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Catch up with the idea behind this series here. After being overlooked in 1995, Ron Howard finally got a pat on the back from Oscar in 2001 for “A Beautiful Mind,” which was Russell Crowe’s second Best Picture winner in a row. If that wasn’t bad enough, the inaugural Best Animated Feature award went to [...]
LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 2001 and 2002
Posted by Chad Hartigan · 7:19 pm · December 21st, 2010
Filed in: Life Without Oscar
Check the figures
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:27 pm · December 17th, 2009
A few things puzzled me about this Variety piece in which Iain Blair takes on a familiar chestnut of a topic: the box-office divide between public favorites and Oscar contenders. The first is that he considers the “disparity between art and commerce” to be “accelerating” — a curious argument to make at a time when [...]
Filed in: Daily
THE LONG SHOT: Don’t look back in anger
Posted by Guy Lodge · 2:20 pm · November 11th, 2009
For all the movement in the awards game this week – Jeff Bridges leap-frogging into contention, the animation race swelling to five nominees, “Precious” continuing to gather momentum – my head hasn’t really been in it this week. That’s partly because we’re all still making blind prognoses until four unseen juggernauts – “Nine,” “Avatar,” “The [...]
Filed in: The Long Shot
THE LONG SHOT: Critical condition
Posted by Guy Lodge · 1:25 pm · November 4th, 2009
Ahead of its U.S. release this week, there is a wave of mild surprise in the blogosphere over the fact that “Precious,” the film deemed by some (yours truly included) to be the present Best Picture frontrunner, is currently sitting on a lowly Metacritic score of 57. Fitting neatly with the largely media-fabricated talk of [...]
Filed in: The Long Shot
THE LONG SHOT: What is an “Oscar movie” these days?
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:14 pm · October 21st, 2009
“God, that thing’s just going to shit Academy Awards out of its ass next year, isn’t it?,” I overheard a journo behind me remark to his companion, as I made my way out of the “Up in the Air” press screening on Sunday. “It’s such an Oscar movie.” Two things struck me as interesting about [...]
Filed in: The Long Shot
The song, not the singer
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:52 pm · August 19th, 2009
It’s a few days old, but I only just found this nugget buried at the tail of a (rather good) David Poland rumination on the potential demise of The Weinstein Company — and since many of you seem to be hungry for details of Rob Marshall’s “Nine,” I thought it worth sharing. Poland has been [...]
Filed in: Daily
Rob Marshall and ‘Pirates’ … why not?
Posted by Guy Lodge · 3:08 am · August 1st, 2009
It seems I’m one of the few people who isn’t particularly bothered by the admittedly surprising prospect of Rob Marshall directing the fourth go-round of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Variety first floated the news yesterday that the Oscar-nominated choreographer-turned-filmmaker is in talks to take the reins of Disney’s megabucks franchise from Gore Verbinski, prompting a [...]
Filed in: Daily
The new millennium Oscars?
Posted by John Foote · 9:53 am · January 18th, 2009
Looking back over the previous Oscar winners for Best Picture since 2000, the start of a new century (and a new millennium), I find myself wondering sometimes what the hell the Academy was thinking. It’s no secret I disagree with the Academy a lot, but I can also admit that when they get it right, [...]
Filed in: Daily
Day-Lewis in line for ‘Nine?’
Posted by Guy Lodge · 1:57 am · May 15th, 2008
OK, so the dream cast potentially just got dreamier. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but Variety reports that none other than Daniel Day-Lewis (one almost feels that should be preceded with a Sir, no?) is in talks to play the lead in Rob Marshall’s film version of “Nine” — the Broadway show that is in [...]
Filed in: Daily
