• The National Board of Review offered the season’s first major precursors, with “Up in the Air” sitting pretty.
• The Independent Spirit Award nominations were topped by “Precious” and, more surprisingly, “The Last Station.”
• Indie award rivals the Gotham Awards, meanwhile, crowned “The Hurt Locker” as the year’s best.
• Fresh off his Spirit nomination, we served up an extended interview with the great Jeff Bridges.
We were going to be featuring U2’s track “Winter” from Jim Sheridan’s “Brothers” today, but we’ll hold off until Monday on that as the love theme from one of the most anticipated films of the year has crossed our path this morning.
Leona Lewis was revealed a few weeks ago as the crooner responsible for “I See You,” the central tune of James Cameron’s “Avatar.” I imagine that, much like Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” in “Titanic,” the melodies of the track will be evident throughout James Horner’s score. No one has seen the film yet (December 10 is the date for me), so it’s difficult to say exactly how the song is implemented in the film. I do know it’s a closing credits tune, but again, it could have a presence throughout.
Dion’s song, of course, won the Oscar in 1997, so it’s fair to think “I See You” will be a formidable contender here, but in this brave new (arbitrary) world of Academy music branch voting, all bets are off. This is a bit, I don’t know, overly produced, a bit schmaltzy, but I’ll hold off full judgment on it until I saw how it’s used in the film. It has striking parallels to “My Heart Will Go On” here and there, though.
Have a listen to the song below and tell us what you think.
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• Peter Knegt talks to “Up in the Air” supporting actress hopeful (and newly minted NBR award recipient) Anna Kendrick. [indieWIRE]
• Stanley Tucci and how to (reluctantly) play a pervert. [The Carpetbagger]
• Peter Jackson, meanwhile, doesn’t much care about an Oscar campaign but does hope that people look closely at Tucci and Saoirse Ronan’s performances. [Vulture]
• Edna Gundersen talks to Sir Paul McCartney about his musical addition to Kirk Jones’s “Everybody’s Fine.” [USA Today]
• In praise of the opening sequence of Michael Mann’s “Ali.” [The Auteurs Notebook]
• Pete Hammond reports from Monday night’s premiere of “Up in the Air.” [Notes on a Season]
• Pete Hammond reports on a last minute surge to get “Iron Cross,” Roy Scheider’s final film, into Oscar contention. [Notes on a Season]
• Gregory Ellwood takes note of the season’s box office champs so far: “Inglourious Basterds” and “Up.” [Awards Campaign]
• Geoff Boucher talks to “Avatar” composer James Horner. [Hero Complex]
Welcome to Oscar Talk, your weekly kudocast featuring yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.
On the docket today:
• We lead off talking holiday screeners, including further talk of “Inglourious Basterds” slipping into the 10 in the wake of fading heavies.
• Speaking of which, fresh off a screening of “The Lovely Bones,” a film that isn’t caught in the embargo tug of war, we touch briefly on our thoughts, to certainly be expanded at another time.
• As trade and magazine reviews pop up while others are still told to hold off, we get into Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus.”
• And with screenings of “Nine” already two weeks old, we finally add our perspective on the musical adaptation and certain category placements.
• Finally, with no revelations left save for James Cameron’s “Avatar,” we look at the film’s marketing strategy and the rumor mill on secret screenings.
Have a listen to this week’s podcast below, with Kate Hudson and “Cinema Italiano” leading the way. As always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.
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• The significance of “Nine” for Anthony Minghella’s legacy. [The Guardian]
• Steven Zeitchik catches on to the year’s thin original screenplay race and bangs the drum for “Sugar.” [Risky Business]
• Lauren Shucker talks “Up in the Air” with director Jason Reitman. [Wall Street Journal]
I would put it on the Lennon-McCartney level. Look how healthy that competition was even when it was unhealthy. Look at the results of it. Different approaches and personalities and each makes the other better. There’s this dialogue right now and I would throw Spielberg into it too. There’s a dialogue among a generation of filmmakers. I would say Spielberg is out ahead of it at the forefront, I’d say, being older and with what he carved out with George Lucas and the creation of the summer blockbuster. But to answer your question, of course, between Zemeckis and Cameron, yes, there’s a tremendous awareness of what the other is doing. It’s like Beatles and the Stones. And I’m so pleased that they are doing this; to be in their 50s and forging new avenues, to be taking risks and putting this much work in to it — and to be taking a certain amount of flack. Both Cameron and Zemeckis have remained true to their visions and gone places that people would rather they not go…
From this Geoff Boucher interview with production designer Rick Carter, one of the creative minds behind many of the most successful works from Spielberg, Zemeckis and now, with “Avatar,” James Cameron.
“My God, they’ve thrown in everything but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Quoted by writer Anthony Holden in his gossipy history “The Oscars,” this was one publicist’s dismayed response to the 1990 Academy Award nominations, which included such unusual concessions to popular (as opposed to critical) opinion as a Best Picture nomination for “Ghost” and a Best Actress nod for Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.”
I remember this year well – I was eight years old, and it was the first Oscar race I followed in detail from burbling Christmas hype to the ceremony itself, digging up and scrapbooking all the press and TV coverage I could find.
And from what I recall of my fledgling research, the unnamed publicist above wasn’t alone in her discontent. In particular, the “Ghost” nomination attracted levels of critical scorn even higher than those usually reserved for the Oscars – the common line being that the Academy had sold out to commerce rather than art, and that the sky would be falling at any given moment.
Does this situation sound at all familiar?
It should do. Though it was a response to an outcome rather than a possibility, the kvetching over the 1990 nods more than slightly resembles the panic that set in among certain pundits and fans alike (including, admittedly, yours truly) when the switch to 10 Best Picture nominees was announced in June.
Without any doubt, one of the most difficult Oscar categories to predict is Best Makeup. Like Best Visual Effects, the final three nominees are chosen from a previously announced shortlist of seven.
Very frequently, films that would seem to be sure things fail to even make the bake-off. Even so, it is possible to gauge the general sort of films which are nominated, with considerable prosthetics and aging effects being among the most cited accomplishments in this category.
This branch is one that regularly seems willing nominate dreadful films, or to eschew insularity (which is not to say they don’t have their favorites, such as Greg Cannom and Rick Baker).
I think many of the films I spoke of in September remain firmly in the running, And perhaps leading the way is Neil Blomkamp’s “District 9.” While much of the work in this was CGI, the makeup was key, not only to the main character’s transformation but also to capturing the injuries of the characters in the slums of Johannesburg. The crew has not been nominated before, but I don’t think that will be a problem.
You really have to hand it to Fox marketing as it pertains to James Cameron’s highly anticipated “Avatar.” Three weeks out from release and it seems like the film is everywhere.
Full blown 90 second TV spots all day is one thing, though. Innovative online marketing is another, and it looks like the studio has chosen Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily to launch the latest interactive ploy.
Essentially it’s an interface that you have to download. While watching the trailer, you can interrupt things and play character profiles throughout, with interviews and perspective from Sam Worthington, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Lang, etc. These are called “hotspots” that you can engage throughout which load the mini-featurettes we’ve seen pop up over the last few days and weeks.
• Pete Hammond, with box office ammunition in hand, keeps banging the gong for Sandra Bullock in a bad movie. And it just might happen. [Notes on a Season]
• Speaking of “The Blind Side,” Patrick Goldstein dedicates a great many words to the film’s director, John Lee Hancock. [The Big Picture]
• “Nine,” the film that seduced Hollywood’s stars. [Daily Telegraph]
The first screenings of the film are said to happen December 10 (the same day as the London premiere). Maybe some will happen before that, maybe not. But with latter-year contenders underwhelming left and right, all eyes could be aimed toward James Cameron’s latest with something of an exasperated sense of hope. Soon enough…
• The shortlist of contenders for the documentary Oscar was announced, surprising many — we dug into it a little.
• The season’s first Oscars were handed out, as Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis, Roger Corman and John Calley were celebrated at the Governors’ Awards.
• This week’s Off the Carpet column broke down the wide-open Best Original Screenplay race.
• The Long Shot lived up to its name, spotlighting a few of the season’s most deserving outsiders.
• With his directorial debut “The Merry Gentleman” on the way, Michael Keaton gets a profile across the pond. [The Guardian]
• Laura Almo sits down with “Up in the Air” editor Dana Glauberman. [Editors Guild Magazine]
• “Avatar”‘s Sigourney Weaver remembers the days when James Cameron’s crews didn’t live in fear. [Vulture]
Some categories haven’t had that much renewal since I last reviewed them. Best Original Score is an exception. Principally, this is because the category is very difficult to judge before hearing the scores, not to mention last minute personnel changes (as composers always seem to be the most disposable members of film crews).
As I said last time, the music branch, though it has opened up to newbies slightly in recent years, is notoriously one of AMPAS’s most insular branches. Best Picture nominees tend to do reasonably well, but the category also tends to award “loud” music, and as of late, world music has been a favorite.
One thing that has not changed, in my opinion, is that Michael Giacchino continues to lead this category for his score for Pixar’s “Up.” Giacchino was nominated two years ago for “Ratatouille” and again composed a soundtrack which was sad, joyous and suspenseful. The film is likely headed towards a Best Picture nomination and I expect Giacchino to show up as well.
At the same time, I also can’t help but wonder if Giacchino maybe, just maybe, could pull off a double nomination this year for his compositions on J. J. Abrams’s “Star Trek.” The music was quite original and bombastic. And, of course, the film a huge hit. I don’t see a lot of surefire nominees in this category, so this could be a place where it finds a home.
• Michael Cieply writes up “Crazy Heart” from the angle that Paramount has “embarrassed” itself for passing on the film once upon a time, but apparently that early cut was “unwatchable,” so, you know, cut some slack. [New York Times]
• Clint Eastwood — set to grace one of five GQ covers next month — says the country is in a morbid mood. [CNN]
• The Gurus o’ Gold weigh in on the directors and animated features. [Movie City News]
“Avatar” news and notes really seem to be picking up lately. Before long the December 10 London premiere will be here (I don’t know if a press screening will be held the same day here in the states or beforehand or what). Today, thanks to Coming Soon, we get a look at the French poster for the film:
Meanwhile, courtesy of Market Saw (via Ain’t It Cool), a four minute sequence from the film has made its way online. It was apparently captured through XBOX 360 playback so the assumption is it may be available through XBOX Live overseas or something. So I don’t feel too conflicted about posting it.
It’s part of the same footage that was shown at Comic-Con and obviously isnt an ideal way to view it, but if you’re interested, check it out after the jump.