If the Olympics-elongated Oscar season seemed interminable this year, we've got some good news for you. AMPAS president Tom Sherak announced today that the 83rd annual Academy Awards will be presented on February 27, 2011. Count on another Best Actress divorce by March! [The Wrap]
Thought awards season was over? You were wrong! On March 27th at the Beverly Hilton, Matt Damon will be presented the 24th American Cinematheque Award by his longtime wonder brah, Ben Affleck. Damon is the youngest recipient of the award, deemed to recognize "an extraordinary artist in the entertainment industry who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion pictures." Past winners include Nicolas Cage, Bruce Willis and Bette Midler. Basically, this is "the famous person award" -- just roll with it. On hand for the ceremonies will be Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle, Bill Clinton (via videotape), George Clooney, Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Kimmel, Greg Kinnear, Ben Stiller, Charlize Theron and Robin Williams. Is that all? How many people do we really need to say, "Good job, Matt! Keep up the good work with the movies and the charity work and the conscience and the level-headedness and the being a great guy?" Seems like 5 or 6 should do the trick. And in another first, ABC will air the ceremony at a later date. If it goes anything like last year, when kooky drunk aunt Julia Roberts went on a potty-mouthed tirade about some of honoree Tom Hanks's lesser-beloved films, it should make for mildy distracting viewing! [toh!]
Though we don't tend to pry too much into actors' personal lives at Movieline, we couldn't help but notice a striking trend in the wake of Kate Winslet's divorce from Sam Mendes and the recent infidelity rumors that have rocked Sandra Bullock's marriage to Jesse James. Namely, why have so many Best Actress winners from the last decade seen their relationships implode shortly after?
After an extraordinary awards season when Kathryn Bigelow could do no wrong, she ran into a little bit more trouble during a brief stint this week at L.A. Superior Court. There, the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director could not break through the jury pool for a drunk-driving case.
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We all have an idea of what an "Oscar-winning film" is supposed to look like, but after last Sunday's awards show, it may be time to throw the old paradigm out the window. The Hurt Locker is only the latest Best Picture winner to flout the conventions of what kind of film takes home the top prize; in fact, it closed out a decade that was full of such wins. Here are six Best Picture winners of recent vintage that prove there's no such thing as a typical Oscar movie anymore:
Yes, another Oscar story, but you'll like this one! I promise. Guru-ish awards reporter Pete Hammond viewed Sunday's Oscarcast at the "Night of 100 Stars" Party -- which usually turns out more like the "Night of 12 Stars, 58 Character Actors, 17 Has-Beens, 12 People You Secretly Expected to See in the 'In Memoriam' Montage, and Pete Hammond" Party, except this year there was news. And it may be the Rosetta Stone to help decode where Avatar went wrong on its march to Best Picture.
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The most awkward moment from Sunday night's Oscar telecast was the acceptance speech hijacking from one Music by Prudence key player, Roger Ross Williams, to another, Elinor Burkett, or as Jon Stewart ID-ed her, "the woman who runs the snack counter at my synagogue's Purim festival." But there is only one person in Hollywood who could present Roger Ross Williams with the opportunity to re-do his speech on live television and then, miraculously, make the moment only more awkward. And that person is Larry King.
After the jump, Movieline breaks the awkwardness down into seven cringe-worthy components.
In a skin-crawlingly mean-spirited rant delivered on his radio show yesterday, Howard Stern, egged on by sidekick Robin Quivers, laid into Oscar-nominated Precious star Gabourey Sidibe. Calling her "the most enormous fat black chick I've ever seen," Stern predicted that "she's never going to have another shot. What movie is she going to be in? Blind Side 2? She can take out the whole front line...Listen honey, now you got a little money in the bank, go get yourself thin. You're going to die in like, three years."
Audio, and delicious comeuppance, after the jump.
In a skin-crawlingly mean-spirited rant delivered on his radio show yesterday, Howard Stern, egged on by sidekick Robin Quivers, laid into Oscar-nominated Precious star Gabourey Sidibe. Calling her "the most enormous fat black chick I've ever seen," Stern predicted that "she's never going to have another shot. What movie is she going to be in? Blind Side 2? She can take out the whole front line...Listen honey, now you got a little money in the bank, go get yourself thin. You're going to die in like, three years."
Audio, and delicious comeuppance, after the jump.
I don't know quite what to make of this shot of James Cameron meeting Kathryn Bigelow at the 2010 Oscars -- whether it was before or after Bigelow's Hurt Locker defeated Avatar for Best Director and Best Picture, or whether this was just an unfortunate angle on the ex-spouses' convivial Oscar-night embrace. At least two things are certain: If anyone is going to establish "strangratulation" as a new awards-season tradition, it'll be Cameron. And Harvey Weinstein is going to frame this. If he hasn't already. [Guardian via IW]
When two-time Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell took home her third trophy for The Young Victoria, the 49-year-old stunned even before she finished her walk to the dais. Her sheeny floral dress and shock burgundy hair were the first indicators of a rogue in the house, but her speech forced us to let out our corsets for a long, queenly guffaw. Furthermore, she was the night's sole British winner. Hear Powell's sly, yet sweet speech after the jump.
Now that our shared Academy Awards hangover is starting to subside, and the champagne-blunted memory of heaving your novelty Oscar statuette through a window after El Secreto de Sus Ojos' Foreign Language Film win wrecked your pool has come into sharper focus, we can begin to reflect upon last night's events. Though the list of winners played out almost exactly according to the narrative established during the interminable, brain-smoothing awards season (Geoffrey Fletcher's huge Precious adapted screenplay upset being the notable exception), there were still many important lessons to be learned from the ceremony if you just clear your mind, open your heart, and try to really hear what Oscar was gently whispering in your ear in the magical, fizzy moment before that tenth flute of Chandon finally did you in.
As if you couldn't already tell during his epic acceptance speech in front of broadcast cameras, Jeff Bridges has something to say about his Best Actor Oscar. And just as the producers and the orchestra weren't about to play him off after nearly 40 years of him waiting for this moment, the backstage organizers of the new "Thank-You Cam" weren't about to cut Bridges' extended thanks off either. This being Bridges, it's a must-see -- if you can spare that much of your afternoon.
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Stop us if you've heard this one before: A beautiful, talented woman acclaimed by Hollywood finds romance with a younger man associated with The Hurt Locker, who just so happens to be attending the same Oscar ceremony as that woman's famous ex-husband. No, we're not talking about the Kathryn Bigelow-Mark Boal-James Cameron triangle that grabbed so many headlines this awards season -- at least, not this time. This one involves Sean Penn, Robin Wright and Hurt Locker producer Greg Shapiro, and it may have gotten Penn booted from the Governors Ball.
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It was the moment of a lifetime for Nicolas Chartier, who'd just heard his name cited among the producers of the Best Picture-winning The Hurt Locker. He'd been handed his trophy, and the crowd around him cheered passionately in his honor. If only he'd been at the Kodak Theater instead of under a tent in Malibu.
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