Alternative Film Guide

Joe Dziemianowicz in the New York Daily News:

"Who says it’s never as good as the first time! Cate Blanchett, up for leading actress for playing QE1 in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, was up for the same award for the same role in 1998’s Elizabeth. She joins an elite club that includes Al Pacino — he was nominated twice playing Michael Corleone in The Godfather and the first sequel."

***

Others who earned two Oscar nods for the same role: Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley in Going My Way (1944, he won) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945) Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986, he won); and Peter O’Toole as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968).

***

Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post:

"The shortlist wasn’t the first source of controversy for the committee, which has long been accused of having arbitrary rules. Foreign-language films aren’t submitted for Oscar consideration by their filmmakers or studios but by countries, opening the process to politics and cronyism. ‘Each country does it differently,’ said Picturehouse President Bob Berney, a longtime critic of the nomination process. (Picturehouse’s film Mongol made the list, whereas La Vie en Rose, which the studio also distributed, was overlooked by France in favor of Persepolis, which the committee proceeded to overlook.)"

"’In France there are only six or eight people on the (submission) committee, whereas in Spain, 1,000 people vote,’ Berney said, ‘which only adds to the ambiguous nature of this process. And the fact that a country can nominate only one is very tough.’"

***

Hornaday’s article could have been more incisive, e.g., the above quote refers to the fact that the submission process is open to "politics and cronyism." But isn’t that what goes on inside the Academy itself, whether in the foreign-language film committee or elsewhere?

Also, unfortunately she doesn’t take to task the absurd idea that the foreign-language film category has become obsolete. (How many non-English-language films have been nominated for the best film Oscar in the last 80 years? The answer is 8, one of which, Letters from Iwo Jima, is an American production directed by Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood.) Borders may (or may not) be more porous today, but tribalism is still the law of just about every land.

That said, the article does offer a couple of interesting quotes. Besides the one above (I should add that I’m not sure if Berney’s submission committee figures are correct), Mark Johnson, chairman of the Academy’s nominating committee for the foreign-language film Oscar, says that committee members have considered a "wild-card" approach in which the winners of the "four or five of the most important film festivals" would be automatically nominated. Just a different way of keeping the foreign-film selection equally unrepresentative.

***

Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times:

"The year’s best background story came with Diablo Cody, nominated for her original screenplay for Juno. As everybody now knows, she was notoriously a stripper before penning this first screenplay, which took Hollywood by storm. But let’s put her in perspective: There is no indication she was ever a prostitute, she wrote a book about her year as a stripper, and stripping is, after all, a branch of show business."

***

I can’t understand why Ebert brought up the subject of prostitution, but what if Diablo Cody had actually been a prostitute? How would that change what she has accomplished with Juno? (I haven’t seen the movie, yet.) After all, prostitute and assorted sex workers at least provide a useful and quite necessary service to society. That’s much, much more than can be said for the myriad shameless whores in all professional areas, including film criticism.

***

Sound mixer Kevin O’Connell in Newsday:

"I was at the Academy, in my underwear, talking to Nicolas Cage. He was showing me the nominations list, but when I looked at it, it disappeared. I always remember sleepless nights, but I never had that weird anxiety."

O’Connell is the most nominated individual to have never won an Oscar, having lost the statuette 19 times in the past. He’s up for one again this year, for Transformers.

***

And make sure to check out the Movie City News Oscar nominations sidebar

 

Oscar 2008: Nominations Buzz

Oscar 2008: Nominations

Meet the Oscars

Oscar 2008: 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS of Outrage

Oscar 2008 Poster

Oscar 2008: Foreign-Language Film Shortlist

Oscar Balloting Explained

Oscar 2008: Best Makeup Shortlist

Oscar 2008: Visual Effects Shortlist

Oscar 2008 Predictions

 

 

Add Alternative Film Guide to:        blinkbits BlinkList Bloglines blogmarks co.mments connotea del.icio.us De.lirio.us digg Fark FeedLounge feedmelinks Furl GoogleReader Kinja LinkaGoGo Ma.gnolia MyAOL MyMSN MyYahoo NetVibes NewsAlloy NewsBurst NewsGator NewsVine Netvouz Pluck RawSugar Reddit Rojo scuttle Shadows SimplyHeadlines Simpy Smarking Spurl TailRank Technorati Wists YahooMyWeb

 

Comments RSS