Month: March 2010

I briefly spoke with Fox’s Gerald Rivera on his Geraldo At Large show last night around 10:10 pm. The subject was all the recent negative stories about The Hurt Locker (articles about the film’s lack of authenticity, Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver‘s lawsuit based on his claim that he was the basis for Jeremy Renner‘s character, the Nicolas Chartier snafu), and whether this might impact the Best Picture race.

I was asked to contribute, I gather, because Geraldo or one of his researchers saw Eric Ditzian‘s 3.4 MTV.com article (“Will ‘Hurt Locker’ Controversy Affect Its Oscar Chances?”) in which I was quoted saying that the Hurt Locker attacks were “obviously coordinated…these things don’t happen at the last minute on their own.” What I meant was that they were coordinated — initiated, researched, reported on — by like-minded editors and reporters looking to portray a last-minute tightening drama in the Best Picture race.

Geraldo said during our on-air chat that he’d been told by a source that “a producer of Inglourious Basterds” had allegedly fired a press torpedo or two directly at the hull of The Hurt Locker. He obviously wanted me to say “yeah, I’ve heard that also…probably true!” Except I don’t know or even suspect that so I naturally declined to point the finger at anyone connected to Basterds (i.e., Harvey Weinstein). No one’s even whispered there’s anything to this — zip

So I said what I basically think, which is that certain journalists and editors sensed a great dramatic potential a few weeks ago in the prospect of a Hurt Locker reversal-of-fortune, especially after the BAFTA and Eddie Award wins created a front-runner status, and so some decided to research and write articles that might introduce a cliffhanger element into an already thrilling David-vs.-Goliath scenario.

That scenario was waay too complex for Geraldo At Large, of course, so the conversation ended soon after, the show went to a break, Geraldo said “thanks, man” and I said “sure, likewise” and scooted off.

BEST PICTURE / HE Prediction: The Hurt Locker. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The Hurt Locker. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Avatar.

BEST DIRECTOR / HE Prediction: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Bigelow. 100% Confident Suspicion That The Winner Will Be: Bigelow.

BEST ACTOR / strong>HE Prediction: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Colin Firth, A Single Man. 100% Confident Suspicion That The Winner Will Be: Bridges.

BEST ACTRESS / HE Prediction: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Carey Mulligan, An Education. Nagging Suspicion That The Wild-Card Winner May Nonetheless Be: Gabby Sidibe, Precious.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR / HE Prediction: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The Movie Godz don’t care about this one. 100% Confident Suspicion That The Winner Will Be: Waltz.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS / HE Prediction: Mo’Nique, Precious. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Vera Farmiga, Up In the Air. 100% Suspicion That The Winner Will Be: Mo’Nique.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY / HE Prediction: Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner for Up in the Air (consolation prize for getting elbowed out of the Best Picture race). If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The In The Loop guys. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Reitman, Turner.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY / HE Prediction: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Boal. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds.

BEST ANIMATED FILM / HE Prediction: Up. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Up. 100% Confident Suspicion That The Winner Will Be: Up.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM / HE Prediction: The Cove. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The Cove. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Food, Inc..

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM / HE Prediction: The Secret In Their Eyes (totally bowing to Scott Feinberg on this one — I know absolutely nothing). If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: A Prophet or The White Ribbon. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: The Secret In Their Eyes.

BEST ART DIRECTION / HE Prediction: Avatar‘s Rick Carter, Kim Sinclair, Robert Stromberg. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Avatar. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Avatar.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY / HE Prediction: The Hurt Locker‘s Barry Ackroyd. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The Hurt Locker or The White Ribbon‘s Christian Berger. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Inglourious Basterds‘ Robert Richardson.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN / HE Prediction: Bright Star‘s Janet Patterson. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Bright Star or Nine‘s Collen Atwood. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: The Young Victoria‘s Sandy Powell.

BEST FILM EDITING / HE Prediction: The Hurt Locker‘s Bob Murawski, Chris Innis. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Bright Star or Nine‘s Colleen Atwood. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Avatar‘s Steven Rifkin, John Refoua, James Cameron.

BEST MAKEUP / HE Prediction: Star Trek‘s Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Il Divo‘s Aldo Signoretti, Vittorio Sodano. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Star Trek.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE / HE Prediction: Avatar‘s James Horner. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: Fantastic Mr. Fox‘s Alexandre Desplat. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Up‘s Michael Giacchino.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG / HE Prediction: Crazy Heart’s‘s “The Weary Kind” (Ryan Bingham, T-Bone Burnett). If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: No opinion. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: Crazy Heart/”The Weary Kind.”

BEST SOUND EDITING / HE Prediction: Avatar‘s Christopher Boyes, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The Hurt Locker‘s Paul N.J. Ottoson. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: the Avatar guys.

BEST SOUND MIXING / HE Prediction: Avatar‘s Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Tony Johnson. If The Movie Godz Controlled The Vote: The Hurt Locker‘s Paul N.J. Ottoson, Ray Beckett. Nagging Suspicion That The Winner May Nonetheless Be: the Avatar team.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS / HE Prediction: Avatar‘s Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones. No variations or suppositions — Avatar all the way.

BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) / HE Prediction: A Matter of Loaf and Death (Nick Park) — no clue on this category at all — totally leaning on Scott Feinberg.

BEST SHORT FILM (DOCUMENTARY) / HE Prediction: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert) — ditto.

BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) / HE Prediction Miracle Fish (Luke Doolan, Drew Bailey) — ditto.

I’ll be attending the Movieline Oscar party at 92Y Tribeca and live blog as it’s all happening. Commentary, snaps, videos. I wish there was some way to do an occasional live video “broadcast.” The time has technologically come for that option to happen, I think.

I’ve been saying for the last three or four years that it’s not the win-or-lose aspects of the Oscar race but the award-season arguments that define why people want this or that film or filmmaker to win — that’s where the pleasure and the uplift lie. An annual Socratic dialogue about who and what we are, and why. That and pushing the films and filmmakers that I strongly believe in. Who could stand writing about this stuff day after day if it was just monkey chatter about who’s gonna win?

This is the HE calling. This is the task. I am swallowed by it as surely as Gregory Peck was by his great 1956 obsession. Is Ahab Ahab? Is it I, God, or who that lifts this arm?

The inspiration, tenacity, toil and achievement that go into winning any Oscar will always warrant honor and admiration, but the practice of Oscar-winner-picking is a doodle exercise, for the most part. I wouldn’t equate it to movie-watching and magazine-reading on a coast-to-coast flight, but it’s in that general ballpark. And yet it propels things along and brings advertising to Hollywood Elsewhere. The pickings, in any case, are more the specialty of those who are seriously into it — i.e., Scott Feinberg or Sasha Stone or Pete Hammond or Dave Karger.

I play these games because I must or should or need to. For if the great sun moves not of itself but as an errand boy in heaven, how then can this one small brain think thoughts unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I?

But my heart and head are two different entities, and I’ll simply never be able to reconcile my diminishing ability/interest in picking Oscar winners (other than the ones everyone else has decided upon…Hurt Locker, Bigelow, Bridges, Bullock, Waltz, Mo’Nique) and my personal prefs and admirations. And because the real joy, to repeat, is in wrestling over the cultural-political issues that are brought to the fore by Oscar-contending films.

I’ve picked my picks and will post them in an hour or two, but I’m sick of it, sick of it, sick of it, sick of it! Phase Two will be two or three weeks shorter next year, right? The Winter Olympics will somehow not be the delaying factor that they were this year for whatever reason?

However it shakes down, Anne Hathaway — mark these words and this post — will be a Best Actress contender for her performance as a Parkinson’s disease sufferer in Ed Zwick‘s Love and Other Drugs, as I half-predicted on 2.27.

And yet — and yet! — watching the Hurt Locker team bounding up to the stage to accept the Best Picture Oscar is going to be truly glorious. I’ve been a hammer for that film since my first viewing at the September ’08 Toronto Film Festival, so in a sense I’m coming to the end of a journey myself. It’s lasted a little less than 18 months.

If The Little Movie That Those Clueless Waitresses at Extra Virgin Never Heard Of wins the Big Prize, I’m going to pay those Extra Virgin ladies a visit tomorrow with my camera and digi-recorder, and put them through a very polite Regis Philbin-styled Judgment at Nuremberg. It’ll be very loose and friendly, but this is a completely fair warning.

Unless Avatar wins, of course, in which case…well, okay. This won’t be the “wrong” call or anything. It’s an amazing ride, that film, and one of the greatest pieces of left-wing, tree-hugging, anti-corporate propaganda — wonderful propaganda! — ever made. On top of which the tradition has always been that the film with the strongest emotional undertow wins the Best Picture Oscar, so if that rule holds The Hurt Locker will lose because…well, I don’t recall reading any articles about people being depressed upon realizing they preferred the world of The Hurt Locker to their own lives.

Everyone will ascribe The Hurt Locker‘s loss, if it happens, to those recent Hurt Locker-fragging articles generated by the Los Angeles Times and that Paul Rieckhoff Newsweek piece and so on.

L.A. Times/Big Picture columnist Patrick Goldstein recently tried to explain how it’s not fair that his newspaper has become the designated “bad guy” in this affair. He offers some reasonable-sounding explanations as to why this impression is unfounded. I nonetheless believe that in mid-February certain journalists and editors sensed a great dramatic potential in the prospect of a Hurt Locker reversal-of-fortune, especially after the BAFTA and Eddie Award wins created a front-runner status, and that some decided to research and write articles that might introduce a cliffhanger element into an already thrilling David-vs.-Goliath scenario.

The Brooklyn air outside smells fresh and clean. I’m ready to breathe it in and take a nice long speed-walk this morning. Okay, this afternoon sometime. Jesus, it’s already 11:30 am. All I know is that everyone is feeling a sense of great impending relief that it’s all going to be over in a few hours, and that we can finally get going with 2010 — all to the good. Until this same feeling of engulfment by great overpowering forces surges again, as it does every year.

We are turned round and round in this world, and fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky and this unsounded sea!

“Thirty years ago, the CEOs that are in Undercover Boss were making 30 times as much as their working people,” Arianna Huffington said last night on Real Time with Bill Maher. “Now, they’re making 300 times as much! We’re about to become Venezuela or Brazil, you know, where the people at the top are basically behind their gates with guards to protect their kids from kidnapping.

The result, she said, is that “the middle class is crumbling and that’s the country we’re going to become…if we don’t fundamentally change where we’re going.” To which Maher replied, “Going to become?”

The Tea Party movement, she later stated, is “about that fact that what is happening is not fair, that the fix is in, that the system is rigged, and that people who are working hard are not really getting rewarded. And the people at the top who brought us to the financial brink were actually bailed out by the taxpayers.”

Brooks Barnes has written a 3.5 N.Y. Times article about the party-circuit stress that has affected Hurt Locker producer-screenwriter Mark Boal over the last several months. It’s especially interesting to me in that it provides a roundabout explanation why Boal subtly flipped me the bird when I took his picture at a Manhattan Hurt Locker party on 2.23.

It wasn’t a hostile flip-off. It wasn’t even a stand-up gesture but one semi-camouflaged by a book cover. If a smart guy you know, like and respect gives you the finger, he’s (a) fooling around and (b) offering a kind of trust that you won’t interpret it the wrong way. But I do think Boal was saying, perhaps in a subconscious way, “I’m starting to really tire of all this Oscar-contention chit-chat crap, and this is my way of quietly conveying that to you and…what the hell, your readers also.”

This is one of several mock movie posters posted yesterday afternoon by College Humor‘s Tom Philips. The fundamental beef about A Serious Man wasn’t that Michael Stuhlbarg‘s Larry Gropnik character is boring — there’s no such thing as a boring Coen brothers film — but that he seemed to have only wimpy responses to the cruel manifestations that resulted from God’s decision to curse his life.

The Wrap‘s Daniel Frankel is reporting that Tim Burton‘s 3-D Alice in Wonderland took in $39.4 million yesterday, and that it will probably wind up with nearly $110 million by Sunday night, according to studio estimates.

Frankel notes that Disney officials “were reluctant to predict even a $70 million opening going into the weekend,” but that’s standard politics — you always predict a number that’s lower than what you think your film will really gross.

Alice is playing in 3,728 theaters, including 188 IMAX 3D showings. Alice‘s weekend tally will easily top Avatar‘s first-weekend earnings of $77 million. Well and good for Disney, except there’s a problem. The problem is that for many if not most discerning moviegoers, Alice in Wonderland is a problem.

Not that a film having such a reputation has ever given a single moment’s pause to the American middle-class when they want to see something. All they know or care about is that Alice is (a) fancifully visual, (b) kid-friendly, (c) 3-D eye-candy and (d) IMAXed. That’s all they information that they’re capable of processing. Make that two tubs of whale-fat popcorn and three…no, four gallon-sized containers of sugar-bombed Coca Cola with tons of ice.

And by the way, The Oregonian‘s Shawn Levy also thought last night’s Spirit Awards show was mostly bad.

A producer friend went to last night’s pre-Oscar party thrown by Endeavor’s Ari Emmanuel at his $10 million Brentwood home — Matt Damon, Kate Bosworth, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, Dustin Hoffman, Josh Groban, Quentin Tarantino, etc. And he’s passed along an observation about the party’s most celebrated guest — i.e., Academy-shunned Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier.

“Without a doubt, Chartier was the toast of the event,” the producer says. “He was there with his mom — who was maybe the most elegant woman there — and seemed to never not be engaged in a conversation in which somebody wasn’t telling him how badly fucked he had been over the whole Hurt Locker e-mail episode. And his having dissed the “$500 million” Avatar in his notorious e-mail meant nothing to Avatar producer Jon Landau, with whom Chartier seemed to spend most of his time.

“The general consensus was that Chartier was perhaps a bit trigger-happy and maybe a bit over-the-top in his enthusiasm, but also the person who should be given the most credit among the various Hurt Locker producers and rally-round team members.

“In a way, Chartier has helped himself. By being banned from the Oscars, his contributions to getting that film made have come to the front lines.”

I wasn’t especially pleased with last night’s 2010 Spirit Awards show, which I watched with a couple of friends at their Horatio Street studio. One thing after another needled, bothered, put me off, pissed me off, or resulted in “tsk-tsks.” It’s a long list but I’ll stick to the pop-throughs.

Host/emcee Eddie Izzard was a nervy provocateur, as expected, but he wasn’t funny. He was hyper and jabbery in a stream-of-consciousness way, but the reaction in the room was “why is Izzard the host of this thing again? Because he met Dawn Hudson at a party after they’d both sloshed some wine? In what way is Izzard’s schtick supposed to provide enjoyment for the viewing audience? This is all about endurance.” You know who was funny when he hosted the Spirits back in the mid ’90s? Kevin Pollak.

The pre-award-bestowing podium patter for the nominees, written by someone in the FIND/Spirit Awards organization (or by a freelancer), was drivel — awful. I have the same complaint every year.

And the endless thank yous by the winners, acknowledging not only their on-set colleagues and agents and managers, etc., but also their wives and parents and sisters and brothers, were pure agony. What semi-sincere person would actually contend that his or her brother or sister (whom he/she most likely hasn’t had any meaningful interaction with since their mid teens) had something to do with winning a Spirit Award?

Jeff Bridges sang a live country-and-western tune with T-Bone Burnett and a couple of jowly 50ish guys providing electrified backup, and guess what? Not only does Bridges have a weak country-nasally voice — it has no manly heft or diaphragm oomph — but he doesn’t seem to know how to sell a song within his vocal limits. Even a person with a shitty voice can sound half-okay if they can deploy the right kind of phrasings and lung power and whatnot.

Every so often a corporate sponsor’s logo would be seen on top of the coverage. We all understand the necessity of this from time to time, but it looked technically amateurish every time because the blending of the Spirit Award footage plus the logo overlay created a generally darkened image. It reminded me of video overlay effects that I used to see back in the ’80s. Embarassing.

This is the first year since the mid ’90s in which the Spirits weren’t held inside a big white tent in Santa Monica. They happened instead inside a big white tent on the top of a downtown plex called LA Live, which is adjacent to the Staples Center. And yet the director of the Spirit Awards inexplicably chose not to provide the audience with a basic panoramic establishing shot of the LA Live neighborhood at the very beginning (and maybe a return to this once or twice during the show) that would have explained what’s visually dramatic or exciting about being in downtown LA — i.e., how it all looks and feels.

Ryan Reynolds and Maggie Gyllenhaal presented an award while holding drinks in their hands. Part of the point of the Spirit Awards, which is supposed to be a much more informal affair than the Oscars, is to have a blast — I get that. But never hold a drink in your hands in front of a camera of any kind. It always make you look like a lush.