I’ve learned 2-time Oscar winner and Academy favorite Tom Hanks will be the first presenter and name winners in both the Art Direction and Cinematography categories right off the bat. Best Picture frontrunner The King’s Speech is up for both, so the world will quickly get an idea whether that Best Picture nominee is able to mount a sweep right in the first few minutes of Sunday’s Oscar show.
Moviline confirms that The King’s Speech therapist’s home was used to film the gay porn flick Snookered, which had great art direction.
According to Jonno, his video (which was done for the website UK Naked Men) was indeed shot in the exact same room as The King’s Speech at 33 Portland Place, though well before the King of England ever stepped foot onto the set. Snookered was filmed in August of 2008; The King’s Speech started filming in November of 2009.
Jonno also told Movieline that the video for Amy Winehouse’s smash hit “Rehab” was filmed at the address, which you can see for yourself here.
This piece by Cinema Blend’s Mack Rawden is quite wonderful. I would disagree with his initial premise, that Annie Hall won the battle but Star Wars won the war: both films forever changed the future of cinema. Both had tremendous impact. Both were films I myself have seen countless times and can recite them line for line. Both of them. If American films had a museum, Annie Hall would be in it. So would Star Wars. The difference for me between them is that Annie Hall has aged along with me. I loved it when I was a teenager, as a young woman and now, as a woman and human being aging. Woody Allen’s profound insight lends itself to me on almost a daily basis. I can’t really say the same about Star Wars, though you couldn’t find a more devoted fan when it came out. I can watch it now but it isn’t like Annie Hall. It doesn’t cut through my soul the way Allen’s film does. At any rate, and be that as it may, I appreciate this article and absolutely agree – why? Because Sorkin’s brilliant script IS like this:
That, in a wall post, is why The Social Network is the Annie Hall of the nominees, but it’s also the Star Wars. The comparison may seem ludicrous on the outset, but let’s delve a little deeper. That’s what both The Social Network and Star Wars are about anyway. Each is a reasonably simple to understand story. Each has a ton of very good acting performances but few with the outward dazzle to win Best Actor or Actress. More importantly, each is a product of exactly what you put in. You can watch The Social Network paying half attention and understand the general ins and outs. Mark Zuckerberg latched onto an idea that may or may not have been his. He turned it into an empire, pissed a lot of people off and became the youngest billionaire in the world. That’s the story. It doesn’t take brains to follow it, but to accurately understand the complexities of how it happened and why, you must pay careful attention, listen to the side characters and pour over the algorithms. Every little formula here adds up, it’s just a question of whether you take the time to notice. The Social Network caters to both the casual fans and the obsessives, exactly like Star Wars and in doing so, creates a final product that can be cherished by both.
In this week’s episode, we chit chat a bit, talk about extending Oscar Poker for longer than Oscar season, and then quickly do the run-down of predictions – although I have to say, predicting the Oscars this year is probably the least exciting thing about it.
If you follow the trend for #kingsspeech on Twitter you will come face to face with the raw love there is out there for this film. It might be a moment in time that won’t last (probably), it might not. But there is no denying the ferver. Of course, Juno and Little Miss Sunshine were also well loved too but they weren’t about the royal family.
Scott Weinberg does a wonderful roundup of some facts about past Oscar winners. This is my favorite of those he dug up – but they’re all pretty great (Gigi making a clean sweep? And we’re to take this award group seriously about anything ever?):
4. The late (great) character actor John Cazale appeared in only five features — but they were all nominated for Best Picture: ‘The Godfather’ (1972), ‘The Conversation’ (1974), ‘The Godfather Part 2′ (1974), ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975), and ‘The Deer Hunter’ (1978). Both ‘Godfathers’ won, but ‘The Conversation’ was up against ‘Part 2,’ so it lost (obviously). ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ lost to ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ but ‘The Deer Hunter’ also won Best Picture.
5. Unfortunately Mr. Cazale never earned an Oscar nomination for his work.
Cazale not only should have been nominated for Godfather II, he should have won.
Kris Tapley does his Top Ten shots of the year — manages to actually find one in The King’s Speech. It is a good one.
Deadline does a roundup of the Oscar parties here in Los Angeles on Oscar night. They serve to make everyone bad for not being invited.
We don’t usually track these because they don’t ever really seem to match up all that much with the Oscars — the reason being, the entire branch picks the winners for this one. At any rate, for those hoping for some clarity on the King’s Speech vs. Alice in Wonderland will not find any here as they both won in their category:
“The King’s Speech,” “Black Swan” and “Alice in Wonderland” took the top feature film honors Tuesday evening at the 13th Costume Designers Guild Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Jenny Beavan won excellence in period film for “The King’s Speech,” while Amy Westcott earned her award for excellence in contemporary film for “Black Swan” and Colleen Atwood for excellence in fantasy film for “Alice in Wonderland.”
