(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)
2012 has been a great year for movie music, therefore it would be no surprise that the nominees for the International Film Music Awards would be pretty good. Lincoln and Life of Pi lead the nominated field with 4 nominations, including citations for their composers in Film Composer of the Year, John Williams and Mychael Danna, respectively. Cloud Atlas also managed 3 nominations including Score of the Year, Best Original Score for a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film, and Composition of the Year for Cloud Atlas Sextet. The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 9th IFMCA Awards on February 21, 2013. By now, everyone has seen a million of these posts, so I thought it’d be fun to add a little bit of commentary along with the categories, so check it out after the jump! Read more on International Film Music Award Nominations highlight ‘Cloud Atlas’ and ‘Life of Pi’…
This year we don’t have the fortune of knowing exactly who will win Best Actress. We have five nominees that include two frontrunners, one possible upset and two actresses who should be honored to receive recognition for their work.
2012 went in the blink of an eye. By July of last year, I was fearful of how the year would turn out for film. At that point my top two films, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom were very good but nothing that I wanted to be in the top-tier of my annual top ten list since neither received a top-notch review from myself. September rolled around and film after film was blowing audiences, critics, and prognosticators away. There’s always a narrative a critic and blogger tries to write for the year. Is it the year of action films? Is it the year of big studios? While large studios definitely stepped up their games, it was documentaries that pushed the boundaries of storytelling and bringing enigmatic issues to the surface. I can only hope a worthy documentary manages to get their due in the future and hit the cultural zeitgeist that will “allow” Oscar to recognize.
As I unveil my personal ballot over the next few days, looking over the citations as a whole make me very proud of what filmmakers, performers, and studios are choosing to do with their narrative techniques. Of course, our beloved readership will have a different top ten, criticize choices, and scream anarchy for glowing omissions, but that’s what the Awards Circuit is about. Make your choices known not only in the comment section but also in the Awards Circuit Community Awards which are currently underway.
With the Oscar nominations being announced tomorrow morning and all other nominations revealed, it’s that time folks where we all wonder and debate who will be honored with a nomination Oscar morning.
Having emerged as somewhat of the frontrunner in the awards race in recent weeks, Zero DarkThirty opens to special limited engagements this week before nationwide release in January. It’s a pretty strong week in terms of variety, with Judd Apatow’s latest, This Is 40, foreign drama powerhouse, Amour,and Walter Salles’ adaptation of On the Road. Add a natural disaster survival drama, a case of double-dipping with a popular animated feature, and Tom Cruise reaching for justice for a well-stocked long weekend of cinematic entertainment.
Zero Dark Thirty
Language: English
Rating: R
Genre: Action/Drama/History
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke
“The greatest manhunt in history” follows the decade-long efforts to find Osama bin Laden, spanning from the September 11 attacks to his death at the hands of Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May 2011. See Clayton and Joey’s early reviews. Read more on Weekend Openings: (12/19-12/21)…
Who knew that a giant tsunami and being shipwrecked with a tiger would inspire such great music? Given that the world is supposed to be ending on Friday, now seemed like an interesting time to look at survival epics. So this entry of Spotlight on Scores will analyze two scores that made me want to quit life but gave me hope to carry on as well, The Impossible and Life of Pi. As usual, the links to Youtube playlists, iTunes and Amazon are provided. Let’s take a closer look!Read more on Spotlight on Scores: ‘The Impossible’ and ‘Life of Pi’…
Via Kris Tapley over at HitFix/In Contention, he took a look at the ballot for the Writers Guild of America upcoming awards and took note of several omissions that include Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Michael Haneke’s Amour. He counted fifteen in total.
Tarantino has never been a member of the WGA but has found success with his other films Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Tapley has explanations for many of the contenders that won’t be getting a boost from the WGA. I encourage you to take a look. The nominations for the Writers Guild Awards will be announced on January 3, the day Oscar ballots are due. The list of films DISQUALIFIED are listed below and after the jump. Read more on Writers Guild of America Disqualifies Several Films for their Awards!…
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…
Since I’ve seen J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible from Summit Entertainment a few weeks back, I’ve continued to champion the film along with the powerful performances by Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Holland, especially Watts who delivers one of the year’s finest turns. I still believe the film to be a huge threat to pop in Best Picture a la The Blind Side (2009) and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) but with quality fully intact.
A featurette has just been released featuring behind-the-scenes footage and has an interview with the real life survivor that is portrayed by Watts in the film. The film opens December 21st.
We have tons of fun this week on the Awards Circuit Power Hour. A jam-packed agenda full of laughs, analysis, and looking in-depth at the Oscar race and its films.
We talk the movie trailers of “Warm Blood,” “World War Z,” and of course, “Les Miserables.
When the Lionsgate Awards site went LIVE today and listed their slate of contenders involving Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Fisher Stevens’ Stand Up Guys, Gary Ross’ The Hunger Games, Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage, and J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible, I started to analyze how this year could pan out for smaller films that are trying to make a play; even more so, the performances in them.
I’ve touted on podcasts for weeks that Nate Parker utterly deserves a citation in Arbitrage, a raw, authentic turn that stands as one of the year’s bests. His co-star Richard Gere is currently being predicted in the Lead Actor top five, mostly on the notion that after years of ignoring and snubbing, voter’s eyes would finally be open to the charm that Gere portrays in Jarecki’s film. As Hugh Jackman remains a mystery of the season in Les Miserables andthe word of Anthony Hopkins’ work in Hitchcock rallies some muted enthusiasm, a first-time nominee is bound to crack the top five. Believe me, Bradley Cooper might have a leg up on Gere given his film’s Best Picture chances and the powerful Weinsteins backing, but perhaps an overdue veteran has the gas to go the distance. Read more on Two Lead Contenders on Lionsgate Awards Plate…
Heroes are created by you and me, but for them to survive they require unwavering faith from us all. That is the underlying message in Dreamwork’s latest animated spectacle, Rise of the Guardians. A visual bedazzlement with 3-D utilized to its absolute best since Avatar, Director Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the Guardians works more as eye candy entertainment — with a whooshing speed of intensity that tickles the senses — than as an animated feature with bountiful substance. The story, adapted from William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhood, tells of the greatest heroes in kiddy lore (known individually as “Guardians”) all coming together to fight evil — in this case, Pitch Black (Jude Law) A.K.A. “The Boogeyman.” The Guardians include Jack Frost (Chris Pine), North/Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), The Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), The Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and The Sandman. These procurers of childhood fantasy come together, “Avengers” style, to thwart the nefarious plans of Pitch, who plans on destroying The Guardians by kidnapping each of the Tooth Fairy’s helpers. By doing so, children would wake up and see that a tooth still remains under their pillow, without any kind of monetary reward to be found. Such a discovery would be catastrophic to The Guardians. If every child in the world stops believing they exist, The Guardians will die. Read more on AFI Fest: “Guardians” entertains but it’s “The Impossible” that is most Heroic…
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.
A film that captures real life the way J.A.Bayona captures it in his newest film The Impossibleis a rare occurrence in filmmaking. Not only does he pay respect to the countless victims that were lost in the devastating tragedy, he makes artistic choices and liberties only the most seasoned directors can take. Starring Academy Award Nominee Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, the film tells the TRUE story about a family vacationing in Thailand when one of the worst natural disasters of our time separates them. Read more on The Impossible (***½)…
KON TIKI (***)…When I was 12 my grandparents gave me the book about Thor Heyerdahl, a 20th century photographer and ethnographer who in 1947 set out on an extraordinary adventure that everyone told him was impossible. Heyerdahl set out on the 8,000 mile voyage across the Pacific Ocean on a raft built of balsa wood, manned by an under experienced crew. Heyerdahl believed that man early settlers from South America populated Polynesia and their only method of crossing would have been in a manner such as this. The danger of such a crossing is obvious, the madness behind it, perhaps not so clear, but the adventure was right out of the movies. Consider the madness of the lead character in Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1978), a half-crazed visionary seeking to do the impossible, and you see that Heyerdahl’s quest is not so terribly different. Read more on TIFF: Pleasant “Tiki,” Sarandon steals “Company,” and Watts isn’t enough for “Impossible”…
The staff and I discuss several topics this week but focus a bit on the theater going experience that often gets overlooked. The best part about going to the movies is embracing the traditions each of us have on the occasion. We talk about it all.
Another week and more head-scratching at The Awards Circuit. As the awards race begins to really heat up, The AC team tries to come together and figure out this mess, albeit fun mess, that is Oscar season. During our latest episode of Power Hour, we discussed the current state of the race as well as some early Golden Globe predictions. Will the Globes help films on the bubble such as Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, or hurt non-stars like the amazing Quvenzhane Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild, who’ll probably be snubbed at this Hollywood-loving awards ceremony? Chances are the Globes won’t reflect the entire spectrum of Oscars 2013, but don’t be surprised if something as small as a Globe win for Meryl Streep in the “Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical” category for Hope Springs translates to a surprise 18th Academy Award nomination. With such a crazy and competitive year, anything is possible. Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 8/26)…
Details about the trailer and the film are listed below:
Summit Entertainment has released the theatrical trailer for THE IMPOSSIBLE, which can be viewed below. Based on the true story of one family’s survival of the 2004 tsunami, THE IMPOSSIBLE stars Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor and is directed by J.A. Bayona (THE ORPHANAGE). The trailer is featured on iTunes.
The second half of the year is upon us. The race is about to heat up with big Oscar hopefuls coming down the pike. Our John Foote will be in attendance at the Toronto International Film Festival and many films will be unveiling themselves to critics alike. There is a very unclear yet still feasible shape to the race looking from ten thousand feet.
There are internet jitters building for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. With the trailers released and now the film being pushed up to September, it looks as though we may be in store for a master class in filmmaking. Phoenix also looks to be a lead contender for his first Oscar after delivering in his previous nominated works, Gladiator (2000) and Walk the Line (2005). Phoenix does have tough competition ahead of him including what looks to be a critical darling-type performance coming from John Hawkes in Ben Lewin’s The Sessions. Early word is very positive for the film and the turns by Hawkes along with co-stars Helen Hunt and William H. Macy. Since Hawkes’ initial nomination two years ago for Winter’s Bone, he hasn’t shown any signs of letting up. He was arguably left off last year in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and will be seen later this year in Julia Dyer’s The Playroom and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. There seems to be a tremendous following and support for him in his current state. Speaking of Spielberg, we’re still awaiting some type of marketing material for his upcoming Lincoln biopic. No poster or trailer has been released with very few stills leaked online. One starts to think if it will even be ready in time.
2012 has been a great year for movie music, therefore it would be no surprise that the nominees for the International Film Music Awards would be pretty good. Lincoln and Life of Pi lead the nominated field with 4 nominations, including citations for their composers in Film Composer of the Year, John Williams and Mychael Danna, respectively. Cloud Atlas also managed 3 nominations including Score of the Year, Best Original Score for a Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film, and Composition of the Year for Cloud Atlas Sextet. The International Film Music Critics Association will announce the winners of the 9th IFMCA Awards on February 21, 2013. By now, everyone has seen a million of these posts, so I thought it’d be fun to add a little bit of commentary along with the categories, so check it out after the jump!
Who knew that a giant tsunami and being shipwrecked with a tiger would inspire such great music? Given that the world is supposed to be ending on Friday, now seemed like an interesting time to look at survival epics. So this entry of Spotlight on Scores will analyze two scores that made me want to quit life but gave me hope to carry on as well, The Impossible and Life of Pi. As usual, the links to Youtube playlists, iTunes and Amazon are provided. Let’s take a closer look!
Via Kris Tapley over at 
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.
