• Sandra Bullock says she’s “so not winning an Oscar.” Alright, Sandie, enough of the modesty. The writing is on the wall. [People]
• Rosanna Greenstreet sits down with Oscar nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal. [The Guardian]
• Soldiers reaction to “The Hurt Locker” and it’s awards success. [New York Times]
“It” girl of the year, Sandra Bullock, was feted here in Santa Barbara last night. The two-hour celebration of her career, a Q&A moderated by Pete Hammond with clips of her work thrown in here and there, was, to be perfectly honest, one of the better tributes I’ve seen, culminating with Forest Whitaker’s presentation of the American Riviera Award to the actress.
The award is given to an actor or actress who has made an indelible mark on American cinema, and regardless of the prescience of festival director Roger Durling’s choice (the invitation was extended back in September, before anyone would have dreamed Bullock would be the frontrunner to win the Best Actress Oscar), it’s an undeniable pick given Bullock’s status in the industry.
Hammond began his introduction by noting the annual Quigley poll, which charts the success of movie stars and “is usually dominated by male actors,” he said. “Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr.,” he said. “But guess who’s at the top?”
A whole 31 days ahead of the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, the race already feels like it’s winding down.
Of the precursors, only BAFTA and the lesser guilds (sorry, WGA, but you brought irrelevance upon yourself) lie in wait to distract us from a month of wafty speculation and idle editorializing. Trust me, you’re going to get very sick of the phrase “battle of the exes” before the month is out … if you aren’t already.
For me, a trip to the Berlinale next week couldn’t be better timed – a few days of seeing and discussing some new films, including several of this year’s hot Sundance titles, will be a welcome vacation from the ever-dwindling pool of names and titles we’ve been talking about since the fall.
But if you’re not one of the lucky few who can make it to a festival – or if you’re as uninspired as everyone else by the new releases of the last few weeks – fresh perspective needn’t come only from fresh films. I recently had the pleasure of rewatching “The Hurt Locker” and getting happily reacquainted with it as a movie, rather than as the industry story it has grown into over the months.
Awards season can sometimes smother the movies it celebrates, turning them into representations of competing social and artistic ideals that they were never intended to be. As the competition narrows, these definitions get progressively more binary – and the side-taking more vicious. (You only have to look at Roger Ebert’s online opposition of “Avatar” to see what the season can make us do to movies we even like.)
• China censors Oscar nominations announcement due to documentary short nominee. [Daily Telegraph]
• Dave Karger and Missy Schwartz run the numbers on the Best Picture and Best Actress categories. [Oscar Watch]
• Jeffrey Wells ponders the possibility of the home video release of “All About Steve,” starring Razzie-nominated actress Sandra Bullock, hurting her Oscar chances. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
These appeared at Movie City News’s Gurus o’ Gold page this morning, so you probably already saw them. Here they are in any case, since, you know, I guess it’s about that time:
Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Up in the Air”
Best Original Screenplay: “The Hurt Locker”
Throughout the morning and early afternoon we took statements from or hopped on the phone with 44 of today’s Oscar nominees. Their reactions…
Maggie Gyllenhaal, supporting actress, “Crazy Heart”:
The thing is, you know, I’m so proud of the movie and I always have been, more proud of it than any of the work I’ve done so far. But because I wasn’t getting nominated for anything, I wasn’t expecting it. My phone was ringing so early and I thought, “Wait, maybe!” I was staying at my brother’s in LA. He said to me, “Your phone is going to be ringing all day.” He made me a cup of coffee and then we watched the sun rise. It was pretty mellow. But this wouldn’t be happening for Jeff [Bridges] or me if it wasn’t for Scott [Cooper].
Well, I’ll start the good news selfishly, by noting that I didn’t entirely embarrass myself with my predictions: not counting the short categories (which I was too cowardly and uninformed to predict) I nailed 78/106, just two points behind Kris’s round tally of 80.
But while I was pleased to see at least one of my out-on-a-limb guesses come good — seriously, why didn’t more people call that Art Direction nod for “The Young Victoria?” — I was better at predicting what wouldn’t get nominated.
So, my season-long hunches that Julianne Moore would be frozen out in the supporting race, that “(500) Days of Summer” would be blanked, that “Up in the Air” would miss that crucial Film Editing nod, and so on, were all on the money. And my increasing sense that nobody really liked “Invictus” enough to put it atop their ballot proved right too.
Now, if I only I’d known what would land in their place. You can’t have it all, I suppose.
I don’t really have much time for the Razzie Awards, since I think they’re a pretty lazy execution of a great idea. By all means single out the year’s artistic underachievers for censure, but why pick such easy targets as Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers?
If I ran the Razzies, I’d use them to reprimand the really embarrassing projects that fell way short of expectations and/or potential. Pound for pound, is “All About Steve” really a worse film than “Amelia,” which escaped humiliation by virtue of its prestige? Call it schadenfreude if you will, but I’d take more pleasure in the Razzies if they aimed a little higher.
Anyway, for those of you who enjoy them, this year’s noms are after the cut. The most obvious talking point is the Worst Actress mention for Sandra Bullock. No, Streepoholics, it doesn’t damage her Oscar chances.
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With less than 72 hours until Oscar nominations are announced, prediction lists are coming through thick and fast. Kris and I will have our final predictions up on Monday, while Gerard’s technical picks will be scattered throughout the weekend. (I’ll also enter dreamland for a while and offer up my fantasy ballot at some point.)
Roger Ebert, meanwhile, is the latest big name to join the pile. As we’ve come to expect from the critic, his predictions are a blend of the rationally reasoned and the borderline insane. (Werner Herzog’s “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” has an outside shot at a Best Picture nomination, apparently. Right.)
Most interesting to me, however, is his conviction in “The Blind Side,” which he labels a can’t-miss Best Picture nominee. (He also calls Sandra Bullock a “sure thing” to win Best Actress.)
• In the biggest upset of the season so far, “The Hurt Locker” came up trumps at the PGA Awards.
• “Inglourious Basterds” took the top prize at the SAG Awards, which also gave another boost to Sandra Bullock.
• With Oscar nominations out next week, we listed some of the greatest nominee fields in Oscar history.
• Off the Carpet took stock following the weekend’s precursors, and Kris revised his winner predictions.
Welcome to Oscar Talk, a weekly kudocast between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.
Two weeks since our last installment, Sundance is fading away and nominations announcement is a mere four days away. In our last pre-nom discussion, we dig into the following:
• Fresh off of Sundance, we briefly discuss the success of “The Kids Are Alright” and “Cyrus” and potential awards prospects for the films next year.
• The PGA winner was a shocker last weekend as “The Hurt Locker” reigned supreme. We address the implications as the race moves into a David vs. Goliath frame.
• The Oscar nominations announcement is literally around the corner, and in the first year of “the 10,” surely there will be surprises? We talk a few possibilities.
• Has Sandra Bullock really pulled out ahead of Meryl Streep in the lead actress category? Is it actually neck-and-neck? We talk about, arguably, the year’s tightest race.
• With the DGAs on the way tomorrow night, we briefly preview the proceedings.
You can listen to this week’s podcast below, with a little of Michael Giacchino’s Golden Globe-winning score for “Up” leading the way. As always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.
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Gotta love all those B’s, right? Overall, no real surprises — we knew Best Actress was going to be a close-fought contest between Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock, and it’s entirely likely that Streep’s win last year tipped it towards Hollywood’s new golden girl.
While the widely anticipated ensemble win for “Inglourious Basterds” makes no real difference to the Best Picture race, I think it’s safe to say three of the acting Oscars can practically be engraved already.
This was George Clooney’s last opportunity to stake his claim in the Best Actor race, but the perfect-storm combination of Jeff Bridges’s shaggy likeability, overdue status and (lest we forget) a damn fine performance in “Crazy Heart” was too much to overcome.
Best Actress, as I said earlier today, will remain a mystery right up until the envelope is opened on March 7. The season’s one remaining acting precursor, the BAFTA, won’t reveal anything, given Bullock’s ineligibility there.
Funny, I could have sworn the SAG Awards were taking place on Sunday. Goes to show how on top of things I am, I guess. Or, perhaps, the level of excitement I feel over at least three cut-and-dried acting races this year.
Nevertheless, tonight’s ceremony will be helpful in addressing at least one of this season’s larger question marks: does Sandra Bullock really have a shot at the Best Actress Oscar? If, as I suspect will happen, Meryl Streep takes home her second consecutive statuette tonight, this race is all over bar the shouting. If Bullock (or even Gabourey Sidibe) snatches it, we really won’t have a clue until the envelope is opened on March 7.
Unlike Kris, I think four decades of sterling, unrewarded work in Hollywood will send the SAG Award Jeff Bridges’s way, even if “Crazy Heart” hasn’t been as widely seen as “Up in the Air.” Bridges is the kind of consummate actors’ actor these awards were invented for. As for the supporting categories, well … is any discussion necessary?
Saturday night the Screen Actors Guild Awards will go down, televised on TNT, and I can’t really believe the race is THIS sewn up. Right down the line, most are calling it for Bridges, Streep, Waltz and Mo’Nique. There are some differences of opinion on the ensemble performance category, but for the most part, those four Oscar favorites are the expected victors with the guild.
The last time SAG went four-for-four with the Academy’s ultimate winners was 2004. The last time before that was 1997, which actually featured a tie between Gloria Stewart and Kim Basinger, so it’s a bit less definitive. And in point of fact, those are the only times things have matched up.
The reason for this is fairly simple. The Screen Actors Guild (a 90,000-member body of people) votes for the winners at large, while the nominees are decided upon by a roughly 2,000-member nominating committee, 1,200 of them based in Los Angeles. The nominating committee obviously sees more of the contenders than the vast membership. For that reason, generally speaking, you can expect the unexpected.
As it turned out, the only celebration I made it to last night was Fox’s Globes after-party at Craft in Century City. Given that “Avatar” and “Crazy Heart” were two of three films to win more than one Globe (the other being Pixar’s “Up”), it kind of felt like the place to be.
The early part of the evening was dominated by the “Crazy Heart” crew. I came in with Ryan Bingham and Scott Cooper, the latter dumbfounded at how certain celebs were getting his number to send well-wishes and praise for his little film. Bingham, meanwhile, told me he was at the bar when the Best Original Song category was announced, which explains why T Bone Burnett accepted solo. “Sorry for partyin’,” Bingham told me. “Story of my life.”
Burnett, it turns out, will be producing Bingham’s next album.
Meanwhile, you could follow the bursts of applause to locate Jeff Bridges, who took down the Best Actor in a Drama trophy when many thought George Clooney would register with the, shall we say, star-friendly HFPA. Then again, whoever said Bridges wasn’t a star? And judging by the standing ovation, his second of the weekend (everyone was on their feet Friday, too), you can expect his steamroll through the season to continue next weekend at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and then, ultimately: the Oscar. Interesting to note his lawyer advised him not to take the part, I assume thinking it wasn’t high enough on a scale of exposure.
And yet here we are.
Last January, I wrote an especially effusive review of the previous night’s Golden Globe awards, commending the usually much-derided HFPA for looking beyond star power and box-office grosses. Instead, they assembled an international and rather indie-minded winners slate that included such titles as “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “The Wrestler,” “In Bruges,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and eventual Oscar-sweeper “Slumdog Millionaire.”
What a difference a year makes.
Whether stung by matters of ratings and economics, or simply wowed by a very different school of cinema this year, the Foreign Press voters were back to the big-name pandering for which they are famous.
Everyone present, meanwhile, seemed quite aware of the fact, some — including host Ricky Gervais and, in the night’s best speech, Robert Downey, Jr. — openly teasing them for it. “One thing you can’t buy is a Golden Globe,” the reliably droll Gervais observed, beer in hand. “Officially.”
So, what did I learn from last night’s proceedings?
• John Horn talks “Avatar” box office with James Cameron and his Best Director competitors. [24 Frames]
• Dave Karger offers up his perspective on how last night’s Golden Globe awards will affect the Oscar race. [Oscar Watch]
• Sharon Waxman hits the after-party circuit and discovers the late night talk show drama dominating the conversation. [The Wrap]
Kris offered a space for Golden Globe speculation, along with his own predictions, a few days ago — but if you still have some guesses to get out of your system before the ceremony tonight, have at it here. My own predictions (along with some wild stabs in the TV races) have been up on Tom O’Neil’s site for over a week now. In case you missed them, however, here they are, along with my personal picks in each category.
I’m not as confident in these predictions as I was when I made them a fortnight ago. But even if “the buzz” is telling us that “Avatar” has the top prize in the bag, it’s been mistaken before. So I’m sticking with my off-beam prediction that the Globes’ more European sensibilities could come into play in that race, while also tipping the Best Actress balance toward Carey Mulligan rather than the momentum-advantaged Sandra Bullock. Probably wrong on both counts, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, two comedy races pose multiple potential outcomes … what are your hunches?
Best Picture (Drama)
Will win: “Inglourious Basterds”
Should win: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)
Will and should win: “It’s Complicated”