Gotham Award Winners

The Gotham Awards are going on at Cipriani's even as I type this. As you know Charlize Theron, Gary Oldman, David Cronenberg, and Tom Rothman are being honored with career tributes but competitive prizes are also being handed out.  

Tilda, Charlize, and Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) glam up the event

Awards...
Breakthrough Actor Felicity Jones (Like Crazy)  
Breakthrough Director Dee Rees (Pariah) 
Ensemble Performance Beginners 

So it hasn't been a good night for Martha Marcy May Marlene which was nominated for all three of those prizes despite no Best Feature nomination.

Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You Scenes of a Crime directed by Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock
Audience Choice Girlfriend directed by Justin Lerner 
Best Documentary Better This World

Best Feature ***TIE*** BEGINNERS and THE TREE OF LIFE
The tie between Beginners and Tree of Life is a strange development. According to IndieWire the jury debated for 2½ hours. Though I am against ties on a fundamental level, it couldn't have happened to nicer movies ;) and it's kind of a great tense way to kick off the season. Let more strange "we can't decide!" developments follow. Total agreement for 3 consecutive months is B-O-R-I-N-G.

Eeep, we're here. It's happening again. Awards season has begun. Tomorrow morning the New York Film Critics Circle announces their honorees.

London: "Like Crazy", A Conversation

Editor's Note: As a special treat for our London Film Festival coverage, I asked our correspondents Craig and David to share conversations about the movies that they happen to see together. Today, LIKE CRAZY and the Oscar buzz baffles them...

Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are lovers in and out of it in "Like Crazy"

David: I think the first thing we should probably note about Like Crazy is how, well, un-crazy it is. 'Like Cute' would be a more fitting, if rather more nauseating, title. Perhaps I've just grown too cynical, but I don't think that's it. A piece of furniture tells us they love each other 'like crazy', but they don't. One of the few scenes I'd pick out was just after Anna (Felicity Jones) has introduced Jacob (Anton Yelchin) to her parents - they start kissing like mad, and for those few seconds I felt the heat between them, the flush of a youthful romance. But there wasn't nearly enough of that to establish the connection we're supposed to feel throughout the whole film.

Craig: I think the cuteness of the pairing was the thing director Drake Doremus seemed to want to eagerly translate the most, what with all the chair inscriptions and diary notes. (Clearly that chair wanted to be Like Crazy’s “Rosebud”.) Haven’t we seen this kind of meet-cute cinematic dalliance before, in things like Garden State, Elizabethtown etc? I was over quirk-filled romanticised moping the moment it began. Here it comes with a slightly dourer and artfully managed sense of itself – like a mini-me Blue Valentine... The Formative Years, yet without that film’s tender baggage.

Humor, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar buzz, after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Naked Gold Man: The "Breakthrough" Business

This week, let's talk beginnings and breakthroughs.

The annual Hollywood Awards, which announced their awards and nominees on Friday (previously noted), aren't typically considered part of the Oscar race. Unofficially-officially the National Board of Review's early December announcement is still the kick-off though the Gotham Awards (late November) have been rising as an alternative "first stop" in power. Still, the Hollywood Awards are glance at in order to see which publicity teams are working overtime to gather kindling for awards fire. Of particular interest, I think, is the plethora of "breakthrough" awards that they hand out. Breakthrough Awards are nearly always more PR driven than other categories by their very nature regardless of worthiness of whoever is honored. That's not a judgement but a neutral statement.

If breakthrough awards didn't exist, it would be much harder for young talents to be competitive in an awards race. They don't come into any contest with the advantages of pre-sold media interest, critical reputation, or habitual preferencing. The only advantage newbies have each year is nascent; people of all shapes, sizes, and ages (including Oscar voters) like receiving shiny new toys to play with at Christmas. Make of this what you will but this lone advantage is quite potent for actresses and often inconsequential for actors.  

But you made me feel...
Yeah you made me feel shiny and new
Like a virgin 

If you stop to think about it from a publicity perspective, Breakthrough Awards are very much like those old Vanity Fair Hollywood covers. Yes, there were probably teams of editors or creative directors selecting the 9 to 13 cover beauties, but those same beauties were essentially culled from whichever young "up and coming" stars had management teams that were able to bend Conde Nast's ears in the first place.

Vanity Fair's 2010 "Dolls". Five of them are in awards-hopeful films this year: Carey Mulligan (SHAME), Mia Wasikowska (ALBERT NOBBS & JANE EYRE), Emma Stone (THE HELP), Anna Kendrick (50/50) and Evan Rachel Wood (THE IDES OF MARCH)

The Hollywood Awards are but the first organization of many to come to name their favorite shiny new toys of 2011. They offer up not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE (whew) for us to play with. CONSIDER...

Click to read more ...

Hollywood Awards 2011. Something For Everyone (& the Fanboys)

The annual pubicity stunt that is the Hollywood Film Festival Awards have been announced. The ceremony will take place on October 24th, 2011. No publicity is bad publicity so this is good news for all of the recipients, especially since in most cases they are blocking some direct competition from picking up the very same free publicity. (Not that publicity is free but... oh never mind.) Just for fun I've included the past two years of recipients in italics below this year's honor so you can gauge their general behavior (which is erratic in terms of titles of awards, number of recipients, and whether it has any reflection of general awards season hoopla).

A professional working actor for the past 23 years and a famous one for the past 16 wins "BREAKTHROUGH ACTOR" (Hee!)

Hollywood Career Achievement Award: GLENN CLOSE - Albert Nobbs
2010 -Sylvester Stallone; 2009 - 
Hollywood Actor Award: no one announced yet
2010 -Robert Duvall -Get Low; 2009: Robert DeNiro -Everybody's Fine
Hollywood Director of the Year: no one announced yet 
2010 Tom Hooper -The King's Speech; 2009 Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Hollywood Actress Award:MICHELLE WILLIAMS - My Week with Marilyn
2010 - Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right; 2009 -Hilary Swank -Amelia 
Hollywood Supporting Actor Award: CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER - Beginners
2010- Sam Rockwell, Conviction; 2009 -Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterdss 
Hollywood Supporting Actress Award: CAREY MULLIGAN - Shame
2010- Helena Bonham-Carter, The King's Speech; 2009 -Julianne Moore, A Single Man
Hollywood Breakthrough Actor Award: JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT - 50/50
2010- Andrew Garfield, The Social Network; 2009 - Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker; 
Hollywood Breakthrough Actress Award: JESSICA CHASTAIN - The Tree of Life; The Help; Take Shelter; Coriolanus
2010 - Mia Wasikowska; 2009-Carey Mulligan
New Hollywood Award: FELICITY JONES -  Like Crazy
*** strange note *** According to the IMDb Felicity Jones won this prize last year, too, for the same film. But there is no "New Hollywood" prize for 2010 listed on the Hollywood Film Festival Site; 2009 Gabby Sidibe, Precious
Hollywood Ensemble Cast Award: "THE HELP" CAST 
2010: "The Social Network" Cast; 2009: n/a
Hollywood Screenwriter Award: DIABLO CODY -Young Adult
2010: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network; 2009 Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber -500 Days of Summer
Hollywood Breakthrough Director Award: MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS - The Artist
2010 -n/a; 2009 -n/a
Hollywood Producer Award: LETTY ARONSON - Midnight in Paris
2010: Danny Boyle & Christian Colson 127 Hours, 2009 Ryan Cavanaugh (not sure which movie. he had several) 
Hollywood Cinematographer Award: EMMANUEL LUBEZSKI - The Tree of Life
2010 Wally Pfister -Inception; 2009 Roger Deakins -A Serious Man
Hollywood Film Composer Award: ALBERTO IGLESIAS - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
2010 Hans Zimmer -Inception;
Hollywood Editor Award: STEPHEN MIRRIONE - The Ides of March
2010 Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter -The Social Network; 2009-Dana Glauberman - Up in the Air
Hollywood Production Designer Award: JAMES J. MURAKAMI - J. Edgar
Hollywood Visual Effects Award: "TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON" - Scott Farrar
2010 Iron Man 2; 2009 -n/a
Hollywood Animation Award: "RANGO" directed by Gore Verbinski
2010: Toy Story 3; 2009 -n/a
Hollywood Comedy Award: no one announced yet 
2010 Zach Galifianakis; 2009: Bradley Cooper (they're working their way through the entire cast of The Hangover)
Hollywood Spotlight Awards: SHAILENE WOODLEY - The Descendants
2010: Mila Kunis, Milla Jovovich, Leighton Meester, and Noomi Rapace; 2009 Paul Schneider and Melanie Lynskey  

Their "Movie of the Year" prize (won by Inception last year and Star Trek the year before) you can vote on yourself since they do this in conjunction with Yahoo Movies. The nominees are...

• Captain America: The First Avenger
• Cowboys & Aliens
• Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part Two
• The Help
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
• Rango
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes
• Super 8
• Transformers Dark of the Moon
• X-Men First Class

Movie of the Year is short for Fanboy Film of the Year since, despite the weird anomaly of The Help, they go strictly boy-appeal f/x driven blockbusters. They lean that way so hard that they're willing to toss out a big hit like Bridesmaids in order to include a movie virtually nobody likes to drive the target-audience point home (hi, Cowboys and Aliens!). 

TIFF: Michelle, Andrea and Felicity in buzzy films.

Paolo here. Day 6 of TIFF brings movies about love and passion crossing borders and oceans or trying to, despite the difficulties. Ladies and gentlemen, bring your handkerchiefs or roll your cynical eyes.

THE LADY (Luc Besson)

Most of you must already know about detained Burmese President-elect Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh), but her unlikely entry into political life happened so long ago that we, especially the younger generations, forget a few facts. First, that she lived in Oxford and bore two boys for her husband Michael Aris (David Thewlis), a professor of Southeast Asian studies and that the reason for her untouchable status in a military dictatorship is her ties to England. Second, that the reason the university intellectuals have chosen her as the figurehead of the Burmese democracy movement is because her father, a general, fought for the same goals after World War II.

The story of her adult life is now adapted to the screen as The Lady directed by Luc Besson. This movie allows Besson to diversify his CV but I personally couldn't avoid looking for his trademarks. Suu is Besson's female heroine, Michael his the Tati-esque old man, and a superstitious general is the campy, quirky villain. Besson keeps the violence to a reverent level this time, even if Suu's father becomes a martyr in the film's first scene. The Lady also has a few montages which chronicle the news of Suu's planned rallies spreading throughout the streets of Rangoon. They went on a bit longer than necessary.

As biopics go, The Lady has a surprsing lack of naturalism. Take this paraphrasal of one of Suu and David's conversations:

'The world reveres you as someone with no negative qualities.'
'I will list my negative qualities right now.'
'Your negative qualities made me fall in love with you.'

But because I like this, I'll call it 'classic English dialogue', pulled off well by Thewliss and especially Yeoh who has perfected a politician-style elegance; in a festival full of misanthropy, characters who are 'too nice' are a welcome change.

W.E. (Madonna)

The title of Madonna's much-discussed new film, is an acronym for the most gossiped marriage in the past century between Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy). The couple belong to a story within the story, which is an obsession for  fairytale-stricken Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), who comes close to the couple's property six decades after their exile. Wally is bored of her neglectful husband while befriending a foreign Sotheby's security guard (Oscar Isaac). I'll assume that Madonna took on this story in engender her own so-called feminist perspective, and she brings a sympathetic and sometimes humorous light to the maligned woman. I would have preferred to see a movie based on "Famous Last Words," Timothy Findley's novel about Wallis.

More on what I liked about W.E. and disliked about Like Crazy after the jump.

Click to read more ...