Birthday Bale

Here's to Christian Bale, future Oscar winner (unless this King's Speech thing *really* gets out of hand), on his 37th birthday! He might even win the SAG Award tonight on his birthday.

It's hard to remember that he's not even 40 yet. He's been in the movies for so long!

Christian Bale, the 12 year old star of "Empire of the Sun"

Since that auspicious debut in Steven Spielberg's Empire (1987) which was nominated for 6 Oscars (but strangely didn't catch fire in any of the top categories, despite being a World War II epic) it's been quite a trip: He assisted a royal Oscar powerhouse (Henry V); ended his teenage years dancing (Swing Kids) and singing (Newsies); got curiously soft and swoony (Pocahontas, Little Women); was overcome by hormonal confusion in his mid 20s (Velvet Goldmine, Metroland, A Midsummer Night's Dream); played God and then the Devil back to back in his late 20s (Mary, Mother of Jesus & American Pyscho) as if to warn us, spiritually, of his physical yo-yoing to come; and then the films came fast and furious with the actor jumping genres and personas and body types left and right (Laurel Canyon, Reign of Fire, Equilibrium, The Machinist, Batman Begins, The New World, Rescue Dawn, The Prestige, I'm Not There, etcetera).

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It's been hard to keep up with him. He's dancing as fast as he can through the cinema.

What's your favorite Bale performance?

Amy Westcott on Her "Black Swan" Costume Snub

Wescott's Nina sketchesGiven my fascination with Costume Design, you'll recall I already named my nominees (which included Amy Westcott and Rodarte for Black Swan) and said a few words about Westcott's own work on Black Swan, I drank up this interview in Clothes on Film with the designer post-Oscar snubbing. And I'm alarmed that I missed it two days ago.

A week or so ago film sites were discussing whether or not it was fair that Rodarte could not be nominated alongside her (everyone assuming that Black Swan would be nominated). Perhaps I was just naive but I didn't realize that ill feelings were brewing behind the scenes. Is life imitating art given the rivalry in the Black Swan plot.

Here's what the talented designer tells Clothes on Film about Rodarte's lack of credit and the interviews and press that followed once the film caught fire.

Clothes on Film, Chris: Are you aware of the controversy surrounding yourself and fashion house Rodarte (the Mulleavy sisters) in the press; that they should be credited alongside you as costume designers?

Amy Westcott: Controversy is too complimentary a word for two people using their considerable self-publicising resources to loudly complain about their credit once they realised how good the film is.

CoF: Do you feel as though you are being vilified for something out of your hands?

Westcott: I was happy for Rodarte’s persistent publicity efforts at first; I’m so proud of the film and anything that brings it to an even wider audience is genuinely welcome. I tried to put aside my ego while being airbrushed from history in all of their interviews, as I’m just not that kind of person anyway. But when articles were planted that attacked me personally as if I had conspired against them I felt nothing but despair and betrayal. I don’t have a publicist working for me, needless to say, and I was asked to stay quiet –“not to engage”, to avoid any bad press towards the film. Unfortunately this seems to have proven detrimental to the perception of my work on Black Swan. I didn’t make the rules that the Guild and the Academy set and I am proud of my professionalism and commitment to my work, so to have my name dragged into such ill-informed gossip is galling and hurtful to say the least.

Sad that things went in that direction. Westcott also talks about how she feels about the snub, working with Aronofksy, whether she'll work with fashion design labels again on a film, and what was hardest to achieve on the visually stunning film. Well worth a read.

Hooper Wins DGA. In Other News, The Fat Lady Sings

Who'da thunk it? I realize some people predicted that Tom Hopper would win the Directors Guild of America prize for The King's Speech but these predictions were surely made in panic, given the obvious Oscar love for the film on nomination morning. But I mean a week ago who would have suspected that his able direction of British actors  in a light royalty drama would be heading into the Oscars looking like a sweeper, even for direction, even with an overdue genuine giant of the industry leading  like David Fincher (The Social Network) leading up until now. Not me. I'll be the first to admit it.

I'll also come right out and say that I don't understand it. Fincher captured lightning in a bottle; Russell resuscitated a tired genre with humor, humanity and noisy originality; Nolan displayed skyscraper sized ambitions and vaulted technical obstacles; Aronofsky went for broke, chasing his ballerina's madness in his own inimitable way. What did the Director's Guild see in Hooper's work that surpassed these achievements? I'm genuinely curious.

The King's Speech is well directed so this isn't the travesty of a situation like Ron Howard beating four auteur legends for his own muddled work on A Beautiful Mind. But it's still... well... "people just love this film," one must admit, shrugging one's shoulders and calling it a year for a cute British triumph-over-personal-adversity film.

Next up: Winning SAG tonight (live blogging right here starting at 7 PM EST), BAFTA soon and then on to 8 or 9 Oscars apparently (sigh). The night we wait for all year just got super monotonous 28 whole days in advance.

Open Thread

You are all too suspiciously quiet. What's on your mind? Cinematically or otherwise.
Pssst. The DGA awards are tonight but they're not televised so we'll know later. I'd be surprised if it wasn't David Fincher (despite everyone getting nervous for The Social Network in light of that scary 12 nom tally for the other one.)

Golden Release Dates

Anyone who has read the Film Experience for very long knows that one of Nathaniel's pet issues is the weirdly blocked distribution/awards calendars. Counterprogramming seems like anathema to Hollywood. Most pundits ignore this, either because they're fine with the system the way it is or they have their own pet issues to attend to. But year after year it makes me crazy. So as a sanity measure, I do charts!

If I were only a little more organized the charts would mean a lot more in terms of comparisons sake.

Common consensus has it that the best time to release an Oscar contender is in December. That's true. But as with most "truths" it's not the whole story and thus misleading. It distorts the perception of other truths like the fact that summer is not a bad time to release a big Oscar contender, particular those with commercial appeal. Like many other common consensus beliefs, the December is everything belief is self-reinforcing so one never knows if it is actually true or if it's true because studios think it is and therefore hold their mainstream prestige pictures. The new traditions are so established now that it would certainly be a shock if there were another year like 1972 where the two big dogs (Cabaret and The Godfather) were both released before the previous year's Oscars were even held! Could you imagine if you saw 2011's biggest Oscar contenders in theaters before Oscar night on the 27th?!

On the chart below you can see that the 83rd Oscars are very November/December heavy. Last year's race was less weighted toward the holidays with only 4 of the nominees arriving in the last two months (Blind Side, Precious, Avatar and Up in the Air) earning 23 nominations between them. This year there were five (127, King's, Swan, Fighter, Grit) hogging 40 nominations. And that was just the Best Pictures.

For this chart I used all categories but the shorts. As you can see, my biggest pet peeve (one week qualifiers or the lack of any regular release required) is not the disadvantage I always pray it will be. Why do I pray for this? Because I believe that movies are for audiences first and foremost. If the audience is not allowed to see a movie, should Oscar voters so readily accept its existence? (I always wonder why this isn't part of the whole "Oscar's are irrelevant because they don't choose hits" argument. Perhaps it's too nuanced. It's not as catchy as "they ignored blockbusters!" to say "they have nominated movies the public wasn't allowed to see!) This year's Oscar roster contains as many nominations for barely qualifying films as it does from films released from January through May combined. Sad.

Though Winter's Bone, Animal Kingdom and The Kids Are All Right started Oscar buzz at Sundance in January 2010 and kept it going for a year (all received acting nominations), the first actual theatrical release to wrap up the annum with a nomination was the poorly reviewed remake The Wolfman (Best Makeup). Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was the first multiple nominee released (March) and holds the distinction of being the most-nominated film outside of the Best Picture contenders with three (all in visual categories). This particular distinction used to be an exciting/interesting one but with 10 Picture nominees one doubts it will be that interesting going forward. Last year Nine (2009) held the honor with four nominations.

If you had an Oscar contender to push would you start early to get your nominee track firmly dug or would you risk the glut of the holidays hoping for a good sprint toward the gold in the thick of it. It's a tortoise or hare situation. Here are the months the last 10 winners chose.

2009 The Hurt Locker (June) *the year we started getting ten nominees
2008 Slumdog Millionaire (November)
2007 No Country For Old Men (November)
2006 The Departed (October)
2005 Crash (May)
2004 Million Dollar Baby (Dec)
2003 Return of the King (Dec) *the year the Oscars moved from March to February
2002 Chicago (Dec)
2001 A Beautiful Mind (Dec)
2000 Gladiator (May)

This year we're looking at an October (TSN) or a November winner (TKS) unless The Fighter has more underdog spirit in it that anyone is anticipating.