Oscar's "Best Original Song" category is unusually thrilling; you might not remember the nominated tunes (or even the movies), but you cheer when Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" defeats three Dreamgirls contributions, and you groan when Phil Collins's monkey love medley from Tarzan beats Aimee Mann's "Save Me" from Magnolia. This time, Movieline is offering to help the academy by drawing attention to three underdogs who deserve more recognition than, say, anything from the Burlesque or Country Strong soundtracks.
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What a week for Movieline's Oscar Index, which spent hours upon hours parsing all the riffs, renouncements, meditations, hyptotheses, 140-character Burlesque dismissals, projections and whatever else the punditocracy managed to summon in a frame overwhelmed with year-end awards frenzies. How does it all apply to the Oscars? There is only one way to find out. To the Index!
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So I know this ballet teacher in New York who was all jacked up on Black Swan before it opened here last weekend. She admits she doesn't see many movies in theaters, but from the trailer ("It looks scary; is it scary?") and a few previews ("The pointe work is on; I'd have to see the rest of it"), she knew enough to be despondent after having been shut out of two sold-out shows on Sunday evening. Thus is the curiosity and anticipation guiding many dancers to Natalie Portman's performance -- a physical, uncompromising bit of work that, so far, has dancers relatively unanimous in their approval. Relative, that is, to those lesbians who wrote off Portman's chief Oscar rival Annette Bening in that "f*cking disgusting" dramedy The Kids Are All Right.
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Welcome back to Movieline's Oscar Index, your weekly, foolproof guide to the competition in the Academy Awards' six major categories. Er, maybe not "foolproof"; this is Oscar season we're talking about, when fools reign and underdogs crouch behind virtually every corner. Let us once again browse their ranks, yes?
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Leave it to AMPAS to supplement your winter workplace malaise with its new Oscar Countdown, a procrastination-friendly feature recounting all 82 Academy Award ceremonies -- one day at a time until the 83rd annual ritual next February. Fun fact from the first show: "270 people attended the event, mostly Academy members. [...] Guests of members were invited to attend at a slight charge of $5 to their hosts." That would be $63.95 in 2010 dollars. What a deal, or something. [Oscars.org]
We all knew Jacki Weaver was talented and competitive and swag-friendly and mega-qualified for this year's Oscar race but this... This is just unfair: "[W]hen I was seven, I wanted to be Esther Williams. I was drummed out of Brownies because I snuck off to the cinema to watch an Esther Williams festival -- my greatest wish if I get to Hollywood is to meet her. [...] I can't believe I'm talking to Vanity Fair. I've got the Cher issue in front of me. Who knows, maybe one day I'll get to meet Graydon Carter!" Your move, Hailee Steinfeld. [VF]
If you've been keeping up with the Oscar Index, you'll know that 2010 is like pretty much any other year in the history of awards-season: A handful of talent breaks out early, shifts position throughout the fall, then settles into a mostly predictable nominee bracket by the end of January. It used to annoy me, but the reality is that the system Hollywood wants is the system Hollywood gets. But at least we can dream, no?
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Another week, another prowl through the sweltering maze of hyperbole and hypothesis that is Oscar season. Put on Take off your thinking cap -- it's time to speculate with the best of them (informedly so, sort of, but still)! On to the Index!
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Breaking: Nikki Finke writes that she's "just learned that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has asked James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the Academy Awards, and it 'looks like' both young stars have accepted the offer. There is always the chance that one of them might back out because of prior commitments. But my sources say the host announcement could be made as soon as this week." Oh, so this is what they meant by wanting to work on the Alien prequel. Great euphemism! [Deadline]
Welcome back to another week of Movieline's Oscar Index, a comprehensive survey of hype, hubris and other standard-issue awards-season happenings. This week it's The King's Speech's turn in the spotlight -- but the competition isn't so far behind. Let's break it down.
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Hark! The annual inventory of snubs, surprises and sighs that is the Academy Awards' Documentary Feature Short List announcement is underway, and there are a few doozies. Just another year in the doc branch, folks!
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Another week, another turbulent week in the life of Movieline's Oscar Index. Some soared, others, not so much. And others still just held on for dear life and made the whole race kind of stagnant, to be honest. What do you say we shake it up? Here's the latest...
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Is it too early to assume that Toy Story 3 will run away with this year's Best Animated Feature Oscar? Well, let's put it this way: If the Pixar blockbuster is somewhere in the middle of the Best Picture pack, and none of the other, just-announced 14 submissions for Animated Feature are even in the Picture conversation, that kind of invalidates the Animation competition as a whole, right?
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As presumed, Jean-Luc Godard blew off the weekend's Governors Awards ceremony in Hollywood. But the eminently quotable filmmaker and Hyundai pilot was in the news nevertheless, deflecting charges of anti-Semitism. "That's nonsense!", he told an interviewer. "What does 'anti-Semite' mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing." Anyway, now you know. [NZZ via Landscape Suicide]
Another bit of late turbulence this week as Movieline's Oscar Index came in to land, starting with more affected 127 Hours viewers and finally some bankable word on the prospects for The Fighter. To wit: Christian Bale, clean your tux and clear your schedule. You will be busy.
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