THE AVIATOR Screening

Martin Scorsese’s 2004 Best Picture nominee The Aviator is the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ "Great To Be Nominated" series. The handsome but vapid Howard Hughes biopic will be screened on Monday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Following the screening, cast members Alec Baldwin, Jacob Davich, J.C. Mackenzie, and Amy Sloan, production sound mixer Petur Hliddal, special effects supervisor R. Bruce Steinheimer, and miniature effects supervisor Matthew Gratzner will take part in a discussion about the film.
The US$100-million-plus The Aviator wasn’t quite the hoped-for critical and box-office hit, though the biopic won numerous accolades and did good business thanks to the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio [...]

Sundance 2008: IN BRUGES, DIMINISHED CAPACITY

Liam Lacey on Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges at the Toronto Globe and Mail:
"Colin Farrell [above] and Brendan Gleason [sic] appear to draw on the model of the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, with Farrell as the anxious, not-so-bright apprentice and Gleeson as his composed, epicurean partner, as they await orders from their irascible overseer (Ralph Fiennes). McDonagh’s dialogue is consistently clever, though his pacing is a problem, as is his weakness for corny surrealism: Peter Dinklage appears as a snide dwarf American movie actor; doing a knock-off version of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Back [sic] in a set designed to look like a Hieronymus Bosch painting."
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At indieWIRE, actor and theater director Terry Kinney, whose feature-film debut, the dramatic comedy [...]

Oscar’s Comeback Nominees

Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream (top); Roman Polanski, Adrien Brody in The Pianist (middle); Diane Lane in Unfaithful (bottom)

Since the 1960s, nearly every year has had at least one Oscar comeback in the acting/directing categories. Some were veterans getting their first chance at the Oscars; others were Oscar veterans getting their first nod in years.
Below are a few examples in the last 10 years. As per this list, Oscar’s comeback veterans hardly ever win.

2005
William Hurt, nominated as best supporting actor for A History of Violence. Hurt has three previous best actor nominations; the last one in 1987 was for Broadcast News. He won in 1985 for Kiss of [...]

THE AVIATOR – Leonardo DiCaprio – d: Martin Scorsese

The Aviator (2004)
Direction: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: John Logan
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda, Alec Baldwin, Kelli Garner, Gwen Stefani, Ian Holm, Adam Scott, Frances Conroy, Willem Dafoe, Jacob Davich, Jude Law, John C. Reilly, Edward Herrmann, Stanley DeSantis, Danny Huston, Matt Ross
 

 

WHAT’S NOT GOOD FOR THE SPRUCE GOOSE. . .
Imagine Citizen Kane directed by Steven Spielberg. The final result would look something like a Barry Levinson film — for instance, the superficial and glitzy Bugsy. Or the superficial, glitzy, and bloated The Aviator. Except, of course, that Levinson is not the man responsible for the mega-production starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the eccentric, billionaire ladies’ man Howard Hughes. Strangely enough, that man is Martin Scorsese, the director of hard-hitting [...]