In Contention

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

    Woody Harrelson in The MessengerBest Original Screenplay: 2009’s most difficult category to predict. Why? Certainly not because of each contender’s merits (when does that ever come into play with the Academy). No, this field is a hair-puller because you have a vibrant, likable personality up against the Best Picture frontrunner, always a recipe for a close race (and, sometimes, a recipe for upset).

    This year’s nominees contain four Best Picture nominees and one surprise (which thankfully ousted the most overrated indie charmer of the year). Atypically, there are as many Best Picture nominees represented here than in the adapted field, which can’t be a bad thing.

    The nominees are:

    “The Hurt Locker” (Mark Boal)
    “Inglourious Basterds” (Quentin Tarantino)
    “The Messenger” (Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman)
    “A Serious Man” (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen)
    “Up” (Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter; Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy)

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  • “It is what it is. It’s that or we both better go do something else, pal.”

  • Interviews with the nominees

    Jeff BridgesAs we head into the big weekend of this year’s hotly anticipated Academy Awards telecast, I thought I’d toss this list up once more, broken down by film. We’ve added to it a bit since the nominees were announced.

    And if you’d like to re-live the season so far, you can see how things have panned out at The Circuit.

    “Avatar”
    James Horner (Best Original Score)

    “Bright Star”
    Janet Patterson (Best Costume Design)

    “Coraline”
    Henry Selick (Best Animated Feature)

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  • REMINDER: Lock in your picks at our Oscar pool

    OscarIf you haven’t already done so, be sure to join us over at Awards Picks and enter in our 2010 Oscar pool.  Picks are locked in at 7:59pm EST Sunday, March 7 by the system.  (How’s that for last minute?)

    I’m still open to suggestions if you guys have issues with the way the ballot is currently weighted.  We don’t have to weight it if you don’t want.  Everything can be equal and we’ll just use the tie-breaker where necessary, but I’ll leave it to you to decide.

    This year’s winner gets a grab back of studio swag, including the screenplays for “Julie & Julia,” “The Hurt Locker” and “Up,” as well as a screenplay/photo coffee table book for “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orelans.” There’s also the soundtracks for “Precious” and “Up in the Air,” plus a copy of Walter Kirn’s book.  Oh, and a nifty Oscar hat.  Maybe more if I uncover more swag in the darkest reaches of my office.

  • FRIDAY FORECAST: ‘Alice’ super

    Mia Wasikowska in Alice in Wonderland*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Hot on the heels of “Avatar” crossing the $700 million mark to way less fanfare than I would have thought that would warrant six months ago, 2010 unleashes its very first 3D blockbuster.

    Everything about Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” screams smash hit and despite looking completely unappealing in every way to yours truly, it will no doubt break some box office records this weekend. Namely, the all-time biggest March debut currently held by the $78.4 million of “300.”

    How much higher can it go?

    Well, I think it’s safe to say that Burton’s personal best, the $92.1 million start for “Planet of the Apes,” is out of reach, but stranger things have happened. Like “Planet of the Apes” grossing $92.1 million for instance. Between the Disney brand, the 3D gimmick, Burton’s cache and Johnny Depp’s star power, every demographic is being reached and with competition non-existent, things are looking very good. I’m going to say $82 million.
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  • 3/5 Oscarweb Round-up

    Ralph Fiennes in The Hurt Locker• Patrick Goldstein defends his paper’s perceived hit campaign against “The Hurt Locker,” calls quoted second-hand information that wasn’t properly vetted “the most in-depth piece written about the film’s complex mixture of questionable dramatic license and vivid authenticity.”  Ahem, indeed. [The Big Picture]

    • Cathy Yan on Scott Cooper, Neill Blomkamp, Cary Fukunaga, etc. — the Oscar season’s rookies of the year. [Wall Street Journal]

    • How to make an Oscar-winning sci-fi film. [io9]

    (more…)

  • TECH SUPPORT: Final stretch, final predictions

    Zoe SaldanaWell, here we are. On Sunday, the statuettes for the Oscars will handed out. It seems difficult to remember that it was eight months ago when we started looking at the categories for the first time. Today, let’s take one last look at the crafts categories to see where we stand.

    Best Art Direction (Oscar Guide)
    One of the easiest predictions for the evening, for me, is Best Art Direction. James Cameron’s “Avatar” has won the Critics’c Choice, BAFTA and guild awards and this category and the sets, while not being typical of winners in this category, were brilliant. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” strikes me as too small, “Nine,” too hated and “The Young Victoria,” more of a costumers film. I’d put guild winner “Sherlock Holmes” in second…but a very distant second.

    Will win: “Avatar”
    Could win: “Sherlock Holmes”
    Should win: “Avatar”

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  • Over 600 ballots were turned in on the final day of voting

    Nicolas ChartierEarlier in the week, Steve Pond published a story at The Odds that was unfortunately misread by a number of outlets, and an inaccurate stat subsequently spread like wildfire (such as in this Hot Blog post from David Poland).

    “Years ago, one P.R. firm working Oscar campaigns stationed an observer in that lobby to find out just how many voters cast last-minute ballots,” Pond wrote.  “According to what the head of that firm told me, about 500 ballots (almost 10 percent of the vote) were hand-delivered, messengered or FedExed in over the course of the day.”

    Obviously he was talking about a different season.  But it’s all moot, because as it turns out, the tally of this year’s final day of balloting might be much, much (MUCH) larger, if Pete Hammond’s recent Notes on a Season post is to be believed.

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  • It’s baaaack

    Remember when Variety was outed for yanking that negative review of “Iron Cross” because the film purchased a $400,000 phase one Oscar campaign from the trade?  Well, they’ve quietly slipped it back online.

    UPDATE: And now it turns out the film’s director, Joshua Newton, has grown balls big enough to consider a lawsuit against Variety for publishing the review.  Have filmmakers just lost their freaking MIND this season?

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Cinematography

    Michael Gambon in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceWelcome to the first of two (and the only two) categories that have me pulling my hair out. The cinematography race is a strange breed this year. There isn’t the usual one or two “pretty” films that turn the Academy on at large, nothing with sweeping vistas and postcard composition, all the stuff that allows voters to stop being analytical and vote for mere aesthetic.

    Meanwhile, the precursor circuit has done little to clear things up. The critical favorite is over-rewarded and probably under-seen. Conventional wisdom favors a gritty film that isn’t the membership’s bag in this field, while the tech giant might be too much too soon. Meanwhile, the “prettiest” film is probably the least likely to win.

    The nominees are:

    “Avatar” (Mauro Fiore)
    “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Bruno Delbonnel)
    “The Hurt Locker” (Barry Ackroyd)
    “Inglourious Basterds” (Robert Richardson)
    “The White Ribbon” (Christian Berger)

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  • Thank yous

    (Courtesy: Vulture)

  • 3/4 Oscarweb Round-up

    James Cameron• Elvis Mitchell bemoans the fact that the 10 didn’t leave room for a comedy. [CNN]

    • John Horn reminds that the “Oscar boost” isn’t all that prevalent for the films that need it the most: documentaries and foreign language films. [Los Angeles Times]

    • James Cameron says he’d have been just fine with the aborted “Avatar” spoof.  It still wouldn’t have made the bit any funnier. [E! Online]

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  • THE LONG SHOT: Happy Oscar (War Is Over)

    Jeremy Renner and Evangeline Lilly in The Hurt LockerSo this is Oscar. And what have you done?

    Speaking for myself, lately, not a hell of a lot. In the three weeks that this column has been on hiatus – apologies to the handful of you who missed it – it’s remarkable how little the O-word has been on my mind.

    Yes, I’ve been busy: a trip to the Berlinale here, a stretch of scriptwriting there, the occasional interference of an actual personal life in between. But even if I hadn’t been, and even if the estimable Nathaniel Rogers hadn’t borrowed most of my remaining awards-talk energy for his Oscar Symposium, I doubt I would have found much that was fresh or consequential to fill this space.

    I’m not alone. In an awkwardly scheduled season that saw the most crucial precursors announced before Oscar nomination day, and nary a shift in the frontrunners since, Phase Two of the season has amounted to little more than a month of journalistic thumb-twiddling, while most of the nominees wearily float above it all. Remember when the Oscars took place in late March, or even April? Today’s surfeit of Oscar bloggers would have died in wait.

    It’s almost enough to make you admire the brazen transparency with which the L.A. Times attempted to drum up drama in the latter stages of voting, rather like a cranky toddler, bored of behaving himself at the supermarket, throwing a tantrum in the checkout line.

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  • “ABC. That’s some mean bush.”

  • Mark Boal’s ‘The Man in the Bomb Suit’

    The Man in the Bomb Suit by Mark BoalIn this morning’s round-up we mentioned the forthcoming lawsuit against Mark Boal and “The Hurt Locker” that claims the film’s central character, Staff Sergeant William James, is in fact the embodiment of a real soldier named Jeffrey Sarver.  Boal followed Sarver and his team around in the summer of 2004 to observe this new facet of modern warfare, and the result was a Playboy piece titled “The Man in the Bomb Suit,” which ran in the September 2005 issue.

    The takedown of this film is quite hilarious.  First it’s not an accurate depiction of what happened in those trenches.  Now it’s so close to reality that a craven soldier wants his cut.  Only in an Oscar season.

    Anyway, I never actually read Boal’s piece, so I thought I’d do some digging in the Playboy archives to turn it up.  The publication actually republished it online recently (smart move) and as I dug in this morning, I was transported.  As a guy who fancied a career as a magazine journalist once upon a time, I relished in the world Boal painted.  He’s a solid journalist who knows how to put you right smack dab in the middle of the environment he’s describing.

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Directing

    (from left) Lee Daniels and Gabourey Sidibe on the set of PreciousThis year’s Best Director category has stirred a media frenzy for featuring, along with Best Picture, a face-to-face duel frequently dubbed “the battle of the exes.” Unfortunately the desire to tout that headline has clouded the discussion of the films, their merits and the actual accomplishments of those at the helm. But who cares about that stuff?

    Seriously, though, this could be a milestone occasion for two of the filmmakers in question, a return to glory for two other former awards season players and is already  the second notch on an exciting young filmmaker’s belt as he continues to make his mark on the industry. Not a bad cross-section.

    The nominees are:

    “Avatar” (James Cameron)
    “The Hurt Locker” (Kathryn Bigelow)
    “Inglourious Basterds” (Quentin Tarantino)
    “Precious” (Lee Daniels)
    “Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman)

    (more…)

  • 3/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock at the 15th annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards• Claude Brodesser-Akner reports that a Sacha Baron Cohen Oscarcast sketch has been nixed to spare James Cameron’s feelings.  It was a dumb idea anyway. [Vulture]

    • Steven Zeitchik on what I’ve been saying until I’m blue in the face: Meryl Streep’s silence has done her no favors during phase two, while Team Bullock continues to steamroll. [The Envelope]

    • Steve Pond tells us what happens to the ballots now that the deadline has come and gone. [The Odds]

    (more…)

  • Horror at the Oscars

    Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the LambsNo, I’m not talking about the news that Martin Short and Neil Patrick Harris will be opening the show with a song and dance, but this nugget from Bloody Disgusting:

    While the Academy continues to fail to recognize horror in their prestigious festivities (has it really been 19 years since Silence of the Lambs?), Bloody Disgusting has been tipped off that the 82nd Annual Academy Awards…will feature a segment dedicated solely to our beloved genre. No word on what exactly will happen – at least it won’t feature a singing and dancing Hugh Jackman (I’m still embarrassed for him) – but it will be either an homage via clips or song about horror…If they’re going to work our way into our hearts, we need to see more than District 9 and  Inglourious Basterds getting love…

    Hm.  Thoughts?