OSCAR 2011

Some OSCAR notes:

The show was consistently interesting, never boring, but never really exciting either. A few lines from Bob Hope remind us how lame other comedians have been since. But then, that was one of Bob Hope's best moments they showed.

The opening film sketch was fun. The opening Hot Body Humping sketch on Jimmy Kimmel's After-the-Oscars show delivered, to bookend the night.

James Franco added little to the night, but Anne Hathaway was good, though not especially funny. More than usual, the hosts introduced the presenters and not much else. They are not comedians.

The show got past the more boring awards quickly, and bunched the songs and Best Picture segments, which avoided some of the more draggy elements of many shows. Still, the show ran a little over the 11:30 supposed ending time. The kids from PS 122 were good. It's always a thrill for kids to get special opportunities like that. Sometime in the next 50 years we'll read about some celebrity who was inspired by their visit to the Oscars tonight to sing in the chorus.

Big winner, of course was THE KING'S SPEECH: Here's how it fared...

The King�s Speech
==>Best Picture
==>Best Director - Tom Hooper
==>Best Actor - Colin Firth
xBest Supporting Actor - Geoffrey Rush
xBest Supporting Actress - Helena Bonham Carter
xBest Cinematography - Danny Cohen
==>Best Original Screenplay - David Seidler
xBest Art Direction
xBest Costume Design
xBest Original Score
xBest Film Editing
xBest Sound Mixing

Black Swan won Best Actress for Natalie Portman. Jimmy Kimmel remarked that Black Swan was the only black nominated this year.

Both Black Swan and The King's Speech were at HIFF (The Hamptons International Film Festival) in 2010, along with James Franco and 127 Hours.

Two of the best lines were

"How to Train Your Dragon".."that's disgusting!"

and

Tom Hooper's "LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER!" - She discovered The King's Speech for him.

I thought both Natalie Portman's talk and Aaron Sorkin's talk were amazing: for how much they said, and how many people they remembered, and how fast they spoke, and what they said, too, in the pressure of the moment.

Natalie Portman, by the way, is not only an actress, she directed a short film that I liked a lot:

http://tattoowesley.blogspot.com/2008/10/hiff-eve-gsa-shorts.html

I enjoyed Kirk Douglas' spirit as a presenter. Scarlett and Justin made a good team; they were the best presenting couple.

Did Christian Bale forget his wife's name when he was thanking???

Inception was the big winner in the technical categories, with Sound Editing and Mixing, Cinematography & Visual Effects. Alice in Wonderland won for Art Design and Costumes. And The Social Network won for Editing. You'd expect a Best Directed picture to win in some technical categories, but Speech was shut out.

I do not really understand why Barney's Version was even nominated for Costumes, by the way.

The Inside Job was the winning documentary. It describes the way that financial institutions, as well as some academic consultants, were complicit in the financial meltdown. The director was astonished that three years after no one has been sent to jail for fraud.

In a Better World was the Foreign Film winner. It is not easy to see the foreign film winners. They seem to pass unnoticed in the theaters, and even in film festivals. The shorts are kind of invisible also, but more and more they will be able to be searched out online I think.

There was one clip from Winter's Bone which reminded me how terrific that cinematography really was. To appreciate it, watch the DVD, then watch the How-it-was-made feature on the DVD. You'll see the difference between how the place really looks, and how it looks in the film.

Finally, sadly, was the remembrance of those that have passed during this year. Sadly, I had met and known a number of the people mentioned. Some of those I knew were very nice, and nice to me. May they and their families rest in peace. I will remember them fondly and sadly.


Here is a list of nominees and winners:

2011
OSCAR NOMINATIONS

THE KING'S SPEECHBEST PICTURE

Natalie PortmanBEST ACTRESS
BLACK SWAN

NOMINATION LEADERS AND FRONT RUNNERS

The King�s Speech
==>Best Picture
==>Best Director - Tom Hooper
==>Best Actor - Colin Firth
xBest Supporting Actor - Geoffrey Rush
xBest Supporting Actress - Helena Bonham Carter
xBest Cinematography - Danny Cohen
==>Best Original Screenplay - David Seidler
xBest Art Direction
xBest Costume Design
xBest Original Score
xBest Film Editing
xBest Sound Mixing

True Grit
xBest Film
xBest Director - Joel and Ethan Coen
xBest Actor - Jeff Bridges
xBest Supporting Actress - Hailee Steinfeld
xBest Adapted Screenplay - Joel and Ethan Coen
xBest Cinematography - Roger Deakins
xBest Art Direction
xBest Costume Design
xBest Sound Editing
xBest Sound Mixing


The Social Network
xBest Film
xBest Director - David Fincher
xBest Actor - Jesse Eisenberg
==>Best Adapted Screenplay - Aaron Sorkin
xBest Cinematography - Jeff Cronenweth
==>Best Original Score
==>Best Film Editing
xBest Sound Mixing

THE NOMINATIONS

Best Picture
The Social Network
==>The King�s Speech
Black Swan
True Grit
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
127 Hours
Toy Story 3
Winter�s Bone

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David O. Russell, The Fighter
==>Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
David Fincher, The Social Network

Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
==>Colin Firth, The King's Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Actress
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
==>Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor
==>Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
==>Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Best Animated Feature Film
How to Train Your Dragon
Illusionist
==>Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Film
Mexico - Biutiful
Greece - Dogtooth
==>Denmark - In a Better World
Canada - Incendies
Algeria - Outside the law

Best Original Screenplay
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
==>The King's Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
==> Aaron Sorkin The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Best Cinematography
Matthew Libatique - Black Swan
==> Wally Pfister - Inception
Danny Cohen - The King's Speech
Jeff Cronenweth - The Social Network
Roger Deakins - True Grit

Best Art Direction
==> Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit

Best Costume Design
==>Alice in Wonderland
I Am Love
The King's Speech
The Tempest
True Grit

Best Original Song
Coming Home - Country Strong
I See the Light - Tangled
If I Rise - 127 Hours
==>We Belong Together - Toy Story 3

Best Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon -John Powell
Inception - Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech - Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours - A.R. Rahman
==>The Social Network - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Best Documentary
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Gasland
==>Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

Best Film Editing
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King's Speech
127 Hours
==>The Social Network

Best Makeup
Barney's Version
The Way Back
==>The Wolfman

Best Sound Editing
==>Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable

Best Sound Mixing
==>Inception
The King's Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit

Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Hereafter
==>Inception
Iron Man 2

Best Documentary (Short Subject)
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
==>Strangers No More
Sun Comes Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

Best Visual Short Film (Animated)
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Lets Pollute
==>The Lost Thing
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

Best Short Film (Live Action)
The Confession
The Crush
==>God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

THE OPEN ROAD

Kate Mara
At the HIFF 2008 Breakthrough Performers' Panel
Photo by Eric Roffman

The Open Road [TOR] is (surprise, surpise) a road movie, but also a sweet and bittersweet love story, with a complex father-son relationship at its center. It's a comedy and a drama. You've probably never heard of this film, because it hardly had any theatrical distribution; but it's well worth checking out.

The writer/director is a relative newcomer, Michael Meredith, [MM] who worked before with Wim Wenders (who acted as executive producer).

It has a stellar cast... with an exuberant performance by Jeff Bridges, an affecting performance by Justin Timberlake, and an adorable performance by Kate Mara.

(Note, by the way, that Jeff Bridges is currently being mentioned as an Oscar contender for his work in another film this year, Crazy Heart.)

The director and female lead both have a strong sports heritage: Kate Mara, a Breakthrough Performer at The Hamptons Film Festival [HIFF] in 2008, comes from a family of football owners (great granddaughter of Art Rooney, founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Timothy Mara, founder of the NY Giants). Michael Meredith is the son of football legend Don Meredith (Dallas Cowboys). Appropriately, the main character, Kyle Garrett, played by Bridges, is a sports legend (baseball in this case). But it's not a movie about sports -- familiarity with the milieu of sports stars enriches the ambiance, but is not the subject of the movie. The movie is about a difficult family relationship and a difficult romance.

Justin Timberlake, of course, is well known as a singer, but he is also a fine actor, delivering sensitive performances in numerous films, and he hits just the right notes here.

One mark of a special film is the depth of portrayals of the minor characters. Here, Lyle Lovett, Harry Dean Stanton, Mary Steenburgen, Ted Danson, and others all make important contributions in supporting roles.

In spinning this tale, though Bridges plays his character with full-out style, MM maintains a level of reality, both in the complications and the resolutions, that makes it much more grounded -- and therefore much more interesting -- than most family stories or romantic films.

Anyone searching for a love story different from the standard Hollywood formula romance should check out this film.

Meredith (I've had some brief opportunities to chat with him) is an earnest and nice guy. This is his second film; earlier, he made Three Days Of Rain [TDOR], which just happened to be on TV last night. (See it next on Showtime: Tue Dec 22 8:45 AM).

In Cleveland, during a Jazz festival and rainstorm, the bluesy score and lousy weather set the tone for a morose and downbeat, interesting and atmospheric film. In TDOR, as in The Open Road, MM investigates father-son relationships. One father, played by Peter Falk is, like Bridges in TOR, an idiosyncratic and difficult dad. (Michael's own dad, Don Meredith, is in the film and does a fine turn as a father who's recently lost a son.)

Michael Meredith is a writer/director to watch as he navigates his next film projects. He has an interesting sensibility, a talent for pulling in great actors who deliver stylish performances, a sense of sadness as well as a sense of humor, and an original way of telling stories.