In Contention

Tag: Kate Winslet

  • Brit critics follow the script

    It seems we really have reached consensus here. The Richard Attenborough Film Awards, a relatively new set of awards voted on by regional UK critics, haved chimed in with nearly everyone else, handing their Film of the Year and Director of the Year honours to Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    They stuck with the well-awarded in the acting categories too, crowning Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet (for “The Reader”) as Actor and Actress of the Year, respectively, while Dev Patel took the Breakthrough Star award.

    Meanwhile, I’m pleased to see Screenwriter of the Year went to Martin McDonagh for “In Bruges.” That might have been a less expected choice a month ago, before the nearly year-old release achieved a remarkable awards-season turnaround in the last few weeks.

    Four People’s Choice awards were spread between “The Dark Knight,” “Mamma Mia!” and “Slumdog,” completing a very British-leaning set of winners — hardly surprising, given that last year, the Attenboroughs were all about “Atonement.” I expect the BAFTA winners list will look somewhat similar.

    List of winners after the cut.

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  • Did Harvey Weinstein cost Kate the Oscar?

    Harvey WeinsteinFor all his marketing and campaigning genius, Harvey Weinstein’s tactics have become — well, have been — a bit thuggish. In Peter Biskind’s extraordinary book “Down and Dirty Pictures,” a stunning look at the independent film world in the late 1980s and all through the 1990s, we are made privy to many of Harvey’s tantrums, eyewitness accounts of his bullying behavior, and crazy belief that because he is rich, he can do whatever he wants.  He can always buy his way out.

    Is there anyone left out there who truly believes that “Shakespeare in Love,” a lovely film, was actually better than “Saving Private Ryan?” Somehow Weinstein convinced the Academy it was, so the best directed, best edited, best shot and best sounding film, lost to a beautifully written work that will be forgotten in time, if it has not been forgotten already.

    Weinstein is a genius at getting his films Academy Award nominations, and some have said he will promise the artists as much when he buys the film or agrees to finance the work. He took Billy Bob Thornton from relative obscurity to an Oscar win for writing “Sling Blade.”  Who did Thornton defeat that year?  No less than the great Arthur Miller for “The Crucible!”

    I had hoped that when Disney dismissed Weinstein and brother Bob from Miramax (a company they founded) that perhaps he had learned something. It seems The Weinstein Company will continue the legacy of Miramax during the Oscar season, however.

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  • 1/28 Oscarweb Round-up

    Kate Winslet at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards• Trying to get in on more of that tech action, Elizabeth Snead talks to “Benjamin Button” costumer Jacqueline West. [The Envelope]

    • “Push” and “Cove” top the critics’ picks for the best of Sundance. [indieWIRE]

    • Despite a nation-wide ban on Israeli products, two brave souls screen “Waltz with Bashir” in Beirut. [The Guardian]

    • The Stanley Kubrick Holocaust film (and shining new ingenue) that almost was. [The Independent]

    • Giving Kate Winslet shit across the pond for forgetting Angelina Jolie’s name at the Globes. [Daily Telegraph]

    • The top 10 most bewildering Best Picture nominees. [Rope of Silicon]

  • 1/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    Jim Carrey in I Love You Philip Morris• Mark Magnier quotes a few Indians and feels it okay to say a nation disapproves of “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Jeffrey Wells wonders if category confusion could keep Kate Winslet form a lead actress win, especially in the wake of Meryl Streep’s victory last night. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Tom O’Neil gives poor Anil Kapoor shit for forgetting Simon Beaufoy’s name in his list of appreciations last night.  Give the guy a break, Tom O. [Gold Derby]

    • Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, meanwhile, talk about their film across the pond. [The Times]

    • It looks like there’s just one contender worth banking on. [USA Today]

    • Brad Brevet finally catches up with the Academy’s preferential balloting system.  Knowledge is power, Brad. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Peter Bart writes up Jim Carrey’s recent string of press for risk-taking role choices.  Finally the pendulum is swinging back, ever so slowly. [Peter Bart]

    • Anne Thompson talks this weekend’s screenwriter’s panel from Santa Barbara. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Tiffany Hsu on the box office boost for this year’s Oscar contenders still in the marketplace. [Los Angeles Times]

  • ‘Slumdog,’ Penn, Streep triumph at SAG Awards

    A list of the winners in the film categories. For more commentary and discussion, check out my live-blog here.

    Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn, “Milk”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
    Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in Motion Pictures: “The Dark Knight”

  • Will SAG continue the ‘Slumdog’ sweep?

    As I anticipated, “Slumdog Millionaire” walked off with the Producers Guild of America Award last night, confirming its status as the unstoppable underdog-turned-juggernaut of this year’s Oscar race.

    It’s highly significant that Danny Boyle’s film managed to claim this gong, in particular; as Kris pointed out yesterday, of all voting bodies, it’s the PGA that might have had the most reservations about the film. A foreign runaway production from a relatively green producer, it’s not the kind of film they tend to reward — particularly against the box-office heft of a film like “The Dark Knight,” or the industry popularity of “Benjamin Button”’s production team.

    The fact that “Slumdog” overcame such potential obstacles is indicative of the across-the-board affection for this film in the industry; it’s a film that voters love as much as they admire.

    So I’m interested to see how it performs at tonight’s Screen Actors Guild Awards – another ceremony where the film has a number of disadvantages going in, given that it has a largely unknown, untested cast, and is less an actors’ piece than a director’s accomplishment. Technically, it has two shots at glory tonight, but since Dev Patel hasn’t a snowball’s chance of beating Heath Ledger in the Best Supporting Actor race, all its hopes rest on SAG’s top honour, the Best Performance by a Cast award.

    Many pundits are predicting “Slumdog” to go home empty-handed tonight, and it’s easy to see why. “Doubt,” which has the most nominations of any contender, has the kind of capital-A Acting from an esteemed group of thesps that could be catnip to voting actors, while “Milk” (Kris’ own bet) has both a powerhouse star turn and the kind of sterling ensemble work they like to reward.

    But I wonder. Though SAG doesn’t always treat its top prize as a Best Picture equivalent — “Gosford Park” and “Sideways” are examples of films that triumphed principally on the strengths of their casts, despite minimal Oscar momentum – the fact remains that this is essentially SAG’s only chance to reward the most beloved film of the season. While it’s arguably the least “actor-y” film in contention, I suspect that, as when the Simon Beaufoy-penned “The Full Monty” upset here in 1997, the voters are going to let their hearts overrule their actorly instincts.

    (More thoughts, and my SAG predictions, after the cut.)

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  • Guessing the weekend’s guilds

    Screen Actors Guild awardI’ve been giving my picks out to various aggregators this weekend but haven’t bothered with a post of my own.  Go figure.

    I feel like the only sure thing at the SAG is Heath Ledger’s victory in the Best Supporting Actor category, but while everyone else is banking on Sean Penn and Kate Winslet in the leading categories, I’m inclined to say Mickey Rourke and Meryl Streep will throw their respective wrenches in the works.

    Winslet is probably sitting pretty for a supporting actress victory, while I can’t think of a valid reason to be against “The Dark Knight” in the new stunt ensemble category.  So…

    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
    Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Milk”
    Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in Motion Pictures: “The Dark Knight”

    I won’t be around when the awards actually go down, but I’m sure Guy will be covering.

    (PGA thoughts after the jump.)

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  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Truth,’ Winslet light up the town

    Kate Winslet receives the Montecito Award at the 24th Annual Santa Barbara International Film FestivalI’ll dig into individual film reviews in due time.  It’s been a slow start up here in Santa Barbara but the first two nights have been charming enough.

    Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth” gets better and better each time I see it, particularly where Lurie’s work as a writer is concerned.  Some beats are on the nose, perhaps too much for some people’s tastes, but I think he’s really developing as a filmmaker.  And the flick went over like gangbusters with the crowd at the packed Arlington Theatre opening night gala yesterday.  All the clever jokes found a home.  The performances caught their stride with the viewers, it seemed, and everyone seemed to be in tune with the film’s tight rhythm.  Most of all, the message seemed to settle (not surprising in a town this left of center), and that’s encouraging.

    Jeff Bridges and James Cromwell were among the A-listers who came out to celebrate the film, which has been all but smothered by an untimely Yari Film Group bankruptcy.  And the after-party at Paseo Nuevo up the street was slammed — too slammed.  But, as always, upstairs in a V.I.P. setting is the place to be, and that’s where Lurie and his sharp college-bound son yukked it up with Bridges and “Truth” star Noah Wyle, among others.

    Here’s my brief one-off on the film from back in September when it was playing Toronto.

    Tonight, Kate Winslet was in town to accept the Montecito award, becoming the first person in the history of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival to be awarded twice.  With that in mind, festival director Roger Durling took playful umbrage on stage with her remarks at the Golden Globe ceremony a week ago when she claimed she never wins anything.

    Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin sat down with Winslet for a two-hour conversation through her career that I frankly expected to be a bore, but it was a lively and candid chat.  Clips from her wide ranging portfolio were peppered in here and there, but the cutest moment came when the actress couldn’t stop chuckling at the “Titanic” clip.  “It’s so funny because I don’t see me and Leo playing Jack and Rose,” she said.  “It’s just me and Leo.  What are we doing there?  It’s so funny to me that we were in ‘Titanic,’ I don’t know how to explain it.”

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  • Diss

    I’m sitting here at the Arlington Theatre awaiting the big Kate Winslet/Montecito Award presentation and they played, I believe, a bit from Thomas Newman’s “Revolutionary Road” score a moment ago, and it got my blood up once again.

    Not to harp on how wrong the Academy got it this year, but Thomas’s work deserved a notice. He should have been a double nominee. I’m the first to admit he can be terribly derivative of his own work, but his “Road” scored soared.

    Anyway, show’s about to begin. More later.

  • After cooling off a bit…

    Michael Shannon in Revolutionary RoadYesterday the Academy displayed just what a fractured organization they are, championing a small film like “Slumdog Millionaire,” for which I applaud them, but snubbing “The Dark Knight,” one of the best reviewed films of the year and a titan at the box office. All day I was asking, ‘How?’  All day I wondered just how out of touch this organization truly is and what a major overhaul is needed.

    Call it ageism if you must, but we I think we need new blood in there.  I have been covering the Academy Awards for more than 20 years and have had my share of disappointments and shocks over that span of time. One would think I’d get used to it.

    I remember the rage when “Ghost” was nominated for Best Picture and when Roberto Begnini won Best Actor. That anger and shock was nothing like I felt yesterday morning at 8:30 Ontario time.

    I could not speak. I closed my office door and quietly raged, trying to make sense of it. Reading the other reactions helped ease the wound (I take it personally you see when my films are snubbed) and tried to see the good in the nominations this year. And as Guy astutely points out, there is some good.

    Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” made the cut, as did Richard Jenkins for “The Visitor.”  Both deserved, both terrific performances. “Wall-E” grabbed a screenplay nod, as well as sound nominations, and “Slumdog Millionaire” did very well indeed, with 10 nods. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” lead the pack with 13 and Brad Pitt finally got a nomination for Best Actor — long overdue.  Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei made the list for “The Wrestler” and all four major actors from “Doubt” are nominees.

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  • Whaaa?

    Richard Corliss’ rundown of yesterday’s Oscar nominations, following the familiar “will win/should win/wuz robbed” template, features some typically against-the-grain opinions, including the surprising (to me, at least) that Best Supporting Actress is the strongest of this year’s acting races. (“Three of the nominated ladies are Oscar-worthy,” he writes. And what are Rourke, Penn and Jenkins? Chopped liver?)

    But his most contrarian statement of all arrives in his selection of who should have been nominated for Best Director, an overt attempt at baiting “Dark Knight” fans:

    Robbed: Jon Favreau, Iron Man
    O.K., so The Dark Knight was shut out of the Picture and Director categories. Dommage. But in a terrific year for superhero films, the smartest, cleanest one, Iron Man, was also ignored. Robert Downey Jr., nominated for his blackface parody in Tropic Thunder, created a complex, virtually human action figure in the repentent munitions baron Tony Stark. The special effects buttressed the picture instead of overwhelming it. And Favreau’s direction was lean, clean and suave, up there with old Hollywood adventure films by directors like Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh — movies that never got awards, but which we watch with undiminished pleasure today.

    Right. Anyway, for what it’s worth, Corliss’ rebel streak doesn’t extend to his predictions. Like everyone else, he puts his money on “Slumdog,” Boyle, Winslet, Ledger and Cruz — while in what strikes me as the most up-in-the-air of the major races, he picks Mickey Rourke ahead of Sean Penn. (I agree, but that could all change on Sunday.)

  • Guessing games

    I only just got round to counting up my correct predictions across all categories, and wound up with a tally of 68 from 97 slots.

    This is the first year I’ve ever gone remotely public with my Oscar predictions, so while I can tell you that this was a pretty poor year for me (3/5 for Best Director and a lowly 2/5 for Best Documentary — yikes), I have nothing to prove my usual form. Still, I see I’ve tied with Kris, so no shame in that.

    In the major categories, none of my left-field predictions came through for me, though I always knew that my “Gomorrah” screenplay pick and the four projected nods for “Happy-Go-Lucky” were thin limbs to climb on.

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  • Santa Barbara heats up

    The Arlington Theatre in Santa BarbaraThe air smells cleaner.  The sound of waves crashing outside the hotel room is soothing.  The hippies are dancing in the streets.

    It’s nice to get away from the mess of this morning and the frustration of Oscar season in general for eight days.  But the awards circuit isn’t out of sight by any means.  Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, all of them set to be feted over the course of the week.  Panels will include Andrew Stanton, Dustin Lance Black and Eric Roth, among others, are set for panels, while festival guest director David Fincher will be the toast of the town throughout, leading to his big to-do on Friday, Jan. 30.

    And yet, it doesn’t feel as stifling as it might.  Sometimes a couple hours drive out of the heart of the beast does a body good.

    With that, one of the season’s casualties drops this evening, Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth,” which was all but buried when Yari Film Group went under last month.  As festival director Roger Durling has said, the film deserves to be seen and it’s a hell of a gesture on Durling’s part to give the pic some limelight.

    So with that, I’m throwing on the suit and heading out for the evening.  I’ll be here all week catching a number of films I’ve missed over the last couple of months and even a few I’d like to enjoy once more.

    What Oscar nominations?

  • Not content with the nomination

    You might expect Harvey Weinstein to be resting on his laurels after securing a staggering haul of nominations for “The Reader,” a film seen by few and disliked by many. However, in an ominous statement to Pete Hammond, Weinstein reveals that he has no such intention. In fact, he’s set his sights on pulling off a similarly shocking coup on Oscar night itself:

    I tell people its nice we got all the nominations but do not count yourself out. You have a real chance to overtake this all. We’ve seen that happen with ‘Crash’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’. It’s all great. The only thing I can say is the race ain’t over. It’s just beginning.

    (Kate Winslet’s lead actress nomination was) the first indication I had we could win the Best Picture, not just be nominated. WIN. Because to put Kate in there showed such incredible passion for the movie.  They knocked her out of supporting, and the other movie (“Revolutionary Road”) to do it.

    Is them fighting words? Sounds like it to me. He also adds that he believes “The Reader” to be a film that reveals itself over multiple viewings, saying that it “works on a three or four times basis.” Maybe so, but you could also say that the film’s chilly lack of immediacy is a failing rather than a virtue. I wonder if most of the AMPAS members who put it on their ballots actually watched it more than once.

    Meanwhile, I can’t help wondering what the atmosphere in the Mendes/Winslet household is like this morning.

  • January winner predictions

    WALL-EOnward. I bet Fox Searchlight wants this phase two to go by as fast as possible.

    Best Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk”
    Best Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Original Screenplay: “WALL-E”
    Best Art Direction: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Cinematography: “The Dark Knight”
    Best Costume Design: “The Duchess”
    Best Film Editing: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Makeup: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Music (Original Score): “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Music (Original Song): “WALL-E”
    Best Sound Editing: “WALL-E”
    Best Sound Mixing: “WALL-E”
    Best Visual Effects: “The Cuious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Animated Feature Film: “WALL-E”
    Best Foreign Language Film: “Waltz with Bashir”
    Best Documentary (Feature): “Man on Wire”
    Best Documentary (Short Subject): “The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306”
    Best Short FIlm (Animated): “Presto”
    Best Short Film (Live Action): “New Boy”

    Tally:
    “Slumdog Millionaire” — 5
    “WALL-E” — 5
    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — 3
    “The Dark Knight” — 2
    “Defiance” — 1
    “The Duchess” — 1
    “The Reader” — 1
    “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” — 1

    (Those are all probably dead wrong, but eh, we’ll see how the season develops from here.)

  • Say it right

    Last week, I wondered whether Mickey Rourke’s eccentric, yet moving, acceptance speech at the Golden Globes could bolster his chances with the Academy. It may sound like a trivial concern, but the fact remains that Rourke’s speech was a talking point, a bona fide ‘moment’ that made for great TV — and if Roberto Benigni has taught us anything, it’s that onstage personality goes a long way with the Academy. In a tight race, the promise of a memorable acceptance can be just enough to push a contender past the finish line.

    Now, Dave Karger is addressing the flipside of the question, and asking whether the relatively sloppy acceptance speeches of Anne Hathaway and Kate Winslet, at the BFCA Awards and Golden Globes respectively, could actually damage their Oscar campaigns:

    Upon sharing the Critics Choice prize with her idol, Meryl Streep, Hathaway — who certainly meant to say this a bit more artfully — said it was “fitting” that she tied for the prize with Streep since she thought the Doubt star was the best actress around. But it came off condescending to all the other actresses in the room, particularly her category-mates like Angelina Jolie and Melissa Leo. The usually composed Winslet, meanwhile, nearly had a heart attack when she won her two Golden Globe prizes. To many people, the reactions seemed over-the-top. Or worse, fake.

    It must have been overwhelming for both of them to hear their names called. But on the other hand, let’s remember that both of these awards are handed out by groups of journalists, for God’s sake — people that big stars like Hathaway and Winslet usually don’t give a hoot about. Why should they then fall to pieces over what those journalists think about them?

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: the crafts of ‘The Reader’

    Tech Support at In ContentionThe past week has been exceptionally good to Stephen Daldry’s “The Reader” on the awards circuit.  The film followed up its five Golden Globe nominations with the same number from BAFTA, not to mention Kate Winslet’s BFCA and Globe awards for her performance as Hanna Schmitz.

    I recently had the chance to speak to several of the individuals who have helped to bring the film to life from behind-the-camera: production designer Brigitte Broch, costume designer Ann Roth, makeup artist Ivana Primorac and cinematographers Chris Menges and Roger Deakins.  All five artists look back on “The Reader” fondly but they all nevertheless share a principal theme in their recollections: delay.

    Conflicts with his contractual obligations on “Doubt” meant that Deakins had to leave the production with the vast majority of the film left to shoot.  Menges says he then found himself torn upon receiving an offer to step in.

    “I first met Roger in the 1970s when he left school,” he recalls.  “He’s been to my home in Wales several times.  Roger shot 31 days of the film and I did 65.  Principally, I’ve never done it before but because I knew Roger and respect his work, it was not as difficult as it could have been.  Obviously, I do some things differently, but the principle that Roger and I adhere to is that the visual power of the film obviously comes from working closely with the director.  No D.P. has won an Academy Award without working with a director who has great visual flare.”

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  • Best Actress: a tough call

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedRarely does the lead actress category provide more suspense than leading gentlemen and rarely is it as packed with fine performances as it is this year.  I can remember years when it was a struggle to come up with five nominees for best actress, 1975 and 1992 springing to mind.  It might have less to do with quality female performances than it does the amount of quality female roles Hollywood provides.

    But the Academy won’t have any trouble this year.  There are going to be excellent performances left off the list of nominees this year due to uncharacteristically heated competition, that is a sad fact, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it except continue to love and support the performances snubbed. In fact it is not even that they will be snubbed, it’s just that there is only room for five ladies, and this year, selecting those final five must be proving an enormously difficult task for the Academy.

    With her two Golden Globe wins, Kate Winslet seems to be a shoo-in for her superb performance in “Revolutionary Road,” a truly heartbreaking piece of acting that is sadly underseen at the moment.  Meryl Streep, meanwhile, will be nominated for the 15th time for her tyrannical nun in “Doubt” and Anne Hathaway will get a welcome to the big show for “Rachel Getting Married,” in which her caustic turn as Kym has altered the course of her career and announces her as a serious actress in the industry.

    And then it becomes tricky — those final two spots.

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