• In the biggest upset of the season so far, “The Hurt Locker” came up trumps at the PGA Awards.
• “Inglourious Basterds” took the top prize at the SAG Awards, which also gave another boost to Sandra Bullock.
• With Oscar nominations out next week, we listed some of the greatest nominee fields in Oscar history.
• Off the Carpet took stock following the weekend’s precursors, and Kris revised his winner predictions.
I have none, really. If I’m pressed for a prediction, I think James Cameron is going to pull off what will be perceived as an upset for reasons mentioned in today’s Oscar Talk and a number of weeks back when I said J.J. Abrams was a threat for a nod (and I’ve come to find out he was actually pretty close).
The answer is in the populist leanings of the guild, a vast, diluted membership that is TV-heavy, rules against sending screeners (which is a definite thorn for Kathryn Bigelow, whose film pulled down minuscule box office), etc.
So the race will be back and forth one more weekend and the real victor of the week might well be the film that ends up with the most Oscar nominations Tuesday morning. The epic of David and Goliath will turn one more page at that time as we make our way through February and, ultimately, Oscar’s stage, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be asked to anoint a representative from the class of 2009 to represent the best in filmed art and entertainment.
But will it be art, or will it be entertainment? The saga continues…
This is a fantastic little guide to the race over at Entertainment Weekly, but if they really want to step it up, give me the same tool across the 80-year Academy history. Let me compare, contrast. That would be a hell of a research instrument, for those of us sick enough to take prognostication WAY too freakin’ seriously.
(via Awards Daily)
Welcome to Oscar Talk, a weekly kudocast between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.
Two weeks since our last installment, Sundance is fading away and nominations announcement is a mere four days away. In our last pre-nom discussion, we dig into the following:
• Fresh off of Sundance, we briefly discuss the success of “The Kids Are Alright” and “Cyrus” and potential awards prospects for the films next year.
• The PGA winner was a shocker last weekend as “The Hurt Locker” reigned supreme. We address the implications as the race moves into a David vs. Goliath frame.
• The Oscar nominations announcement is literally around the corner, and in the first year of “the 10,” surely there will be surprises? We talk a few possibilities.
• Has Sandra Bullock really pulled out ahead of Meryl Streep in the lead actress category? Is it actually neck-and-neck? We talk about, arguably, the year’s tightest race.
• With the DGAs on the way tomorrow night, we briefly preview the proceedings.
You can listen to this week’s podcast below, with a little of Michael Giacchino’s Golden Globe-winning score for “Up” leading the way. As always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.
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This just arrived via press release. Talk about your refreshingly diverse list of contenders.
Predicting the Academy’s Best Original Score category can often be a bit of a chore. There is no “guild” for the composers, after all, nothing to serve as a barometer. For the longest time you could generally count on the group to be quite insular, and they still are to an extent, but as of late, they have also been a bit more open to newbies.
The only other thing we have to go by is the International Film Music Critics Association, which isn’t much to go by at all, really. You can look over the group’s five years of nominee announcements and see rather quickly that it’s an artfully-minded assemblage. In a nutshell, “Drag Me to Hell” won’t be get to call itself an Oscar nominee, but it’s cool to see it pop up here. “Twilight,” on the other hand…maybe.
Michael Giacchino received a record nine nominations himself, including in the top field, which you can see below. For the rest, head on over to The Circuit.
Film Score of the Year
“Avatar” (James Horner)
“Drag Me to Hell” (Christopher Young)
“Star Trek” (Michael Giacchino)
“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” (Alexandre Desplat)
“Up” (Michael Giacchino)
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.
Lucky weekend number seven for “Avatar.” The top spot beckons once again and James Cameron will surely oblige. Another slim drop of 20% would give the wild blue wonder $26.2 million and put $600 million within it’s grubby little grasp.
The only thing remotely standing in the way is the return of Mel Gibson, after an 8-year hiatus from leading roles. His last time in front of the camera and above the title was in “Signs,” which grossed $292.7 million and happens to be the biggest hit of his entire career. So technically, the man is on a roll.
In fact, not counting his small part in “The Million Dollar Hotel,” Gibson’s last 12 pictures have all crossed the $100 million mark, dating back to “The Man Without a Face.” Say what you want about his Jew-hating, but he is one seriously bona fide movie star.
“Edge of Darkness” bears more than a passing resemblance to both “Taken” and Gibson’s own “Payback.” Warner Bros. quickly pounced onto the release date of the former, which debuted with $24.7 million and then showed remarkable staying power through the Spring. The latter opened in February 1999 to $31.2 million. Splitting the difference would give “Edge of Darkness” $28 million, but I think Gibson’s star has fallen enough to make that impossible. I’m thinking more like $23 million and second place.
• Krista Smith sits down with dark horse Best Supporting Actor contender Christian McKay. [Little Gold Men]
• Pete Hammond reports on the town’s goings-on, including Jason Reitman’s program of films for the New Beverly Theater. [Notes on a Season]
• A master list of FYC screenplays available for download. [MovieCultists]
The London Film Critics’ Circle Awards may be the most prestigious of British critics’ honors (not saying much, admittedly), but there are critics in the rest of the country too. These regional writers have their say in the Richard Attenborough Awards, which held their fourth annual ceremony last night.
Last year, the Attenboroughs stuck very much with the consensus, but they made some bolder calls this time, handing their film of the year honors to “Up,” while “Moon” star Sam Rockwell took Best Actor honors. (Well, it’s nice that he has something to show for his career-best performance.)
Carey Mulligan was a double winner, earning both Best Actress and Rising Star awards, while a handful of public-voted awards proved that Brits still like Harry Potter — but also that some of them saw “Moon.”
Not exactly the most significant awards of the season, but fun nonetheless. List of winners (via Screen Daily) after the cut.
Richard Roeper prefaces his Oscar predictions with the following suggestion to spice up the nominations announcement:
They race through the lists at 5:30 a.m. PST, in order to get live coverage on the morning talk shows. That’s just stupid.
As I’ve suggested before, the Academy should turn the nomination announcements into a one-hour special, to air on E! or some other cable channel. Build up excitement by showing clips and interviewing possible nominees. Have some cameras on set or in the homes of some contenders, to catch their reactions. If they can do it with the Heisman Trophy every year, why not the Oscars?
The Grammy Awards have gone in a similar direction with their nominations special, though the Oscars obviously wouldn’t have musical numbers to pad things out. I’m all for making a bit more of an occasion out of the announcement, though the idea of catching some nominees’ (or, worse, non-nominees’) reactions live is super-tacky. After the cut, Steven Spielberg will show you why.
How eerily sad that exactly one year ago, I wrote a short piece mourning the passing of John Updike, one of my literary heroes and chief inspirations to become a writer. Today, the news has arrived that J.D. Salinger, the man joining Updike at the top of my personal pantheon, has followed him to the smoky writer’s study in the sky.
January 27 is clearly not a lucky day for American literature.
I first read “The Catcher in the Rye” when I was 10 years old. As banal as it is to say, and as innumerable as the people are who have said the same thing before me, it’s a book that changed my life. I suspect Holden Caulfield has served as a guide for many a curious child into the daring delights of “grown-up books,” but it wasn’t just the character or the story that held me in thrall — it was the flip, jazzy elegance of the writing itself.
As a kid whose twin passions were reading and watching movies, Salinger taught me that a book could read like a movie, that prose could bend and bounce like verbal dialogue.
Poster after the jump (a small image, unfortunately).
I received my last correspondence from Miramax publicity yesterday. Today, the company has effectively been shuttered, and it is, without question, the end of an era.
When things were streamlined for the brand back in October, I wrote a brief remembrance. But how ironic that, as the latest and greatest in independent cinema looks for distribution and attention in the snowy hills of Sundance, the studio that made the fest in some ways and, indeed, blazed the trail for independent cinema throughout the 1990s, finds itself closing up shop.
It was 21 years ago that Steven Soderbergh’s “sex, lies and videotape” put the fest on the map, waltzing into town with no hope for securing a deal and waltzing out under the Miramax umbrella that would eventually change first the business of indie film, and soon enough, the business of awards season. Chris Lee, in previewing the fest’s 25th anniversary last week, writes up the film’s impact at the Los Angeles Times.
• Steve Pond on how Jeff Bridges being the voice of Hyundai could cause problems for the long-time Oscarcast advertiser this year. [The Odds]
• Melena Ryzik on the Sundance-Oscar connection. [The Carpetbagger]
• David Poland talks to “A Single Man” star Colin Firth. [The Hot Blog]
This, ladies and gentlemen, will be the last Long Shot column I write before the 2009 Academy Award nominations are announced, and it’s not just because it’s the column’s 17th week that the well of subject matter is looking rather dry.
I have followed longer awards seasons than this one (the awards used to take place in late March, after all), but none have felt longer – thanks to this year’s eccentric, unprecedented scheduling that has most of the most significant precursor awards done and dusted before the Oscar nominations are even out.
The six weeks between nomination morning and awards night were once chockfull of awards ceremonies that could move the needle this way or that. We now have only the BAFTAs and some guild announcements to break up the more stealthy campaigning that could yet affect the race.
The result, then, is that Tuesday’s nominations seem like more of a formality than usual. By the end of the weekend, the Globes, the BFCA and the three most influential guilds will all have had their say, meaning almost every major race can be boiled down to a maximum of two contenders … before we even receive official confirmation that they’re in the race at all. If that’s the case, Lord only knows what we’ll find to talk about until March 7.
One of the best parts of the film awards season, for me, has always been the print advertising artwork of “For Your Consideration” ads in trade publications. They feature a studio advertising department’s best foot forward on creatively reaching the AMPAS audience and generally make for some striking imagery.
Though I have to say, I find myself consistently wondering how much longer they will be a mainstay. The transition to online focus is becoming more and more evident. After all, Paramount Pictures angled its awards budget mainly toward online outlets this year. There wasn’t a single trade ad for “Up in the Air” all year long and it has done just fine for itself this season. I think that’s a first (and an early promise I was surprised to see the studio make good on). It’ll be interesting to see if other studios follow suit.
Anyway, sorry for the tangent. With all this in mind, an annual delight has always been Sasha Stone’s round-up of FYC ads at Awards Daily. A few years ago the gallery duties were handed over to Dora Kappou of Film-Releases.com, who’s done a fine job of presenting the material in an attractive, easily navigable manner. So which films were the cream of the FYC crop this year?
It’s time for me to go to the well one more time before next week’s big announcement. That’s right, six days and the mystery of the 10 will finally be answered. But first, some blind (since there are no nominations yet) guesses. Just trying to find the right balance here:
Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
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”
You might remember right-wing author Andrew Klavan’s head-strong declarations last year that “The Dark Knight” was a pro-Bush meditation that made him feel warm and fuzzy that a filmmaker from diluted leftist Hollywood was making a creative stand along such lines within the parameters of a blockbuster franchise. Kooky, I know.
Well, Klavan is at it again, this time catching Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” on pay-per-view (because the Netflix wait was too long, he makes sure to point out). In a nutshell, his summation is that Tarantino ultimately trivializes the holocaust and has an uneasy streak of insensitivity to it.
I was referred to the piece by a recent Big Picture post by Patrick Goldstein, appropriately irritated by the level of artistic ignorance in the conservative set. “They either detest pop culture or have such inflexible rules about how it is supposed to be created that they end up stuck on the outside, looking at the filmmaking process with either scorn or derision,” he says in response.
I can’t figure out how to embed the specific segment, so here’s the whole damn show. It’s the last segment: