Airs this morning 10 a.m. ET – 7 a.m. PT (HD) and again on the West Coast at 10 a.m. Several more airing over the next couple of days leading up to the premiere Sunday night.
Yeah, there is just no good reason why the AMPAS decided to omit Farrah from its tribute to the celebrities who had died this year — and for that matter, Bea Arthur. CNN reports that the Academy’s Bruce Davis, who was responsible for the “in memoriam” segment was quoted as saying: “There’s nothing you can say to people, particularly to family members, within a day or two of the show that helps at all. They tend to be surprised and hurt, and we understand that and we’re sorry for it.”
But CNN adds that Davis stands by the decision to leave her out. Basically they’re saying, she wasn’t good enough. Yeah, so the apology is really more of a “I’m sorry you’re feeling sad” type of apology, which isn’t really an apology at all.
Tatum O’Neil issued a statement that read: ”On behalf of myself, my father Ryan O’Neal and my entire family, we are deeply saddened that a truly beautiful and talented actress Farrah Fawcett was not included in the memorial montage during the 82nd Academy Awards. We are bereft with this exclusion of such an international icon who inspired so many for so many reasons. Beautiful, talented Farrah will never be forgotten by her family and amazing fans.”
And of course, the icing on the cake was that “Davis defended the tribute’s inclusion of Michael Jackson, who was better known for his musical accomplishment than for his screen work, because the late pop star was the subject of a successful feature documentary last year.”
You know, sorry the AMPAS. There is no excuse for including Michael Jackson but excluding Farrah.
MOREOVER – there was NO EXCUSE for the shameful treatment of Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman, who were forced to stand up like they were the father of the bride or something during a wedding toast. Let’s make a deal, AMPAS, when you can stop making “drop the soap” jokes you can act all high-falootin’ where Farrah is concerned. Deal?
Or to quote Michael Sheen playing Tony Blair, “won’t somebody save these people from themselves?”
As I was glancing over the films that are slated for this year, it occurs to me that, despite our complaining about it, the ten nominees thing DOES make room to honor films that don’t fit the “Oscar movie” template. When you have movies like The Blind Side, District 9 and A Serious Man sharing the slate with Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, etc. you have wide open possibilities. That means, as I look over the list, one can start Oscar-watching fairly reliably earlier and throughout the year.
The other thing I learned this year is that you can’t trust just one group in terms of sussing out a film with Oscar potential. Bad reviews don’t necessarily derail a film’s chances, as we saw with The Blind Side, and mediocre reviews didn’t much hurt Inglourious Basterds in terms of the awards race. It always helps to have great reviews, but it’s possible that a film can be rescued provided it has the right stuff – in other words, audiences eat it up.
Here’s to keeping an open mind heading into Oscars 2010.
It’s never too early for me to take a gander at the new movie scores from the Broadcast Film Critics. They frequently – though not always – correspond to Oscar nominations later on. Unfortunately, so far the only 2010 release nabbing a 4-star rating is Audiard’s A Prophet, which was considered a 2009 movie by AMPAS. Other potential awards candidates, like Shutter Island (loved it!) and Alice in Wonderland, earned strong scores from BFCA but were less enthusiastically received at Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, so who knows? Maybe they’re in the Oscar hunt anyway. Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is impressing critics across the board in very limited release. And with RT its only score so far, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo looks intriguing.
BFCA 2010
****
A Prophet – 88
***
Alice in Wonderland – 81
The Ghost Writer – 81
Shutter Island – 81
Remember Me – 80
**
Fish Tank – 72
Loading ...When The Cove won the Oscar for Best Documentary Sunday night we briefly saw one of its producers, Ric O’Barry, held up a sign saying “Text DOLPHIN to 44144″ while Fisher Stevens gave their acceptance speech. It was an attempt to do what all winners were instructed to with theor speeches — make it interesting, make it personal, make an impact — but the director of the Oscar broadcast cut away as if something obscene were happening. So much for honoring and appreciating filmmakers who try to make a difference.
Although the number was seen so briefly if you blinked you might have missed it — thousands of views didn’t blink and responded with a far more clear-eyed sense of responsibility that the knee-jerk reaction of whomever was directing the on-air editing. Waterfall Mobile, powers the mobile campaign for Participant Media, and after the sign aired on television, Waterfall saw an enormous spike in mobile subscribers to the keyword (with steady traffic for the next several hours). Since airing Sunday night, there has been a huge show of support over Twitter (which continues to generate steady traffic) and the number of subscribers has nearly doubled — from 38,000 to over 70,000.
You can help keep the interest surging. Here’s how it works: When you text the code word “DOLPHIN” to 44144 you’ll be asked to join the mobile subscriber list. After opting in to the list, concientious texters receive a message with a link to sign a petition to shut down dolphin slaughter depicted in the Cove — a petition sent to President Obama and the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S., Ichiro Fujisaki.
Cinematography: Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Music: Daft Punk
Deborah Carson of Toronto got 21 out of 24 points to win our Predict the Oscars contest!
Please send an email to awardsdaily@gmail.com. Congratulations! The Hurt Locker for both categories threw her score over the top.
The runners-up with 20 points:
Bradley Sides, USA
Cameron McAllister, USA
Jorge Padron, USA
Joseph Williams, Canada
Nicholas Chung, Australia
Ryan Walker, Canada
Sarah El, USA
Will K., USA
Those with 19, after the cut.
Predict the Oscars WRONG contest winners!
We had 503 who got an absolute 0, meaning, they got nothing right! That is incredible. I have picked five winners at random at each will receive a $25 gift card to Amazon.com.
Donald Lacky
Robert Bernocchi
Paul Ryan
David Yen
Lisa Purdy
Please email awardsdaily@gmail.com to claim your prize!
Those who scored 0 after the cut.
I was planning on leaving this alone but the web chatter, and even a Facebook page dedicated to what will no doubt go down as a race similar to Star Wars vs. Annie Hall. What I can abide is the phony uproar reaching a fever pitch online.
It’s because she’s a woman!
It’s because they wanted to tell Jim Cameron to eff off!
It’s because of all the divorced wives out there!
How much more insulting can they possibly be? The truth is that Avatar made a lot of money and a lot of people really loved it. Great. Good for Avatar. Good for the public. One big happy party, right? No, because on top of $700,000,000 domestic and $2 billion internationally, they also had to have a whole bunch of Oscars. Not Jim Cameron, he doesn’t care — and in fact, he cheered Bigelow, his one-time collaborator, to whom he has functioned mentor, on. But the fans needed to win the Oscar in order to …. validate their feelings?
Kinda figured, but still, here is the proof:
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Preliminary results from Walt Disney Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!dis/quotes/nls/dis (DIS 33.11, -0.11, -0.33%) released Monday show that ratings for Sunday night’s Oscar telecast were up sharply. Disney’s ABC network, which broadcast the awards show, said 56 markets indicated that the ceremony received a 26.5 household rating, which gauges the total number of televisions watching, and a 40 share, or the percentage of households with their sets turned on captured by the telecast. Disney says ratings monitor A.C. Nielsen has changed its methodology, but the numbers indicate a sharp increase from last year’s 20.6 rating with 31 share. Additional figures are due out late today.
When a popular film is nominated for Oscars, not to mention a popular actress like Sandra Bullock, people will come, Ray.
Thanks for a great year everybody. We now have a correspondent who will be handling our red carpet and party affairs for Awards Daily. We dipped our toe in this year, but hopefully there will be more to come, and maybe even off the hook, as they say. Hope you enjoy the first video catching some events leading up to the Oscars. Our correspondent is Kyle Chasse (psst. my nephew) chats up some folks in the days leading up to the Oscars. It gives me an embarrassing amount of pride to hear the site’s name on camera.
I’m sorry to have to say that, despite my love for Adam Shankman whose humor and wisdom is well-suited to So You Think You Can Dance, the 82nd Oscar telecast may have gotten more ratings as a result of the changes, but it deflated ever so slightly in the process. In fact, it made me yearn for last year’s tight-as-a-drum ceremony that brought back the thing about the Oscars that makes them unique: class and glamour. So, what worked and what didn’t?
What worked:
1 ) The five acting nominees paying tribute to nominees and winners. That is still the best thing about the show.
2 ) Ben Stiller.
3 ) The dresses. Prettier than ever.
4 ) The horror montage. Very cool.
5 ) The occasional joke.
6 ) The clips explaining what categories are for those not in-the-know.
7 ) Sandra Bullock’s lipstick.
8 ) Meryl Streep sitting close to the front.
9 ) The floating things from Avatar.
10 ) Sandy Powell’s dress, hat and hair.
And what didn’t? It’s probably more fun to grip about the Oscars, an annual tradition, than it is to praise them, but I really do have a few major gripes. After the cut.
My friend called me yesterday after finally seeing The Hurt Locker. Most of the adults I know in my world hadn’t even heard of the film, let alone seen it. They’d had heard of it mostly in terms of “Cameron’s ex-wife was competing with him in the awards race.” My friend said, “I finally figured it out. I finally figured out why The Hurt Locker keeps winning everything even though it only made $12 million at the box office.” I thought she was going to say “because she’s a woman?” But she said, “it’s advocacy. They want people to see this movie so much that they think it’s worth taking a risk on it and naming it the winner even though the vast majority of the US, and the world, have not yet seen this movie. And after last night, when the film they thought was going to win didn’t, they may develop a silly grudge and never want to see it anyway. Here’s to hoping they won’t be that stupid.
