Blog
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Searchlight and Hilary Swank, take two?
This is one of the films I’ve had an eye on for next year’s Oscar season. Perhaps a second try will prove better than this past year’s Searchlight/Swank outing. The press release, in part:Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced today that the company has acquired North American and select international rights from Omega Entertainment to the riveting true life drama BETTY ANNE WATERS. Directed by Tony Goldwyn and written by Pamela Gray, BETTY ANNE WATERS stars Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver, Juliette Lewis and Peter Gallagher. The film was produced by Andrew Sugerman, Andrew S. Karsch and Tony Goldwyn. The film is scheduled to be released in Fall 2010.
“Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell, backed by an extraordinary supporting cast, deliver powerhouse performances in Tony Goldwyn’s emotionally resonant film,” said Utley and Gilula. “We are excited to be distributing this inspirational story of hope and unconditional love.”
For more on the story (which could prove Oscar bait for Sam Rockwell as well), check out this Boston Globe piece. If “The Blind Side” can do it…
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OSCAR GUIDE: Best Supporting Actress
This year’s Best Supporting Actress race made for, in many ways, one of the most wide open categories of the major nominees. While three of the contenders seemed fairly locked in place, the other two slots appeared up for grabs, and there was no shortage of deserving contenders waiting to fill out the field.Contenders such as Samantha Morton and Julianne Moore ultimately missed despite precursor attention, paving the way for last year’s winner in the category (a SAG nominee in a film that found itself floundering by year’s end) and a young actress who found herself opposite the year’s likely lead actor Oscar winner (and landing her first Oscar nomination in the process).
The nominees are:
Penélope Cruz, “Nine”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique, “Precious” -
Introducing the Oscar Guide
As of this moment we are 32 days away from this year’s Academy Awards celebration, taking place on Sunday, March 7. That gives us 23 business days, so I’ve decided to launch a new feature here at In Contention: the Oscar Guide.Every week day this month we’ll be featuring one of the 24 Oscar categories in depth, beginning later this afternoon with the Best Supporting Actress field. On Saturday, March 6, we’ll wrap the feature up with a look at the 10 Best Picture nominees and one more analysis before the big day.
Each Oscar Guide entry will be accompanied by a sidebar poll asking you, the readership, what you think deserves to win in said category. That worked out nicely last year. (The supporting actress poll is already live.) At the end of the run we’ll have a master list of what you all think the slate of winners SHOULD look like, and we’ll have fun discussing and (surely) debating each category along the way.
So keep an eye out later today and throughout the month as we inch closer to the 82nd annual Academy Awards!
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February winner predictions
These appeared at Movie City News’s Gurus o’ Gold page this morning, so you probably already saw them. Here they are in any case, since, you know, I guess it’s about that time:Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Up in the Air”
Best Original Screenplay: “The Hurt Locker” -
In the trenches with AMPAS
I must admit that when I found out Monday night that our friend Anthony Breznican was embedded with AMPAS brass and nominations co-announcer Anne Hathaway for this USA Today feature story (and, therefore, knew the nominees at 9:00 that night), I was incredibly jealous. But that it yielded such an insightful little piece, well, fine by me.Breznican offers a unique first-hand perspective on the Academy’s preparations for the big morning announcement, divulging intriguing little tidbits throughout (like the fact that Oscarcast producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic were happy to see “The Blind Side” shortlisted, while it induced groans and eye-rolling from others in the room). That PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants go to an “undisclosed location” to tally the votes is just hilarious. I picture them in some underground bunker like in the denouement of “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.”
I bet if there’s ever a nuclear holocaust the night before an Oscar announcement, the PwC guys would be survivors, like Burgess Meredith emerging from a bank vault with “all the time in the world.” Imagine it. Anyway, I digress…
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2/3 Oscarweb Round-up
• Is it really an honor just to be nominated? [CNN]• Nathaniel Rogers notes that, despite the 10, we still ended up with a typical Oscar mixture of “a mix of message movies, epics, dramas and war films.” [The Film Experience]
• Of Apparition’s dueling period pieces, Anne Thompson wonders what went wrong for “Bright Star” and right for “The Young Victoria.” Her answer: momentum. [Thompson on Hollywood]
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10 snubs that sting
I’ve already highlighted my favorite aspects of this morning’s Oscar nominations. Still, before we move into Phase Two, I’d like to give one final respectful nod to the could-have-beens — the names that we sadly won’t be talking about anymore in the next five weeks of speculation.I listed my true favorites in my dream ballot over the last few days, though many of those were never in the realm of possibility. What follows are 10 contenders who were very much in the mix, and had every reason to be disappointed this morning.
From my perspective, the race is poorer without the following:
• Marvin Hamlisch (Best Original Score), “The Informant!”: As a previously honored veteran of the branch, I thought his foot was comfortably in the door. Was his playful score too tongue-in-cheek for the voters? I’d say the movie wasn’t well-liked enough, but these are the guys who nominated “The Village.” (Less surprising but still disappointing: the omission of “A Single Man” composer Abel Korzeniowski.)
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How we did today (not bad) and a year out (not so much)
I forgot to sit down and take a look at my year-in-advance predictions for this year and see how I did. Not too great.In the Best Picture field (before the announcement of an expanded category, mind you), the only film I listed that made it through was “The Hurt Locker.” Kathryn Bigelow was also the only director I correctly projected, so that’s 1/10 and 1/5 in the top two categories.
Morgan Freeman, Carey Mulligan, Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz were the only actors I got correct, while in the screenplay categories it was just “An Education,” “A Serious Man” and “Up.”
All in all, including the crafts categories, I got 24 nominees of the 88 I predicted in 18 categories. I’ve lost track of how well I’ve done with this silly experiment over the years, but I don’t think that’s one of the better tallies. Maybe it is.
Which brings me to this announcement. After a lot of consideration I’ve decided to forgo my nearly decade-old process of predicting the nominees a year in advance. There will be no post-Oscar assessment of the year ahead. The reasons are plenty.
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OSCAR TALK: Ep. 20 — Special Edition! — Reacting to the nominees
Welcome to Oscar Talk, a weekly kudocast between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.Today there was a bit of news in the Oscar world, in case you were under a rock or buried in an underground chamber with Stanley Tucci or something. Anne and I address the announcement from all angles in this special Tuesday edition of the podcast.
Have a listen below, and as always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.
(Please note: We will not be running a podcast Friday, February 5, so this will serve as this week’s assessment of the race. Tune back in next week as Anne and I come back to the table from the Santa Barbara Film Festival.)
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Come join our awards pool at AwardsPicks.com!
Last year we tried out AwardsPicks.com‘s Oscar pool and it went well enough, so we’re going back to the well once again this year.I’ve altered the scoring system to give more weight to categories that are perceived as a bit more difficult to project. The winner gets a ton of swag that I’ve accumulated over the year. Too much stuff to name, but off the top of my head there are the scripts for “(500) Days of Summer,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Julie & Julia” and “Up,” T-shirts featuring “Star Trek” and “A Christmas Carol,” a handsome behind-the-scenes of “Amelia” hardcover book and a big “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” hardcover with production stills and the script inside.
Lots of goodies. Head on over to our group’s main page and join it if you haven’t already done so, then join the 2010 Academy Awards game, then click “make picks” and you’re set!
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The nominees react
Throughout the morning and early afternoon we took statements from or hopped on the phone with 44 of today’s Oscar nominees. Their reactions…Maggie Gyllenhaal, supporting actress, “Crazy Heart”:
The thing is, you know, I’m so proud of the movie and I always have been, more proud of it than any of the work I’ve done so far. But because I wasn’t getting nominated for anything, I wasn’t expecting it. My phone was ringing so early and I thought, “Wait, maybe!” I was staying at my brother’s in LA. He said to me, “Your phone is going to be ringing all day.” He made me a cup of coffee and then we watched the sun rise. It was pretty mellow. But this wouldn’t be happening for Jeff [Bridges] or me if it wasn’t for Scott [Cooper].
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The bright side
Well, I’ll start the good news selfishly, by noting that I didn’t entirely embarrass myself with my predictions: not counting the short categories (which I was too cowardly and uninformed to predict) I nailed 78/106, just two points behind Kris’s round tally of 80.But while I was pleased to see at least one of my out-on-a-limb guesses come good — seriously, why didn’t more people call that Art Direction nod for “The Young Victoria?” — I was better at predicting what wouldn’t get nominated.
So, my season-long hunches that Julianne Moore would be frozen out in the supporting race, that “(500) Days of Summer” would be blanked, that “Up in the Air” would miss that crucial Film Editing nod, and so on, were all on the money. And my increasing sense that nobody really liked “Invictus” enough to put it atop their ballot proved right too.
Now, if I only I’d known what would land in their place. You can’t have it all, I suppose.
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‘Avatar,’ ‘Hurt Locker’ lead Oscar nods with 9 each
So, the AMPAS didn’t embarrass itself TOO much this morning. At the end of the day, “Invictus” proved to lack the proper passionate support to yield a Best Picture nomination. The beneficiary of that: “The Blind Side.” Make of that what you will.“Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” — get this — tied with a field-leading nine nominations each. “Inglourious Basterds” wasn’t far behind with eight, while “Precious” and “Up in the Air” tied with six apiece. Pixar’s “Up” managed five, while “District 9” and “Star Trek,” the other sci-fi entries in the race, each received four, the former landing a Best Picture nomination and trending on Twitter as I type. But how the hell it missed in Best Makeup is beyond me. More on the techs below.
“The Blind Side” and “A Serious Man” get the “winner of two Oscar nominations, including Best Picture” honors. But at least the latter made the cut after all. There was some nervousness for a while there.
As I look through the nominations, I see nothing particularly eye-catching. All of the “surprises” seem awfully reasonable and make perfect sense. First and foremost, I’m kicking myself for blinking on Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart.” In fact, I had that supporting actress category pegged 5/5 24 hours ago. That’s what I get for over-thinking it. I’m really happy to see her slide into contention. She worked it last month and at just the right time.
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Guy’s final predictions
Right, there comes a point every year in predicting the Oscar nominations when you realize you’re just shuffling names to dodge commitment. I’ve reached that point, so it’s time to put myself out my misery.Kris has already had his say — and stolen some of my best guesses from last week in the process. Okay, I kid because I love. It’s comforting, in fact, to have his very sensible company on calls like Diane Kruger for Best Supporting Actress, or “The Road” for Best Cinematography.
That said, however, there are still numerous areas of the ballot still driving me crazy. I discussed my uncertainties in last week’s Long Shot column, but the last few days haven’t given me any more confidence when it comes to those pesky final two Best Picture slots.
Though logic goes against me, I can’t shake the feeling that “Invictus” will miss — how many people are putting it at the top of their ballots? However, between the likes of “The Blind Side,” “The Hangover,” “Crazy Heart,” “Star Trek” and “The Messenger,” no one title emerges as a clear spoiler.
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Calling the longshots
So this Steve Pond piece, titled “How Oscar Could Surprise — and Scare — Us,” is what we like to call hedging our bets. It’s a chance to address some bubble matters so that we have something to point to and say, “Look, I toldja!”(Is that officially trademarked by Nikki Finke yet?)
Anyway, I do like the guessing game fun, and Pond touches on a couple of things that I would likely mention if I were to do a similar piece. One we can all understand is his #10, the potential snub of “Invictus” in the Best Picture category. It has kind of been in the water for a few weeks now that the film just isn’t as strong as it could be, likely lacking passionate top tier votes. It is, frankly, in the #10 spot on my list of final predictions.
I do like Pond’s mention of Sharlto Copley as a potential Best Actor spoiler, but failing to even make the longlist with BAFTA (a group that wasn’t shy on the “District 9” love) makes the actor (who gave the year’s best lead actor performance in my book) the darkest of dark horses.
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Cornish, Mulligan on cover of Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue
Abbie Cornish may have received less than her due this awards season, but she at least has the consolation of gracing the cover of this year’s Vanity Fair Hollywood issue — that annual measure of the screen’s hottest up-and-comers. She’s joined by surefire nominee Carey Mulligan and teen princess Kristen Stewart, so the magazine’s canny editors clearly believe Cornish is going places.
Joining those three ladies (far left) on the slightly less prominent foldout pages: (left to right) Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Stone, Evan Rachel Wood and Anna Kendrick. More at Vanity Fair.
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OFF THE CARPET: The time is nigh
In so many words, this is it. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveils it’s slate of nominees bright and early tomorrow morning, and this being the first year with a 10-film Best Picture field, all eyes will be on the top category to gauge which way the wind blew on this AMPAS experiment.Will populist entertainment reap the benefits of an extra five slots or will independent cinema finally get its foot in the door? That’s been the question all year long. The answers are around the corner, and less than 24 hours out, they still feel as elusive as ever.
I learned long ago that to forecast “surprises” is folly. They’re called surprises for a reason. All you can do is try to find the pulse on the season and make your judgment calls, and in most cases, that means understanding what the Academy is high on, and when.
For instance, is “The Messenger” poised to surprise in the supporting actress and original screenplay races, as well as Best Picture? Or did the discussion stir up a bit late (which it did), too late, perhaps, to register? The screener showed up earlier than most. Did members find time in that lull to pop it into the player?
Meanwhile, how will the BAFTA contingent affect the race? We see it every year. Contenders left dangling on the vine get their due from a membership that has considerable AMPAS cross-over. Just ask Alan Alda. With that in mind, could Alec Baldwin or Alfred Molina find themselves sliding into an incredibly fluid supporting actor category?