Loading ...Winners in bold
Best Film
- Bright Star, Jane Campion
- Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold
- Helen, Joe Lawlor/Christine Molloy
Best Actor
- Tom Hardy, Bronson
- Christian McKay, Me And Orson Welles
- Alex MacQueen, The Hide
- Andy Serkis, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Best Actress
- Anne-Marie Duff, Nowhere Boy
- Kelly Macdonald, The Merry Gentleman
- Carey Mulligan, An Education
Best Screenplay
- Jesse Armstrong/Simon Blackwell/Armando Iannucci/Tony Roche, In The Loop
- Nick Hornby, An Education
- Paul Laverty, Looking for Eric
Kris Tapley does his rundown of the top ten best Jeff Bridges performances for Fandango’s awards watch section. What is stunning about it, I guess, is that he doesn’t place Crazy Heart at the top of the list. I thought I’d add a poll for you to be the judge of the films Kris put on his list to see if you agree.
Kris’ list:
1. Starman
2. The Big Lebowski
3. The Door in the Floor
4. Crazy Heart
5. Fearless
6. The Contender
7. The Jagged Edge
8. Tucker: A Man and His Dreams
9. Bad Company
10. Thunderbold and Lightfoot.
My own top ten after the cut.
Gosh, I didn’t think it could really be true – usually the posters are so pretty and artful. But I guess this year we’ll have to settle for…
…Make sure you read this one. New York Magazine’s Mark Harris offers up the kind of writing rarely exhibited on the web, where the constant need for content often results in sloppy work (raises hand). But when you read this kind of story, and Damien Bona and Mason Wiley’s Inside Oscar, one is reminded that there are still very good writers covering this silly little corner of the world:
Which brings us to the moment, two weeks before balloting for nominations ends, when things get really rough-and-tumble. In the strange etiquette of Oscar competition, a hard-core, balls-out campaign to get Academy Award nominations is permissible, under the justification that everyone is just helping their movies, whereas pushing hard for an actual win not only looks narcissistically needy but also may be pointless, since most voters decide whom they want to win before the nominations are even announced. So the real work happens during a mid-January sprint, when actors, writers, and directors suspend their lives to embark on an ego-bruising bi-coastal nightmare carnival of awards and lunches, brunches and teas, screenings, Q&As and tributes, diving into the soul-depleting madness of what Evelyn Waugh long ago called Hollywood’s “continuous psalm of self-praise.” Movies that don’t join the fight get lost in the shuffle. And that’s why Bridges is the sheepish but willing star of “an evening with … ” himself, a service he will repeat the very next day at another venue.
Melissa Silverstein has remarked, both on Twitter, and now in this article, that much is made of Kathryn Bigelow’s looks, as if much of the driving force behind her success is that she is gorgeous. And we all know she is gorgeous. We just don’t expect, I guess, a successful female director to be THAT gorgeous? And at 58? Here is Silverstein:
I long personally for the day when nobody cares that Kathryn Bigelow was married to James Cameron or how she looks. Because I have read articles that literally have said that James Cameron directed The Hurt Locker or that she only has a career because of him. But we lived in a world where Kathryn Bigelow is being held up to an absurd standard. She’s a boy and a girl. She’s the hot one and the kick ass one. She’s everything to everybody. That’s a lot of pressure on one person.
Silverstein makes several good points, and has asked questions where others haven’t. I have had to do battle with many commenters who continually say, “she’s only winning because she’s a woman.” I always counter it with, “she’s winning despite being a woman.” This is the first time I can remember that a “womans film” is being regarded with the same awe and respect that a film directed by a man would. The conversation around Bigelow was condescending at first, “this cute little lady and her cute little war movie.” But every time Bigelow accepts another award (the Golden Globes notwithstanding) it is breathtaking in its disruptiveness.
Apparently, there were two main thrusts that drove both the real life story and the success of the film: football and Jesus. Guy Lodge at In Contention looks at how the marketing team went straight for the god-fearin’ Heartland when looking for movie dollars. Thing is, the Heartland has been left out of much of the Oscar race for the last long while. There have been films with performances that were worthy of consideration but because they were “family” films and they starred a country/western singer, no one ever took them seriously. But money, as Bob Dylan reminds us, doesn’t talk, it swears. As The Blind Side closed in on $300 million it started to get the industry’s attention.
In her defense of Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek does talk a bit about the film’s main character’s politics, but mostly she is trying to tell people that a good performance is a good performance, no matter if it’s artsy fartsy or not. It isn’t often that film critics try to talk Oscar but every once in a while they shock even themselves by dipping a toe into that fecund pool. Here is Zacharek in defense of Ms. Bullock:
But so much of what’s great in acting, as in life, happens in the margins. “Deserving” isn’t the same as marvelous, thrilling, sexy, titillating, arresting, strange or discombobulating. It doesn’t always allow for wonder or surprise or anger, or any number of complicated feelings that actors can draw out of us. And an actor who pulls off one of the hardest effects to achieve — that of believable, extraordinary ordinariness — is likely to get lost in the shuffle.
Jeff Wells’ freshly posted video of Quentin Tarantino on the directors panel at the Santa Barbara International Film Fest:
Quoting AD commenter, “to help put this whole Oscar race in perspective, legendary photographer Brigitte Lacombe has captured moments along the awards campaign trail this year:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/02/oscar_portfolio.html#photo=1
alongside moments of intensity, you also catch beautiful glimpses of friendship and sweetness.”
Indeed. Great photos.
We have a couple of sneaks for you, after the cut.
Thanks to ONTD for finding and posting this E! Online article about the five movies everyone must see before Oscar. This is a Muggle Alert (I’m still trying make Muggle “happen”):
1. The Hurt Locker (many nominations, including Best Picture)
Why you didn’t see it: It’s an Iraq war movie, and let’s face it, most of those have been sanctimonious sacks of suckage. Plus, you probably weren’t expecting much better from the director of Point Break.
Why you should: Because, awards and critical acclaim and mismanaged marketing aside, this is not some stuffy, important-with-a-capital-I drama.
It is, in fact, a kickass action movie full of explosions, eviscerations and nigh-unbearable tension as bombs are defused (or not) and snipers are picked off.
It’s the sort of film that would be more at home running on TNT’s “Movies for guys who like movies” than in some out-of-the-way art-house multiplex. And don’t forget that that Point Break director also made Near Dark. This is even better.
2. The Cove (Best Documentary Feature)
Why you didn’t see it: A documentary about the importance of saving dolphins sounds about as appealing as a week-old tuna salad sandwich.
Why you should: Put aside for a second that you’ll learn some useful information about which seafood to be careful of eating. The key here is that The Cove is not just some preachy screed about how dolphins are cute and smart, but a full-on heist movie—like Ocean’s 11, but real.
See, a team of experts in different fields arrange the perfect break-in to a secluded cove in Japan, so they can gather crucial evidence of secret mass slaughterings.
If George Clooney were in a story like that, you’d be there, right? This is even better, because chances are you don’t already know whether or not they succeeded (do yourself a favor and don’t Google it first).
The four acting categories feel locked for various reasons. If a weakness is to be found it’s not with the contenders themselves, but with bored Oscar pundits who have nothing to do for the next few weeks except look for holes where there aren’t any. Even still, for all of that, I have seen upsets. When Adrien Brody won, or Halle Berry AND Denzel Washington, or Marion Cotillard – it was the “lock” that was misleading. That makes us wonder, are all four really locked locked? Or do we fool ourselves into thinking they are based on the awards that have gone down thus far? I have watched Oscar through both kinds of seasons – the ones where there are upsets, and the ones where the acting categories were matched 4/4 every time. So what kind of year will this be?
There are two forces at work, as I keep repeating. The first is that there are now ten best picture nominees and not five. The second is that they stretched out the date more. Whether or not either of these have an impact will be answered in about one month from now. What I do know is that when I looked back at the ten year span when Oscar did have ten Best Picture contenders, the Best Actor winner was from one of the ten films. Not a single actor was in the film that won, but they all had their film nominated. That is a pattern that may or may hold this year.
But let’s take a look at the acting categories and see if we can figure out where we are.
Vanity Fair, and The Envelope, both have Oscar predictions apps for the iphone — because, you know, you can’t really ever have enough apps. Mashable. Unless you’re me. And then you want less, not more.
Variety’s Oscar oddities has a lot of facts about the race.
- This is the first year that 3D films were taken seriously by Academy voters, with “Up,” “Coraline” and “Avatar” in contention.
- Despite a flurry of Iraq war-themed films in past years, “Hurt Locker” is the first to draw a best-pic bid.
- Meryl Streep keeps breaking her own record, with her 16th nomination. Acting runners-up are Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson, with 12 each. And Streep’s 13th bid as lead actress means she’s now the champ in that category, after being tied with Hepburn (who’d never received a supporting bid).
One of the stories to emerge this year with regard to The Hurt Locker is whether or not the film is authentic and how soldiers would react to it. There have been varying accounts, not many worth reading, but this NY Times blog piece that asks for comments from soldiers gives both sides equally, and is definitely worth a look.
In the end, all of the ten Best Picture nominees tell stories that are only somewhat based in reality – three of them are completely inventive and imaginary. The Hurt Locker isn’t supposed to tell a true story, but it should ring true. I suppose I have no right to say whether it does that or not. It does seem to explain or illustrate a bit what it must be like over there.
The Hollywood Stock Exchange has opened up its annual Award Options. Right now, here is how it is looking.
The way the Hollywood Stock Exchange works is that it simulates actual stock options for contenders. The more people who believe a certain film or performer will win, the higher their stock. You can’t really win big unless you happen to have stock in a surprise winner.
Best Picture — Avatar, Hurt Locker closing in.
Best Director — Bigelow/Cameron – even odds
Actor — Jeff Bridges, by a large margin
Actress — Sandra Bullock, Streep trailing
Supporting Actor — Waltz
Supporting Actress — Mo’Nique
Adapted Screenplay — Up in the Air (closest rival, District 9)
Original Screenplay — Ignlourious Basterds slightly ahead of The Hurt Locker
