“We are in another of those historical moments, with grim death gargling at you around every corner and people being slaughtered like sheep. Of course, Academy voters could heed the incendiary Zeitgeist and vote for Babel, a film about international chaos, or Letters from Iwo Jima, depicting the last days of a losing war. The Queen shows a head of state stubbornly resisting the popular will, and The Departed is a chic bloodbath.
“Or, surveying this bleak terrain, the Academy membership might turn to the one feel-good movie nominated for Best Picture. Voting for a comedy that celebrates life — eccentric but essentially loving family life √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Ǩ¬ù would be an affirmation of what Hollywood has done since its Golden Age: try to make America forget what makes it gloomy, and bring it a little Sunshine.” — Time‘s Richard Corliss reading the post-Saggie tea leaves.
HE postscript: I’ve been asking myself for the last five or six minutes why Corliss (or his editor) has capitalized “zeitgeist.” Just as I know that sometime down the road, editors are going to stop capitalizing the words “internet” and “web.” Two or three years Wired magazine declared that capitalizing these two was inane/ludicrous/nonsensical….but once the east-coast editorial establishment decides on a stylistic affectation, there’s no getting them off it.
And The Winner Is… blogmeister Scott Feinberg has written a very thoroughly thought-out, fairly persuasive explanation why Little Miss Sunshine is going to win the Best Picture Oscar. I love this little film but I’d personally rather see Babel or The Departed take it. Both are more exciting to watch and think about later.
“This year, producers and actors went for Little Miss Sunshine, directors liked The Departed, and the Globes went with Babel. So the Bagger can confidently say, with all the authority of his one year of experience, that The Win in best picture is up for grabs.
“If Little Miss were to sneak past the best the studios and their specialty divisions had to offer, it would be yet another message that the longshot is sometimes the best shot. Everything that was wrong about this film turned out to be the right. Too many cooks came up with something audiences loved and at least some factions of the Academy find compelling.” — from David Carr‘s riff about Sunday night’s SAG Awards and what that ceremony (possibly) foretells.
It’s over…Little Miss Sunshine is going to win the Best Picture Oscar. The SAG Awards made this quite clear — done deal, finito, no further discussion. The Departed never punched through (except for the fait accompli of Martin Scorsese winning the Best Director Oscar), Babel had some headwind out of the Golden Globes but no longer (or am I wrong? …I’m willing to consider a Babel win…just tell me how it happens)), and The Queen and Letters From Iwo Jima were never really in the game.
Two fascinating panel discussions happened today at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. I recorded both with my Olympus WS-300M, which I put right smack dab on the stage, five feet in front of the panelists…and it didn’t quite work. The voices sound echo-y and a bit faint. There’s a lot of good stuff in both discussions, but you’d do well to listen with headphones. They both last over an hour.
Babel screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and Night Buffalo co-producer Jimena Rodriguez in a backstage salon at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre — Saturday, 1.27.07, 1:25 pm — prior to 2 pm screenwriter’s panel discussion
The first was “Directors on Directing”, which kicked off at 11 am. It was moderated by Peter Bart, producer and co-host of AMC’s “Sunday Morning Shootout,” with directors Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Todd Field (Little Children), Gil Kenan (Monster House), Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (Little Miss Sunshine), and John Lasseter (Cars).
Today’s “It Starts With the Script” panel — (bottom, l. to r.) Anne Thompson, Michael Arndt, Aline Brosh McKenna, Peter Morgan; (top, l. to r.) Jason Reitman, Guillermo Arriaga, Todd Field — 1.27.07, 1:55 pm
“It Stars With the Script”, a screenwriters’ panel moderated by Hollywood Reporter columnist Anne Thompson, began at 2 pm. Screenwriters Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine), Guillermo Arriaga (Babel), Todd Field (Little Children), Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada), Peter Morgan (The Queen/The Last King of Scotland), and Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking) participated.
Screenwriters Peter Morgan, Aline Brosh McKenna prior to writers’ panel discussion; (l. to r.) (l. to r.) Peter Bart, Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris; Director’s Panel during session; writer’s group; (l. to r.) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Bart, Dayton; Little Children director-cowriter Todd Field
“And then the Best Picture category was announced: Babel, The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine, he Queen and Letters From Iwo Jima. Wait…are they nominating six [films] this year? The hundreds of reporters in the [Academy] auditorium were leaning heads together, making sure that they did not hear the name Dreamgirls.
They did not.” — from David Carr‘s Oscar nomination piece in the N.Y. Times.
The 22nd Santa Barbara Film Festival (1.25 to 2.4) will have 32 of this morning’s announced Oscar nominees in attendance — Helen Mirren, Will Smith, Forest Whitaker, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jackie Earle Haley, Djimon Honsou, Jennifer Hudson, Queen screenwriter Peter Morgan, Babel director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, Little Children helmer Todd Field, Little Miss Sunshine screenwriter Michael Arndt, etc. The list goes on…you get the idea.
Shocker! The Producers Guild — not exactly a recent harbinger of Best Picture Oscar wins, but a significant indicator of industry sentiment — has given Little Miss Sunshine its Best Picture award. I didn’t see it coming, I thought they’d give it to The Departed…. amazing! Obviously the Dreamgirls Golden Globes momentum has been stopped in its tracks, Babel is back to maybe-but-who-knows? status, and it’s a wide-open race for the Best Picture Oscar. There is no joy in Mudville (and you know where & what that is) this evening. Dreamgirls could still take it; so could Babel or The Departed. Nobody knows…but none of them have a commanding headwind.
The box-office is looking fairly lousy this weekend, and the two big Golden Globe winners — Dreamgirls and Babel — aren’t getting that much of a bump from their respective wins last Monday. Night at the Museum, #1 again with the super-sophisticates, will end up with around $11,849,000 and a rough cume of $204 million by tomorrow night. Stomp the Yard, off 47%, will earn about $11,352,000. Dreamgirls will earn $7,826,000 this weekend, up about 6% but they added close to 300 runs this weekend so it’s actually close to flat.
The Hitcher, #4 on the list, is doing about $4600 a print for a weekend tally of $7,400,000…nothing. The Pursuit of Happyness will make about $6,151,000, and the sixth-place Freedom Writers will end up with $5,166,000. Guillermo del Toro‘s Pan”s Labyrinth went to 600 runs and did pretty well — $4,461,000, $7320 a print. Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, #8, will made $3,229,000 — it’s not gaining or even holding, sad to say. The Queen expanded from 1200 to 1500 runs, and will do about $2,800,000, about $2800 a print.
Ninth-place Alpha Dog, off 45%, will end up with $2,200,000. And Babel, last of the top ten, will do about $2 million or $2300 a print, having expanded from 700 to 800 runs..
The Golden Globes awards confirmed two things: (a) there will be no sweeping victory by anyone or anything come Oscar night, and (b) the Globes are getting a bit staid and tidy — almost Oscarish in their decorum. Once upon an ass-time the Globes were regarded as a kind of alcoholic, loosey-goosey fuck-all thing, but there was almost no snap or rudeness or exhilaration in any of it. No real verve, raunch…no extraordinary pocket-drop eloquence… the pulse refused to race or even swerve. The winners, the speeches and the patter were almost all mid-tempo; ditto the parties.
The stuffed-shirt Oscars are going to be even more so, of course. (If only Sarah Silverman was set to host the show along with the Spirits!) The idea of getting out of town tomorrow night and starting in with the Sundance Film Festival , which I’ve done almost no preparation for, suddenly feels like some kind of fresh-water antidote. Clean out the detritus, bring in the ’07….up and away.
The best part of my evening was sitting in a plush Beverly Hilton hotel room as I watched the show live-time, and then attending the Paramount after-party. Lots of warmth, affection and contentment — only one discordant note involving a big-name actor and a big-time producer that I’m not going to relay in detail, but seemed indicative of an extremely strange bend in the personality of the actor.
The only bolt moment for me was when Babel took the Best Drama trophy — deserved, no question, but a surprise because the spirit voices were constantly saying Departed, Departed, Departed over the last few days. (Maybe I need to get down with different spirits.)
Paramount Pictures chairman/CEO Brad Grey, Warren Beatty
If it hadn’t been for the “balls” motif in two speeches — Sacha Baron Cohen‘s acceptance and Tom Hanks‘ tribute to Warren Beatty — and the occasional flubs (Eddie Murphy almost forgetting DreamWorks topper Stacey Snider‘s name, Jamie Foxx relaying the outdated information that Dreamgirls was playing on 800 screens), I would have been bored silly.
After the Paramount party the coolest place to be was the Beverly Hilton lobby. It was the nexus that everyone passed through on their way to and from the various soirees — passing along info on where they’d been, were going, how crowded the last bash was, etc. Plus there was no music to get in the way of conversation, and no-drink-in-the-hand felt like the right thing.
The Little Miss Sunshine team captains — co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, screenwriter Michael Arndt — were lobby-hanging when I happened to walk by. Easy-time vibes all around. (I firmly believe that the Best Picture Oscar race is between LMS, The Departed and maybe The Queen.) We laughed about the pork-pie hat item I wrote a few days ago, etc.
Exterior of the Paramount after-party
I don’t know that Dreamgirls has a new lease on life exactly, but I presume last night’s Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy win will give it a shot at the box-office, and that’s good. (Babel, also, will presumably benefit from its win in the Drama category.) As one player was heard to say, “If Dreamgirls hadn’t won last night, we would have been fucked…the wolves would have all ganged up on the gazelle…snarling neck holds, But that didn’t happen, thank God.”
By the way: before the show started I saw a SWAT guy on the roof of the Beverly Hilton with what looked like a high-powered rifle with a scope.
A respectful nod to Hollywood Wiretap‘s Pete Hammond for making nearly all the right Golden Globe calls last Thursday, including a Babel win in the Best Motion Picture, Drama category, which surprised me: “A somewhat shaky and timid consensus for the Globes seems to call for a Babel Drama win and Dreamgirls Comedy or Musical win,” he wrote, “with Martin Scorsese taking Director and Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jennifer Hudson certain to win acting awards.” He also called the Forest Whitaker and Clint Eastwood/Letters From Iwo Jima wins.
Golden Globe for Best Screenplay…will it be for The Departed or Babel? And the winner is Peter Morgan for The Queen.
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