• 10 great things Helena Bonham Carter has done or said to spice up this year’s Oscar race. [Vulture]
• Ricky Gervais humbly suggests an opening monologue for Oscar hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway. [RickyGervais.com]
• TCM’s Robert Osborne (my sole company on predicting “Letters from Iwo Jima” four years ago) on Oscar campaigns. [Wall Street Journal]
(Not-quite-final predictions here.)
176 days from the unofficial opening of my Oscar season — a breakfast-hour press screening of “Black Swan” on the first day of the Venice Film Festival — it’s fair to say I’m ready for the endgame.
Aren’t we all? Whether you’re delighted or disappointed by where the awards trail has led us thus far, it’s fair to say it offers little further room for discovery. Back in the golden days of September, pundits whittled the race down to “The King’s Speech” versus “The Social Network,” past versus present, comfort versus cred, That Was Then versus This Is My Now. And as much as I clung to the idea that it couldn’t be that simple, they were right.
The axis may have swung in this narrative across the season, and the side-taking may have become more heated in the post-nomination phase, but the fact remains that the increasingly small world of Oscar blogging has largely revolved around two films for the better part of six months. If you want to know what this looped conversation has done to our collective brains, look no further than the fact that I just quoted Jordin Sparks lyrics in the paragraph above.
Check out the full list of winners at The Circuit.
The 2010 Best Actor race looks to end up exactly where it started, making it the most predictable category of the evening. In fact, as of late (save for the two Oscars Sean Penn won), this has consistently been one of the easier categories to call. Generally it seems that there is a clear favorite christened before the season is over.
Having said that, this year’s crop of nominees is truly an exceptional one. The one “surprise” of the bunch couldn’t have been more welcome, while overall it’s a nice balance of seasoned veterans, the future of screen acting and those who fall in between. So chalk that up as a big win on the Academy’s part before even casting their winner ballots.
The nominees are:
Javier Bardem, “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges, “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg, “The Social Network”
Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
James Franco, “127 Hours”
By now you’ll have heard that the most celebrated set in “The King’s Speech,” that of Lionel Logue’s shabbily spartan office, was also used in a video by British gay porn producers UK Naked Men — which I’ve since discovered is called “Snookered,” and is readily available online. (Click at your own risk — decidedly NSFW/C.)
As Kris pointed out yesterday, the folks steering “The King’s Speech” will be grateful this embarrassing news nugget wasn’t unearthed a few weeks ago, as opposed on the last day of Oscar voting. Still, I imagine a number of Academy figures are now crossing fingers in the hope that the film doesn’t emerge victorious in what appears to be a tight three-way race for Best Art Direction.
The news spread rapidly across the internet yesterday, leaving ripples of laughter in its wake — but aside from its amusement value, the situation does raise interesting questions about how people define award-worthiness in this particular craft field, and how aware they even are of what went into the work they’re voting for.
• Melissa Leo tells a different story on Adgate: She was doing what Parmount told her to do. [Daily Beast]
• Telecast hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway in their first interview on the upcoming festivities. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Meanwhile, Tom Sherak tells Susan Wloszczyna we’ll like the style of the show. [USA Today]
As of this moment, all voting polls are closed, all ballots are due, all campaigning is beside the point. The 2010 Oscar season is over, with just the pesky formality of the actual Oscar ceremony to come.
So, any thoughts on what tides may have turned in the final moments? There are more ballots that show up in the final week of voting than you’d think.
I think the potential beneficiaries would be Helena Bonham Carter (not Hailee Steinfeld) and Annette Bening. Some think an overall retaliation to the guild dominance of “The King’s Speech” could kick in, but I think that’s highly doubtful. It would be one thing if a film they just weren’t high on won all those guilds. It’s another thing entirely when it’s a safe pick.
I’ll say this, though. Here is a story (NSFW!) that I imagine some are happy didn’t pop up earlier.
I have to admit, I procrastinated this column quite a bit this year. It has become a favorite staple for me, and, I’m happy to see, for our readers. But something was holding me back from pulling the trigger on getting the list together this time around.
It’s a lot of work, of course. So I’m sure that played into it. Who isn’t lazy every now and then? But part of it, I came to discover, was that there wasn’t a lot of memorable work behind the camera this year. By that I mean, while there was plenty of quality photography, single images that demanded a spot on a list like this were difficult to come by. Boiling things down to a specific collective was difficult as a result, so it took a little time.
But I’m frankly realizing just now that I’ve written this intro before. I’m spoiled by this column’s inaugural year (2007), where it seemed easy to come up with a set of 10 images and then some. The lack of singular imagery was so considerable this time around that I’m unable, even, to come up with a brief list of also rans, which is something I generally like to do.
Nevertheless, it should be said that great cinematography isn’t (and shouldn’t be) dependent on singular frames or visual moments, but the overall canvas and mise-en-scene delivered from beginning to end. I have a lot of fun digging into the visual vocabulary of a year in film and, to say the least, discussing that vocabulary with the craftsmen and women involved, so who can complain? I hope you enjoy.
These hit the web last week, but I was distracted with Berlin matters. There’s no sell-by date on pretty pictures, after all. And these are particularly pretty: every year, BAFTA commissions an illustrator to design brochure artwork for each of the group’s five Best Film nominees. This year’s artist, Adam Simpson, has taken a highly stylized monochrome approach; my favorite, this solemn image for “The King’s Speech,” rather puts all the film’s own posters to shame. Full image, plus another good one, after the cut.
I’m watching CNN’s report of the on-going situation in Libya as I write these comparably pointless words. The “real world” seems so unique, so foreign after having our head in the awards season clouds since September. Now, six months in, victory lane is a mere six days away. And man, it’s been a marathon.
So let’s dive in one more time.
The journey for “The Social Network” has been a fascinating one. And now, with wins for Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and, potentially, Best Director coming, some are arguing an upset by the film in the Best Picture race is still in the cards. It would be delightful, but it would be considerably more surprising than the moment a number of pundits point to as a bellwether shocker in the Academy’s recent history: “And the Oscar goes to…‘Crash.’ Whoa.”
Most, however, seem to agree that “The King’s Speech” has it in the bag, and I think that’s sound. The only question is, to what extent has it won over the Academy? Anywhere from three to 11 wins makes perfect sense.
I’m afraid you’ll find that I’m having trouble getting all that excited about this year’s race for Best Film Editing. How can I when the absolute best editing job of the year (from a true master, no less) was shunned altogether, while a cruel joke was played in the form of “Inception” editor Lee Smith getting the shaft, too.
The below is a decent set of contenders with an array of virtues. It’s just a shame that the editor’s branch is so slavishly devoted to Best Picture frontrunners, especially when truly exceptional work that doesn’t necessarily find itself dovetailing with Oscar bait is ignored each and every year. Nevertheless, the statistic remains: in 30 years, no film not nominated here has gone on to win Best Picture.
The nominees are:
“Black Swan” (Andrew Weisblum)
“The Fighter” (Pamela Martin)
“The King’s Speech” (Tariq Anwar)
“127 Hours” (Jon Harris)
“The Social Network” (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter)
You may have heard Anne and I get into it over the design categories in Friday’s Oscar Talk. For costumes, she maintained that the great (and deserving) Colleen Atwood is likely to win for “Alice in Wonderland.” Yet, as best I can tell, the only true fantasies to win the award — ever — are “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (a bona fide sweeper) and “Star Wars” (I’m considering “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” a period entry). And no Tim Burton film has won here when nominated, unfortunately. I’m thinking “The King’s Speech.”
She also contended that Tim Burton’s film and “Inception” are more likely to win Best Art Direction than the period frontrunner. You know where I stand on what’s deserving, but I don’t think the Academy at large is savvy enough to go there. History is on the side of “Alice in Wonderland” when you consider the fact that no Tim Burton film nominated for Best Art Direction has ever lost (going all the way back to my beloved “Batman”). So suddenly I’m leaning in that direction more than I was for costumes. Additionally, fantasies have historically fared better here than in Best Costume Design.
• To the surprise of precisely no one, hometown favorite “The King’s Speech” reigned supreme at the BAFTAs.
• Before you go basing your Oscar predictions on the BAFTA outcome, Kris pointed out a crucial caveat.
• “Inception” added another guild award to its mantel, as Wally Pfister beat Roger Deakins to the American Society of Cinematographers’ top prize.
• Guy hobbled off to the Berlinale, where his festival coverage included an early 2011 Oscar prediction for Vanessa Redgrave in Ralph Fiennes’s “Coriolanus.”
• Larry Rohter talks “Outside the Law” with director Rachid Bouchareb, who calls the film “a historical continuation” of 2007’s “Days of Glory” and mentions a third part is in the cards. [The Carpetbagger]
• The biggest lies of this year’s Oscar contenders. [The Race]
• As “The King’s Speech” dusts off its mantle, this taxing conversation keeps getting play. [Entertainment Weekly]
A number of people asked about the BAFTA outcome in our solicitation for Oscar Talk queries this week. We’ll be discussing last weekend’s awards on the show, but I thought I’d address those questions separately here.
A sample:
With the BAFTA below-the-line awards not all going to The King’s Speech (even things like Art Direction and Costume), as expected, is the extremely well-covered supposed sweep of the film still holding strong?
My answer: Yes, it is. Something the BAFTA does (which, frankly, the Academy should do, but more on that in a moment) is relegate all categories except Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film and the acting fields to branch-specific voting. That means production designers decided that “Inception” deserved to win Best Production Design at BAFTA, costume designers decided that “Alice in Wonderland” deserved to win Best Costume Design and, indeed, directors decided David Fincher deserved to win Best Director.
• Nikki Finke chats with Relativity Media honcho Ryan Kavanaugh. [Deadline]
• Gregory Ellwood thinks Melissa Leo flushed her chances at an Oscar down the drain. [Awards Campaign]
• Melena Ryzik catches up with “Waste Land” director Lucy Walker. (Oscar Guide on documentary features coming tomorrow.) [The Carpetbagger]
Recently the International Film Music Critics Association were the last critics group to offer their (specialized) thoughts on the 2010 film year. The announcement made for an interesting counter to the year in score awardage. And the eventual nominees for Best Original Score reflected, if nothing else, a continued break with tradition.
The music branch has been slowly initiating new blood as of late, though it hasn’t completely relinquished its trademark consistency. A big step was made in the recognition of one of the year’s more atypical scores, though a big opportunity was lost with Daft Punk’s failure to register what could have been a truly exciting tip of the Academy’s hat.
The nominees are:
“How to Train Your Dragon” (John Powell)
“Inception” (Hans Zimmer)
“The King’s Speech” (Alexandre Desplat)
“127 Hours” (A.R. Rahman)
“The Social Network” (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)