After two or three months of observing the generally inert culture around the 2009 Oscar race, it's not too difficult to predict who or what will remain standing when the Academy announces its nominations Tuesday morning. Mo'Nique, Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Christoph Waltz and a group of other elite, well-known front-runners might go ahead and stamp their tickets for the Kodak Theater on March 7, but after the jump, find a few others who might wake up tomorrow to a pleasant (or not-so-pleasant) surprise.
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In the week and a half since Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner's conspicuous, Cold War-ish hostilities at the Golden Globes, pundits and awards-season observers haven't hesitated in taking sides in the duel over which writer deserves the most credit for Up in the Air. But at a recent Writers Guild screening, the accidental writing partners -- who apparently hadn't even met until well after Reitman finished shooting the film -- sought to protect their Oscar luster with a "Kumbaya" moment of unity, togetherness and some long-overdue transparency. Or damage control -- you decide.
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The Academy this afternoon narrowed its Best Foreign-Language contenders of 2009 into a convenient list of nine. While a few critical favorites were notably omitted (the acclaimed South Korean submission Mother, historically snubbed Romania's Police, Adjective), the front runners you know and love (or at least expect to see) are represented as usual. The others, meanwhile? Your guess as to the finalists is as good as ours. Let's attempt to make heads, tails and odds of it after the jump.
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Oscars co-producer Adam Shankman's ongoing Twitter dispatches may have some purists worried -- Adam Lambert? SYTYCD regulars? Marlon Wayans-produced John Hughes tributes? -- but today's tweet should put them all at ease. In all the excitement, we almost completely lost sight of the fact that the Oscars are bigger than President Magneto-Dicks B. Carry on, Adam! [@adammshankman via Vulture]
The cheeky, do-it-yourself awards-campaign engineers behind Moon have come up with their latest strategem in the long war to earn Sam Rockwell an Oscar nomination. And as with all overearnest TV appeals involving the humanitarian aid of disadvantaged children, it's kind of hilarious. But! Is it persuasive?
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It's been an interesting ride for Keisha Castle-Hughes since she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for the performance she gave in Whale Rider at age 11: She made a Star Wars cameo and toplined Catherine Hardwicke's middling The Nativity Story, then gave it her best shot with the sexy gay angel drama The Vintner's Luck, which had no luck winning fans at the Toronto Film Festival last fall. Still, the press release I received today announcing her guest-starring stint on the syndicated Hercules wannabe Legend of the Seeker...well, it's quite the cautionary tale, isn't it?
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The short list of prospective nominees for this year's Visual Effects Oscar was shortened even further today, when the Academy announced the six candidates in the running to lose to Avatar. Which isn't especially newsy in itself, though a browse of the remaining candidates does yield some fairly heavy hitters who will walk away empty-handed before the ceremony even begins. Now we just have to figure out who they'll be. Read on for the list and a some quick hunches.
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Last week while Hollywood slept, Moon director Duncan Jones expressed his displeasure with Sony over its lack of support for his "little film" in the run up the Oscars. Jones's Twitter barrage sparked a momentary burst of outrage and grass-roots momentum for recognition of Sam Rockwell's extraordinary one-man show as a marooned astronaut, and now, Movieline has learned why the studio put the kibosh to distributing DVD screeners to the Academy -- or its official reasoning, anyway.
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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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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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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 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]
