• Greg Ellwood shrewdly notes potential motive to announcing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) first as presenters at this year’s Academy Awards. [Awards Campaign]
• Tom Hooper and Geoffrey Rush respond to the notion of cutting “The King’s Speech” to appease a PG-13 rating. [Inside Movies]
• “Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco meets on Thursday afternoons weekly.” [Movieline]
Last night saw the presentation of the Outstanding Performance of the Year honor to “127 Hours” star James Franco at Santa Barbara fest, and it’s one of the best tributes I’ve seen here. But it didn’t start out that way.
Franco was late getting out of Los Angeles, where he was rehearsing for next month’s Oscar telecast. The result was he was a half-hour late to the Arlington Theatre and the whole program was nearly an hour late getting started. No biggie for me. I was in the Chopin Lounge drinking, probably too much (as usual). But I imagine there was some grumbling out in the audience.
Nevertheless, when Franco showed up, he nailed it. It turns out he expected to show up and accept an honor then split, failing to realize that it was a career retrospective of sorts. So he was a bit caught off guard by things. But Leonard Maltin, who served as moderator for the event, provided a great balance, and the lack of preparation on Franco’s part really added to the intrigue of the conversation.
Newly minted Oscar nominee James Franco caused a bit of a ripple in the blogosphere the other day by casually slighting “The Social Network” — claiming the film fails to deal with the communication revolution that (to his mind) it’s supposed to be about, and further suggesting that its approach is too “classical” (read: conservative) for the subject.
Naturally, given that he’s the star of one of the film’s Best Picture rivals, he couldn’t resist drawing comparisons to his own baby, declaring “127 Hours” both “perfect” and “the most innovative movie this year.”
I’d take issue with both halves of Franco’s argument — as much as I (and I suspect Franco too) would like David Fincher’s film to focus on the politics of social networking itself, that isn’t its intent. Neither am I convinced that “127 Hours,” which uses familiar, even dated, formal flash to enliven its minimalist narrative, is as innovative as the actor claims it is.
• Steve Pond offers up some random observations of the Oscar nominations announcement. [The Odds]
• James Franco weighs in on Ricky Gervais’s hosting job at the Golden Globes. [MTV Movies Blog]
• “Unusual number of Oscar nominees feature severed extremities, oral sex.” [The Race]
From last night’s “Daily Show.” He refused to skip poetry class at Yale to be available for interviews in New York. Love this guy:
ABC’s promo pics of Franco and co-host Anne Hathaway after the jump.
• The Producers’ Guild of America surprised no one with their list of nominees.
• The Writers’ Guild, however, threw a few curveballs (aided by assorted ineligibilities), while the USC Scripter Awards surprised some with one of their selections.
• In sadder news, we said goodbye to esteemed British character actor Pete Postlethwaite.
• After a few weeks of deliberation, Guy picked his best and worst films of 2010.
• Continuing this week’s guild run, both the Cinema Audio Society and the Art Directors’ Guild weighed in with their nominees.
Many actors eyeing early directorial projects tend to focus on something both modest and close to home, a performance-oriented piece on which to cut their teeth for more formally ambitious works in the future.
Try telling that to James Franco. In perhaps the most unlikely heartthrob-behind-camera move since Kevin Costner announced his intention to make a three-hour post-Civil War Western with large chunks of Lakota dialogue, news has come down the wire of Franco’s intention to finally adapt and direct Cormac McCarthy’s totemic Western novel “Blood Meridian,” a long-mooted project previously held by the likes of Ridley Scott and Todd Field, for the screen.
But that’s not before he makes his intended big-league debut as writer-director with another little literary adaptation prospect: William Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness classic “As I Lay Dying,” which you may or may not recall has just 15 narrators. No sweat. As fellow film writer Neil Young remarked to me on Twitter, “He might at least warm up with a 10-hour ‘Finnegan’s Wake,’ or perhaps just a couple of Pynchons.”
[Guy’s updated predictions here.]
Okay, I won’t lie to you: I initially conceived this column in my head last week as a Christmas Eve wishlist, but then got too busy mulling wine and Christmas shopping in Dublin snowdrifts to actually write it.
So a New Year’s Eve wishlist it is, then. Under either name, with the season currently in stasis until January’s Guild awards usher in the next phase of competition, here’s a list of ten open requests (or distant hopes) for Academy members currently hemming and hawing over their ballots.
Go forth into the world: Okay, I’ve given up my fight for a foreign-language Best Picture contender for yet another year. And despite a banner year for the form, a documentary nominee ain’t happening either. But is it too much to ask the Academy to recognize that not all notable filmmaking happens within U.S. borders? We’re looking at the sad likelihood of 90% of the Best Picture race being given over to American productions, with the lone exception, “The King’s Speech,” about as authentically British as a “Mind the Gap” T-shirt. Wouldn’t “Another Year” or “Animal Kingdom” be slightly more interesting stamps in Oscar’s passport?
My beginnings following the Oscar season date back to an arbitrary subscription to Entertainment Weekly in the mid-1990s and the odds making fun of it all. The Oscar issues were always a fave, so that’s why I tend to perk up a bit when they’re revealed each year. For 2010, we get dueling covers separately featuring host (and Best Actor hopeful for “127 Hours”) James Franco and “Black Swan” star Natalie Portman. Check it out:
• The Academy announces 248 feature films eligible for this year’s Best Picture Oscar. [Oscars.org]
• James Franco’s reps advised him against hosting the Oscars (naturally). [Awards Campaign]
• Mike Fleming, meanwhile, chats with Franco’s co-host (and “Love & Other Drugs” star) Anne Hathaway, [Deadline]
• Elle Fanning: the next Golden Child. [New York Times Magazine]
• Pete Hammond joins the flavor of the week: “The Fighter” is insinuating itself into the Best Picture race in a big way. [Deadline]
• Anne Thompson chats with “The Way Back” star Jim Sturgess. [Thompson on Hollywood]
• Fourteen actors acting: A video gallery of classic screen types. [New York Times Magazine]
• Billy Crystal’s advice to this year’s Oscar hosts: “Look like you want to be there.” [Vulture]
• “Animal Kingdom”‘s Jacki Weaver on her National Board of Review victory. [Little Gold Men]
• The biggest news of this busy week may well have been the announcement of James Franco and Anne Hathaway as this year’s Oscarcast hosts.
• Unless you count “The Social Network” dominating the National Board of Review as bigger news, that is.
• Or, for that matter, our first look at the Coen brothers’ “True Grit.”
• Speaking of which, Kris reported on the current eligibility status of Carter Burwell’s score (still up in the air).
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.
Given the indie film announcements of the week, it seemed a good time to bring indieWIRE‘s Peter Knegt back on to discuss those events and add perspective to the usual topics, of which there are plenty. Let’s dive in and see what’s on the docket today…
20th Century Fox held its annual holiday party on the roof of the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills last night. It afforded a good opportunity to corral press members into a tight space with talent from the studio’s five awards season contenders.
Newly tapped Oscar host Anne Hathaway was on hand (with “Love & Other Drugs” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal), but her co-host James Franco couldn’t make it. I chatted briefly with “127 Hours” director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, as well as “Never Let Me Go” composer Rachel Portman (who seemed quite prim and shy). I know “Conviction” screenwriter Pamela Gray was making the rounds but I never got a chance to say hi.
I did, however, finally meet one of the cinematographers from “127 Hours,” Enrique Chediak. And as we were talking, a publicist tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Would you like to talk to Anthony Dod Mantle?” Of course I would, so I turned and staring back at me was Mantle live via Skype from Cape Town, South Africa, where he’s currently filming Pete Travis’s “Judge Dredd” reboot with Karl Urban.