The hits just keep on coming for The Social Network. From comparisons between Mark Zuckerberg and Bernie Madoff to a potentially game-changing loss to The King's Speech at the Producers Guild Awards over the weekend, the assumed Oscar frontrunner feels decidedly wobbly as it heads into these final, pre-nomination hours. And here comes another poke: Speaking at a tech conference in Germany over the weekend, Napster founder Sean Parker finally gave his review of The Social Network and Justin Timberlake's performance. Was he impressed?
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Whether or not True Grit is able to score loads of Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning remains to be seen, but perhaps the Coen Brothers smash hit remake has a higher calling: Political fence mending. "In our current winter of high domestic anxiety, as in the politically tumultuous American summer of 1969, [True Grit] is a hit with the national mass audience and elite critics alike," wrote columnist Frank Rich in the New York Times over the weekend. "The new version is doing as well in New York and Los Angeles as in red Cheneyland." If Barack Obama is reading this, he'd be wise to include a few Cogburn-isms in his State of the Union address. Just with better enunciation. [NYT]
The Social Network's ride to status as Oscar front-runner has been a fairly smooth one -- not even the charges that Aaron Sorkin's script too sexist and/or too fabricated has been able to knock the film off the tracks. But perhaps this will do the trick: Is Mark "Time Magazine Person of the Year" Zuckerberg running his billion dollar company like Bernie Madoff?
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As alluded to in this morning's edition of The Broadsheet, everyone in Hollywood seems stunned by the success story that is Black Swan. Even filmmaker Darren Aronofsky says he can't make heads or tails of the phenomenon, which has earned recognition everywhere from manic-comic Saturday Night Live segments to the supermarket-tabloid media obsessed with star Natalie Portman (now pregnant by and engaged to marry on-screen dance partner Benjamin Millipied). "I get the teenage-girl part of the audience because it's a coming-of-age story about a girl becoming a woman. But older people are seeing it too," he told the LA Times. "I don't know if even I understand it." Oh, Darren -- don't start being modest now: Let's hear it for lesbians!
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The nominations for the 64th annual BAFTA Awards were announced this morning, and on the one hand, it's true: The BAFTA nominations don't mean anything with regard to the Academy Awards. Different voting bodies, different interests, different cultures, and even different release dates should confirm as much to anyone with so much as a casual interest in awards season. Nevertheless, there are a few red flags among today's citations -- not to mention some recent BAFTA/Oscar history -- that demand attention.
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Based on nothing but pure conjecture, fandom and the musings of a few celebrities on red carpets over the last week, it seems to me that The Fighter has leapfrogged The King's Speech in the race to see which film will lose to The Social Network on Oscar night. So while the BAFTA nominations don't mean anything with regard to the Academy Awards, it's got to be nice for Team Weinstein to see such love for The King's Speech across the pond. Not that anything less was expected; after all, it's about Brits! Click ahead for the full list of BAFTA nominations, and enjoy a world where Javier Bardem gets named among the five Best Actors of the year.
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Now you've done it, celebrities. You're pretending that Ricky Gervais's zingers were anything but expected at Sunday's Golden Globes, and now he's never coming back. You malnourished spazzes! Would you prefer he can-can in front of a Best Picture montage like Billy Crystal? Wear Pleasantville costumes and flash Oda Mae side-eyes like Whoopi Goldberg? Jesus. Now we're screwed for the awards show we actually care about: The Oscars.
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Three reasons to be excited for the Golden Globes: 1.) Tina Fey may give a speech; 2.) Ricky Gervais may enjoy the longest broadcast chucklefit since Ed McMahon left the air; 3.) Every once in awhile, the Golden Globes award the right people and the Oscars don't. Join us for a stroll into Golden Globe past, where it turns out the HFPA sometimes -- sparingly, mind you -- executes better judgment than AMPAS.
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Even more bad news for Team True Grit. Yet another guild has snubbed the Coen Brothers mostly excellent Western, meaning the chances of a Best Picture upset win seem even more unlikely than before. (That the Oscar nominations haven't come out yet is neither here nor there, amirite?) The American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced their selections this morning, and "Roderick Jaynes" (nyuck) didn't make the cut (nyuck). Who did? The usual suspects! Click ahead for the full-list -- though you could probably guess it right now without even looking -- and feel free to read these tea leaves in the comments section.
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It was a busy, busy week in Movieline's Oscar bureau, where a few key guild nominations and one of the smartest campaign tricks in years in years left us sorting through the Best Picture-race implications. Plenty more turbulence -- and a Jacki Weaver sighting -- trickled down through Actress and Supporting Actress. What does it all mean? To the Index!
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Awards-season slump aside, 127 Hours is on a roll in at least one of Hollywood's most closely watched demographics: Illegal downloaders. A new report has the James Franco film way out in front of Oscar competition True Grit and Inception; the revelation follows word that distributor Fox Searchlight will eschew SAG screeners for 127 and Black Swan in favor of secure iTunes downloads. Of course this whole thing royally screws up Movieline's 127 Hours Fainting Tracker, but that's the biz. Congrats? [THR]
There was a time when critics and Oscar pundits thought Danny Boyle's 127 Hours was a lock to nab one of the coveted 10 Best Picture slots -- if not in the top three, at least landing somewhere in the comfy middle of the pack. Then came the infamous faintings and those sluggish box-office receipts, and the jaunty amputation biopic started slipping downward in the weekly charts into the dark nether regions of the awards-season landscape, pinned between its rock-solid 93 percent Tomatometer and a very hard place: the outliers of the Best Picture 10.
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The Mel Gibson comeback train barrels into 2011 today with word that the troubled actor/filmmaker has earned awards-body recognition. The catch: He's been given the "Sexist Pig Award" from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, which also recognized more conventional kudos front-runners The Social Network, The Kids Are All Right (including Best Actress winner Annette Bening over Natalie Portman), The King's Speech and True Grit among its films of the year. Congrats to all! [AWFJ]
