The timing of this Vogue cover featuring four Nine costars — Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson — seems intended to boost the 11.29 opening (a little more than a month hence) rather than the currently scheduled 12.18 debut (a little less than two months hence). Not a huge deal but still.
10.22.09, 7:25 am
Kitchen of Chance and Debbie Browne of Wilton, Connecticut — Wednesday, 10.21, 8:55 pm.
Of the nine up-and-comers featured in Vanity Fair‘s April 2000 Hollywood issue, only one — Penelope Cruz — has really made it in a truly stellar, top-of-the-heap way. Selma Blair has hung on visibility-wise with the Hellboy flicks and Paul Walker has done decent work here and there (like in ’06’s Running Scared). But Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Marley Shelton, Chris Klein and Jordana Brewster all seem to be swimming upstream and not really doing it. I had to go to the IMDB for find Sarah Wynter, who’s mostly been a TV actress for the last nine years.
(l. to r.) Penelope Cruz, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Marley Shelton, Chris Klein, Selma Blair, Jordana Brewster and Sarah Wynter.
At tonight’s Sony Classics party at Mirabella (l. to r.): Sony Classics co-president Michael Barker, An Education costars Carey Mulligan and Pete Sarsgaard, Sony Classics co-president Tom Bernard.
An Education director Lone Scherfig.
Broken Embraces star Penelope Criuz, Vogue critic John Powers.
(l. to r.) Broken Embraces costars Lluis Homar, Penelope Cruz; An Education costars Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard.
Here’s my two cents about Roger Friedman‘s 8.21 piece assessing the leading Best Actress contenders of the moment. Right now it’s a two-actress race — Carey Mulligan in An Education vs. Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia (with possible fortification coming from her It’s Complicated performance.). Obviously there are four months to go and anything can happen, but right now the Oscar is Mulligan’s to lose because of (a) the old “Streep nominated again?” factor and (b) Mullligan’s performance is delightful/exciting while Streep’s is merely expert.
Mulligan might very well not win because Oscar tradition has generally been about ingenues being nominated but not winning because they have to pay their dues and all that jazz. It would actually be cooler for Mulligan to just have fun with the nomination dance and boost An Education in the bargain, etc.
Abbie Cornish might manage a Best Actress nomination in for her performance in Bright Star, although she’s looking like a bit of a weak sister at this stage. (The movie’s real star is Jane Campion.) Nobody knows anything about Rachel Weisz in The Lovely Bones so just shut up and wait. Forget Penelope Cruz in Broken Embraces (although I think she’s wonderful in this film) because the reaction to Pedro Almodovar‘s latest has been tepid since Cannes. Forget Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer…just forget it. (You can’t be nominated for playing a whimsical, self-absorbed ditzoid.) And forget Gwynneth Paltrow in Two Lovers….not happening!
Friedman, by the way, says that Mulligan is the breakout star among his list of nominees and then adds, “Remember, you heard it here first.” That’s funny. I seem to recall some other guy jumping up and down about her last January and predicting that An Education “will definitely be in contention at the end of the year” in some capacity.
Pedro World is a perfect haven, a warm cave filled with invention, brilliance, constant emotional intrigue, suspense, and exactitude. It’s a place to hang, a place of assurance that always mesmerizes and delights and makes you feel well taken care of, like you’re staying in some $2000-a-night hotel in some tranquil valley.
I’m not saying that the pleasures of the films by Pedro Almodovar are better because they’re less gnarly or challenging or easy-to-figure than the creations of Park Chan-Wook, Andrea Arnold, Gaspar Noe or Jacques Audiard. I’m saying that Almodovar is a master director-shaman who always knows exactly what he’s doing and how to work it…and I mean precisely. So much so that even his not-quite-great films, like Broken Embraces, are still exquisite gourmet meals.
Which is why earlier today I said that Broken Dreams is “easily the most fully realized, thematically satisfying, self-assured and purely entertaining film of the festival so far. Not as fully emotional as Almodovar’s best films, but on a very high station in the second tier. Way in front of anything I’ve seen so far.”
Partly a romantric noir, partly a tragedy about playing around, largely about creative creation and holding to a vision and putting things right in the end, the story spans some 16 years (set in ’08, flashing back to ’92 and ’94). It focused on a film director (Luis Homar) who’s lost the love of his life (Penelope Cruz) as well as his eyesight to a jealous lover, and how after much revelation achieves a kind of satisfaction in the end. I’ll say no more except that it’s a profound and enriching finish all around.
What’s not quite 100% about it? The who-did-what, what’s-happening-next? and what-really-happened-14-years-ago? element seems to slightly dilute or compromise the emotionality.
But the pleasures of simply appreciating the craft in Broken Embraces aren’t messed with in the slightest. The way Almodovar’s multi-layered and multi-toned story is so expertly written (by himself), performed by Cruz and Homar and everyone on down, woven together by editor Jose Salcedo and shot by Rodrigo Prieto, etc. I didn’t want it to end. It just won’t stop caressing and knocking you out. I could easily watch it again right now.
I could catch at the Salle du Soixentieme tomorrow, for instance, but I won’t since Wednesday is my final festival day with Inglourious Basterds starting things off at 8:30 am and finishing with Michael Haneke‘s The White Ribbon and Sam Raimi‘s Drag Me To Hell. Plus the usual filing and running around and packing.
The Weinstein Co. invited a few journalists up to Gray Albion Hotel rooftop suite early this evening to watch a rehearsal reel from Rob Marshall‘s Nine (Weinstein Co., 11.25) as well as the recently released trailer. If you’ve seen the latter you know it’s got that old Rob Marshall/Chicago schwing blended with a jaded erotic male menopause Euro-vibe. It’s a pretty safe bet. People eat this shit up. Even I’m willing to.
The idea is lure the viewer into a moody adult fantasia trip about Italian film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day Lewis) who’s in creative trouble as he prepares a film called Italia. Blocked, midlife crisis, who am I?, great to be rich, love my car, cruising the Italian coast, sensual delights at every turn, I’ll find my way, etc.
The other idea, of course, is to make Nine into an Oscar-competing superhit which will make enough dough to restore the Weinstein Co. to firmer financial footing than it has known over the last three or four years. It’s Harvey Weinstein’s ticket back to the bigtime. By all appearances and indications it looks like a hummer.
Obviously shot with the required sultry attractiveness by Dion Beebe and based, of course, on Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston’s 1982 Broadway musical, Nine is essentially based (as the play was) on Federico Fellini‘s 8 1/2 (’63).
Call it “Daniel Day looking for inspiration and spending a lot of time with several alluring women” — his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), a muse (Nicole Kidman), a pal and confidante (Judi Dench), his mother (Sophia Loren), a journalist (Kate Hudson) and a prostitute named Saraghina (Stacy Ferguson).
I loved that the rehearsal reel contains some black-and-white footage, which of course harkens back to the Fellini film. The film was shot in London and various Italian locales, including Rome.
The Nine trailer is up. I want to like this and am looking forward despite Rob Marshall directing and Kate Hudson costarring. “A vibrant and provocative musical,” the copy says, “that follows the life of film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Fergie) and his mother (Sophia Loren),” etc.
Screen International‘s Barry Byrne, filing from Madrid, has given Pedro Almodovar‘s Broken Embraces a mixed-positive (or a positive-mixed) review. “A lavish, noirish melodrama sparkling with Almodovar’s trademark humor, the film will thrill his loyal fanbase but perhaps leave a more general public dazed rather than dazzled,” he says.
“Ravishing in its artifice and outfitted with all of Almodovar’s stylistic tricks, this tale of desire, power, duplicity and fate is self-consciously steeped in noir conventions and provides Penelope Cruz with a sleek post-Oscar vehicle.
“[And yet] the director can’t quite bring himself to treat his characters with the Olympian detachment noir usually demands. Characters in the Almodovar universe can’t do deadpan delivery, and perhaps throwing in the towel, Almodovar deliciously parodies the typical Veronica Lake-Alan Ladd repartee when he has the lip reader interpret what they’re saying in a marvellous monotone monologue.
“Yet ultimately, Almodovar doesn’t seem comfortable in the cramped noir world of the Madrid film studio and mansion he has built for his pawns, and the second half of the film sees the characters flee to the wide open spaces of the island of Lanzarote. There, the film slips into lush, romantic melodrama against a bleak volcanic landscape.
“With the action moving ponderously towards a baffling denouement, we enter the terrain of high melodrama – sensational revelations and narrative twists. In the midst of all this, there’s an over-long clip from the quirky comedy film-within-a-film.
“It’s symptomatic of the strain in Broken Embraces, which sees the clashing genres of noir, melodrama and comedy vie for supremacy, but it’s a rollicking struggle that, in the hands of consummate ringmaster Almodovar, is a joy to watch.”
I’ve put some thought today into the Best Picture contenders as well as the apparent second-tier films, and almost no thought whatsoever into the other categories. I’ve mainly just copied and pasted and plopped them into the new 2009 Oscar Balloon. The refinement process begins now.
BEST PICTURE (21): Mandela/Playing The Enemy (Warner Bros.), d: Clint Eastwood; Biutiful (Universal), d: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu; Nine (Weinstein Co.), d: Rob Marshall; Amelia (Fox Searchlight), d: Mira Nair; Green Zone (Universal), d: Paul Greengrass; Public Enemies (Universal), d: Michael Mann; Taking Woodstock (Focus Features), d: Ang Lee; Shutter Island (Paramount), d: Martin Scorsese; Cheri (Miramax), d: Stephen Frears; The Informant (Warner Bros.), d: Steven Soderbergh; Away We Go (Focus Features), d: Sam Mendes; Up In The Air (Paramount), d: Jason Reitman; The Hurt Locker (Summit), d: Kathryn Bigelow; An Education (Sony Classics), d: Lone Scherfig; The Lovely Bones (Paramount), d: Peter Jackson; Agora (no U.S. distributor), d: Alejandro Amenabar; The Road (Weinstein Co.), d: John Hillcoat; Brothers (MGM), d: Jim Sheridan; A Serious Man (Focus Features), d: Joel and Ethan Coen; Bright Star (no US distributor), d: Jane Campion; Julie and Julia (Columbia), d: Nora Ephron; The Tree of Life (no US distributor),d: Terrence Malick.
OTHER FORMIDABLES (15): Avatar (20th Cemtury Fox), d: James Cameron; Whatever Works (Sony Classics), d: Woody Allen; Men Who Stare at Goats (no US distributor), d: Grant Heslov; Leaves of Grass (no US distributor), d: Tim Blake Nelson; The Boat That Rocked (Universal), d: Richard Curtis; Dallas Buyer’s Club (Universal), d: Craig Gillespie; Untitled Nancy Meyers (Universal), d: Nancy Meyers; Ondine (no US distributor), d: Neil Jordan; Shanghai (Weinstein Co.), d: Mikael Hafstrom; Forgiveness (no US distributor), d: Todd Solondz; The Last Station (no US distributor), d: Michael Hoffman; Love Ranch (no US distributor), d: Taylor Hackford; Coca avant Chanel (Warner Bros.), d: Anne Fontaine; Nailed (Capitol Films), d: David O. Russell; Inglourious Basterds (Weinstein Co.), d: Quentin Tarantino.
PLUS (11): Lars von Trier‘s Antichrist, Cristian Mungiu‘s Tales From the Golden Age, Gaspar Noe‘s Enter the Void, a new Michael Moore documentary about profligate Wall Street bankers, Fatih Akin‘s Soul Kitchen, Michael Haneke‘s The White Ribbon, Jim Jarmusch‘s The Limits of Control, Ken Loach‘s Looking For Eric, Terry Gilliam‘s The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus, Andrea Arnold‘s Fish Tank; Jean-Pierre Jeunet‘s Micmacs a tire-larigot.
BEST DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood (Mandela/Playing The Enemy); Rob Marshall (Nine); Mira Nair (Amelia); Paul Greengrass (Green Zone); Michael Mann (Public Enemies); Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock); Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island); Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Biutiful); Sam Mendes (Away We Go); Jason Reitman (Up In The Air); Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life); Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker); Lone Scherfig (An Education); Peter Jackson (The Lovely Bones); Alejandro Amenabar (Agora); John Hillcoat (The Road); Jim Sheridan (Brothers); Joel and Ethan Coen (A Serious Man); Jane Campion (Bright Star), Nora Ephron (Julie and Julia).
BEST ACTOR: Morgan Freeman (Mandela/Playing The Enemy); Daniel Day-Lewis (Nine); Javier Bardem (Biutiful); Matt Damon (The Informant/Green Zone); Viggo Mortensen (The Road); Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island); Johnny Depp (Public Enemies); George Clooney (Up In The Air, Men Who Stare at Goats); Sean Penn (The Tree of Life).
BEST ACTRESS: Michelle Pfeiffer (Cheri); Carey Mulligan (An Education); Hilary Swank (Amelia); Rachel Weisz (Agora); Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces); Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones); Helen Mirren (The Tempest/Love Ranch); Gabourey Sidibe (Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire); Audrey Tatou (Coco Avant Chanel); Maya Rudolph (Away We Go); Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia).
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plumber (The Last Station); Matt Damon (Mandela/Playing The Enemy); Richard Kind (A Serious Man); Billy Crudup (Public Enemies); Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island); Ewan McGregor (Amelia); Christian Bale (Public Enemies); Alfred Molina (An Education); Jamie Foxx (The Soloist); Kodi Scott-McPhee (The Road); Jonathan Groff (Taking Woodstock).
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Michelle Williams (Shutter Island); Sophia Loren (Nine); Imelda Staunton (Taking Woodstock); Mo’nique (Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire); Marion Cotillard (Nine/Public Enemies); Kathy Bates (Cheri); Judi Dench (Nine); Rachel Weisz (The Lovely Bones).
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Taking Woodstock (written by James Schamus, based on the book by Tom Monte); Nine (written by Michael Tolkin, Anthony Minghella; based on the novel by Arthur L. Kopit); Cheri (written by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by Collette); Shutter Island (written by Brian Helgeland; based on the novel by Dennis Lehane); Mandela/Playing The Enemy (written by Anthony Peckham, based on the book “Playing the Enemy” by John Carlin; The Lovely Bones (written by Phillipa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh — based on the novel by Alice Sebold); Public Enemies (written by Ronan Bennett, Ann Biderman, Michael Mann — based on the book “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 ” by Bryan Burrough); Amelia (written by Ronald Bass); Up in the Air (written by Jason Reitman; based on the novel by Walter Kirn);The Informant (written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the novel by Kurt Eichenwald).
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY : Up (written by Bob Peterson); An Education (written by Nick Hornby); A Serious Man (written by Joel and than Coen); Broken Embraces (written by Pedro Almodovar); Away We Go (written by Dave Eggars, Vendela Vida ; Biutiful (written by Amando Bo, Nicolas Giacobone, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu); Whatever Works (written by Woody Allen); The Hurt Locker (written by Mark Boal); The Limits of Control (written by Jim Jarmusch)
For me tonight’s Oscar show was defined by an agreeably classy vibe, nice but less than historic production numbers, and a couple of big shockers — the defeat of The Wrestler‘s Mickey Rourke by Milk‘s Sean Penn in the Best Actor race, and Departure‘s defeat of Waltz With Bashir and The Class to take the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
And the utter predictability of just about everything else.
The best innovation by producers Bill Condon and Larry Mark was having five Oscar-winning actors of the past come out as a group and praise each of the five nominees. Nice tough — classy, gracious, communal. Keep it.
The biggest non-shock of the evening came when Slumdog Millionaire took the Best Picture Oscar — a triumph that had been predicted for many months. Watching the entire happy Slumdog family together on-stage was certainly a moment. The difference was that “we had a script that inspired mad love,” said a smiling producer, and “we had a shared love for Mumbai, the city where we made the movie,” and “we had passion for the movie itself.”
It was a pleasant-enough Oscar show, but the wild voltage just didn’t happen. What voltage could have happened? It wasn’t in the films, not really, and the show itself, while very crisp and professional and agreeably slick in many respects, felt almost too smooth. No missteps, no bad moves except for the awarding of Departures, nothing gauche or excessive, no streakers, no Sasheen Littlefeather, no Jack Palance push-up jokes…nothing.
Judd Apatow‘s short film costarring the great Seth Rogen and James Franco and Janusz Kaminsky was easily the best thing on the show. Hilarious. Laughed out loud often. Rogen and Franco should have hosted the show with their dopey-sharp-brilliant Pineapple repartee. Would’ve been great.
The shocker of the night finally (if not all that welcomely) came when Sean Penn won the Best Actor Oscar for his work in Milk, and Mickey Rourke, whom everyone was picking to win based on the momentum of the last two or three weeks, didn’t. But no shame on the vote or the choice. Penn did very, very well by Harvey Milk in Milk. He found his inner gay man and made him smile and sing out.
Kate Winslet won for Best Actress, and good for that. Many of us are convinced that this award is really for her work in Revolutionary Road, which is a far, far better film than The Reader.
Slumdog Millionaire‘s Danny Boyle won the Best Director Oscar. There was a realistic choice?
Penelope Cruz won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. As expected and predicted by everyone in the world except for David Carr, a.k.a., “the Bagger,” who wrote that the great Viola Davis (Doubt) would take it. It would have been great indeed if she had, but Davis got a serious career bump and that’s what counts.
The opening number aside, I wasn’t getting a lot of personality from the show in the early stages. It felt a little like the Tony’s, a little bit like the Broadcast Film Critics People’s Choice Awards, a little bit like the WGA Awards, a little bit like the 1937 Oscar Awards, etc. It moved along quickly enough but…well, there’s no winning, is there? It looked good all through, I felt a distinct lack of jolt and nerve.
The opener was okay. Hugh Jackman was relaxed and into it as far as it went. We were all watching an Oscar ceremony at the Ambassador Hotel in 1937. Where’s Fredric March? Jackman sang a bit of a hokey medley song, okay, but the silly-foolish energy appealed. Anne Hathaway, I felt, did herself proud. Chummy, loose, felt fine.
Departures, reportedly a nice, good-enough drama, shocked much of the civilized world (with the exception of Kris Tapley, who predicted that it might win) by taking the Best Foreign Language Oscar. Israel is weeping and stamping its feet over the loss suffered by Waltz With Bashir, which is incontestably one of the most original and searing films of the year.
Kim Ledger, Kate Ledger and Sally Bell accepting Heath’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
It’s a crime that this happened. Those infuriating foreign language people! To go by Tapley’s recent description, Departures is a kind of Japanese Salieri film. Decent, heartfelt, respectable — and not even close to Bashir‘s calibre.
A sense of boredom was manifest due to the predictability. Every award except for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language feature fell right into line.
Ben Stiller‘s Joaquin Pheonix routine was, for me, quite funny. The first time I laughed out loud as opposed to chortling or chuckling or just smiling.
Slumdog Millionaire‘s A.R. Rahman won — not very surprisingly, almost disappointingly — the Best Musical Score Oscar. Rahman’s “Jai Ho” also won the Best Song Oscar.
The Best Original Screenplay Oscar went to Dustin Lance Black for political reasons. Politics and political point- making as it affects the here-and-now — particularly the bruising that was Prop 8 — always matters. Black’s thank you was eloquent and very emotional. “Thank God for giving us Harvey Milk.”
The first Benjamin Button tech Oscar was for Best Art Direction. The Costume Design Oscar always goes to the movie set in a ruffly and exotic time period, so naturally the winner was the 18th Century The Duchess. Button has also won the Best Makeup Oscar.
Slumdog Millionaire‘s Anthony Dod Mantle won the Best Cinematography Oscar…naturally.
Congratulations to Toyland for winning the Best Live-Action Short Oscar.
The Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar went to Slumdog Millionaire‘s Simon Beaufoy as an expression of the general sweep mentality surrounding and supporting this film.
“The man who wrote that is now dead…every blank page was once a tree.” Steve Martin‘s Oscar podium material (which I presume he’s written himself) always plays better than the material in his films.
Andrew Stanton‘s WALL*E won the Best Animated Feature Oscar…shocker. Kumio Kato‘s La Maison en Petits Cubes has won the Best Animated Short.
The Dark Knight‘s Heath Ledger, of course, took the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Ledger’s dad, mom and sister accepted. “An original and enduring legacy” indeed. A feeling of sadness, solemnity, finality. “On behalf of your beautiful Matilda….thank you.”
Bill Maher‘s introductory remarks for the awarding of the Best Documentary Feature Oscar contained, naturally, a slight plug for Religulous . The Oscar, of course, was won by Man on Wire and director James Marsh. Phillipe Petit ‘s coin trick and Oscar nose-balancing was exquisite. And congratulations to Megan Mylan and Smile Pinki for winning Best Doc Short.
Visual Effects Oscar went to Benjamin Button. Naturally.
The Dark Knight‘s Richard King took the Best Sound Editing Oscar. And the Best Sound Mixing Oscar went to the sweeping Slumdog.
Jerry Lewis accepted his Oscar with dignity, brevity, graciousness. Not a trace of snip or caustic wit, even. Short and sweet, in and out, thank you from the bottom of my heart, etc.
And the favored/probable winners at today’s Film Independent Spirit Awards will be….uhm, I had the nominees pasted somewhere, can’t find ’em, whatever. I know this much at least — hooray and hip-pip for Melissa Leo! Okay, the nominees are posted on this IFC.com news page. Get it together already.
If I was in Los Angeles I’d be driving over on the motorcyle to the big circus tent on the beach in Santa Monica around 11 am or so. Wine and champagne schmooze time begins around noon and the show, hosted this year by the great Steve Coogan and beamed by the IFC Channel, will kick off around 2 pm. And then the after-party at Shutters. Except I’m here in New Jersey/New York, where it was Northern Canadian cold last night.
The winner of this year’s Robert Koehler Austere Indie Gloomhead I-Don’t-Wannna-Get-It Award is Lance Hammer’s Ballast.
Ballast is also nominated for the Best Feature along with Frozen River, Rachel Getting Married, Wendy and Lucy and The Wrestler. The winner, I’m guessing, will either be The Wrestler or Rachel Getting Married. Could Frozen River take it? I don’t think so. The secretly-agreed-upon deal is for Melissa Leo to take the Best Actress award and maybe Courtney…I don’t want to give too much away.
Best Director nominees are Chop Shop‘s Ramin Bahrani, Rachel Getting Married‘s Jonathan Demme, gloomhead Ballast guy Lance Hammer, Frozen River’s Courtney Hunt, and The Visitor‘s Thomas McCarthy. Give it to McCarthy!
Who cares about the Best First Feature award? We all should this year because it presents an opportunity for Synecdoche Judgment Day, yay or nay. Will they give it to incorrigible gloom-head Charlie Kaufman or the Latino guy who directed Sleep Dealer, which I saw at Sundance ’08? The nominees are Afterschool, Medicine for Melancholy and Sangre de Mi Sangre besides Sleep Dealer and Synecdoche, New York.
Nobody cares about the John Cassavetes Award, which is given out to the best feature made for under $500,000.
The Best First Screenplay Spirit Award will go to Milk‘s Dustin Lance Black as a symbolic repudiation of the the pro-Prop. 8 position held by former L.A. Film Festival director Rich Raddon, who worked for FIND and who resigned on or about 11.25.08 after his monetary contribution to the Prop. 8 campaign became known. The indie gay contingent and their many supporters need to make the point that intolerance won’t be tolerated in the FIND ranks, and so Black wins for writing a screenplay about a legendary martyr to the gay-rights cause.
The other contenders for this award — Lance Hammer (Ballast), Courtney Hunt (Frozen River), Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) and Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married) haven’t a prayer against this.
The Best Screenplay nominees are Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Sugar), Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York) , Howard A. Rodman (Savage Grace) and Christopher Zalla (Sangre de Mi Sangre). Let’s see…the sexiest marquee-value contender is Allen but he never shows up so let’s give it to Kaufman.
Best Female Lead nominees: Summer Bishil (Towelhead…journalists in Toronto were offended by her jailbait sex scene with Aaron Eckhart), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married…yes!…but probably won’t win!), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Tarra Riggs (Ballast….forget it!) and Michelle Williams (Wendy and Lucy). Like I said, Leo wins. She deserves it besides.
Best Male Lead: Javier Bardem ( Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Richard Jenkins (The Visitor…HE’s favorite in this realm), Sean Penn (Milk), Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker…why nominate him now with The Hurt Locker not opening until August?) and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler). Rourke or Penn will win.
Best Supporting Female: Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married), Rosie Perez (The Take), Misty Upham (Frozen River), and Debra Winger (Rachel Getting Married). HE would love to see the award go to DeWitt.
Best Supporting Male: James Franco (Milk), Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker), Charlie McDermott (Frozen River), JimMyron Ross (Ballast), and Haaz Sleiman (The Visitor). Mackie is entirely right and convincing in Locker, but the award will probably go to Franco, who did a fine job. (And who deserves props for repeatedly kissing a fake-bearded Sean Penn, who always has cigarette breath on top of everything else.)
I’m fundamentally flawed as a handicapper and Oscar-pool better because I can’t step back and say “this film or filmmaker will win even though I have problems with it/him/her.” If I have issues with anyone or anything, I can”t just look at the odds and predict victory. Except when the odds are so overwhelming there’s simply no other choice, as it is with Slumdog Millionaire winning the Best Picture Oscar two days and six hours from now.
Here we go anyway…
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. Conflicted Feelings Factor: So-so to moderate as I’ve never truly felt this film is a major-league home run. It’s a solid double — maybe a triple at best. And I hate, hate, hate that guy who plays the game show announcer. I hate his suit, his haircut…everything about him.
Best Director: Slumdog‘s Danny Boyle. Conflicted Feelings Factor: Hardly present. Boyle is a good fellow, knows his stuff, he did a good job. This is his year, let well enough alone.
Best Actor: The Wrestler‘s Mickey Rourke. Conflicted Feelings Factor: Absent. If Sean Penn wins, we’ll all survive and a very fine performance will have been honored. But it won’t feel right.
Best Actress: The Reader‘s Kate Winslet. Conflicted Feelings Factor: See the piece I posted an hour ago. Either way, I’m ready to let this be Kate’s time. I think we all feel this way.
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight. Conflicted Feelings Factor: Strong. I’d honestly rather see Michael Shannon win for Revolutionary Road, in part because he’s great in that film, and in part because he’s here. I was extremely pissed off when Heath did what he did to himself, accidentally or otherwise, and I guess I haven’t quite gotten beyond that.
Best Supporting Actress: Vicky Cristina Barcelona‘s Penelope Cruz. Conflicted Feelings Factor: I’d be very happy to see this go to Doubt‘s Viola Davis.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire.
Best Original Screenplay: Andrew Stanton‘s WALL*E as an acknowledgement that it is and was somehow more than just the year’s best animated feature. Conflicted Feelings Factor: It would be lovely to see the prize go to Frozen River.
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button because it was well handled as far as it went, and Paramount at least needs those tech awards as a return for their $150 million investment.
Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire, Anthony Dod Mantle.
Best Costume Design: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The rule of thumb is that any period film involving exotic ruffled duds tends to win on this score, which would point to The Duchess. I still say Button because it cost so much and people feel sorry for Paramount having shelled out so much and come up empty on the Best Picture front.
Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire.
Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Best Musical Score: Slumdog Millionaire.
Best Original Song: “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire.
Best Sound Editing: The Dark Knight. Compensation award.
Best Sound Mixing: The Dark Knight. Ditto.
Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. No contest.
Best Animated Feature: WALL*E.
Best Foreign Language Feature: Waltz With Bashir.
Best Documenary Feature: Man on Wire.
Best Documentary Short: Dunno, clueless, pass.
Best Short Film (animated): La Maison en Petits Cubes.
Best Short Film (Live Action): Toyland. Holocaust factor, naturally.