A nice segue from today’s Cinejabber headline. Howard Stern recently joined the ranks of Twitter after re-signing to Sirius Satellite Radio for a new five year contract. Today, he’s live-Tweeting “Private Parts,” which, to my knowledge, is the first instance of a celebrity giving a real-time commentary of his or her film via the online social networking platform. If you’re bored, head on over.
Catch up with the idea behind these weekend posts here.
This week flew by, I thought. Hopefully the next two will, too.
This is the first weekend without football in months. I don’t know what to do with myself. Maybe I’ll catch up on those non-Oscar-related Netflix discs that have been waiting patiently for me to have the time? Read a book? Get the hell away from my computer for a day? I don’t know.
I’ve randomly been revisiting The Larry Sanders Show lately. It started out as some nostalgia to pass the time online the other day and eight episodes later, it looks like I might just push through all of it. Great TV, and a landmark for that breed of comedy. Any fan of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” owes it a debt.
The Oscar Guide has been coming along well. Thanks for participating in our daily polls. With that in mind, I thought I’d post the short category polls again this weekend, seeing as Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International released their package of nominees into theaters this weekend. If you get a chance to see them and still want to vote, now’s your opportunity. I’ll post them up again next weekend, too.
In the 10 years since they moved up in the calendar to pre-Oscar status, the BAFTAs have hovered uncertainly between complying with awards trends across the pond, thereby establishing themselves as a viable precursor, and stubbornly standing by their own – as in 2007, when they opted out of the Coen Brothers-P.T. Anderson faceoff by picking “Atonement,” despite the film’s only other award coming for Best Art Direction.
This year, however, offers them the best of both worlds. Rewarding “The King’s Speech” will simultaneously allow them to co-sign a heavy Oscar favourite and preserve their national pride.
Add in the fact that a vote for the film also represents a vote for the much-mourned UK Film Council – oh, and that it just happens to be a smash hit with British audiences – and the royal biopic would likely have been a lock for the top prize even without the support of major US guilds.
(More, plus predictions, after the jump.)
When I spoke to Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas earlier this month at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the discussion of scaling things back with their next film came up. After all, when it hits theaters next summer, “The Dark Knight Rises” will mark the third blockbuster in a row for Hollywood’s wunderkind.
You can stretch it back to “Batman Begins” if you want, seeing as “The Prestige” was hardly a modest independent, given the period trappings. So call it five in a row.
Back when Leonardo DiCaprio was developing his Howard Hughes biopic, “The Aviator,” with director Michael Mann, Nolan had his own project in development. Mann opted out of tackling another biopic after “The Insider” and “Ali” and DiCaprio asked his then recent professional acquaintance, Martin Scorsese, to take over the project.
OMG! OMG! Yes, the top 10 shots column is coming. I have received more comments, Tweets and emails this year regarding this annual staple than anything else…ever. It’s been maddening, actually, but I’ll take it as a compliment that readers really, really enjoy the list. So, some news for you…
The shots have been selected and have been ranked accordingly. I’ve spoken to eight of the 10 DPs and hope to get the other two on the horn early next week. The first part of the column will hit Tuesday, February 22. The second part will drop the following day on Wednesday, February 23. So, mark your calendars.
Alexandre Desplat has enjoyed a brilliant career in U.S. features as of late (on the back of immense talent, naturally). 2010 was a grand year for the composer as he, once again, balanced scoring duties on a number of notable films.
Today, the final announcement from the critics awards circuit has landed in the form of the International Film Music Critics Association’s picks, seven of the nominations going to Desplat for his work on “The Ghost Writer,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” and, of course, “The King’s Speech.” It’s highly probably he’ll walk away with an Oscar later this month, capping of one heck of a year.
John Powell netted five nominations for his work on “How to Train Your Dragon,” while Daft Punk and Hans Zimmer each grabbed three for their respective actioners. Interesting to note, however, is the complete absence of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their innovative work on “The Social Network.” Your guess is as good as mine as to why the group turned the other cheek there. Ditto A.R. Rahman’s work on “127 Hours,” which is actually a beloved piece of work among musicians. In any case, have a look at The Circuit for the full list of film nominees.
[Photo: Last.fm]
A few years back the sound branch did away with the bake-off process of determining its nominees for Best Sound Editing and the field was expanded to five. The visual effects branch followed suit this year and, maybe some day, the makeup branch will do the same.
The sound branch is unique in that it nominates in two discipline-specific fields. Often there is a considerable cross-over between Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing as a result. The unfortunate thing is that the Academy at large doesn’t understand what quality editorial and mixing is when it comes to these aural areas. Typically they just pick their favorite film and move on to the next category.
The nominees are:
“Inception” (Richard King)
“Toy Story 3” (Tom Myers and Michael Silvers)
“TRON Legacy” (Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague)
“True Grit” (Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey)
“Unstoppable” (Mark P. Stoeckinger)
Welcome to Oscar Talk.
In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.
Anne is calling from New York today, later on in the show we drop in on Guy in London and I’m in Los Angeles as always, so we’ve got quite the international episode for you today. And with plenty happening between last weekend and today, we’ve got tons to cover, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…
• James Franco: “If it’s the worst show in the history of the Oscars, who cares?” I love this guy. [Screening Room]
• David Poland on how the Academy is missing a golden opportunity by essentially banning Banksy from the ceremony. Not that Banksy would even humor his suggestions, but still. [The Hot Blog]
• Nick Davis writes a big ole’ love letter to Annette Bening. (More on her in today’s Oscar Talk.) [Nick’s Flick Picks]
In a couple of hours, I’m jumping on a crack-of-dawn flight to one of the coolest cities on earth for a week at the Berlin International Film Festival — or, to use the name that rolls more luxuriously off the tongue, the Berlinale.
I probably should have mentioned this earlier and posted some sort of festival preview. The truth, however, is that I’ve been so preoccupied with other business that I’ve barely read through the festival programme myself — the date rather snuck up on me. I’ve never done so little homework ahead of a festival — yet after my first Berlinale experience last year, that doesn’t feel like a bad approach.
Berlin prides itself as being a festival of discovery, with more of an emphasis on rising talent than the lofty auteur names that tend to favor the sunnier festival climes of Cannes and Venice. True to form, my favorite finds of last year’s festival were ones I knew little about in advance (like Arvin Chen’s “Au Revoir, Taipei,” which wound up in my 2010 Top 10) or ones I wasn’t aware would show up until the last minute (like “The Illusionist,” buried so deep in last year’s programme many critics missed it altogether).
A bit of a diversion from the Oscar scene, though not really, seeing as Jennifer Lawrence stars (and James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are surely not far away from their first nomination). But Fox has debuted the “X-Men: First Class” trailer via the film’s Facebook page and, if you’ve been online this afternoon at all, you’ve probably already seen it. I’m not as amped for the film as most, but the trailer certainly does no harm. If anything I’m intrigued by the potential for sparks to fly between McAvoy (as Charles “Professor X” Xavier) and Fassbender (as Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr). We’ll see this summer. Check out the trailer by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump.
By having separate categories for British films and individuals — though Brits compete in the general awards too — the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards generally get to have their cake and eat it. So it was this year: “The King’s Speech” received obligatory recognition in the categories for Best British Film and Best British Director, but lost the night’s big prizes to “The Social Network.”
Some will find it ironic that it took a group of limeys to put some wind back in Team Fincher’s sails, but it’s not that surprising: British or not, this is still a critics’ award, and “The Social Network” wove as a powerful a spell over journos across the pond as in the States. The film took a leading four prizes, including screenwriting honors for Aaron Sorkin and Best British Supporting Actor for Andrew Garfield — the Oscar snubbee’s second home victory of the week.
No surprise that Colin Firth took Best Actor, while they spread the love by giving Christian Bale the Best British Actor award — I do wonder if that happened entirely organically. Less expected was Annette Bening’s Best Actress victory, breaking Natalie Portman’s recent sweep; I suspect the somewhat mixed critical reaction to “Black Swan” in the UK might account for this, but Bening does seem to be picking up steam lately.
As Kris noted in our Oscar Guide for Best Animated Feature (and whatever the Annie Awards would have you believe), the category doesn’t promise much of a race this year — as has been the case for the last three years running, Pixar faces an obstacle-free path to the award, despite quality competition. And with two-thirds of your votes in our “should win” poll, most of you are okay with that.
But the thrill of winning the ghetto category year after year has to get old, and as their rather aggressive campaign for “Toy Story 3” has made clear, Pixar has designs on more substantial recognition. They certainly aren’t afraid to say so in this New York Times profile of the studio by Melana Ryzik:
The Pixar team would dearly love to win a best picture Oscar. “I would be overwhelmed with emotion, I think, that our peers recognized how we make our films, and that we use the same tools and that we take ourselves so seriously,” said Darla K. Anderson, a producer of “Toy Story 3” who has been with Pixar for 18 years. Their painstaking approach “has been with this ferocity of intensity,” she added, “to make a great movie, plain and simple — not a great animated film, but a great film.”
As we have noted a number of times, the makeup branch is one of the Academy’s most independently minded. While many people have criticized them in the past for bestowing the moniker “Oscar nominee” on many mediocre (or worse) films, the makeup artists clearly seem to take the work into account regardless of perceived film “quality.”
This year, they proved their originality once again by nominating three films which did not manage nominations in any other category. The graceful and realistic aging in “Barney’s Version,” the ultra-realistic results of a battle with nature in “The Way Back” and the transformation of Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins (not to mention a plethora of blood) in “The Wolfman” made up the slate.
I recently spoke with makeup department heads from all three of the nominated films – “Barney’s Version”’s Adrien Morot, “The Way Back”’s Edouard Henriques (nominated with Greg Funk and Yolanda Touessing), and “The Wolfman”’s Rick Baker (nominated with Dave Elsey).
For Baker, a 12-time nominee and six-time winner, the journey on “The Wolfman” began very early. “I did something I don’t normally do,” he says. “When I heard Universal was going to do a remake of ‘The Wolfman,’ I kind of begged. I said, ‘I really have to do this movie.’ It didn’t make for the best negotiating position but I was one of the first hired on the film.” The chance to update his own take on the genre 30 years earlier in “An American Werewolf in London” was clearly too difficult to pass up.
You know the drill. Rifle off your query and we’ll try to address as many as possible. PLEASE KEEP IT TO ONE QUESTION, and keep it fresh. The new, interesting stuff will surely be addressed before the old, dead-horse stuff.
This year’s race for Best Costume Design became mired in controversy later in the season as a dispute erupted over proper credit in “Black Swan.” Amy Westcott was listed as responsible for the threads, but fashion duo Rodarte had a significant hand in concocting the performance costumes on the film — and were denied credit, per guild regulations.
That issue has been argued from both sides and is an unfortunate byproduct of unfair rules, but the fact remains, it may have missed a nomination here as a result. Nevertheless, the five films competing make for a vibrant cross-section of visions, styles and periods, the branch even going so far as to give us a big surprise on nomination morning with a selection no one saw coming.
The nominees are:
“Alice in Wonderland” (Colleen Atwood)
“I Am Love” (Antonella Cannarozzi)
“The King’s Speech” (Jenny Beaven)
“The Tempest” (Sandy Powell)
“True Grit” (Mary Zophres)
