In Contention

Category: Daily

  • WGA gives leg up to ‘Please Give,’ ‘Phillip Morris’

    Well, we all knew the WGA would have a unique slate of nominations, given the list of ineligibilities this year (which included “Another Year,” “Blue Valentine,” “Biutiful,” “The Ghost Writer,” “The King’s Speech,” “Love & Other Drugs,” “Made in Dagenham,” “Never Let Me Go,” “The Way Back” and “Winter’s Bone,” among others).

    I was expecting to see “The Fighter” slide onto the list in the wake of that purge, as well as “The Town” (which adds to SAG and PGA recognition with this nomination).  But I didn’t think Nicole Holofcener’s “Please Give” would make the cut (though Anne mentioned it as a possibility in Friday’s Oscar Talk), and I definitely didn’t see “I Love You Phillip Morris” coming (which is one of my favorite adaptations of the year).  Interesting that it was another Roadside Attractions released that filled in for “Winter’s Bone.”

    We’ve still got the USC Scripter finalists on the way later today. (NOTE: I’ve just been notified that the Scripter finalists will be revealed tomorrow.) Tomorrow, the Art Directors Guild will announce nominees, followed by the Cinema Audio Society on Wednesday.  Check out the full list of WGA screen nominees at The Circuit.

    [Photo: Roadside Attractions]

  • Hundreds of Roosters at Gritapalooza

    I think I’ve seen it all:

  • PGA nominates the expected

    Look to your right, at Kris’s current Best Picture predictions. Now look at the list of 10 films just nominated for the Producers Guild of America’s top award. Ready for a quick game of Spot the Difference? It’ll be very quick — there are none. (Kris’s hopes yesterday for one wild-card nod were in vain.)

    The PGA could hardly have stuck any more closely to the script with this morning’s announcement, which points to a rapidly solidifying race three weeks ahead of the Oscar nominations. Still, questions remain, and I’d still bet against the Academy following this list precisely to the letter.

    Among the titles left off the PGA’s list is “Winter’s Bone,” but the microbudget no-name indie was never likely to score with these guys. Will passion votes still propel it into the Oscar Ten — and if so, among the presumed stragglers, will “127 Hours” or “The Town” make way?

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  • 1/4 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: 2010 in cinematography, ‘True Grit’ vocal ticks, Affleck on Postlethwaite

    • Jordan Raup gets into the game of recognizing the year’s best in cinematography.  (My annual “Top 10 Shots of the Year” column will hit later this month, FYI.) [The Film Stage]

    • Stephen Schaefer bemoans the broadcast realities and “cookie cutter sameness” of critics awards in the 21st century. [Boston Herald]

    • David Poland captures a great moment from Ben Affleck re: Pete Postlethwaite. [The Hot Blog]

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  • James Franco dreams big, then bigger

    Many actors eyeing early directorial projects tend to focus on something both modest and close to home, a performance-oriented piece on which to cut their teeth for more formally ambitious works in the future.

    Try telling that to James Franco. In perhaps the most unlikely heartthrob-behind-camera move since Kevin Costner announced his intention to make a three-hour post-Civil War Western with large chunks of Lakota dialogue, news has come down the wire of Franco’s intention to finally adapt and direct Cormac McCarthy’s  totemic Western novel “Blood Meridian,” a long-mooted project previously held by the likes of Ridley Scott and Todd Field, for the screen.

    But that’s not before he makes his intended big-league debut as writer-director with another little literary adaptation prospect: William Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness classic “As I Lay Dying,” which you may or may not recall has just 15 narrators. No sweat. As fellow film writer Neil Young remarked to me on Twitter, “He might at least warm up with a 10-hour ‘Finnegan’s Wake,’ or perhaps just a couple of Pynchons.”

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  • Category justice or precarious situation for Steinfeld?

    All season long the question from countless readers was, “Why do you have Hailee Steinfeld listed as a supporting actress contender?  Her character is the lead of ‘True Grit.’”  Indeed.  But I knew where Paramount was going to campaign the performance, and I expected a number of critics groups to follow that notion like sheep (and they did, save for the independently-minded Utah set).

    Of course, the possibility always existed that the Academy would vote its own way.

    The acting branch, remember, decides category placement when it comes to performance contenders.  Just two years ago they weren’t buying the supporting campaign for Kate Winslet in “The Reader,” opting instead for lead (and she ultimately won the Oscar for Best Actress).  Child performances, however, tend to struggle in the leading ranks.

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  • Predict the WGA and Scripter nominees

    Also speaking up tomorrow will be the WGA (Writers Guild of America).  The recently revealed list of ineligibilities makes picking this group’s choices much more fun, though it still kinda stinks because you know some of the best scripts of the year will be spectators.

    Last year the beneficiaries of the purge (which ultimately missed with Oscar) were “Crazy Heart,” “Julie & Julia” and “Star Trek” in adapted, “(500) Days of Summer,” “Avatar” and “The Hangover” in original.  From my vantage, there doesn’t appear to be as many options to choose from on the periphery of these races, but I’ll give it a stab.

    Click on through the jump to see my picks in the adapted and original categories, as well as discussion of the USC Scripter Awards.  (I’ll opt out of picking the documentary field from the WGA, which is likely to be a crap shoot, anyway.)

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  • CONTEST: Win the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ score and coffee table book

    More to give away this week as we’ve got something for the animation fans.  Up for grabs: Tracey Miller-Zarneke and Cressida Cowell’s lovely coffee table book “The Art of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’” and a copy of John Powell’s beautiful beloved original score for the film.

    I think I’ll steal shamelessly from Sasha Stone again and give this away by way of a Haiku contest.  So cut loose with your best “Dragon”-inspired Haiku poem (submit up to three, if you like).  Winner gets the goods.

    Also, be sure you refresh your memory on what a Haiku poem actually IS before submitting to your entries.

    [Photo: DreamWorks Animation]

  • Seven years to the day

    Sony’s campaign for “The Social Network” sure is moving along swimmingly.  As if the critics’ groups didn’t give the film enough of a headwind going into the voting frame of phase one, the film is hitting DVD and Blu-ray January 11, a scant three months after theatrical release and right in the middle of the buzz maelstrom.

    Of course, it’s all by design, and a DVD release party being held at Spago in Beverly Hills Thursday night, press naturally invited en masse, will keep the good word spreading.  An Oscar run is all about timing, and so far, this one has it in spades.

    There’s something else that’s key to that date, though.  Film writer William Goss alerted me over the weekend to the fact that, on January 11, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg began this epic, defining journey when he bought the domain (“thefacebook.com”) that would become, after a slight tweak, the most-visited website on the internet.  Coincidence?

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  • Predict the PGA nominees

    Tomorrow the guild circuit launches with the WGA (separate post coming) and PGA nominations.  The critics’ circuit was well and good but this is where crossover memberships begin to give us a tangible view of how the race will fill out.

    Last year the PGA (Producers Guild of America) piggy-backed the Academy’s plan to expand the field of nominees from five to 10.  It also copied the new voting scheme, which uses the preferential balloting system to determine nominees.

    The two films that missed with the guild but made it into the Best Picture 10 were “The Blind Side” (odd that it missed, given its box office take) and the Coens’ “A Serious Man.” In their place: Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus” (why?) and the blockbuster “Star Trek.” What can we expect this year?  Continue after the jump to see what I’m thinking.

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  • Updates to The Circuit

    A few pre-guild honors trickling in. Kansas City goes for “The Social Network” and “Inception” in a big way, while the Dublin set offers a fresh perspective.  Also, Barbara Hershey finally got some more love, this tim from the Central Ohio critics, while the Online Film Critics Society has announced its list of winnerzzzz…

  • 1/3 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Fincher courts select press, Tarantino’s top 10, a dark Oscar season

    • Steve Weintraub sits down with David Fincher (who got really choosy about who he’d talk to last week — again) to discuss “The Social Network” DVD release and other projects. [Collider]

    • Glenn Whipp writes up the dark tales of torment that lurk on voters’ ballots this season. [Variety]

    • Watch a 1991 Alka Seltzer commercial directed by and starring Guillermo Del Toro. [/Film]

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  • NYT offers some pointers to the Academy

    The New York Times has an annual tradition of getting its three top critics — Manohla Dargis, A.O. Scott and Stephen Holden — to craft ideal Oscar ballots, and the results this year point to more scattered affections than the critics’ award trail would have you believe. Interestingly, only one title features on all three critics’ Best Picture lists, and it ain’t “The Social Network” — ironically, it’s Olivier Assayas’s “Carlos,” which, of course, isn’t eligible for Academy consideration.

    Elsewhere, their overlaps are on more expected (and Oscar-favored) candidates: all three agree on Jesse Eisenberg, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and the Coens’ screenplay for “True Grit.” More interesting are their more idiosyncratic picks: I co-sign Holden’s Best Supporting Actress mention for Charlotte Rampling in “Life During Wartime,” and would never have predicted Scott’s screenplay citation for “Green Zone.”

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  • Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)

    Pete Postlethwaite had one of those faces — weathered, folded, kneaded, endlessly interesting — that demanded to be on camera, even as it denied him any possibility of leading man status.

    And yet, in the latter half of his career, Postlethwaite, who sadly passed away yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer, made a convincing case for the character actor as star. Neither his visage nor his gratifyingly alliterative name threatened more than a career as “that guy,” but somehow we got to know him better than that.

    The turning point, of course, was a hard-earned and wholly unexpected 1993 Academy Award nomination for “In the Name of the Father” (speaking as we were, recently, of nods that came without any precursor warning), his granite-hard and quietly mournful performance as Maguire Seven convict Giuseppe Conlon joining a gallery of performances I cited last year as one of the finest Oscar fields in history.

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Grit’ closes in on those ‘Fockers’

    And it’ll blow past $100 million.  Already noted, but hooray for the genre.  Also, the “Black Swan” haul cannot be understated.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • 12/31 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Way Back’ last on the scene, 70 votes gets you in, Sparling breaks the rules

    • Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” intentionally hits voters’ doorsteps last, just s ballots are arriving.  Shrewd, given the P&A budget.  Will it pay off? [Deadline]

    • Steve Pond does the Oscar math and discovers that fewer than 70 votes will secure you a nomination everywhere except the four acting categories and Best Picture. [The Odds]

    • Dave Karger reports on Chris Sparling’s gross self-promotion to the Academy in the form of the “Buried” screenwriter’s best Nicolas Chartier impression. [Inside Movies]

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  • Another word on ‘Another Year’

    I’m linking to this Top 20 Films of 2010 list on In Review Online for several reasons. Because I really like the site. Because I really like the list. Because I’m one of the writers they polled to create the list. Because their number one is perfect. And because they were kind enough to invite me to write up Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” (their #19) for the feature. I already had my say on the film way back at Cannes, but since US audience are only now seeing the film for themselves, it seemed a good time to add a few words:

    Stately and considered where its predecessor felt spiky and garrulous, “Another Year” was labelled by many a critic upon its Cannes debut as Mike Leigh’s antidote of sorts to his 2008 character study “Happy-Go-Lucky.” That’s a misjudgment made purely on the basis of tone, given that the two films, perhaps more than any other pair in the Leigh oeuvre, are clear sister works—both comedies of manners examining the effort that goes into the construction of happiness, divided only by which side of the Thames their particular gaggle of chirpy middle-class Londoners reside.

    More, plus the rest of the list, here.

    [Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]

  • Montage 2010: The Year in Cinema Montages

    This ought to provide closure to the onslaught of 2010 film montages.  Courtesy of Badass Digest: