• Carolyn Giardina floats the possibility of “How to Train Your Dragon” beating “Toy Story 3” for Best Animated Feature with nothing but those (not unexpected) Visual Effects Society wins to justify it. [The Race]
• James Cameron thinks Christopher Nolan should have been nominated for Best Director this year. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Steve Pond explains the voting procedure of the five categories not on the ballots that went out yesterday. [The Odds]
I really should take the time to write up Saturday’s women’s panel here in Santa Barbara, not least of all because it seems to have been neglected in most outlets. It’s an undervalued annual program, always moderated with class by Madelyn Hammond and featuring some of the most formidable female talents working in the industry.
This year’s group consisted of “Toy Story 3” producer Darla K. Anderson, “Alice in Wonderland” costume designer Colleen Atwood, Skywalker Sound Vice President and general manager Gloria Borders, “Waiting for Superman” producer Lesley Chilcott and “Winter’s Bone” producer Alex Madigan.
The immediate thing that sticks out is how so many of the panelists are producers, and Borders was quick to note as much. “You don’t see that many women that are visual effects supervisors or editors or sound mixers,” she said. “Women are really good producers. We’re really good at getting people to get along and walk in the same direction.”
It looks like “The King’s Speech,” which went much wider this weekend, could quietly become a $100-million grossing movie. Meanwhile, that re-expansion for “The Social Network” didn’t make much of a dent and it seems increasingly unlikely it’ll cross that mark, leaving “Black Swan,” “Inception,” “Toy Story 3,” “True Grit” and potentially “The Fighter” as the only Best Picture nominees to ultimately get there.
In more depressing news, “The Way Back” will barely make $3 million when all is said and done.
(Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)
So the 83rd Annual Academy Award nominations were finally announced this week, and I did fairly well in handicapping the nominees. Outside of Best Sound Mixing, I never missed more than one nominee in a category. Unfortunately, there were no categories where I scored 100% (apart from Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay). Oh well.
The massive overall tally for “The King’s Speech” resulted from a plethora of nominations in the crafts fields. “True Grit” and “Inception” got all but one plausible tech nomination (with one very notable exception for each, discussed below). “TRON Legacy”’s tally, on the other hand, has got to be considered a disappointment as must, to a lesser extent, those of “Black Swan” and “127 Hours.” The complete shut-out for “Shutter Island” was also somewhat of a surprise, but other branches saw fit to make Oscar nominees of some unlikely titles.
Regardless, it was nice to see many deserving crafts artists get their due. With the throat-clearing out of the way, I’ll now give short reactions to – and previews of – each below-the-line field.
The music branch’s process of nominating in the Best Original Song category changed a few years ago. Members now screen clips and view contenders as used within the context of their films. It generally means music used organically has a better shot than the usual closing credits fluff of yore.
That rule change has also, I think, altered the perception of the award on the annual Oscar telecast. Last year performances of the contenders were scrapped from the show early on, largely because they weren’t popular hits and the show is all about nailing down a viewership. Could it happen again? This year’s line-up is diverse if underwhelming, but now that I think about it, that seems to frequently be the case.
The nominees are:
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong” (Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey)
“If I Rise” from “127 Hours” (Music by A.R. Rahman; Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong)
“I See the Light” from “Tangled” (Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Glenn Slater)
“We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3” (Music and Lyric by Randy Newman)
The animated feature field unfortunately fell one film short of the required 16 eligible contenders to expand the category to five nominees this year. As a result of this bewildering and arbitrary “rule,” some great work was left off the list in this, a pretty decent year for animation in general.
Nevertheless, the animators proved once again that they value the craft and artistry above all else, as a delectable, modest yarn beat out some stiff commercial competition to join two heavyweights that already seemed destined for inclusion. The resulting trio, despite being limited in number, is therefore a vibrant snapshot of the year in animation and one of a few categories that is absolutely stacked this season.
The nominees are:
“How to Train Your Dragon” (Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois)
“The Illusionist” (Sylvain Chomet)
“Toy Story 3” (Lee Unkrich)
Did you hear? The Oscar nominations were announced this morning. And there was a lot to chew on. (And boy can we be grateful for that.)
With a full slate of contenders in front of us, it seemed only right to go ahead and offer up the latest set of winner predictions. They are indicated by asterisk in the sidebar and are listed out in full after the jump.
After roughly a week of falling into the logic (and blaring rhetoric) suggesting “The Social Network” would turn its critics run into Oscar gold, I’m back to my instincts (and, judging by its nomination haul, the will of the Academy) with a bet on “The King’s Speech.” Not only that, but I think we could see a mini-sweep for the film, as a couple of potentially formidable competitors were ousted from the nominations in a few craft fields.
Of course, things could change. But I’m sensing a momentum shift, and it’s frankly one we could have expected was around the corner.
Tonight’s PGA awards were the first stab at the preferential ballot for this year’s Best Picture hopefuls. The big winner in the feature film field was…oh my…“The King’s Speech.”
Considering this is a beefy organization (not quite as big as AMPAS but big) and its nominees are likely to match the Best Picture 10 pretty closely, I’d say this is one of the fairest indications of how things could play out in five weeks. Last year, remember, the PGA went for “The Hurt Locker” rather than $2 billion grosser “Avatar.” I think it will prove, more and more, to be a reliable indicator, as long as it shares this voting method and breadth of nominees with the Academy.
So does that apply this year? Is there a major swinging of the pendulum under way? Who knows. And there is still the increasingly strong possibility of “The Fighter” taking the SAG ensemble prize. Perhaps at the end of the day we’ll have a phase two to remember.
Check out the full list of theatrical and honorary PGA award winners at The Circuit.
[Photo: The Weinstein Company]
It seems hard to believe that it’s been more than six months since I wrote this year’s introductory Tech Support column ( a dissection of the art direction race). Much has changed since then, naturally, as we are less than a week away from the big day when we find out the nominees for the Oscars this year. Today, I take a final look at the music categories, sound categories and the two categories that have been narrowed down to seven finalists – Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup.
BEST MAKEUP
In this utterly bizarre category, virtually any combination of the seven finalists would fail to surprise me as the final three. That said, I’ve had the same top two predicted all year and see no reason to change now: “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wolfman.” The former had massive box office and very noticeable makeup, whereas the latter is exactly the sort of movie that tends to score here and nowhere else.
Logic may put “True Grit” or “The Fighter” next in line due to their Best Picture contender status. But as much as these films are loved, they don’t have as showy makeup as the other finalists, and this is a category that often doesn’t care how films are received overall.
• Eight milestones in the evolution of Natalie Portman. [Movieline]
• Carolyn Giardana notes a rare Best Visual Effects nomination for an animated film at the BAFTAs. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Nathaniel Rogers argues against the notion that Best Director must equal Best Picture. [The Film Experience]
If you’ve been with us for a couple of years, you’ll know that the BAFTA nominations infuriate me on an annual basis. However, my therapist recently advised me that I need to heal my relationship with BAFTA through forgiveness, so I’ll lead with few the things that pleased me about this morning’s announcement.
For one thing, though the longlists already tipped us off to most of the “surprises” here, I’m happy to see Julianne Moore finally nominated alongside her “The Kids Are All Right” co-star Annette Bening in a serious Best Actress race. Pete Postlethwaite’s posthumous nomination for “The Town” (his first from BAFTA, unbelievably, and the only one for Ben Affleck’s film) is shamelessly rooted in sentiment, but happily, it happens to come for a striking mini-performance anyway.
While it was inevitable that Brit hit “The King’s Speech” would lead the field, it’s nice to “Black Swan” close behind with 12 nods, including mentions for its contemporary production and costume design.
Zzzzz…huh?, wha? Oh…
First and foremost, I have to note Ricky Gervais’s work as emcee. Last year’s stint was a bit stale, I thought, but this year the gloves were off. Way off. Which, for whatever reason, I was okay with tonight. The difference between Gervais and Armond White, though, if you want to go there, is that one is expected (and paid) to act like a clown. The other is not.
And I have to think “That was my favorite film of the year” was a subtle joke. Not that subtle was in his toolbox.
Anyway, kicking things off, Christian Bale’s speech in acceptance of yet another Best Supporting Actor trophy slid off the rails a bit toward the end as he rushed an impromptu shout-out to actor Robert De Niro. Apparently in the press room he said the legend was “the shit,” so maybe that’s similar to what was censored from the telecast. Earlier in the speech, though, he paid lovely homage to “The Fighter” actor and producer Mark Wahlberg. “You can only give a loud performance like mine when you have a quiet, stoic anchor,” he said.
With well over 100 entries, the limerick contest was our most popular yet. Either people really dig amphibrachic meter or they really wanted those scripts! Whatever the case, thanks for the deluge.
It was tough to decide. In the way of honorable mention, I have to give a shout-out to Jim for the commitment to submit so many times, and for his limerick back-and-forth with BobBlake. Also, I have to tip my hat to Joe7827 for finding a way to insert yours truly into his out of competition entry.
And a pat on the back to John G for attempting to make “cunnilingus” rhyme with “anxious” and “frankness.” You tried.
Ultimately, though, I had to tip my hat to SanFranCinema, who cleverly worked the season into his limerick. It doesn’t include aspects of the films’ narratives, of course, but it rang my bell…
• “Toy Story 3” edges past “How to Train Your Dragon” and “The Social Network” to take this year’s Golden Tomato Award. [Rotten Tomatoes]
• Louis Virtel, meanwhile, wants to know why “Oscar zealots” aren’t fighting for the film’s Best Picture chances. Uh, hello? [Movieline]
• Sex and ballet slippers: the themes of “Black Swan.” [Film School Rejects]
How badly do you want to own the shooting scripts of four of this year’s hottest Oscar contenders? Well, HOW BADLY?
We’ve got copies of “Black Swan,” “Inception,” “127 Hours” and “Toy Story 3” to give away this week. I should have saved that “tell me a story” thing for this, so instead, to riff on the Haiku contest, I thought I’d just be completely ridiculous and introduce a — wait for it — LIMERICK CONTEST!
That’s right, a limerick contest. In case you’re unaware of the qualities of a limerick, refresh yourself here. In a nutshell, though, five lines with an aabba rhyme scheme. For example:
There once was a guy with a blog
Who felt it a daily slog
But oh what fun
To almost be done
With a season that’s become a fog
After taking a stab at winner predictions early last month, it seemed now would be a good time to re-assess. Only three adjustments, though — for Best Picture, Best Film Editing and Best Original Score. I’ll try my hand at another set post-nominations.
Best Picture: “The Social Network”
Best Director: David Fincher, “The Social Network”
Best Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Social Network”
Best Original Screenplay: “The King’s Speech”
I found it interesting over the weekend (and if you’re keyed into the ads on the site here and elsewhere, you noticed, too) that “The King’s Speech” finally decided to tap into the narrative that will serve it best in this year’s awards season.
The “Find Your Voice” campaign notes, “Some movies you see. Others you feel.” The “head vs. heart” debate has been going on all season, dismissed largely by advocates up in arms at anyone having the gall to bet on a film other than “The Social Network” for this year’s Best Picture Oscar. Yet there are, by my count, 44 days left before final ballots are due to the Academy (because let’s face it, most of us are already living in phase two of this season).
But I wrote that column last week. Rather than re-state my position over and over again, I’ll just offer up the mantra: It’s a process.
Fincher’s film took down the National Society of Film Critics award Saturday (which is really, for the most part, just a replay of the NYFCC and LAFCA awards, given the overlap in membership). It just about ran the critics’ board. A few Best Picture bones were thrown to “The King’s Speech,” “Black Swan” and “Inception” throughout the circuit, but that’s about it. Bravo indeed.
The critics have had their say. “The Social Network” has enjoyed an impressive kudos haul throughout the month of December. Game over, call it, throw in the towel, all other comers need not apply, “there is only one.”
That’s the instinct. But I embrace caution over haste (and I’m not on the advocacy bandwagon), so sue me if I’m just not there yet.
One of the more undercooked arguments I’ve read recently that places “The Social Network” in the Oscar frontrunner position is that you should call the race as it stands rather than forecast. Obviously that goes completely against what it means to prognosticate, but it also ignores the fact that what’s afoot isn’t always represented by what’s in the news, at least at this early stage.
Yes, the critics predictably went gaga over the film. But the #2 coming out of that circuit is probably “Black Swan.” So do we then assume the race for Oscar is between those two films? Of course not. Because, however overstated the point may be (by necessity, though, given stubbornness), critics don’t vote for Oscars.