a Better World,” Canada’s “Incendies” and Mexico’s “Biutiful,” which have been installed as favorites for weeks now.
While Guy has been surveying the foreign field, I’ve been diving in elsewhere.
It has been considered a banner year for documentary filmmaking. So naturally, the Best Documentary Feature race has been an interesting one to watch since the season’s early days. Two months ago the Academy announced 15 finalists (whittling it down from 101 eligible titles) still alive in the race for this year’s doc Oscar. Branch members will now select five nominees from the remaining hopefuls, which will be announced as part of the Academy’s big reveal Tuesday.
Even if there are a number of examples that didn’t make the list but probably should have, those 15 films largely make for a sound representation of a great year for the form. I spent the last couple of weeks revisiting some and saddling up to others for the first time, so it seemed worth it to offer up my thoughts on each and my perspective on the race.
This year’s Best Original Score race really has me at a loss. I freely admit that I have no idea what will happen there. Some days I think we’ll get a small surprise like Alexandre Desplat sliding in for his best work this year in “The Ghost Writer,” others I think we could just get a massive, happy surprise like Daft Punk slipping in for their brilliant work on “TRON Legacy.”
Other times, I kind of just bank on it being a boring assemblage of what we’ve been expecting. Probably option “C” is the wisest expectation.
One thing has begun to materialize lately for me, though. And that is the fact that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who I once upon a time thought might not even get a nomination for their wonderfully woven ambient work in “The Social Network,” could be the frontrunners to win in a category that might be filled with less-singular achievements.
A couple of things this morning. First, the Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association has come out of clear, blue (fabulous) sky to dish out their honors — and “I Am Love,” therefore, joins the minimal chorus of Best Picture critics award winners.
Meanwhile, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” won the top prize at last night’s Cinema Eye Honors, but Lixin Fan’s “Last Train Home” took home the most trophies with three.
Speaking of which, check back later today as I’ll have an in-depth look at the 15 docs shortlisted for Oscar.
• Ben Affleck’s writes up his 11 favorite heist movies. [Daily Beast]
• The Jets game was the Weinstein priority on Sunday night, not the Globes. [Page Six]
• Dave Karger gets frisky and sticks with Hailee Steinfeld in lead for his final predictions. [Inside Movies]
Tomorrow, we get the last of the Academy’s crucial pre-nomination shortlists, as the list of 65 entries for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is slashed to just nine titles, from which the eventual nominees will be announced in a week’s time. Predicting these nine is a vague and mostly thankless task, but I am nothing if not vague and thankless, so let’s give it a go.
Remember, here’s the system as it currently stands: six of the nine titles on the shortlist are voted in by the general committee of volunteer voters in the category, based on the scores given at each film’s official Academy screening. The remaining three are selected by a hand-picked executive committee, with the specific intention of “saving” significant and/or challenging titles that didn’t win the approval of the larger, more conservative body of voters.
This curious system was set up two years ago, following the uproar that greeted the exclusion of critically beloved Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” in the 2007 race.
When you’ve been doggedly championing a film for the better part of 18 months, as I have with Claire Denis’s “White Material,” you do start to feel weirdly parental. So I was oddly touched by the raft of emails and tweets I got from assorted readers to inform me that the film has been revealed as one of Criterion’s April titles — it was as if I was being congratulated for someone else’s triumph.
I’ve said before that I don’t really do the Criterion thing: US import charges making the discs even more of an indulgence for me, after all. If I make an exception for anything, however, it’ll be for the film that further viewings have established (after an already ecstatic first encounter) as my favorite of the last half-decade or so.
Each revisit opens up both new avenues of political enquiry and an alternative set of possible answers, while the filmmaking also stuns on rotating, mood-dependent levels. One day, it’s Denis’s still-life camera that seems to lead the rich, fever-dream sound design; another, quite the reverse.