Some key release dates have been swapped around today, including Spike Jonze’s upcoming science fiction/romance film, Her, starring Academy Award nominees Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and Samantha Morton. Warner Brothers has announced that Her will have a limited release date of November 20. For more on the film, read Joseph’s Awards Profile here.
Directed By: James Gray Written By: James Gray and Ric Menello
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard, Dagmara Dominczyk, Angela Sarafyan, Ilia Volok, Antoni Carone, and Kevin Cannon
Synopsis (From IMDB):An innocent immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.
Why It Could Succeed:
For starters, I think the title change was a brilliant move by the Weinsteins. Too often indies fall below the radar because of their cryptic titles. “The Immigrant” immediately jumps out and offers a wide range of appeal, as opposed to “Lowlife” which sounds incredibly macabre and enigmatic. Now I happen to find both of those attributes fascinating in film, but I can see why it could be a nightmare for The Weinsteins during the marketing process, trying to ensure they fill as many seats as possible in limited release. Read more on Awards Profile: The Immigrant…
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Samantha Morton, Sam Jaeger, Luka Jones, Katherine Boecher
Synopsis (From IMDB):A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly-purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his every need.
Why It Could Succeed:
After directing three highly-respected films that have reached cult status in their own special way, Spike Jonze’s latest effort has fans of his offbeat style salivating at the mouth. Jonze has passionate movie fanboys, critics, and The Academy™ in his corner, so you know all eyes will be fixated on his newest film, which also marks his solo screenwriting debut. It’s hard to believe that Jonze’s only writing contribution has been on Where the Wild Things Are, since his whimsical style of directing has this writer-director energy to it a la Wes Anderson. Longtime collaborator Charlie Kaufman, who wrote the original screenplays for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, is not working with Jonze on this project, but it’s clear that the revered Oscar-winning screenwriter has influenced Spike Jonze this go-around. Read more on Awards Profile: Her…
Years from now when I think back on 2012 and what it had to offer, I’m sure the cinematic landscape that was presented will surely stick out as many directors and filmmakers pushed the thematic narrative with breathtaking visuals, stupendous performances, and uniquely driven story structures. One thing that will be near the top was the daunting task the Academy, pundits, and even myself, had in narrowing down the Lead Actor race to five simple slots.
There were debates going back and forth about who deserved a spot, who was miscategorized, and who was given the light of a day for consideration. The Academy did an admirable job and when push comes to shove, these five performances that are nominated are all worthy of citation and acceptable as a Best Actor winner.
(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)
It’s here, the Big One. The Oscars are finally upon us, generating a frenzy of excitement and a torrent of ever-changing predictions in its path to the big stage on Sunday. This is the highly anticipated annual organized free-for-all when ideals shatter, frustrations bubble over, and sometimes (though not often) pleasant surprises challenge the odds. The final results could go any which way, and especially in such a quality-loaded year, it’s been a dizzying process trying to peg the sway of Academy Voters. Finally dashing aside unrealistically hopeful designs of one candidate over another, I’ve joined my Awards Circuit colleagues in settling on the probable winners, though not without putting up a fight for my preferred winners. In the spirit of the games, here are my “Win Will/Should Win” Oscar Selections: Read more on Oscar 2013 Will Win/Should Win Selections (Melkonian)…
“I am a star. I’m a star, I’m a star, I’m a star. I am a big, bright, shining star. That’s right.”
With this ending pep talk, Dirk Diggler reclaims his rightful place in the limelight as Paul Thomas Anderson burgeons onto the scene as a formidable filmmaking talent. Since Boogie Nightstook critics and viewers by surprise and effectively cemented itself as his breakout film, Anderson has trickled out a handful of films, all of which he’s written and directed. A self-taught student of the art, he’s come into his own as a modern American auteur in the vein of Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles before him. Taking pride in generating a truly original narrative (all of his six films are based on his original screenplays with the exception of the loose adaptation that drives There Will Be Blood), Anderson is of the lesser-populated writer-director breed in the species of film-helmers in Hollywood. Read more on Writer’s Block: Paul Thomas Anderson…
Happy holidays, fans of The Awards Circuit! I hope everyone is staying warm and enjoying the time with friends and family this holiday season. This past week was another busy — although slightly less chaotic than last week — one for us at the site, but we carried on with grace and gusto as always! Starting things off, the African-American Film Critics Associationannounced their winners, where Zero Dark Thirty and Middle of Nowhere both won huge. For the latter film, the momentum it’s built throughout the awards circuit now puts it firmly in contention for a “Best Original Screenplay” slot. Zero Dark Thirty’s Mark Boal, however, is a shoo-in for the category. Other critics groups that unveiled their yearly champions include Houston Film Critics Society, San Francisco Film Critics, Kansas City Film Critics, Florida Film Critics Circle, Chicago Film Critics Association and Dallas Fort-Worth Film Critics. The Golden Satellite Awards also gave a ginormous boost to Silver Linings Playbookwith multiple wins (including “Best Film”), which now could be a very, very major threat if it steals the presumed Globe win away from Les Miserables. Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 12/23)…
When the nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actor are announced next month, it will mark the end to a hard fought battle, and this is a fact, one of the boldest and most creative performances of the last twenty years could very well be on the outside looking in. The snub of Joaquin Phoenix by the Screen Actors Guild for his galvanizing performance in The Master was truly startling because one would hope actors would recognize the risk he took in that piece of acting, the boldness of the execution of what he attempted, and the genius in making it work. Phoenix walked a fine line between great acting and great overacting, never stepping into the latter, always managing to remain solid. Read more on On the Possible Snub of Joaquin Phoenix…
San Francisco Film Critics Circle has named The Master the best film of 2012, along with bestowing Joaquin Phoenix their Best Actor prize. Zero Dark Thirty also did well, winning prizes for Kathryn Bigelow in director and Mark Boal in screenplay. I have to say, as a San Francisco native, I was pleased to see the hometown critics pick ParaNorman as the Best Animated Feature. Check out the rest of the winners after the jump!
There’s the infamous Watergate scandal; sports followers still get a kick out of Crygate; and Antennagate briefly plagued Apple’s release of the iPhone 4. Well, here’s a new one for you: Trailergate. It’s completely made-up and involves no impeachable offenses or villainous superstar athletes, so bear with me while I set this up.
The stars have aligned for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They announced their nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. For the first time, their nominees don’t seem as blatant for trying to have the biggest stars in Hollywood join together for a dinner party. Of course, there are some glaring omissions from a few categories but many of the films and performances cited were for the most part, respectable.
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln leads the tally with seven nominations including Best Picture and Director. Daniel Day-Lewis nabbed his seventh nomination along co-stars Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. Lincoln remains a definite favorite to win in nearly every category. To some surprise, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained was able to grab five nominations including a double Supporting Actor citation for Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz. Tarantino was also nominated Best Director and Screenplay. Missing in the director’s field, Tom Hooper for the dynamite musical Les Miserables, which did grab four nominations in total. Read more on Analysis of the Golden Globe Nominations…
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.
New York, National Board of Review, and Boston have all pounced on the awards and rewarded Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty both Best Picture and Best Director. Next up, the Los Angeles Film Critics will unveil their choices tomorrow. Many believe this is an opportunity for either Paul Thomas Anderson’sThe Master or Ben Affleck’sArgo to bounce back into the race in a big way. The two seem to be hemorrhaging at the moment in the awards race.
In 2007 no one saw the Best Actor nomination for Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah (2007), it was one of those happy surprises that reminded us the acting branch really does watch the films and pay some attention. Way back in 1975 there was another such shock when James Whitmore received a Best Actor nod for his filmed stage show Give ‘em Hell Harry (1975), though it was not quite as deserving as Jones’ nomination.
With the strong reviews coming in for Brad Pitt in Killing Them Softly (2012), could he knock out one of the so-called locks and be in the category come Oscar night? He is well liked, the Academy likes him, critics like him and he has grown substantially as an actor through the years. For my money he should have been nominated for Best Actor for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and for Babel (2006). Last year he won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor for Moneyball (2011) and was an Oscar nominee, and I think discounting him this year is a huge mistake. Read more on The Underestimation of the Lead Actor Brad Pitt in ‘Killing Them Softly’…
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!!!
As the awards season is underway, multiple scenarios are playing out in my mind suggesting what can occur for the remainder of the year. Films like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Zero Dark Thirty are still sight unseen with Django Unchained and Promised Land about to get their first set of eyes. Last week Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables debuted a full-length trailer featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne, and Amanda Seyfried all showing some singing skills. Supporting Actress frontrunner Anne Hathaway was shown singing “I Dreamed a Dream” for the third time in the Universal Pictures marketing, which leads me to my point of the Oscar Circuit.
The trailer for Les Miserables didn’t do the film any favors. The clunky production design, unnecessary wide-angles, and even the live singing on set didn’t seem as great as I’d thought it’d be. In this latest round of Oscar Predictions, I’ve decided to back from Tom Hooper’s film a little bit. Where momentum and prestige is on the side of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Ben Affleck’s Argo, big stage musicals transferred to film aren’t always safe bets. What makes this notion of the film failing to impress even more compelling is Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. If Anne Hathaway were to fall out of the Supporting Actress race, who could win the award in her absence? There are arguably three slots taken in Supporting Actress with Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), and Helen Hunt (The Sessions). If it’s between those three for the win, Adams will be on her fourth nomination with the other two ladies having Oscars already. Field herself would be 3 for 3 for Oscar nominations, something hard to envision happening. Hunt has had a hard time post-Oscar win and isn’t as beloved as her competitors. This could all work out for the young Amy Adams. Read more on Oscar Circuit – “Master” of Networking?…
We spoke about this possibility on a podcast a few weeks back but it seems that a source as confirmed to Tom O’Neil of Gold Derby that Academy Award Winner Christoph Waltz will be campaigned as a lead actor in Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Django Unchained. Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, who plays a slave-turned-bounty hunter that is searching for his wife will compete against Waltz along with the entire roster of the Weinstein Company. Read more on Gold Derby Confirms Christoph Waltz being campaigned as Lead Actor…
Writing this LIVE in the middle of Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast, what’s a better time to talk about Oscar Predictions than now. As we enter the leg of the season this November, some categories start to look more clear and less of a mystery. Some films also emerge as the ones to beat.
This past weekend Ben Affleck’s Argotook the #1 spot at the Box Office with the word-of-mouth spreading, the film, at this point, looks like the one to beat in Best Picture and Best Director. In response to the acting possibilities, some think that Affleck could show up like Clint Eastwood did in the year of Million Dollar Baby (2004) in Best Actor. It’s hard to imagine Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, and Joaquin Phoenix missing out on nominations with Denzel Washington in a comfortable fourth spot. Affleck and about fifteen other leading hopefuls are fighting for the fifth spot. Richard Gere’s goodwill charm and the lack of Oscar nominations to his credit may catapult him forward to his first mention in his forty-year career in Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage. The film itself could follow the way of last year’s Margin Call, which surprised with an Original Screenplay mention on Oscar nomination morning.
The AC Team comes together this week to try and decipher many question marks about the season. We also celebrate our 25th episode. Thanks for listening all these months. Here’s the 25 more! The agenda for today’s episode is listed below:
With the 2012 Presidential Election right around the corner, and Lincolna serious contender for “Best Picture,” this week at The Awards Circuit felt more than ever like an arduous yet exciting journey on the campaign trail. Starting us off with this political theme was Joey Magidson, who released his 10 Best Movie Presidents article for your viewing pleasure. Even our Awards Circuit Power Hour episode was heavy on the politics — Oscar politics, that is, centered on politically heavy dramas, Lincoln and Argo, and more “current state of the race” talk. I also pitch a theory to my colleagues about the possibility/likelihood of John Hawkes missing out on a “Best Actor” nod due to the “Hitchcock” factor and the bigger studios having more control over the awards season this year. Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 10/21)…
This week saw the official Oscar Predictions getting an update. Looking at the Best Actor race and trying to sort nearly twenty contenders into five slots is going to upset a lot of people. Touch on much of this in this week’s Oscar Circuit but given the strong case for many leading men who have never been nominated (Hugh Jackman, Richard Gere, Bradley Cooper, Jack Black), it looks like someone’s going to get left off in a field that’s tighter than ever.
The Awards Circuit Staff Writers have updated their own predictions, which is now located under the “Oscar Predictions” tab in the menu. Check out what they’re thinking about the current state of the race. Did Joaquin Phoenix’s recent rant cost him the Oscar for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master? Is Jennifer Lawrence the real favorite to win Best Actress? Is Leonardo DiCaprio getting his long overdue Academy Award in a Quentin Tarantino film? Is there any competition for Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables?
Anyone who’s seen Joaquin Phoenix in ‘I’m Still Here’ should know that this is a man who’s not afraid to be different or unpopular. While his incredible work in ‘The Master’ has him at the top of most people’s Oscar predictions (including mine), it’s worth remembering that he’s not exactly tailor-made for the campaign circuit. Well, whether we were trying to forget about that or pretend that Phoenix is now a completely different sort of person, we got a strong reminder of that recently with his sure to be controversial comments while doing an interview with Elvis Mitchell. You can see interview here at Interview Magazine. I still think he’s going to get nominated, but there’s a chance that he just kissed the win goodbye, depending on what Harvey Weinstein has to say about things.
San Francisco Film Critics Circle has named The Master the best film of 2012, along with bestowing Joaquin Phoenix their Best Actor prize. Zero Dark Thirty also did well, winning prizes for Kathryn Bigelow in director and Mark Boal in screenplay. I have to say, as a San Francisco native, I was pleased to see the hometown critics pick ParaNorman as the Best Animated Feature. Check out the rest of the winners after the jump!
The stars have aligned for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They announced their nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. For the first time, their nominees don’t seem as blatant for trying to have the biggest stars in Hollywood join together for a dinner party. Of course, there are some glaring omissions from a few categories but many of the films and performances cited were for the most part, respectable.
