Thompson on Hollywood

Oscar Watch: King's Speech, Firth, Bening Lead Gurus 'o Gold Poll

The Gurus 'O Gold will now be voting every week as the awards season picks up steam. The latest votes reflect where the Oscar race stands now, with consensus on the top six, led by The King's Speech, which played better for my Sneak Previews class than anything else has in five years of programming. We also voted on actor and actress.

By Anne Thompson
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November 5, 2010 3:43 AM
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Oscar Watch: Director/Picture Splits, Black Swan Promo

- What are the odds of a director winning an Oscar without their film? LAT's new Awards Tracker blog considers the importance of the best director and best picture unity. "Over the past 20 years, the awards for best picture and director split only four times. That's 80% overlap," notes Tom O'Neil, pointing out that being "overdue" is a big factor. Could this happen with Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Christopher Nolan (Inception) or and Peter Weir (The Way Back)?

By Sophia Savage
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November 5, 2010 3:06 AM
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Oscar Watch: Santa Barbara Film Festival To Give Bening American Riviera Award

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) will bestow the American Riviera Award to The Kids Are All Right star Annette Bening, who has been nominated for three Academy Awards and is considered a top contender for the best actress Oscar this year. She also earned strong reviews for Mother and Child.

By Anne Thompson
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November 1, 2010 5:55 AM
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Weekly Wrap: Oscar Contenders Big and Small, Production News, Lawrence and Morgan Talk

AWARDS

By Sophia Savage
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October 29, 2010 6:06 AM
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Gender Watch: Theron for Snow, Cholodenko Talks, Lisbeth Salander and Hollywood's Woman Problem

-Charlize Theron could be in, and Angelina Jolie out for director Rupert Sanders' Snow White and The Huntsman, according to ThePlaylist. It was always a hopeful stretch to think that Jolie would sign up (get in line) but Theron's schedule has opened up thanks to the Mad Max postponement. That makes her an attractive candidate for evil queen Ravenna, who hires a bounty hunter (Inception Brit Tom Hardy, also starring in Mad Max) to chase down Snow White after her escape. Theron is currently shooting Jason Reitman's Young Adult with Patrick Wilson. While not as established as an action star as Jolie, Theron is one of the few actresses who can legitimately be considered alongside Jolie in the action sphere (as much for Monster and In The Valley of Elah as "actioners" Æon Flux and Hancock). Plot details are murky, but we like the thought of watching Theron boss around Hardy.

By Sophia Savage
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October 29, 2010 5:55 AM
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Oscar Wrap: Blue Valentine's Gosling, Dive-Bombing 127 Hours, Best Actress Death Match

Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling not only talks to Crazy, Stupid, Love co-star Steve Carell, but self-mockingly poses in tight leather in the rain for Interview Magazine. On his past Oscar nomination for Half Nelson, he says: "it feels weird…not that long ago that I was on a TV show called Young Hercules in which I had a fake tan and wore tight leather pants and fought imaginary monsters." As for working on the smaller indie films he loves, the downside is that "when you’re making them, you’re pretty sure no one’s going to see them," he notes---unless they get a nomination: "[it] in some way affirms those choices by making it possible for people to hear about a film and maybe see a movie they wouldn’t have otherwise seen."

By Sophia Savage
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October 28, 2010 7:55 AM
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Weekly Wrap: Awards and Festivals, News, Media, Celebs

In the past week, TOH looked at Names That Rule in Moviesphere, considered Recycling at the Cinema [pictured: DiCaprio and Hall, potentials for Great Gatsby remake] and pondered the five things that went wrong with Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

By Sophia Savage
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October 22, 2010 7:23 AM
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Oscar Round-Up: Best Actress Buzzing, Quoting The Social Network, Does Winter's Bone Have a Chance?

Buzz is building around this year's best actress Oscar race: "Unlike most years when men dominate the critical buzz for strong roles," asserts TheStar's Zorianna Kit. Well, that's debatable: last year boasted the Sandra Bullock/Meryl Streep flirtation, Carey Mulligan's breakout performance, Mo'Nique, Helen Mirren, Kathryn Bigelow winning for best director…and so on. But certainly this year boasts an abundance of actresses to pick from, including some who grabbed our attention in untraditional roles, from Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right to Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone--and many have not yet seen fall fest fave Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Fasten your seat belts.

By Sophia Savage
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October 21, 2010 4:07 AM
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Oscar Talk Wrap-Up: Never Let Me Go Wanes, Foreign Contenders, Blue Valentine, Harry Potter

During this week's Oscar Talk podcast, Kris Tapley (InContention) and I were joined by indieWIRE's awards expert Peter Knegt and InContention's Guy Lodge, both in London covering the festival.

By Anne Thompson
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October 20, 2010 1:42 AM
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Oscar Watch: King's Speech Leads Gurus 'O Gold, Wins Hamptons Prize

Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as a stuttering King George VI, not only won the narrative audience prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival Sunday, but scored number one in the post-Toronto Film Festival Gurus 'o Gold poll (below). I also voted it number one (my current predictions are here and listed below), because the Tom Hooper movie is not only impeccably made and boasts the year's likely best actor winner (Firth), but is emotionally moving in a way that the brilliantly cold The Social Network is not.