As expected, Tom Hooper‘s The King’s Speech has gathered the most nominations from the British Academy of Film & Television. A fine film, of course + Brits seeing to their own + a brief respite for Speech-favoring Gurus like Dave Karger and Anne Thompson, etc. I was going to call this story “Comfort for Karger” but how comforting is it, really? Could the BAFTAs have done any differently and still faced themselves in the bathroom mirror?
Another expression of the group’s native-favoring sensibility is a Best Supporting Actor nom for the late Pete Postlethwaite in The Town — strictly a tribute gesture.
The BAFTA gang also handed The Fighter‘s Amy Adams a Best Supporting Actress nom while denying one to stateside champ Melissa Leo. And they honored Another Year‘s Lesley Manville with a nom in the same category, which is where she should have been all along. And they ignored Paramount’s suggestion by nominating True Grit‘s Hailee Steinfeld as a Leading Actress rather than a supporting one.
The BAFTAs also endorsed the Focus Features/Karen Fried view of things by nominating both The Kids Are All Right actresses — Annette Bening and Julianne Moore — in the Lead Actress category. They were also co-nominated for Golden Globe awards in the musical/comedy realm. I haven’t time to investigate if Bening and Moore have been co-nominated or co-awarded as straight leads anywhere else, but at least BAFTA went with it.
At the same time the BAFTA noms declined to include Get Low‘s Robert Duvall and Blue Valentine‘s Ryan Gosling. And Rabbit Hole‘s Nicole Kidman, Blue Valentine‘s Michelle Williams and Winter’s Bone‘s Jennifer Lawrence were cold-shouldered in the Lead Actress category; ditto Black Swan”s Mila Kunis in the Supporting Actress realm.
The BAFTA awards will be presented in London on Sunday, 2.13.
We waited for the Golden Globes to happen before recording our sixteenth discussion. We began with the Ricky Gervais issue (how pissed off are they?, “the one bright spot”), and acknowledged that there seem to be no surprises yet to come. It’s all pretty much settled down at this point, and we’ve got six weeks until the Oscars.
“I don’t know what to say to my fellow prognosticators about this kind of phenomenon [represented by The Social Network],” Sasha said early on. “You’ve got two, maybe three films fighting for second or third place.” Me: “Some gurus may want to dig their heels in deeper…what does it take? They seem to think that some kind of mind-blowing, what-just-happened? kind of Best Picture decision is in the offing.” Could it happen?
“I know you’re a Social Network supporter,” Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet wrote a few minutes ago, “but do you find it a good thing (for movies, for awards, etc.) when we have such an uninteresting, unanimous decision on one film and only one other film is really even being considered as a potential runner-up? Yeah, I know The Fighter stands as a third contender, but the talk is all about The Social Network with a whisper of King’s Speech.” Here‘s his article, written in the wake of the Golden Globes.
I don’t know why I’m leaving tomorrow for Park City and Sundance 2011, but I am. I guess I wanted to really settle in and get everything squared away before it all starts. Whatever happens later this evening HE won’t be transmitting from roughly 8 am tomorrow until I get to JFK around 9:30 am. When the plane leaves I’ll really be dark until 4:30 pm or so. Wait…does Delta offer airborne wifi?
And I’ll never get to see Ivan Reitman‘s “predictable, cutesy” No Strings Attached without paying for it. The Manhattan all-media is tomorrow night.
Ricky Gervais “will not be invited back to host the show next year, for sure,” a member of the HFPA has toldPopeater‘s Rob Shuter. “[And] for sure any movie he makes he can forget about getting nominated. He humiliated the organization last night and went too far with several celebrities whose representatives have already called to complain.”
Ricky Gervais during last night’s Golden Globes awards telecast.
That’s the HFPA for you — all about image and politics and scumbaggery. “Any” movie that Gervais makes “can forget about being nominated”? In other words, this person is saying it’s about more than just not hiring Gervais again. If he/she can be believed the HFPA is going to do what it can to blacklist Gervais by indirectly scaring producers into not hiring him or funding his projects for fear of any Gervais film being shunned by the Globes. This, at least, is the import of the quote that Shuter has ran.
I’m putting this down to heat-of-the-moment emotion. A cooler perspective will no doubt prevail. But if any sort of anti-Gervais prejudice or blackballing is ever detected, wouldn’t it be lovely to somehow make life equally problematic for HFPA chief Philip Berk ?
From Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci: “It seems like the only person in the room last night who knew that a grotesque farce was happening was Ricky Gervais, and he was shiningly spectacular in his attacks on the smug self-satisfaction rampant among the shallow guests who had just answered, with a straight face, questions like ‘Who are you wearing?’ on the red carpet. And honestly, he didn’t go far enough. How can you take this shit seriously? The fact that the HFPA is being sued for breach of contract in what amounts to a bribery situation is enough to make anybody throw up their hands and wonder what the point is.”
From Marshall Fine: “I’m ready to start a Facebook campaign to dump Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts of this year’s Oscars to give the job to Ricky Gervais. Snarly responses from his targets aside, Gervais was the only thing that made the patently bogus Golden Globe Awards broadcast bearable Sunday night. Obviously, Hollywood stars don’t like to have their praise parade rained on by a comedian calling, ‘bullshit!’ from the opening minutes of the whole proceedings. But really — what other sane response was there?”
When I saw the initial teaser for Jonathan Liebesman‘s Battle: Los Angeles (Sony, 3.11) two months ago, I was feeling Skyline-d, District 9-ed, 2012-ed and Monster-ed out. It looked to me like just another shaky-cam disaster/alien-invasion movie in a military Cloverfield vein. 11.12 Quote: “What’s my level of interest in seeing it on a scale of one to ten? About a seven, if that.”
But now I’m feeling Oscar’ed out and pining for the start of Sundance, and that plus the usual mid-winter fatigue factor has me in the mood for aliens. Maybe it’s the shots of the surfers.
Battle: Los Angeles costars Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Michael Pena, etc. Asd I wrote before, “It would appear that 34 year-old Liebesman (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) is a very ambitious Spielberg-Abrams-Kosinky-Cameron eager-beaver wannabe.
It was announced yesterday that Larysa Kondracki‘s The Whistleblower had won the Palm Springs Film Festival Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. I missed it at last September’s Toronto Film Festival, and I hadn’t heard any particulars until today. Conspiracy thriller, American cop in Bosnia, human trafficking. Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci and David Strathairn.
It’s not playing Sundance 2011, of course, but it will show later this month at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
Greg Jacobs and John Siskel‘s Louder Than A Bomb, about a major youth poetry slam competition held annually in Chicago, received the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.
So every time Andrew Garfield‘s Peter Parker has to drop everything and become Spider-Man, he has to remember to take the web-shooter device with him. And God forbid if the device malfunctions, as they all do sooner or later. MTV’s Josh Horowitzobtained confirmation last night from Spider-Man costar Emma Stone.
During his infrequent stints as the Golden Globe jokemeister/commentator, Ricky Gervais skirted the line between delightfully wicked and boorishly cruel. He went with the taboo-ignoring, see-how-far-you-can-go sensibility of a roast. Coarse, obviously, but he was only speaking to the way things are out there and the things we dare not say. And every so often we heard the crack of a slugger’s bat.
The richest jokes are always flecked with brutality. And Gervais kept the energy up — you have to give him that. But I wonder what happened backstage? After the monologue he didn’t hake the mike as often as you might expect. Was that a simple time-clock issue or…?
I think he went as far as he did because of Mike Russell’s lawsuit. We’ve always known about the HFPA’s character, but Russell’s charges were bannered in trade headlines only two or three days ago, and for Gervais, I’m guessing, this required a commensurate response. He probably figured if he didn’t tear down the temple walls his comedian credibility would be sullied. The radical part was Gervais’ decision that once the floodgates were open in terms of HFPA material, he might as well thrown caution to the wind all around.
He was reflecting, I think, the sensibility of 2011 celebrity culture as much as the material used by Oscar emcee Bob Hope in the ’50s and early ’60s reflected the undercurrents and boundaries of that world.
“The jokes might have been more daring than funny, but the risk felt exhilarating because Gervais wasn’t being outrageous for its own sake. He was targeting the hypocrisy of Hollywood and the inanity and self-importance of awards themselves. The idea of rewarding excellence in film and TV is a crazy, politicized business, which makes these awards shows full of smoke-and-mirrors pretense. It’s as if no one is meant to notice the Wizard behind the curtain, orchestrating the big-money campaigns, and Gervais’ specialty is pulling that curtain back.”
“The general idea, naturally, would be to convey awe, delight and enthusiasm, and not, you know, come off like any kind of, you know, pooper. Opposite of that. Gotta be into it. But at the same time…how to say this?…you don’t want to oversaturate by using the same term too often. Perhaps if you got out a note pad and…I dunno, wrote down as many enthusiasm exclamations as you can think of? Ones you’re comfortable with, of course.”
Golden Globe summary: After all the heavy campaigning and two awards ceremonies over the last couple of nights, it would feel more correct and fitting if the Oscars were to happen earlier than February 27th. Wouldn’t it? Isn’t it all pretty much over? Is there a sentiment shift yet to come? Doubt it. And yet we’re looking at another six weeks. I don’t want to screw up the Santa Barbara Film Festival timetable, but…well, the Academy needs a re-think. Really.
10:55 pm: The clapping, cheering and love for Michael Douglas is obviously the warmest moment of the evening. “There’s gotta be an easier way to get a standing ovation,” he quips. And the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama goes to The Social Network. Dave Karger, Anne Thompson, Peter Howell, David Poland and other errant Gurus…you need to take a long walk or a long drive or a long hot bath and, like, re-assess. Okay, don’t. It’s still an open contest!
10:47 pm: Colin Firth wins again for Best Actor for his performace in The King’s Speech. Locked down and Oscar-secured, as it has been for weeks.
10:46 pm: “Poor people are gross and they smell bad.” — quote attibuted to Sandra Bullock by Ricky Gervais.
10:38 pm: Tom Hanks and Tim Allen presenting the Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical award, and the winner — good one — is The Kids Are All Right. Even if it’s not “comedic.” Throwing in natural sprinklings of humor into a relationship-family piece doesn’t make it so. Congrats nonethless to director-cowriter Lisa Cholodenko. Oh, and to producer Celine Rattray, who looks dazzling in her white gown and her Turks and Caicos tan.
10:34 pm: Natalie Portman wins, naturally, the Best Actress award for Black Swan. The HFPA really isn’t kidding around with this Critics Choice Awards 2 thing. Portman is so happy and beautiful, and is starting to look pleasantly and quite radiantly plump — obviously quite a contrast from her appearance in the film.
10:25 pm: Barney’s Version‘s Paul Giamatti wins for Best Comedy/Musical Actor. “People busted their asses to get [this movie] made…I had three wives, a trifecta of hotties, and I got to smoke and drink and got paid for it.”
10:20 pm: How many people are on stage to accept the Glee award for Best Comedy /Musical TV Series award? 18? 19?
10:14 pm: Time for David…I mean, the Best Director, Motion Picture award. And the Golden Globe goes to David Fincher for The Social Network. “Popping for pizza like chiclets?” Oh, sorry…”popping propecia like chiclets.” My idea of a gracious, relaxed and settled-down speech. “I’m personally loathe to respond to the praise this film has received for fear of becoming addicted to it,” he says. I hear that.
10:02 pm: A Robert De Niro tribute. Forget all the crap he’s done over the last decade because he was really great in the ’70s and…okay, part of the ’80s and definitely in 1990 in Goodfellas. And he was! Which is why everyone’s standing and whoo-whooing him right now. Thoroughly deserved. At the mike De Niro acknowledges that Little Fockers is shit. An amusing line about posing for pictures with the Hollywood Foreign Press, etc. He’s reading the whole thing off a teleprompter.
9:50 pm: The Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress award goes to The Fighter‘s Melissa Leo. This is the Critics Choice Awards…admit it! Congrats to Melissa. On her way to a perfect strike. She’s breathless, ecstatic…cool.
9:36 pm: The winner of the Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film — “a category nobody in America cares about!,” says Gervais — is Susanne Bier‘s A Better World. Excellent call. Bier is genius-level — certainly one of the finest female directors working today.
9:27 pm: The Best Screenplay award naturally goes to The Social Network‘s Aaron Sorkin. “The people who watch movies are at least as smart as the people who make movies,” he says. (Really?) Kudos to Mark Zuckerberg, you turned out well, etc. Sure, fine.
9:13 pm: Al Pacino (soon to portray Phil Spector!) wins the Best Actor, TV Dramatic Film-or-whatever-it’s-called award for Barry Levinson and HBO’s You Don’t Know Jack. Good call. Wise. Pacino’s quietest performance since Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II. Geoffrey Rush‘s head is shaved because…?
9:00 pm: Gervais: “Some of you know Robert Downey, Jr. from the Betty Ford Clinic and the Los Angeles County Jail.” Wait…what’s Downey doing? He’s pushing it. We’re all pushing it. This show is pushing it. (It has to. What else can it do?) Best Actress, Musical or Comedy and…yes! Annette Bening has her win…her moment. Intensely right-on. This is the end of the Bening awards parade but we’re okay with that. We love her, a great mom…cool.
8:55 pm: Justin Beiber is…what, three inches shorter than Hailee Steinfled? What is he, eight years old? Toy Story 3 wins for Best Animated Feature or whatever they’re calling it. Fine, richly deserved, thumbs up.
8:50 pm: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross winning the Best Original Score award for their work on The Social Network means that The King’s Speech is finished as far as winning the Best Motion Picture, Drama award. Right? An indicator, I mean. Dispute?
8:46 pm: Nobody cares about the Golden Globes choice of Best Original Song. Eff Best Original Song. Eff it up the bunghole! And the winner? “You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me” from Burlesque! The trip to Vegas worked! The whores dropped to their knees and delivered!
8:37 pm: Boardwalk Empire wins the Golden Globe for Best TV Dramatic Series-or-whatever. 8:35 pm: Steve Buscemi wins the Best Supporting Actor in a TV Drama-or-Miniseries-or-whatever award for his tough-darts gangster guy in Boardwalk Empire. Down with that. Good show but honestly? I’ve only watched it twice. Is it okay if I promise to buy/rent/watch the DVD box set?
8:30 pm: “Eva Longoria has the daunting task of having to introduce the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press,” says Gervais. “Oooh!” says the audience. “That’s nothing!,” says Gervais. “I just had to haul him off the toilet and pop his teeth in!” Corrupt red-haired scumbag!
8:18: Julianne Moore and Kevin Spacey hand a Golden Globe for Best TV Movie or Miniseries or Whatever to Olivier Assayas‘ Carlos. Good call@ Taste buds! Shut up with the prompt music…show respect! These are Carlos guys!
8:06 pm: Scarlett Johnasson hands out the Best Supporting Actor award to Christian Bale for The Fighter. Naturally, sure, no surprise. Are the Globes going to be exactly like the Critics Choice Awards? We may as well face that possibility.
8:01 pm: Ricky Gervais starts off with a few Charlie Sheen jokes…thud. And then a Tourist joke – “It must be good because it’s nominated so shut up. The HFPA also accepted bribes.” And a Tom Cruise/John Travolta gay joke — “”Also not nominated was I Love You Philip Morris with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. Two heterosexual characters pretending to be gay. So the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists, then. My lawyers helped me with the wording of that joke.” And a Hugh Hefner fellatio joke. And a Lost joke — “the fat one ‘et them all.” And: “Here is beautiful, talented and Jewish…Mel Gibson told me that, he’s obsessed! — Scarlett Johansson!”
