• “Toy Story 3” edges past “How to Train Your Dragon” and “The Social Network” to take this year’s Golden Tomato Award. [Rotten Tomatoes]
• Louis Virtel, meanwhile, wants to know why “Oscar zealots” aren’t fighting for the film’s Best Picture chances. Uh, hello? [Movieline]
• Sex and ballet slippers: the themes of “Black Swan.” [Film School Rejects]
As I did last year when Kris posted his pre-nomination winner predictions, I tallied up your responses to see how our readers currently view the race. And either you’re blind disciples of Kris or, far more likely, we’re in for one surprise-free season, as your collective predictions match his in every category but two — for Art Direction and Costume Design, more of you think (or hope?) “The King’s Speech” will fend off “Alice in Wonderland.”
A tight split between “Life, Above All” (Kris’s pick, and mine) and “Biutiful” says you’re not sure how Best Foreign Language Film will pan out, either — largely because most of you opted out of a prediction there. (Come on, guys — risk-takers get the bragging rights!) But you’re absolutely unanimous on Best Director, Adapted Screenplay and Animated Feature, with lone holdouts on Best Actor, Supporting Actor and Visual Effects.
Can it all be so easy, so early?
[Image: The Weinstein Company]
“Tailored largely for the international audience for whom the internal politics of the Royal Family seem never to lose their mystique or fascination,” I wrote in my October review of “The King’s Speech.”
I guess I have to take that back, since the film — which only opened on Friday in its home country — has become a genuine UK box-office phenomenon, as opposed to the specialized success it’s been across the pond.
The film handily knocked “Gulliver’s Travels” off the #1 spot (bleak times, these) with a weekend gross of £3.52 million. (That’s about $5.5 million, if you like your figures translated, though it goes with saying that UK and US numbers are not comparable.) To put that in context, that’s over four times what another royal-themed prestige drama, “The Queen,” made on only slightly fewer screens back in the autumn of 2006.
Catch up with the idea behind this series here.
Welcome to the final entry in the Life Without Oscar series. Why call it a day with one, possibly two years left to consider? Well, for one thing, we won’t know which films are going to be snubbed from 2010 for another two weeks (although I’ll bet my house and home that the titles I’d be writing about have no chance). Instead, next week I’ll offer up my Best of 2010 wrap-up, which will be my last scheduled contribution to the InContention site.
It’s been fun, marveling at the box office performance of “Avatar” together, trying to convince you to watch “Pootie Tang,” and generally engaging in debates through the comments. But we’re not done yet, so let’s keep things moving here.
“No Country for Old Men” won Best Picture in 2007, in my opinion, the only respectable choice of the decade by the Academy. Then they had to follow it up with “Slumdog Millionaire,” a film that I couldn’t possibly hate more. Of course, more newsworthy among the blogging world was the Best Picture snub of “The Dark Knight,” and the possibly related fact that these would be the last Oscars to feature only 5 Best Picture nominees.
Also, we decided that “I’ve taken like three pregnancy tests, and I’m forshizz up the spout” was dialogue from the best written movie of 2007. But speaking of best lines, Janusz Kaminski might have my favorite Oscar quip ever while becoming the first cinematographer to present an award- “Suck it, Anthony Dod Mantle.”
As regular readers might know, I tend to fall in the less populated “pro” camp when it comes to notoriously cranky New York Press critic Armond White — as much flak as he takes, from bloggers in particular, for his off-kilter tastes and occasionally aggressive writing style, I think he’s one of a select few writers making readers evaluate criticism as an artform, while I frequently find fillets of perspicacity in his more impassioned arguments.
Dispensing with social niceties in creative print, however, is more endearing than doing the same in person — particularly when you’re representing not just yourself, but a group of professional peers.
This Gawker report on White’s acid-tongued emceeing of last night’s New York Film Critics’ Circle awards dinner is too stingy with details and heavy on relayed quotes to pass judgment on, but on what’s supposed to be a celebratory communal evening, perhaps backhanded insults to winners and guests alike can wait for one evening. (UPDATE: NYFCC member Lisa Schwarzbaum says as much in her displeased writeup of the proceedings.)
For the penultimate installment in our reflection on the most Oscar-worthy achievements from the largely forgotten first half of 2010’s release calendar, I’m backtracking away from the major categories to the place I should perhaps have started: the technical sphere.
Had I thought to start this column 20-odd weeks in advance of nomination day, I could have given each craft category the attention it deserves — though if I’m being honest, picking five outstanding Best Sound Editing contenders from the year’s first six months wouldn’t be the easiest of tasks.
As it stands, I’ve arrived at an admittedly drastic compromise: singling out five individual technical contributions, across the range of categories, that made a particularly strong impression. With such a doubly curtailed brief, the list of painfully excised honorable mentions inevitably runs very long indeed, so I’ll jump straight in with a few of them.
As much as “Shutter Island” didn’t work for me as a whole, it delivered considerable rewards as a craft showcase: I was particularly tempted to include Dante Ferretti’s art direction, which will likely find its way to Oscar recognition without my help.
How badly do you want to own the shooting scripts of four of this year’s hottest Oscar contenders? Well, HOW BADLY?
We’ve got copies of “Black Swan,” “Inception,” “127 Hours” and “Toy Story 3” to give away this week. I should have saved that “tell me a story” thing for this, so instead, to riff on the Haiku contest, I thought I’d just be completely ridiculous and introduce a — wait for it — LIMERICK CONTEST!
That’s right, a limerick contest. In case you’re unaware of the qualities of a limerick, refresh yourself here. In a nutshell, though, five lines with an aabba rhyme scheme. For example:
There once was a guy with a blog
Who felt it a daily slog
But oh what fun
To almost be done
With a season that’s become a fog
When Jim Sturgess’s agents set up a meeting with director Peter Weir, who was casting for his new film “The Way Back,” the actor’s brain was in a different place. He was in the middle of filming Philip Ridley’s “Heartless” and portraying a troubled soul character. He had filmed until six in the morning and hadn’t slept for what he says felt like weeks. Naturally, he was unprepared.
But he couldn’t leave it at that. He couldn’t let this be his missed opportunity to work with Peter Weir, his chances blown due to the realities of being a working actor. So he steeled himself, wrote the veteran helmer a letter and, in between shooting scenes from Ridley’s film, recorded himself acting out scenes from “The Way Back.”
Something obviously clicked, and it’s a good thing he went to all the trouble, because Sturgess is pretty sure he wouldn’t have been offered the part otherwise.
“He called me in and said that he really liked what I’d done on the tape and would I play Janusz in his film,” Sturgess recalls over a croque-monsieur at Palihouse in West Hollywood. “I just couldn’t stop thanking him.”
After taking a stab at winner predictions early last month, it seemed now would be a good time to re-assess. Only three adjustments, though — for Best Picture, Best Film Editing and Best Original Score. I’ll try my hand at another set post-nominations.
Best Picture: “The Social Network”
Best Director: David Fincher, “The Social Network”
Best Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Social Network”
Best Original Screenplay: “The King’s Speech”
• $55 million…for an Oscar? [New York Post]
• Move over Natalie Portman. Marion Cotillard is carrying, too. [Us Weekly]
• Are Golden Globes speeches always better than the Oscars? [Movieline]
Well, I was expecting this to drop tomorrow, but the ASC nominees have been announced (catch them at The Circuit), and there are a couple of surprises.
Okay, well, Jeff Cronenweth getting in for “The Social Network” isn’t a complete surprise, as I mentioned this morning we should watch out for him here. But Danny Cohen making the cut for “The King’s Speech,” despite the fact that the film has an intriguing visual quality, is a bit unexpected.
The rest is as we would have thought, though Robert Richardson missing is less of a shock than Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle getting the shaft. I think Cohen gets bumped in favor of something else, though.
Though maybe Cronenweth is in a precarious position, seeing as the ASC is quicker to nominate digital work than the Academy. The rest, I should think, are solid.
Lost in all the general Oscar discussion as of late is some great news on two fronts.
You might recall Oscilloscope higher-up and Beastie Boy rapper Adam “MCA” Yauch was diagnosed with cancer in his salivary gland a year and a half ago. Recently it was falsely reported that he was cancer-free, but he has come out to clear the record but also assure everyone he’s hopeful in the wake of the lump’s removal.
Meanwhile, Michael Douglas, who was hit with throat cancer some months back, says his tumor is gone and he’s on the road to recovery.
Neither is out of the woods yet, obviously, but it’s great to hear that things are moving in a positive direction. We certainly wish Yauch and Douglas a speedy recovery.
[Photo: Getty Images]
I still say that if you honestly can’t understand what Jeff Bridges is saying in this movie, I have no choice but to think you’re 95 years old. Nevertheless, this is hilarious (courtesy of College Humor):
I’ve been noting for a while now that “Barney’s Version” could be a sleeper in the Best Makeup category due to some impressive aging. The film joins six others today as a bake-off finalist. The only film missing that I’m currently predicting is “Shutter Island,” so replace that with “The Way Back” (which I was predicting once upon a time), and that’s my bet.
The finalists:
“Alice in Wonderland”
“Barney’s Version”
“The Fighter”
“Jonah Hex”
“True Grit”
“The Way Back”
“The Wolfman”
Another potential sleeper is “The Fighter,” buy the way. The work on Melissa Leo is pretty impressive. Keep up with the race at its dedicated page here.
[Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]
11 years after his last theatrical feature (and far longer since the last one anyone saw), the passing of British director Peter Yates likely won’t leave much of a dent on contemporary audiences. Not knowingly, anyway — though his innovative visual and editing schemes in the iconic 1968 Steve McQueen thriller “Bullitt” helped change the shape of the prototypical Hollywood action sequence. It was, of course, his quieter work on “The Dresser” and “Breaking Away” that landed him four career Oscar nominations. But since those, along with that car chase from “Bullitt,” are all being amply covered in the obits, I thought I’d spotlight a more neglected pleasure: his frisky 1972 caper “The Hot Rock.”
In last week’s episode of Oscar Talk, one reader cheekily asked Anne and Kris which probable nominee they would most like to see out of the running. After much hemming and hawing, Anne landed upon Melissa Leo, while Kris stumped for (or against, rather) Annette Bening.
While I’d co-sign neither of those choices, it’s just as well Kris didn’t choose that evening to cold-call me on the podcast, since I could easily have whined for hours on end about other contenders — and Helena Bonham Carter, widely seen as a shoo-in for her turn as the eventual Queen Mother in “The King’s Speech,” would have topped the list.
An inoffensive wallpaper performance to some, it struck me as distractingly twitchy, mannered work against the crisp, unfussy teamwork of leads Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.
I’ve been trying to track one of these down for a while now, but it turns out the buggers are just too big to ship. Nevertheless, nice to know I’m in print at the Oxford Circus tube station and the like for Londoners to have a gander. And hey, too big to ship kind of matches the quote, no? Click for a larger version if you like:
Now that the DGA has spoken, something to pass the time. Tomorrow the crafts guilds continue to roll out the season as the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) offers its picks for the best work behind the camera in 2010. This is perhaps my favorite of the below-the-line categories, so I thought I’d offer up a lengthy preview.
The Society is usually good for 80% when it comes to Academy crossover with its nominees. Sometimes you get a 5/5, sometimes a 3/5, but generally it’s 4/5. The trick is figuring out what the oddball selection will be. But let’s see what’s looking good for a nod, first.
Leading the way this time around, like most years, would have to be Roger Deakins. His work on “True Grit” will likely win him an Oscar and the road there could very well begin with a win from the Society. He seems to be papa bear these days. Chalk it up.