Posts with tag oscars2008
Posted Feb 26th 2008 9:32PM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
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.
Posted Feb 25th 2008 11:32AM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Obits, Oscar Watch
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"?
Posted Feb 25th 2008 12:01AM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
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!
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Posted Feb 23rd 2008 9:02PM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
I wanted to find a group of teens to talk to about the Oscars, but I needed a group in which it was likely that at least some of them had actually seen some of the nominated films. So I turned to the high school youth group at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Oklahoma City where Terry, the religious education director, and Mike and Anne, the high school youth advisors, very kindly allowed me to spend a few minutes with their teens at their Wednesday night youth group.
This is a fun, rowdy group of kids, and as I'd suspected, almost all of them had seen at least one of the Oscar-nommed films, several had seen more than one, and many had vocal opinions -- whether they'd seen the films or not. Mike turned out to have seen quite a few of the films, so I'm including his thoughts as well, even though he harassed me about wanting my job. Sadly for Mike, I'm not going anywhere, but at least he gets to have his opinions seen by
Cinematical readers far and wide. If the conversations seem a bit ... discombobulated ... well, that's because they were. You try getting a pack of hyper teenagers to settle down and talk about film.
Continue reading Oscar Predictions: Teens Take on the Oscars
Posted Feb 23rd 2008 3:32PM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Documentary, Awards, Politics, Interviews, Oscar Watch, Cinematical Indie
When
No End in Sight premiered at the Sundance Film Fesitval in 2007, it quickly became one of the most buzzed about films of the fest. The film continued to play well and to generate discussion, culminating in the film's nomination for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards. Cinematical talked to director Charles Ferguson by phone recently about the film, the United States government's policies in Iraq, his thoughts on what the next Adminstration needs to do, and whether we'll ever see an end to the US occupation in Iraq.
Cinematical: Let's start with what inspired you to make No End in Sight
. Charles Ferguson: The idea for the film came from my background in Political Science and policy analysis, and from talking to a number of people who were studying the Iraq war and writing books -- books like
Losing Iraq, Squandered Victory, and
The Assassin's Gate. In a sense I was stealing from them in that I was doing something similar to what they were doing in terms of wanting to make a film about the decisions that had been made about the war and their consequences.
I found it a little strange -- and frankly still do find it strange -- that no other film like that had been made. There were other films about Iraq but they were about very specific things -- one group of GIs, or one family, or one institution. And some of them were excellent films, but I find it really astonishing that no one else had made a film asking,"How did this happen?"
Continue reading Interview: 'No End in Sight' Director Charles Ferguson
Posted Feb 21st 2008 7:32PM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch, Trailers and Clips
Over at MTV-land, Josh Horowitz has a
rather clever short up in which he inserts himself into the nominees for the Best Picture Oscar. Horowitz gets verbally abused by Keira Knightley, finds out he got Juno pregnant, uses his hamburger phone to call Javier Bardem's serial killer to take care of his "little problem," has a chat by the fire with Daniel Plainview, and gets yelled at by George Clooney. The editing isn't seamless, but it looks quite good, and Horowitz, when he's not being annoying, can be funny.
It's pretty darn amusing (or at least, it was to me, but I've only had one cup of coffee this morning, so it's possible I'm just not awake yet), and just the kind of thing Jon Stewart might do for the Oscars. I wonder if Stewart had something similar planned, saw this online and said, "Damn that Horowitz! He stole our idea!"
What do you think about the video? Funny, or not?
[Hat tip:
Hollywood Elsewhere]
Posted Feb 21st 2008 6:32PM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Comedy, Casting, Fandom, Fox Searchlight, Oscar Watch
Jeff Wells is
beating his drum again about Jason Reitman casting Ellen Page in the role of Juno, asserting that most high school guys -- even the dorkerific Michael Cera -- wouldn't find her attractive, much less want to have sex with her. Wells first brought this up
back in December, calling Page "great but miscast," and got ripped a new one by many of his readers for it, but maybe he just likes the abuse ... or stirring up a little controversy.
Having just interviewed a pack of highschoolers for their Oscar predictions (more on that later) and hearing what they have to say about
Juno, the film, and Ellen Page as Juno, the character, I think Wells must be smoking something, or else he's just been living out there in La-La Land for way too long.
If it's believable that women would find
Seth Rogen's character in Knocked Up sexually attractive, it's certainly plausible that high school guys would be hot for a smart girl like Juno, even if she's not a blond cheerleader with big boobs. What do you folks think? Do guys go for the smart, sassy, somewhat dorky chicks, even if they're petite and perky rather than Hollywood-hot (whatever that is)? Discuss away ...
Posted Feb 20th 2008 6:32PM by Kim Voynar
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
There's a piece up over on the
New York Times about
Jon Stewart prepping for the Oscars in only eight days, instead of the couple months he thought he'd have before that pesky writers' strike happened. While on the one hand I was kind of holding out for the strike to last past the Oscars, if only to spare myself having to liveblog the event, on the other hand I do like Stewart very much, and of anyone who could be hosting the Oscars this year, I think he's the most likely to make them at least moderately entertaining. Okay, I'll settle for "not painful to watch."
Stewart last hosted the Oscars two years ago (last year's event, you may recall, was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres), and for that event he was invited in December, and had just under two months to prep. This time Stewart and his
Daily Show writers have just eight days to write their material, and for the most part, the nominated films don't really seem to lend themselves to a lot of light-hearted humor, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with on short notice.
Are you looking forward to seeing Stewart back on as host? Would you rather they'd picked someone different -- DeGeneres again? Robin Williams? Billy Crystal? Obama? (Just kidding on that one ... well, kinda.) It's your sandbox -- discuss away!
[via
Movie City News]
