HE readers are hereby invited to predict the 2013/2014 Oscar winners in all the categories [nominees listed after the jump]. All submissions must be in by…I don’t know, Saturday, March 1st at midnight? The winner will receive either a cash prize of $100 or $125 or will be treated to a nice dinner or lunch by yours truly if he/she happens to live in Los Angeles. While we’re eating I’ll record our conversation and take pictures and make an article out of our encounter. Spell out predicted winners in BOLD CAPS. No revisions once you’ve sent in a list. The winner chooses the restaurant.
Tonight the Broadcast Film Critics Association threw a Celebration of Black Cinema at L.A.’s House of Blues. The highlight was a knockout set by 20 Feet From Stardom singers Lisa Fischer, Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Tata Vega and Judith Hill. Thanks to the BFCA’s Joey Berlin, Sam Rubin and Shawn Edwards for a truly great evening; ditto event producer Madelyn Hammond. 20 Feet is on the Best Feature Documentary short list. Here’s hoping the gals get to perform on the Oscar telecast. (Apologies for murky sound — forgot Canon SX280 HS, had to shoot with iPhone.)
There are several producers and distributors who are true Movie Catholics — who really believe in movies as a delivery device for excitement, opening minds, spreading wisdom, spiritual transportation, etc. Two of the best, surely, are producers Scott Rudin (Inside Llewyn Davis, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Captain Phillips, Frances Ha, Margaret, Moneyball, The Social Network) and Annapurna’s Megan Ellison (Her, American Hustle, Foxcatcher, Zero Dark Thirty, Killing Them Softly, Spring Breakers, The Master). These two have to be regarded as Kings of the Hill.
Down half a notch are Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner (Rush, Les Miserables, Anna Karenina, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, A Serious Man, United 93).
Production and distribution-wise, of course, there’s the Weinstein Company (August: Osage County, Killing Them Softly, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, 20 Feet from Stardom, Fruitvale Station, The Butler) and Fox Searchlight (Birdman, 12 years A Slave, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Sessions, The East, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Dom Hemingway), Sony Classics, IFC Films, Magnolia and so on.
This afternoon I attended a rehearsal by the 20 Feet From Stardom gals — Merry Clayton, Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer and Judith Hill — for their performance at tomorrow’s Rose Bowl game in Pasadena. They’ll be singing “The Star Spangled Banner” before Michigan and Stanford go at it. It’s all but certain that the short-listed 20 Feet will end up as one of the five Best Feature Doc nominees. It’s now viewable on iTunes.
My JFK-to-LAX flight got in around 10 pm last night. It feels dead here. It’s not but it feels that way. The only things going on are (a) an opportunity tomorrow (12.31) to watch the 20 Feet From Stardom gals rehearse “The Star Spangled Banner” prior to their real-deal appearance at the Rose Bowl game on Wednesday, (b) a possible interview opportunity with Philomena star-cowriter Steve Coogan, and (c) the start of the Palm Springs Int’l Film Festival on Friday (1.3), which I’m planning to cover for two or three days. The 20 Feet girls are also performing at a Broadcast Film Critics Association celebration of Black Cinema at the House of Blues on Tuesday, 1.7. The Golden Globe award ceremony will happen on Sunday, 1.12. I leave three days later (Wednesday, 1.15) for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Which means I’ll miss the BFCA Award ceremony on Thursday, 1.16. The 2013 Oscar nominations will be revealed that morning. No Best Picture nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street? Fine, Academy — enjoy your everlasting infamy.
It took me over an hour to fill out the ballot for the 19th Annual Critics Choice Awards. The tallies (noms or winners, I forget which) will be announced next Monday. The pain-in-the-ass minor categories (Best Female Action Star, etc.) are what caused all the trouble. I don’t care if my picks are consistent with previously posted preferences — I go with my moods. You don’t get bonus points for voting for the favorites, although there are some people who actually vote that way.
BEST PICTURE: 1. Wolf of Wall Street; 2. 12 Years A Slave; 3. Inside Llewyn Davis; 4. Her; 5. American Hustle.
BEST ACTOR: 1. Robert Redford, All Is Lost; 2. Joaquin Phoenix, Her; 3. Leonardo DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street.
BEST ACTRESS: 1. Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue Is The Warmest Color; 2. Julie Delpy, Before Midnight; 3. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: 1. Jonah Hill, Wolf of Wall Street; 2. Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer’s Club; 3. Josh Brolin, Labor Day.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: 1. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years A Slave; 2. Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle; 3. Jennifer Garner, Dallas Buyer’s Club.
A guy who was right in the thick of today’s New York Film Critics Circle balloting (which took almost five hours to complete) shares the following: “For four ballots the Best Picture vote was essentially a tie between American Hustle and 12 Years A Slave, and then Hustle finally won in a run-off vote against Slave. So it basically took five ballots. (N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick reports it actually took six ballots, although one of these was “disqualified on a technicality.”)
Inside Llewyn Davis was a contender all day long but it didn’t have the votes. At least it did better than The Wolf of Wall Street, which didn’t compete vigorously in any category.
“The Best Supporting Actress vote went on for three ballots, and was a very close match between Hustle‘s Jennifer Lawrence and 12 Years A Slave‘s Lupita N’yongo. Nebraska‘s June Squibb was in there but not very strongly.
“The Best Director voting went intially for Steve McQueen, David O’Russell, Alfonso Cuaron and the Coen brothers but McQueen and Russell were very close with the most support…and then McQueen took it on the fourth ballot.
“There was no strong challenge against Cate Blanchett for Best Actress although there was some support for Adele “whatsername” (i.e., Exarchopoulos) and Hustle‘s Amy Adams.
“Robert Redford‘s Best Actor trophy was decided on a second ballot. The bulk of the first-ballot votes went to Redford and Slave‘s Chiweitel Ejiofor. A certain level of support was also there for Oscar Isaac, Bruce Dern and Matthew McConaughey.
If I don’t fall for Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street when I see it this Friday I’ll be flabbergasted, so let’s just assume it’ll have some prominent position among HE’s revised Best Films of 2013 (features and docs, merit alone, in this order, forget award season for now), and probably among the top five: 1. Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave; 2. Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis; 3. Spike Jonze‘s Her; 4. Jean Marc Vallee‘s Dallas Buyer’s Club; 5. J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost; 6. Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Blue Is The Warmest Color; 7. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity; 8. Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past; 9. Richard Linklater‘s Before Midnight; 10. Noah Baumbach‘s Frances Ha; 11. Morgan Neville‘s 20 Feet From Stardom; 12. Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station; 13. Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind The Candelabra; 14. Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips; 15. Jeff Nichols‘ Mud; 16. Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska; 17. Nicole Holfocener‘s Enough Said; 18. Ziad Doueiri‘s The Attack; 19. Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Short Term 12; 20. Shane Carruth‘s Upstream Color; 21. Gabriela Cowperthwaite‘s Blackfish; 22. John Lee Hancock‘s Saving Mr. Banks; 23. Ron Howard‘s Rush; 24. Henry Alex Rubin‘s Disconnect; 25. Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier‘s Muscle Shoals; 26. Dror Moreh‘s The Gatekeepers.
Hollywood Reporter award-season columnist Scott Feinberg has compiled a list of 15 documentaries that he feels are most likely to wind up on the Academy’s documentary branch “short-list,” from which the five Best Documentary Feature nominees will be chosen.
Feinberg’s 15 are (1) Jehane Noujaim‘s The Square, (2) Joshua Oppenheimer‘s The Act of Killing, (3) Zachary Heinzerling‘s Cutie and the Boxer, (4) Gabriela Cowperthwaite‘s Blackfish, (5) Penn Jillette and Teller‘s Tim’s Vermeer, (6) Morgan Neville‘s 20 Feet From Stardom, (7) Sarah Polley‘s Stories We Tell, (8) Tom Donahue‘s Casting By, (9) Claude Lanzman‘s The Last of the Unjust, (10) Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson‘s American Promise, (11) Jason Osder‘s Let the Fire Burn, (12) Jacob Kornbluth‘s Inequality for All, (13) Martha Shane and Lana Wilson‘s After Tiller, (14) James Toback and Alec Baldwin‘s Seduced and Abandoned and (15) Steve Hoover‘s Blood Brother.
HE’s Best Films of 2013 (features and docs, merit alone, in this order, forget award season for now): 1. Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave; 2. Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis; 3. J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost; 4. Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Blue Is The Warmest Color, 5. Spike Jonze‘s Her; 6. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity; 7. Jean Marc Vallee‘s Dallas Buyer’s Club; 8. Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past; 9. Richard Linklater‘s Before Midnight; 10. Noah Baumbach‘s Frances Ha; 11. Morgan Neville‘s 20 Feet From Stardom; 12. Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station; 13. Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind The Candelabra; 14. Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips; 15. Jeff Nichols‘ Mud; 16. Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska; 17. Nicole Holfocener‘s Enough Said; 18. Ziad Doueiri‘s The Attack; 19. Destin Daniel Cretton‘s Short Term 12; 20. Shane Carruth‘s Upstream Color; 21. Gabriela Cowperthwaite‘s Blackfish; 22. John Lee Hancock‘s Saving Mr. Banks; 23. Ron Howard‘s Rush; 24. Henry Alex Rubin‘s Disconnect; 25. Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier‘s Muscle Shoals; 26. Dror Moreh‘s The Gatekeepers; 27. Penny Lane‘s Our Nixon.
Last night I saw Morgan Neville‘s Twenty Feet From Stardom for the second time, and got off on it just as much as I did at Sundance. It has highs, tears, sadnesses, ecstasies, golden oldies and unsuppressable emotional currents. But this portrait of insufficiently heralded backup singers throws a lot of faces, names, careers and personal histories into your lap. The film needs a one-stop-shopping, easy-reference website that tells you who everyone is but right now it only has a Facebook page and a Twitter handle.
The leading lights in 20 Feet From Stardom (l. to r.) Darlene Love, Tata Vega, Merry Clayton, Judith Hill, Lisa Fischer.
The doc focuses on six women — Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Merry Clayton, Judith Hill, Claudia Lennear and Tata Vega.
Just hang on to these six names, reference their faces above and their personal websites or Wiki pages — Love, Fischer, Clayton, Hill, Lennear (who mainly teaches for a living these days) and Vega.
From my 1.18.13 mini-riff: “Pic is a snappy, joyful, deeply emotional doc about the career agonies and ecstasies of soul-angel backup singers.
“These ladies have belted out every backup ‘ooh, yayuh-yaaaay!’ and ‘ooh-wah’ and ‘babaaay!’ you’ve ever heard, and — this is the main point of the film — have much more in their quiver. They’re all as rippin’ and soulful as any Aretha Franklin or Mariah Carey or whomever, but none has ever built a strong solo career.
“This is the melancholy that runs through Twenty Feet From Stardom, but Neville has crafted a killer tribute and brought back the spotlight. This is live-wire stuff, an audience film, a winner.
“Twenty Feet takes you back to every Motown and Phil Spector tune that ever mattered, to this and that Joe Cocker song, to David Bowie‘s ‘Young Americans’ (‘Aahhhhllll night!’) and especially to Clayton’s legendary solo on the Rolling Stones‘ “Gimme Shelter”…knockout stuff! The talking heads include Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler and Mick Jagger.”
I tweeted a couple of hours ago that no films have truly levitated anyone so far. A few likes, two big likes (Inequality For All, 20 Feet From Stardom) and…? You tell me. I realize, of course, that Saturday is technically only the second day so let’s not sound too dispirited. But if nothing hits big tonight, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday…just saying.
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