Academy ballots were mailed out last week to 5,586 voting members, the most significant news on the Oscar front. Not that it was a quiet week in Lake Globesbegone. The New York Times’ critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis both named Amour 2012’s best film, as did the Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan. The AP triumvirate of Christy Lemire, David Germain and Jake Coyle anointed Argo, Moonrise Kingdom and Amour, respectively.
The flyover states also weighed in: The Kansas City Film Critics Circle named The Master best film, while the Chicago and Austin Film Critics Associations went with Zero Dark Thirty. The Southeastern Film Critics Association backed Argo, as did the Nevada, St. Louis and Florida Film Critics.
The criticspalooza that is the Village Voice Top 10 poll (86 – count ‘em) named The Master best film, while The Atlantic’s lone Christopher Orr picked Zero Dark Thirty.
Put them together and what have you got? Mostly Oscar pundits still gobsmacked that Nicole Kidman got a Best Supporting nomination from the Screen Actor’s Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press. The Voice’s Michael Musto pondered whether she could be one of a handful of actors to have earned nominations for Oscar and a Razzie for the same performance. In the immortal words of Max Bialystock, “Worlds have turned on such thoughts.”
From here on, those little intangibles that John Gavin so rhapsodically preached to Maureen O’Hara about in Miracle on 34th Street (Merry Christmas, by the way) come in to play. Will Academy members filling out their ballots be influenced by Reese Witherspoon’s open letter to The Impossible’s Naomi Watts (“Not since Meryl Streep’s performance in Sophie’s Choice…) in Entertainment Weekly, moved by Hugh Jackman welling up during…
Full Story »In a blog entry yesterday, Roger Ebert announced that Ebert Presents At the Movies, the public television film review show hosted by the AP’s Christy Lemire and Mubi’s Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, will indeed be forced to go on hiatus at the end of December while he and Chaz Ebert search for funding. “We hope our hiatus will be brief. You have told us you like the show. And we now have options. A touching number of viewers offered to send us money directly. One of the avenues we may take is a Kickstarter campaign, as you suggested. We will let you know as soon as that is worked out.” [Roger Ebert’s Journal]
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Happy Monday! Also in today’s edition of The Broadsheet: A major Hollywood player isn’t as major as it thought… Matt Dillon and Julia Stiles find Pleasure with Mike Figgis and Neil LaBute… Miley Cyrus heads off to Transylvania… A few scat-ttered thoughts (ahem)… and more.
· Roger Ebert wrote Sunday that he and his wife Chaz can no longer underwrite Ebert Presents At the Movies, the syndicated public-TV revival of his classic show with Gene Siskel. If they cannot round up enough funds by the end of December to keep the lights on, then that’ll be curtains for the Eberts and co-hosts Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky. The commenters are suggesting a Kickstarter campaign, which I’d agree seems the best shot, though moving it to the Web seems an imminent reality as well. Millionaires, leave your contact details in the comments, I suppose. [Roger Ebert’s Journal]
· Nothing like a little Monday morning nihilism! Try this look at the Hollywood travails of Reliance Entertainment, the Indian conglomerate whose infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars into such interests as DreamWorks and talent including Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt has yielded just about nothing in the way of dividends in three years. Welcome to the neighborhood! [The Wrap]
· This sounds interesting: An AFM title making the rounds called Seconds of Pleasure, adapted by Neil LaBute from his own novel, directed by Mike Figgis, and starring Matt Dillon, Julia Stiles, Brendan Fraser, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Hendricks in “a series of intimate and emotionally charged events that occur among a small group of people traveling together on a trans-Atlantic flight from Chicago to London.” [Deadline]
· And not to…
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