Monthly Archives: January 2009
So, MTVU is holding a contest for college students to win a place on the red carpet before the Oscars. We have a q&a one of the entries, David Distenfeld, who compete with his cameraman, Lawrence Chen, against the other finalists. I watched them all and I’d say David is one of three who strike me as the best. I gave him my vote. He is a film student, not a journalist...
Tom O’Neil reports that Angelina and Brad, along with Meryl Streep, will be no-shows at Monday’s Oscar nominee luncheon, which reminds me a bit of a speed dating group meeting. Each one gets a chance to hob nob with the Academy for a few minutes, flash a smile, a bit of leg and maybe just maybe their name will get called. The best thing about the luncheon,...
This story from Variety takes a look at BAFTA’s current voting process and how they might fix it going forward. The BAFTAs are a week from now: The first round of voting, which involves the whole membership, produces a longlist of 15 candidates in each section (five asterisked as the choice of the relevant chapter for each category, such as acting or sound, and 10...
Host Jon Cryer will take over duties now that Carl Reiner has taken ill. The DGAs will be held tonight, with drinks and chatter at around 6:30pm and the awards ceremony at 8pm. We’ll do our usual game of trolling the news sites for photos of the nominees and then Danny Boyle after he wins. It’s always fun to do the Yahoo news photos guessing game to figure...
In the weirdest Oscar year ever, Kung-Fu Panda swept the Annie Awards and Wall-E, a film that holds the record for the most nominated categories for an animated film at the Oscars, goes home empty-handed. No joke, read it and weep, as Variety’s Peter Debruge reports: Fifteen-category victory marks a coup for DreamWorks Animation, which hasn‚Äôt seen one of its...
Tom O’Neil finds two people out there who actually think someone else could win the DGA tomorrow night: Well, Gold Derby decided to pursue the point anyway and pooled predix from lots of pundits, who back Boyle by a landslide, that’s true. But I found a few brave (crazy?) souls who dare to stray. They include Bob Tourtellotte (Reuters), Kevin Lewin (World Entertainment...
The Reader is like the English Patient. Old age makeup, great sex scenes, World War II, Harvey Weinstein, redemption, suffering. This occurred to me today as I was contemplating who might win the Scripter. Is The Reader still coming up from the outside, or is, as NY Times’ Michael Cieply suggests, Benjamin Button the potential spoiler?¬† This subject has been...