It’s always illuminating to hear from various smart folks around the web and I feel grateful that they indulge my needling questions week after week; after all, it isn’t like any of the have any time to spare. I figure, the more intelligence we can bring to the table the better.  This week we’re pondering the Governors Awards, the bad economy on the Oscar race and getting a sneak peek into what might make a few of our contributors’ top ten lists.

The participants (in random order):

Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today
Craig Kennedy, Living in Cinema
Damien Bona, Inside Oscar
Ryan Adams, Awards Daily
Pete Howell, The Toronto Star
Scott Foundas, Film Comment
(and newly appointed Associate Programmer, The Film Society of Lincoln Center)
Kristopher Tapley, In Contention
Anne Thompson, Thompson on Hollywood at Indiewire
Steve Pond, The Odds at The Wrap
Nathaniel Rogers, The Film Experience
Edward Douglas, Oscar Warrior at Coming Soon
Gregory Ellwood, Hitfix
Tom O’Neil, The Envelope
Scott Feinberg, And the Winner Is…

1. The Governors Awards are over. We’re now looking at an Oscars broadcast without them. How big of a mistake do you think this was, or do you think it is a good idea and that it will streamline a bloated telecast? On the other hand, The Oscars are now competing with shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. Is this the first sign of the “dumb and dumber” Oscars soon to come?

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by John Villeneuve

With the films, A Prophet and The White Ribbon, can AMPAS continue to ignore the best that this art form called cinema can aspire to? Can they smugly rationalize to themselves that they may see the merits in such films, yet, for whatever feeble reason, toss them to the junk heap while coddling mediocrity? Should they be allowed, without consequence, to promote their ignorance and irrelevance? No.

Not long ago this body of “arbiters?”, “number crunchers?”, “artists?” awarded the Best Song Oscar to a documentary for the first time in their history. A song which included the phrase, “I’ve been asleep, and I need to wake up…NOW!”. Hmmmm, somehow that resonates. A documentary, with a progressive song, that embraced our evolutionary times. It’s akin to Plato’s proverbial man who has melded new knowledge with the ancient, and, now, is ready to leave the cave.

You may have guessed that this is a rant, a primal scream of sorts, but this shriek is not intended to evoke allegiance to progress. Nor is it a Darwinian raspberry blown in the face of Intelligent Design. Fuck it…I can’t lie. It is! Do I want to be provocative? Hell yes.

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Breaking News Press Release:

Beverly Hills, CA (November 18, 2009) — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 82nd Academy Awards®. Eighty-nine pictures had originally qualified in the category.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company:

• The Beaches of Agnes, Agnès Varda, director (Cine-Tamaris)
• Burma VJ, Anders Østergaard, director (Magic Hour Films)
• The Cove, Louie Psihoyos, director (Oceanic Preservation Society)
• Every Little Step, James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, directors (Endgame Entertainment)
• Facing Ali, Pete McCormack, director (Network Films Inc.)
• Food, Inc., Robert Kenner, director (Robert Kenner Films)
• Garbage Dreams, Mai Iskander, director (Iskander Films, Inc.)
• Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,  Mark N. Hopkins, director (Red Floor Pictures LLC)
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, directors (Kovno Communications)
• Mugabe and the White African, Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey, directors (Arturi Films Limited)
• Sergio,  Greg Barker, director (Passion Pictures and Silverbridge Productions)
• Soundtrack for a Revolution,  Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, directors (Freedom Song Productions)
• Under Our Skin, Andy Abrahams Wilson, director (Open Eye Pictures)
• Valentino The Last Emperor,  Matt Tyrnauer, director (Acolyte Films)
• Which Way Home, Rebecca Cammisa, director (Mr. Mudd)

Like them or not, the National Board of Review is first out of the gate with the top ten films of the year. Even though they have been criticized over the years for being “not real critics” and a “bought and paid for” critics groups — none of that has seemed to matter. In the Oscar race, perception is everything. Well, it’s almost everything.  The bottom line is that you can’t really make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear — if the film is truly crappy it won’t get very far no matter how much money is backing it.

But before we do, let’s take a look at the general philosophies around potential Best Pic nominees — generated off the top of my head, though I know if I spent the time I could back them up with facts. So in typical blog form, just accept what you read without facts.
Here goes.

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Photos over at Yahoo News

Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis

The Irving Thalberg award, Steven Spielberg accepting for John Calley:

The Oscars.org has a nice layout for this year’s recipients. After the cut, view some beautiful hi res photos of the evening.

Check out Movieline’s Stu Van Airsdale’s tribute to Gordon Willis in his Six Brilliant Films post.

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Avatar TV spot during Glee can be viewed here (I haven’t found one that can be embedded yet)

I just received a beautiful invite to celebrate the DVD/Blu Ray release of Star Trek.   It made me rethink Star Trek for a minute – no, it isn’t that I’m so easily bought by a shiny invite (it is really pretty and swanky).  Many pundits have already been predicting Star Trek but I have held back for a couple of reasons.  The most important reason is that it came out too early.

Then there was District 9.

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AMPAS has just released the animated titles eligible for this year’s awards and lo!  Five nominees (I have bolded the ones I think have the best shot right now):

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”
“Astro Boy”
“Battle for Terra”
“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
“Coraline”
“Disney’s A Christmas Carol”
“The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
“Mary and Max”
“The Missing Lynx”
“Monsters vs. Aliens”
“9”
“Planet 51”
“Ponyo”
“The Princess and the Frog”
“The Secret of Kells”
“Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure”
“A Town Called Panic”
“Up”

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” “The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Planet 51,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “The Secret of Kells” and “A Town Called Panic” have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying run. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and meet all of the category’s other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process.

Under the rules for this category, a maximum of 5 features can be nominated in a year in which the field of eligible entries numbers at least 16.

Oscar season has a way of sweeping out the old to make way for the new.  This is really simply understood as award fatigue, an affliction caught by some as they keep sifting through the same old pile of films.  Naturally this would lend itself to the kind of breaking news that may or may not mean something — but it is notable and noticeable because everyone battles the same affliction.  In the end, the illness wears off.  It usually takes one full year for awards junkies to look back and think, wow, how did THAT happen?

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Reaching out to the various journalists and bloggers who write up the awards race reveals wise minds, and love of cinema.  The fact is, this isn’t an actual roundtable – it’s a q&a sent out to various people whose opinions I value.   I don’t think any of these writers would be doing what they do if they didn’t love movies.  This is really what drives the whole Oscar watching business.  Sure, it is about money, too, and it’s about the allure of being right, but underneath it all it’s the movies, stupid.

The participants are:

Ryan Adams, Awards Daily
Damien Bona, Inside Oscar
Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon
Edward Douglas, Coming Soon
Gregory Ellwood, Hitfix
Scott Feinberg, And The Winner is
Pete Hammond, LA Times Envelope
Craig Kennedy, Living in Cinema
Tom O’Neil, The Envelope
Steve Pond, The Wrap
AJ Schnack, All These Wonderful Things
Kris Tapley, In Contention
Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today
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(click for full size)

It’s Complicated stars Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin named co-hosts of the 82nd Academy Awards. Now all they need is Meryl!

Beverly Hills, CA (November 3, 2009) — Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will serve as co-hosts of the 82nd Academy Awards^®, Oscar telecast producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman announced today.

“We think the team of Steve and Alec are the perfect pair of hosts for the Oscars,” said Shankman and Mechanic. “Steve will bring the experience of having hosted the show in the past and Alec will be a completely fresh personality for this event.”

“I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin,” said Martin.

“I don’t play the banjo but I’m thrilled to be hosting the Oscars – it’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Baldwin.

Focus gets the party started – thanks to Dora for sending in:

Things aren’t anywhere near as quiet as they should be right about now. There hasn’t been a No Country for Old Men stretching its legs for the long haul; there probably isn’t a Slumdog Millionaire poised to eat up every available award known to man. That might be Up in the Air. Is there a showdown between a scrappy underdog and a Big Hollywood Movie ready to emerge? If so, there are little to no indicators. This is going to be a last-minute scramble.

And yet, there is much ruminating online about the race, such as it is. A recent New York Observer piece lamented the absence of Oscar movies. Erik Childress has launched his seasonal series, the Oscar Eye and has started to look at the movies but refuses to count in those that haven’t yet been seen. Tom O’Neil recently polled a few to find out their take. Childress has a list of films he thinks are the frontrunners right now but he also has ten images at the top of his site, and those ten seem to be close to what the ultimate ten might look like, give or take a film or two. Remember, the votes are being counted in order of preference. The list will still show films that are passionately loved by many in the Academy.

Keep reading to delve into Deep Background of Academy history when there were ten nominees for Best Pic.

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UPDATE: Thanks to Alex Billington at FirstShowing for letting us borrow the embeddable trailer.

No embed yet, but you can see it here in various QuickTime sizes.

The months of blind speculation are over. Now that we can get a solid feel for the style and tone of the film, I’m happy to say it looks as polished and inspiring as anything we might have hoped for. I’m still processing what we’re seeing here, but my first impression blows away any previous uncertainty. Absolutely stands among the best trailers we’ve seen this Fall.

(Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank)

Thanks to ladylurks, who points out that 3 of the 5 nominated directors are women.

BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM
An Education
Fish Tank
In The Loop
Moon
Nowhere Boy

BEST DIRECTOR
Andrea Arnold – Fish Tank
Armando Iannucci – In The Loop
Duncan Jones – Moon
Jane Campion – Bright Star
Lone Scherfig – An Education

THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD [BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR]
Armando Iannucci – In The Loop
Duncan Jones – Moon
Peter Strickland – Katalin Varga
Sam Taylor Wood – Nowhere Boy
Samantha Morton – The Unloved

BEST SCREENPLAY
An Education – Nick Hornby
Fish Tank – Andrea Arnold
In The Loop – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
Moon – Nathan Parker
Nowhere Boy – Matt Greenhalgh

BEST ACTRESS
Abbie Cornish – Bright Star
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Emily Blunt – The Young Victoria
Katie Jarvis – Fish Tank
Sophie Okonedo – Skin

BEST ACTOR
Aaron Johnson – Nowhere Boy
Andy Serkis – Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Peter Capaldi – In The Loop
Sam Rockwell – Moon
Tom Hardy – Bronson

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