I finally got hold of Sean Penn’s publicist Mara Buxbaum to explain which overlooked actress he was referring to before he presented the best actress Oscar to Sandra Bullock Sunday night. “I never became an official member of the Academy,” he said that night, “but the Academy and I do have in common that we neglected to acknowledge the same actress in our own ways two years running. So, I’m going to start fresh with the Academy and acknowledge these wonderful actresses.”
Here’s the answer:
It would be a reasonable assumption to say he was referring to Robin Wright since he didn’t thank her last year in his acceptance speech, and the Academy failed to nominate her this year for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars on March 9, 2010 at 6:25pm PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
On the red carpet at the Oscars, as Hollywood’s Beautiful People glided by in their Oscar designer duds, a few came over to talk to Jeanne Wolf, the BBC and the In-Style reporter, whose job it was to flag as many people as possible about what they were wearing. I picked up a few of them on the flip cam.
Colin Firth was resplendent in a tuxedo designed by his A Single Man director, Tom Ford:
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by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Video, Interviews on March 9, 2010 at 4:50pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Cameron Carlson reports on the Oscar-winning art directors on Avatar.
Avatar’s win Sunday night for art direction didn’t come as much of a surprise – even to the three men who created Pandora’s towering waterfall, giant trees and frightening jungles. Here’s their Oscar acceptance speech.
At a panel discussion the day before, Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair almost anticipated their Oscar, thanking their production teams and fielding the lion’s share of audience questions.
For the record, the other nominees were The Young Victoria, Nine, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and Sherlock Holmes.
The Avatar group often avoided the technical aspects of their work, which was unfortunate because the details were fascinating. Stromberg said he spent three years creating a rough digital landscape for the entire film to be shot in real time. Each virtual set had trees and plants that were moveable, like real props. When director James Cameron finally signed off on the digital version, Sinclair and his team at Peter Jackson’s Weta integrated real props into the virtual backgrounds. Some film sets, Sinclair said, can cost $7,000 per second of footage, but a few sets can be a staggering $50,000 per second. Whether Avatar’s footage cost $50,000 per second on not, art and set direction were a large part of the film’s $230 million cost.
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by Cameron Carlson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Franchises, Avatar on March 9, 2010 at 11:34am PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Kris Tapley and I wrap up the Oscar season, from my night on the red carpet, backstage and at the Governor’s Ball and how the show played, to why Geoffrey Fletcher’s adapted screenplay beat Jason Reitman’s for Up in the Air and Avatar won only three Oscars.
This year’s dramatic Oscar campaign was fun but exhausting, and we’re glad it’s over. We’ll go on hiatus until May 7, for a pre-Cannes walk-up.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar on March 8, 2010 at 6:31pm PST | Permalink | Comments (3)
There’s some juicy Oscar material out there about the most-watched show in five years. At the Governor’s Ball, Sandra Bullock was among the nominees getting her Oscar engraved (everyone got their own statues engraved except Jeff Bridges; notable no-shows were Tivi Magnusson, producer of short The New Tenants, and Sandy Powell, costume designer of Young Victoria). Exhausted producer Bill Mechanic said that he and Adam Shankman had aimed for a more populist show (his red carpet interview is below).
Check out the LAT’s panoramas and obligatory best-and-worst-dressed. Here’s the Oscar thank-you cam. And a party round-up. Gawker explains ten Oscar mysteries.
Here’s the Neil Patrick Harris opener—and yes, he’d make a fine Oscar host. While I had no problem with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, and loved the George Clooney staring contests and Paranormal Activity sketch, I’d vote for the next Oscar host to be Ben Stiller, who killed at both the Indie Spirits and the Oscars. He gets it. While I dug the horror tribute, Shankman’s dance number with the film scores was a total snooze.
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by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Kathryn Bigelow on March 8, 2010 at 5:19pm PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
As Oscar-lovers troll the web for info about Sunday night’s telecast, beware of poison searches.
Broad search topics such as “Oscar 2010” and “Academy Award 2010 Nominations” can yield virus infections. According to a Norton Internet Safety Advocate, out of the top 100 search results related to the Oscar nomination announcements, more than 42% contained potentially malicious content. Norton recommends that “movie fans take a common sense approach to combating this criminal activity by keeping vigilant with online security, including maintaining an up-to-date browser and operating system and ensuring antivirus and firewall software is fully current.” (Obviously Norton is invested in scaring us into buying their software.)
Now Oscar night brings even more poisoned search results from Google, Ask, Bing and Yahoo, with pop-ups for fake or dangerous anti-virus software. Some search terms to avoid include:
“Oscar 2010 Winners” – 60% infected
“Music By Prudence” – 58% infected
“Kathryn Bigelow height” – 48% infected
“Sandra bullock Meryl Streep kiss” – 43% infected
“elinor burkett prudence” – 58% infected
“watch Oscars online” – 46% infected
“how old is Sandra Bullock” – 40% infected
“Oscar 2010 winners” – 34% infected
“red carpet Oscars 2010” – 13% infectedby Anne Thompson, posted to on March 8, 2010 at 4:19pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
On the red carpet before his documentary feature Oscar win, The Cove director Louie Psyihoyas previewed some of the things he would try to say on stage—before being played off—and backstage as well.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, TV, HBO, Video, Interviews on March 8, 2010 at 3:05pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
It was thick and fast on the Oscar red carpet, so rather than take notes, pictures or tweet, I whipped out my handy flip cam:
Academy executive director Bruce Davis talks Oscar top ten, while Antonio Banderas talks about undressing Melanie Griffith:
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by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Video, Interviews on March 8, 2010 at 3:00pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
At Saturday’s HBO Oscar party, I enjoyed dishing about the upcoming Cannes line-up with Todd McCarthy, Variety’s film critic for three decades, who is the paper’s biggest star and the main reason readers all over the world read the august trade. His reviews post first, and are the best-read thing in Variety, bar none. The day after the Oscars, publisher Neil Stiles confirmed that as a cost-cutting measure, film critics Todd McCarthy and Derek Elley and theater critic David Rooney are out, set loose as possible freelance contributors. (No talks on such deals have yet taken place.)
UPDATE: The LAT reports that TV critic Brian Lowry will stay on. And features editor Sharon Swart—who knows the indie community as well as anyone—was also among about eight staffers shown the door this morning. Variety poached her from the Hollywood Reporter twelve years ago. Online marketer Abe Burns, copy editors Carmel Dagan, Matt Coltrin and Gary North and paginator Danielle Grimes are also cut. Editor Tim Gray’s internal memo urges his staffers to “ignore the bloggers” (full memo pasted on the jump).
Variety can’t afford them, as they couldn’t afford me or editors Michael Speier and Kathy Lyford. But I was a relative newbie, a columnist/blogger. I was a luxury. Problem is, I was well-paid, as were McCarthy and Rooney. Nonetheless, they are necessities. Without them, Variety is doomed. Along with the badly handled recent fracas over Robert Koehler’s review of Iron Cross (which was pulled off the site during a robust Oscar campaign, then later restored) this sends a dubious message to Hollywood: Variety is running out of cash. As vet journalist Chris Willman tweeted me today: “this feels like end of the world as we know it. I can’t even comprehend.”
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Reviews, Writers, Critics on March 8, 2010 at 1:17pm PST | Permalink | Comments (10)
TOH box office analyst Anthony D’Alessandro lays out which films—if any—got a bump from this year’s expanded Oscar derby.
Read MoreIn theory, ten best picture Oscar nominations should have spurred business.
Unfortunately, similar to previous summer films that won best picture, i.e. Gladiator and Crash, it’s fair to say that The Hurt Locker ($14.7 million domestic B.O.) won’t benefit from the Oscar halo effect at the box office (Regardless, it will most likely see a surge in its DVD/download sales which currently stand at 710,000 units sold).
Last year between noms and Oscar night (aka Oscar alley as distributors call it), the five best picture nominees as a whole reaped a 95% jump in their domestic totals. Over the same frame this year, the six best picture nominees that were still in release jumped their totals by 16%; with the remaining four having finished their theatrical runs at the onset of Oscar alley.
However, this doesn’t mean that Oscar doesn’t impact a contender’s box office anymore. Nor that the Academy’s grand design of ten best picture noms failed as a business model. The opportunity is there and the calendar elements (i.e. Golden Globes, Oscar noms) are in place for a contender to boom its biz during award season.
It simply boils down to timing.
by Anthony D'Alessandro , posted to Awards, Oscars, Box Office, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Independents on March 8, 2010 at 11:46am PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Anne Thompson does more than just break news; she provides an insider’s clear-eyed analysis of a business that defines culture at home and abroad.
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