Awards Watch Archive for February, 2016

364 Days To Oscar: Wrapping Up

This show was 85% of the way to being the kind of show that builds the loyal audience and can then build on that audience. Big congratulations to Reggie Hudlin and David Hill. They did it right… or at least are on the right track.

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Gurus o’ Gold: The Final Vote (including a few last second changes)

A couple of Gurus have last minute changes to their picks. And the entire rundown in every category is here.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Our Best Guess… Our Final Guess

The Academy’s votes are in. And now, The Gurus have spoken as well.

Ten categories have unanimous votes, including 5 of the Top 8. Another five categories have 11 or 12 of the 13 Guru votes. That would suggest a pretty boring evening, with the big unknowns being short films, Costume Design, and Sound. But it has been a season of surprises… so stay close to the TV on Sunday night.

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9 Days To Oscar: Is That All There Is?

Is there anything left to mine this Oscar season?

I really like the group of movies this year… but I am paying very close attention and I can’t find anything to get excited about at this point. If people I like win, I will be happy.

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THE LOOK OF SILENCE’s Adi Rukun Makes His First Written Statement About The 1965 Indonesian Genocide

ADI RUKUN, SUBJECT OF THE OSCAR®-NOMINATED DOCUMENTARY THE LOOK OF SILENCE, RELEASES HIS FIRST WRITTEN STATEMENT ABOUT THE INDONESIAN GENOCIDE OF 1965 FOLLOWING MEETINGS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Adi Rukun, the optometrist subject of Joshua Oppenheimer’s Oscar®-nominated documentary THE LOOK OF SILENCE, has released his first written statement about the Indonesian genocide of 1965, following meetings…

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Gurus o’ Gold: Battleground Categories Top 3!!!

The Gurus were asked to pick their Top 3 in the 8 Battleground Categories. Only one pick to win has changed… but it’s a big one.

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The Full BAFTAS 2015 List

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Oscar Adds 17 To Presenter List, Bringing Total To 41

Oscars® producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin announced today a third slate of presenters for the 88th Oscars telecast.

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3 Weeks To Oscar: Exposing The Wizard

Stop me if you’ve heard this…

How is it that the person with their finger on the nuclear button, and some group of producers who get to take home the coolest swag in Hollywood, are on the same short-term-memory track?

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Gurus o’ Gold: 2 Days Before Voting Begins

This week, the Gurus voted in every category for everyone they thought had a chance of winning. This led to some very interesting numbers, including one mad movie with 6 wins, besting everyone in the field by 3. And two categories where everyone is in agreement that there’s no potential upset.

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Gurus o’ Gold: 9 Days Until Voting Begins

The Gurus storm into February looking at the “Top 8” categories, plus Feature Documentary and Cinematography. Appropriate to this still-unsettled season, The Gurus currently foresee 7 different movies winning those Top 8 prizes, with only the Best Picture leader grabbing 2 of these 8.

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The 20th ADG Awards

“The Martian” “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “The Revenant” Motion Picture Winners at the 20th Annual Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Awards Celebrating “From Silver Screen to Every Screen” “Game of Thrones,” “House of Cards,” “American Horror Story”, “The Big Bang Theory” and “The Muppets” Win for Television Series Josh Brolin Presents David…

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Awards Watch

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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