In the Oscar derby, what went wrong with Bright Star, which earned one Oscar nomination (for costume), and right with Young Victoria, which grabbed three?
It’s the same reason The Blind Side outstripped Invictus and Crazy Heart pushed ahead of a pack of other small Oscar wannabes.
Momentum.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars, Genres, Biopics, Period, Romance, Independents, Apparition on February 2, 2010 at 7:40pm PST | Permalink | Comments (4)
Kris Tapley and I took a week off while I decamped to the Sundance Film Festival. As we head toward the DGA Awards Saturday and Oscar nominations Tuesday morning, we forecast sure things and possible surprises, debate strengths and weaknesses of Golden Globes winner Avatar, SAG ensemble-winner Inglourious Basterds and PGA winner The Hurt Locker, and wonder if glam awards-newbie and SAG-winner Sandra Bullock (with momentum behind her) could actually beat admired-but-familiar Oscar-veteran Meryl Streep.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock on January 29, 2010 at 1:02pm PST | Permalink | Comments (9)
One reason why James Cameron went out of his way to mention that he might make The Dive backstage at the Golden Globes: he was thanking screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander) for all the writing she has done for him, not only on Avatar, but on Battle Angel and The Dive.
At Fox’s Globes after-party at Craft, Cameron and Suzy Amis, studio co-chairman Jim Gianopulos, producer Jon Landau and Kalogridis were among the last ones there. Kalogridis never sought credit for her work on Avatar (she’s an executive producer). Did she help Cameron? Yes. He wrote a very long script that needed trimming, shaping and pruning—and that she did. Much of that extra material will end up in the sequel, says Landau. To be eligible for credit, Writers Guild rules stipulate that 50% of a script be changed, and Kalogridis didn’t come close to that.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Writers, Screenwriters on January 20, 2010 at 3:14pm PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
My Golden Globe weekend began Saturday morning with an Independent Spirits brunch at Boa Steakhouse on Sunset celebrating the nominees. At the beginning, Laura Dern, Mike White and Derek Luke recounted tales of attending their first Indie Spirit awards; Luke actually bused tables at a Spirit show several years before he found himself nominated for Antoine Fisher. Film Independent’s Dawn Hudson called all the nominees up to the stage to identify themselves, including Precious writer Geoffrey Fletcher, Humpday director Lynn Shelton, A Single Man‘s Tom Ford and 500 Days of Summer star Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
I told screenwriter Michael Tolkin that I had requested a Nine interview with him from Weinstein Co., who told me he wasn’t in their publicity plans. Of course I should have pursued it myself; the LAT reported on how TWC ignored Tolkin in favor of the late Anthony Minghella.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, BAFTA, Golden Globes, Indie Spirits, Oscars on January 19, 2010 at 10:40pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
At the Golden Globes, two winners, Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges, admitted that they had originally passed on the roles that wound up winning them awards. In Bridge’s case, he didn’t think that Crazy Heart could top his other film about musicians, The Fabulous Baker Boys. He liked Scott Cooper’s script, but it had no music attached to it. After a year passed, Bridges ran into T-Bone Burnett, a friend of 30 years since Heaven’s Gate, who said, “I’ll do it if you do it.”
“That was it. A dream come true,” said Bridges. “He’s really the soul of this picture.” One reason Bridges is such a lock for the best actor Oscar is that he not only is liked and respected, but he has had such a long career that he has worked with so many people. At the Lionsgate party Saturday night, character actor Ed Lauter said he had made seven films with Bridges.
[Golden Globes Photo: Paul Drinkwater: NBC]
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars on January 17, 2010 at 8:52pm PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
Golden Globes winner James Cameron is pleased that the success of Avatar will broaden the scope of future 3-D. “One thing Avatar could do because of its success is give permission to other filmmakers to think of 3-D as something that isn’t relegated to kids movies and animation,” he said backstage. “It creates a broad category and permission for filmmakers to use these tools. We know that 3-D is going to be big in the future. It’s a question of breaking out in breadth. It’s rolling into the home.”
Cameron also pointed out that Avatar was the first sci-fi film to win the best picture drama Golden Globe in its 59-year history. The other was E.T. He’s fighting for “the acceptance of science fiction as a form of legitimate drama,” he said. “It was a huge breakthrough when Sigourney got nominated in a sci-fi film for Aliens for best supporting actress,” he added. A big cheer went up in the press room for her performance hosting Saturday Night Live.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Franchises, Avatar, Genres, Sci-fi on January 17, 2010 at 8:16pm PST | Permalink | Comments (3)
There were some close races at the Golden Globes, including best screenplay and best director. When Jason Reitman accepted the screenplay prize for Up in the Air, (shared with Sheldon Turner) he said that he thought Quentin Tarantino would be accepting, not him. And when James Cameron accepted the best director award for Avatar, he said, “I thought Kathryn was going to get this, and she richly deserves this. I am very grateful.” He went on to thank his stars in Na’vi, and thanked wife Suzy Amis in English: “Baby, you make my dreams possible.” That’s a far cry from his old Oscar chortle, “I’m King of the World!”
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars on January 17, 2010 at 7:17pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Backstage at the Globes, after winning best actress for Julie & Julia, Meryl Streep said that Hollywood is improving for women. “Sandra Bullock is 45,” she said. “The perception is better for her than it was for me at her age.” She thanked the Globes for continuing to like her work after 30 years. “It’s hard to remain new,” she said. A hit like Julie & Julia “is a good signal to the financial end of the business,” she said, that a movie that reads uncommercial, about a middle-aged cook, is a big hit. “That’s good news.”
Streep channeled not only chef Julia Child in Julie & Julia but her mother, who was not a cook, “but had a real joy in living,” she said.
“I’ve played so many extraordinary women that I am starting to be mistaken for one,” she said in her acceptance speech. “I am a vessel.” Backstage she added that “trying to create a character is a process I love, like falling in love and surrendering to another person, in this case, a character.”
[Golden Globes Photo: AP]
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars on January 17, 2010 at 6:29pm PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
Up also won the Golden Globe for best original score. And “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart won best song. Paul McCartney might have had a better shot if he had written a song for a better movie than Everybody’s Fine.
At the BAFTA party, I watched as McCartney, Quentin Tarantino and Jane Fonda sang each other’s praises, which goes on a lot at these things. Fonda gushed to Tarantino about loving Christoph Waltz and the score. Her boyfriend, record producer Richard Perry, brought her to meet McCartney. She’s co-starring with Daniel Bruhl in a French film, she said. (Fonda has a popular blog; here’s her version of the Golden Globes party circuit.) McCartney told Tarantino how he had to watch Inglourious Basterds from the second row, peering up. Later I figured out how to meet my first Beatle when producer Jon Landau shyly said he’d like to meet him. I dragged Landau over to McCartney, broke through the circle, and shook his hand, saying, “I’d like to introduce you to the producer of ‘Avatar.’” He then told Landau how he and his daughter saw the film in 2-D. She didn’t want to see Avatar at all, because she thought she had already seen it on television. “She liked it, and we’ll go see it in 3-D too,” McCartney reassured Landau.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars on January 17, 2010 at 6:08pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
So far the Golden Globes wins are obvious no-brainers that will likely repeat on Oscar night.
Mo’Nique for supporting actress and Up for animated feature are clearly riding a swell.
The HFPA and NBC may be regretting broadcasting live for the first time tonight, as Ricky Gervais’s racy comments about his penis reduction (“Just got the one now”) and size in relation to his hand are unlikely to bring him back again.
One of the high points of the BAFTA party Saturday was hanging with Coraline director Henry Selick and Up‘s Pete Docter, which led me to ask Selick if he was going to be doing some films at Disney. He is, in fact, developing three projects with Disney, a place that understands what goes into an animated feature, he said. He doesn’t know which one will go first; some scripts are further along than others.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars on January 17, 2010 at 5:39pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
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