DP/30 – The Doubt Trilogy

Writer-Director John Patrick Shanley

Amy Adams

Viola Davis

BAFTA Silliness

Trying to turn BAFTA into a predictor of The Oscars is a fool’s errand… heavy on fool.
That is all.

The New Times Curse

Andy Klein got laid off at New Times about 8 years ago.
A little while later, New Times folded LA operations in an anti-competitve deal with Village Voice Media, which owned LA Weekly.
Andy got the gig at City Beat, which tried to expand into what had been the New Times slot.
New Times bought Village Voice Media and laid off a ton of film writers in NY and last week, knocked off Ella Taylor.
City Beat followed in its predecessor and primary competition by dumping Andy.
I once hired Andy and I tried to hire Ella, both for roughcut.com, which was closed in the Time Warner-AOL merger because AOL didn’t wish to compete with internal brands. Andy lost a paying gig that day… in Sundance for us… 7 years ago.
Hard times are not new. But they are harder when it feels like family going down.
400 miles to Park City…

BYOB – Travel Wednesday

On the way to Park City…

In Praise Of Megan Fox… by Larry Gross

Larry Gross writes in…
“If you, like me, are anguished by events in Gaza, wracked with anxiety about the world’s economic future, and disconcerted by the speedily imminent disappearance of print journalism (can printed books be far behind as the next casualty?), then you might be looking for some relief and a reason to feel good. I’ve found one.
If you’re near a computer screen (and when are you not?) click on the video of a Golden Globes red carpet interview with Megan Fox. It will make your life better I swear.
If you can’t get there I will share three indelible moments. (‘Megan Moments’, I feel a brand being born perhaps)
She’s complimented on her appearance. She says “I’m feeling like Alan Alda’s doppleganger…I’m a man…I’m a tranny.” While you’re sucking in your breath about your entirely proper not to say effective pronunciation/use of the term ‘doppleganger’, she is complimented on her slimness. She quietly admits with quiet pride to having a 22 inch waist, but this comes with a simple unadorned explanation: “I starve myself.”
At this point, the E Entertainment doofus questioning her is starting to have a meltdown because this level of unrhetorical simple intelligence and honesty is simply behind her ken.
Finally, Ms. Fox is asked about the whereabouts of her musician-boyfriend (I forget his name, I didn’t recognize it, but after this I’m going to run out and buy all his albums). She replies mildly “He’s not here. This’d bore him. He’s home probably working. ” Then she quickly adds “Plus he doesn’t want to be Mrs. Megan Fox. He has an ego. He’s a man.” And I’m thinking some kind of a man if he’s man enough to be handling Megan Fox on an everyday basis.
So to quote the language of your Hot Blog fanboys “MEGAN FOX RULES, ROCKS, OWNS,” etc, only those phrases don’t even begin to say it.
Now consider this: Michael Bay may have made a serious contribution to the quality of American culture by bringing Megan Fox to the attention of audiences in TRANSFORMERS. I’m so not kidding.
Is life seriously weird or what?
A little while after I composed the above I’m clicking on your link to the Daily Telagraph’s piece on Slumdog as the first film of the Obama era. I notice in the corner, a photo collection offered from the Globes. They seem to start by emphasizing star tattoos. Angelina has something unreadable. I click again. It’s Megan Fox! (I’m not stalking this woman, I swear, I’m happily married, I swear!) Her tatoo near her right shoulder blade, reads, (I think) “We will laugh at gilded butterflies.”
I rest my case.”

Is Megan Fox Actually Smart?

In a stunning refutation of all things Bay, Megan Fox talks like a human being while being interviewed by an E! robot.
Let the countdown to her role in Synechdoche, NY 2: Attack Of Alan Alda’s Doppelganger begin!

Gomorrah Rubbed Out

The Foreign Language Short List is in and the one real surprise on it is that absence of Gomorrah. The new set up has an executive comittee with 3 selections aside from the straight committee votes on the other six candidates. The Italian mob movie was expected to be an exec committee lock. It wasn’t.
From here, there will be more screenings for a group who will choose 5 from the 9 after seeing all of them.
I still expect Waltz With Bashir to win the Oscar.
(For more info on the films that were in the chase, check out Nathaniel R’s excellent pages on all the contenders.)
Headshaker to come… doc nods.

Rolling Out The Sundance Coverage

We’re just getting rolling towards our full Sundance coverage… y’all get to be our first guinea pigs.
There are two ways to follow everything that’s going on up there.
First, there is our 10 Days of Sundance Page, which willl roll out the best of everything that’s written about the festival every day. We’ll be pushing MCN content as well as linking to everyone else’s.
Second, there is the 10 Days Of Sundance Blog, which will be the first repository of information from all four of our main writers – Voynar, Pride, Gregg Goldstein, and myself – throughout the fest. When there is gossip, we will report it as Gossip, news as News, our views as Views, and all kinds of Content. But we hope there will be multiple postings every waking hour of the day, from how the movies are to how much they may be selling for to, yes, even some stupid celebrity coverage. It will also be the place where you can first meet Sundance filmmakers amd stars as we shoot DP/30 throughout the fest and post same day.
So… let me know if there is anything you love, anything you hate, anything you want… we have 48 hours or so to fine tune it and then, the mayhem begins.

DP/30 Double Feature – Happy-Go-Lucky

Director Mike Leigh and star Sally Hawkins
September 2008, Toronto

Golden Globe Winner Sally Hawkins
January 2009, Los Angeles
Interviews afer the jump

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BYOB With Apologies

It’s dead out there… but for me, the quiet is more about Sundance prep… which continue…

The Day After Globes

So… Slumdog wins again.
The real question emerging from last night’s Golden Globes is whether the second smackdown – 1 short of a category sweep at both HFPA and BFCA – means that the other likely Best Picture competitors – Universal, Focus, WB, and Paramount – will stand down with severely decreased budgets for Phase II, which starts with nominations on January 22.
This may not mean much to you as a civilian, but how it translates is much as it translated back in 2006, when Crash just kept pushing, while Brokeback Mountain laid back and assumed the winner’s position after wining the Globes and Crash not even being nominated for Globes, while Capote, Good Night, And Good Luck, and Munich went into “just happy to be invited” mode.
Who won? The one that kept pushing.
That doesn’t mean that this year’s Best Picture Oscar is settled or that it is, in some of these cases, still in real play. But the fight is over if, for instance, the parents at GE decide that the next $30 million spent pushing Frost/Nixon is just too much and that they need to just focus on the commercial play… or if Paramount looks at Benjamin Button being, pleasurably and surprisingly capable of being money maker and choose not to chase Best Picture to the tune of $10 million or $20 million more than just running on fumes would cost, perhaps pushing the whole film back into the red… or if The Dark Knight realizes that Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars didn’t win and that they should be thrilled to deal to be nominated and let Heath’s inevitable win represent… or that Milk is modestly commercial as a movie and Focus needs to keep its finances tight in this marketplace, making a big run at Best Picture too pricey to do and lose when they are so far from the chance of a win.
It’s business over art, yes. But it will also shape the last month of the race.
There are fights to be fought on a smaller scale. Sally Hawkins is the one real surprise at The Globes that could convert at The Oscars. Best Actress is an open race. Harvey Weinstein will have to spend very carefully, but Kate Winslet could well win Supporting Actress for the lead role in The Reader if publicized right. Searchlight will now keep the pressure on for a Mickey win. And the battle for the effects and make-up and design Oscars between Dark Knight and Ben Button will be fierce (you can wave your arm in the air and snap when you read that if you like).
A kinder, gentler award season comes from all this agreement. And I can start really enjoying it again. All from a slumdog.
Of course, the biggest problem is, what will journos have to write about for the next six weeks?

Globes – Spoiler Space

Use the comments to fight and discuss all you like… uninformed beware!

Globes – No Spoilers Please

I am going to wait until after 11p pacific time to write much about the Globes.
All I can say is… they got out of their own way.
Insiders, who are often wrong, but rarely this wrong, did not see many of these as the answers. But give it to the foreigners… they know how to get out of the way when they are going to be embarrassed by the next set of awards.
4 major surprises on the night… but only two will have any chance of repeating on Feb 22. Actually, only one when you do the math. And that could actually happen… though it will certainly not be because of the Globes, but because of the oddly unclear category.
Anyway… enough for now…

I Am Doing My Hair AND Breaking The Law

(8p – BEWARE SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE SHOW)
This is the first year I have watched The Golden Globes live on my computer.
I would have paid 20 bucks for the right to simply watch the east coast feed.
The future makes some businesses look dumb.
It was way to easy to do this.
Sigh…
(P.S. I am soooo happy for… heh heh heh… not doing that…)

Forced To Action

This is 100% blog commenter insider baseball, so I am puting the rest after the jump for those who are interested….

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