This is pretty much perfect: "since i am blamed whenever people don’t like it, but never praised when they do, and since most critics forget that they liked or hated something two years ago and cite it as a strength or weakness two years later, i’ve come to be philosophical about the show. if people don’t like the comic who hosts, they hate the show. if no comic hosts, they hate the show and demand that a comic be summoned. when he’s edgier, like chris rock, we get slammed. when he’s bland, like ellen, we get slammed. but a few things are clear. this is the oscars. they still mean something after 83 years, at least in the industry. unlike the mtv awards, their audience is not exclusively 9-18 year olds. unlike the golden globes, the voters are people who actually make movies, not pretend to be journalists. some things are simply inappropriate. it’s a dance every year to figure out what those are. every single line on the oscar show is negotiated. unless you’ve been there, you have no idea how it is put together. it’s like nothing else on earth. i’m writing a book about it, but i have to throw in my sexual escapades to make sure it sells." [Filmdrunk]
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I mean, of all the things bringing down that Oscar intro, Twitter jumped on this? "'I am 100 percent certain that my father is smiling. [...] Billy previously played my father when he was alive, and my father gave Billy his full blessing,' she continues, noting that Saturday Night Live gave the imitation 'legendary status.' [... Tracey] Davis, now 50, does however take issue with using the word 'blackface,' attributing the term born in the 1800s to describe white actors in makeup playing black characters, to early film stars such as Al Jolson, not Crystal, per se." [THR]
I had vowed to get on with my life and leave the Academy Awards alone today. That all changed when a friend alerted me to an eye-popping moment on the Oscars red carpet that haunted my dreams and now demands reckoning. Dear readers, does anybody knows what the hell is going on here?
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This would never happen in America: "The two main candidates in this spring’s presidential election took a break from their mudslinging to crow. 'This is a tremendous success for the French cinema,' exclaimed President Nicolas Sarkozy on RTL radio Monday morning. 'I adored The Artist of course.' François Hollande, the Socialist challenger, said on his Web site, 'Bravo to the entire cast of the film, and bravo to French cinema.'" [NYT]
Either animal obsessions are instinctive to this awards season, or someone's been unduly influenced by Movieline favorites Uggie and Otis the Oscar Cat. There is no other real takeaway from the latest animated news video from the folks at NMA, which makes nifty work of summarizing an utterly depressing, anticlimactic Academy Awards evening that "clocked in at just under 10 hours." Have a look and see if your memory matches theirs.
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Hollywood's biggest (and possibly most anticlimactic) night is upon us, which can only mean one thing: Movieline's third annual Oscar Liveblog Extravaganza! Join your Movieline editors and loyal readers as we parse the Academy Awards to within an inch of their glamorous lives. The fun begins on the red carpet at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, with the Oscarcast proper commencing at 8:30 p.m ET/5:30 p.m. PT. And in any case, keep abreast of this year's Oscar class with our commentary after the jump.
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Forty-eight hours to Oscar. Gut-check time — or maybe make that "gut-instinct check" time, a moment to break away from the meticulous zeitgeist-combing science of Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics and make a few choices for myself. Not that they'll be so different, but if you can't go with a hunch where 5,765 fickle, insular industry minds are concerned, then what can you go with? We can't all be be Otis the Oscar Cat, you know. Anyway, let's make this quick:
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When the Academy announced its nominations last month for Best Animated Feature, two waves of surprise washed over Oscar watchers: Not only was Pixar left out in the cold for the first time in its history, but also two lesser-known films from abroad made the cut in the category: the noir-y French entry A Cat in Paris and the Spanish-language jazz-romance Chico and Rita. The directors of those films, along with Kung Fu Panda 2 helmer Jennifer Yuh Nelson, one of few female directors nominated this year, spoke with Movieline about the recognition from the Academy, technologies such as 3-D and motion capture, and their Oscar night excitement.
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The films almost couldn’t be more different: Hugo is an epic, 3-D family film that wraps us up in a warm glow, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a chilling murder mystery set in the stifling Nordic winter. Robert Richardson and Jeff Cronenweth — the cinematographers (pictured above R-L) tasked with making these respective worlds believable — will contend this weekend for an Oscar for Best Cinematography (along with The Artist's Guillaume Schiffman, The Tree of Life's Emmanuel Lubezki and War Horse's Janusz Kaminski). Movieline spoke with Cronenweth and Richardson about their approach and style on their nominated films as well as their recognition from the Academy.
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The Academy Awards telecast stopped being a one-screen experience years ago. An Oscar viewing party is all well and good, but with a computer or phone nearby, a virtual theater full of people will enhance the experience from the first red-carpet arrivals to the music playing over the Best Picture winner’s speech. Yes, your friends are witty and can also fetch you a beer, but the best jokes about the winners, losers and everything in between are on Twitter. Some professionals make watching the Oscars simply worth the hours (and hours) spent. Doug Benson is one of them.
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Each Wednesday for the past five months, my colleague S.T. VanAirsdale has fearlessly navigated the ever-shifting Academy Awards tides with his weekly Oscar Index, a gig that’s enough to make even the most intrepid seafaring mortal long for dry land. It’s in sight, Stu! By this coming Monday morning, all of our meticulously calibrated predictions, as well as our wayward hopes for our own personal favorites, will amount to little more than scraps of speared whale blubber, receding in the distance as we move toward next year’s Oscar broadcast. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s still time to savor the last-minute glitter wave. To that end, here are my own Oscar predictions for each category, followed by the candidates I wish would win.
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And why? Because they're based on hype. But that's OK, Ben Zauzmer — Harvard freshman, analytical whiz kid and proprietor of the new "matrix algebra"-based awards prognostication site Ben's Oscar Forecast! Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has the science down and is soliciting interns for next year's awards-season death march. Inquire within.
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As the Academy and its guests gather Sunday to enthusiastically slap congratulatory-calloused backs at the Oscars, an altogether different condition will overtake multiplexes nationwide. There, audiences will be confronted by a one-joke hippie comedy with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston (Wanderlust), an Amanda Seyfried thriller withheld from critics before opening day (Gone), the Navy SEAL recruitment effort (Act of Valor), and frequent Oscar week performer Tyler Perry, departing from his matriarch Madea for a change (Good Deeds).
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As the big night fast approaches, it’s time for another of Movieline’s virtual awards roundtables. Our Oscar nominees this time are up for Best Costume Design. They are (in alphabetical order):
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It's been known to galvanize everybody from the upper echelons of Academy leadership to the vexed likes of Corey Feldman. But regardless of the politics and passions, it's ultimately the all-too-rare equalizer for folks looking to play the odds at any Oscar party: The In Memoriam montage.
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