After a few quiet holiday weeks on the #ConsiderUggie front, the awards campaign for The Artist's wonder dog has redoubled its efforts in that far-off land of influence and taste: Great Britain. Not to be outdone, a French awards body has finally thrown Uggie some much-deserved recognition. It's all coming together, folks!
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The Producers Guild of America just announced its 2012 award nominees, with a few surprises (The Ides of March? Again?) and noteworthy snubs (sorry, Tree of Life-ers) in the main event. Meanwhile, the animated category dared to recognize the roundly loathed Cars 2, and the documentary voters gave at least on conspicuous Oscar snubbee a break (I'm looking at you, Senna).
Last night, during the 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors telecast, Meryl Streep's friends feted the honoree in grand fashion. There were video montages introduced, touching anecdotes told, funny memories recounted, musical numbers performed and splits done in her honor -- by Robert De Niro, Mike Nichols, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Kevin Kline, Anne Hathaway and Tracy Ullman (who co-starred with Streep in Plenty). It was an epic ode to the actress's "superhuman" onscreen ability -- one, that after ten minutes of increasingly heaping praise, began to feel like one of the most elaborate Oscar campaigns to date.
Screw Christmas. Forget Hanukkah. To hell with New Year's. There is only one holiday we celebrate in the dank, windowless labs of Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, and that is Oscar Night. Thus the latest edition of Oscar Index, offering all the festive year-end joy you can possibly stand. Let's get to it!
Tucked away in this report that Orson's Welles's Citizen Kane Oscar finally sold this week for $861,542, find this depressing revelation: "Underbidder David Copperfield had been eager to acquire the statuette because Welles apparently was something of a magician himself. Copperfield already owns many props from the movie." The winner of the auction has not been identified, but whatever. "Underbidder David Copperfield." Saddest holiday ever. [Deadline]
The Hollywood Reporter's resident awards guru and all-around nice guy Scott Feinberg invited me to join him on the latest installment of his "Feinberg and Friends" podcast, which is now live at THR. Therein we go deep -- like, deep deep, or Ed-Harris-gagging-down-amniotic-fluid-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-in-The Abyss deep -- on this year's awards race, including but not limited to...
The Weinstein Co., who along with Movieline have championed Uggie the dog's gripping performance in awards season frontrunner The Artist, broke the news today via Twitter that the canine thespian, alas, has not qualified for contention in this season's BAFTA race. "@BAFTA has stated that @Uggie_TheArtist is not qualified to run as Best Supporting Actor for the role of 'DOG' #Sadmomentintime," the studio lamented. Fear not, Uggie -- the Oscars may recognize your genius yet! (Go Team Uggie!) [@WeinsteinCo]
Still reeling from this week's installment of Oscar index, Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has had a rare Thursday open for business. Blame the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the shadowy swag goblins behind today's predictably headscratching slate of snubs, surprises and subplots also known as the 69th Golden Globe nominations. So far the Institute has chosen 10 worth investigating, but feel free to weigh in with your own as well:
Aside from a few honors of the Teen Choice and MTV Movie variety, newly minted Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe nominee Jonah Hill is an awards virgin -- which makes this year's lead-up to the Oscars particularly exciting for the actor, who earlier this year impressed critics with his role in Moneyball as Brad Pitt's Ivy League-educated, number-crunching Oakland A's wingman. The role, like his 2010 titular turn in Cyrus, was a welcome departure from the wise-cracking characters audiences have grown accustomed to seeing him play, from the early days of Knocked Up and Superbad to last weekend's The Sitter. Next up, Hill uses his sarcastic charm to crack down on a high school drug ring in the March 16 feature adaptation of 21 Jump Street, which Hill also wrote and produced.
The nominations are out for the 69th Golden Globe Awards, and they favored pretty much everyone front-and-center in the awards race to date, with the requisite snubs, surprises and other laughable curios (they had to wedge War Horse in there somewhere, right?) with which Ricky Gervais will no doubt have a fine time on Jan. 15.
The exhaustion levels are high and the confusion levels are even higher at Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the white-coated minions responsible for the Oscar Index have struggled to assay the state of the awards race through this week's persistent turbulence. Read on for their results.
It's the little things that get us through one otherwise interminable awards season after another: Oscar-nominee trading cards, #ConsiderUggie, The Daldry... That kind of stuff. But perhaps the most remarkable development of the current awards cycle sprung immediately, kind of miraculously from the previous most remarkable development of the current awards cycle. And it all benefits Drive scene-stealer (and recent SAG Award snubbee) Albert Brooks.
The nominations for the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards are out, and whoa: Presumed competitors Michael Fassbender, Albert Brooks, Shailene Woodley and the ensemble cast of Margin Call are nowhere to be found, while dark horse Demián Bichir has finally caught up with the lead-actor pack and The Help further boosts its front-running profile. Read on for the complete list of both film and TV nominations, and drop back by later today for more analysis and commentary in Movieline's Oscar Index.
The fifth annual Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking will be handed out next month in New York City, with such inveterate documentarians as Errol Morris (Tabloid), Steve James (The Interrupters) and Kevin Macdonald (Life in a Day) facing off against the upstart likes of Alma Har'el (Bombay Beach), Tristan Patterson (Dragonslayer) and Clio Barnard (The Arbor). But look no further than the Audience Choice Award nominees for the most dynamic, high-stakes clash between old and new.
Good news for those Drive fans who've spent the last three months wondering who they had to head-stomp to get some awards recognition around here: The Broadcast Film Critics Association has singlehandedly boosted the film back into the seasonal spotlight, nominating Drive for eight Critics Choice Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. That tied with The Help's showing, and while it isn't quite the haul enjoyed by The Artist and Hugo -- which nabbed 11 nods apiece -- it's something! Be encouraged! Read on for more notes and the complete list of this year's Critics Choice nominees.
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