The week after winning two Oscars for directing and producing The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow was standing in line at L.A.‘s Superior Court. Fulfilling her duty as a citizen, she turned up for jury duty and was placed in the jury pool for a drunk driving case.
According to another jury pool member, as the bailif called out the juror names, Bigelow was number 50. During interrogation, Bigelow said that she couldn’t find a defendant guilty unless rehabilitation was attached to the sentence. The jury and alternates were picked before they got to Bigelow, and she was sent home.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Kathryn Bigelow, Genres, Independents, Independents, The Hurt Locker on March 16, 2010 at 9:32am PDT | Permalink | Comments (0)
For ten years the Austin Film Society’s Texas Film Hall of Fame has handed out awards to the state’s own—and deserving outsiders like Quentin Tarantino, who after 17 years of premiering his films and doing his QT Fests in Austin, was inducted by best buds Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, who gave him a cowboy hat. (His speech is below.) “I start relaxing tomorrow,” he said. Another refugee from the exhausting Oscar race was Jason Reitman, who on a whim took off in his car to decompress and wound up here to watch some movies (he’s shown his shorts here in the past) before heading home to rework the first draft of his new screenplay.
Piggybacking on the giant SXSW, which opens Friday with Kick-Ass, the Hall of Fame is a chance for the local community to party and raise funds. Austin Society executive director Rebecca Campbell estimates that the event, hosted by the genial Thomas Hayden Church, netted about $300,000. Over nine years they have raised $2.5 million to benefit local filmmakers with outreach and education, plus exhibition programs.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Directors, Quentin Tarantino, Festivals, SXSW on March 12, 2010 at 6:33am PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
Here’s a montage of video that I shot on the red carpet on Oscar night.
[Edited by Cameron Carlson]
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Headliners, George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, Moguls, Rupert Murdoch on March 10, 2010 at 6:49pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
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 (5)
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 (3)
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 (2)
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 (1)
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)
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Oscar contender Sandra Bullock talks quality vs. crap.
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