Archive for the ‘Awards’ Category
Filed under: Awards, Deals, Celebrities and Controversy, Movie Marketing, Oscar Watch
Gawker
never could get a response from Variety, but the LA Times did. Variety put Robert Koehler’s review of Iron Cross back up, and claimed they had taken it down in order to investigate “factual inaccuracies” after Newton complained. This investigation included Variety’s editor Tim Gray actually sitting and watching the film, and deciding that the trade could stand by Koehler’s review. Gray declined to give his own opinion on the film to the Times.But Iron Cross’ Newton isn’t satisfied. According to the New York Times, Newton has now filed a lawsuit against Variety accusing the paper of “contractual breach, negligence, fraud and deceit, and unfair business practices.” He believes he was betrayed by the paper that suggested the film as a potential awards contender and approached him two months later with the advertising package. They formed an “exclusive media partnership” which included print and online ads, 40,000 DVDs, and inclusion in an awards screening series sponsored by the paper. Newton spent an additional $800,000 to finish the film for its brief theatrical run in Los Angeles that would allow it to qualify for the Oscars. The producer claims this partnership and Oscar campaign was undermined when Koehler ran a negative review of the film. He’s asking for “general damages, punitive damages, restitution of funds paid and an injunction to prevent Variety from further comment on the movie” but has not specified a monetary amount.
Continue reading It Continues! ‘Iron Cross’ Filmmaker Sues Variety For Negative Review
Filed under: Awards, Fandom, Oscar Watch, The Geek Beat
One of my biggest disappointments about the 2010 nominations was seeing Watchmen shut out of anything to do with costume or art design, particularly the former. I’m a fan of Michael Wilkinson’s work, and I think he’s done an amazing job bringing the outlandish costumes of books such as 300 and Watchmen to life. But while Sandy Powell offended everyone else with her bored win for The Young Victoria, I actually appreciated that she dedicated it to “the costume designers that don’t do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals” because I thought well, hey, she means men and women like Wilkinson. Because not only do costume designers on, in Powell’s words, “the contemporary films and the low budget ones” rarely get enough recognition, the costume designers of sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book movies never do.
And I do mean never. While I wasn’t surprised to see Wilkinson shut out, I had this vague idea that the Oscars of the deep dark past had recognized geek genre movies such as Batman or Star Wars, and that all those costumes worshiped by cosplayers and costumers had been admired and rewarded by industry professionals too. Shockingly, that’s not the case. The further I dug, the more snubs I uncovered. I even widened my criteria to more mainstream fantasy such as the Harry Potter series. The Oscar gold is very, very scarce.
Continue reading The Geek Beat: Will Costumed Vigilantes Ever Get Oscar Gold?
Filed under: Awards, Obits, Fan Rant
I say it year after year, but I think I’m finally done with the Oscars. I know, it’ll never really happen. Not only because I write about movies professionally and the Academy Awards are a necessary part of this job but also for the same reason that I’ll never quit messing with that scab on my arm or slowing down to stare at highway accidents. I may be a film cynic, but I’m also a film masochist, and some of why I keep watching the Oscars is just part of my addiction to the pain of being a cinephile in the 21st century.
Of course, it’s also part of the tradition. Like all of you, I grew up an Oscar zealot. I tuned in annually as if it were a yearly religious event, like midnight mass at Christmas or something. And I can’t pull on the perspective cloak or go back in time to determine if the ceremony has truly gotten worse or if I’m simply less tolerant of decisions made by both the Academy and the telecast’s producers in my old age. But I will say this much: to me, at this moment in my life, I do believe the marginalization of the deceased who didn’t receive a lengthy tribute as did John Hughes is far more despicable than Rob Lowe grinding with Snow White 21 years ago.
Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Fan Rant
It’s become common knowledge (or at least a common perception) that Sean Penn can be kind of a jerk. It all started back when he was punching out photographers calling him Mr. Madonna, and since then he’s always had a contentious relationship with his own fame. I’m not saying he isn’t a damn fine actor; he’s just a terrible — and I mean terrible — celebrity. Last night at the 82nd Academy Awards, Penn delivered the award for best actress with a cryptic speech about not being a member of the Academy and overlooked actresses. Over at NY Magazine, they think they’ve figured out that Penn was referencing his soon to be ex-wife, Robin Wright, for being overlooked in both Penn’s acceptance speech last year, and for her work in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee this year.
Now, this isn’t the first time that Penn has gone off script at the presenters’ podium, with the most famous instance being back in 2005 when Penn took personal offense at some of Chris Rock’s jokes on behalf of Jude Law. Sure, it made for a good Oscar clip the morning after, but I can’t be the only one who thought that it was proof positive that Penn needs to lighten up a little. The man was Spicoli for god sakes, he does remember what the word comedy means, right? Granted, there was a brief shining moment when I thought that maybe Mr. Penn had finally located his sense of humor when he appeared on The Colbert Report for a Meta-Free-Phor-All. But I guess that was wishful thinking, because after Penn’s performance last night, the comedy credit will have to go to Mr. Colbert.
After the jump: so who needs him, anyway?…
Continue reading Why Does Sean Penn Bother To Attend The Oscars?
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch, Columns, Girls on Film
In the words of Barbra Streisand, the time has come. After weeks of hope and pundit guesswork, Kathryn Bigelow became the first female to win the Best Director Oscar last night, just in time for International Women’s Day. In fact, The Hurt Locker did a whole lot more than just grab that one award. It grabbed six.
As anyone following the Oscar race knows — this wasn’t a clear-cut win, no matter how well the experts guessed. Everything was stacked against this film. Not only was The Hurt Locker another attempt for Bigelow to break into the boy’s club of testosterone-filled action drama, but it was also a low-budget, $11 million celebrity-free indie attempting to hold its own in the face of the “Iraq War Curse.” It was released over the summer to little fanfare from the super-successful Summit, and its box office take came nowhere close to its critical acclaim; it’s the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner of all time, in fact, and the yin to James Cameron’s wildly successful, highest-grossing yang. On top of that, it recently weathered questions of authenticity, and the fact that one of the film’s producers became the first to be banned from the ceremony.
Nevertheless, Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar. It’s hard to believe that she is only the fourth woman to even earn a nomination, following in the footsteps of Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties in 1975, Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993, and Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003. It only took 82 years to get here.
Continue reading Girls on Film: Kathryn Bigelow, the First Female Best Director
Filed under: Awards, Fandom, Oscar Watch
Cinematical is live-blogging the Academy Awards! Follow along down below, and don’t forget to keep refreshing this page. Head over to Moviefone for additional Oscar coverage.
Read the first hour of our Oscars live blog
Click here for a full list of Academy Award winners updated in real time
HOUR THREE coverage begins here with Scott!
10:29 – Hey, here are the Sci-Tech Awards! Too bad we don’t care enough about them to make them part of the real show
10:26 – New Jersey and The Hurt Locker — perfect together. The Oscar for BEST SOUND MIXING goes to Paul N.J. Ottoson and Ray Beckett .
10:25 – and the Oscar for BEST SOUND EDITING goes to Paul N.J. Ottosson for The Hurt Locker. Shame they couldn’t be bothered to show some of his award-winning work.
10:22 – Tarantino looks pleased. The horror geek contingent should be pretty happy with that montage.
10:21 – Ok, I love horror and I’m all for the genre getting its props, but Edward Scissorhands is not a horror film.
10:19 – Nice that they could find two people who’ve never been in a horror movie to represent the genre.
Filed under: Awards, Fandom, Oscar Watch
Cinematical is live-blogging the Academy Awards! Follow along down below, and don’t forget to keep refreshing this page. Head over to Moviefone for additional Oscar coverage.
Read the first hour of our Oscars live blog
Read the second hour of our Oscars live blog
Click here for a full list of Academy Award winners updated in real time
12:01 Thanks for tuning in with us tonight! There are tons of good options out there, so we appreciate the time you’ve spent at Cinematical. Find us on the twitter (of course) right here: William Goss, Alison Nastasi, Scott Weinberg, Cinematical, and the rest of our awesome team!
11:59 Tom Hanks gets right the hell to it: The Hurt Locker. Best Picture.
11:56 Meanwhile, thousands of horror geeks are yelling things like “We knew about Bigelow in the mid-’80s. Thanks for catching up, Hollywood.”
11:55 Kathryn Bigelow wins for Best Director (The Hurt Locker), but not before Babs Streisand implies it’s because of her gender and not her skill.
11:53 ONE MORE TIME: “We have a WOMAN director and a BLACK one!” Let’s poke a long overdue occurrence with a stick!!
11:52 Even when choked with sincere emotion, Sandy Bullock has to throw in a little joke in at the end. That’s why we dig her.
11:48 Best Actress goes to Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side. A fine actress in a movie I loathe. Congrats, you cutie. You’ve paid your dues.
11:47 K’bang. Like a hot knife through treacle, here comes Best Actress presenter Sean Penn.
Filed under: Documentary, Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Oscar Watch
The woman in purple was revealed to be Elinor Burkett, producer of Prudence, and Salon immediately investigated. Burkett was more than happy to reveal why she crashed the stage, and declared it was all Williams’ fault. “The director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court. But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn’t invited to any of them. And he’s not speaking to me. So we weren’t even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won. And then, as I’m sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn’t get up there very fast.”
Continue reading The Story Behind The Oscars’ ‘Kanye Moment’
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
On the drive home from my Oscar party this evening I was reminded on the radio of a red carpet interview that Meg Tilly gave back in 1985. She had been nominated for Agnes of God and when asked what the nomination and/or win would do for her career, she said bluntly that she was more likely to be an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question. That is very much how the 82nd Academy Awards probably felt to a lot of viewers. While we can all rejoice in a new movie-themed edition of the board game that will ask “who was the first female to win a Best Director Oscar?”, what else will we really remember? Will anyone beyond the Oscar reporters and prognosticators remember who won all the acting awards, who was snubbed and why we were all so angry during award season 2010? Maybe not, but in the moment we can take heart in David beating Goliath and vent some frustration away until we start this all over again.
In a glorious turn of events, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker exceeded even my expectations by winning six Oscars (over my predicted four). Mark Boal grabbing Original Screenplay early in the evening was a siren that Avatar might be in some trouble. But it was the sweep of the two “sound” Oscars away from Dances With Smurfs that signaled it was going to be a good night. Just not for James Cameron or Harvey Weinstein.
Continue reading Lights, Low And High, At The 82nd Annual Academy Awards
Filed under: Awards, Obits, Oscar Watch
Did you watch last night’s Oscar Memoriam and wonder where Farrah Fawcett was? While Patrick Swayze seemed forgotten because his segment was captured for the audience in a truly hideous wide shot, Charlie’s most famous angel was nowhere to be found. No wide-shot, no zoom, no recognition whatsoever. It was an omission that elicited a number of Twitter celebs to comment, such as Roger Ebert who tweeted: “No Farrah in the memorial. They have a whole lot of ’splaining to do.”
That big explanation, according to WENN, is that it’s simply impossible to include everyone. Bruce Davis, the executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is quoted: “It is the single most troubling element of the Oscar show every year. Because more people die each year than can possibly be included in that segment. You are dropping people who the public knows. It’s just not comfortable.”
Talk about a flimsy excuse. We’re not talking about a barely-known character actor no one knows being replaced by a bigger name (not desirable, but understandable). We’re talking about once-huge celebrity. Her fame was due to television, for sure, but she had her feature films like Logan’s Run as well, not to mention further involvement in the Hollywood community. Her name is big enough that you have to actively decide to exclude her. To decide that 10 seconds remembering Farrah isn’t as important as poorly interpreted dance, and the other Oscar misses last night, is just ridiculous. Not to mention the inclusion of Michael Jackson.
Since the Academy fails to care, you can remember Fawcett with a clip from Logan’s Run after the jump.
Continue reading Oscars Leave Farrah Fawcett Off Memoriam, Provide Lame Excuse
