It's interesting that as the Oscars' Best Picture category has expanded this year in a bid to be more populist, several of the other categories almost seem to have compensated by becoming more draconian in their rules. Already, the seemingly simple Best Song category has gotten ridiculously specific about what can and can't qualify (even its Grammy corollary has gotten confused!) and this week, a bunch of odd upsets and disqualifications were announced in the Score and Screenplay categories.
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TV icon Betty White -- her many moods pictured here in this trance-inducing For Your Consideration ad -- is the recipient of this year's Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award, and deservedly so. And it's her The Proposal co-star, Sandra Bullock, who'll present the tribute to White's six-decade-long career. (The show airs live on TNT and TBS on Saturday, Jan. 23.) Since Betty holds a special place in our heart, we thought we'd pitch in by offering up some raw footage for the highlight reel to come.
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The Producers Guild of America this morning sent word of its 2009 nominations, which look a lot like every other guild and awards body's nominations. On the film side, Oscar front-runners Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air and Precious are represented, as is Up, which has the notable distinction of nominations in both Best Picture and Best Animated Picture. Small-screen awards darlings Grey Gardens, Georgia O'Keeffe and Taking Chance are among those recognized on the film side. The full list is after the jump.
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Last year, industry observers were surprised when the Writers Guild of America announced its nominations for the Screenplay Awards and left off two high-profile contenders: WGA-winning hero Charlie Kaufman, who'd made his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York (which just topped Roger Ebert's best-of-decade list), and Jenny Lumet, who had received the lion's share of glowing media profiles that season for her Rachel Getting Married script. However, a closer look could have revealed one strong clue why neither writer was nominated, and it's one that could spell trouble for any Weinstein Co. hopeful aspiring to a WGA award this year.
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America's leading film critics picked up this year where they left off in 2009, awarding The Hurt Locker its Best Picture, Director and Actor prizes during voting Sunday. The rest of the winners might sound slightly familiar as well, though a few modest surprises sneaked into place as the society's convoluted voting procedure yielded Best Actress winner Yolande Moreau of Seraphine and a tie between Supporting Actor recipients Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) and Paul Schneider (Bright Star). Not that anyone here is complaining; take any surprises you can get during the awards slog. Read on for the full list of winners.
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Obviously Duncan Jones, the director whose excellent debut Moon features an awards-caliber performance by Sam Rockwell, either hasn't read or doesn't share Movieline's position on the value of a non-campaign awards campaign. And today I'm kind of glad about that, because it's way more entertaining (if ultimately depressing) to read his new tweets lambasting Sony for jilting his low-budget baby in its quest for Oscar.
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If and/or when your little ones ever ask you that embarrassing question about how Oscar nominees are made, you can either do what millions of parents before you have done -- nervously deflect the query until you're ready to broach the intimate subject -- or you can do what The Wrap did and solicit an answer from the Academy itself. Your kids will remain profoundly confused in any case, but that's to be expected at their age. What isn't as expected is for you to be worse off than you were before reading the balloting rules. Isn't there a way to simplify this? Of course there is, and it's after the jump.
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The American Film Institute has released their companion list to their Movies of the Year honors: the 2009 Moments of Significance, recognizing, for better or for worse, eight unassailable trends, influencers and emergences to color the year in film, TV and digital media. Among the recognized forces of significant-moment nature:
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Though the Oscars have expanded the Best Picture field to ten nominees this year, there are still going to be some contenders that end up as also-rans. Sure, we can expect a couple of mortal locks like Avatar, Up in the Air, Precious, and The Hurt Locker to gobble up several of the slots, but which former frontrunners are in danger of missing the shortlist entirely? Here are five Best Picture candidates whose chances are bruised, beaten, or by no means assured:
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The last time anyone checked in with Adam Shankman's Twitter feed, the choreographer/director/Oscar producer was soliciting (and even hinting at) big changes for the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony next March. Adam Lambert came up at some hilarious point, as did the Twilight gang and regulars from So You Think You Can Dance. (That latter proposal appears to have reached fruition, by the way.) Now, however, as Shankman continues his tweet-of-consciousness Oscar-show brainstorms, the suggestion box might have finally reached capacity.
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It seemed reasonable enough last week to deduce Jim Cameron's motivations behind issuing a new Avatar set photo of Zoe Saldana -- head-rigged, mo-capped and mewling in character as Na'vi princess Neytiri. Beyond its basic, "here's how we did it" purpose, the photo seemed also to suggest that CGI is only as effective as the flesh-and-blood performance underneath it. Saldana's own performance is pretty strong, and in a new conversation with his fellow Oscar-winning visionary Peter Jackson, Cameron won't let you -- or the Academy, if its members are listening -- forget it.
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The London Critics' Circle has released its nominees for their U.K.-centric awards, and An Education led the pack with seven -- including British Film of the Year, and nods for Carey Mulligan in both the actress and British actress categories. A Prophet took five, including actor, screenwriter, foreign language film and directing honors. Its director Jacques Audiard will face down Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Michael Haneke and Jason Reitman in that category. Quentin Tarantino will be awarded the Dilys Powell award for excellence in cinema.
The full list of nominees is after the jump.
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The Screen Actors Guild this morning passed along its nominees for the 16th annual SAG Awards, which didn't yield much in the way of surprises. But beyond Precious, Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air leading the way with three nominations apiece, the list (published in full after the jump) wasn't without its minor intrigues. [UPDATE: Accidentally omitted TV nominees are below now as well.]
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The Academy has whittled down the list of eligible Best Song nominees to a scant 63, including such favorites as "The Weary Kind" and "I See You," as well as some lesser known melodies you may have overlooked: Songs like "The Word Is Love," for example, from Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!, or "New Divide" from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, "Na Na" from Couples Retreat, and, finally, "AyAyAyAy" from The Maid. If "AyAyAyAy" is smart, it'll take a cue from Mo'nique and not mount a campaign. After all -- the work is right there in the chorus: "AyAyAyAyAyAyAyAy [x3]" [IndieWire]
The awards-season campaign push is officially on, with this year's Golden Globe nominees passing along their thanks and day-of recollections to various press -- while also hinting at their fortitude for the Oscar run ahead. Even Mo'Nique, the Supporting Actress favorite whom many (including Movieline) had previously thought was disinterested in and/or too expensive for the rigmarole, has started to sneak incrementally closer and closer to the spotlight. But frankly, I think Mo'Nique should stop right there. Not necessarily because she's already a lock for the Oscar, either, but because she's the prototype for how awards campaigns should be done in 2009 and beyond.
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