Were you aware that when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences presented the Oscars every year, the results were being determined without considering the opinion of Jet Li? It's hard to believe, I know. They haven't been consulting Diablo Cody (pictured), either! Well, that egregious oversight is about to be remedied, as Li, Cody, and 103 others have been invited to join the AMPAS and become voting members.
Among those whom you'll be able to blame the next time something dumb like Crash wins Best Picture are Gore Verbinski, Doug Liman, Allison Janney, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen -- assuming they all accept the invitation, of course. Almost everyone who's invited is grateful for the honor, but a few do decline, and a few more simply fail to respond to the invitation before the deadline.
Apparently made available only in the HD format to correspond with Fincher's expectedly demanding standards, the trailer is indeed that much more striking for it. To borrow my own words for it:
"...while the sparse dialogue clues us in on the surreal nature of the events unfolding, the bigger selling point is the scope with which director Fincher and star Brad Pitt find themselves working. It's as if Fincher tapped into his inner Jeunet, and as for Pitt... well, between this and that Burn After Reading trailer, the man's looking to have one hell of a year, and with any luck, so will audiences."
Benjamin Button is scheduled to hit theaters this Christmas, and when the next trailer for it comes around, we'll be sure to make mention of it once we're certain that everyone can actually watch the thing.
Well, well. Here's some welcome news. After this year's much balleyhooed disaster with the Best Foreign Film Oscar noms -- recap: lauded Romanian Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days somehow didn't even make it onto the Oscar shortlist -- The Envelope's Mark Olsen reports that a rule change has been voted in for next year's event. Now, I don't like to get too worked up about the Oscars -- it's such an insidery, backpatting schmoozefest of the "You're great!" "No, you're great!" variety -- but last year's foreign noms really pissed me off.
I wasn't as enarmored of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days as many of my fellow critics were, but even so, it's a masterful, tensely drawn piece of filmmaking, it won the Palme d'or and gave critics worldwide a collective cinematic orgasm, and it damn sure deserved not just to be shortlisted, but to make the final cut of nominees. That it wasn't nominated was a travesty, and confirmed the ongoing suspicion of many in the film community that many of the people in the Academy who are charged with making decisions around foreign film noms are a pack of drooling idiots.
I guess we won't be seeing the first female President of the United States in 2009, but we could at least see the first female cinematographer nominated for an Academy Award (in the cinematography category, that is). In the 80 years of the Oscars there hasn't been one female nominee for Best Cinematography. Shocking, isn't it? But fortunately there's a chance for next year's ceremony: Mandy Walker, who shot Baz Luhrman's war epic Australia, could be a shoo-in for one of the five nomination slots if the film is Oscar-worthy in general.
The Oscar blog In Contention points out the possibility in a recent post celebrating Walker's reception Tuesday evening of the Kodak Vision Award at the Women in Film's Crystal + Lucy Awards (other honorees included Salma Hayek, Sherry Lansing, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Diane English and the ensemble of The Women). Clearly we only need to look at the trailer to see that Walker's work on the film is gorgeous and might have a shot. In Contention also notes Walker's previous achievements, such as her Independent Spirit Award nomination for Shattered Glass.
UPDATE:Scratch that, folks. According to JoBlo.com, the trailer has been taken down at the request of the studio and "Fincher himself." Paramount has then assured the site that the trailer will be officially posted - in all its HD glory - on Apple's trailer site in the very near future. Sorry about that, guys, but we'll keep you posted once they get it posted.
Naturally, it still stands that, while the sparse dialogue clues us in on the surreal nature of the events unfolding, the bigger selling point is the scope with which director Fincher and star Brad Pitt find themselves working. It's as if Fincher tapped into his inner Jeunet, and as for Pitt... well, between this and that Burn After Reading trailer, the man's looking to have one hell of a year, and with any luck, so will audiences.
It 's also worth noting that adapting this F. Scott Fitzgerald story for the big screen is screenwriter Eric Roth, whose own Forrest Gump similarly chronicled the life of a man whose presence managed to manifest itself across several eras of American culture and history.
In what is perhaps a fitting sense of time, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button doesn't open until this Christmas, and yet it suddenly can't seem to get here soon enough.
Oh look, a Clint Eastwood movie with an Oscar-friendly release date. That's new. Actually, it is relatively new, if you look over the man's directorial career. Sure, he's had a number of films come out in the fall time, but not with the same consistency we've seen since 2003, when Mystic Riverarrived in a few theaters on October 8 then went on to receive six Academy Award nominations the following winter.
Then in 2004, his Million Dollar Babyopened in limited release December 15 and went on to win four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Finally, in 2006, two of his films were released in the fall, Flags of Our Fathersin October and Letters from Iwo Jima in December. Both went on to receive Oscar recognition, the latter garnering major noms, such as Best Picture and Best Director.
The Changeling press conference the other day was, not surprisingly, a packed affair, with throngs of journalists crowding in to get a look at Clint Eastwood,Angelina Jolie, and the Jolie baby bump. Honestly, I've never seen so many people so fascinated with the silhouette of a pregnant woman -- the Jolie frenzy here has been interesting to watch. She looked, also not surprisingly, glowingly fantastic. Also on hand to field questions were producer Brian Grazer and his famously spiky hair, and screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski.
We just walked in the door after the four-and-a-half hour screening of Steven Soderbergh's Che, one of the most anticipated films at the Cannes Film Festival, and I just had to bang out a quick post to say ... wow. The film is just amazing, in every possible way. I went into it a bit trepidatiously; four-plus hours of guerrilla warfare was either going to be awesome or very, very bad. I walked out feeling like I'd just had the cinematic equivalent of winning the Lotto, and I'm still on a high from the film.
James will have a full review up soon (yeah, he won the coin toss on that one), but for now, here's my immediate reaction. Consensus among many of the very smart people I know here at Cannes (well, except for Variety, apparently) is that Che will almost definitely win the Palm d'Or, and if Benecio del Toro doesn't win the Best Actor Oscar come January, there's something wrong with the world.
Darned politics! It's always getting in the way of our entertainment. This year, there were Oscar worries due to the writers strike. Next year, there is going to be some presidential interference. Unless you've been living on a remote island under a rock, by now you should have caught on that there's a presidential race a-brewing to figure out who is going to replace Dubya in the White House. Whatever person gets picked will have their inauguration on January 20, 2008.
That's the day that the 81st Annual Academy Award nominees were going to be announced, like they are every year, on a Tuesday in mid-January. To completely avoid a showdown, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the Academy will ignore tradition next year and announce the nominees two days later -- Thursday, January 22 at 5:30 am, PST.
So, the Oscar schedule for next year is as follows:
December 1 - Credit forms are due. December 26 - Nomination ballots are mailed. January 12 - Ballots are due back. January 22 - Nominees are announced. January 28 - Final ballots mailed. February 2 - Annual nominees luncheon. February 7 - Scientific and tech achievement awards given. February 17 - Final ballots due. February 22 - Fancy-garbed actors and notables flock to the Kodak Theatre for the awards.
Okay. It's time to get down to brass tacks. I'm going to get up on my soapbox and hope that the right Academy members read the column this week, because it's time to re-do the rules of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar category. Do you know how long it has been since a great film, a truly great film, won in this category? I'm talking about a film made by a genuinely great artist of the cinema, a film for the ages, and not just a perfectly good film, or a film about one of the great world wars. Here's your answer: twenty-five years ago. Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1983) was the last great one. That leaves 25 years of pretty good, just OK, forgettable, or flat-out awful winners (mostly forgettable). This year's winner, The Counterfeiters (41 screens) had to be one of the worst movies I saw all year; at it's center is a perfectly good (true) WWII concentration camp story, but it's warped by an entirely inept director, responsible for one of the worst movies I've ever seen, All the Queen's Men (2001). How did it win? How did it get past all the truly great films of 2007?
He was the talk of the red carpet Sunday night after interrupting Ryan Seacrest's interview with Jennifer Garner, only to wrap Garner in a bear-hug and kiss her neck. I'd say the poor gal was a bit freaked out. And then there's Gary Busey's date in the background, trying to push her way in toward Seacrest, smiling like a moron in that ugly green dress. Anyway, Busey, as always, was a maniac. Now, check out what happened after the ceremony (I believe it's after), as an 11-year-old female reporter attempts to approach Busey for an interview.
She sounds like a cute girl, shooting these red carpet things for a website called StarzLife.com. I don't think she runs the website, but they most likely brought her in to do the reporting -- probably because it was the only way they could get a celeb to talk to them. So the girl tries to talk to Busey, and the guy just verbally abuses her. Not so much that he was making fun of her, but treating her like a complete moron -- raising his voice, asking her to repeat the question 30 times, then refusing to give the girl a shout out for the site. "I don't do shout outs," he, well, shouted.
But we'll give her a shout out. Go visit StarzLife.com. There ya go kid. Check out the video above.
Thanks to the local ABC affiliate in Buffalo, NY, we now have a great quote to put on the DVD box of No Country for Old Men: "The guy with no expression who keeps blowing up everything." There it is! That's the best movie of the year in a nutshell. Anyway, in case you haven't seen this yet, a technical snafu up in Buffalo accidentally turned on the newsroom mics in the middle of the Oscar broadcast -- right as they were announcing the best director award for Joel and Ethan Coen. Watch the video above, and listen to the part where the feed cuts out and these folks start talking about the film. One guy goes, "I don't believe in this Oscar bullsh*t, but this was the best movie of the year." Then the female news anchor goes, "What's it about?" And I swear it sounds like someone responds to her question with an answer that goes something like, "It's men. It's about old men." No idea. But it's definitely one of the funnier Oscar goof-ups I've seen in some time. My vote is for the Buffalo news team to host the awards next year.
Here's more on the story, including the names of those involved, from the local Buffalo press.
The other day, Erik asked you for your ideas on new Oscar categories to shake things up a bit. I don't think it's Jon Stewart's fault the Oscar's tanked, but will he be asked back next year? I'm betting not, but who knows? Meanwhile, Cinematical's Chris Campbell, who also writes for Spoutblog.com with former Cine EIC Karina Longworth, has some excellent ideas for ways to boost the Oscar ratings.
My favorite among his suggestions is the Gary Busey Red Carpet. Hell yeah! Get rid of Regis, who's about as boring as watching bread get moldy, and bring on the Busey action. He can show up drunk with his fly open, and attack all the talent as they make their walk up the red carpet. It'll be almost like adding a sporting event to the Oscars -- duck and run from Gary Busey before he attacks your neck!
Poor Jennifer Garner would probably have to bring an entourage of everyone who's f*cking her husband, Ben Affleck, to be her body shield against further Busey attacks. For added fun, Busey can bring along his son Jake, who can also get drunk and talk loudly to everyone within ear range about how he's Gary Busey's son. The two of them could become a regular Oscar team like Melissa and Joan Rivers ... only drunker and with less cleavage and plastic surgery.
For more of Chris's ideas, including what Diablo Cody should have really done on that stage, go read the full piece.
Well, that didn't take long. Only two days after the gal took home a best original screenplay Oscar, nude photos of stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody have surfaced online, courtesy of Egotastic. Most of the photos look a tad old, and they definitely shouldn't take anything away from her win (I'm sure the gal is used to being seen without any clothes on), but it does mean we're not exactly ready to stop talking about this rather amusing success story. The images show Cody in some pretty revealing outfits, and in one photo she's actually rocking the whip cream bikini top. Groovy. Then there's a few others of the girl swinging from a stripper pole in what appears to be her own house. Why don't I have one of those yet in my living room? Oh yeah, I'm not hot.
Personally, I couldn't help but snicker when this girl walked up onto the Oscar stage in a leopard-print dress and a "Jonny's Girl" tattoo. I suddenly felt like it was New Year's Eve at a dive bar in Jersey. What's interesting about that particular tattoo is that, according to reports (including Wiki), Cody divorced her husband (aka Jonny) in late 2007. So fellas -- anyone interested in a former stripper-turned-Oscar winner with a tattoo dedicated to her former husband on her arm? Don't all raise your hands at the same time. Nevertheless, we here at Cinematical dig Cody (her body, her tat and her script for Juno) and we wish her nothing but luck going forward.
Even though we're all having a good time geeking out over last night's Oscars telecast, the actual show turned out to be a ratings nightmare. According to preliminary ratings from Nielson, the 80th Academy Awards came in 14 percent lower than the least-watched ceremony ever! And 21 percent lower than last year! Damn, looks like at least one record was set last night. So what's the problem? Is it that a majority of the public haven't seen the nominated movies? Is it because the show is too long? Is it because the categories aren't flashy enough?
After they announced the second sound-related award last night, I turned to my friend and noted that they could've easily replaced one of these sound categories with something a little more fan-friendly. Or even if they want to stick with what they have, perhaps more people will watch if they have more say in how the awards show plays out. So in the spirit of brainstorming, what would be a good category to add to future Oscar telecasts? Best fanboy film? Best comedy? Or how about a viewer's choice award? Would something like asking, ya know, actual paying moviegoers which film they liked the best take away from the epic-like ceremony?
What can Oscar do to turn this sucker around? (And no, having Miley Ray Cyrus announce every award is not a good solution.) Sound off below ...
A lot of people will be talking about Marion Cotillard today, whose teary-eyed acceptance speech was just beyond cute. But I feel the night's greatest moment came in two parts -- first when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performed Falling Slowly (from the movie Once) on stage, and then when both accepted the Oscar for best song. In a very cool moment, Irglova was cut off at the mic before she could thank anyone, and so after the commercial break Jon Stewart brought her back on stage to finish what she was about to say.
Talk about two kids who deserved a break. This song, from a film that was made for roughly $100,000, beat out Disney and their -- what? -- 13 Enchanted nominations. Was it me, or did each of those Enchanted songs sound exactly the same? This time, however, the Oscar went to the little guy (and girl). You could totally tell that there was a ton of love behind that song -- and even though it was obvious Hansard and Irglova were nervous at the beginning, they finished it off in spectacular fashion. Above, check out their performance at the Oscars, then head after the jump to see both acceptance speeches.
Last night, as per every year at the Oscars, they take a brief break from all the self-congratulatory back-patting to acknowledge the deaths in the movie industry over the preceding year. As several of our readers (and Scott Weinberg, who was going ballastic on IM about it) noted, Brad Renfro, who died of a drug overdose on January 15 of this year, was mysteriously excluded. The troubled actor, best known for his work in The Client, Apt Pupil, and Bully, had been known to have a drug problem for years, and had a drunk driving and heroin-possession arrest in May 2006, but was supposedly "working hard on his sobriety" at the time of his death.
The In Memorium was supposed to be for everyone who died between February 1, 2007 and January 31, 2008. Heath Ledger, who died a week after Renfro, was included in the montage. No word from the Academy that I've seen yet on why Renfro wasn't included -- an honest oversight? A deliberate sweeping-under-the-red-carpet because heroin was involved? What do you think about Renfro being shut out of Oscar's "In Memorium"?
I have such a huge Oscars hangover this morning. Did anyone theme it for the night? I cooked some mean-ass burgers in honor of Juno, then attempted to make a few milkshakes (in honor of There Will be Blood) before realizing I had no ice cream. Anyone get nutty and make Ratatouille? Anyway, when it comes to the day after the Oscars, talk usually surrounds the big surprises. What were the shockers? Personally, I totally thought Transformers would walk away with at least one Oscar for special effects or sound, and Marion Cotillard winning best actress came somewhat as a surprise. I mean, a French actress winning best actress for a foreign language film that practically NO ONE saw?
And Tilda Swinton? Really? Do cracked-out single mothers not mean anything to the Academy voters? Amy Ryan definitely should've won in that category. Other surprises -- who the hell let Gary Busey onto the red carpet? Did you see him lick Jennifer Garner's neck? Poor girl. Unfortunately, her husband was f**king Jimmy Kimmel at the time and couldn't be there to rescue her. But anyway, last night's biggest upset? In your opinion, who was it? (And is it okay to say that my new crush is Marion Cotillard. Holy crap did she look fantastic!)
Well, the Oscars are a wrap. You can see all the winners right over here. Cinematical staff did pretty well with our predictions, and so did our readers. You guys picked the winners for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapated Screenplay -- the same categories we got right. We missed Best Doc and both actress categories. Not bad overall.
What do you think about this year's Oscars? Did you think Jon Stewart did a good job with the hosting? Aside from the part where he kind of disappeared for the last hour, but I guess they usually do that towards the end when everyone wants to wrap it up already and get to the parties. What were the big surprises of the night? Any huge disappointments? (Go ahead, anti Diablo Cody contingent. You can say it.)
Oh, and who looked awesome, and who didn't? I thought Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner and Anne Hathaway had the best looks of the night among the ladies. On the guy's side, Johnny Depp and George Clooney both looked hot, and so did Denzel Washington. And Glen Hansard ... yeah, he was adorable too. I'm just saying.
Time for your thoughts on Hollywood's big night -- discuss away!
Click here for the 2008 Academy Award Winners, updated in real time, and highlighted in bold.
Cinematical's Erik Davis, Scott Weinberg and Kim Voynar are live blogging the Oscars! Kim's up next with the conclusion of the 2008 Academy Awards ...
That's a wrap, folks. Thanks for spending Oscar night with us!
11:45PM Thank God, it's almost done. Denzel Washington, looking smoking hot, is presenting. And the big winner is ... no surprise! No Country for Old Men is sweeping it up tonight. Good for them. WINNER BEST PICTURE: No Country for Old Men
11:40PM Coming up, Best Director. I'm still betting on the Coens to take this one. Scott calls it for Paul Thomas Anderson, but at least he's not threatening to kick any cats if PTA doesn't win. Scott ate BBQ with PTA once. I'm jealous. Don't you just love Martin Scorsese's voice? And ... the Coens win it! I bet No Country takes Best Picture too. WINNER BEST DIRECTOR: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
11:32PM Time for Best Actor. Helen Mirren even makes presenting an Oscar look good. I'm still betting Daniel Day-Lewis, so is Weinberg. And we're ... so right. Daniel Day-Lewis. And he so deserves it. ... WINNER BEST ACTOR: Daniel day-Lewis, There Will be Blood
11:27PM So, the Coens win screenplay for No Country, Cody for Juno. Who's gonna take Best Picture? My money is still on No Country for that one, but we'll see if there's an upset.
Were you aware that when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences presented the Oscars every year, the results were being determined without considering the opinion of 
After enduring 
Well, well. Here's some welcome news. After this year's much balleyhooed disaster with the Best Foreign Film Oscar noms -- recap: lauded Romanian Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days somehow didn't even make it onto the Oscar shortlist -- The Envelope's Mark Olsen reports that a 
I guess we won't be seeing the first female President of the United States in 2009, but we could at least see the first female cinematographer nominated for an Academy Award (in the cinematography category, that is). In the 80 years of the Oscars there hasn't been one female nominee for Best Cinematography. Shocking, isn't it? But fortunately there's a chance for next year's ceremony: 
Oh look, a Clint Eastwood movie with an Oscar-friendly release date. That's new. Actually, it is relatively new, if you look over the man's directorial career. Sure, he's had a number of films come out in the fall time, but not with the same consistency we've seen since 2003, when 
We just walked in the door after the four-and-a-half hour screening of Steven Soderbergh's 
Darned politics! It's always getting in the way of our entertainment. This year, there were Oscar worries due to the writers strike. Next year, there is going to be some presidential interference. Unless you've been living on a remote island under a rock, by now you should have caught on that there's a presidential race a-brewing to figure out who is going to replace Dubya in the White House. Whatever person gets picked will have their inauguration on January 20, 2008.
The other day, Erik asked you for your.jpg)
Last night, as per every year at the Oscars, they take a brief break from all the self-congratulatory back-patting to acknowledge the deaths in the movie industry over the preceding year. As several of our readers (and Scott Weinberg, who was going ballastic on IM about it) noted, Brad Renfro, who .jpg)
I have such a huge 
