The Oscars mean nothing without their celebrated past, and this year, five Oscar-nominated performances stood out to me as the descendants of five previous winners. Can you name the Academy-loved role that almost perfectly mirrors Nicole Kidman's in Rabbit Hole? The consecutive Oscar-winning Best Actors who laid the track for Mark Zuckerberg? What about the histrionic mother who predated Melissa Leo's character in The Fighter. Join us for a trip into the Oscar vault. For the hell of it, we're picking which performances were better, too.
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Hans Zimmer has been here before. His nomination today for Inception marked Zimmer's ninth in the Best Original Score category, an award he's won once before, for The Lion King. But on a day most people are celebrating, Zimmer is lamenting the fact that his director, Christopher Nolan (who Zimmer also worked with on the Batman films and The Prestige), was denied a Best Director nomination once again.
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Longtime proponents of Animal Kingdom co-star Jacki Weaver were thrilled this morning to hear their hero's name announced among this year's five Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees. And the Australian legend's warm if brief response has just come over the transom at Team Jacki HQ: "I'm elated to the point of euphoria. I feel like I'm in a walking dream. I'm so relieved that all those millions of Australians that wanted me to get this nomination aren't disappointed. Happy Australia Day." Aw! To you as well, Ms. Weaver. That said, this got serious today -- and we need more than press statements. We need a slogan; we need a battle cry.
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After winning the Best Original Soundtrack for The Social Network at this year's Golden Globes, composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were still not convinced that they would be recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- so much so that Reznor, the former Nine Inch Nails frontman, nervously parked himself in front of the television this morning after a sleepless night to watch the nominations himself. Alas, technological disaster struck -- an irony, considering that Reznor was being recognized for his work in the most tech-savvy film of the year.
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Last year at this time, journalist Sebastian Junger and war photographer Tim Hetherington were on their way to seeing Restrepo win Best Documentary from the jury at Sundance. Today, the pair are Oscar nominees for their searing and critically acclaimed film about the war in Afghanistan. Which doesn't mean the story is complete, of course: Junger and Hetherington will head back to Afghanistan in April.
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Today, John Powell, who has written the score for movies as diverse as The Bourne Ultimatum and Horton Hears a Who (and, yes, Gigli), received his first Academy Award nomination today for Best Original Score for his work on How to Train Your Dragon. Needless to say, it's been a long, strange road -- one that Movieline revisited with Powell after he received today's good news.
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Ryan Kavanaugh awoke early today with the rest of the industry, anticipating if and/or how the Academy would recognize his film The Fighter. But even as the Best Picture nominees were listed, and the Relativity Media CEO's production was among them, there was something a tad... off about it all.
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With eight nominations, perhaps The Social Network isn't the slam dunk runaway Best Picture favorite everyone thought it was, but that doesn't mean producer Michael De Luca (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) is disappointed with what transpired this morning. In fact, trailing The King's Speech and True Grit in total noms just plays into Team Social Network's wheelhouse.
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From swag suites to swank dinners, awards-season darlings are never wanting for cool free stuff this time of year. But what do you get out of the mix, dear reader, besides a slew of print and TV ads reminding you how freaking great The Social Network is? Or videos pitting James Franco against the world? This has to change. To wit: Who wants some Awards-Season Trading Cards, courtesy of Movieline?
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James Franco has been an Academy Award nominee for a little less than two hours now, but he's already fired his first shot across the bows of The Social Network and other "classically made" but utterly conventional Hollywood offerings -- Oscar front-runners or not. And he let it rip exclusively in conversation with Movieline.
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Let's just get this out of the way up front: Great job, Academy! That the AMPAS found room for everything from Winter's Bone to Toy Story 3 to the ferocious performance given by Movieline favorite Jacki Weaver means they deserve a bit of kudos. (If you're one of those, "Yawn, I'm too cool for the Oscars!" people, just go back to bed today.) Of course that doesn't mean many, many deserving nominees were left out in the cold this morning. Ahead, the six biggest from the major categories.
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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]
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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