A section that discusses conversations and events on the award track.
This crazy season is starting to get hot.
The National Board of Review, which was usually the first in a ‘normal’ season, decided this time to raise the back end, as the Oscars were moved to April 25 so late. The same goes for the Indie Spirit Awards which also hosted his nominations. week. Titles like Nomadland, One Night In Miami, Sound Off Metal, Da 5 Bloods and Minari are all happy campers because most of these films have repeatedly achieved success during the critics’ list phase of the Oscar season. Experts who want to predict the race based on these early predecessors should note: many of these groups follow each other like sheep and usually prefer minimalist filmmaking, not necessarily the tastes of the voters who toil in the industry themselves, especially from the various crafts. . And in this extended season, we’re now at the point where things can turn around quickly.
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Next week we will hear from the Golden Globes and SAG, two bells with records that are much closer to what members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prefer. They will in turn be followed by the Critics Choice Association, which also has an enviable record of thinking just like Oscar. As the pandemic continues to rage, and the way movies are consumed by industry and the public, all laws intend to predict how now the previously announced organizations and “committees” for insular critics will have the more general Hollywood influence influence. groups with major TV broadcasts such as the Globes, SAG and the Critics Choice Awards; their voters are well aware of the delivery of nominees who may have an appeal to the viewer (must remain neat people).
If we’re talking about the same couple of movies at the end of the next ten days or still, these are very quiet dramas that can make your normal Joe Popcorn’s eyes shine, and then expect trouble in River City. First cow will probably not win gold at the Oscars, if you know what I mean.
ARMOND VS AFI
Indiewire
The American Film Institute also released this week its prestigious AFI Top Movies of the Year list which features many of the same titles that have warmed up critics so far, an impressively diverse list containing no less than half with predominantly black role distribution. You might think with all the talk about the lack of diversity in Hollywood’s awards ceremonies that it would be welcome news, and it was a sign of ‘it’s time’ in most circles.
But instead of cheering from the sidelines, and sounding more like an extremist right-wing Republican congressman who brings guns into the Capitol, the controversial Armond White, an African-American film critic, has managed to rumble incredibly everyone 10 AFI choices and call the whole list ‘awake’. Here’s how he, writes for the Conservatives National overview, post it:
‘Da 5 bloods is scattered and unpleasant. Judas and the Black Messiah: actually a film from 2021 with a systemic racism legend that AFI could not wait to promote. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: misinformed and grim. Mank: cruel, false and shallow. Minari: porridge and banal. Nomadland: uninteresting social alienation. A night in Miami: exaggerated false history. Soul: childless cultural indoctrination. Sound of Metal: dark but still porridge. Trial of the Chicago 7: anti-American nostalgia. ”Oh, and“ Honorable Mention: The Forgettable Hamilton. ”
Ouch, ouch Armond. From what rock did this ‘critic’ crawl out? If you want to take someone seriously, consider it Zach Snyder’s as his favorite on the best list of the decade Man of steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a 2018 Nicolas Cage film titled Ma en pa, and Michael Bay’s Pain & Increase. On the contrary, indeed.
MANK’S RAINBOW CONNECTION
One of the movies that made the AFI Top 10 list (a movie I loved, Armond), was David Fincher Mank, which tells the story of the creation of the masterpiece of 1941 Burger Kane not through the eyes of genius director Orson Welles, but rather his relatively unsung screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. Before you finally get respect and share Kane’s Mankiewicz was the only Oscar for Best Screenplay and has been a hard-working (and hard-drinking) writer of numerous texts since the beginning of talks in the mid-twenties, Dinner at eight o’clock. He also did a lot of uncredited work (and as Mank performances almost did not even get credit Kane), and the most important of the films was a film that lives on forever The Wizard of Oz.
What was his contribution to the classics? He suggested that as soon as Dorothy moves across the rainbow, the film transitions from black and white to glorious color. And so it did. ‘He ran away from it [project] and said, ‘That’s all I can think of,’ said director David Fincher laughing. “This is perhaps the greatest special effect in the history of the films.”
Fincher’s wonderful film, which now gives the honor the author often deserves, is deceptively full of great special effects itself, something that in a healthy prize contest this year is not much of the latest tent pool films dominating the visual effects. category, must be recognized. To begin with, the lush castle of Charles Foster Kane is largely the work of CGI wizards hiding behind their own curtain of film magic. This week, a sumptuous coffee table book arrived with one fantastic scene after another in glorious black and white. Netflix would like to broadcast such books that are linked to their competitors, but with this they have themselves at the top.
Searchlight Photos
‘NOMADLAND’, ‘MANK’, ‘MINARI’ AWOL AT WGA AWARDS
The guilds are now all starting with their voting processes for their own awards, so we will soon be weighing in on the industry at the best of the year, and as mentioned above, get a clearer picture of where this Oscar race is really headed. Today, as a longtime member of the Writers Guild, I got the preliminary list of eligible movies for the categories for best original and best adapted screenplays, and even more than usual, a large number of films, including a few conspicuous forerunners, for some reason are not eligible.
Unlike other guilds, the WGA has strict requirements and the text must be written under the WGA MBA or a bona fide agreement with sister guilds in different countries. Among the Oscar-winning films with a higher profile not on the WGA vote of suitable screenplays this year Minari, Mank (written by Fincher’s father, Jack, who died in 2003), Nomadland, The Father, Pieces of a Woman, Ammonite, Soul (and any other animated film), Emma, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Let Them All Talk and several others.
Thanks to Josh Ethan Johnson
The battle for the original screenplay is also missing Hyself, Supernova, The Climb, The Assistant, I Carry You With Me, Farewell Amor and Ordinary love. In Custom Screenplay are those who also do not miss the cut Hope Gap, Penguin Bloom, Martin Eden, Radioactive and Blithe Gees. Meanwhile, Oscar campaigners have in any case sent many of the above screenplays to different voting groups, because outside of WGA they are still eligible for other competitions, and this of course includes the Academy Awards which do not discriminate against films that do not comply with WGA agreements . or other conditions.
CHRISTIAN WEIGHS GO FOR OSCAR WITH “BOOBIES”
Cate Cameron
At first glance, Lionsgate’s upcoming comedy Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (opening 12 February) not exactly shout Oscar, but those behind the new comedy starring Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo dream of the golden statuette anyway, not necessarily for the screenplay written by Wiig and Mumolo (although it is on the WGA election list), previously nominated for Bridesmaids, but for the original song, the two stars co-wrote the film with Mark Jonathan Davis, aka Richard Cheese. It’s called ‘I Love Boobies’ and lyrically contains every variation of slang for a woman’s breast.
Whether it’s just a clever advertising heel to draw attention to the film, or a sincere bid for an Oscar award, is an open question, but one source close to the action tells me, ‘Since it’s so’ is a unique awards season, and we love the song, we throw the dice. “I hear there’s actually another big musical number from the film that they weigh for possible Oscar attention, but they should hurry better, as the shortlist for the best original song appears on February 9th.
No matter what you think of the tongue-in-cheek tune, it’s best to remind filmmakers that this is not the first time something is as catalogistical as it ends up on the Oscar stage. not. Anyone remember the uproar when Seth MacFarlane presented the show in 2013 and sang “We Saw Your Boobs”? It did not go too well, judging by angry online reactions the next day that was in the pre- #MeToo era.
As for Barb and Star the film was originally slated to be released in July, but it’s now opening on Valentine’s Day weekend, though I’m not sure if ‘I Love Boobies’ is a classic associated with the most romantic holiday in the years to come. An Oscar, however, will not hurt – you go girls!