Not sure how some are going to take this but the Weinstein Company has just announced production on the sequel to Oscar-winning hit, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The film is called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II – The Green Destiny and Michelle Yeoh will reprise her role as Yu Shu Lien. Ang Lee will not be returning to direct however and the baton will passed over to Yuen Wo Ping, who was a choreographer on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004). Also joining the cast will be Donnie Yen, who will be playing Silent Wolf.
“I don’t think that there’s anything worse than being ordinary.”
In spite of the white picket fences, manicured lawns, and two car garages, plaguing the heart of the American Dream is the underlying pestilence of an ordinary existence. In accordance with the old adage of “art imitating life,” contemporary American life has been and continues to be a favorite subject of satire, criticism, and reflection in film. The “picture-perfect” fallacy of the suburban lifestyle consistently fairs well (or not) in big-screen representations as a particularly potent point of fascination for both filmmakers and audiences alike. Ranging from coming-of-age stories like The Graduate (1967) and American Graffiti (1973)to unflinching satires like Fight Club (1999) and American Psycho (2000), the discussion of modern American values plants seeds of dissent between social norms and expectations and personal desires and outlooks. Two films that draw uncanny parallels to one another as musings on the disconnect between the image of American suburbia and its flawed human representatives are Sam Mendes‘ acclaimed American Beauty (1999) and Ang Lee’s lesser-known, though still appreciated, The Ice Storm (1997). Though not nearly on the same scale of resonance and cultural or cinematic impact, the obvious similarities between the two films make them rivaling meditations on American Suburbia ripe for comparison. Read more on Masters of Suburbia: How ‘American Beauty’ Weathers ‘The Ice Storm’…
Amour – Michael Haneke
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Benh Zeitlin Life of Pi – Ang Lee Lincoln – Steven Spielberg Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell
As I kicked off some juice this past Monday and started some heated discussion, we’re looking at all the possible angles for any film to get love on Oscar night. We took a look a scenario where Silver Linings Playbook would fall in line with Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967). Ang Lee’s Life of Pi could join a very small pool of Oscar Best Picture Winners if it triumphed over Affleck’s Argo and Spielberg’s Lincoln. It would become just the 12th film to win Best Picture without any acting nominations to back it up. The most recent film to have this honor was Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008) when it won eight Oscars. Before that, the most rewarded film in Oscar history took home eleven Oscars and tied with Titanic and Ben-Hur. That film was Peter Jackson’s epic conclusion The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Many have cited this possibility and it seems highly unlikely at this juncture unless it creates a new record that would be either tied or previously held by Cabaret (1972). Any guess what that could be? Read more on 2013 Oscar Scenarios – Lee Becomes Fosse…
(The annual “Will Win/Should Win” of the Awards Circuit has been our most popular yet most challenging series where each writer let’s their final thoughts be known on the Oscar categories. Each writer will reveal their choices everyday leading up to the Oscar ceremony. Think you can do better? Let your final thoughts be known in the comment section or by joining our Oscar Pool. -CD)
Since Oscar nominations, everyone is trying to get their heads around what each nomination means and which films are building momentum after the Critics Choice Movie Awards and Golden Globe Awards. On January 27, the Screen Actors Guild Awards will weigh in on their choices for the best of 2012 and then four weeks will go by until the Oscar ceremony. The only thing in between that time will the BAFTA on February 10 with Oscar ballots due nine days later.
The leading nomination tally for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Ang Lee’s Life of Pi puts them in a prime position to battle it out for the rest of the season however, Ben Affleck’s Argo, a film without a Best Director nomination attached, has done exceedingly well in the televised award shows. Could Argo become the first film since Driving Miss Daisy to win the top award without a directing nomination? Argo has won the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe Awards which many are calling the kiss of death since only two films in the last ten years have gone on to win the Oscar. Read more on Oscar Updates Begin – Could ‘Argo’ pull it off?…
After what looked like the beginning of a Zero Dark Thirty sweep with the critics, we see another critics group opting for something else. The Kansas City Film Critics Circle has named Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master the best film of 2012. However, they selected a director other than PTA as best in show, and instead went for Life of Pi’s Ang Lee. Have a look at the complete list of winners after the jump.
Winners to be announced live on the CW Television Network from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on January 10, 2013.
BEST PICTURE Argo Beasts of the Southern Wild Django Unchained Les Miserables Life of Pi Lincoln The Master Moonrise Kingdom Silver Linings Playbook Zero Dark Thirty
As LAFCA, NYFCO, and BSFC all proved yesterday, you can’t keep a good ol’ film when its down. The Master resurrected after being nearly shut out thus far and won Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress with the prestigious Los Angeles Film Critics.
Normally, and I mean in any other year, I wouldn’t put so much stock into these awards but with SAG ballots due today, Critics Choice Nominations being announced tomorrow, followed by Golden Globes and SAG, Oscar will be looking for some validation of their choices. AMPAS ballots are due January 10 and they’ll be looking for some guidance in places where they can. DGA won’t announce until after the Oscar nominations.
I’ve made some updates to the Oscar Predictions and most notable is the change in Supporting Actor. Robert DeNiro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Tommy Lee Jones all still seem good for nods. The big win for Dwight Henry yesterday from LAFCA and the many runner-up mentions for Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained have started a buzz that only seems deserving. The latter performance I’m not allowed to comment on until Wednesday but I’ll say it’s something that many can get behind and in THE RIGHT category. Ann Dowd makes her appearance in the top five for Compliance and if you heard our Awards Circuit Power Hour yesterday, she’s very likable and will play the awards circuit very well.
With two (really one) contender left to be unveiled, this is the most exciting awards race I’ve covered in all my years of Oscar prognosticating. Every category is competitive and with races like this, anything can happen. Along with updating the official Oscar Predictions, I’ve updated the major precursors such as the Golden Globe Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
As New York gets ready to lift on Monday, which I’ve attempted to take a stab at, the National Board of Review and Los Angeles Film Critics will start the chain reaction of the awards season. Before anyone knows the winners, I’m seeing this as a three-horse race between Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, and Ben Affleck’s Argo, more particularly the first two films. Currently I’m foreseeing Hooper’s film to lead the way on Oscar nomination morning with 13 nominations, assuming lead Hugh Jackman and standout Eddie Redmayne can plow through some of the veterans in their categories. Read more on Oscar Circuit – Music vs. History…
The precursor award season is about to kick off on Monday with the New York Film Critics naming their best of the year. This is when all the speculation, hope, and despair is laid to rest for many contenders and films but as performances like Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah or films like The Blind Side and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close will tell you, it’s not over until the President and guest read your name off the teleprompter.
This month brings the following announcement schedule:
Monday, 12/3 – New York Film Critics
Wednesday, 12/5 – National Board of Review
Friday, 12/7 – Los Angeles Film Critics
Sunday, 12/9 – New York Film Critics Online & Boston Film Critics
Tuesday, 12/11 – Broadcast Film Critics Association Announces Nominees!!!
I had a hell of a weekend at the theatres, as one would expect with the cornucopia of films presented during the long Thanksgiving weekend. I was fortunate to not only take in two strong candidates in the Best Picture race (Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook), but also legitimate contenders for Foreign Language (Denmark’s A Royal Affair), Documentary Feature (The Queen of Versailles), and Animated Feature (Rise of the Guardians). What follows are my brief reactions and reviews for each film. Read more on Snippet Reviews: ‘Life of Pi,’ ‘Silver Linings Playbook,’ and More…
What better way to start off the extended holiday weekend than stranded on with boat with a tiger in the visual and spiritual journey that is Life of Pi?We can also be thankful for the Rise of the Guardians as they band together against a world-wide threat. Then, be sure to avoid the Black Friday rush by ducking into a theater for a slice of Hitchcock. Read more on Weekend Openings: (11/21-11/23)…
Hello there, Awards Circuit readers! I hope you’ve all been enjoying the coverage of the 2012 AFI Film Festival, brought to you by myself, Nicole Melkonian and Tiff Chai. Sadly, the festival has come to an end, but not to worry – there is indeed a silver lining (no pun intended). Below, you will find each of our personal selections as to what is the very best of the best of AFI Film Fest 2012, with one reveal possibly indicative of how next year’s Oscar® ceremony will go down. Without further ado, here are the AFI Fest Staff Awards in above-the-line categories… Read more on AFI Film Fest 2012: Favorites of the Festival…
AFI Festival: America has long celebrated films of great adventures and beautiful new worlds in fantastical stories, so it is little surprise that Ang Lee’s Life of Pi (2012) was a major success. To book end the story, the film is about a writer who asks Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel about his life story. Recommended by a dear friend of Pi’s, the writer listens and spends the day with Pi, unable to leave or drop the story. (Spoilers!!) Pi spends the day talking to the writer about how he grew up, self-introduced himself as Pi, and then, became the sole human survivor of a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean, along with an orangutan, zebra, hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Park. Relying on the lessons his father had always taught him, Pi learns the skills to survive and the heavy lessons that go with it. There are ups and downs that he and Richard Park much endure to survive. An unspoken friendship is created, thus leading to a bitter parting on the shores of Mexico. Read more on Life of Pi (****)…
The Oscar race is beginning to formulate itself. As it stands the Academy Awards have positioned themselves to be the wildest of wild cards of the Oscar season. Since Oscar ballots are due January 3rd, the nominations will be one of many awards ceremonies coming down like wildfire.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards announce their nominee choices first beginning on December 10th. The Broadcast Film Critics Association will name their best of the year with the Critics Choice Movie Awards being announced the next day on December 11th. The Hollywood Foreign Press will follow-suit with their Golden Globe nominations on December 13th. Mark my words; those four days will likely be the most important and telling aspects of the awards season. If you start hearing the usual suspects, back-to-back and over and over, Oscar will be referring to these groups for citations for their own nominees when they’re announced on January 10th. Read more on Oscar Circuit: “10 Weeks to Go”…
We’re flying off the cuff this week discussing the race in general. Agenda is listed below.
We talk about the New York Film Festival screening of “Life of Pi” with Ang Lee in attendance. Our qualms with the film and if it’s a Best Picture nominee by the end of the year.
Attempting to keep a pulse on the season has presented some challenges as of late for the 2013 Oscars and its predictions. It can be argued that we don’t have a front runner in any category despite some films having strong showings at festivals.
Best Picture has presented real challenges. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln finally had its trailer début and all I could think about was War Horse (2011). The film didn’t scream high quality and I still believe Spielberg and the film aren’t rewarded unless it stands next to Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Schindler’s List (1993). The film doesn’t look to be of that caliber. I’ve dropped Spielberg from the Directing predictions for now until some praising reviews come. A “secret” screening in New Jersey suggested that the film is good, not great.
Because this year has looked like a question mark thus far, I’ve been saying to some of my colleagues, we could be in store for something unprecedented. This would be something like Michael Haneke’s Amour winning Best Picture, becoming the first foreign language film ever or Silver Linings Playbook, first dramedy to win the top award since Shakespeare in Love (1998). I’m not ready to go there yet though. I don’t know how the Academy will respond to Amour, a film all too real in this stage of their average 62-year aged life. Perhaps Oscar will listen to the critics for the first time in a while. This could work well for something like Ben Affleck’s Argo or Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, two films that could be critics’ darlings throughout the season. What if our Best Picture winner has already been released? Read more on Oscar Circuit: “If I Had a Magic Lamp…”…
New York Film Festival: There are a lot of positive and admirable things about Ang Lee’s latest Life of Pi. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda captures the most uproarious and glorious shots captured this year thus far. The 3D effects are some of the best ever seen and feel absolutely necessary in a film so heavy-handed with religious tones. What Mychael Danna achieves in Lee’s film has just placed him in the forefront of great film composers working today. He continues to impress with his musical range, envelopes the film’s message and thematic narrative in somber and beautiful melodic notes. On Visual Effects alone, Life of Pi will likely land a nomination for Best Picture. What Lee invents with the ocean and the integration of the tiger and the other animals is spectacular. He allows the mood of the film and the imagery to marry each other in a ceremonial experience that stands next to Sci-Fi epics like Avatar (2009) and Hugo (2011). Read more on Life of Pi (***)…
Sizing Up Series continues with an in-depth look at the Director candidates for this year’s Oscar ceremony. As was the case last year, there are a few things to keep an eye for this particular category. One obviously is that a lot will have to do with which films get nominated for Best Picture at the end of the day. The other is the possibility of a Lone Director nod. It used to be something that happened, but it hasn’t come close of late. Now, with us in the brave new-ish world of anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees, it keeps the idea of the lone director alive, though it’s going to be unlikely for one to wind up breaking through. Not impossible, mind you…but I wouldn’t count on seeing it this year, or too many instances going forward.
We’re now less than a week away from Friday’s initial screening of Ang Lee’s ‘Life of Pi’. Clayton and I will be there at the New York Film Festival to be among the very first to take in the Oscar hopeful, but until then the universe/internet has released a new Trailer for the movie to keep everyone interested and excited. This one plays up the emotional aspect of the film, a smart move I think, provided that it doesn’t end up being manipulative, of course. Take a gander after the jump and stay tuned for our reactions next week! Behold the Trailer below…
Myself and Joey will be attending the New York Film Festival for the next few weeks. As Toronto Film Festival comes to end, another one begins.
There are many films scheduled to make their big debuts including Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, David Chase’s Not Fade Away, and Robert Zemeckis’ Flight. We will be bringing you content each day following a slew of screenings and hopefully will attempt to clear up more of this Oscar race.
Tackling the epic story of Cleopatra always seemed like an odd fit for filmmaker David Fincher. I have no doubt that a Fincher directed ‘Cleopatra’ would have had the potential to be something special, but it never felt like the type of movie he’s ideally suited for. While, Vulture is reporting here that we won’t actually be getting his take, as he’s dropped out of making the flick, still set to star Angelina Jolie in the title role. Apparently Ang Lee is now the top choice to direct, but nothing is set in stone. You can see some details after the jump, but I wonder if this is a sign that he’s more likely or perhaps less likely to take on ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire’, since both are set up at Sony. We shall see, but you can find out a little bit more about Fincher’s departure from the project below…
I always follow the New York Film Festival closely, but this year I’ve got an extra special eye on the slate. We already know that it will close with ‘Flight’, but now we also know what flick will kick off the fest late next month. It’s ‘Life of Pi’, and this is clearly a sign of confidence in Ang Lee’s upcoming movie. After the jump you can see the Press Release that the festival put out (found here), but it’s safe to say I’m really crossing my fingers for those press credentials to come through. Read on below for more…
Not sure how some are going to take this but the Weinstein Company has just announced production on the sequel to Oscar-winning hit, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The film is called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II – The Green Destiny and Michelle Yeoh will reprise her role as Yu Shu Lien. Ang Lee will not be returning to direct however and the baton will passed over to Yuen Wo Ping, who was a choreographer on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004). Also joining the cast will be Donnie Yen, who will be playing Silent Wolf.
