LIVE BLOG: 82nd Annual Academy Awards

07 Mar 2010, Posted by Charlie McSpadden in Film, Playground, 1 Comments

FINAL THOUGHTS: Women with the most gracious speeches, especially Bigelow & Bullock. Ben Stiller the funniest. Jeff Bridges still the man. Just a great night for being with the letter “B” in their names.

12:02 a.m. And the night is up. Very abruptly. Baldiwn & Martin close down halfheartedly with Martin clutching Bigelow’s Oscar and making an Avatar joke.

12:00 a.m. Bigelow, Boal, Shaprio are up there as well as Renner, Mackie & Geraghty! That was some serious celebration on the guys part. And that’s six Oscars for THL.

11:59 p.m. And, Holy S*** that was fast. Tom Hanks just awarded The Hurt Locker with Best Picture. (!!)

11:56 p.m. Bigelow is even hotter while nervous. She honors her fellow nominees (incredibly gracious, these women have it down), as well as the people of Jordan, and finally to the people fighting in Iraq. This is incredibly well deserved, even though the story of THL winning became a bit omnipresent near the end (this is the business of storytelling, after all).

11:55 p.m. Kathryn Bigelow wins Best Director!

11:53 p.m. We got it, Barbara. A woman could win for the first time. Or a black person. And we know how much Avatar made. I met you in my dining room once. I should have warned of screwing up this moment then!

11:52 p.m. Barbara Streisand presents Best director. Hmm, wonder why…

11:48 p.m. Sandra for the win. And finally, an actor that acknowledges her fellow nominees. She’s funny and gracious and emotional and mature. Powerhouse speech, Bullock. Middle All of America just died and went to heaven.

11:47 p.m. Sean Penn, in usual jittery-ness, presents the award. And….

11:45 p.m. Stanley Tucci on Meryl: “quite simply, the best.” Duh.

11:44 p.m. Whoa there, that’s Oprah. She’s presenting for Gabourey Sidibe. Come back to Duke, Oprah!

11:42 p.m. Michael Sheen admits he was attracted to Helen Mirren. Hottie. Peter Sarsgaard on Carey Mulligan. British people, everywhere.

11:40 p.m. Forest Whitaker on Sandra Bullock. His voice is so soothing. “Tangible”, “magical”. Say “Mufasa”, Forest, say it again, “Mufasa”!

11:39 p.m. And now begins the Best Actress clip montage. Too short, but this will balance out what’s to come.

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Oscar Predictions

07 Mar 2010, Posted by Charlie McSpadden in Awards, Film, Playground, 0 Comments

From Duke’s biggest night (that hurt, Carolina) to Hollywood’s biggest night, it’s quite a weekend to kick off spring break this year. But whether you’re about to embark on a week of partying in Mexico, wandering around the LES, or lying prostrate in the Caribbean (guilty), Hollywood could really care less: the Oscars are on.

But will the world watch? Seeing as James Cameron’s 3-D epic Avatar has made over $2.5 billion worldwide, one would assume as many people would tune in to see if self-proclaimed King of the World will hit Eminent Archon / Emperor / Almighty  status. Back in January, it looked like the coast to Best Picture & Director was iceberg-less for Cameron, but the rise of The Hurt Locker over the recent months has made the waters far more dangerous.
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Oscar Snubs Part 3: Best Actor—Sam Rockwell, Moon

10 Feb 2010, Posted by Kevin Lincoln in Awards, Film, Playground, 0 Comments

Best Actor: Sam Rockwell, Moon

Courtesy NYMag

Sam Rockwell’s performance in Moon is the kind of artistic effort for which the term tour de force was coined.

Let’s check imdb really quick. Take a look at the number of actors that are listed as a part of Duncan (formerly Zowie) Jones’ (formerly Bowie) directorial debut: there’s technically 10, but anyone who’s actually seen the film knows that you can basically knock that number down to one and a half (after all, Kevin Spacey deserves some credit for his voice work).

On its own, this doesn’t mean anything; God knows I could pay two guys to follow me around for an hour and a half with a camera and a boom mike—that doesn’t mean I should win an Academy Award. But nobody wants to watch that. Not only did I want to watch Rockwell’s inhabitation of lunar-based Sam Bell, I was compelled to. I couldn’t look away.

Rockwell tackles multiple different alterations on the same basic type with a deft hand and nuanced tone, covering basically every inch of the emotional spectrum. At some times, he’s forced by the script to go pyrotechnic; others, a stunned silence is all he has to work with, and he makes us feel that silence like Bell feels the vacuum of space.

Moon is a tremendous film—visually stunning and a conceptual thrill—and it deserved an Oscar nom itself, but Rockwell’s acting is something else. From start to finish, he drags the audience in the wake of his revelations and discoveries, and this is made all the more impressive because he’s working off nobody else.

Let’s face it: Morgan Freeman had Nelson Mandela and George Clooney had the 37 times he’d already played his Up in the Air role (though he once again played it well). Rockwell had a script, a rookie director and his own talent, and with that he achieved something genuinely, authentically new. And there’s few higher compliments I can pay than that.

Oscar Snubs Part 2: Best Supporting Actress—Samantha Morton

09 Feb 2010, Posted by Charlie McSpadden in Awards, Film, Playground, 0 Comments

A small, independent film often has to choose what bait is best to dangle in front of Academy voters. Time and resources are slim and must be employed as efficiently as possible. Oscar campaigning is a reality—a reprehensible one sometimes, yes—but, as my preferred Oscar blogger Sasha Stone points out fairly often, winning an Oscar is “all about the story”. And there is no story without a campaign.

The Messenger, a quietly powerful but equally lost home-based Iraq war drama, did fairly well this Oscar season, but its strongest aspect went sorely overlooked. Samantha Morton plays Olivia Pitterson, a widowed, single mother who becomes romantically linked to the soldier who broke the news of her husband’s death. Morton can recite poetry with her eyes, emote heartbreak with a mere glance. When Olivia first hears the news of her husband’s death, she is uncannily calm and receptive. In a mostly silent scene in her kitchen, as Ben Foster’s Will does his best to woo her, Olivia heartbreakingly straddles her own emotional wall. Morton expresses the pain of this temptation perfectly, all while maintaing the scene’s palpable eroticism.

Morton, at least, has been nominated before, in 2000 for Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown and in 2004 for Jim Sheridan’s magical, unforgettable In America. Perhaps her past success propelled the producers to put Woody Harrelson at the forefront of their campaign for his role as Captain Tony Stone. And they succeeded for Harrelson, and even picked up an Original Screenplay nod to boot.

At least Morton has deserving companions.  A Single Man‘s breathtaking and boozy Julianne Moore, as well as the ravishing women of Inglourious Basterds Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger, all went nominee-less.

That’s not to say that the nominees weren’t well deserved. Up in the Air‘s Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick played two of the most realistic, nuanced female roles of recently memory; Maggie Gyllenhaal more than held her own against Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart; and Mo’Nique gave the most shell-shocking performance of the year, one destined for Oscar history. (OK, fine Penelope Cruz’s fiery turn in Nine wasn’t all that necessary).

But don’t fret, Morton. No one realized it would be such a year for the supporting ladies.

Oscars to have 10 Best Picture Nominees

26 Jun 2009, Posted by Charlie McSpadden in Film, Playground, 0 Comments

In an unexpected announcement today, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis said that the Academy will nominate ten films for the prestigious Best Picture award instead of the usual five.

In the press release, Ganis mentioned that the Oscars were going back to its roots, as the ceremonies from the years 1931-1943 featured anywhere from 8-12 nominees for Best Picture. For example, Casablanca which won Best Picture in the 16th Annual Academy Awards, was one of nine nominees.

Many accredit the change-up with two major reasons. First, the Oscar ratings have been struggling (though the ratings of last year’s telecast were up) and a fresh change like five more BP noms will dust off the show’s formulaic feel–much better than that agonizing, everybody-wins praise they gave out last year. Second, box office favorites such as last year’s The Dark Knight and WALL-E were snubbed in the best pic race for more “Academy” (read: stuffy) films such as The Reader and Frost/Nixon. More nominees mean a broader scope–who knows, there might even be a comedy (dare I say The Hangov… nah, not just yet) or a legitimate indie in there.

As many critics make top ten lists each year, the change won’t be too visually dramatic for Oscar followers. And, seeing as the Academy used to broaden its scope in its earlier years, the change isn’t merely a marketing tool to get more viewers and garner more buzz but also a way to honor the institution’s heritage. And more best picture nominees might just be the cure-all for the economic recession–it did help to rid America of the Great Depression back in the 30s and 40s…

All in all, it will be refreshing to see more films up for the prize and it will make the race more dramatic and less predictable. It will also (finally) send a jarring wake-up call to all those Oscar blogger “experts” that have fine-tuned their prediction formula over the years.

In Oscar world, America might just be the land of opportunity after all.