Awards! So many awards -- this time around it's the Alliance of Women Film Journalists passing along the EDA Awards, their annual choices for the best, worst, weirdest and otherwise noteworthy films of 2011. Find an old standby at the top of the list, along with a few of the Alliance's customarily female-forward and refreshingly cheeky ("Most Egregious Love Interest Age Difference Award," anyone?) accolades. Congrats to all the winners!
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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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So much awards news! And it's not all good for J. Edgar, the latest high-profile Oscar hopeful to see its balloon deflate as the Academy rolled out its Best Makeup short list. High-fives are in order, meanwhile, for the teams behind Albert Nobbs, Hugo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 and four other awards contenders. Read on for the complete list.
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This just in: Kim Novak, star of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, has a beef with Oscar front-runner The Artist and its use of Bernard Herrmann's iconic love theme from the 1958 classic. Let's just cut to the chase and let Novak's words speak for themselves: “I want to report a rape... my body of work has been violated by The Artist."
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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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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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The first Oscar Index entry of 2012 finds Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics a little hungover from the holidays and lot bored from the protracted inertia of awards season. Not even this week's Producers Guild Award nominations could do much to shake up a contest that appears to be both wide open and solidifying into place at the same time. Let's investigate...
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The quietly building popularity of Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist is good cause for becoming immersed in the great films from the silent era — marathon style, for the brave among us. Silent films are more accessible than ever thanks to the Internet and the fact that some are now in the public domain, but home video remains a better viewing experience for many of them.
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I honestly have no idea where 2011 went. I vaguely remember what follows here. There might have been more. You tell me.
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Well, this should go pretty fast: The holiday week has offered a dearth of new narratives to trace and pulses to take, with only one film demonstrating any significant mobility in the studies coming out Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. Let's get to it!
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And so my most-favorite, least-favorite task of the year rolls around again. I never call it a "10 best" list -- meaning the unequivocal 10 best films of the year -- because I'm fully aware of how subjective it is. Yet as frustrating as it usually is to pull together just the right 10, I found the job surprisingly pleasurable this year. So many movies to love! How could this have happened? Let's not even address the fact that two 3-D movies made it onto my list -- that surprises me as much as anyone. The remarkable thing is that year after year, no matter how much samey-sameness Hollywood (or even so-called indie cinema, for that matter) seems to give us, there are always pictures that resonate, movies that stand apart as if to do so were their God-given right.
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The key to a list of moviegoing disappointments is the element of expectation: I am prepared to say I watched more suicidally bad films in 2011 than in any other year in my life; to be merely disappointed suggests a certain relativity.
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Screw Christmas. Forget Hanukkah. To hell with New Year's. There is only one holiday we celebrate in the dank, windowless labs of Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, and that is Oscar Night. Thus the latest edition of Oscar Index, offering all the festive year-end joy you can possibly stand. Let's get to it!
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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 that time of year for the Independent Spirit Awards to recognize the best and brightest indie films. Today, the panel announced their nominations with The Artist and Take Shelter leading the pack with five nods each. Click ahead and start placing bets on who will take home the awards this February.
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