Thompson on Hollywood

Big Indie News Week: Gotham Winners, Indie Spirit Noms, Sundance Line-Up, Board of Review

It's a big indie news week. The Gotham Awards are Monday night; indieWIRE will live-blog from backstage. I'm opting to attend a screening of a highly anticipated year-end release so that I can write about it for a Wednesday embargo.

By Anne Thompson
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November 29, 2010 9:32 AM
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Oscar Watch: Considering Tilda Swinton for I Am Love

Thanks to Jeff Wells for asking me to address where Tilda Swinton stands in relation to the Best Actress Oscar race for the Italian import I Am Love. The only way for Swinton--who is admired by critics and art house audiences alike-- to make the best actress Oscar grade this year for I Am Love (which played the fest circuit before opening in June), is for critics to make a fuss over her in their year-end wraps and ten-best lists, and for critics groups and the Golden Globes to reward her with prizes and nominations and thus turn the screener into a must-see for SAG and Academy actors. Swinton has been nominated once (and won, for Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton).

By Anne Thompson
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October 26, 2010 8:56 AM
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Oscar Watch: Reeves Talks Let Me In--Not an Oscar Contender

Let Me In is one of those strange tweener movies that is neither fish nor fowl. It was a fall festival hit, but movie audiences like their movies to fit into neat and tidy categories, and this one defiantly refuses to do that. Here's why.

By Anne Thompson
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October 13, 2010 10:32 AM
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Jodie Foster Talks Indie Spirits

Jodie Foster has said this before: she's more comfortable in mainstream Hollywood movies as an actress. Some folks got her her talking at the Indie Spirits, where she presented the best actress award. She reveals a bit about directing her latest indie movie starring Mel Gibson, The Beaver.

By Anne Thompson
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March 6, 2010 10:14 AM
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Indie Spirits: Precious Sweeps, Izzard and LA Live Fizzle

Take the Independent Spirits back to the beach!

By Anne Thompson
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March 6, 2010 5:24 AM
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Oscar Coverage Round-Up

IndieWIRE's Sophia Savage culls the best of the Award coverage leading up to the Big Show Sunday night:

By Sophia Savage
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March 5, 2010 8:39 AM
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Oscar Party Circuit: from Sunset Strip to Gabourey Sidibe

My Oscar party week started out Wednesday night with The Cove at Andaz on Sunset, where Russell Simmons held court and Ben Stiller admitted that he had seen Oscar doc front-runner The Cove three times. On Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, Stiller said it was a huge relief to follow the script, word for word. (One of the Greenberg locations was Baumbach's wife, producer-star Jennifer Jason Leigh's mother's house.) Stiller and Rhys Ifans only improvised one scene, Stiller said.

By Anne Thompson
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March 5, 2010 7:43 AM
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Indie Spirits Leave Beach for Friday Night Kudocast

I'm not alone in having mixed feelings about the change of time and venue for the Independent Spirit awards this year. Ostensibly a response to both the award show's 25th anniversary (celebrated in this Funny or Die video) and a bid to save money on mounting the beach-tent celebration in Santa Monica, I suspect that Film Independent director Dawn Hudson is drawn like a moth to flame to a chance to broadcast live the awards soiree on a Friday night in prime time (IFC, 8 PM, PT.). And she admits that some of the money saved by not going to the beach was used for a pre-Golden Globes Indie Spirit Nominees brunch.

By Anne Thompson
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March 4, 2010 3:02 AM
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Oscar Week: Parties, Panels, Indie Spirits, Best Oscar Stories, Hurt Locker Lawsuit, Cohen

I'm plotting my Oscar-week course of action. I must decide which parties and panels and events to cover, and which stories to write when and how. Last year at the Oscar red carpet bleachers I live-blogged in evening garb from my place on a bench with the likes of A.P., Reuters, LAT, and the London Daily Mail, several rows back from the front, took red carpet photos with my Nikon, scrambled down in high heels to the hedge to shoot flip cam interviews, and managed to get out with all my gear except my little black notebook, which was never found.

By Anne Thompson
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March 3, 2010 6:41 AM
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Globes Weekend Party Circuit: Film Independent, BAFTA Brunches

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.