Month: January 2008

Best Actress, Drama is expected to go to Away From Her‘s Julie Christie, but it’ll be cool if it goes to A Mighty Heart‘s Angelina Jolie…but it’s gone to Julie Christie, and that’s fine. A very fine performance, no quibbles…and won without a lot of campaigning.
And There Will Be Blood‘s Daniel Day Lewis has won for Best Actor (Drama).

The Golden Globe Best Director award goes to Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly…what? Everyone had called this for No Country‘s Joel and Ethan Coen. What happened? Does this mean something? Did anyone at all predict this?
Sweeney Todd‘s Johnny Depp has won the Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical award…deserved, not muchy of a surprise, good call.
The Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture Comedy/Musical goes not to Juno but Sweeney Todd! With Ellen Page having lost the Best Comedy/Musical actress award to Marion Cotillard, this amounts to a double Juno shut-down. I don’t get it — didn’t the Golden Globes voters consider Juno‘s box-office receipts? Perhaps some of them came to the conclusion that Todd is…you know, all things considered, a richer, fuller, better film?

Best Supporting Actor award is sure to go to No Country‘s Javier Bardem, and the winner is….uhm, Javier Bardem. Great performance, total shoo-in, locked for the Oscars.

Golden Globe winner for Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille. No surprise, excellent film, deserving winner. Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical winner: La Vie en Rose‘s Marion Cotillard, which I called a few minutes ago. Big cheers for Cotillard, director Oliver Dahan, Picturehouse’s Bob Berney…yay, team! Hairspray‘s Nikki Blonsky and Juno‘s Ellen Page…shut-down!

Access Hollywood‘s Billy Bush and Nancy O’Dell are hosting NBC’s broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards press conference annoucements…and the winner of the Best Supporting Actress award is I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett!! The Amy Ryan blitzkreig has been stopped in its tracks! Temporarily, at least. Good vibrations.

HE’s final Golden Globes predictions with only minutes to spare. Best Picture, Drama: No Country for Old Men…duhhh. Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen. Best Comedy or Musical: Juno…because money talks. Best Actor, Drama: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will be Blood. Best Actress, Drama: Julie Christie, Away From Her. Best Actress, Musical or Comedy: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose…giving great perk shouldn’t be enough to give it to Ellen Page. Best Actor, Musical or Comedy: Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd. Best Actress, Supporting: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone…I offer this prediction under protest and duress — the winner should be I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett. Best Actor, Supporting: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men.

Hollywood Interrupted‘s Mark Ebner sent along a URL with a group of what appear to be Scientology-produced video propaganda spots, four of which feature Tom Cruise. Most entertainment journalists look the other way at the whole Cruise/Scientology thing, and I suppose I’m one of them. But watch these spots and tell me what kind of vibe you get from them. Tell me they don’t creep you out.
The site‘s password is 2004event
There is an unmistakably robotic and strident tone to these pieces. Particularly in the copy read by the narrator, whose belligerent huckster voice makes him sound like a fiend out of 1984. (It reminds me of the voice of the “leader” in that Twilight Zone episode called “The Eye of the Beholder.”) It’s genuinely unnerving. This piece in particular, which barks about how Cruise paid more attention to Ground Zero air quality in the wake of 9.11 than New York authorities, speaks for itself.

I’ll be back by 5 pm to riff on the pre-show chit-chat that will begin prior to the Golden Globes press conference, which goes on at 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern. NBC, E!, CNN and the TV Guide channel will be airing it. There’s also the option of clicking on TheEnvelope.com right after the announcements for a Golden Globes discussion between Tom O’Neil, Elizabeth Snead and Pete Hammond.

Snapped earlier this afternoon at the Beverly Hilton hotel. (Pic stolen from Tom O’Neil’s Gold Derby column.)

The narrator in the Focus Features trailer for In Bruges pronounces the city as “Brugerh” (another pheonetical spelling would be “Brugge”, which is an anagram of bugger). Other sources and dictionaries seem to favor “Broozh.” Which is it?

“‘It’s kind of a black comedy about despair, [but] I don’t think they’re going to put that on the poster.” — Martin McDonagh speaking about In Bruges (Focus, 2.8), which he wrote and directed, to N.Y. Times writer Sylviane Gold.

What is this strange Dave Karger belief in Atonement‘s shot at a Best Picture nomination? Isn’t it dead? Is there anyone who sincerely believes otherwise? And if they do, based on what? It’s a very sad and strong film that fell on deaf ears. It’s the light that failed. I knew it was in trouble when my ex-wife saw it last month and said she really didn’t like it. “Whaat?” I replied, more than a little startled. “But, but…”

In a sidebar called “Blogger’s Choice” in their 1.18.08 issue, Entertainment Weekly is running counterviews and tea-leaf readings from seven of “the film industry’s top bloggers,” including predictions about the 2.24 Oscar Awards broadcast. I’m the only one who is flat-out skeptical about the Oscars even happening. Everyone else — David Carr, Pete Hammond,. Tom O’Neil, David Poland, Sasha Stone and Anne Thompson — is predicting that a deal or a waiver will allow the show to broadcast.

Pages 44 and 45 of Entertainment Weekly’s 1.18.08 issue, #974

I know this much: the AMPTP is sensing that WGA negotiators, who are regarded in some circles as erratic and inconsistent for making side deals here and there, is weakening because significant voices are bitching about their tactics and general leadership qualities, and the WGA guys know this. If the WGA grants a waiver for the Oscars they will be seen as flat-out pussies by the AMPTP hardballers, and the WGA guys know this. They need to either cut an overall deal by 2.10.08, or two weeks before the show (one week would be cutting it too close), or the strike will continue, the Oscars will get no special waiver and the WGA negotiators will have held on to a semblance of battlefield honor.
A 1.13 Toronto Star article by Peter Howell takes a somewhat more pessimistic view, or at least what you’d call a wait-and-see one.
“The Oscars are viewed as the ultimate example of the show that must go on,” Howell writes. “The Oscars have been delayed three times in the 80 years — by floods, by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and by the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan — but they have never been cancelled.
“The cancellation of the Golden Globes is a $75-million to $100-million blow to the L.A. economy, by one count, and the loss of the Oscars would surely dwarf that. What is apparent here, however, is that the awards shows are mere collateral damage in a bigger war for the future of movies and TV shows in the digital age. The old Hollywood of L.A.-based studios making films for bricks-and-mortar theatres is rapidly being replaced by international conglomerates making entertainment product for the iInternet, the iPod and the cellphone.
“As Variety gloomily put it recently: ‘Hollywood is a mere plaything of the international congloms, and Hollywood product represents a relatively minor sector of the product line.'”