It's been quite a day, and quite a week for Oscar watchers, but just imagine what Academy president Tom Sherak and Co. have been dealing with on the inside of the RatnerGate hullaballoo! They're probably thanking their lucky stars for Oscar-winning uber-producer Brian Grazer, who has agreed to step in to patch together the 2012 Academy Award telecast. Hit the jump to read invisible sighs of relief between the lines of the AMPAS official press release.
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"Oh, no. I've done that gig," Robin Williams responded when asked by Moviefone this afternoon whether he would consider replacing Eddie Murphy as this year's Oscar host. "Years ago I co-hosted with Alan Alda and Jane Fonda and I pretty much saw my career flash before me, before I started. So, it was like, 'No...' It's a tough gig. It's a weird night, man. It's pretty thankless in terms of if you do great, if they say that you're a little edgy, they say, 'He's cool.' If you're not, they're going to go, 'He's timid.'" [Moviefone]
A brief tangentially related rant in the middle of RatnerGate: I usually give remakes a relatively fair shake before they prove their worth (or lack thereof), but Brett Ratner's potential redo of the underrated '80s teen sex comedy The Last American Virgin, I cannot abide. News of Ratner's intentions slipped by in his recent Howard Stern appearance, understandably, but he had this to say: "I think I jerked off to [LAV star Diane Franklin] at least two hundred times." Please, universe, don't let this guy ruin the most surprisingly sensitive teen comedy of the '80s. #RatnerFreeRemakes, anyone? [Howard Stern via Cinema Blend]
There goes the Tower Heist contingent of this year's Oscars. Less than a day after Brett Ratner resigned as producer of the 84th Academy Awards telecast following a series of controversial remarks made while promoting Tower Heist, his star Eddie Murphy has forfeited his spot as this year's host.
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Very happy news on the wire today: Wendi McLendon-Covey, whose hilarious role in Bridesmaids all but vanished in the film's third act, is set to star in A White Trash Christmas, a Christmas Carol revamp in which a "whiskey-soaked, trashy mother is visited by three ghosts who try to show her a path to a brighter future." While this character sounds like a retread of her Bridesmaids part, I'm always down for a lady-led Scrooged reboot. (A Diva's Christmas Carol, anyone?) This leads us to a larger question: Is McLendon-Covey the unsung hero of Bridesmaids? We provide evidence after the jump.
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Tilda Swinton's extreme exasperation is always a cinematic treat, but We Need to Talk About Kevin looks like it will achieve record levels of mania. As the mother of a sociopathic son (Ezra Miller), Swinton is giving it her all, which makes her underdog status in the Best Actress race a bit disappointing. Here, watch as Kevin tortures his mother to the tune of Buddy Holly's "Everyday" and adds some believable terror to your Halloween. Cannot wait for this movie.
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Awards screeners have yet to really start coming in (a few have already been sent out, including Sony Pictures Classics' Take Shelter, The Guard, and Higher Ground, and Summit's A Better Life), but this week's arrival of Attack the Block DVD screeners is a surprise entry to the season. The Sony/Screen Gems-released sci-fi pic was sent out to members of the L.A. Film Critics Association this week, although it's unclear how much of a campaign the studio plans, if any. Does the British kid-oriented genre film have a shot at awards season, anyway?
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It's week three of the 2011-12 Oscar Index, and the latest measurements, readings and conclusions are in from Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. And aside from a few startling exceptions, they don't look that different than the ones disseminated here last week. But make no mistake: Like it or not, stuff is happening! Read on for the latest developments.
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"I love George Clooney's movie, The Ides of March," Harvey Weinstein raved recently when asked for an Academy Award prediction. "I love politics, and this movie is the best political movie -- it's gotta be right up there with the best of the best. Seriously, it is the toughest, most incisive, no-bullshit movie I've seen this year. And [Ryan] Gosling hits it out of the ballpark. And the entire cast is great. Clooney just nailed it. It's an appropriate movie for these times. So Oscar prediction? That that gets nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. And it's not mine." [Vulture]
Well, lookie who just officially entered the Oscar race! Fox Searchlight excitedly Tweeted today that they'll release filmmaker Steve McQueen's hot festival pickup Shame on December 2, 2011. That means two things: A) Rejigger those early Oscar charts to allow for stars Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, and B) get ready for some erotic, angsty December sexytime. Just in time for the holidays! [@FoxSearchlight]
Beginning January 24, 2012, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will begin cracking down on the lifeblood that arguably keeps awards season flowing each year: Oscar parties. (Gasp!) "To the extent that the public dialog about the Oscars is who threw a good party or ran a successful campaign versus the quality of the work, that's off-point for us," Academy COO Ric Robertson told The Hollywood Reporter. "We want people to be talking about the work."
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You think the Oscars selection process gets political here? Just imagine sitting in the room when Russia's national Oscar committee grudgingly voted for Nikita Mikalhkov's enormous critical and commercial bomb, Burnt by the Sun 2: Citadel (Utomlyonnye solntsem 2: Predstoyanie), to become the country's official foreign language selection. Filmmaker and committee head Vladimir Menshov so strongly opposed the pick of the $45 million flop that he's now lobbying publicly for the film's director to pull out of the race.
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The entertainment world may have been a little shocked earlier this month to learn that Eddie Murphy would be hosting this year's Academy Awards but three-time Oscar host and Murphy's Bowfinger co-star Steve Martin has complete faith in the comedian's statuette-presenting ability. And a few mildly funny words of advice.
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This week we learned a lot of important lessons: First, that no matter how ridiculous something sounds -- like Eddie Murphy hosting the Oscars, what a joke! Oh, right -- things can always get ridonkulouser. Also: Madonna LOATHES hydrangeas, you serf! I mean, really. Pour a scotch and try to relax as we take you back through this increasingly silly week in Movieline news.
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What is it with hometown reunions and high school sweethearts this week? Already, we've seen Hilary Duff try to hijack Mark Polish before he can rekindle the flames with his teen crush (Winona Ryder) in Stay Cool. We've seen artwork for Diablo Cody's Young Adult, which features a teen lit novelist (Charlize Theron) who tries to reclaim her happily-married high school honey (Patrick Wilson). And now, we get a clip of Channing Tatum zeroing in on his love interest of yester-decade (Rosario Dawson) in a snippet from the star-packed Ten Year.
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