Uggie's European sojourn carries on as planned, with appearances on both The Graham Norton Show and BBC News further bolstering the #ConsiderUggie campaign and the Artist wonder dog's all-around awards-season cred. You cannot stop Uggie; you can only hope to contain him -- with some sausages, I guess, but still.
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The New York Times reported Sunday that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' documentary branch is tweaking its qualification rules once again, allowing only theatrical nonfiction feature films that have been reviewed by the NY or LA Times to be considered for Oscar nominations. Furthermore, voting on nominees will be expanded to the entire 166-member Documentary Branch (as opposed to individual committees), and the Academy as a whole can vote for Best Documentary, regardless of how or where members saw the nominated films. The revisions have prompted more than a little hand-wringing around the doc community -- for no especially good reason, alas. Here's why:
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That unsubtle backhand slap you just heard was the sound of Steven Spielberg being whacked off his awards-season pedestal by the Directors Guild of America, which just announced Woody Allen, David Fincher, Michel Hazanavicius, Alexander Payne and Martin Scorsese as its 2012 Best Director nominees. This one has to hurt.
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ABC released a cutesy trailer for the 2012 Academy Awards telecast that speaks loads to the youthful new direction the show's makers were going in when they brought Brett Ratner aboard, before his untimely exit; in a slick parody of globe-trotting Hollywood fare, two heroes are tasked with tracking down wizened Billy Crystal for hosting duties on the Big Night. Those heroes? None other than Transformers castmates Josh Duhamel and Megan Fox, because of course. Nothing says current like the girl who was the hottest thing on earth three years ago! Watch the trailer and see if it entices you with its "Hey kids, check us out!" hip comedy stylings.
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After a few quiet holiday weeks on the #ConsiderUggie front, the awards campaign for The Artist's wonder dog has redoubled its efforts in that far-off land of influence and taste: Great Britain. Not to be outdone, a French awards body has finally thrown Uggie some much-deserved recognition. It's all coming together, folks!
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Over at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, tonight's double feature is a particularly inspired pairing of simian cinema from 2011: the cautionary thriller Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the equally harrowing doc Project Nim. What lessons can be taken from this matching of monkey movies?
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The Producers Guild of America just announced its 2012 award nominees, with a few surprises (The Ides of March? Again?) and noteworthy snubs (sorry, Tree of Life-ers) in the main event. Meanwhile, the animated category dared to recognize the roundly loathed Cars 2, and the documentary voters gave at least on conspicuous Oscar snubbee a break (I'm looking at you, Senna).
Last night, during the 34th Annual Kennedy Center Honors telecast, Meryl Streep's friends feted the honoree in grand fashion. There were video montages introduced, touching anecdotes told, funny memories recounted, musical numbers performed and splits done in her honor -- by Robert De Niro, Mike Nichols, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Kevin Kline, Anne Hathaway and Tracy Ullman (who co-starred with Streep in Plenty). It was an epic ode to the actress's "superhuman" onscreen ability -- one, that after ten minutes of increasingly heaping praise, began to feel like one of the most elaborate Oscar campaigns to date.
Glee has scored another Oscar-winning guest star. Nearly eight months after Gwyneth Paltrow's last episode, the Fox musical series has cast Helen Mirren in a role that was written explicitly for the British actress.
If you're both a movie fan and a consummate statistician, it's easy to love and appreciate the Oscars for shoehorning the majority of film history into a manageable grading rubric. I'm an Oscar apologist myself, and I still have one bone to pick with the Academy -- and all award-spewing organizations: the unnecessary reliance on gender-based categories. Is it not more thrilling to pit all actors against each other? Is there such an objective difference between Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock? Meryl Streep and Robert Downey Jr.? "Actor" is a gender-neutral term, and I think we'd all better off -- and better entertained -- without the meaningless siphoning. Thus, I'm stacking up the best performances of 2011 without categorical regard for gender or role size. It's a winner-take-all affair, and this winner definitely wants it all. Here's my top 10:
I have a particular fondness for the Oscars' Best Original Song category. Where else will you find Carly Simon, Eminem, Irene Cara, Marvin Hamlisch, and Keith Carradine together -- other than one fantastic revival of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown? The potential nominees for this year's award have just been released, an I'm already playing favorites with one criminally twee jam. Pick your favorite after the jump.
Charlize Theron's Best Actress Oscar win in 2003 was hardly unexpected. Roger Ebert had declared her performance as Aileen Wuornos in Monster "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema," and she cleaned up at the Golden Globes and Independent Spirit Awards. But there's no denying that Theron's win followed in a certain Oscar tradition, and in this funny clip with MTV, Theron acknowledges it as such. Let's compare notes with the Young Adult star and come up with our own recipes for Oscar victories in the big four acting categories.
It's time to do some shopping, kids. After a week of semi-reasonable Golden Globe nominations (!) and the tragic downfall of The Daldry, I'm throwing away wads of cash at the Glendale Americana and never looking back. Do you think they sell the exotic headgear Elizabeth Taylor wore in Raintree County? Maybe at Zara or something? I don't know. Let's review the week and run away somewhere.
The Weinstein Co., who along with Movieline have championed Uggie the dog's gripping performance in awards season frontrunner The Artist, broke the news today via Twitter that the canine thespian, alas, has not qualified for contention in this season's BAFTA race. "@BAFTA has stated that @Uggie_TheArtist is not qualified to run as Best Supporting Actor for the role of 'DOG' #Sadmomentintime," the studio lamented. Fear not, Uggie -- the Oscars may recognize your genius yet! (Go Team Uggie!) [@WeinsteinCo]
It's hard to be obsessed with the Oscars sometimes because they're often predictable, boring, and tolerant of things like Black Swan, but VINTAGE OSCARS is a whole different story. I could think about the discarded wedding dress Lee Grant wore for her Shampoo victory in '76 for days. And I have. Even better now, the Academy has released a dress code that legendary costumer Edith Head wrote for the 1968 ceremony. It is cold, direct, and bossy. It is awesome.
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