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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There was good news and bad news at the movies over the weekend, where the first big box office frame of the new year showed a nice bounce from the sluggishness afflicting the end of 2011. The bad news? The comeback was led by the film equivalent of a dirty diaper. Let's have a look.
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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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Anyone who tells you that receiving a tattoo like the dragon design occupying a quarter of Rooney Mara's back in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will not hurt is a liar. Nevertheless, he's a competitively priced liar, according to a new survey of tattoo artists asked the simple question: "How much would it cost to buy a dragon tattoo?"
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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).
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!
'Twas the weekend of Christmas, and all through the house, many studio executives had good reason to grouse... Ugh, sorry about that -- it's the egg nog. In fairness, the holiday frame actually signaled a nice rebound from previous weekends (which, when considering the utter horror show this month's been, isn't saying so much, but still). Who got what they wanted for Christmas, and who did Santa all but skip? Your Weekend Receipts are here.
A slumpy month at the box office showed little sign of abating on Friday, when the holdovers Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked fought off a trio of high-octane newcomers -- including the abysmally performing We Bought a Zoo -- to lead the early holiday-weekend competition. Your Friday Box Office is here.
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!
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Tumblr Mouth Taped Shut recently unearthed a startling artifact: A vintage segment of the investigative news program Hard Copy exploring the case of one Harriet Vanger, a teenager who went missing decades ago from her family estate in Hedeby Island, Sweden. Watch the unsettling VHS-era report after the jump, complete with your favorite commercials from '80s primetime television.
Forget all that love for The Artist and Spielberg's Oscar-readyWar Horse; sometimes you need a jolt of pure Fincherian grime and menace to snap you out of the awards season doldrums. Enter these 30+ images from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, here to remind us that the Rooney Mara-Daniel Craig starrer is the feel-bad movie of the year. Shudder and shiver your way through Movieline's gallery and count down the days to December 21.
Over at Entertainment Weekly, David Fincher plays coy joking about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Oscar chances. [Some spoilers follow, though they'll come as no surprise to those familiar with Stieg Larsson's book or Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 film adaptation.] How likely is is that the Academy will be so turned off by the extremes seen in Fincher's film that they'd pass it over come nomination day?
David Fincher on his search for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Lisbeth Salander: "Scarlett Johansson was great. It was a great audition, I'm telling you. But the thing with Scarlett is, you can't wait for her to take her clothes off... Salander should be like E.T. If you put E.T. dolls out before anyone had seen the movie, they would say, 'What is this little squishy thing?' Well, you know what? When he hides under the table and he grabs the Reese's Pieces, you love him! It has to be like that." He eventually cast the "great weirdo" Rooney Mara for his "pervy" Americanized adaptation; read the full profile here. [Vogue]
Despite that one disgruntled moviegoer's complaints, there are plenty of diehard members of the cult of Drive, which incidentally has racked up a cool $30 million to date. Not too shabby, Film District. Perhaps it's fitting, then, that Ryan Gosling's Driver character has now been commemorated in the cutest, cuddliest way imaginable: as a crocheted amigurumi doll, complete with his signature toothpick and a yarn hammer. And you thought YOU were obsessed with Drive. Hit the jump for today's Buzz Break...
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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