• The biggest news of this busy week may well have been the announcement of James Franco and Anne Hathaway as this year’s Oscarcast hosts.
• Unless you count “The Social Network” dominating the National Board of Review as bigger news, that is.
• Or, for that matter, our first look at the Coen brothers’ “True Grit.”
• Speaking of which, Kris reported on the current eligibility status of Carter Burwell’s score (still up in the air).
Via press release, the nominees are:
“Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer”
“Earth Made of Glass”
“Inside Job”
“Smash His Camera”
“The Tillman Story”
“Waiting for Superman”
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.
Given the indie film announcements of the week, it seemed a good time to bring indieWIRE‘s Peter Knegt back on to discuss those events and add perspective to the usual topics, of which there are plenty. Let’s dive in and see what’s on the docket today…
• David Poland writes up the history of Oscar coverage. [Movie City News]
• Costume designs from Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” [Daily Telegraph]
• Paula Schwartz reports from the Friars Club Roast of Quentin Tarantino. [The Carpetbagger]
I find it somewhat appropriate to be ending my in-depth looks at the crafts categories with a discussion of Best Visual Effects. This is, after all, a category which awards the sort of behind-the-scenes crafts work that is often prominently displayed in advertisements and talked about with reverence after the film ends.
When looking at the category’s history, it is not surprising that major blockbusters have fared the best here, with big budgets and even big revenues usually being a prerequisite to be considered for a nomination. Visual effects that “stick out” are usually rewarded, even if the film is not particularly loved. Of course, being in a beloved film helps, especially in the race for the win.
Prior to this year, there had been only three nominees in this category. Now, there will be five. This means we won’t get the “clues” that come when a list of seven bake-off finalists was announced in previous years. That said, I feel we’ve got a lot of clues about what the final five will be already.
The National Board of Review announcement is historically considered the “official” start of the film awards season, but with things like the Gotham Awards, Indie Spirit nominations and even the Hollywood Film Awards creeping more and more into mid-fall, this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
Today the organization announced winners in the usual categories, winners to be honored at a New York ceremony in January. Last year the organization picked “Up in the Air” as its Best Film winner, greatly solidifying the buzz of early December 2009. This year, they’ve gone with David Fincher’s “The Social Network.”
The film also took home awards for Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin). Most exciting for me is to see that Lesley Manville won Best Actress for her performance in “Another Year.” The flames seemed to be dying as of late. Christian Bale and Jacki Weaver won in the supporting races for “The Fighter” and “Animal Kingdom,” respectively.
It was interesting this morning to see Robert Duvall’s recent comments on Stanley Kubrick’s process with actors making the rounds. Duvall chimed in with trademark candor at The Hollywood Reporter’s Actors Round Table when the issue of exhaustive takes came up. “The Social Network” director David Fincher is known for doing quite a few, and Kubrick was infamous for it.
The actor called the work of Kubrick actors “the worst performances I’ve ever seen in movies” and even went so far as to call the director an “actor’s enemy.” I’d maintain that Kubrick’s films have rarely been about performance above formalism, but that’s me. Though the comments did remind me of a similar aside I had with actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
I sat down with the “Inception” and “Shutter Island” star over the weekend to discuss, mainly, the latter and his work with director Martin Scorsese over the years. In the midst of detailing his on-set process with the director, DiCaprio went off on a small tangent about the potential value of exhaustive takes and I thought it would make a nice rebuttal to Duvall’s point of view. Check out the audio after the jump.
20th Century Fox held its annual holiday party on the roof of the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills last night. It afforded a good opportunity to corral press members into a tight space with talent from the studio’s five awards season contenders.
Newly tapped Oscar host Anne Hathaway was on hand (with “Love & Other Drugs” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal), but her co-host James Franco couldn’t make it. I chatted briefly with “127 Hours” director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, as well as “Never Let Me Go” composer Rachel Portman (who seemed quite prim and shy). I know “Conviction” screenwriter Pamela Gray was making the rounds but I never got a chance to say hi.
I did, however, finally meet one of the cinematographers from “127 Hours,” Enrique Chediak. And as we were talking, a publicist tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Would you like to talk to Anthony Dod Mantle?” Of course I would, so I turned and staring back at me was Mantle live via Skype from Cape Town, South Africa, where he’s currently filming Pete Travis’s “Judge Dredd” reboot with Karl Urban.
• Anne Thompson has George Hickenlooper’s “Casino Jack” photo diary. [Thompson on Hollywood]
• Patrick Goldstein writes up the “My Dog Tulip” Oscar campaign. [The Big Picture]
• Vincent Cassel on “Black Swan,” movie overkill and the politics of selling out. [Movieline]
Anne Thompson is reporting in her “True Grit” review that Carter Burwell’s score from the film is ineligible for Academy consideration due to elements being based on hymns of the period. However, this is not official, first and foremost because the score hasn’t even been submitted to the Academy’s music branch yet.
I’m told there are 22 minutes of original score in the film and that the score submitted to AMPAS will have 29 tracks on it. There are six hymns on the commercial soundtrack release, but those obviously won’t be included in the submission.
Also worth pointing out is there are no rules regarding length of original material. In 2006 “Babel” had about 20 minutes of original score from composer Gustavo Santaolalla and it won the Oscar.
Even more so than the Indie Spirit nods that landed yesterday, the National Board of Review honors are seen by many as the season’s official starting gun — though there are just as many who would question their right to such significance.
The NBR gets stick on an annual basis for a range of middlebrow sins: their weakness for soft literary awards bait, their unwavering loyalty to Clint Eastwood (watch “Hereafter” aggravate everyone by showing up in tomorrow’s announcement) and their odd concessions to broad studio fare. (They’ll never live down the inclusion of “The Bucket List” — over “There Will Be Blood,” to boot — in the 2007 Top 10.)
But as ill-advised and frequently obvious as their choices can be, the NBR can occasionally throw us a real curveball: nobody saw Campbell Scott’s Best Actor win for “Roger Dodger” coming in 2002, while the Best Picture hopes of “Quills” began and ended with its out-of-step triumph at the 2000 awards. And remember that if anyone can resist a seemingly sure thing, it’s these guys: last year, this was pretty much the only stop that sweepers Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique missed on the awards track all season.
You know the drill. We’ll obviously be addressing “True Grit,” so no need to ask anything about that. PLEASE LIMIT IT TO ONE QUESTION, and steer clear of specifics we’ve already covered. The fresher the better. Go!
Catch up with the idea behind this series here.
I saw “Braveheart” on video and I’m not positive if that was before or after it won Best Picture at the Oscars. Whenever it was, Mel Gibson’s historical epic immediately became this 13 year old’s favorite movie of all time. My second favorite movie of all time back then was “Apollo 13,” so it was a good Oscars for me.
1996 became famously known as the “Year of the Indie” and “The English Patient” walked away with just about every award under the sun. I seem to remember Andrew Lloyd Webber quipping, “I’m glad there wasn’t a song in “The English Patient,”” while collecting his prize for “Evita.”
Cuba Gooding Jr. completed the first phase of his future career as a punchline by winning Best Supporting Actor for “Jerry Maguire,” while Juliette Binoche etched her name at the top of Lauren Bacall’s shitlist by winning Best Supporting Actress in a huge upset.
Speaking of punchlines, Whoopi Goldberg delivered them in ’95 before Billy Crystal’s triumphant return in ’96. Goldberg, who remains my least favorite MC of all the broadcasts I’ve watched, thought that following Vanessa Williams’s performance of “Colors of the Wind” with a glance behind her and the line, “What color is my wind?” constituted great comedy.
But I digress.
I say over 150 because I honestly lost count. In any case, the International Press Academy has announced it’s slate of nominees for the 15th Annual Satellite Awards, and as usual, every film under the sun seems to have been nominated for SOMETHING.
Actually, not every film. Obviously the organization didn’t see “True Grit” before the voting deadline, as the film wasn’t nominated for a single thing. Nor was “The Way Back,” though I don’t know whether they saw it or not. But “Dinner for Schmucks” and “The Other Guys” are well-represented! As best I can tell, “Inception” leads the way with 11 nominations.
I think I may have forgotten to post this announcement last year. I don’t know what kind of stock you might put into the Satellites, but it’s an annual film award announcement nevertheless. Check out the full slate of nominees at The Circuit.
[Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures]
If you live in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto or Washington, D.C. and you’re somehow on the fence about seeing Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” when it opens in limited release Friday, maybe this will help you make up your mind.
JoBlo confirmed with Fox Searchlight and reported via Twitter that the trailer for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” will be attached to prints of the film. Anticipation for Malick’s latest has reached a fever pitch and this will be our first glimpse.
I recently spoke to someone who’s seen it and was blown away, but I really can’t divulge further. (What a douche move, I know.) If it indeed changes the language of cinema, as has been the line on it for some time, we’ll all be in for a real treat when it inevitably bows at Cannes in May.
[Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures]
I’ve seen the Coen brothers’ “True Grit” twice now, and it’s not because the film is some “Inception”-like, mind-bending narrative maze. Quite the opposite, actually. I saddled up to it a second time yesterday morning because I wasn’t quite anticipating what I got the first time around and I wanted to consider it further knowing what it was.
You see, this isn’t really “a Coen brothers film” to me. Outside of an opening act bathed in their usual trappings, the film feels almost anonymous, lacking the fingerprint stirringly present in each and every one of their efforts. And it’s all very much by design, by the way.
“True Grit,” in its second screen iteration, is a classic western cut from traditional cloth. With its wide vistas, simple narrative and focus on character dynamics (as well as a handful of unrefined horse-back riding effects shots), it’s fair to say it bears more of a resemblance to the work of Anthony Mann, John Ford and Budd Boetticher than it does that of the Coens. The film isn’t focused on being as tight and complete as most of their films, and indeed, inchoate was very much a goal here.
I haven’t bothered taking a stab at predicting this year’s Oscar winners yet. Now seems like the right time, given that everything has been seen (save for two Sony entries with comedy stylings that look to be commercial enterprises more than awards plays).
I’m long on the record as thinking “The King’s Speech” is the one to beat in this year’s Best Picture race, and little — if anything — has given me reason to think otherwise. But as I’ve already warned, being out in front so early can be a handicap ultimately, so we’ll see if it pans out accordingly.
I’m not putting a ton of stock into these predictions yet, so you shouldn’t either. After all, one of my picks isn’t even present in the sidebar predictions at the moment (though that will change in a week’s time). So just look at this as a chance to spitball some possibilities. And feel free to offer up your guesses in the comments section below. My predictions after the jump.