NY Times

Two Oscar night related stories:

Old-Line Hollywood Takes Back the Night

and

The Best After-Party? Sorry, There’s No Competition

The UK Telegraph

The Oscars always go to the wrong guy

By Michael Henderson

Thanks, Amelie

Looks interesting - Amazing Grace

Some excellent actors involved...

MOVIE REVIEW| 'AMAZING GRACE'

The Imperfect Soul Who Helped Bring an End to the Slave Trade

By MANOHLA DARGIS

“Amazing Grace,” a prettified take on the life and times of the 18th-century reformer William Wilberforce, carries a strong whiff of piety. It isn’t a bad smell; there are notes of roses and treacle in the mix, but also elements of sweat and pain. Wilberforce, born in 1759, was an abolitionist for much of his adult life and helped bring about the end of the slave trade in the British Empire and then slavery itself. He was an evangelical Christian and social conservative who rallied for animal rights and against trade unions, which makes him a tough nut to crack. It’s no wonder he makes a first-rate movie saint.

Serious-minded and squeaky clean, “Amazing Grace” is an imperfect look at an imperfect soul. It has been confidently directed by Michael Apted, who invests Wilberforce’s fight with a strong sense of conviction, and written by Steven Knight, whose other credits include “Dirty Pretty Things.” The overall effect is part BBC-style biography, part Hollywood-like hagiography, and generally pleasing and often moving, even when the story wobbles off the historical rails or becomes bogged down in dopey romance. Wilberforce often comes across as too good to be true, which may be why the fine Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd, doubtless with the encouragement of his socially minded director, plays him with a hint of madness in his eyes.

The film’s overly complicated narrative traces Wilberforce’s journey from strapping young reformer to nearly broken member of Parliament, with periodic skips back and forth in time. The only son of a wealthy merchant, he studied at Cambridge, where he met his close friend William Pitt the Younger, the future British prime minister, brought to extraordinary life by the young British actor and relative newcomer Benedict Cumberbatch. Eventually he will also meet a woman, his future wife, Barbara (the rather too saucy Romola Garai), which pushes the story into the less engaging domestic realm. But it is his intimate, prickly relationship with Pitt that warms the action and talk, partly through the chemistry between the actors, and brings the personal firmly to bear on the political.

Biographical films are generally tricky, since the on-screen personality rarely matches the real one; they’re even trickier when the subject is shrouded in misty time and debate. In some quarters, “Amazing Grace” will succeed better as a diversion than as a nuanced record of Wilberforce’s life. Historians have been divided on his legacy, with one damning him as “the mouthpiece of the party of order and of the business world.” A contemporary asked Wilberforce, after he introduced a law that set back the cause of trade unions, why he paid more attention to African slaves than to Britain’s working poor, whose interests he probably helped obstruct for years. Religious writers, not surprisingly, are more charitably disposed toward him.

It’s equally unsurprising that the filmmakers don’t address these sharper criticisms. The film’s Wilberforce is a fanatic, a true believer, a crusader, a man of action and God, of stirring principle and tireless will. He’s at once pure and seductive, a dashing, romantic figure with a long black coat who talks to God while lying in his garden and keeps rabbits for pets. This matinee idol version might be wildly simplistic, even borderline caricature, but there is also something unfailingly attractive about a film character so wholly devoted to good. The screenplay doesn’t poke into the nature of that good — whether Wilberforce’s fight against slavery was truly selfless or flattered a sense of moral superiority — but it does make you think.

It would be easier to dismiss “Amazing Grace” for its historical elisions if it weren’t also filled with so many great British actors larking about in knee breeches and powdered wigs; if it weren’t, in other words, an entertainment. Among the more valuable players is Rufus Sewell as Thomas Clarkson, a reformer whose passion seems to tip into zealotry when he speaks about the French Revolution; you half expect him to pull on some wellies so he can wade through the blue blood about to spill over the Place de la Concorde. And no matter how stuffy the room or the speeches, the reliably brilliant Michael Gambon, who plays Lord Charles Fox with trembling jowls and flashing eyes, brings a sense of the world and its sensual pleasures with him.

The actors Toby Jones, who plays one of King George III’s many sons, and Ciaran Hinds are also on hand for much of the parliamentary proceedings, delivering withering commentary and general amusement as two of Wilberforce’s most powerful foes. Albert Finney also blusters in every so often as Wilberforce’s mentor, John Newton, who wrote the song that gives the film its title. In many respects, “Amazing Grace” offers a snapshot of the British Empire at the beginning of its long decline as the dominating world power. It takes nothing away from Wilberforce and his stunning achievements to note that this film, at its best, is another reminder that no matter how diminished that political might, no one sells old-fashioned, Hollywood-style history and manners better than those acting royals across the pond.

“Amazing Grace” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). A few oblique scenes and speeches describe the horrors of the Middle Passage and of slavery.

AMAZING GRACE

Opens today nationwide.

Directed by Michael Apted; written by Steven Knight; director of photography, Remi Adefarasin; edited by Rick Shaine; music by David Arnold; produced by Edward R. Pressman, Terrence Malick, Patricia Heaton, David Hunt and Ken Wales; released by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions. Running time: 120 minutes.

WITH: Ioan Gruffudd (William Wilberforce), Romola Garai (Barbara Spooner), Benedict Cumberbatch (William Pitt), Albert Finney (John Newton), Michael Gambon (Lord Fox), Rufus Sewell (Thomas Clarkson), Youssou N’Dour (Oloudah Equiano), Ciaran Hinds (Lord Tarleton) and Toby Jones (Duke of Clarence).

The Army of the Shadows

My husband and I are watching our DVD (ordered from Amazon UK), The Army of the Shadows - 1969

Here is a review of this remarkable film at Channel 4 UK

It is uncompromising, harrowing, and suspenseful - showing the every day activities of the French underground in WW2.

Stars Jean-Pierre Cassel, a magnificent Lino Ventura, and Simone Signoret

Philippe Gerbier: See you later, Comrade.
Legrain: ...You're a communist?
Philippe Gerbier: No. But I can still have comrades.

Becket on DVD

From rcfab:
One of my all time favorite movies is being released on dvd on May 15th. The 1964 film Becket stars Burton and O'Toole. I'm sure you remember it well. I thought you'd like to pass the word along. The Amazon link is through your site.

He Confirmed It, Yes He Did: The Wicked Witch Was Dead

The NY Times --

Heartwarming, yet sad story of the remaining person who acted in The Wizard of Oz.

“As coroner, I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she’s not only merely dead, she’s really, most sincerely dead.”

NY Times - The ads of Oscar

And the Oscar Winner Is Big-Event Television

Carpetbagger - The NY Times

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Variety Review

Sounds like a good one!

2 Days In Paris (2 Jours A Paris) (France-Germany) - A Rezo Films

Jack - Adam Goldberg
Marion - Julie Delpy
Lukas - Daniel Bruehl
Anna - Marie Pillet
Jeannot - Albert Delpy
Rose - Alexia Landeau
Mathieu - Adan Jodorowsky
Manu - Alex Nahon
Taxi driver - Ludovic Berthillot

The spirit of early Woody Allen is alive and well on the streets of the French capital in "2 Days in Paris," an entertaining, deliciously played walk-and-talker by helmer-writer-star Julie Delpy and co-star Adam Goldberg. Dialogue-driven humor, which often goes way beyond satirizing just Yank-Gallic differences, has a traditional French lightness but also a fearlessness that's refreshing. Though the set-up sounds similar to the the two pics Delpy made with director Richard Linklater ("Before Sunrise," "Before Sunset"), the tone is much livelier and more offbeat. A fest crowdpleaser, this could go on to warm specialized B.O.

First seen on a train back from a seemingly idyllic holiday in Venice, Jack (Goldberg) and Marion (Delpy), who've been together two years, have decided to stop off in Paris for two days on their way home to New York. He's an American-Jewish interior designer, with many Woodman-like neuroses, and she's, well, she's a slightly ditzy French photog with an eye defect.

Jack won't even travel on the Metro because he's afraid of a Muslim terrorist attack, but calmly misdirects a bunch of Dubya-supporting U.S. tourists they meet in the street. On the way, Marion calmly informs him she's bought an apartment one floor up from her parents', and that's where they'll be staying.

Breezy, slightly goofy humor is soon established as they settle in and try to have some quiet sacktime, before lunch with Marion's parents, Jeannot and Anna (Albert Delpy, Marie Pillet, Delpy's real-life parents). Lunch sequence itself, with Jack hardly speaking a word of French and mom and dad no English, is a tiny classic in itself, with Albert Delpy especially good as the father ("He's not like the morons you usually bring home," he tells his daughter in French).

Jack's suspicion that the whole family is one sandwich short of a picnic is confirmed when Marion's sister (Alexia Landeau), a child psychologist, also swings by. And his discombobulation slowly grows when they bump into one of Marion's former boyfriends, Manu (Alex Nahon), who's a little too familiar with Marion for Jack's liking. When Manu turns up a party later on, Jack starts getting seriously paranoid.

Delpy's insouciant attitude, coupled with her sudden bursts of confrontational anger, is one of the delights of the movie, never better seen than in a ferociously comical argument with a racist cab driver that ends in them climbing out of the taxi and Marion then calmly shrugging the whole thing off. Chemistry with Goldberg is excellent, with him never allowing Jack's neuroses to become the whole part of the character.

During day two, a mini-subplot develops as Jack becomes suspicious of a guy called Mathieu (Adan Jodorowsky) sending her erotic text messages, and the tone turns slightly more serious as Marion appears to be a complete fantasist with a screw loose. Equally mocking both French and American attitudes -- Delpy herself is a self-confessed "nomad" who's been living Stateside since 1990 -- pic leaves nothing sacred as it continues to dissect the differences between the pair, ending with a kind of sad, resigned shrug.

Especially at the end, script overuses Marion's v.o., which has a downbeat poetic quality at odds with the on-screen character. However, aside from that, Delpy acquits herself well as both director and writer in her second feature -- following the L.A.-set "Looking for Jimmy" (2002) -- and is supported by a fine cast down the line. Delpy Sr. grabs most of the kudos here, as the quietly anarchic Jeannot, but there isn't a weak link, even down to the racist cabbie.

Technically, Delpy's helming is all in service of the perfs, but captures a recognizable Paris from its streets to apartments.

Camera (color, DV-to-35mm), Lubomir Bakchev; editor, Delpy, Etienne Boussac, Jeffrey M. Werner; music, Delpy; art director, Barbara Marc; costumes, Stephan Rollot; sound, Nicolas Cantin, Joerg Hoehne; sound designer, Sebastian Marsch; associate producer, Hubert Toint; assistant director, Dylan Talleux; casting, Fabienne Bichet. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), Feb. 10, 2007. Running time: 94 MIN.

AICN - Nighy Interview

Capone With Bill Nighy

Re: NOTES ON A SCANDAL, Davy Jones, HOT FUZZ, VERTICAL HOUR, The Choice Sleazebag Award, And More!!

Lauren Bacall doesn't plan to retire

The AP:

Lauren Bacall says she doesn't believe in retirement, but after more than 60 years in movies, she's not impressed with the state of the business.

Bacall, 82, came to the Berlin film festival Tuesday to present Paul Schrader's "The Walker." She stars as one of a group of rich, influential Washington wives who are clients of a high-class escort, played by Woody Harrelson.

"I have too much energy to stop working and I don't believe in retirement," Bacall said. Making films, she added, "means to me mostly ... staying alive."

Bacall, who began her acting career in the mid-1940s, was nominated for an Oscar for her role in 1996's "The Mirror Has Two Faces." Her screen credits also include "The Big Sleep" and "Key Largo."

She argues that television has dragged down the standard of films.

"I think there are still people who really want to do good work," Bacall said at a news conference.

"Unfortunately, in television, sometimes they want to do good work but a lot of the time they're doing terrible work — and I think that has affected moviemaking badly."

Actors, she said, "basically are fairly insecure people."

"At the end of every movie, always I'm feeling, `You're never going to work again,'" Bacall said. "That's going to happen one day, but I hope I'm not alive."

Ian Richardson

A death to make note of...February 9 2007...

The actor Ian Richardson, best remembered by me as the clever, unscrupulous Francis Urquhart in The House of Cards trilogy - and as Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailer Solder Spy

Variety - 2/13/07

Oscar choices sometimes an anomaly

A look at those who didn't get to make an acceptance speech

By JON BURLINGAME

This year's honorary Oscar for composer Ennio Morricone is viewed by many in the Hollywood music community as just compensation for being denied the Oscar for his 1986 masterwork on orchestra and choir, "The Mission."

It's only the second time that a composer has received an honorary award from the Academy. Alex North was recognized with a 1985 award after being nominated 15 times without a win for such scores as "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Spartacus."

The Oscars for musical score have exhibited their share of headscratchers, anomalies and outright screwups since the first ones were given in 1934. Here are a few:

* None of Bernard Herrmann's innovative and memorable scores for any of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers won, let alone got nominated. They include "Vertigo," "North by Northwest" and "Psycho," the latter possibly the most imitated score in horror-movie history. In fact, Herrmann was overlooked for 30 years until he received two posthumous noms (in 1976) for "Obsession" and "Taxi Driver."

* Max Steiner, the most prolific composer in Hollywood history, lost for his magnum opus, "Gone With the Wind," in 1939. The winner was Herbert Stothart, musical director of "The Wizard of Oz." Those were the days when nominees weren't limited to five contenders; 29 nominees vied for awards in the three music categories.

* The year 1939 was confusing for everybody. Aaron Copland's music for "Of Mice and Men" was nominated both for "score" and "original score" for reasons no one understands. In the "score" category, Copland lost to four arrangers who adapted folk tunes for "Stagecoach."

* Leo Forbstein took home the 1936 Oscar for the music of "Anthony Adverse." Unfortunately, he didn't write any of it. Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold did, but in the early years the Oscar went, amazingly, not to the composer but to the studio music department. Forbstein ran the Warner Bros. music unit.

* Despite writing such classic scores as "Goldfinger," "Thunderball" and music for nine other James Bond films, John Barry -- widely credited with creating the Bond musical style -- was never nominated for either a Bond song or score.

* David Raksin's "Laura" score, which generated one of the most famous songs in movie history, wasn't even nominated in 1944. (In that era, the studios decided which scores should be entered, and Fox's epic "Wilson" was merited the Oscar campaign.)

* Elmer Bernstein, the composer of such landmark scores as "The Magnificent Seven," "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Man With the Golden Arm," didn't win for any of his classics. His sole Oscar was for "Thoroughly Modern Millie," a frothy 1967 musical for which he wrote only the period music, not the songs.

* Many classic Jerry Goldsmith scores lost over the years: "The Sand Pebbles" (to "Born Free," 1966), "Planet of the Apes" (to "The Lion in Winter," 1968), "Chinatown" (to "The Godfather Part II," 1974). His only win was for the summer popcorn thriller "The Omen" in 1976.

* Scores that spawned popular songs or themes often won over more sophisticated music: "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969, beat "The Wild Bunch"), "Love Story" (1970, beat "Patton"), "The Way We Were" (1973, beat "Papillon"), "Fame" (1980, beat "Altered States"), "Chariots of Fire" (1981, beat "On Golden Pond").

* Scores that won despite being largely adapted from earlier works: "The Bridge on the River Kwai," whose most memorable tune was the 43-year-old "Colonel Bogey March," beat "Raintree County" in 1957; "A Little Romance," which contained plenty of Vivaldi, beat "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979; and "Round Midnight," which consisted largely of arrangements of classic jazz tunes, beat "The Mission" in 1986.

* Charles Chaplin won an Oscar for co-composing the score for his 1952 film "Limelight" -- 20 years later. "Limelight" wasn't nominated until 1972, when the film received its first L.A. release (and thus competed against "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Sleuth").

* Also in 1972, Nino Rota's initial nomination for "The Godfather" score was withdrawn when the Acad learned that his love theme originally had been written for the Italian film "Fortunella" 14 years earlier.

* The Acad more or less apologized to Rota by giving him the Oscar two years later for "The Godfather Part II," despite the fact that the vast majority of the score was based on the "Godfather" material from two years earlier (and "Fortunella").

* Alfred Newman's "The Robe," a large-scale work for orchestra and choir that accompanied Fox's first Cinemascope film in 1953, failed to receive a score nomination. Hollywood lore has fellow composer Franz Waxman resigning from the Acad in protest, although Acad records are unclear about the specifics.

* Quincy Jones had so much help composing "The Color Purple" in 1983 that the nomination listed 12 names. Rules have since been changed to disallow multiple composers on a single entry.

* Repeated score wins by Disney songwriter Alan Menken ("The Little Mermaid" in 1989, "Beauty and the Beast" in 1991, "Aladdin" in 1992) led Acad execs to modify the rules so that "dramatic scores" -- as opposed to musicals where the underscore is mostly based on the songs -- rule the category.

* One of the Acad's solutions -- breaking up the category into "original dramatic score" and "original musical or comedy score" -- only worked 1995-98. There is now an optional category for "original musical" but it has never been activated because of the dearth of candidates.

The Guardian

Where did all the great movies go?

Film classics were all over terrestrial TV back in 1987. But where can the budding movie buff get a film education in 2007, wonders Matthew Sweet.

Link to a UK film rental site mentioned in the Guardian article - LoveFilm.com

The NY Times 2-12-07

February 12, 2007

The Media Equation

Deciding Eligibility for Oscar

By DAVID CARR

In Hollywood, a town full of prerogatives, there remains one significant privilege: collecting an Oscar and attending the elite Governor’s Ball for the winners, guests and Tinseltown royalty. And as long as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has its way, it will remain a privilege.

But everyone in Hollywood has the right to sue. And that’s just what Robert Yari, an independent film producer who worked on last year’s best picture, “Crash,” but was disallowed from receiving an Oscar, has done. His suit was viewed as both a challenge to the primacy of the academy to bestow recognition where it sees fit and a breach of show business manners.

According to an e-mail message sent by Bruce Davis, executive director of the academy, and provided to The New York Times by Mr. Yari’s representatives, Mr. Yari shouldn’t spend a lot of time picking out a tux for the Governor’s Ball.

“Mr. Yari’s legal representatives have indicated his intention to continue pressing his cause at a higher level,” he wrote, referring to the case as a “petulant, nonsensical lawsuit.” “So we assume that we can look forward to spending many additional thousands of dollars pointlessly a year or so down the road.”

As a matter of course, Hollywood generally sublimates conflict beneath a patina of glitter and avoidance, but Mr. Davis sent a message in breathtakingly direct fashion. “We are not in any sense a vindictive organization,” his note continues, “but neither are we schmucks: please let Mr. Yari know that for the next half-dozen years or so, unless he personally is a nominee, his Oscar night plans should not include the Governors Ball.”

In the past two years, there have been other skirmishes over credits that have turned unseemly — even for the entertainment business. Not credits on screen, but for the ultimate credit, the right to walk up and accept an Academy Award as a named producer.

This year, Brad Grey, the chief of Paramount, lobbied unsuccessfully to be recognized for “The Departed,” a film that was made by another studio, Warner Brothers, before he took his current job.

At the same time, Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, two of the five producers of “Little Miss Sunshine” were ruled out by the academy, even though the Producers Guild of America had decided that all five were worthy.

The restrictions on just how much love will go around on Oscar night came about after there was the onstage train wreck in 1999, when five producers got up to accept the best picture award for “Shakespeare in Love.”

To fight “producer bloat,” where credits were being handed out as favors to actors, agents and financiers, the academy ruled that generally only three producers would be eligible for a film. It has stated that for the most part it will follow the recommendations of the Producers Guild, a separate organization that is an alliance of film producers.

“This title was being monetized and turned into a kind of currency,” said Vance Van Petten, executive director of the Producers Guild. “Producing is a profession, with a number of specific duties, and some people can’t accept that.”

It’s even more complicated than that because the people who are generally in line to receive a best picture Oscar are an entitled bunch. That walk, that speech, that statue, is a most precious commodity because those golden icons, finite in number, represent the single hard and fast currency in a business that is built on ineffability. When the director James Cameron shouted, “I’m king of the world!” upon getting his hands on a statue, he was in a sense, channeling the id of an entire industry.

After the Producers Guild ruled that he should not get credit as a producer and the academy concurred, Mr. Yari suggested that the academy and the Producers Guild were living in the past, a time when studios made most of the movies that ended up in Oscar contention.

E-mail messages aside, Mr. Yari’s primary beef is with the Producers Guild, not the academy, and what he sees as a flawed procedure for giving credit where credit may or may not be due.

“No one is asking for damages, and we are not seeking to undo what has been done,” Mr. Yari said by phone on Friday. “All I am asking for is to make it a fair and open process, one in which you can respond to the evidence that is being used against you.”

His case has since been rejected by Judge Edward A. Ferns of Los Angeles Superior Court, most recently last month. His lawyers said an appeal would be filed today.

The academy is obviously a bit worn thin by Mr. Yari’s litigious ways — Mr. Davis said that the determination of credits was necessarily a private matter and that he had no comment on what he believed to be private e-mail correspondence.

Regardless of the feeling toward Mr. Yari, the fact remains that no one really believes that the credit issue has been settled, and the academy’s board may well take up the matter this spring after the dust on this year’s Oscars settles.

Scott Rudin, who produced, along with others, three of this year’s contending films — “The Queen,” “Venus” and “Notes on a Scandal,” — said by phone that the issue went far beyond Mr. Yari.

“Ron and Albert produced two of the best movies of the year,” he said, pointing to “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Little Children.” “You can’t determine who deserves to be called a producer just by how many days they spent on the set, just as you can’t determine how many producers it takes to make a movie. Some take one, some take 10.”

Peter Dekom, an entertainment lawyer, said that some retuning needed to be done. “In the independent world, it takes a variety of people to get a film done,” he said.

So much ink, spin and legal effort has been expended on the credits issue, it is sometimes difficult to remember that not a nickel is hanging in the balance.

One of the dirty secrets of this time of year is that the money that is spent on the Oscars — hundreds of millions of dollars on television and trade ads, parties, and shipping DVDs to academy members — can never be recouped even by the most spectacular post-awards bounce. None of last year’s contenders surpassed the $100 million mark in domestic box office. All that money is, in part, the price tag on ego — of making sure that the captains of this industry have something in the trophy case when all is said and done.

And there is something else behind the credit fight. Increasingly, an insurgency of independent producers and private equity money is doing a workaround to the old Hollywood system. For years, the studios arranged credits and nomination campaigns so that all the important constituencies were looked after.

The growth of independent films and studio specialty divisions, most importantly in the rarefied environs of awards-worthy movies, means that those traditional definitions are giving way to a more ad hoc, wide-open world where anybody who can find the money, the story and the talent can be a producer of a movie that can contend for an Oscar.

They just may not be able to get their hands on a statue.

The BAFTAs

Mirren's royal performance rules at Britian's BAFTA awards

by Prashant Rao 12 minutes ago

Helen Mirren was named Best Actress at Britain's BAFTA awards ceremony, continuing her run of success on the film awards circuit for her royal performance in "The Queen."

The movie itself won Best Film at the prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for its portrayal of the British royal family's response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a 1997 Paris car crash.

"The Last King of Scotland" led the field with three awards, along with fantasy movie "Pan's Labyrinth," while hit James Bond film "Casino Royale" picked up just one award, despite being nominated in nine categories.

A tearful Mirren described her victory as an "honour," telling the audience when she picked up her award: "This is great ... What an honour, especially to be nominated, just to be nominated, amongst those incredible powerhouse performances this year from women."

The 61-year-old actress beat fellow British nominees Judi Dench and Kate Winslet, who were nominated for "Notes on a Scandal" and "Little Children" respectively, along with Meryl Streep for "The Devil Wears Prada" and Penelope Cruz for "Volver."

Mirren has already won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the British monarch and both the film and she are shortlisted for Oscars, set to be awarded later this month.

"The Queen," which had been nominated in 10 categories, scooped the Best Film award at the expense of "Babel," "The Departed," "The Last King of Scotland" and "Little Miss Sunshine."

Forest Whitaker was named Best Actor at the awards for his role as the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."

He beat James Bond star Daniel Craig for "Casino Royale," Leonardo DiCaprio for "The Departed," Peter O'Toole for "Venus" and Richard Griffiths for "The History Boys."

Whitaker, 45, thanked God upon receiving the award, telling the audience: "This means a lot because to be embraced by another shore is a special thing."

"I try to think of myself as a citizen of the planet ... to touch people in the world."

"The Last King of Scotland" picked up two other awards, being named Outstanding British Film of the Year and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Paul Greengrass, who won wide acclaim for his work as director of "United 93" -- an account of the events of September 11, 2001 aboard one of the hijacked aeroplanes -- picked up a BAFTA for his efforts.

He declared his belief that cinema must "deal with the way the world is and the dangers there are. We need it very much now."

"Casino Royale" picked up just one award, for Best Sound, though French actress Eva Green, who played Craig's love interest in the film, won the Orange Rising Star award, which is voted on by the public.

By contrast, "Pan's Labyrinth" scooped up three BAFTA awards -- Best Film not in the English Language, Best Costume Design, and Best Make-up and Hair.

Jennifer Hudson was named Best Supporting Actress for "Dreamgirls" and Alan Arkin won Best Supporting Actor for "Little Miss Sunshine."

The NY Times Magazine

Great Performers

By LYNN HIRSCHBERG

If you went to the movies in 2006, a year when the box office was dominated by sequels, animation and the broken yellow VW bus from “Little Miss Sunshine,” it’s likely that what you remember is the performances.

It was not a standout year for filmmaking, but the acting in 2006 was consistently intriguing and often thrilling. In our annual photographic portfolio, the magazine has never tried to guess which actors will win awards but rather to praise performances that moved, distressed, enlivened and, finally, amazed us. We are saluting 22 of those remarkable characters: from Helen Mirren, whose subtly layered portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II both humanized a seemingly cold matriarch and revealed the complicated nature of duty in shifting times, to Sacha Baron Cohen, whose brilliant, seamless portrayal of Borat was simultaneously hilarious and shocking, to the lesser known Abbie Cornish, who was heartbreaking in “Somersault,” an Australian coming-of-age film that played in American theaters for only a few weeks. This was also the year that Penélope Cruz showed off her range as an actress in “Volver,” Forest Whitaker exploded as Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland” and Ivana Baquero, who is 12, deftly balanced the fantastical and the violent in “Pan’s Labyrinth.” And there’s more. The photographs that follow (each commissioned specially for this portfolio) celebrate what can be magical about movies: every great performance is a chance to be enthralled by another life that illuminates your own.

The NY Times film review

February 9, 2007

MOVIE REVIEW | 'THE LIVES OF OTHERS' (Das Leben der Anderden)

A Fugue for Good German Men
By A. O. SCOTT

“The Lives of Others” is haunted by a piece of music called “Sonata for a Good Man,” composed for the film by Gabriel Yared and, at the same time, magically familiar to some of its characters. Like the story that surrounds it — a suspenseful, ethically exacting drama, beautifully realized by the writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck — Mr. Yared’s piece is melancholy, elegant and complicated.

Goodness, as a subject for art, risks falling prey to piety and wishful thinking, but “The Lives of Others,” one of the nominees for this year’s best foreign-language film Oscar, never sacrifices clarity for easy feeling. Posing a stark, difficult question — how does a good man act in circumstances that seem to rule out the very possibility of decent behavior? — it illuminates not only a shadowy period in recent German history, but also the moral no man’s land where base impulses and high principles converge. Mr. von Donnersmarck, born in West Germany in 1973 and making his feature film debut, demonstrates astonishing visual and narrative rigor. Even more remarkably, he is able to reach back into the totalitarian past and over the Berlin Wall into the grim, brutal absurdity of the late, unlamented German Democratic Republic, and lay bare the anxious, cruel psychology of socialism as it once existed.

There are two good men in “The Lives of Others,” which starts in Berlin in 1984, and they are presented in counterpoint, never on screen at the same time. One, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), is a successful playwright; the other, Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), is the Stasi officer who spies on him. Georg, tall and handsome, with a mane of brown hair and a natural grace that stops just short of arrogance, leads something of a charmed life, enjoying a measure of official favor without losing the respect of his fellow artists, who are not all as lucky, or as circumspect, as he is. He shares a roomy apartment in an old building (the kind a capitalist real estate agent would describe as “full of character”) with his girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), a tall, lovely actress who also stars in his plays.

Wiesler, in contrast, appears at first to be a virtual caricature of the unsmiling Stalinist bureaucrat, with a touch of the old Gestapo thrown in for good measure. Wiry and bald, he lives alone in a drab, brutalist high-rise apartment building, distracting himself with state-run television (which reports on chicken farming and declares that “the 10th Party Conference economic policy is solid”) and a quick visit from a prostitute.

He is first seen lecturing a room full of aspiring secret policemen in the techniques of interrogation, and he addresses this task and his surveillance of Georg with the proud discipline of a professional and the zeal of a true believer. (To imply that “our humanistic system” would persecute an innocent person, he tells one of his prisoners, is itself potentially grounds for arrest.)

It is not inaccurate to describe “The Lives of Others” as the story of how both men become disillusioned and hasten each other’s disillusionment. But the paradoxes inherent in this story — which are central to Mr. von Donnersmarck’s brilliant exposition of the Orwellian logic of East German Communism — are worth pausing over. It is not simply that Wiesler, the state-sanctioned, clandestine predator, develops a measure of sympathy for his quarry as he listens in on Georg’s private, unguarded moments (“presumably they have intercourse,” he types in his daily report after eavesdropping on Georg’s birthday party). Surely his training would have inoculated him against this kind of reverse Stockholm syndrome.

Rather, even as Georg is driven toward actions that implicate him, for the first time, in dissident activity, Wiesler becomes convinced of Georg’s essential innocence and takes steps to protect him. The plot, as it acquires the breathless momentum of a thriller, also takes on the outlines of a dark joke. The poet and the secret policeman — both writers, in their differing fashions — may be the only two true patriots in the whole G.D.R.; in other words, the only people who take the Republic’s stated ideals at face value. But since the nation itself functions by means of the wholesale and systematic betrayal of those ideals, the only way Wiesler and Georg can express their loyalty is by committing treason.

Wiesler is at first suspicious of Georg, whose social polish and air of entitlement certainly don’t seem very proletarian. But he soon discovers the real reason for his investigation. Minister Hempf (Thomas Thieme), a government official and former Stasi bigwig, is infatuated with Christa-Maria (who is unable to fend off his grotesque attentions), and he wants some dirt on his rival. Wiesler’s boss, Colonel Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) — the closest thing Wiesler has to a friend — is happy to advance his own career prospects by going along with the minister’s wishes. Faced with such corruption and cynicism at the highest reaches of the party, what is a good man — or, for that matter, a dutiful Communist — to do?

There is a bracing, old-fashioned quality to Mr. von Donnersmarck’s film, which supplies us with good guys to root for and villains to despise. But it also shows, with excruciating precision, the cruelty with which a totalitarian state can exploit the weakness and confusion of its citizens. And even as they are, to some extent, enacting a morality play, the actors also seem like real, vulnerable people forced into impossible choices. This is especially true of Ms. Gedeck, whose natural nobility — her height, her carriage, the strong line of her jaw — makes Christa-Maria’s half-hidden fragility all the more poignant.

The suspense comes not only from the structure and pacing of the scenes, but also, more deeply, from the sense that even in an oppressive society, individuals are burdened with free will. You never know, from one moment to the next, what course any of the characters will choose. Mr. Mühe conveys Wiesler’s curious evolution with appropriate meticulousness and reserve. It is only in retrospect that you appreciate the depth and subtlety of emotion that underlie his performance.

A terrible sadness lies at the heart of “The Lives of Others” — a reckoning of lives and talents wasted by a state with no good reason to exist apart from the maintenance of its own power. But there are comic, even farcical elements as well: a dictatorship that calls itself a democratic republic is inherently ridiculous as well as malignant.

In 2007 we, of course, know in advance the punch line that history will deliver in the autumn of 1989. But the easy, complacent distance that informs much historical filmmaking is almost entirely absent from this supremely intelligent, unfailingly honest movie.

Early in the film, Minister Hempf condescendingly mocks the faith in humanity Georg expresses in his plays: “People don’t change,” he says. And in some ways Mr. von Donnersmarck endorses the minister’s point of view, even as he turns its cynicism into cause for hope. Georg and Captain Wiesler, though they occasionally waver and worry, remain true to their essential natures, and thus embody the film’s deepest, most challenging paradox: people don’t change, and yet the world does.

Women make film men shine - Michael Sragow

The other kind of chick flick, those directed by women.

Women make film men shine
Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun

When hollywood was still adult, they were called "women's pictures." They revolved around eternal issues such as the tension between personal happiness and wifely duty or motherhood, and the shape these issues took could range from powerhouse tear-jerkers such as "Imitation of Life" to no-holds-barred melodramas such as "Mildred Pierce."

Today they are called "chick flicks," and they refer to any movie that a girl or a woman is most likely to attend alone or with her gal pals, or with her local chapter of the Oprah Book Club. Examples currently in theaters include "Catch and Release" and "The Holiday" as well as "Music and Lyrics," which opens Wednesday.

As we approach the most romantic day of the year, guys looking for Valentine's movies to share with their gals should consider the wisdom of the chick flick.

The simple act of attending a chick flick can be viewed as a gesture of incomparable self-sacrifice. But if you gauge who gains the most from this adventure, it's got to be the male of the species.

When guys get dragged to a chick flick, they know their gender group will receive a fair shake. Sure, the action will feature some male dastards. But they carry the benefit of making a date look kindly and selfless to his gal, at least by comparison to the big lugs on the big screen.

And as chick flicks start to also mean movies made by women, the genre is exerting a more profound pull on male audiences, as female directors bring out subtle dynamics in male performers.

Free spirits
Australian filmmaker Gillian Armstrong is one of the most fiercely talented moviemakers at work today. My favorite Armstrong movie is the little-seen "High Tide" (1987), which stars Judy Davis as a benign, lyrical drunk -- a backup singer for an Elvis imitator who winds up in an ocean-side Australian town. Davis has rarely been as accessible and funny -- or as chillingly ironic -- as she is here, answering the question: What does a free spirit do when she's a mother? And as a fisherman and painter who briefly offers her solace and security, Colin Friels, Davis' real-life husband, makes affability sexy.

Bit 'High,' bit 'Rough'
"High Tide" opened within weeks of another female auteur's marvelous debut: Clare Peploe's "High Season" (1987), a wildly original warm-weather comedy. It's about art and treason and the virtues of vacation: clearing your mind, letting go. Once again, the male and female cast members are beautifully matched, including Jacqueline Bisset (at her liveliest) and Kenneth Branagh -- here a masterly moonstruck comedian as a secret agent with a crush on her. Peploe's rowdy, enjoyable second feature, "Rough Magic" (1995), is a deliberately haywire high-wire act concerning uranium, drugs, Mayan sorcery, the hypocritical feel-good '50s, and Bridget Fonda and Russell Crowe. In "Rough Magic," Peploe offers a tender cut of Crowe and sums up what new wave "chick flicks" can offer to male audiences: multifaceted portraits of man at his best.

Getting under the skin
Perhaps because they can't fall back on buddy-buddy badinage or fall into macho competition, female directors bring out actors' other sides. Check out how that happened with Charles Grodin in Elaine May's "The Heartbreak Kid," with John Heard and Peter Riegert in Joan Micklin Silver's "Chilly Scenes of Winter," with Sean Penn in Amy Heckerling's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and with Nicolas Cage in Martha Coolidge's "Valley Girl."

Babs gets it
Critics ridiculed Barbra Streisand for not giving Mandy Patinkin a single song to sing in her directorial debut, "Yentl" (1983) -- but that high god of macho John Huston thought it was "extraordinary," and Patinkin has never registered so strongly as a virile presence in anything he has done since. In the scenes where a cross-dressed Streisand rouses diverse feelings in Patinkin and in Amy Irving, the actor-director revels in the permutations of male and female sexuality -- and doesn't erase the differences.

And Streisand didn't win the praise she deserved for handing her "The Prince of Tides" scenes off to Nick Nolte and, as a director, turning this longtime Hollywood dauphin into a king of dramedy. Nolte has always been an expressive actor, but in "The Prince of Tides," without losing his wicked, muscular sardonicism, he let his lavalike emotions sneak up on you and then explode.

Forbes - Oscar Global Glow

This year, the acting and directing Oscar categories appear to be represented by more countries than ever before. This Forbes.com article mentions seven young international stars to watch for.

Oscar's Global Glow
Saabira Chaudhuri 02.06.07, 12:00 PM ET

So what do Oscar hopefuls do in the three weeks before the Academy Awards are doled out? Some try on dresses, others draft speeches. This year, many will be double checking their passports.

That’s because the 2007 Academy Award nominees are, in large numbers, not Americans. Only one of the five best actress nods is from the U.S. (Meryl Streep), while three of the five best supporting nominees come from abroad. Only two of best director contenders--Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorcese--are American filmmakers. (United 93 director Paul Greengrass is English.) Indeed, 2006 will go down in history as the year Hollywood went global, with foreign language films (Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima), films about foreigners (The Last King of Scotland, The Queen), and international actors and actresses dominating awards ceremonies.

Some say it’s a consequence of the United States’ more visible role in international affairs. Others say it’s proof of America’s increasing diversification. “On the same day that the U.S. government tightened passport rules for Americans re-entering the country, Hollywood lowered its guard and gave a big wet kiss to globalization,” commented film critic Bruce Newman in the San Jose Mercury News.

Not that this is the first time Hollywood has embraced its overseas acolytes. By 1914, Londoner Charlie Chaplin was already filming in California’s Keystone Studios, and would emerge as one of entertainment’s earliest superstars. Film sirens like Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo all claimed foreign citizenship. Even today, Hollywood’s A-list includes members from Spain (Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas), Australia (Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman), and China (Jackie Chan, Gong Li). In spite of this however, that exclusive clique of international actors has been an exceptionally tough club to crack--until now.


Seven International Stars Worth Watching

Former somebodies somewhere else are now poised to conquer America’s famously fickle film audiences. High on Forbes’ list of emerging international stars is Paz Vega, 31, the veteran Spanish actress (dubbed the Julia Roberts of Spain) who debuted in her first big-budget Hollywood flick in 2004’s Spanglish, starring Adam Sandler. Last year Vega earned critical praise for her role in Morgan Freeman’s small indie film, 10 Items or Less.

Aussie sensation Isla Fisher--often referred to as fiancée of Borat jokester Sacha Baron Cohen--earned attention for her supporting role in Wedding Crashers, which grossed $285 million worldwide for Time Warner subsidiary New Line Cinema. Fisher appears in three movies slated for release this year, including Paramount’s Hot Rod, which stars Saturday Night Live headliners Andy Samberg and Bill Hader.

Even before Mexican heartthrob Gael García Bernal appeared in Oscar-nominated Babel alongside Brad Pitt, the 28-year-old actor landed on Hollywood hot lists for his sympathetic portrait of a young Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries. (The Los Angeles Times suggested calling his legions of female fans “Gael’s Groupies.”) Rumor has it he’s up to play the villain opposite Matt Damon in Bourne Ultimatum.

Former Miss World and a Bollywood favorite Aishwarya Rai has acted in almost 30 films over the last seven years, including Devdas and Bride and Prejudice. In 2005 CBS news magazine 60 Minutes dubbed her “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman”. She’s already landed big roles--opposite Meryl Streep in Chaos (not yet filming) and later this year in The Last Legion, a period piece about the fall of Rome starring Ben Kingsley.

This year’s list of Oscar nominees is a veritable watchlist of emerging international talent that includes Spain’s Adriana Barraza of Spain (Best Supporting Actress, Babel), Japan’s Rinko Kikuchi (Best Supporting Actress, Babel), and West African-born, naturalized U.S. citizen Djimon Hounsou (Best Supporting Actor, Blood Diamond).

Variety - Blighty films explore blight

Blighty films explore blight

Filmmakers turn away from escapism

By ADAM DAWTREY

If any filmmaker fits the description of a prophet without honor in his own country, it's Ken Loach.

His Irish Civil War drama "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" may have been good enough to win the Palme d'Or in Cannes last May, but it didn't manage to get a single BAFTA nomination in his own homeland.

Yet the spirit of Loach presided over British cinema in 2006 as filmmakers responded to these times of global anxiety by turning away from escapism -- whether romantic comedy, period pics or gangster capers -- and embracing contemporary drama engaged with the pressing question of how we live now.

Even at the blockbuster end of the scale, reality intrudes. "Casino Royale" triumphantly unveiled a grittier, more human Bond whose antagonist is no cartoonish Dr. Evil, but a financier of terrorism. "Borat" blurs the lines of fiction and fact to pose hilarious questions about racism, prejudice and America's attitude toward the world.

And with movies such as "The Queen," "Venus," "Notes on a Scandal," "The Last King of Scotland," "United 93," "Breaking and Entering," "Red Road" and "London to Brighton," it was almost as though "The Wednesday Play" and "Play for Today," the BBC's legendary strands of socially committed telepics from the1960s and '70s, had suddenly been reborn for the 21st century.

Of course, that was exactly where the likes of Loach, "Queen" director Stephen Frears and "Notes on a Scandal" helmer Richard Eyre cut their filmmaking teeth.

Eyre actually ran the "Play for Today" anthology for a time, before heading off to run the National Theater. He acknowledges public-service TV and subsidized theater as the twin, entwined roots of "Notes."

"I learnt about filmmaking at 'Play for Today,' and we always plucked writers from the theater," he says. "We're all graduates of British TV. There's a variety and ambition of a lot of TV drama, which has been incredibly vigorous in the past and indeed sporadically into the present."

Frears, who admits he was surprised auds embraced the authenticity of "The Queen" rather than the lightweight escapism of his previous flop "Mrs. Henderson Presents," comments: "It's very striking that this whole group of rather good films has come through, which go back to places like the BBC and the Royal Court Theater. They gave us a clear sense of decent values, which we learned under the Welfare State, with a great importance attached to writers and material. And in a way, Loach was the father of all that."

Royally radical

The subsidized Royal Court was always a hothouse of taboo-busting, socially committed theater. "Venus" director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi place their story explicitly within that tradition by having Peter O'Toole's decrepit actor take Jodie Whittaker's working-class ingenue to see a play -- where else but the Royal Court.

With a sly self-parody, this play consists of three working-class girls saying "fuck" and "cunt" a lot. Kureishi's script already gave such unexpected language to O'Toole and his sidekick, Leslie Phillips.

"Breaking and Entering" writer-director Anthony Minghella is another influenced by "Play for Today." His own movie debut, "Truly Madly Deeply," started life as a BBC telepic. Its surprise success swept him away into a decade of literary/historical epics -- "The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Cold Mountain" -- before he returned to his roots in contempo London drama with "Breaking and Entering."

"I'm younger than guys like Frears and Eyre, but I grew up watching their work on 'Play for Today,'" Minghella says. "My first collection of plays was called 'Interior Room, Exterior City,' which reflects my preoccupation with the fact that what happens in personal-relationship stories really only makes sense in the context of what goes on outside the windows.

Explosive context

"At the time, it was less easy for everyone to grasp what I meant by that, but now everyone understands what that means," he adds. "Literally while we were shooting 'Breaking and Entering' in London, there were bombs going off just two or three miles away."

For their part, Paul Greengrass and Michael Winterbottom both deployed the techniques of docudrama, which evolved in Brit public TV, to confront the uncomfortable truths of 9/11 and the "war on terror" in "United 93" and "The Road to Guantanamo," respectively. The guru of the new "reality cinema" is scriptwriter Peter Morgan, with features such as "The Queen" and "The Last King of Scotland," and the acclaimed telepic "Longford."

With this trend toward authenticity, it's perhaps no wonder that Brit critics were so dismissive about the fake London depicted in Woody Allen's "Match Point." Allen's second London pic, "Scoop," hasn't even got a British distributor.

There's no doubt that filmmakers want to make this stuff -- even Working Title, the king of commercial escapism, is turning toward docs and reality cinema, after the acclaim it received for "United 93." What's less clear, as Loach himself could testify after a long career of swimming against the commercial tide, is whether audiences actually want to see it.

Brit pics generally fared poorly at the box office in 2006. Mankind, it seems, cannot bear too much reality. Ironically, Loach had his most successful outing ever at the U.K. box office with "Barley," a movie dismissed by BAFTA voters, perhaps because its concern with the fratricidal politics of 1920s Ireland seemed so remote from present-day realities.

The Sun Chronicle

Sunday FEBRUARY 4, 2007

Give her Bogie any day

Ask just about any other girl my age to name her favorite actors and you'll probably be bombarded by any number of Brad Pitts, George Clooneys, Johnny Depps and Orlando Blooms.

My favorite actors? While I must admit to being a hardcore fan of Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey and Jack Nicholson, many of my favorite actors are those who starred in what have recently become my favorite movies.

No, I'm not referring to Jason Statham in "Crank," and I definitely don't mean Justin Timberlake in "Alpha Dog."

I'm talking about films like "The Maltese Falcon," "The Big Sleep," "To Have and Have Not," "Gilda," "Double Indemnity" and "Touch of Evil," to name, well, more than a few.

Humphrey Bogart.

Fred MacMurray.

Glenn Ford.

And despite the grotesque figure he presents in "Touch of Evil" (or maybe because of it) even Orson Welles has earned a place in my historically misplaced heart.

Oh, and did I mention Humphrey Bogart?

I was first introduced to Bogart via his role as a fast-talking, smart-mouthed private eye in John Huston's 1941 film noir classic "The Maltese Falcon."

Formerly a fanatic of contemporary psychological thrillers and action films (honestly, who doesn't love "Die Hard" or "Silence of the Lambs"?), Bogart's acting style didn't immediately win me over.

By the time I saw Bogie paired for the first time in a feature film with Lauren Bacall in the cinematic adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel "The Big Sleep" (which I have since read and highly recommend, by the way), my feelings for the actor were nothing short of love.

My fascination with films of the 1940s and '50s, and even those of the '60s and '70s ("Chinatown" and "Dr. Strangelove," for example), is probably more academic than most people enjoy being when watching films for entertainment purposes.

When we watch contemporary movies, we take for granted the context in which they are written, filmed and released. We tend to do this because the types of events that are influential to film production are, at the time, common knowledge.

We all know about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, global warming and even Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's post-"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" baby fiasco.

What viewers my age don't know is the context in which films like "The Big Sleep" were produced - the "scandal" around the 40-something Bogie making the 20-year-old Bacall his fourth, yes fourth, wife shortly after the film's release.

It's finding out the inside scoop on these films - how Orson Welles was only allowed to direct "Touch of Evil" at the behest of Charlton Heston, much to the producer's chagrin - and then applying that knowledge to a second or third viewing that makes these (ahem) "old" movies so interesting.

But what's my point?

I guess my point is that you should never judge a book by - no, wait you should never judge a movie by its initial release date? Or an actor by the fact that he's deceased? (Or soon will be...sorry, Mr. Heston.)

Or even a film fanatic based on the fact that she's only 21.

Paige MacGregor is a film studies and English major at Wheaton College who interned at The Sun Chronicle during the winter break.
She can be contacted at macgregor.paige@gmail.com.

Making a link in your post

For the 5 contributors to this blog....

This is how to make a link in your post:

Choose the text with your mouse (slide across the text, holding down your mouse) for the link you want to add. Then click on the little link icon at the top of your message box.

Depending on your browser, a window will appear with a place to type in your link.

In IE 7, you may get a security warning at the top of your browser screen asking if it is OK to add a link. When you click on that warning, you get a message to temporarily add links. Then you add the link to the box that next appears.

In Firefox, it remembers and doesn't bother you with all that security. I don't know about Netscape or other browsers - or Mac OCS

I hope this helps.

Pete Hammond on the Oscars

Every year I wonder why I still care about the Oscars, every year it becomes more clear that it has as much, if not more, to do with politicking, marketing and popularity as it does with excellence in filmmaking. However, it is still the biggest, most prestigious event in the industry, and as Pete Hammond says in this Hollywood Wiretap column, "it ain't over till the last envelope is opened".

THE SEASON: Changing tides, alternating alliances and Peter O'Toole mean it ain't over till the last envelope is opened
By Pete Hammond

The Season heads into the final stretch now following a nomination morning last week that offered some surprises, a lot of sure things and - other than in the increasingly predictable acting categories - few clues as to the final outcome. But here are a few observations:

SANTA BARABARA IS HOT: With so much on the line, where did the majority of newly-minted nominees go immediately after getting nominated? No, not Disneyland, dummy. The Santa Barbara Film Festival, of course, where stars like Will Smith, Helen Mirren and Sacha Baron Cohen, along with producers, writers, directors and costume designers did their thing for press and the estimated 125 or so Academy voters who happen to live in Montecito and environs (Rob Lowe and Jane Russell never got THIS much attention from the industry).

FRIENDSHIP TRUMPS POLITICS: In a spirit of heart-warming camaraderie three distributors (Universal, Paramount and Picturehouse) announced an unprecedented joint party to be held next week honoring the “three amigos” Alfonso Cuaron (“Children Of Men”), Guillermo DelToro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu (“Babel”), each of whom won two personal nominations but don’t compete directly against each other.
IT AIN'T OVER: Eight-time nominee and sentimental favorite, Peter O’Toole, after losing regularly to Forest Whitaker (also heading to Santa Barbara this weekend), is finally coming to L.A. for the Oscar nominees lunch Monday afternoon and some serious schmoozing to try and turn the tide in his direction. And who is the person who wants to meet and greet him the most? That’s right, Forest Whitaker who was crushed the British acting legend he so admires didn’t show at SAG over the weekend.

THE OSCARS WILL TRY SOMETHING NEW (AGAIN): Producer Laura Ziskin readies the big show with lots of surprises (we hope) and an innovative approach to the much-maligned nominated-song numbers that will include a first in Academy history (we know what it is but we’ll let the Acad break that news).

CONSULTANTS WILL FOLLOW THE MONEY: As of today, most of this year’s Academy Award final ballots will be in the hands of the voters (due back Feb. 20) and the multi-million dollar campaigns will all come down to an ‘X’ and a whim, a compromise choice or a passionate pick on the part of the elusive Academy voter whose capricious decision represents the blood, sweat and tears of dozens of tired and anxious Oscar consultants. Oddly, as the season progressed and certain fortunes waned some of these “loyal” consultants switched sides, signed up with the “enemy” and now will finish up the season tub-thumping for a contender they opposed last October.

A conversation from earlier this week:
Consultant: “By the way I’m pushing Mirren and O’Toole now.”
Me: "Really? What happened to Paramount?”
Consultant: “After last Tuesday they decided to save some money.”
It’s the nature of the game.

MOMENTUM RULES: A fun Variety column by the always-cranky but ever-readable Peter Bart complained that Oscar “buzz,” especially among those damned bloggers, is now officially out of control (we agree) and that “the truly knowledgeable ‘old pros’ observe that Oscar campaigns, like presidential elections, seem to be subject to tides.” Truer words were never written.

Bart went on to prophesize, like a modern day High Lama, that over the next month, “subtle tides will be in evidence in (this year’s) Oscar race.” As the the only journalist who is also an Academy voter, he’s right - on paper at least.

Even in a year like this where any one of the five Best Picture nominees could triumph, there will be clues suddenly appearing for those looking to win their office pool. Oscar races, after all, are ALL about momentum. Last year the inevitable Best Picture victory of “Crash” presented itself just days before the Oscar telecast when an overwhelming wave of voters indicated they had supported it, even to the point where it appeared that the pundits’ predicted winner, “Brokeback Mountain,” faded so fast (a victim of unrealistically heightened expectations, much like “Dreamgirls”) that it might not even have come in SECOND.

THE ACADEMY'S DIVIDED: With the technical categories mostly at odds with the Best Picture nominees, there has never been a greater gap within the organization, or so it seems. It’s a kind of blue state (actors, writers, directors, producers), red state (editors, sound mixers, art directors etc) divide. It is entirely possible that the Best Picture winner could be anointed with just two awards this year, a dubious achievement accomplished very few times in Academy history and not since 1952 when “The Greatest Show On Earth” won only one other award (for the now-defunct Motion Picture Story category).

This year could see PGA and SAG winner “Little Miss Sunshine” grab just Picture and Original Screenplay. Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” might get only Picture and Sound Editing. “Babel” might triumph in only Picture and Editing. “The Queen” could realistically grab only Picture and Actress. You get the idea.

Even in the most optimistic scenarios no one Best Picture nominee looks likely to get more than three awards, tops, (like “Crash” last year) and in fact could be almost doubled by “Dreamgirls” which has a decent shot in six lesser categories (that ought to make un-nominated writer/director Bill Condon even more ebullient than he seemed at HIS Santa Barbara Film Fest Tribute Monday night).

Even though “The Departed” and “Babel” do have the key writing, directing, editing and acting noms that usually indicate a winner, it’s a rule that seems a little shakier than usual this year.

With this kind of barren landscape, the odds of one of these films riding the wave and clearly seeing the tide rise during the voting period might be a little longer than usual. It might be one of those nights where the story really can’t be filed until the final envelope is officially opened.

One confused Oscar voter we talked to this week was clearly frustrated by her choices and told us the glut of awards shows with the same acting winners over and over had worn her out.

“Why do we even need to vote for Oscars this year? It’s already been decided,” she said.

It will indeed be interesting to see the effect all these outside influences (22 Best Actress awards already for Mirren’s “Queen,” 17 for Whitaker’s “King” for instance) have with an Academy clearly tired of being told what they are going to vote for.

It’s anybody’s guess to see what those fickle voters will do, but the ballots are out and THE SEASON is all about watching that winning tide come in. It may be a long wait.

The UK Daily Telegraph

And the winner for best ceremony is...

Forget the Oscars -the critics' awards are the most reliable, says David Gritten

It won't have escaped your notice that two big film awards ceremonies, the Baftas and the Oscars, are looming this month. But first Britain's critics get to have their say; next Thursday marks the Critics' Circle 27th Film Awards.

The event is certainly more low-profile than the other two, both of which are televised, but I'd argue the Critics' Circle awards are more useful to British cinemagoers, in terms of nudging them towards films they might not otherwise seek out.

Of course, as chairman of the Critics' Circle film section, I would say that. Yet I genuinely believe our awards do more to promote otherwise unconsidered talent – especially British talent.

As evidence, consider our nominees for British actress of the year (an award sponsored, happily, by The Daily Telegraph). The usual suspects are there: Dames Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, and the stellar Kate Winslet.

But so is Kate Dickie, mesmerising as the lead of the remarkable but little-seen Scottish film Red Road. And so is Lorraine Stanley, whose blistering turn as a compassionate prostitute was the highlight of another virtually unseen British film, London to Brighton. It is her first-ever nomination.

In fact, we critics have showered four nominations on Red Road and its talent, as opposed to Bafta's one (to director Andrea Arnold). Yet the film had rave reviews when it opened here, and intrigued European critics when it was shown at Cannes.

That raises another point: I guarantee we film critics (there are almost 120 of us) see more films week in, week out, than members of other awards bodies. When we cast a vote, it's based on a vast wealth of film-watching experiences – by no means all of them good ones.

In contrast, other organisations have their own agendas. Many Oscar votes, for example, are cast by employees of studios obediently voting for films originating in their own workplaces.

This bloc voting is the dirty little secret of the Academy Awards. And stories still persist about Hollywood executives giving Oscar voting slips to their maids or gardeners to complete. It wouldn't be surprising: some of these people find reading an entire script too laborious, let along filling out forms.

As for Bafta, it's clearly a force for good in the land, yet some of its voting patterns put one in mind of a genteel Establishment club. And it seems odd that, given the success of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen did not even receive one Bafta nomination.

As for the Golden Globe awards, one should remember they exist primarily as an American TV show. (Proceeds from the show enable generous donations to entertainment-related charities and film schools.) Golden Globe voters, numbering around 90, are mostly showbiz journalists (rather than critics) who cover Hollywood for non-American media outlets.

The problem is that Golden Globes voters rarely see films not spoon-fed to them by Hollywood studios. Long-time accusations that a groaning buffet table can buy their votes have receded, but the Golden Globes favour stardom, glamour and light entertainment over unsettling films: hence the absence from its recent lists of director Paul Greengrass's brilliant 9/11-themed United 93. (Our critics have given it three nominations.)

All voting bodies are imperfect, and some people may not agree with our critics' preferences next week. (Frontrunners are The Queen, with seven nominations, The Last King of Scotland with five, and Red Road, Volver and The Prestige with four.)

We'll enjoy our evening, we'll once again raise a substantial sum for the NSPCC, as we have done for the past 12 years – and we'd humbly suggest that, if you seek