Month: December 2005

Steven Spielberg is allegedly going to start talking to the press about Munich (there’s an L.A. Times piece in the works) and making the rounds. And it’s not going to make any differ- ence. Spielberg could stand at the corner of Wilshire and La Peer every night at 7 pm passing out Munich leaflets and it wouldn’t matter. A film-critic friend said yesterday that “a let-the-movie- speak-for-itself campaign can work for the right film. The movie just needs to speak to people. Munich didn’t. Million Dollar Baby did. I think Pete Hammond saying ‘it’s not your father’s Oscar cam- paign any more’ is ultimately just excuse-making. Eastwood did very little press leading up to the nominations last year. Yeah, he’s Clint. He doesn’t have to glad-hand. But Million Dollar Baby copped seven Oscar nominations and four major Oscars last year simply by being a great movie. If Munich had delivered the goods, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

In a chit-chat piece posted yesterday (12.13) by “the Carpetbagger” — the New York Times “Red Carpet” Oscar-blogger — about his recent conversation with The Constant Gardner‘s Rachel Wiesz, he casually says the following: “It seems that as some of the end-of-the-year favorites stumble — no names need be mentioned although Munich comes to mind — that some movies like yours that came out earlier start to pick up steam.”

Here’s an excellent “power geezers” piece on Woody Allen by the New York Observer‘s Suzy Hansen. DreamWorks is seriously pulling out the stops to push Match Point into Best Picture contention. The more this first-rate moralistic drama gets seen and talked up, the higher it moves up on everyone’s list.
(Most Best Picture nominees say something about life that everyone knows to be bottom-line true, and Match Point obviously delivers in this respect.) The key to getting nominated will be whether DreamWorks’ marketing honcho Terry Press and Allen’s publicist Leslee Dart can convince Allen to attend the Golden Globes show on 1.16.05. If he shows and does the dance (he’s an absolute pro at winning people over) and submits to the process, it could happen.

Rogue tidal wave broadsides cruise ship, flips it over, many drown…and a small group of passengers led by gambler Josh Lucas (thank God he’s not an activist priest) try to somehow maneuver their way out of the ship. Very cool. It’s just called Poseidon (Warner Bros., 5.12.06) because adding “adventure” would make it sound like a Magic Mountain ride (and the similarities between theme parks and dumb-ass mass-market movies are pronounced enough as it is). One viewing tells you (a) it’s going to play more realistically than the original, and (b) it’s going to be one of those rooting-for-more-people-to-die movies. I hate the concept of big cruise ships anyway, so this’ll be fun. Love that CG wave!

I’m throwing together my Ten Best Films of the Year list for a piece that will go up tomorrow sometime, but I was thinking it also might be fun to run a “Red State Ten Best” list also…just for fun. You know, the year’s finest from the perspective of people who don’t want to know from gay cowboys…a ten-best list for people who just want to laugh and be scared and not get all bogged down in issues they don’t want to deal with. A list that might start with King Kong, say, and would avoid blue-state dramadies like The Family Stone and In Her Shoes. Suggestions?

The San Francisco Film Critics agree with my feelings about Kevin Costner and his loose-shoes performance in The Upside of Anger (voiced in the current lead story) by giving him their Best Supporting Actor award. (Yes!) They also went for Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, Heath Ledger for Best Actor, Walk the Line‘s Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress, and Junebug‘s Amy Adams for best Supporting Actress. They also gave their Best Dcoumentary award to Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, which, as mentioned earlier, the Academy’s Documentary committee diodn’t even include on its preliminary list of twelve. Grizzly Man will have its DVD debut on 12.26.

Universal’s “let Munich speak for itself” campaign…which of course was Steven Spielberg‘s concept to begin with (and thereafter conveyed by his spokesperson Marvin Levy to Universal publicists and Uni’s Oscar consultant Tony Angellotti) was obviously a mistake. Munich doesn’t open until 12.23 and won’t have its Academy showing until this weekend, but the flatline reactions from critics groups and the failure to score a Best Picture (Drama) Golden Globe nomination means it’s all but dead as a Best Picture Oscar contender. And yet Munich could have fared better if Spielberg had agreed to make the rounds and spar in the ring. Oscar prognosticator and Maxim critic Pete Hammond says that “you really can’t just sit back any more…it’s a different world and a different game these days. It’s not your father’s Oscar campaign any more. Oscar runs are like Presidential campaigns, and if everyone’s taking a shot at you every five minutes and you don’t respond and if [contrary views] get out there and they hold, it’s going to hurt. Munich is a political film about a political situation, and you’ve gotta react. You don’t let those kind of things go unanswered.” Levy says “we don’t feel in any way that our not getting a Best Picture nomination from the Golden Globes makes it less likely that we could [succeed] with the Academy…we could still get that nod.” Is Spielberg going to come out of his shell and start campaigning and mixing it up? Levy says “we haven’t talked to him about that, and we’re now evaluating where we are.”

A word of understanding and compassion for Oscar handicappers who stick their necks out. Just because you make a wrong call about this or that film being a “presumptive Best Picture Oscar winner” doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Oscar prognosticating is a very fickle and tricky game. On a nearly daily basis you have to (a) try and take the pulse of the town, (b) consider aesthetic criteria that has taken decades to accumulate and sink in, and (c) listen to your gut. And sometimes your gut ends up calling the tune, and sometimes your gut is wrong. But if you don’t listen to and occasionally express your instinctual readings, you’re being a milquetoast and an equivocator. If Teddy Roosevelt were an Oscar prognosticator, he might well have made a gut call for Munich or some other shortfaller. And you know what he’d be saying on a day like today? Life is not about playing it safe. There is no reward without risk. Real men lay their beliefs flat on the table and come what may.

Reese Witherspoon will win the Golden Globe (Musical Comedy) award for her Walk the Line performance, and that’s cool. But the also-nominated Sara Jessica Parker delivers a more skilled and much-more-difficult-to-pull-off performance in The Family Stone, and the HFPA members should really think this over before voting. Witherspoon’s June Carter is all about spirit and buoyancy…the sincerity and level-headedness of a good country girl. But Parker’s performance is a trapeze act, and the more I think about it the more exceptional it seems.

Hey, what happened to Diane Keaton‘s expected Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Family Stone? The HFPA put in the under-utilized Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain and the great Frances McDormand because she got Lou Gehrig’s disease in North Country, but they blew off Keaton? C’mon! Hearty congrats to The Constant Gardeneer‘s Rachel Weisz for her nomination in this category. (She deserves to win.) Ditto Match Point‘s Scarlett Johansson (absolutely deserved) and Shirley MacLaine for her perfect performance in In Her Shoes.

How did Pride and Prejudice manage a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture (Musical/Comedy)? It’s spirited and infectious and “romantic,” okay, but I don’t see how anyone could try to call it a dramedy even. The Broadcast Film Critics Association wants to be the new Golden Globes and elbow the GG’s aside….fine. But to get there the BFCA nominations have can’t just be numerous — they also have to veer into the ridiculous and be joked about around town. And right now, the Globes are way in front.

We all expected that Brokeback Mountain, The Constant Gardener and Good Night, and Good Luck would be among the five Golden Globes Best Picture (Drama) nominees. And I guess A History of Violence‘s inclusion isn’t all that surprising. But I’m especially gratified (and welcomely surprised) that Woody Allen’s Match Point is one of the five. This should boost the box-office when it opens on 12.28 and add to the Oscar nomination momentum.