The Ballots Are Coming. The Ballots Are Coming.

The day has arrived. Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences mails out those mythical Oscar nomination ballots to their members. Each member gets to nominate for their branch category(or categories) and for Best Picture. The ballots are due back on Friday January 14th at the latest but supposedly the majority of voters are quick about mailing them back. On the morning of Tuesday, January 25th we'll hear the results of the voting. Which actors did the other actors rally behind, which sound design thrilled the sound mixers, and which newbie will the exclusive music branch fraternity punch in Original Score category? And so on.

So freeze the Oscar buzz this week. It's decision time. If you believe that out of sight equals out of mind -- and you'd be wise to do so given the borg-mind of precursors -- you'll understand why so many of the Oscar hopefuls have just hit theaters. For example, how many earlier worthier nominees will True Grit muscle out? We shall see.

Here's the events that will occur during voting.

• Dec 27 Box Office media coverage (as far as Oscar goes, True Grit's strong opening and Black Swan and The King's Speech expansions will be the stories.)
• Dec 27 Online Film Critics Nominees (the usual suspects with key LAFCA's suggestions placing.)
• Dec 29 Blue Valentine finally opens in a handful of theaters. Jesus, they took long enough.
• Dec 31 New Year's Eve Shenanigans. Who fills out their ballots while plastered? Oh come on, you know someone does. (I mean, besides HFPA and NBR members.)
• Jan. 3 Online Film Critics Society winners announced
• Jan. 4 Producers Guild of America nominations
• Jan. 4 Writers Guild of America nominations
• Jan. 7 Blue Valentine expands
• Jan. 10 Directors Guild of America nominations announced

And finally, a Film Experience reminder to any Academy voters reading, particularly actors: Don't let precursor groups control you!

FACT: You are not a "Supporting" actor, when you're in every scene
and the entire story is about you.

Here's how it's supposed to work: You look at your lead ballots and you pick the five best in that category and rank them in order. If someone is not one of your five best, sorry no can do. It's totally sad for #6 & #7  *sniffle* but it's called a "shortlist" for a reason. It's supposed to be a major honor. If you're sad for your #6, don't demote them to another category. That's so unkind to the hard working character actors who deserve to be judged on a level playing field with other actors who have to sell entire characters in a limited number of scenes and gird up the starring player(s) when acting opposite them; different achievement, but you know it's equally worthy of honor. You've acted in films so you get the difficulties of either carrying a whole picture handily or adding a specific color or mood or a contrasting personality to the ensemble and thereby elevating the film. Vote accordingly.

A dramatization: Ewan McGregor contemplates his ballot.

Above all else, don't let anyone else tell you what to do. Including me (sigh) though if you'll allow me two suggestions, and I'll keep it simple, it's this:

1. Watch some acclaimed or popular films released before September before you vote. Films like The Ghost Writer, I Am Love, Mother, Animal Kingdom, The Kids Are All Right, Shutter Island, How to Train Your Dragon all had their ardent fans. Are you one of them? You don't want to keep perpetuating the myth that AMPAS voters can't remember what they had for breakfast, let alone what opened last month.
2. If you're not truly moved by some movie everyone is talking about... let's say you didn't like The Social Network or True Grit, ignore it in your best picture field. Just because everyone is talking about it right now, does not mean it's "best". What is "best" is totally up to you. If you wanna vote for Rabbit Hole or Another Year or whatever -- it's your ballot.

Happy voting!

Jeremy Renner. Kirsten Dunst. It's "All Good..."

Here's some worthwhile reading today: a top ten list from Tom Shone. It's a performance list rather than a movie list and it's crowned by Jeremy Renner's dangerous ex-con in The Town. Shone goes so far as to compare Renner's gift to Steve McQueen's which is an interesting comparision but begs the question: Will Renner start getting major lead roles after his back to back successes with The Town and The Hurt Locker? Or has The Town - Hollywood not Boston - already fixated on him as a major supporting character actor? Either way, continued employment is assured which is a very good thing.

Shone prefaces his list claiming that he doesn't believe in "great acting" at least not the way it's commonly defined by the Oscars.



But then he goes on to name 10 performances half of which are in the hunt for nominations (ha!). I think he's out of his gourd when it comes to his take on which Mark Ruffalo performance is awards-worthy but maybe he's on to something with his other expectation switcheroo (Sam Rockwell).

Finally, I absolutely love his single sentence description of Kirsten Dunst's work in the mystery All Good Things.

Kirsten Dunst's dawning horror in All Good Things felt like a rip in the side of her heart.

I can't vouch for the movie (which is...uh, unwieldly) but she's marvelous in it. In one devastating sequence you can practically watch her age ten years without the help of makeup effects. Her Supporting Actress Oscar campaign has just recently started to heat up. The timing might be a few weeks late and the film has a definite obstacle in that other Ryan Gosling December picture which is easy to confuse with this one. [SPOILERS] In both movies, which never should have been released in such quick succession, Ryan grows from sexy young man to a complete wreck (aging makeup!) and his courtship with a gorgeous blonde (happy) results in marriage (miserable). It doesn't stop there; Blue Valentine and All Good Things both have doomed pet dogs and abortion subplots! [/SPOILERS]

Kiki has been so good so often (The Virgin Suicides, Bring It On, Marie Antoinette, Eternal Sunshine, The Cat's Meow, Crazy/Beautiful) that it's easy to root for one day seeing her in an Oscar lineup. Still, it may take a turning point or stepping stone performance to renew media love and interest in her before that can actually happen. Maybe All Good Things is just that.

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Spirit Awards. What They Do and Don't Say About Oscar.

Now that I've had a day to think over the Spirit Awards (nominee discussion) and what they reveal and obscure about the Oscar race, here's a deeper look for my Tribeca Film column.

Eligible "Best Feature" Snubs
Blue Valentine, Get Low, Somewhere, Rabbit Hole
Not eligible for "Best Feature" or Acting Prizes
The King's Speech, I Am Love, Another Year, Animal KingdomNot eligible for anything
Toy Story 3, The Social Network, True Grit, The Town, Etc...

Remember last year when Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire swept the Oscars, becoming the first... oh, no, wait, that didn't happen at all. That was the Film Independent Spirit Awards. They take place the day before the Oscars each year. And they take place in a tent. We don't know the square footage, but it’s safe to say that it’s got nothing on the Kodak Theater. 

Generally speaking, the Spirit Awards are a looser, rowdier event. You can even wear jeans. As a group, they’re much more likely to honor African-American abuse dramas (Precious) or intimate character studies of "broken down pieces of meat" (The Wrestler) or teen pregnancy comedies (Juno) than the mainstream Academy is. In fact, in their entire 25-year shared history with the Oscars, the “Best Feature” and “Best Picture” prizes have only gone to the same film once.

...read the rest in my weekly Tribeca Film column.
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LFF 2010: (Self-) Love Gone Blue

David from Victim of the Time, reporting from the London Film Festival.

“Why would I go to London?! No way!”

A wry chuckle greeted this on-screen outburst during my first public screening of the 54th BFI London Film Festival. I may have already sat through two and a half weeks of press screenings, but in that moment I knew the energy had changed now the festival had kicked into gear. Without the abundance of eagerly-awaited premieres and the bidding wars that come with them, Britain's premiere film festival is fuelled mostly by a pure love of the art of film. It’s my fourth festival, my second as a press delegate (follow the ‘London Film Festival’ tag to delve into last year’s coverage), and my first as a resident Londoner, so it’s a strikingly different experience for me. I’ll be rolling out capsules reviews – accompanied by as many full pieces as I can manage over on my own blog – for the next two weeks, and Craig (who writes "Take Three" right here) will be joining the party in a few days. (And if you really want to keep your finger on the pulse, you can track my tweeted first impressions here.)

The Opening Gala film Never Let Me Go already hit and sunk over on US shores (my review) but I won’t dwell. Let’s start with something that’s unfortunately become rather infamous…

"you always hurt the one you love ♫ "

Not a love that has broken, but one that has deteriorated. Blue Valentine never grants us the path of this deterioration, instead splitting the film into two snapshots that mark the beginning and the ending of a young marriage. Despite the different energies to the two narratives, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are perceptive enough to make delicate connections between the two, and director Derek Cianfrance understands the inbuilt doubled effect of his techniques, knowingly entwining the two and cutting between them; the sweet sparkle of their chemistry in the happier earlier sequences will inevitably be coloured by the bitterness of the present tense narrative. Subtle elements of the filmmaking work to deepen the narrative - the camerawork between the juxtaposed narratives doesn't seem strikingly different, but the past is youthfully energetic, the present nervy and cautious. It’s hard, though, to really credit the film’s power to anyone but Gosling and Williams, both stronger than ever, translating aspects of their character that brought them together into ones that, perhaps inevitably, tear them apart. (B+)

There’s something oddly amusing about the catalyst for the admitted derth of events that unfold in Blessed Events; the stiff, awkward Simone (Annika Kuhl) is stiff and awkwardly dancing in a nightclub, and, in long shot, we see a man slowly but surely shuffling his rhythmic way over to her. She’s easily had, it seems, because within half an hour of this dry opening scene, she’s pregnant with Hannes’ (Stefan Rudolf) child and has set up house with him in a little country village. The complete lack of conflict seems intentional, and by the time the stubbornly cycling Simone crashes onto her large baby belly, even the rush of POV camerawork as she hurtles down the hill can’t raise our pulse into considering this a critical rupture. Complete disengagement from its simple characters – never do we plumb beyond the depths of Hannes as a cheerful father-to-be – is all very well, but the abundance of lame visual metaphors, comparisons and contrasts merely exposes the complete sterility of the project here. I hardly dare say that it’s a blessed relief when this is over. (D+)


Self Made. Make a different self. The seven volunteers chosen by artist Gillian Wearing for this intriguing British documentary appear to be from a fairly broad spectrum of British society, but there’s a reason they’ve been selected: there’s damage and insecurities to be exposed. Volunteers are, of course, willing, and the ultimate aim of the method acting workshop they collaborate on is to each make a short film where they can play themselves or a character that takes inspiration from their journey of self-discovery. It’s not the most inspired of filmmaking – inserts with Oxford English Dictionary exemplify the certain lack of imagination – but the main problem is in fact that there isn’t enough of a film here. It’s a tight running time that really needs to have been indulged, to let the individual journeys take on the significance that’s fleetingly seen in them. One participant is, for reasons unexplained, entirely unexplored, and some of the films we see are less inspiring than others. Yet once the nightmarish visions of the final participant start being unveiled, it’s hard not to be grimly fascinated by this glimpse into the sadder, dark side of the human experience. (B-)

To look forward to: Foreign Film Oscar submissions Uncle Boonmee, Of Gods and Men and The Temptation of St. Tony, pretty young people in Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats, a screaming man in A Screaming Man, and demonic twinkletoes in Black Swan.

Cannes Tweets/Treats: Young Hollywood Edition

With Cannes's final weekend approaching people are probably leaving town. At least that's the way it happens at other festivals. The only thing exciting left (unless there's a late breaking hit or polarizing cause) is the awards and the first ever Queer Palm which could go a few different ways. But here's a few more tweets and eye candy treats for you.

Dominic Cooper = sex? | Ryan & Michelle are now dating

The Beautiful People
@onthecroisette "Dominic Cooper is provoking pansexual heatwaves in my row."
@snooptom "Pas d'Araki pour moi, je resterai sur le Dolan, "une éphémère vacuité addictive" / 20 ans, 2 films en un an, 2 Cannes, je te hais, BRAVO!"
@AwardsDaily "Am always amazed by the perfect symetry of some actors' faces. Ryan Gosling is so blindingly good looking. Michelle Williams too."
@guylodge "EXCLUSIVE Cannes fashion report: Mike Leigh favours red-soled Campers with yellow socks. You heard it here first."

Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet (Love Songs) and Xavier Dolan (Heartbeats).
Young Hollywood if YH spoke French and made bisexual auteur flicks

Le Cinema
@cobblehillis POETRY (Lee Chang-dong): Splitting hairs to say it's no SECRET SUNSHINE because it's still terrific, devastating & (sorry for this:) poetic.
@guylodge "Anyway, a second helping of "Certified Copy" only enriched the film. People will be studying it for years. Binoche's final scene slays me.
@mattnoller "Trying to write up BLUE VALENTINE, I keep typing BLUE VELVET instead. Boy I wish."
@ZeitchikLAT "Why can't Americans make movies like CARLOS? The best we could do is Munich.."
@akstanwyck "Cannes' The Myth of the American Sleepover vs. Shit Year: One Sings, the Other Doesn't: I'm allergic to pretension..."

Every time I tire of Carey Mulligan as FASHIONISTA, she wins me back
VERY Young Hollywood: Faith Wladyka is terrific in Blue Valentine.

The Random
@MattDentler "So, the Cannes Film Festival will stream the "Lost" series finale inside the Palais this weekend, right?"
@mattnoller "Feeling a strange craving for a hot dog. Might be that I'm sitting three feet away from Jeff Wells."

if you didn't get that last joke... read the previous Cannes tweet report

Time to say au revoir but before that, let's all wish Lindsay Lohan well. She's "lost" her passport in Cannes i.e. in trouble again. Will Lost His/Her Passport become the new Hospitalized For Exhaustion? I've said it before and I'll say it again: We'll know that Lindsay has finally pulled herself together when she stops messing with her beautiful red hair.

Lindsay at a party rather than a film. Bien sur.

If her mane is blond or black or any color wheel slot save red, it's a sure sign she's trying to escape herself. So saith I, Nathaniel, unlicensed Armchair Psychologist to the Stars Actresses. Deal with your issues LiLo and get back to acting. It's something you're good at. When people have such things, they really ought to focus on them. It's a lifestyle choice that guarantees rewards. Not always sensational or exciting rewards but rewards nonetheless.

Bien à toi
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Link Crazy Pt. 2: Randomness

Cinema Blend Katey Rich on Sex & The City 2's wardrobe budget "Marie Antoinette might call it a little much."
As Little As Possible Dan Zak on I Am Love "I kind of love the whole movie, either in spite of or because it is such a bald stab at profound auterism, and an exploitation of the visual mysteries of Swinton."
Peer to Peer an interesting interview piece on the decisions behind promotional materials for Red Cliff and Tilda Swinton's star turn in the glorious I Am Love
Kenneth in the (212) "If I had a gun" post = hilariously succinct evisceration of not one but two summer movies


SLatIFR interesting piece on different types of film buffs and where their limits are in terms of interest and history
The Fug Girls Juliette Binoche in The English Patient and at Cannes 2010
Hollywood Elsewhere Blue Valentine press business. I wonder about this "Cannes bounce" apparently the film is shorter now than when I saw it at Sundance. Seven minutes can make a huge difference in how a film plays. Must see it again

offcinema diversions
izasmile makes funny (well, several of them) with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
Broadway.com makes a 'top ten stage stars of the decade' list. Unfortunately the list should be titled 'top ten film/tv stars who also do stage'. You can't really do justice to the past decade in theater without mentioning Donna Murphy or Sutton Foster

television
The networks have been busy with "Upfronts" lately which means new shows are announced (Ken Levine has advice for the newbies) and old ones are axed. Did you see that ABC is doing a riff on Pixar's The Incredibles mashed up with The Fantastic Four's origin story? It's called No Ordinary Family and mom, dad, daughter and son get superpowers from some crazyweird accident.



Uh... good luck competing with memories of the incredible The Incredibles... although it shouldn't be too hard to wipe the floor with the awful and finally cancelled Heroes.