It’s clearly Poster Revision Day or something, as this new concept for Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” (you may have heard of it by now) builds and improves on the simple head shot unveiled in August — while maintaining its pristine, counter-intuitive snow-white sheen. Obviously, nothing’s going to top those Art Deco-inspired teaser designs released last month, though it seems this one has at least incorporated a key visual metaphor from one of them. See if you can spot it.
• David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” unspooled at the AFI Fest. Kris was impressed and later reported from a Q&A with the film’s stars.
• This week’s Off the Carpet column pondered the presence of money-spinners in this year’s Best Picture race.
• The Long Shot, meanwhile, wondered if that very race is currently looking a little flimsy.
• News of Hugh Jackman turning down the gig prompted the annual speculation over who should host the Oscar ceremony.
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.
AFI Fest has concluded, the first Academy Award ceremony of the year hits this weekend and we find ourselves in the thick of things. Between Galas, premieres, parties and the usual, there’s plenty to chew on, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…
Last night was closing night of the 2010 AFI Fest, and they put a bow on things by offering up the Los Angeles premiere of AFI alum Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” I decided to head over to the Chinese Theatre to give it another look. At this stage in the season, Telluride feel like ages ago and it’s nice to saddle up back to a film like this after you’ve seen and therefore know what you’re getting into.
Aronofsky offered his usual self-deprecating patter before hand, introducing stars Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder and Natalie Portman, as well as producer Scott Franklin. He noted that the Chinese is his “favorite theater in the world” and that he can recall visiting Los Angeles as a kid and catching a film with his parents. When he attended the AFI, he would always head over to the theater (which isn’t far from campus) to see new releases every weekend.
He was pumped for Sylvester Stallone to be in the house and went through the expected thank yous before unleashing the film on yet another unsuspecting crowd, and from my vantage, it seemed to go over well. One person outside the theater afterward was heard saying, “I don’t even know what emotion to feel right now.”
(From here on out, my nomination predictions will be updated weekly to coincide with this column. Check them out here.)
Tweed-coated and steam-breathed, winter formally arrived in my corner of the world this week, and with it the slightly grim realization that just over seven weeks remain of this year.
I say “grim” not so much because I’m unprepared for the rigors of Christmas shopping or because 90% of my year’s to-do list remains undone—though neither of those truths are helping—but because, from a film perspective, 2010 feels to me like it needs at least another couple of months to find itself.
Yesterday, I found myself battling with two lists of 10 films: the first, my own provisional best-of-year collective, the second, my revised predictions for the Best Picture Oscar nominees. Neither list, in my experience, has ever had much to do with the other (of course, I’ll take that back should the Academy reveal hidden depths of enthusiasm for, say, “White Material” on nomination morning), but both the rough drafts I wound up with had one thing in common: they’re badly in need of a late-breaking great film or two.
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.
As we move into November, AFI Fest is heating up, campaigns are in full swing (talent being pitched left and right) and pretty soon I’ll be eating turkey and watching “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” Crazy. We had a slightly shorter window this week, but let’s see what’s on the docket today…
• Pete Hammond talks “I Am Love” with dark horse Best Actress contender Tilda Swinton. [Deadline]
• How DreamWorks Animation is using social gaming to boost “Megamind.” [Hollywood Reporter]
• Meet the characters of “Morning Glory.” [MakingOf]
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.
You can feel the season rumbling to life with Halloween just around the corner. It’s been a lively enough week as contenders began to hit the circuit and more films were unveiled for eager press. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…
So important but so hard to notice. That’s how I would describe the work of our best film editors – those cutting artists who blend and juxtapose frames together to make films coherent, establish a flow and also set the mood in a manner that suits the screenwriter’s words and the director’s vision.
The Academy Award for Best Film Editing is, more than any other category, very much tied to the Best Picture race. Despite a blip from 2005-2007, this category always has at least three – usually four, sometimes all five – of its nominees also nominated in the big category. Now that there are 10 nominees, however, one cannot help but wonder if we are ever going to again see a nominee here also not cited in Best Picture.
Apart from Best Picture contention, being a war film, action film or musical never hurts here. I must say, however, that since I last previewed this category in August, I continue to believe that the three titles I had leading the way then are still out in front.
If you read around sites like The Hot Blog or Hollywood Elsewhere, you’re sure to have read some colorful commentary from “LexG.” And if you follow him on Twitter or catch his YouTube videos, you likely know it spills over. Some hate him. I love the guy.
So naturally, “Oscar Chat” caught my eye. I trust even the offended will at least get a chuckle or two. I laughed my ass off:
Glitz and glamor. Period prestige. Newbie talent and old favorites. How is the race for Best Costume Design shaping up this year?
In my opinion, Jenny Beavan is leading the way at this point in time. Beavan earned six nominations in the 1980s and 1990s for her work on Merchant-Ivory films, winning for “A Room With a View.” But after “Anna and the King” and “Gosford Park,” she has been out of the running for almost a decade. That said, there must have been occasions (notably “Sherlock Holmes” last year) where she must have been very close. This year, she designed the threads for leading contender “The King’s Speech.” Recreating British royalty of the 1930s seems almost certain to result in Beavan’s return to the final five.
Another eight-time nominee (albeit one with two wins) is Colleen Atwood. Atwood again teams up with director Tim Burton this year on “Alice in Wonderland.” The work was crazy fantasy. The branch doesn’t always go for that but they do frequently go for Atwood. That fact, combined with the film’s massive box office haul, leads me to believe Ms. Atwood is looking at nod #9 this year.
Today we take a look a second look at, well, certainly the most “cinematic” of categories: Best Cinematography. As I like to say, cinema is born out of the camera and those who wield these devices enrich our films more than a few words written here could possibly say. From capturing mood, lighting and atmosphere to telling the story visually and creatively, our cinematographers truly are artists in every sense of the word.
Naturally, “pretty” films, war films and Best Picture nominees all have a knack for doing particularly well in this category.
Now that the trailer for “True Grit” has reached the internet, I surely cannot be the only person asking…is this the film that will finally bring Roger Deakins his Oscar? He has eight nominations (four for Coen brothers films), tragically winning zero times. The photography looks amazing, and the film is exactly the sort that would seem to excel in this category. That the film also looks like a bigger Oscar player across the board (more than I was originally expecting) is merely icing on the cake.
Okay, now we’re talking. By now, you should be quite familiar with the US one-sheet for Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” — an attractively demure (and unexpectedly snow-white) design that coyly masks the sexy, shadowy craziness served up by the erotic ballet thriller. Now, however, a set of four international teaser posters have landed via Empire — and they certainly aren’t hiding the crazy. Love the alternately Expressionist and Art Deco flourishes and the stark, uniform color palette (though if they were really channeling the film, that red would be replaced with blush-pink). My favorite among the quartet previewed above — check ’em all out after the cut.
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.
This week we’re happy to be joined by In Contention’s own Guy Lodge and indieWIRE‘s Peter Knegt, both calling from London where the London Film Festival has just kicked off. Plenty to chew on with four voices on the mic so let’s see what’s on the docket…
• Melissa Silverstein on female dominance in the documentary shorts field. [Women and Hollywood]
• Turns out Clint Eastwood filmed an early, unpolished draft of Peter Morgan’s “Hereafter.” Well…it shows. [Vulture]
• Speaking of which, David Cohen spotlights the impact of digital wizardry on that story-driven film as well as Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” [Variety]
A number of people wanted Anne and I to discuss the seemingly thin Best Supporting Actress category on the podcast Friday, but we didn’t get to it. So it seemed an opportune time to dedicate this space to the discussion.
One should keep in mind that the race is still in its early days. This time last year we didn’t even know “Crazy Heart” would be in the mix, and any number of things can change. But while I have been saying for a while now that the supporting actress field is week, it does seem to be taking shape as of late.
There is no hard and fast frontrunner in the field right now. If Lesley Manville’s “Another Year” campaign were to switch gears, that would be a different story, but the only contender that feels right at the moment is Miranda Richardson as the fiery Barbara Castle in the Brit comedy “Made in Dagenham.”
On the next tier, I feel pretty good about Dianne Wiest’s chances in “Rabbit Hole,” where the three-time nominee (and two-time winner) stars as a concerned but affable mother to Nicole Kidman’s grief-stricken housewife. Meanwhile, Helena Bonham Carter could well ride the coattails of “The King’s Speech” to a nomination for the comic relief and emotional support she maintains throughout the film.
“Mila Kunis is so winning Best Supporting Actress this year,” remarked an independent filmmaker to me over drinks today, referring, of course, to the 27 year-old’s sly breakout turn in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” This was no idle fan statement. The man knew his Oscar onions – his theory was built upon established Academy affection for hot ingénues in sashaying support roles, as well as the current absence of any obvious frontrunners in the category.
Still, even as he explained this, my eyebrows must have shot up somewhere past my hairline. As the writer who caught hell from many readers for daring not to predict Natalie Portman among my Best Actress nominees last month, the prospect of Kunis even getting nominated for subtly smoking work in an outré arthouse thriller hadn’t crossed my mind. I told him as much while emphasizing, as an admirer of the performance, how much I’d like to be wrong.
“That’s what everyone says to me,” he replied. “‘Oh, she’s a revelation, I’d love to see her nominated, but she won’t be.’ Whenever I start hearing that kind of talk about a person or a film, that’s when I go to the bookies and put money on them. If everyone’s seeing the same thing in them, who’s to say the voters aren’t?”
Two weeks ago in this space I discussed the precariousness of “frontrunner” status in an Oscar race. At the time, coming off of a big surge in Toronto, “The King’s Speech” was the big dog on the porch. But be warned, I said. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Now that “The Social Network” has released, accompanied by glowing review after glowing review, not to mention a media blitz to make the head spin, that film is looking like an alpha in the year’s awards season. And, inevitably, the race is already being reduced to a generational battle between the two…yet it’s barely October.
Here’s the thing. If you’re a studio still priming your pony, you have to be watching all of this unfold with giddy delight, licking your chops, ravenous. This is the kind of situation easily devoured by savvy marketing in Oscar land, and if I’m a rival contender, I’m remembering my Horace: “Seize the day.”
But it’s a delicate balance. One doesn’t want to charge out and shoehorn into the discussion, lest you be tossed aside as mere garnish to the main course of these two films. However, playing it too cool and quiet isn’t the safest bet either, as an Oscar win is the culmination of built steam and sustained speed (which be in the form of a long drag or a quick burst of energy at the right during the right frame).