Beverly Hills, CA – Final ballots for the 84th Academy Awards® were mailed today (February 1) to the 5,783 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Completed ballots must be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) by 5 p.m. Tuesday, February 21. Ballots received after the deadline will not be counted.
Listed on the ballots are nominees in 19 Awards categories. Separate ballots for five categories (Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Foreign Language Film, Animated Short Film and Live Action Short Film) will be distributed after verification of mandatory member attendance at screenings.
Beverly Hills, CA – Three-time Academy Award®-nominated actor Tom Cruise will present at the 84th Academy Awards® ceremony, telecast producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer announced today.
Cruise was nominated for his lead performances in “Born on the Fourth of July” and “Jerry Maguire.” He also was nominated for his supporting role in “Magnolia.” Cruise was recently seen in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” and will be seen next in “Rock of Ages.” His other film credits include “Tropic Thunder,” “War of the Worlds,” “Collateral,” “Minority Report,” “A Few Good Men,” “Rain Man,” “The Color of Money” and “Top Gun.”
If you want a good laugh, take a look at early Oscar predictions of any given year. It doesn’t matter who you look at, they’ll look ridiculous. Not only are some of the forecasted contenders mediocre at best, but it seems obvious, looking back, that of course such films wouldn’t make any headway in the awards season. And make no mistake, they always pop up. Last year it was Hereafter and Love and Other Drugs, before that we had Nine and Invictus, and so on.
This year probably had some of the most surprising nominees and omissions of any Oscar year in recent memory, with films well outside of their wheelhouse actually making it in (yep, I was the biggest Tree of Life skeptic on the site), and of course that left several early frontrunners in the dust, most of the time deservedly. So which “serious contenders” fell flat on release, and what can we learn from them? Read more on Hindsight’s a Bitch…
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ Oscar scene: The climactic battle between Harry and Voldemort
“Hugo” Oscar scene: The train crash
“Real Steel” Oscar scene: The final robot boxing match
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” Oscar scene: The apes rising
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” Oscar scene: The Decepticon wraps around a building
One of the more interesting categories out there for Oscar is Best Visual Effects. Many of the other technical categories are harder for the layman to comprehend and as such feel more exclusionary (Film Editing or Sound Mixing, for example), whereas this particular category is a lot simpler to wrap your head around. This year, we don’t especially have a lower key nominee as in years past (just look at Hereafter scoring a nod last year), so it’s pretty much going to be which film was the best feast for the eyes. Of the 5 nominees, it seems like a 3 horse race to me. Which 3 are they, you ask? Well, let’s dive right in and find out!
The past few years I’d consistently covered the film acquisitions that went down at the Sundance Film Festival, but this year things were a bit too hectic for that and I only highlighted some of the major pick-ups during the fest. Now that the festival has concluded and the studios have selected their titles, I can double back and show you what got picked up and who did the acquiring. I think the upcoming slate of graduates from the festival is looking like a real good one, with some potential Oscar players even in the mix, but that’s just my take on things. Movieline has a great write-up of what went down, and here are the films that got purchased:
Yes, another award to make mention of. The Chlotrudis Awards are fans of The Artist too it seems, bestowing 7 nominations on the film, though they also took time to cite Melissa Leo for her work in Kevin Smith’s Red State. Here’s the full list of nominees:
BEST MOVIE
Another Year
Artist, The
Pariah
Poetry
Weekend
