• Dear cry-baby Hollywood conservatives: Al Gore doesn’t even have that Oscar you want back. Talk to Davis Guggenheim. [Top of the Ticket]
• Editor Sally Menke on how she and Quentin Tarantino “clicked.” [The Guardian]
• Anne Thompson has 20 questions for “District 9” star Sharlto Copley. [Thompson on Hollywood]
Whenever an awards shortlist is announced, people will inevitably spend as much time, if not more, pondering its omissions as they will its inclusions. And so it has been this week, in the wake of the Academy’s announcement of the 15 titles shortlisted for Best Feature Documentary.
Some are curiously kvetching that Bill Maher’s sporadically amusing but ultimately pedestrian “Religulous” got slighted, instead of commending the Academy for looking beyond the obvious. Others (including yours truly, admittedly) are puzzled that the excellent “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” didn’t make the cut, while some are surprised that last year’s winner in the category, Alex Gibney, was frozen out this time. (Well, had “Gonzo” been half the film “Taxi to the Dark Side” was, he might not have been.) And then there’s “American Teen” and “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” and … well, you get the idea.
The conclusion to draw from this is twofold. First of all, in this category, name recognition isn’t always a deciding factor. Second of all, and more simply, the shortlist is, even with these high-profile exclusions, a markedly strong one. Boiling it down to fifteen titles was clearly a harder task than one might have guessed.
I’m not sure enough people are recognising the breadth and the depth of the competition in this category. Amid the various reactions I’ve read to the shortlist, I’ve noticed the same small handful of contenders coming to the fore: “Standard Operating Procedure” from previous champ Errol Morris, “Encounters at the End of the World” from the long-slighted Werner Herzog, Sundance victor “Trouble the Water,” and the film widely deemed the one to beat, “Man on Wire.”
I’m less convinced. Yes, they’re all highly acclaimed conversation pieces. (Well, almost — Morris’ film appears more polarising than the rest.) Yes, they all have enjoyed comparatively prominent releases. But, like the notoriously wilful Best Foreign Language Film category, this category doesn’t always reward a high profile. For every time they’ve embraced a populist frontrunner like Michael Moore, they’ve ignored a supposed shoo-in. Just ask, well, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog — both previously snubbed for some of their most lauded work.
This strikes me as very bad news indeed. Amy Israel, head of acquisition and production at Paramount Vantage, has been shown the exit. You’d think overseeing the production of such titles as “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood,” and acquiring, among others, “An Inconvenient Truth,” would count for something. Apparently not.
Replacing Israel is Guy Stodel, a former exec from New Line. He has some history of acquiring arthouse titles (“The Sea Inside,” “The Upside of Anger”), but worryingly, his most emphasised accomplishment in the press release is having brought the two “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remakes to fruition. Because that’s the kind of thing we’re looking for, right?
Israel’s parting statement is diplomatic, but somewhat ominous:
I’m proud of having been a part of building Paramount Vantage from the ground up under John Lesher, making great films. I love the company we built. It’s not the same company. (It) is evolving a different direction.
Truthfully, we all knew this was coming. When Vantage was incorporated into the main body of the studio last month, it was pretty obvious they wanted to broaden their focus to more commercial genre projects. Vantage president Nicholas Meyer insists specialty films will remain a priority:
Although the moves signal that Vantage is moving more in the genre direction, Meyer insists the studio is pursuing a more “eclectic and elastic” slate. “We are not abandoning the specialty business. We are too committed to it,” Meyer said. “As the company evolves, we need to morph and mutate in order to survive in a challenging environment.”