IndieWIRE’s Sophia Savage culls the best of the Award coverage leading up to the Big Show Sunday night:
While some are giddy for Oscar night, others are rolling their eyes at all the hoopla. Vanity Fair interviewed Terry Gilliam (Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) before the nominees were announced. His point-of-view on the whole affair puts a wet blanket on all the excitement. Does he value the Oscars? No: “It’s somewhat useful to get money a bit easier for your next movie. But that’s about it. It’s too many people that I’ve admired over the years who never got one. I don’t know what it represents anymore. It’s become too much of this controlled ritual.”
The NYT’s Melena Ryzik comments that ten best picture nominees have made the race less about being the number one favorite of some and more about the possibilities within a variable ranking system. She argues that we have already experienced a lead-up to Oscar night “with as much narrative sweep as a made-for-television mini-series,” and what audiences really want from the Oscar show is what they want from a good movie: escapism. In another story, Janet Roberts makes well-reasoned arguments on behalf of Bigelow, Bridges, Bullock, Waltz and Mo’Nique, yet remains murky on Best Picture: because of their prior wins, front-runners are Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Up In The Air, and Inglorious Basterds.
USA Today talks Oscar drama and points out that with ten nominees, “the Academy unleashed twice as many lobbyists needing half as many votes to win.”
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by Sophia Savage, posted to Awards, Indie Spirits, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Hollywood on March 5, 2010 at 12:39pm PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
At their best, the photos in Annie Leibovitz’s 2010 Hollywood photo gallery capture feelings between the movie directors and their stars. This one of Quentin Tarantino and straight man Christoph Waltz—who will get an Oscar, even if his boss does not—-is my favorite.
Here’s Vanity Fair’s behind-the-scenes video:
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, Meryl Streep, Hollywood, Media on February 3, 2010 at 5:31pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Over coffee today with outgoing MPAA chairman Dan Glickman—who served as Agriculture Secretary in the Clinton administration and plans to return to public service on September 1 when he stops repping the Hollywood studios in Washington—he made clear how much devastated Haiti, which is just 300 miles away from the U.S., needs support from folks in Hollywood. “Our industry needs to step up,” Glickman said. “Now [relief organizations] are focused on clean-up, medicine and food. Development work will be done later on.”
You can make donations to the Red Cross or the United Nations World Food Programme, Glickman said, pointing to the official White House website. (36 U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti were confirmed dead after their hotel collapsed in the quake.) Anyone can instantly donate $10 to the Red Cross (which will be charged to your phone bill) by texting “HAITI” to “90999.”
Marc Malkin reports that George Clooney may be calling Twilight stars Rob Pattinson, Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart (who has two films at Sundance) to help at his January 22 Haiti Telethon, which will be broadcast on MTV—as well as ABC, NBC, HBO and CNN. The Auteurs reports on a filmmaker collective raising funds for Haiti. And marketer Susan Jacobs sent a passionate plea to her email lists, below.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Hollywood on January 14, 2010 at 2:43pm PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
Artist Paul Rogers sketched images from his favorite movies and designed several sets of six pictures as tough “get this movie” quizzes. No stars. I got most of them, but was stumped by a few. One quiz is on the jump; or you can test your mettle.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Hollywood on December 17, 2009 at 4:16pm PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
1. The Governors Awards will not be televised. At the orange Grand Ballroom at Hollywood and Highland Saturday night, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave out four honorary Oscars at a new annual event on the awards calendar. Academy executive director Bruce Davis, president Tom Sherak, Oscar show producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman, and Oscar-host-to-be Alec Baldwin all attended this relaxed, celebratory black-tie cocktail and dinner party. The ceremony awarding four honorary Oscars to actress Lauren Bacall, producers John Calley and Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis, punctuated by repeated standing ovations, lasted three hours and 18 minutes, to be exact.
2. The awards circuit always draws would-be Oscar contenders. Glad-handing were Morgan Freeman (Invictus), Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire), Abbie Cornish in lavender Dior (Bright Star) and Christoph Waltz and Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), who met director Julie Taymor for the first time. New World alumnus James Cameron (Piranha II), who was supposed to attend, was stuck in the Avatar editing room, said Sherak.
3. Avatar production and marketing costs will not reach $500 million. Producer Jon Landau insists the final costs of the movie will come nowhere near that. (The LAT reports a $310 million budget tally without P & A.) Cameron and Vince Pace’s special 3-D camera rigs, for example, are rented like any other cameras. Weta Digital made a bid for how much the visual effects would cost. The actors were not expensive. There isn’t all that much live-action shooting in the movie, which filmed in soundstages in Playa Vista and in New Zealand. OK…
4. If director Clint Eastwood delivers yet again on Invictus, the movie could be the one to beat for Best Picture. When I told Freeman how much I admired the Invictus script, adapted from John Carlin’s book by Anthony Peckham, Freeman said, “I guarantee you, we did not mess it up.” Freeman plays Nelson Mandela opposite Matt Damon as rugby captain Francois Pienaar. In order to unite South Africa, the two men push to win the 1995 World Cup.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Hollywood, Video on November 15, 2009 at 12:13pm PST | Permalink | Comments (5)
The studio glory days are over, and everyone knows it. Diminishing expectations and returns are the new normal. (Here’s Disney chief Robert Iger’s gloomy take.) Palpable anxiety is everywhere as the game of corporate musical chairs keeps removing one chair after another. Folks are scrambling to hang on to the good jobs, knowing there will be fewer of them.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Hollywood, Moguls, Studios on October 26, 2009 at 2:40pm PDT | Permalink | Comments (8)
Wes Anderson’s stop-motion feature The Fantastic Mr. Fox debuted well at the London Film Festival; Willem Dafoe co-stars with George Clooney and Meryl Streep; he also stars in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist—-and a host of other movies. Here’s Todd McCarthy’s Fox review.
For me, the movie is comparable to Where the Wild Things Are: what starts out as a visually dazzling, charming, cool, inventive movie falls down after the first hour on the weakness of a talky, undramatic script (by Anderson and Noah Baumbach). Toward the end of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, despite the best efforts of the animators and actors, I got sleepy. Not good.
[Photo: courtesy USA Today]
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Hollywood on October 19, 2009 at 12:58am PDT | Permalink | Comments (0)
John Woo is on the promo circuit with the shortened version of his Asian two-part epic Red Cliff—I’ll file on my upcoming Q & A with him. Here’s Movieline’s interview.
Some folks are pushing A Serious Man‘s Fred Melamed as a possible best supporting actor awards candidate. I don’t know about that (although if the movie keeps doing as well as it is doing, it will have long coattails indeed), but the home videos on his Facebook page are a must-see. Besides reading the Percy Bysshe Shelley sonnet “Ozymandias,” he takes credit for giving the Coens the ending of A Serious Man!
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Hollywood, Moguls, Studios, Universal/Focus Features, TV on October 13, 2009 at 10:50am PDT | Permalink | Comments (2)
Something had to give at Disney. But motion picture chief Dick Cook was such a fixture at the studio that despite Disney chairman Robert Iger’s public complaints about the quality of the movies, I figured production chief Oren Aviv would be the target. Disney’s output has been suspect ever since Aviv replaced Nina Jacobson at the studio. Cook, who over 38 years rose up through the ranks to run distribution before he took over running movies, was clearly comfortable with Aviv, who came from the marketing side, but had written the high-concept hit, National Treasure. So Cook and Aviv were both strong marketers, but hit a rough box office patch in the last year.
The studio came in fifth in 2009 market share; recent box office disappointments were Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience ($23 million worldwide), rom-com Confessions of a Shopaholic ($108 million worldwide) and the remake Race to Witch Mountain ($106 million worldwide). (UPDATE: Here’s Kim Masters and the LAT on Cook’s unceremonious ouster.)
It makes sense that Iger would want some fresh blood. But it’s surprising that he didn’t give Cook some kind of face-saving job at Disney. The guy was a loyal company man, a lifer. Not that he’s walking away with nothing. He’s a wealthy man. But Cook lived and breathed Disney, he’s an institution there, and a well-liked figure around town. It feels wrong, somehow.
Who will Iger pick to replace him?
[Photo: From left, Disney’s Robert Iger, Dick Cook and John Lasseter with Ratatouille director Brad Bird.]
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Directors, Bob Zemeckis, John Lasseter, Genres, Animation, Hollywood, Studios, Disney/Miramax on September 20, 2009 at 1:48pm PDT | Permalink | Comments (2)
Thankfully, a cooling marine layer blew in over L.A. Tuesday morning, which shifted the balance a bit for exhausted firefighters battling the huge Station fire which has destroyed some 63 homes and threatens some 12,000. “The Station fire grew to more than 122,000 acres overnight and continued to burn out of control despite some signs of improving weather conditions,” reported the LAT. UPDATE 4:20 PM: “Firefighters made significant progress today in the Station fire, but a tense battle was underway this afternoon to save the communication centers atop Mt. Wilson. By 3 p.m., the fire was approaching closer than ever from two directions: one-half mile to the north and three-quarters of a mile to the west.” Here’s a NASA space photo from Sunday—the fire is now twice as big.
Marvel Update:
Most Hollywood folks seem to understand the need of the guys running to Marvel to cash out while the going was good. I worry that an indie outfit that sought to protect its characters and not play by the Hollywood rules will now succumb to them. Disney came out ahead on the deal, even if they paid dearly. The question remains whether Marvel can keep its autonomy and continue to play smart. Here’s the LAT’s Patrick Goldstein and the WSJ.
Most Hollywood folks know more about Marvel’s Avi Arad and production chief Kevin Feige than Ike Perlmutter, the man behind the $4 billion Disney deal. Kim Masters reveals the man behind Marvel, and the NYT reports that he scored a $1.4 billion payday.
Media Watch
Good news: while newsstand sales are down 12.4% in the first half of 2009, some magazine subscriptions actually went up.
The Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit may offer insight into the future of indie film distribution. [Hat Tip: Ted Hope]
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Franchises, Hulk, Iron Man, Genres, Comics, Hollywood, Studios, Disney/Miramax on September 1, 2009 at 3:43pm PDT | 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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