Sigourney Weaver is doing SNL tonight. Nice PR positioning for a film that obviously doesn’t NEED PR positioning, but hey, should be fun.
Tag: Avatar
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An evening at the CCMAs
Alright, now that the booze and the hangover have worn off, let’s talk last night’s Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.It was a decently produced evening, the venue having shifted from the Santa Monica Civic Center to the Hollywood Palladium, right in the middle of Tinseltown. The scheme of having 10 tables rounding the stage representing the 10 films nominated for Best Picture was a nice touch. I was fortunate enough to be at the “Up in the Air” table with Jason Reitman, Vera Farmiga (who I was meeting for the first time) and Anna Kendrick.
George Clooney was a no-show (working on his upcoming Haiti telethon), though at least that didn’t make for an awkward moment later when Jeff Bridges won the lead actor prize, the first on his way to an eventual Oscar win.
Anyway, a few notes (since Guy has already given you a thorough rundown of last night’s implications)…
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WEEKLY WRAP: BFCA awards, Guilds triple, Rohmer passes
• As you’ve just heard, “The Hurt Locker” emerged triumphant at the BFCA Critics’ Choice Awards.• Earlier this week, Éric Rohmer, sly giant of New Wave intellectualism, passed away at the age of 89.
• That same day, “Avatar,” “The Hangover” and “Star Trek” were among the films nominated by the WGA.
• The ASC slate continued the love for “Avatar,” but a semi-surprise nod for “The White Ribbon” got pundits’ attention.
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‘Hurt Locker’ takes top honors at Critics’ Choice Awards
The BFCA are rarely ones to take an individual stand on the awards trail, and such was the case last night, as they mostly stuck with Oscar frontrunners down the line. In the numbers stakes, “Avatar” (with six awards) and “Inglourious Basterds” (with three) came out on top.But it was “The Hurt Locker” that emerged as the night’s real winner, maintaining its tight season-long grip on the Best Picture and Best Director prizes, even with this more mainstream-oriented group. (It should be stressed that, despite the name, this is not a critics’ award.)
Is this another “Sideways” — which also managed to parlay critical momentum into a top win here — or is something bigger afoot for the film? I’m starting to suspect the latter.
Kris can obviously offer more first-hand perspective at a later stage. Still, the sense I get from this is that, for all the claims of it being a level three-horse race, “Up in the Air” is actually trailing “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar” — if any major precursor was going to swing the way of Jason Reitman’s film, I’d have expected it to be the sometimes safe-playing BFCA.
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1/14 Oscarweb Round-up
• Buzz Aldrin, Willie Nelson and more comment on the accuracy of a number of the season’s contenders. [Variety]• Peter Jackson and Stanley Tucci talk “The Lovely Bones.” [FearNet]
• Brooks Barnes Q&As “The Hurt Locker” writer Mark Boal. [The Carpetbagger]
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THE LONG SHOT: Hollywood fights back
I may be looking out at my snow-caked garden as I write this, but it was in the spirit of spring-cleaning that I revised my nomination predictions this morning, ridding myself of most of the clinging personal hopes and hunches that lingered when I last updated them a month ago.It wasn’t the most drastic of revisions (rather to my surprise, I found I’d already predicted a robust haul for “District 9” before the Guilds made it such a strong bet), but it was my most detached one to date, anticipating a race that looks set to be rather passionless on my part.
Rarely have so many of the leading players in the Best Picture race left me so cold – as “Avatar,” “Invictus,” “Precious,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Up in the Air,” “Star Trek” and even “Up” all failed to arouse any particularly warm feelings in me, I began to wonder if I should just retreat to bed until March 8.
(Unfortunately, for those of you wishing I’d do just that, a healthy precursor run for “The Hurt Locker,” one contender I love without reservation, is keeping me invested.)
Still, my individual response to the films in question isn’t the only reason I’m feeling a little distanced from this year’s competition. As it currently stands, Hollywood looks set to enjoy its most homegrown Oscar race in some time.
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1/13 Oscarweb Round-up
• Nathaniel Rogers wraps up his “top 100 of the decade” series with a pair of unconventional musicals taking the top two spots. [The Film Experience]• Melena Ryzik chats with “Crazy Heart” star Maggie Gyllenhaal. [The Carpetbagger]
• Why Quentin Tarantino wants to be the next Howard Hawks. [The Guardian]
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Steve Pond on Oscar’s “broken” song category
The Best Original Song race gets an awful lot of stick for its wonky voting system and sometimes questionable musical judgment — problems that have lately converged to scupper the hopes of many well-regarded contenders, with last year’s snub of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler” raising particularly widespread ire.I’ll start, however, by saying a few words in the category’s favor. The odd egregious snub aside, the standard of competition has improved notably in recent years — some have complained that the Academy no longer recognizes familiar chart hits with the regularity that they did in the 1980s, but their musical range has expanded. The last decade has seen them embrace hip-hop, world music and folk, including several numbers that were imaginatively integrated into the cinematic fabric of certain films.
Do they still nominate the occasional stinker? Sure. But by and large, we’re in a better, more adventurous place than we were 10 years ago, when dreary MOR balladeering from the likes of Phil Collins, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston ruled the race.
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ACE nominees
For me, “District 9” is the biggest and most pleasant surprise for me in this morning’s American Cinema Editors announcement. If ever the film looked like a lock for a Best Picture nomination, now is that time, I have to say. Getting in over presumed Oscar frontrunners “Precious” and, most especially, “Inglourious Basterds,” that’s a pretty big feather in its cap if you ask me.“Star Trek” also makes another fairly strong case this morning for getting into the Academy’s 10 over something like “Invictus,” which keeps missing with guild after guild and should, perhaps, finally be called a spade. The drama field is then rounded out by what has become the rather definitive frontrunner trilogy of films.
In the comedy field, we get veterans in Joe Hutshing and Richard Marks perhaps predictably recognized for “Its Complicated” and “Julie & Julia” respectively, while the Coen brothers get their third nomination from the guild to date. The other two: Best Picture nominees “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men.” Round it out with two comedies that are tricking people into thinking they’ll be Best Picture nominees (with no mention of the dead and dying “Nine”) and voila, the ACE Eddie nominees.
Check out the full list after the jump.
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ASC nominees
“Avatar” continues its guild steamroll with a mention from the ASC today, a mention I frankly didn’t think the film would get. Then again, the guild is typically kind to digital photography where AMPAS is not (examples are “Collateral” and “Apocalypto”), so I wouldn’t say it’s a slam dunk in this category for Oscar. Then again, maybe I’m blind to the writing on the wall here. And “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” may have gone a long way toward dispelling digital bias in the Academy.I don’t get the love for Christian Berger. I haven’t since day one. There is nothing appealing to me about the way Michael Haneke visually captures his films. There’s rarely anything appealing to me about his films period, truth be told. But somehow going with black and white and employing his usual brand of tracking shots, long takes, etc., rarely with compelling composition (all my opinion, of course), it has managed to bring Berger laurel after laurel. Critics awards are one thing, but an organization like the ASC, which I trust and respect, I don’t know. Maybe I just missed the boat completely.
“Nine” finally gets a guild mention and Robert Richardson, as always, is an ASC favorite once more.
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‘Avatar,’ ‘Star Trek’ among WGA nominees
And, there we are. “Avatar” gets a nomination for best writing from a 10,000 member-strong guild and plenty will find reason to argue with it. But let’s look at the rest.“The Hangover” managed to get a nomination in the original screenplay field in the wake of a number of eligibility rulings on some top contenders. I’m most excited for Scott Cooper and “Crazy Heart,” because I’m getting the feeling he might turn this and his USC Scripter bid into something tangible for Oscar consideration. “District 9,” of course, was not eligible here and is still a threat, ditto “An Education,” but the race is a little more interesting now. Especially when you consider Nora Ephron (also nominated today), who I’ve always felt was a threat with the Academy for navigating two sources and making some entertaining sense of it all.
Elsewhere it’s the usual suspects, except for the appearance of “Star Trek” in the adapted ranks. Yes, the writers of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” are WGA nominees. But in my view, they deserve the pat on the back for this film, a high octane entertainment that was smartly conceived and remains one of the true gems of 2009.
Check out the nominees after the jump.
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1/11 Oscarweb Round-up
• Dave McNary catches up with the thin WGA field story. (Nominees will be announced later this morning.) [Variety]• The local rag continues to step up its crafts coverage, spotlights “The Hurt Locker” sound mixer (and sound editor) Paul Ottosson. [Los Angeles Times]
• On the non-actor terminated from Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air.” [The Guardian]
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SUNDAY CENTS: That ‘Avatar’ thing is doing well, eh?
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.Have you guys heard of this movie “Avatar?” Apparently, seeing as it’s the number one movie for the fourth week in a row and dropped a ridiculous 29% to $48.5 million. First off, it’s the biggest fourth weekend for a film ever, narrowly eclipsing the $45 million of “Titanic.” Its running total of $429 makes it the 24th biggest film of the last 30 years and it’s only been out for 24 days.
Remember how big “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” was? Well, “Avatar” will pass it tomorrow on the all time chart. Remember how ludicrous the grosses for “The Passion of the Christ” were? That’ll get passed on Tuesday.
There’s no overstating the size of this film’s performance, and it’s time to start talking about a $600 million+ finish domestically. Since I was born in 1982, there have only been five films that have made that kind of money: “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Titanic,” “Return of the Jedi,” “Jurassic Park” and “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.” Somewhere right now, James Cameron is shitting a gold brick.
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Oscars in The Times
Fresh on the heels of a page one Mo’Nique story, The New York Times has unleashed its annual Oscar package, great stuff as always.Manohla Dargis leads the girl-power charge with an appreciation of Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker.” It’s a solid piece of analysis that spends a few graphs discussing the art of the zoom and is accompanied by a novel “anatomy of a scene” interactive feature.
Next up, A.O. Scott stumps for Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” once again (also with interactive accompaniment), while Stephen Holden waves the flag for Oren Moverman’s “The Messenger” (following a Woody Harrelson appreciation in the pages of the LA Times yesterday).
Going broader, Michael Cieply addresses the 10 once again and gets one anonymous Academy governor to admit what we all know, that the expanded Best Picture field is likely an experiment that might not last more than one or two years. And Douglas McGrath (rather out of the blue) calls for Doris Day to receive an honorary statuette.
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Ebert on ‘Avatar’ logic
Roger Ebert is on fire in Slate’s vastly entertaining The Movie Club feature — it’s all good stuff (as are the contributions from other critics), but his discussion of his plot issues with “Avatar” had me nodding in relieved agreement. I thought I was the only one wondering this:Assuming that an avatar can live with no connection to the mother ship, what does it think with? When its human master dies, who is upstairs? Does the mind of Jake Sully transfer? I have an eerie feeling I may once again have missed a crucial plot detail, but if Jake Sully’s mind can be inside his avatar, then that really is Michael Keaton inside the snow man in Jack Frost.
His statement on the potential “Avatar” vs. “The Hurt Locker” Oscar battle after the cut.
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WEEKLY WRAP: Guilds, lists and disqualifications
• In a big week for precursor announcements, the DGA nominations were the biggest — and least surprising.• The PGA, meanwhile, found room for all three of the year’s hot sci-fi titles in its nominee slate.
• “The Hurt Locker” triumphed at the National Society of Film Critics Awards, the first film in 12 years to sweep the three top critics’ prizes.
• Over five days, I counted down my personal Top 50 films of the decade that was.
• And we’re not done listing: Chad also gathered his 20 favorites of 2009.
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Can ‘Avatar’ do for the Oscars what ‘Dark Knight’ couldn’t?
Peter Bart decides to call a spade a spade as it pertains to the Oscar race. James Cameron’s “Avatar” is “the betting favorite to win best picture,” he writes. But more importantly, he brings up the solid point that the film’s potential AMPAS success could be the ratings shot in the arm the show has been looking for. (And guess what? They didn’t need to go to 10 nominees to get it.)Writes Bart:
Since it takes a populist movie to pump life into the Oscar ratings, “Avatar’s” box office largesse will likely translate into another “Titanic”-like bonanza. Back in 1998 some 55 million viewers tuned in, while last year’s “Slumdog” siesta totaled a mere 36.3 million…
We realize that the Oscar show’s new producing team of Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic is hard at work on plans to enliven the broadcast, but they are also keenly aware of the ratings realities. A movie like “There Will Be Blood” does not mean there will be audiences. The awards process is energized when folks out there have actually seen at least one or two of the movies being honored.
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FRIDAY FORECAST: January blues
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.Barring a catastrophe, “Avatar” should spend a comfortable fourth weekend at the top and cross $400 million in the process. That would make 2009 the first year since 2004 to have two films cross that milestone. It would also make “Avatar” the second-fastest film to hit that mark, after “The Dark Knight.”
It took “Titanic” 36 days to reach $400 million and it only had $265.1 million at this point in its epic run. Still, there’s no way in hell “Avatar” can repeat the four month run at the top that James Cameron’s last film managed, or it’s $943.3 million final gross.
Competition, if you can call it that, comes from three new releases with the stench of January seeping off their posters and trailers. Lionsgate hops on the vampire gravy train with “Daybreakers” featuring a cast that should know better. “Hostel” and “Rambo” have done well for the studio in Januaries of the past but I don’t see much more than $14 million heading this way.
Amy Adams is doing her typecast image no favors by appearing in “Leap Year,” with Matthew Goode taking second billing. I follow movies for a living and I barely know who Matthew Goode is, so she shouldn’t expect much help from him in drawing the crowds.