There you have it: Your 83rd Academy Award nominations are on the record, with the season's front-running standard bearers The King's Speech, The Social Network, True Grit, Black Swan and The Fighter leading the way. And as usual, Academy voters also let slip a few key surprises and snubs that we'll no doubt be talking about for the hours and days (if not weeks and months) come. Read on for the Oscar class of 2011 and chime with your hopes, dreams, apprehensions, resentments and whatever else strikes you about this year's nominees.
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Can you feel the excitement in the air? It's Oscar morning! To celebrate, Movieline is live streaming the nominations right here, meaning you'll be the first of your social network to find out which films will be participating in the Academy Awards rodeo on Feb. 27. And don't forget: Stick with Movieline, post-nominations, for expert analysis, witty commentary, and maybe even a surprise or two. In the meantime, watch the nominations ahead.
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Might The Social Network be God's choice to win Best Picture? "Entering cyberspace," Pope Benedict said today in an address essentially giving his blessing to social networking, "can be a sign of an authentic search for personal encounters with others, provided that attention is paid to avoiding dangers such as enclosing oneself in a sort of parallel existence, or excessive exposure to the virtual world. [...] In the search for sharing, for 'friends,' there is the challenge to be authentic and faithful, and not give in to the illusion of constructing an artificial public profile for oneself." Huh. I always took him for more of a Black Swan guy. [Reuters]
Is there anyone reading this who honestly did not know that Sex and the City 2 and The Last Airbender were terrible, terrible movies? Because just in case, this morning's Golden Raspberry nominations reaffirmed that knowledge for everybody. Thanks? What started out as a way to poke fun at some laughably bad films -- when no other medium for doing so existed -- now, frankly, feels like piling on at best and mean-spirited at worst. Enough, already!
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Tuesday is the big, index-culminating day, dear cinephiles! Oscar day! All the 0s and 1s we punched into our Academydore 64 will turn into rightful predictions or sad mistrials. Before tomorrow's gigantic, Made in Dagenham-devoid announcement, we're counting down five long-shot nominations we'd love to see. Yes, The Social Network gets yet another round of props here. Sorry, Sean Parker!
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The hits just keep on coming for The Social Network. From comparisons between Mark Zuckerberg and Bernie Madoff to a potentially game-changing loss to The King's Speech at the Producers Guild Awards over the weekend, the assumed Oscar frontrunner feels decidedly wobbly as it heads into these final, pre-nomination hours. And here comes another poke: Speaking at a tech conference in Germany over the weekend, Napster founder Sean Parker finally gave his review of The Social Network and Justin Timberlake's performance. Was he impressed?
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Whether or not True Grit is able to score loads of Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning remains to be seen, but perhaps the Coen Brothers smash hit remake has a higher calling: Political fence mending. "In our current winter of high domestic anxiety, as in the politically tumultuous American summer of 1969, [True Grit] is a hit with the national mass audience and elite critics alike," wrote columnist Frank Rich in the New York Times over the weekend. "The new version is doing as well in New York and Los Angeles as in red Cheneyland." If Barack Obama is reading this, he'd be wise to include a few Cogburn-isms in his State of the Union address. Just with better enunciation. [NYT]
Back during the cold war, American intelligence was so starved for reliable information on the inner workings of the Soviet Union that they would analyze minutiae like which portraits had been removed or who was sitting where during parade processions. Well, now that the shock of The King's Speech surprise win over The Social Network at the Producers Guild Awards has slightly abated, we can engage in a little Oscar Kremlinology ourselves. Is it curtains for Zuckerberg and company? And does Black Swan stand a ghost of a chance?
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That sound you just heard was dear old Bertie screaming "F*ck, f*ck, sh*t, buggery balls!" Yes, The King's Speech scored a surprise upset at the Producer's Guild Awards, crushing the odds-on favorite, The Social Network, beneath its regal heel. Elsewhere at the awards, things weren't nearly as shocking, with the usual MadmenmodernfamilyColbertreport taking awards in their categories. Check out the full list of winners after the jump.
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The Social Network's ride to status as Oscar front-runner has been a fairly smooth one -- not even the charges that Aaron Sorkin's script too sexist and/or too fabricated has been able to knock the film off the tracks. But perhaps this will do the trick: Is Mark "Time Magazine Person of the Year" Zuckerberg running his billion dollar company like Bernie Madoff?
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As alluded to in this morning's edition of The Broadsheet, everyone in Hollywood seems stunned by the success story that is Black Swan. Even filmmaker Darren Aronofsky says he can't make heads or tails of the phenomenon, which has earned recognition everywhere from manic-comic Saturday Night Live segments to the supermarket-tabloid media obsessed with star Natalie Portman (now pregnant by and engaged to marry on-screen dance partner Benjamin Millipied). "I get the teenage-girl part of the audience because it's a coming-of-age story about a girl becoming a woman. But older people are seeing it too," he told the LA Times. "I don't know if even I understand it." Oh, Darren -- don't start being modest now: Let's hear it for lesbians!
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Contrary to what Marilyn Monroe sang in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, diamonds are not always a girl's best friend. Especially when said girl is at the Golden Globes, loses her borrowed $850,000 diamond bracelet and then uses her legendary cleavage to deal with the situation. Just ask Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks.
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The nominations for the 64th annual BAFTA Awards were announced this morning, and on the one hand, it's true: The BAFTA nominations don't mean anything with regard to the Academy Awards. Different voting bodies, different interests, different cultures, and even different release dates should confirm as much to anyone with so much as a casual interest in awards season. Nevertheless, there are a few red flags among today's citations -- not to mention some recent BAFTA/Oscar history -- that demand attention.
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