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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BAFTA Announces

The four presumed Oscar nominees – not Dreamgirls – get Picture, Director & Screenplay, as expected.
FILM
BABEL – Alejandro Gonz

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7 Responses to “BAFTA Announces”

  1. Ian Sinclair says:

    TEN NODS for CASINO ROYALE including Best Actor for Daniel Craig. It seems the British have the balls to recognize the Rotten Tomatoes #1 wide release picture of the year. Shame on the Academy if they fail to follow suit.

  2. Krazy Eyes says:

    I agree. I don’t really understand why there’s not more of a best actor buzz about Craig for Casino Royale. It was an incredibly fun film and he was riveting in the role.

  3. Melquiades says:

    I agree… Casino Royale was the best time I had at the movies this year and I love seeing it so honored at BAFTA.
    Shocking lack of Children of Men in these nominations, especially as it’s set in Britain. I would have expected director at the very least.
    Another very strong showing for Babel. After being dissed by almost every critics group, it has been the strongest performer since.

  4. Josh Massey says:

    So did “An Inconvenient Truth” get snubbed by the WGA doc committee, or is there something I don’t know about?
    Oh, and if the Oscars were decided by me, “Casino Royale” would assuredly be a Best Picture nominee.

  5. Stella's Boy says:

    “An Inconvenient Truth” snubbed is an oxymoron right?

  6. Melquiades, I’d have more cause for concern if Cuaron was indeed British. Greengrass is (United 93 up for British Film of the year is interesting. I know it is British, but it’s still weird seeing it there).
    Glad to see that the WGA and now BAFTA have recognised the effort it took to put together the United 93 screenplay.
    Oh, and the reason Casino Royale isn’t more of a factor is because critics are hypocrits. They’ll roundly praise both The Departed and Casino Royale for the same reasons, yet they’ll only give awards to the former because it’s Scorsese and more “important” or some bull like that.

  7. cobhome says:

    Wonder if Inconvenient Truth was not nominated – cause the Brits are Kyoto Acccords signatories and have an extensive program in place to reduce greenhouse gasses – might have been like the brit reaction to Syriana – uh – the Americans are just figuring this out ??

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon