Oscarwatch‘s Sasha Stone has asked me to send her my choices for the five most likely DGA Best Director nominees, which are being announced tomorrow. I started to write them out but quickly devolved into hemming and hawing because…
I can’t figure which of the well-celebrated Three Amigos (Inarritu, Cuaron, del Toro) are the most steady and venerated in the membership’s eyes, for one thing, and which is the most vulnerable? They obviously all deserve to be nominated — if nothing else, ’06 has truly been the Year of the Three Amigos — and I really don’t know which way to turn because of the Children of Men surge of the last week or so. (Did it take off too late?)
The Queen‘s Stephen Frears is a likely nominee, I suppose, but I haven’t been feeling great inevitable power surges coming out of the Queen camp. I’ve been presuming all along that Bill Condon will be nominated for Dreamgirls, and good for Bill and Larry Mark and the gang if this happens, but I don’t know. The gotta- salute-the-big-musical herd mentality will probably put him over, but I wonder.
And I’m figuring United 93‘s Paul Greengrass has to be nominated…no? The most highly regarded film of the year according to the critics?
Here are my five choices plus reasons for each: (1) Martin Scorsese (The Departed) — slam dunk, no question, in the bag. (2) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel) — the Producers Guild and SAG ratifications make this more likely than it was two or three weeks ago; (3) Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) — because everyone loves their film, and they’re little guys from the indie/MTV world; (4) Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) — herd mentality; and (5) Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) — because he’s the master.
It depends on how many DGA voters have seen Children of Men and how many of these have picked up on the growing support for this film, but something tells me that helmer Alfonso Cuaron might just make it into the top five. And if he doesn’t make it — or even if he does — Greengrass might step in also. Dunno, can’t figure it….stumped.
Fearless Manhattan journo Lewis Beale has passed along his ’06 superlatives — here are a few: (a) The Best: Inside Man, United 93, Little Miss Sunshine, Half Nelson, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Proposition, Babel, The Departed, Casino Royale, Children of Men; (b) The Worst: The Notorious Betty Page, London, Freedomland, Talladega Nights, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Fast Food Nation; (c) Underrated: Brick, Find Me Guilty, Hollywoodland, Clerks II, Miami Vice, The Fountain, Apocalypto, Come Early Morning; (d) Overrated: Volver, Borat, Dreamgirls; (e) Full Disclosure: Beale has not seen Letters From Iwo Jima; (f) Guilty Pleasures: Glory Road, Slither, Invincible, Something New.
On top of (g) Best Doper Movie: The Fountain; (h) Best Pre-Columbian Chase Film: Apocalypto; (i) Best Film I Saw In 2006 Which Won’t Be Released Until Later This Year: The Lives of Others, a brilliant German movie about East Germany’s Stasi security system, in which a rigid spy becomes humanized after he is assigned to get information on a noted playwright and his actress lover; (j) Patti Labelle “I Can Sing Really Loud and Shatter Glass” Award: Jennifer Holiday; (k) Great-Looking Grunge: The Proposition.
Beale’s Favorite Scenes: (1) The highway chase in Children of Men; (2) The construction site chase in Casino Royale; (3) The awesomely trippy final 15 minutes of The Fountain; (4) Martin Sheen thrown off the roof in The Departed; (5) Abigail Breslin dancing to “Super Freak” in Little Miss Sunshine; (6) The Motown dance number in Clerks II; (7) A female cop telling a white supremacist what a bullet from a high-powered rifle will do to his head in Miami Vice; (8) Any time Meryl Streep gets bitchy in The Devil Wears Prada; (9) Newark air traffic controllers watching as one of the lethal planes passes [a mile or so] in front of them, heading for the Twin Towers, in United 93; and (10) Ashley Judd not knowing how to deal with a lover who just wants to caress her in Come Early Morning.
While trashing the intramural industry attitudes of some of the Left Coasters who’ve dissed David Denby‘s New Yorker piece about Hollywood ‘s digital future while at the same time (almost in the same breath) allowing that Denby’s piece “isn’t that good,” N.Y. Times Oscar blogger David Carr (a.k.as., the Bagger) offers some interesting side-sights:
#1: “Denby’s story is just more Chicken Little hollering about the same old pieces of the sky. iPods, downloads, home theaters — all of them represent additional programming space for an industry that can’t find a place to land a movie that is not based on an ancient sitcom or comic book character. The studios are so busy putting up tents that they haven’t noticed that the ground is shifting under their feet.”
#2: “Meanwhile, a new, if still-nascent, industry, one that will bypass traditional tastemakers and marketers, is growing up of its own accord. And that is a far more interesting story than the blundering of the studios. Digital in, digital out, to be consumed at a time and place and on a device of one’s own choosing. Consu- mer-driven choice, the ultimate capitalist algorithm, will tunnel beneath the studio system.”
#3: “Why is Hollywood so stuck, given that they make a product we can’t resist and the world continues to ingest in spite of our country’s tattered global image? Hollywood is a fundamentally conservative industry. The seven sisters are The Blob that ingests everything — talent, innovation, enterprise. They not only don’t enable innovation, they eat it in hopes it will go away. Anything that comes over the hill is worth shooting at and if doesn’t die, it is ignored.”
#4: “Remember when VCR’s were going to gut the industry? They spun film libraries into gold instead. It was lucrative enough that Sony was able to buy the software — a studio no less — to go with the hardware. And DVD’s, another shot straight to the heart, now serves as the product after the trailers — that blockbuster opener — has come and gone.
#5: “The studios generally treat people with new ideas the way China does, by parking them in padded cells. Mel Gibson gets tagged as a nutter when he taps into a massive Christian market, while Mark Cuban is judged to be an Antichrist when he suggests alternative means of distribution. Audiences, of course, want plain English, the dumber the better, but the impact of films where dialect is rendered in text — Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima and Volver, to mention a few — suggests an increasing consumer openness to a combination of image, text, and sound.”
So Paramount chief Brad Grey, who yesterday lost “an aggressive bid” to be recognized by the Producers Guild of America as one of the producers of Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (per Claudia Eller’s 1.4.07 L.A. Times story), is this year’s Bob Yari?
“People who have talked to the studio chief said he was angered by the guild’s decision but had not made up his mind whether to appeal to the academy,” Eller reports. “Scorsese reportedly advised Grey on Wednesday to appeal to the guild’s executive committee should The Departed be nominated.”
She adds, however, that “any such move to appeal carries big risks for Grey” because it “could it come off as an unseemly grab for personal glory to Hollywood insiders. To his bosses at Viacom Inc., it would [also] put him in direct competition with his own studio. Paramount’s Dreamgirls and Babel, which also received guild nominations, are strong contenders for the best picture Oscar.”
The Online Film Critics Society has put forward Babel, Children of Men, The Departed, Pan’s Labyrinth and United 93 as its top five Best Pictures of the Year, with a winner to be announced on Monday, 1.8.06. Four days hence — why don’t they just announce the winners now? What do they think they’re doing, generating suspense? This is not an Alfred Hitchcock film.
Two good things: they nominated The Departed‘s Mark Wahlberg ias Best Supporting Actor, and they nominated Emmanuel Lubezki for his cinematography of Children of Men.
The Best Foreign Film nominees omitted The Lives of Others….what’s that about? The five are The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, L’Enfant, Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo’s film is obviously doing double-duty), Volver and Water.
The Best Director noms went to Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), Paul Greengrass (United 93), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Martin Scorsese (The Departed) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth).
I can’t list any more….my heart’s not in it. Here’s the Variety story link.
I’m supposed to be feeling excitement or at least a moderate sense of urgency about the Screen Actors Guild nomina- tions, partly (I’m thinking) because they announced them at 6:05 ayem Pacific, which was no skin off my ass sitting here in Brooklyn. The three biggest statistical beneficiaries (because they each got three nominations) are Babel, Dreamgirls and Little Miss Sunshine — make of this what you will. Here’s what I make of it: go, Babel! Yay, Sunshine! And despite divided loyalties, an “attagirl” to Best Supporting Actress nominee Jennifer Hudson.
The Departed getting only an ensemble acting nomination plus a Best Supporting Actor nom for Leonardo DiCaprio means…aahh, probably nothing. (It just would have been cooler if The Departed‘s Mouthy-Boston-Attitude King Mark Wahlberg had snuck in alongside DiCaprio.)
The big news as far as the Best Actress category is concerned is…no big news. Penelope Cruz for Volver, Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal, Helen Mirren for The Queen, Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada and Kate Winslet for Little Children. Right down the middle, totally expected, etc. Likeliest Winner at This Stage: Judi….kidding! Obviously Ms. Mirren.
No surprises in the Best Supporting Actress category either: Adriana Barraza for Babel, Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal, Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine, Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls and Rinko Kikuchi for Babel. Breslin’s inclusion plus Alan Arkin‘s nomination for Best Suppporting Actor plus Little Miss Sunshine‘s acting ensemble nomination obviously means there’s lots of love for the little movie that might. Likeliest Winner at This Stage: Jennifer Hudson, no?
The Best Actor rundown played strictly according to mainstream opinion as reflected by the critics groups and the Oscar blogging community…zip in the way of shockers. Leonardo Dicaprio for Blood Diamond, Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson, Peter O’Toole for Venus, Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness and Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland. Those critics awards for Gosling and all those Half Nelson FYC ads helped, I’m sure — congrats to ThinkFilm. Likeliest Winner at This Stage: Whitaker, right?
The Best Supporting Actor category is a little weird. Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. Leonardo DiCaprio for The Departed. Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children. Djimon Honsou for Blood Diamond. (What? “Son! I want my son!”) and Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls. What could the Murphy nom be about? Because he sings well, drops his pants and then dies? I ‘ve been told all along that the SAG rank-and-file regards Murphy as an asshole. Maybe it’s the old animal-kingdom instinct of showing obeisance before power, because Murphy was King Shit in the ’80s? I know this: Murphy isn’t fit to shine Mark Wahlberg’s shoes. Likeliest Winner at This Stage: DiCaprio.
The Ensemble Acting nominations went to Babel, Bobby (hooray for Harvey), The Departed, Dreamgirls and Little Miss Sunshine. Likeliest Winners at This Stage: either the Babel or the Little Miss Sunshine crew. Am I wrong?
The SAG awards will be handed out on Sunday, 1.28.
The Producers Guild of America today improved the Oscar odds of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Babel, which had been seen by some handicappers as somewhat pummelled and rope-a-doping over the last three or four weeks, by naming it as one of the PGA’s five Best Picture nominees.
The other four, no real surprises, are Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed, Bill Condon‘s Dreamgirls, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris‘s Little Miss Sunshine and Stephen Frears‘ The Queen.
The obviously stellar and worthy United 93, Children of Men and Letters From Iwo Jima haven’t necessarily been hurt by being excluded, but let’s face it — they haven’t been helped. For what it’s worth, 11 of the previous 15 PGA winners have won the Best Picture Oscar.
The 3,000 member-strong org will announce the winner on 1.20 (while ev erone’s up at Sundance) at L.A.’s Century Plaza hotel.
Nominated producers are Inarritu, Steve Golin and Jon Kilik for Babel, Graham King for The Departed, Laurence Mark for Dreamgirls, Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf and Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa for Little Miss Sunshine and Andy Harries, Christine Langan and Tracey Seaward for The Queen.
The Best Picture Oscar is The Departed‘s to lose at this stage, most likely. Martin Scorsese has it in the bag for Best Director, and the certainty of this call will probably carry the film to Oscar victory. I think. A bit more than perhaps.
The Queen is admired and respected, but it has no headwind. (None that I can sense, at least.)
Dreamgirls will be nominated (I presume) but the little weasel nip-nippers won’t stop nip-nipping with their razor-sharp teeth…despite the fact that I’m okay with several portions of it, plus the fact that I’m hearing that suburban ticket-buyers are having a good time it and “getting their money’s worth,” etc.
Alfonso Cuaron‘s Children of Men is gaining ground — the notion that it may in fact be the Best Picture of the Year has actually caught on here and there — but it will never be nominated because of its overly-realistic (and therefore overly distur- bing) dystopian visions and how these are apparently affecting the Academy conservatives who voted to give Chicago the Best Picture Oscar. You know…that crowd.
Babel was big with the Golden Globers and ought to slip through — it damn well should in my book but that and $1.75 will get you a bus ticket.
Little Miss Sunshine is the only film that everyone loves without reservation, and may therefore be some kind of plucky Dark Horse.
The “too soon” emotional mules who won’t see United 93 may be heavily dug in…or not. (I strongly suspect that they are.)
Letters From Iwo Jima has been dying in its limited run so far, and it will probably continue to die when it expands, which will give those who don’t like its doomed-Japanese-solder gloominess and its all-caves, all-the-time milieu reason to back away.
The ace-level Pan’s Labyrinth, Volver and The Lives of Others — the latter is my choice for the second Best Picture of the Year — have been relegated to the Best Foreign Language Film category, World Trade Center has been out of the game for weeks; ditto Flags of Our Fathers.
Coming Soon’s Edward Douglas thought some of us might be interested to know that Universal is expanding Children of Men into 1200-plus theatres next Friday. We’ll all be curious to see how this expands, of course. Douglas predicts it will end up in the $5 million range for the weekend (i.e., about the same as Babel)
The Utah Film Critics Association gave United 93 its sixth critics group win as the 2006 Best Picture of the Year. Paul Greengrass‘s gripping docudrama was also a runner-up in the Best Screenplay and Best Director categories. And yes, naturally, of course, The Queen‘s Helen Mirren won for Best Actress while her costar Michael Sheen won for Best Supporting Actor. (I wholeheartedly admire Mirren’s performance as Queen Elizabeth II — I just find it oppressive that she’s won the damn Best Actress award from critics groups 16 or 17 times now and that no other actress has won a damn thing.) Sacha Baron Cohen was namd Best Actor for his performance in Borat, and Babel‘s Rinko Kikuchi was named Best Supporting Actress.
Mirren-Whitaker have again won the Best Actress and Best Actor trophies, this time from the herd-mentality Chicago Film Critics. Worthy choices, certainly, but it’s as if critics nationwide were all injected with the same drug. Jackie Earle Haley (Best Supporting Actor), Martin Scorsese (Best Director, The Departed), Peter Morgan (Best Original Screenplay, The Queen), William Monahan (Best Adapted Screenplay, The Departed), An Inconvenient Truth (Best Documentary), et. al.
The only semi-standout award is Rinko Kikuchi winning the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in Babel.
Here’s a take on the CFC awards by Pop Machine’s Mark Caro, also of the Chicago Tribune.
My favorite eleven films of 2006, in descending order: 1. Children of Men (Universal); 2. The Lives of Others (Sony Pictures Classics); 3. The Departed (Warner Bros.); 4. United 93 (Universal); 5. Little Miss Sunshine (Fox Searchlight); 6. Volver (Sony Pictures Classics); 7. Babel (Paramount Vantage); 8. Pan’s Labyrinth (Picturehouse); 9. Letters From Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.); 10. The Queen (Miramax); (11) Notes on a Scandal (Fox Searchlight).
Rotely & Unexceptionally Worthy…Almost Boringly So: The Pursuit of Happyness.
Most Agreeable Stylistic Exercise (if it weren’t for that slight sense of stagnation): The Good German.
Most Agreeably Diverting “Entertainment” In Spurts (despite an almost profound lack of substance and connective-tissue movie-osity): Dreamgirls
Most Unpleasantly, Obsessively Violent Film of the Year: Apocalypto.
Most Defiantly Unlikeable “Quality” Movie of the Year: The Good Shepherd
Most Engagingly Modest and Respectable Character Study/Metaphor Movie of the Year, Even If It Isn’t a Home Run: Venus.
Best David Mamet Movie Since Things Change: Edmond.
Efficiently Entertaining But Overshadowed by Star’s (Ongoing) Public Implosion, and Didn’t Take Enough Advantage of Phillip Seymour Hoffman: Mission Impossible 3.
Best Sex Scene: Jude Law going down on Juliette Binoche and sending her over the falls in Breaking and Entering,
Not Necessarily The Year’s Funniest Comedy (For Me), but Definitely The Most Astonishing: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Lightly Enjoyable Mood Piece That Had a Predictable Plot, Yes, But Excessively Bad-Rapped All The Same: A Good Year.
Non-Profound, Studio-Stamped Comedy Drama That Gets Better With Each Successive Viewing: The Break-up.
Best Romantic LSD/Mescaline/Peyote Button Movie in Years: The Fountain.
Well-Made, Affecting, Under-Appreciated: Harsh Times.
Best 007 Film in 43 Years: Casino Royale.
Movies That Delivered, Meant, Epitomized and/or Amounted to Either Very Little or Nothing: For Your Consideration, Bobby, Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People’s Temple, Marie Antoinette, The Prestige, Infamous, Hollywoodland, The Black Dahlia, All the King’s Men, Art School Conifdential, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Snakes on a Plane, Shadowboxer, Lady in the Water, Scoop, The Oh in Ohio, You, Me and Dupree, Wassup Rockers, The Proposition, The DaVinci Code, Poseidon….I could go on and on.
Hard-Luck Good Movies of the Year: Sketches of Frank Gehry (not enough love), Miami Vice, Catch a Fire, Superman Returns (which could have been so much better with a little editing-room discipline) .
Note: This is just a first stab. There are tons more movies that fit the various categories above, or warrant their own categories. Part 2 will follow tomorrow. This is Christmas Eve day and I’m going to hang back a bit, but I know there’s a good number out there who are just as movie-obsessive as myself so….
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