Maybe Ricky Gervais wasn't kidding when he tweeted that he has already claimed the Holocaust and pedophilia as Golden Globe monologue material. The polarizing Globes host and comedian has taken to his blog to express his true (R-rated) intent in hosting this year's ceremony and to declare that he will be making guests even more uncomfortable than they felt last year. Yikes!
Welcome back to Oscar Index, your weekly awards-season rundown from Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. And to be honest, there's not so much to run down: Descendants this, Artist that, some minor acting bumps and nudges... relatively quiet, truth be told. Now that I've totally sold you on this latest installment, let's check out the races!
Well now: Despite legendarily roasting all of Hollywood last year during his hosting gig at the Golden Globes (and the resulting grumblings among celebs and media alike) Ricky Gervais will be back to host the 69th Golden Globes Awards. See what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association had to say about the surprise confirmation, and the kind of jokes Gervais is already threatening to drop all over the telecast come January.
Over at Entertainment Weekly, David Fincher plays coy joking about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Oscar chances. [Some spoilers follow, though they'll come as no surprise to those familiar with Stieg Larsson's book or Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 film adaptation.] How likely is is that the Academy will be so turned off by the extremes seen in Fincher's film that they'd pass it over come nomination day?
Despite what could only be described as the week from PR hell, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had to take at least a little comfort -- OK, a lot of comfort -- knowing that it had its second most vital annual event to look forward to during the weekend: The Governors Ball, where Oprah WInfrey, James Earl Jones and makeup artist Dick Smith were bequeathed honorary Academy Awards.
I wrote as much on Monday, but take it from AMPAS president Tom Sherak: "Someone the Academy hired to perform a very important function messed up, messed up badly. He's done everything he can, but this is him. The Academy did what it needed to do by accepting his resignation when he offered it. Does it tarnish it? I hope not. If someone feels it does, then we will work really hard getting the tarnish off. It wasn't us, it was someone who worked for us. It's like anything else. I hope not. We are going to continue to do what we do, which is support the arts and the technology of arts, and we want to be as above the fray as we can be." [LAT]
It's been quite a day, and quite a week for Oscar watchers, but just imagine what Academy president Tom Sherak and Co. have been dealing with on the inside of the RatnerGate hullaballoo! They're probably thanking their lucky stars for Oscar-winning uber-producer Brian Grazer, who has agreed to step in to patch together the 2012 Academy Award telecast. Hit the jump to read invisible sighs of relief between the lines of the AMPAS official press release.
Oscar-ed out for the week? Don't be! Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics is here to remind both the casual and obsessive fan alike that the Academy Awards are, first and foremost about movies. With that in mind, let's have a look at where this season's Oscar Index crop landed after one of the most turbulent patches in recent memory.
"Oh, no. I've done that gig," Robin Williams responded when asked by Moviefone this afternoon whether he would consider replacing Eddie Murphy as this year's Oscar host. "Years ago I co-hosted with Alan Alda and Jane Fonda and I pretty much saw my career flash before me, before I started. So, it was like, 'No...' It's a tough gig. It's a weird night, man. It's pretty thankless in terms of if you do great, if they say that you're a little edgy, they say, 'He's cool.' If you're not, they're going to go, 'He's timid.'" [Moviefone]
There goes the Tower Heist contingent of this year's Oscars. Less than a day after Brett Ratner resigned as producer of the 84th Academy Awards telecast following a series of controversial remarks made while promoting Tower Heist, his star Eddie Murphy has forfeited his spot as this year's host.
It's been a rough week for Brett Ratner, whose big, ostensibly crowd-pleasing ensemble comedy Tower Heist debuted to lukewarm box-office figures and whose promotional endeavors have found him invoking his sexual history and bedroom technique to cringe-inducing effect. Today Ratner apologized for a "joke" he made over the weekend, responding to a viewer during a Tower Heist Q&A that "rehearsal's for fags." Wait, what? This is the guy co-producing the forthcoming Academy Awards? [UPDATE: Now he's a homophobe and a liar.]
There's good news and... well, more good news about this year's race for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. First, the number of submissions -- 18 -- exceeds the minimum of 16 required for a year of five nominees. (Last year only netted 15 submissions, and thus three nominees, as if anybody was going to knock off Toy Story 3 anyway.) And with a soft year for the likes of both Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, that means the field is pretty wide open for the first time in a while. What can win?
A busy weekend of awards-driven screenings greeted Hugo director Martin Scorsese, including Q&As hosted by Paul Thomas Anderson and James Cameron -- the latter of whom reportedly called the sweeping 3-D family flick a "masterpiece." "'[F]inally there is a Scorsese film I can take my kids to,'" Cameron was quoted as saying by Pete Hammond, who added: "And Cameron also told Scorsese it was the best use of 3-D he had seen, including his own films." The 2011 Oscar Index will never be the same. [Deadline]
Razzie authority Dan Kois is on to something: "Clint Eastwood is due! The man is 81 and has directed some real howlers, from Any Which Way But Loose to Invictus. Count us among the Razzie experts who really thought last year was his year; Hereafter, after all, was a metaphysical hash of half-baked ideas and ridiculous plot points, wrapped in a stomach-churning tsunami re-creation. But Hereafter didn't even get nominated! In fact -- and I know this will be hard to believe -- Clint has never been nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award, not even for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. [...] As one Razzie voter told me, "Even if J. Edgar is subpar -- that is, less bad than usual -- I plan to vote for Clint. The old man deserves it for all the crap he's made me watch over the years." [Grantland]
Welcome back to Oscar Index, your infallible weekly dispatch from Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. This installment welcomes a few new faces to the mix -- and not a minute too soon, either, as the race attains a strange, stagnant calm before the storm. Let's investigate!
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