Awards Update Archive for December, 2010

Top Tens: December 31, 2010

There were a couple of technical glitches as the new system settles in – but the lists are starting to add up now. Yes, Social Network stays on top, but Inception and The King’s Speech are moving up the charts.

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9 Weeks To Oscar: Let The Narratives Begin!

Here we are… ballots are out… Phase One will be over in a couple of weeks… and the battle for The Big Win has begun. The primary weapon is in the process of changing from the movies themselves (central to The Great Settling™… c/o Mr Condon) to The Narratives. The Narratives are the big perspective…

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The Top Tens: December 24, 2010

The lists keep coming in, but the chart remains (almost) the same. Carlos and The Ghost Writer move up a notch, and the top five stay locked in place. The Social Network stays on top by a wide, wide margin.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Last Licks 2010

With overwhelming domination of the Critics Groups, The Social Network overtakes The King’s Speech for the top spot by 1 point. The other mover is Black Swan, which leaps from #7 to #4.

And The Gurus bid a fond farewell to Sean Smith, off to do serious things with his life. And we ring in the New Year with Anthony Breznican flipping to Entertainment Weekly from USA Today. The more things change…

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10 Weeks To Oscar: Let The Great Settling Begin!

The field has been narrowed, but there is still no clear front-runner. Things should start to settle in, as they do with Oscar every year, in the DVD players over the next 10 days of holiday hanging out. The Voters can influenced by what they see and what they hear from their kids, grandkids, and friends. Ho ho ho!

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The Top Tens: December 22, 2010

No surprises so far – The Social Network still dominates the top of the list with Winter’s Bone a strong second. The King’s Speech and 127 Hours are back into the top ten and Toy Story is moving up slow and steady.

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Top Ten Feature Films 2010

I really struggled over my top ten list this year. There were maybe six films that were pretty hard locks early on, which only left four open slots for the rest of a field of strong contenders — not a lot of wiggle room in a year with a good many solid films rightfully in…

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The Top Tens: December 17, 2010

With almost 50 lists in, The Social Network still sits on top, but Winter’s Bone is gaining ground. Futher down the list, Black Swan dances into third, Toy Story 3 stays steady in fourth, with Carlos nipping at its heels.

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Gurus o’ Golden Globes, Post-Nominations

The Gurus came through Globes Day with a new appreciation for The Fighter and worries about True Grit.

Also, with Globes nods in, a look at the Picture and Acting categories. Jolie, Berry, Wahlberg & Kunis all got nods without a single Gurus guessing they would. So what now? (And the ranking of the rest of the movie categories coming soon.)

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The 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards Nominations

The King’s Speech, 7, The Fighter, 6, The Social Network, 6, The Tourist, 3…

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Top Tens: December 13, 2010

The Social Network sits alone at the top of the chart, with Inception, Winter’s Bone and Toy Story 3 battling it out in the next three spots. But it’s still early in the race…

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LA Film Critics Go Electronic… Announce Via Publicist As They Vote

Niels Arestrup and Jacki Weaver lead LAFCA voting so far…

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Gurus o’ GIobes Gold: Dec 10, 2010

The only real action in the Oscar race this week is The Gurus moving The Town into the Top Ten.

Most of today’s Guru output looks at The Golden Globes, the award given out by 80something 80somethings and Dick Clark. The Gurus take measure like Mizrahi of all of the top 8 categories, which at The Globes, doesn’t include screenwriting or directing… though 11 Gurus have come up with 18 candidates in one category, which says it all!

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12 Weeks To Oscar: The Battle Of Black Swan

Realistically, we’re looking at 15 movies or less that are real candidates for those 10 Best Picture slots. And within that, there are a bunch that simply cannot win. They just aren’t walking that walk.

I’m interested in discussing 4 kinds of films that are in the race and the films that are representing them.

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Critics Top Tens 2010 (as of Dec 9)

The first Top Ten lists of 2010 are coming in. For the next couple of weeks, MCN will be updating daily as we aggregate lists from all parts of the critical community.

With just 6 lists in, Nolan and Fincher are duking it out for the top slot…

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Gurus o’ Gold: True Grit Week – Episode Two

The last of the Gurus has checked in and the battles remain tight. “True Grit Week,” saw film at #4, up from #7 last week, and Top 5 slots for all three of the main actors actors and the Coens in Screenplay & Director. With 100% of Guru districts reporting, Annette Bening and Natalie Portman are within 2 points of one another in Best Actress. Duvall and Bardem still can’t crack the Top 5 in Actor. And we’ve sorted Original and Adapted Screenplays.

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2010 European Film Awards

It was a good day for Roman Polanski in Europe…

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Irrelevant Award Week Continues: National Bored Of Review

Every year, like sand through a bathing suit, these are the days of our “so what?” The Social Network will be nominated by The Oscars in most, if not all, the categories it has won here. I’m not sure how honored Mr. Sorkin will be to be the opposite number to the screenwriter of Buried,…

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13 Weeks To Oscar: Movies and Pundits and Airs, Oh My!

“Have you heard that Mimsie Starr
Just got pinched in the Astor bar?
Well, did you evah?
What a swell party this is!”

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Awards Update

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