In Contention

Tag: The Social Network

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Actor

    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”

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  • 2/22 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Nolan praises snubbed editor, the year’s best film titles, belated Oscar winners

    • Reporting from Saturday night’s ACE Eddies, Carolyn Giardina passes along Christopher Nolan’s appreciative comments of his Oscar-snubbed editor, Lee Smith. [Hollywood Reporter]

    • If there were an Oscar for film titles… [New York Times]

    • Anne Thompson chats with “The Social Network” cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth. [Thompson on Hollywood]

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  • Best Picture, in black and white

    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.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Heading into the home stretch

    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.

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Film Editing

    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)

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  • ‘A Prophet’ tops International Cinephile Society honors

    One last set of kinda-critics’ awards to see out the season — the International Cinephile Society is an online group of journalists, academics and industry professionals that, true to their name, offers a slightly more global outlook in their measuring of the year’s best.

    It’s a small organization, but I mention their awards here for two reasons: 1) I’m one of the voters, and 2) despite that hindrance, they’ve assembled one of the best winners lists I’ve seen all season. Jacques Audiard’s long-lingering prison drama “A Prophet” evidently still weighs heavily on people’s minds, as it took the group’s top two awards, plus an acting win for Niels Arestrup.

    Its tally was equalled, however, by “Another Year” and “The Social Network,” making for a pretty generous spread of choices — few of which we’re likely to see echoed on Sunday night. Vive la différence, and all that. Full list of winners after the cut.

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Swan,’ ‘Speech’ cross $100 million

    The headline says it all. The two films join “Toy Story 3,” “Inception” and “True Grit” as the only Best Picture nominees to reach that mark this year. “The Fighter” has slowed too much to get there and a re-release of “The Social Network” didn’t go as well as planned in that regard.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • ‘Social,’ ‘Alice’ win ACE awards

    Alright, so I should have gone with what I said was the safe bet for the ACE drama Eddie.  Rather than making history by awarding a film not nominated for the editing Oscar and giving it to the truly deserving contender, “Inception,” the editors decided to rethink it and go with “The Social Network” instead.  Fair enough.

    I was, however, correct in assuming “Alice in Wonderland” had a better play on the win than the other comedy hopefuls.  “Toy Story 3” triumphed in the animated field as expected, while I was also on the money with “Exit Through the Gift Shop” winning in the doc category.  I’ll take three out of four.

    “Inception” could, however, take the Cinema Audio Society award for sound mixing, which is what most are expecting.  More on that when those awards wrap up shortly.

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  • 2/18 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Buchareb on ‘Outside the Law,’ biggest lies in Oscar contenders, sound editing vs. mixing

    • 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]

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  • 2/17 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Leo’s faux pas, Bagger chats up ‘Waste Land’ helmer, what to learn from Grammys

    • 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]

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Music (Original Score)

    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)

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Cinematography

    The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) dished out its annual kudos this weekend, which makes for a nice segue into a discussion of the year’s nominees for Best Cinematography. But it’s important to keep a few things in mind when it comes to guessing what the Academy at large will spring for in this field.

    First and foremost, technical accomplishment doesn’t get you far with a number of people who don’t really understand what kind of a feat, say, “Children of Men” is. Or “Black Hawk Down,” for another example. It’s all about what looks like a post card, because “cinematography” so quickly translates to “prettiest movie” for a great many voters, unfortunately.

    The nominees are:

    “Black Swan” (Matthew Libatique)
    “Inception” (Wally Pfister)
    “The King’s Speech” (Danny Cohen)
    “The Social Network” (Jeff Cronenweth)
    “True Grit” (Roger Deakins)

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Sound Mixing

    I feel like we’ve done a pretty decent job of educating some of our readership on the difference between Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing over the last five years here at In Contention. It struck me that we haven’t really covered it in a focused way this season, and the Oscar Guide seems as good a place as any to recap.

    Sound editing, which we covered Friday, concerns the manifestation of artificial sound effects and the overall manipulation of the sonic identity of a film. Sound mixing concerns the balance of those various elements, in addition to music and dialogue, as well as the on-the-set maintenance of production audio. This year’s slate was an eyebrow-raising one to say the least.

    The nominees are:

    “Inception” (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick)
    “The King’s Speech” (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley)
    “Salt” (Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin)
    “The Social Network” (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)
    “True Grit” (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland)

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  • 2/14 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Remembering 1939, Finke talks to Pascal, Marion Cotillard in ‘The Dark Knight Rises?’

    • Patrick Goldstein remembers 1939: “When 10 great Oscar nominees really meant 10 great nominees.” [The Big Picture]

    • Nikki Finke talks to Sony honcho Amy Pascal in the wake of “The Social Network”‘s post-season stall. [Deadline]

    • Marnie Hanel chats with “127 Hours” production designer Suttirat Larlarb, with sketches to boot. [Little Gold Men]

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  • ‘King’s Speech’ nabs seven BAFTA Awards

    I had more interesting things to do at the Berlinale this evening than watch the BAFTAs, so the only commentary I can offer is on the winners list itself. And, well, it doesn’t make for terribly exciting reading. To the surprise of precisely no one, “The King’s Speech” ruled the night with seven trophies, though as I predicted, “The Social Network” barred its way in the Best Director category — with further wins for Adapted Screenplay and Editing bringing its total to three.

    Clearly, Fincher’s Oscar hopes are still alive, though it would be unwise to read too much into this result: as I noted earlier, BAFTA voters split their top two awards more often than not.

    Two of the wins for “The King’s Speech,” however, were widely unexpected. With Geoffrey Rush beating Christian Bale to the Best Supporting Actor award — and Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter both predictably winning their categories — the film becomes only the third in BAFTA history to scoop three of the four acting categories.

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  • Desplat leads International Film Music Critics nods

    Alexandre Desplat has enjoyed a brilliant career in U.S. features as of late (on the back of immense talent, naturally).  2010 was a grand year for the composer as he, once again, balanced scoring duties on a number of notable films.

    Today, the final announcement from the critics awards circuit has landed in the form of the International Film Music Critics Association’s picks, seven of the nominations going to Desplat for his work on “The Ghost Writer,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” and, of course, “The King’s Speech.” It’s highly probably he’ll walk away with an Oscar later this month, capping of one heck of a year.

    John Powell netted five nominations for his work on “How to Train Your Dragon,” while Daft Punk and Hans Zimmer each grabbed three for their respective actioners.  Interesting to note, however, is the complete absence of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their innovative work on “The Social Network.” Your guess is as good as mine as to why the group turned the other cheek there.  Ditto A.R. Rahman’s work on “127 Hours,” which is actually a beloved piece of work among musicians.  In any case, have a look at The Circuit for the full list of film nominees.

    [Photo: Last.fm]

  • ‘Social Network’ tops London Critics’ awards

    By having separate categories for British films and individuals — though Brits compete in the general awards too — the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards generally get to have their cake and eat it. So it was this year: “The King’s Speech” received obligatory recognition in the categories for Best British Film and Best British Director, but lost the night’s big prizes to “The Social Network.”

    Some will find it ironic that it took a group of limeys to put some wind back in Team Fincher’s sails, but it’s not that surprising: British or not, this is still a critics’ award, and “The Social Network” wove as a powerful a spell over journos across the pond as in the States. The film took a leading four prizes, including screenwriting honors for Aaron Sorkin and Best British Supporting Actor for Andrew Garfield — the Oscar snubbee’s second home victory of the week.

    No surprise that Colin Firth took Best Actor, while they spread the love by giving Christian Bale the Best British Actor award — I do wonder if that happened entirely organically. Less expected was Annette Bening’s Best Actress victory, breaking Natalie Portman’s recent sweep; I suspect the somewhat mixed critical reaction to “Black Swan” in the UK might account for this, but Bening does seem to be picking up steam lately.

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  • 2/10 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Gasland’ director fires back, Wahlberg/Russell on Aronofsky, hoping Banksy stays away

    • Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell on Darren Aronofsky’s departure from “The Fighter.” [Inside Movies]

    • Eric Kohn writes up the Oscar shorts. [indieWIRE]

    • Josh Fox fires back at gas industry accusations about the accuracy of his documentary, “Gasland.” [Facebook]

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