Fun/sobering fact about pop culture in the 21st century: It's never too early to start thinking about the Oscars. Just yesterday it was revealed that summer darlings Annette Bening and Julianne Moore would both be submitted as Best Actress candidates for their performances in The Kids Are All Right. But which has the best chance of grabbing a nomination next year? Movieline investigates ahead.
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Oscar pundits have been holding down a space for Terrence Malick's long-delayed The Tree of Life for two years, and today brings both good news and bad. On the plus side: The Sean Penn/Brad Pitt drama is finally kinda-sorta dated! Downside: It's coming out next year. Fox Searchlight dropped the bomb today while announcing that the studio has picked up domestic rights to distribute, and considering the packed awards slate Searchlight is fielding this year (which includes Never Let Me Go, Black Swan, 127 Hours, and Conviction), maybe a 2011 berth is best. [Coming Soon]
David Letterman's 1995 stint as host of the Academy Awards may go down in infamy, but during a very winning visit to The View this morning, Letterman revealed that he turned down the chance for a re-do. "You know, they were nice enough to ask me to [host] it again," he told Barbara Walters. "And I just said, 'Come on, are you drinking?'" Letterman was adamant that he would never return to the scene of the crime: "I did it once, I had my shot, I screwed it up, and almost put an end to the Academy Awards...I sucked. What are you gonna do?"
Hey, check it out! Someone found eminent (and eminently elusive) French master Jean-Luc Godard! That only took a week and a freaking half, and there he was in his adopted home of Switzerland the whole time. All anyone had to do was look for his... Hyundai? Oh -- and prepare for the worst.
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"Word is [Natalie Portman]'s giving a pretty swell performance [...] Still, if it is a swell performance and it doesn't win her the Oscar for which she is now the alleged favorite, we'll look back on this day and think, 'How sad--it looked as if she had a shot,' and hope she can pick herself up and get it together to give another Oscar-worthy performance because this one will have gone down as a disappointment and she will be a loooooooooser." Please blog more, David Edelstein! [The Projectionist/NYM]
Congratulations to filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola and Jean-Luc Godard, actor Eli Wallach, and film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow on their imminent recognition at this year's Academy Governors Awards. They deserve it, but at least in Godard's case, will the French New Wave pioneer -- who historically sniffs at prizes and couldn't even be bothered to attend his latest film's Cannes premiere -- even show up to accept? Take Movieline's poll after the jump!
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One thing left unexplored on this Emmy Nomination Day is the EGOT, the extremely rare phenomenon that occurs when an entertainer wins an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. (Ironically, though the EGOT got its biggest spotlight ever thanks to Tracy Morgan's recent obsession with it on 30 Rock, he wasn't nominated for his role this season.) Here are the 2010 Emmy nominees who could get one step closer to attaining the Showbiz Award Grand Slam that has only been claimed by a dozen performers ever.
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So much for the bake-off! The Oscars used to release a list of seven semi-finalists for the Visual Effects category, eventually trimming the contenders down to a measly three nominees (which squeezed out films like Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and 2012 last year), but now that virtually every summer film has become an FX smorgasbord, the Academy has relented and expanded the nominee field to five. Keep your fingers crossed, Hydraulicon! [Coming Soon]
Let's be honest about one thing: You did not watch yesterday's 37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards Ceremony. You might have tuned in if James Franco had been nominated for his scene-stealing arc on General Hospital and you would have at least TiVo'd the Las Vegas event had you known that host Regis Philbin would accidentally disprove David Copperfield's entire career during the first 10 minutes of the telecast. But you did not, so relive the night's most exciting and incriminating moment after the jump -- and congratulate the newest Daytime Emmy winners while you're at it.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- a group so white, old and out-of-touch you'd think you're at a Republican convention -- has decided perhaps more people would watch their dog and pony show if their choices were a little more hip. In an effort to pump fresh plasma into their dusty veins, the AMPAS has inducted a whole slew of new Academy members. Among the rarefied few are Adam Sandler, Christoph Waltz, Tobin Bell of Saw infamy, along with some much needed non-white, non-male voices like Mo'Nique, Zoe Saldana and Gabourey Sidibe. On the other side of the camera, noted-Miley Cyrus despoiler Adam Shankman is on the list, as are Bono and The Edge, and Christian Bale's favorite cinematographer, Shane "f*cking distracting!" Hurlbut. Check out the full 135-person list after the jump.
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By now you've no doubt read the news that newly chosen Oscar producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer might be asked to start working on the telecast a little earlier than initially expected. Movieline sister site Deadline reports that the Academy Board of Governors is meeting to decide whether the 83rd Academy Awards should air sometime in January instead of the previously staked out date of Feb. 27, 2011. And while a few weeks might not seem like an earth-shaking decision, you'd be surprised at how many people are not cool with this. As Awards Daily scribe Ryan Adams wrote, "I only wonder what the hell has the Board of Governors squirming so restlessly that they suddenly want to overhaul and bastardize 83 years of tradition?" Um, bad ratings? But is that reason enough to make this change? Ahead, Movieline offers some pros and cons to the whole sordid affair.
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The Twilight Saga: New Moon was the big winner at Tuesday night's opening festivities of the Licensing International Expo. Held annually by the Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association, the Expo recognizes film, TV and other entertainment properties for their exceptional achievements in selling the living sh*t out of otherwise horrible content. And New Moon didn't even have MasterCards for tweens! Go ahead -- puke. I've got mints. [THR]
You might recall that 2009 was a super-congested year for visual-effects mavens in Hollywood, where not even conspicuously flashy $200 million budgets were enough for films like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and 2012 to get beyond the Oscar-nomination short list. Competition was tougher than ever to see which two films would be those fortunate enough to lose to Avatar. Now, however, the VFX community wants some radical changes made for next year's show.
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The Daytime Emmys were announced today and General Hospital led the pack of mostly expected nominees with a massive 18 nominations. Conspicuously absent from the list, though, was the man who brought that soap opera high ratings, media attention, and deliciously meta plotlines: the one, the only James Franco. How can this be? Did voters somehow miss his Tommy Wiseau-evoking Emmy clip? We've got it for you (and for you, James, in tribute!), as well as a list of the important nominees.
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Sandra Bullock showed up in person to accept her Razzie for All About Steve, but now she's being asked to give it back. "As Sandra was in such a rush after winning Worst Actress she ran off with the original handmade protype which has been present at ceremonies since the 1980s," said Razzies co-founder John Wilson. I'm sure this will become priority #1 for her. [Telegraph]
