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Yesterday, while talking with one of my sane friends whose thoughts drift to film awards perhaps one day a year, the conversation turned to the BAFTAs, which announce the nominations for their 2009 film awards tomorrow. “The BAFTAs, they’re like the Oscars for British films, right?” she asked. “Not quite,” I replied. “They’re open to […]
Entries filed in: 'The Long Shot'
THE LONG SHOT: A little bit of English
Posted by Guy Lodge · 6:41 pm · January 20th, 2010
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THE LONG SHOT: Hollywood fights back
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:45 pm · January 13th, 2010
I may be looking out at my snow-caked garden as I write this, but it was in the spirit of spring-cleaning that I revised my nomination predictions this morning, ridding myself of most of the clinging personal hopes and hunches that lingered when I last updated them a month ago. It wasn’t the most drastic […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Four to the floor
Posted by Guy Lodge · 4:13 pm · December 30th, 2009
“It might as well rain until September,” wrote Carole King in her jaunty 1960s ditty of that title, an ode to summertime breakup blues that may as well have been composed for the autumnally-activated awards season. Swap September for December, and you have an apt description of the approach many studios and Oscar-watchers alike take […]
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THE LONG SHOT: The next best thing
Posted by Guy Lodge · 3:11 pm · December 16th, 2009
As the season hits its stride, and precursors turn murky perceptions of pack leaders and stragglers into harder realities, I find myself wondering how I would fill out my ballot if I were an Academy member. That’s not the same as wondering what I would fill my ballot with – as Kris just did today. […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Cartoon network
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:56 pm · December 9th, 2009
As the year winds down, and critics and entertainment journalists search for neat blanket tags with which to label the year that was, “the year of animation” is a phrase that is getting increasingly bandied about – some going so far as to declare 2009 the greatest year of all time for animated product. (Certainly, […]
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THE LONG SHOT: The more you know
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:57 pm · December 2nd, 2009
Here’s something I’ll bet a lot of you wouldn’t have guessed: once upon a time, when my pants were short and my South African accent heavy, I was a very good Oscar pundit. I won every pool going. I beat the lame TV critics’ guesses and laughed in their televised faces. When that got old, […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Popular mechanics
Posted by Guy Lodge · 6:19 pm · November 25th, 2009
“My God, they’ve thrown in everything but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Quoted by writer Anthony Holden in his gossipy history “The Oscars,” this was one publicist’s dismayed response to the 1990 Academy Award nominations, which included such unusual concessions to popular (as opposed to critical) opinion as a Best Picture nomination for “Ghost” and […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Consider this
Posted by Guy Lodge · 2:34 pm · November 18th, 2009
There’s nothing like an Oscar season to prove what a small number five (or even ten) is. We may only be in November, but already, months of conversation, covering a broad canvas of Oscar sure-shots and long-shots alike, have devolved into a ruthless mathematical elimination process, as previously five-wide categories fill up with safe bets. […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Don’t look back in anger
Posted by Guy Lodge · 2:20 pm · November 11th, 2009
For all the movement in the awards game this week – Jeff Bridges leap-frogging into contention, the animation race swelling to five nominees, “Precious” continuing to gather momentum – my head hasn’t really been in it this week. That’s partly because we’re all still making blind prognoses until four unseen juggernauts – “Nine,” “Avatar,” “The […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Critical condition
Posted by Guy Lodge · 1:25 pm · November 4th, 2009
Ahead of its U.S. release this week, there is a wave of mild surprise in the blogosphere over the fact that “Precious,” the film deemed by some (yours truly included) to be the present Best Picture frontrunner, is currently sitting on a lowly Metacritic score of 57. Fitting neatly with the largely media-fabricated talk of […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Mind your language
Posted by Guy Lodge · 3:38 pm · October 28th, 2009
You might not be aware of it, but the competition is already formally under way in Oscar’s most perennially problematic category, Best Foreign Language Film. For almost two weeks now, official Academy screenings of the longlisted contenders in the race have been in progress, and will continue through January, until all 65 titles have been […]
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THE LONG SHOT: What is an “Oscar movie” these days?
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:14 pm · October 21st, 2009
“God, that thing’s just going to shit Academy Awards out of its ass next year, isn’t it?,” I overheard a journo behind me remark to his companion, as I made my way out of the “Up in the Air” press screening on Sunday. “It’s such an Oscar movie.” Two things struck me as interesting about […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Minority report
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:49 pm · October 15th, 2009
When the Academy Awards roll around in March, it will have been precisely two decades since the unlikely figure of Kim Basinger blasted Academy voters’ conservatism on air at the 1989 ceremony, with specific regard to their sidelining of “Do the Right Thing,” Spike Lee’s groundbreaking study of urban interracial tension. “We’ve got five great […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Post early for Christmas
Posted by Guy Lodge · 1:35 pm · October 7th, 2009
London is in the midst of a postal strike. No mail, be it far-flung postcard or electricity bill, has popped through my front door for over a month. I recently had to stroll into Soho to pick up my London Film Festival accreditation pack by hand. And rather discouragingly, my local post office today put […]
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THE LONG SHOT: What are precursors for, anyway?
Posted by Guy Lodge · 11:00 am · September 30th, 2009
I didn’t time my holiday to coincide with the sleepiest week of awards season, but that’s how it panned out anyway. While I spent 10 days drinking my way along the canals of France’s Burgundy region, divorced from my computer screen and, I admit, any thoughts of Oscar whatsoever, the industry, too, took a collective […]
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THE LONG SHOT: Making the 10 work for you
Posted by Guy Lodge · 9:01 am · September 23rd, 2009
*This is the first installment of “The Long Shot,” a new weekly Oscar column from Guy Lodge here at In Contention. At some point last week, I snapped at a commenter for rather benignly suggesting that, with the clarity granted certain contenders by the festival season, we could now call 7 of the newly expanded […]
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