PRECIOUS Sweeps 25th Spirits Awards

Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique in Precious (top); Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (bottom)

Lee Daniels‘ urban family drama Precious swept the 25th Spirit Awards held this evening at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.
Precious won a total of five awards out of five nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Gabourey Sidibe), Best Supporting Actress (Mo’Nique), and Best First Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher). Upon receiving his Best Director trophy from The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner and two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster, Daniels referred to the odds-on Oscar favorite: “Kathryn Bigelow isn’t here tonight. I am.” Lucky him, though, ironically, Bigelow was not nominated last year, when her Iraq War drama was eligible for the Spirits. (There had been no Oscar buzz [...]

by Steve Montgomery | March 5, 2010   
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Oscar Predictions 2010: Best Original Screenplay

(500) Days of Summer, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen
Up, Pete Docter and Bob Petersen

James Cameron, who failed to get a nomination for Titanic back in early 1998, may take the place of either the Coen brothers or the (500) Days of Summer screenwriters. It’s true that Avatar’s screenplay hasn’t been considered its strongest point and that many have accused it of being shamelessly derivative, but the Academy’s Writers Branch have often gone for material that some critics deemed of questionable value, e.g., Ghost, Braveheart, Gladiator, Hotel Rwanda, Lars and the Real Girl. In fact, for every "highbrow" [...]

by Steve Montgomery | January 31, 2010   
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THE HURT LOCKER Tops National Society of Film Critics Awards

Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment)

The Hurt Locker was the National Society of Film Critics’ big winner. The war drama about a bomb squad doing their work in the dangerous streets of an Iraqi city was voted best film of 2009, and earned honors for director Kathryn Bigelow and actor Jeremy Renner. Most US film critic’ groups have picked The Hurt Locker as the best film of 2009 and Bigelow as best director. Jeremy Renner has also received several citations and is up for a SAG Award.
The NSFC’s best actress was — I told you not be surprised — Cesar winner Yolande Moreau for Séraphine, in which she plays Séraphine de Senlis, a houseworker [...]

by Steve Montgomery | January 3, 2010   
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UP IN THE AIR – US Critics’ Top Screenplay

George Clooney, Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air (Dale Robinette / Paramount)

Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner’s screenplay for Up in the Air is the #1 winner among North American critics groups, with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds coming in second place.
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber’s (500) Days of Summer, a boy meets girl tale in which things don’t quite go as planned, has been a favorite as well. Other screenplays that have received more than one nod from critics are Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man.
Although The Hurt Locker has been the critics’ top film and Kathryn Bigelow their top director, Mark Boal’s screenplay [...]

by Steve Montgomery | January 2, 2010   
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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN d: Joel and Ethan Coen

Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: The Pros
The Cons:

I was unable to either relate to or care about any of the "good" characters. Josh Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss is supposed to be the "ordinary guy" who acts the way ordinary guys would act under similar circumstances. Well, perhaps it’s true that the average guy is really stupid, selfish, and greedy, but there’s nothing ordinary about the way the Vietnam veteran uses a firing weapon to shoot both animals and his pursuer. Worse yet, Llewelyn’s deadly foolhardiness — innocent bystanders get slaughtered because of him — had me rooting for Chigurh to come and eliminate that tough-talking health hazard fast.
The final battle [...]

by Andre Soares | December 26, 2009   
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