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!
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.
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 New York Film Critics Circle made waves by moving their awards announcement up to November 29 in an effort to claim "First!" but Oscar-watchers have to admit: Between the NYFCC Twitter roll-out and this morning's Spirit Awards nominations, there's a crackle in the air on an otherwise slo-o-o-w news day. So what if the New York critics didn't get a chance to see everything before voting today? They saw Tree of Life! (Clearly.) Hit the jump for the list of winners.
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.
FILM NEWS 