Archive for January, 2008
DGA Sets Host and Presenters for 60th Annual DGA Awards Dinner
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008The Oscar nominees
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008There may or may not be an Oscars show, but there will be blood. Paul Thomas Anderson?s not-that-bloody, critically adored film about the self-destruction of a California oil magnate and ?No Country for Old Men,? Joel and Ethan Coen?s grisly chase thriller, led this morning?s Academy Award nominations with eight apiece, including one each for best picture.
Their fellow nominees are equally swept up in bad news or tragedy. ?Michael Clayton,? Tony Gilroy?s story of a serious corruption involving a New York law firm, was right behind ?There Will Be Blood? and ?No Country? with seven nominations. ?Atonement,? a romantic wartime epic about nosiness, gossip, and remorse, had six. And ?Juno,? America?s favorite teen-pregnancy comedy, got four, including a surprising nod for its director, Jason Reitman.
Reitman joins Anderson, the Coens, Gilroy, and Julian Schnabel, for ?The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,? which along with ?Ratatouille,? ?Into the Wild,? and ?American Gangster,? didn?t make the best-picture cut. Joe Wright, who made ?Atonement,? was left off the directing list (maybe that five-minute tracking shot bugged the Academy?s directors branch, too). So was Sean Penn for ?Into the Wild,? which got just two nominations, one for Hal Holbrook?s performance and another for editing.
Before a foxy Kathy Bates and a tired-looking Sid Ganis made the televised announcements today, ?Atonement? was considered a front-runner. But with no directing nomination, the picture race is slightly more open. Neither of the movie?s leads, James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, was nominated.
That?s too bad. McAvoy?s miserable soldier would have fit right in with the five actual best-actor nominees since none one of the men they played had much to smile about. George Clooney was a stressed-out lawyer in ?Michael Clayton.? Daniel Day-Lewis was a mad oil baron in ?There Will Be Blood.? Johnny Depp played an undead, heart-sick, throat-slashing serial killer in ?Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.? Viggo Mortensen was a sour Russian mobster in ?Eastern Promises.? And Tommy Lee Jones, the morning?s happiest surprise, was the stoic military dad looking for his AWOL son in ?In the Valley of Elah.? The Academy?s acting branch clearly didn?t know what to do with either of Philip Seymour Hoffman?s blazing performances in ?The Savages? and ?Before the Devil Knows You?re Dead,? nominating him instead in the supporting actor category for ?Charlie Wilson?s War.?
In the best actress category, it?s a bunch of indomitable women ? Cate Blanchett as the Virgin Queen in ?Elizabeth: the Golden Age,? Julie Christie living with Alzheimer?s in ?Away from Her,? Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in ?La Vie en Rose,? and Laura Linney playing a slacking intellectual narcissist in ?The Savages? ? squaring off against one sardonic 19-year-old. That would be Ellen Page as a teen mother-to-be in ?Juno.? Notably absent are Angelina Jolie for playing Marianne Pearl in ?A Mighty Heart? and Amy Adams for playing a fairy-tale princess stranded in Manhattan in ?Enchanted.?
Joining Hoffman?s porcine CIA agent and Holbrook?s teary codger in the supporting-actor category are Casey Affleck as a proto-celebrity stalker in ?The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,? Javier Bardem as the killer with the kooky haircut in ?No Country for Old Men,? and Tom Wilkinson as a high-powered who believes himself Shiva the Goddess of Death in ?Michael Clayton.?
Blanchett appears again, more expectedly, in the supporting actress category for playing a pseudo-Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes?s ?I?m Not There.? Her fellow nominees are 13-year-old Saorsie Ronan, the budding playwright with the destructive imagination in ?Atonement,? Amy Ryan as the mother of the year in ?Gone Baby Gone, Tilda Swinton as a high-strung attorney in ?Michael Clayton,? and, holy of holies, Ruby Dee as Denzel Washington?s momma (and the only person with any common sense) in ?American Gangster.?
The two screenwriting categories are remarkable because they include four women (it shouldn?t have to be noteworthy, but it is). For adapted screenplay, the nominees include actress-director Sarah Polley for ?Away from Her." She joins Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen brothers, Christopher Hampton for ?Atonement,? and Ronald Harwood for ?The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.? For original screenplay, Diablo Cody (?Juno?), Tamara Jenkins (?The Savages?), and Nancy Oliver (?Lars and the Real Girl?) are up against Brad Bird (?Ratatouille?) and Tony Gilroy.
The documentary feature category continues to remain credible after a few adjustments in the nominating process. This five films on this year?s slate include: Charles Ferguson?s unhappy Iraq-invasion assessment, ?No End in Sight?; Richard E. Robbins?s ?Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience,? recollections of soldiers who?ve fought in Afghanistan and Iraq; Michael Moore?s moving health-care farce, ?Sicko?; ?Taxi to the Dark Side,? Alex Gibney?s look at the murder of a cab driver at Bagram Air Force Base; and ?War/Dance,? Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine?s film about children in a Ugandan dance competition.
Now that the documentary category seems OK, maybe the Academy can work on straightening out the foreign-language-film nomination process, which some years is fine and other years is mysterious. With all due respect to the actual nominees, this year is a mysterious one, mostly for the superb submitted films that were snubbed: ?4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days? (Romania), ?Silent Light? (Mexico), ?Secret Sunshine? (Korea), ?The Edge of Heaven? (Germany), and, from France, ?Persepolis,? which, miraculously, did make the animation cut, along with ?Ratatouille? and ?Surf?s Up.?
In any case, this year?s foreign-language-film nominees are: ?Beaufort? (Israel); ? The Counterfeiters? (Austria); ?Katyn? (Poland); ?Mongol? (Kazakhstan); and Nikita Mikhalkov?s Chechnya-bound ?12 Angry Men?-remake, ?12? (Russia).
This year?s most flagrant omission was by the music by Radiohead?s Jonny Greenwood for ?There Will Be Blood,? which probably wasn't orchestral enough for voters in the best score category. The nominees for original score are Dario Marianelli for ?Atonement,? Alberto Iglesias for ?The Kite Runner,? James Newton Howard for ?Michael Clayton,? Michael Giacchino for ?Ratatouille,? and Marco Beltrami for ?3:10 to Yuma.?
This a good year for fun Oscar history: Cate Blanchett is the first woman to be nominated for playing a man who isn?t a cross-dresser or transsexual. She?s also the second actor to be nominated two different times for the same character. (Her first-ever nomination was for 1998?s ?Elizabeth.?) Paul Newman was twice nominated for his work as Eddie Felson in ?The Hustler? and ?The Color of Money,? for which he won an Oscar. And ?No Country for Old Men? marks only the second time two people have been nominated for directing the same movie. (Warren Beatty and Buck Henry shared a nomination for 1978?s ?Heaven Can Wait.?) And at 83, first-time nominee Ruby Dee is the second-oldest nominee, after 87-year-old Gloria Stuart of ?Titanic.?
Of course, the only Academy Awards history that really matters right now is whether this will be the first year the telecast won?t go on. Will the Writers Guild of America?s strike and the actors? refusal to cross the picket line result in a canceled event? Will negotiations heat up at the last minute, meaning a postponed broadcast? Or will there just be a sad little Golden Globes-style press conference presided over by, say, Ryan Seacrest and Star Jones? Stay tuned. This could be the first year Oscar is a loser at his very own show.
Cinematical Remembers Heath Ledger
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Obits
Cinematical's staff would like to take a moment to share our thoughts on Heath Ledger, who passed away today after an apparent overdose.
Although Heath Ledger's best known film to date is Brokeback Mountain, my favorite of his films was Candy, in which he starred opposite fellow Australian Abbie Cornish. His performance in Candy, as an artist and heroin addict in a mutually destructive relationship with Cornish's nice middle-class girl, was so riveting and raw, and it's one of those fest films that I've thought about often since I saw it. Like most everyone who's here working Sundance, I was deeply shocked by the news of his tragic death today. He touched us through his films, and we are saddened by the loss of his life, and the films he would have made in the future. His family, especially his young daughter Matilda, will be in our thoughts and prayers.
-Kim Voynar
My original feeling about Heath Ledger -- after films like The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, and 10 Things I Hate About You -- was that he was yet another handsome and likable matinee idol ... but not much more than that. But over the last several years, I was proven wrong ... several times. My favorite performance of his was the lead role in the underrated Casanova -- and I'll be giving that film a second spin as soon as I get home from Sundance. He was a very fine actor who clearly took a lot of pride in his work, and I believe that the movie world has just lost a good soul. My heart goes out to his friends, his family, his fans, and also to the departed Heath Ledger; (If his death is ruled a suicide) I'm deeply sorry that he was so unhappy. (Regardless of the reason for the actor's death, it's a stunning tragedy.)
-Scott Weinberg
Like most young actors, Heath Ledger starred in his share of mediocre movies, yet he always appeared to take his work seriously, giving solid, professional performances regardless of the project. He knew he had to pay his dues before he got the prestige projects -- and when prestige finally arrived in the form of Brokeback Mountain, he was prepared for it. I had occasion to re-watch the last 20 minutes of that film just last week, and I was struck again by how much he does with so little. There are no tantrums or obvious "Oscar-bait" scenes. The character is reserved and unemotional; somehow, Ledger managed to convey so much about him anyway. He was a talented actor, and his death is a blow to the film community.
-Eric D. Snider
Many people finally came to respect Heath Ledger after his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain. But I honestly became a fan after 10 Things I Hate About You, a Shakespeare-inspired teen comedy that deserves a lot more credit than it receives. Ledger was a great actor, because he could do just about any kind of movie well. After 10 Things, he could have simply been a heartthrob. After The Patriot, a movie I guiltily admit I enjoy a lot, he could have easily gone further into action territory. And in The Brothers Grimm, he showed
us that he had a decent knack for comedy, too. Even when everybody in the blogosphere was shocked to hear he'd be playing The Joker in The Dark Knight, he proved that he had the goods to pull it off. Now his performance in the Batman sequel is one of the most eagerly anticipated of the year. After watching the recently released trailer, I even felt like he could be nominated for a second Oscar for the role. It could still happen, I guess, but it won't be as exciting without Ledger himself to accept the honor.
-Christopher Campbell
When Monika sent me an Instant Message with the news, it hit me like a claw hammer to the forehead. I knew she wouldn't joke about something like that, but, on a day of supreme cinematic reflective self-love, as the indie world obsesses over a snowy resort town in Utah, as Hollywood celebrates nominees for an award that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, it's very sobering. Heath Ledger wasn't my favorite actor, but he was definitely one to watch, and the thought that his light has been extinguished at such a young age, leaving behind a young daughter ... it's so sad it makes me want to cry, and I never cry about celebrities.
-Peter Martin
Gallery: Heath Ledger, 1979-2008
Strike, day 79
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008This morning was a day of firsts on the picket line. For starters, it was my first day of rain picketing. A clear plastic garbage bag protects the sign, so beyond needing to occasionally wipe off my glasses, it wasn’t a big difference. It was warmer than most mornings, so I’ll gladly take some rain.
Today was the first time all the WGA pickets were consolidated at Paramount, so it was weird to see four times as many picketers at six in the morning. While we started out at our normal gates, pretty soon we gathered in big groups to walk around the entire lot.
Paramount is seven blocks wide and four blocks deep, but it backs up against the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, so there’s no way to circle it without including the cemetery, a few strip malls, and the WIC center. So for any confused observers (there were a few), the WGA is not anti-corpse, anti-doughnut, or anti-women-infants-and-children.
Google Maps shows one lap equalling 1.7 miles. I’m surprised; it doesn’t feel that long. As I noted on Day 1 of the strike, the sidewalks on the west side of Paramount are ridiculously unusable: 2 feet wide with a light pole in the middle.
So if you’re tempted to head out for one of the later picketing shifts today, by all means go. It’s a very nice change to be able to walk forward without interruption.
Teaching Thursdays
Some writers from WB Gate 2 are starting an off-the-cuff program called Teaching Thursdays. Priya Hamilton-Wilkes wrote in:
A few of us came up with an idea of “Teaching Thursdays,” where writers of various TV and feature genres would join us on Thursdays, making themselves available to discuss story, structure and everything in between to aspiring writers. Medical drama day will be Thursday, January 24th, from 9-12 at Gate 2 at Warner Bros.
It’s a great idea. One of the frustrating things about picketing is that so often, you feel like you’re not doing anything constructive. That’s why I’ve been happy to have so many readers come out to Paramount. I suspect the WB Gate 2 crew will get at least as much out of it as the aspiring writers who come out to learn.
The elephant in the room
At 6:09 this morning, I was interviewed by a KTLA news crew about my opinions on the DGA deal and what it meant for the informal WGA talks which are now beginning. (The reporter didn’t pick me specifically. The group I was walking with shoved me in front.)
So while I’ve refrained from weighing in officially on the blog for fear of undercutting the off-stage discussions, I can at least repeat what I told the reporter.
I’ve been “cautiously optimistic” too many times during the strike, so I officially refuse to link emotion and prediction. I won’t predict, period.
That said, everyone on every side recognizes why this would be a very good time to get the strike resolved. There are important issues which are unique to writers, ones that don’t really have any equivalent in the DGA deal, so those are going to take careful action to address.
While I won’t predict whether a deal will be reached soon, do I think a deal can be reached? Absolutely.
Tomorrow will be back to normal, with picketing at the Van Ness gate at Paramount starting at 5:45 a.m.
Equity Media Names Patrick Doran Chief Financial Officer
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Alessandra Ambrosio
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Elite New York’s Alessandra Ambrosio on the cover of the new Brazilian Rolling Stone. Photo by JR Duran. First issue…
eGames' Purrfect Pet Shop Lands Big Fish Games Exclusive
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Britney Spears Spends More Than Two Hours at Deposition
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Britney Spears spent more than two hours at the Los Angeles office of Kevin Federline’s lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, Monday for an ongoing deposition in the ex-couple’s custody battle.
At 10:40 a.m., Spears, 26, wearing a dark blue top and jeans, drove up to the office in her white Mercedes-Benz SL65 with friend Sam Lutfi. Both had serious expressions on their faces. The singer was spotted leaving at 1:20 p.m.
The singer has missed numerous appointments for the court-ordered cross examination. She was expected to be grilled about her past drug and alcohol use, her apparent failure to follow court orders and other matters pertaining to her parenting skills.
Federline’s attorney will use evidence gathered in depositions to try to convince a court that his client should retain primary physical custody of the ex-couple’s children. A custody trial is set for April.
“Kevin wants nothing more than to be able to parent his children with participation by their mother,” Kaplan previously said. “But the best interest of the children require that they be in the most sound, safe, nurturing and consistent environment. That is paramount.”
On Jan. 3, Spears was deposed for only 14 minutes, after arriving one-and-a-half hours late. That night and into the next morning Spears had a four-hour standoff with police, ending with her brief hospitalization.
Last Monday, the singer lost all visitation rights to sons Preston, 2, and Jayden 1, indefinitely after she showed up for a hearing, then left without entering the courthouse.
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Scott Hamilton & His Wife Have a Boy
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Olympic champion ice skater Scott Hamilton and his wife, Tracie, celebrated the birth of their second son on Monday at a Tennessee hospital, the couple confirmed.
“Mom and son are doing just fine,” Hamilton said in a text message.
Maxx Hamilton arrived at 7:51 a.m. He weighed in at 7 lbs., 8 oz., and measured 20 inches long, Hamilton said. He joins big brother, 4-year-old Aidan.
Hamilton, 49, and Tracie, 38, have been married since 2002, and they reside in Nashville, Tenn.
Hamilton won the gold medal in men’s ice skating at the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984. He is expected to provide commentary for the upcoming U.S. Figure Skating Championships this weekend in St. Paul, Minn., but those plans could change due to Maxx’s arrival.
The champ played a skating announcer in last year’s comedy Blades of Glory starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder. Last fall, Hamilton completed taping a series of episodes for the ABC TV series Wanna Bet? and AOL Television’s Jury Duty.
Hamilton continues to co-produce Stars on Ice, which he conceived and co-founded in 1986. He retired from full-time touring with the production during its 2000-2001 season. Known the last several years as Smucker’s Stars on Ice, the show entered its 22nd consecutive U.S. touring season this month.
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Shoot Down – Trailer
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 | Shoot Down - Trailer In the mid-to-late 90s, thousands of Cuban refugees attempted to cross the Florida Straits by whatever means available - small boats, homemade rafts and inner tubes. Only one in four rafters made it to U.S. shores, with tens of thousands perishing at sea. A volunteer group based in Miami called “Brothers to the Rescue” was formed to patrol the Straits in small civilian aircraft, offering aid to rafters. On February 24th, 1996, in the midst of heightening political unrest in Cuba and in the wake of a revised U.S. policy toward Cuban refugees, the Cuban government authorized two military fighter jets to attack and destroy two of the volunteer planes. Directed by: Cristina Khuly Starring: |
