Link Pit(t)

I'll be spending most of the weekend at the movies (I hope). Posting may be light unless I am unusually speedy in the digestion of these big movie meals... which would be a first. I wish there were four of me every December (one to enjoy the holidays, one to earn money, one to see all the movies I missed and all the movies Hollywood withheld simultaneously and one to write about all of that.) Herewith some links to keep you buzzy.

Ed Norton and Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club (1999)

Nerve "Class of 99" This is a neat angle: How did the breakout directors of 1999 fare in the cinematic decade that followed?
Indiewire Oscar's potential Live Action Short nominees
Final Girl Have you seen this series, inspired by my own (20:07). Fun for horror fans though most of it is lost on me, I'll admit. Still I have an affinity for stopping movies at odd places so I like to look at it anyway.
Low Resolution Sandra Bullock: Human Being of the Year

DListed Brad & Angie, sculpturally speaking
New Yorker David Denby's top ten list, with an Inglourious Basterds takedown preface. I love what he says about Up in the Air and you've heard me say virtually the same thing about The Last Station (only I called "without a trace of stiffness" 'unfussy' instead)
In Contention Morgan Freeman IS Nelson Mandela. My god, here we go aga...zzzzzz. When will people finally get tired of each new biopic performance being deemed 'not an impersonation but an incarnation'. Someone says it about someone every damn year.
popbytes "the color of crazy: Brittany Murphy"
A Socialite's Life the Nine premiere in London -- I keep missing pretty things because my schedule is merciless
Movie|Line How big will the numbers for It's Complicated be? Is there no stopping Meryl's box office muscle?

(95) Days of Spirit

The Spirit Awards are coming! In 95 days. The nominees have a long time to decide which pair of jeans or casual designer wear would best suit the event. Though the Spirits have traditionally passed out their ever-so-slightly off mainstream prizes the day before the Oscars this year they’re moving to a Friday night situation on March 5th. All the better for partying? Still time to use those hangover cures before the Oscars on Sunday.

Sin Nombre, a 3 time nominee

Here are the nominees

Best Feature

(500) Days Of Summer | Amreeka |Precious | Sin Nombre | The Last Station

• I warned y'all that The Last Station would have more awards strength than many pundits are indicating. I must get around to Sin Nombre before the end of this year. I suspect Precious is your winner since the Spirits generally award the actual Oscar hopefuls.

Best Director
The Coen Bros A Serious Man | Lee Daniels Precious | Cary Joji Fukunaga Sin Nombre | James Gray Two Lovers | Michael Hoffman The Last Station

Best First Feature
Crazy Heart | Easier With Practice | The Messenger | Paranormal Activity | A Single Man

John Cassavettes Award (this is for the really low budget efforts)
Big Fan | Humpday | The New Year Parade |Treeless Mountain | Zero Bridge

Documentary
Anvil! The Story of Anvil | Food, Inc. | More Than a Game |October Country |Which Way Home

• If the Spirits want to make an anti-Oscar statement, you might see some rallying for Anvil!

Foreign Film
A Prophet (France) | An Education (UK/France) | Everlasting Moments (Sweden) | Mother (South Korea) | The Maid (Chile)

• I find this category quite curious in that 3 of its 5 competitors are most often lauded for the lead actress at the heart of the film and yet none of the three actresses are nominated in the Best Actress category. But apparently is a rule. It's a very dumb rule if you ask me... Since when should acting prizes not apply to foreign languages... or even the English language? (see Carey Mulligan) I guess this means Bright Star was also a foreign film since its director Jane Campion not American.
  

Best Screenplay
(500) Days of Summer | Adventureland | The Messenger | The Last Station | The Vicious Kind

First Screenplay
Amreeka | Cold Souls | Crazy Heart | Precious | A Single Man

Cinematography
Roger Deakins A Serious Man | Adriano Goldman Sin Nombre | Anne Misawa Treeless Mountain | Andrij Parekh Cold Souls | Peter Zeitlinger Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

And now the acting categories...

Female Lead
Maria Bello Downloading Nancy | Helen Mirren The Last Station | Gwyneth Paltrow Two Lovers | Gabourey Sidibe Precious | Nisreen Faour Amreeka

• No Mulligan, huh? Hmmm. Sidibe has this locked up. Though if you're dubbed a "foreign film" apparently you're not eligible. And An Education was... even though The Last Station (also British) was not. People are Awards groups are strange.

Male Lead
Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart | Colin Firth A Single Man |Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500) Days Of Summer |Souléymane Sy Savané Goodbye Solo | Adam Scott The Vicious Kind

• The curious omission here is Hal Holbrook since his vehicle, That Evening Sun received two acting nominations. It's worth noting here that the Spirits reversed the (500) Days Satellite nominees and left out Zooey Deschanel's fantasy girl for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's wounded boy. I suspect this contest between Bridges and Firth will be tighter at the Spirit Awards than at the Oscars.

Supporting Female
Dina Korzun Cold Souls | Mo’Nique Precious | Samantha Morton The Messenger | Natalie Press Fifty Dead Men Walking | Mia Wasikowska That Evening Sun

• I can totally get behind Mo'Nique and Morton nods. I liked Wasikowska (Tim Burton's Alice) in ...Sun but I think her screen mother Carrie Preston gives a more impressive and more complicated performance. So... I don't get it.

Supporting Male
Jemain Clement Gentleman Broncos | Woody Harrelson The Messenger | Christian McKay Me and Orson Welles | Raymond McKinnon That Evening Sun | Christopher Plummer The Last Station

• Even if McKay don't gain any Oscar traction, that Orson Welles performance sure is turning into a resume builder.

Then there’s a few categories that don’t get a lot of attention. The Robert Altman prize, which goes to one films director, casting director and ensemble is going to A Serious Man, The “Piaget Producers Award” will go to either Karin Chien (The Exploding Girl, Santa Mesa), Larry Fessenden (I Sell the Dead, The House of the Devil) or Dia Sokol (Beeswax, Nights & Weekends). The “Someone to Watch” Award will go to either Kyle Patrick Alvarez (Easier With Practice), Asiel Norton (Redland) or Tariq Tapa (Zero Bridge) and the “Truer Than Fiction” prize to either Natalia Alamda (El General), Jessica Orek (Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo) or Bill and Turner Ross (45365)

The Take Away
Should be a fun night for (500) Days of Summer and a trophy gathering night for Precious. The Spirit's nominating team wants you to see Amreeka and Sin Nombre. Will you?
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From Sundance to Rome, From Mo'Nique to Mirren

Since when did precursor season begin in October? Every year it seems to push backwards, earlier into the year, despite Oscar pushing forward, delaying itself until March this year. We've already heard from the Gotham Awards and BIFA and this past week more festival prizes came all the way from Rome and Chicago. None of this is unusual I suppose... I guess I'm just not quite ready for it for 2009. Ready for it emotionally, not physically. That's too much to go over right here (especially considering what's coming in about one months time. NBR etcetera...)

Since The Film Experience's famously favorite category is Best Actress, it's worth noting the year's wins in that regard thus far. I'm sure I'm missing foreign wins but I'm on tight deadlines. (Help me fill it out in the comments - previous error fixed. I type too fast. 75 wpm, bitches)


Sundance Festival Mo'Nique, Precious (Like Cannes, their acting prizes don't distinguish between lead and supporting)
Berlin Festival Birgit Minichmayr Alle Anderen (aka Everyone Else)
Cannes Festival Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist
Amanda Awards (Norway) Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Iskyss
Venice Festival Ksenia Rappoport, La Doppia Ora
Sarajevo Festival Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni, Dogtooth
Chicago Festival Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Vincere
Ophir Awards (Israel) Irit Kaplan, A Matter of Size

and...
Rome Festival Helen Mirren, The Last Station
(and for the Italian Actress prize: Anita Kavros, Alaza La Testa)

Only one of these leading ladies is eligible in the Oscar race -- unless those VOD releases don't disqualify you and Gainsbourg is allowed to brutalize the gyno field -- and she'll most likely be nominated. Or she'll shoot you, obliterate you verbally, smash all your table ware. Don't mess with the Countess Sofya Andreyevna.

Where We're At: Best Actress

At the beginning of the year when the buzz for Precious had just begun, Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe seemed like no more than a long shot. Mo'Nique's tour de force as her monster mom hogged the buzz and Sidibe had several disadvantages: fat, unknown, minority. The Best Actress category, more than any other acting category, is obsessed with beauty, stardom and whiteness*. [Tangent: the DeGlam phenomenon is also connected to the beauty preference. In a perverse way it's still all about the beauty that the voters are aware the famous actress is hiding].

<--- Two weeks before the film's opening, Sidibe's star is rising with coverage in major gets like The New York Times Magazine.

Now that I've seen Precious (see previous post) I can safely say that the Academy won't pass over Sidibe come nomination morning (February 2nd, 2010). It helps tremendously that in real life the first time actress is very different than her character.



When Sidibe is interviewed you quickly realize that the only thing she shares with her character is that plus sized body. She's articulate, educated and appears to have a far more lighthearted soul. This immediately dispells the dismissive (though not always incorrect judgment) that can sometimes attach itself to performances by non-traditional/unknown actors. I'm talking about the "they're just playing themselves!" reaction. Sidibe isn't. So she's in. It seems strange for a major category to be 60% wrapped up before November and any precursorage has taken place but it's tough to argue with the lock-up probability of the Streep/Mulligan/Sidibe trifecta.

Which means the battle for those final two spots will be the main place of speculative Actressy drama for the next three months. What's more, the precursor awards might not help us. It seems easy to imagine a precursor season that's filled with the aforementioned trio... leaving the last spots volatile until the end.

The other competitors are plentiful though none seem like a sure thing. Hilary Swank has the right type of role (biographical, teary, ennobling) but practically nothing about the movie including her all-surface performance works (my review). Helen Mirren has the pedigree and a scenery chewing role in The Last Station (my initial reaction). If voters like the way she masticates the bedroom, swallows the furniture and spits out the table ware (I see a Spacek-style plate smashing sequence as future overplayed Oscar clip) they'll ignore the fact that she's not carrying the film exactly and that she won very recently. Marion Cotillard, if pushed lead for Nine, will have Mirren's two drawbacks tenfold, since she won even more recently and she's sharing her film-carrying duties not with two famous men but with one famous man and several famous women. Maybe other people know something I don't but surely she'll be defeated by the limited screentime unless they put her back in Supporting where all the Nine women belong. Abbie Cornish's Bright Star role would easily place her in the Best Actress shortlist if she had more of an Oscar-bound career profile. For her I suspect it's all about the campaign.

Finally, two of my favorite actresses of all time could still be contenders if the Academy is feeling either discerning and adventurous (Tilda Swinton in Julia) or 'we're sorry' career sentimental (Michelle Pfeiffer in Chéri). There are many things that are entirely predictable about the Oscar race in any given year. But when and if AMPAS will feel adventurous or sentimental are not among those things. Sometimes they feel it. Sometimes they don't.

*This is statistically true. Only 10 Best Actress nominations have gone to women of color, compared to 20+ supporting actress and actor nominations and 25+ supporting actor nominations (I don't have the exact numbers) though it's not entirely fair to blame the Academy since they can only vote on what's presented to them and actresses of color still don't get big roles as often as actors of color.

7 Word Movie Review: The Last Station

Lively, engaging than (mostly) potent. Oscar bound.

(alternate 7 word review)
Mirren’s nomination chances? Golden.
McAvoy’s deflowering? Priceless.

(38 word gripe)
Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren and James McAvoy all have lead roles in this film. Paul Giamatti, Anne Marie Duff, Patrick Kennedy and Kerry Condon are the supporting players of note... but Oscar campaigns will do what they will.

Christopher Plummer's Last Station Stand

Just woke from a dream in which Christopher Plummer had been placed into a medically induced coma merely to "rest up" for his dual Oscar campaign (lead for Parnassus, supporting for The Last Station). Subconscious, you are so very weird.


Whenever I wake from a dream involving the health of a celebrity, I rush immediately to the news feeds to make sure the celebrity is okay, no matter how unbelievable the dream is. Hey, they feel real when your eyes first take in the light. Do you double check when you wake up?

For what it's worth, the top news items were three: the AFI fest's upcoming tribute, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opened in the UK and the 79 year old thespian will be performing The Tempest at Stratford next year. The latter makes a neat coincidence: the same year we'll see him performing the classic "Prospero" role onstage his Station co-star Helen Mirren will be performing the same role, gender-flipped, for Julie Taymor's film version.

As for the campaign, I imagine that the Doctor Parnassus half will be stillborn. The picture just wouldn't support that major of a nomination unless his career tributes take on an unusually robust life. I was really rooting for the picture and loved the opening scene or three... but it just doesn't cohere or showcase Plummer enough. So those hopes for an Oscar rest on The Last Station. I hope to see it tomorrow and I'm crossing my fingers that he's deserving. After 176 film and television roles, some of them quite acclaimed, it's way past time for a first nomination.
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