At the 2008 Oscar luncheon at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Monday, Academy president Sid Ganis remarked that “regardless of those circumstances, which are beyond our control, we will be presenting the awards as scheduled.”
Needless to say, “those circumstances” are the Writers Guild strike, which actually may be coming to a close.
Ganis added, “it would be such a terrible shame if, through no fault of yours and no fault of ours, the current conditions prevented us from shining that brightest possible light” on the Academy’s film achievers of 2007.
According to Michael Cieply’s New York Times article on the Oscar luncheon, “within the striking guilds a ferocious debate has divided writers into two groups: those who would grant the Oscars a truce in order to use the ceremony as a bully pulpit, and those who would inflict damage on the studios, and ABC, by chasing celebrities away from the show.”
As an aside: Cieply also states that Ganis’ speech clocked in at 9 minutes.
If all goes Ganis’ way, stars and writers will be present at the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony at the Kodak Theatre on February 24.
George Clooney, Amy Ryan.
Casey Affleck, George Clooney, Javier Bardem.Photos: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.
Academy’s star-studded Oscar Nominees Luncheon: From Julie Christie & Robert Boyle to Casey Affleck & Michael Moore
If the Writers Guild of America strike ends by then – and that’s now a possibility – the Academy Awards ceremony will be held in all its 4-hour glory on Sunday, Feb. 24, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.
The screenwriters
Pictured above, seated, left to right:
Nancy Oliver. Diablo Cody. Tamara Jenkins. Sarah Polley.
Standing, left to right:
Ronald Harwood. Jan Pinkava. Christopher Hampton. Paul Thomas Anderson. Jim Capobianco. Tony Gilroy. Brad Bird. Ethan and Joel Cohen.
Click on the image of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters to enlarge it.
The movies nominated in this year’s Best Writing categories are:
Best Original Screenplay
- Juno: Diablo Cody.
- Lars and the Real Girl: Nancy Oliver.
- Michael Clayton: Tony Gilroy.
- Ratatouille: Brad Bird (screenplay/story). Jan Pinkava (story). Jim Capobianco (story).
- The Savages: Tamara Jenkins.
Best Adapted Screenplay
- Atonement: Christopher Hampton.
- Away from Her: Sarah Polley.
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Ronald Harwood.
- No Country for Old Men: Joel and Ethan Coen.
- There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson.
Oscar-nominated directors Joel Cohen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Julian Schnabel, Tony Gilroy, Ethan Cohen and Jason Reitman.The directors
The movies nominated in the Best Director category are the following:
- Juno: Jason Reitman.
- Michael Clayton: Tony Gilroy.
- No Country for Old Men: Joel and Ethan Coen.
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Julian Schnabel.
- There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson.
Click on the image of the Oscar-nominated directors to enlarge it.
Casey Affleck
The younger brother of actor-screenwriter-director Ben Affleck (Good Will Hunting, Gigli), Casey Affleck (born Aug. 12, 1975, in Falmouth, Massachusetts) has been featured in about 20 movies since his debut in Jan Egleson’s Lemon Sky (1988), starring Kevin Bacon.
Titles include:
- Ocean’s Eleven (2001).
Director: Steven Soderbergh.
Cast: George Clooney. Matt Damon. Brad Pitt. Julia Roberts. Casey Affleck. Andy Garcia. Scott Caan. Elliott Gould. Bernie Mac. Carl Reiner. Cameos: Jerry Weintraub. Steve Lawrence. Eydie Gormé. And the 1960 Ocean’s 11 featured players Angie Dickinson and Henry Silva. - Gone Baby Gone (2007).
Director: Ben Affleck.
Cast: Casey Affleck. Michelle Monaghan. Ed Harris. Morgan Freeman. Amy Ryan. John Ashton. Amy Madigan. Titus Welliver. Michael Kenneth Williams. - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.
Director: Andrew Dominik.
Cast: Brad Pitt. Casey Affleck. Mary-Louise Parker. Jeremy Renner. Sam Rockwell. Sam Shepard. Paul Schneider. Garret Dillahunt. Pat Healy. Zooey Deschanel.
Sissy Spacek and Ellen Page
Non-nominee Sissy Spacek, accompanying nominated husband Jack Fisk (Best Art Direction nominee for There Will Be Blood), and Best Actress nominee Ellen Page (Juno) mingled a bit at the Academy’s Oscar Nominees Luncheon. Producer Barry Mendel (of The Sixth Sense and Munich) can be seen right behind/between them.
Juno marks Ellen Page’s first Academy Award nomination. Sissy Spacek, for her part, has been shortlisted for six Best Actress Oscars (Carri, 1976; Missing, 1982, etc.), winning once (Coal Miner’s Daughter, 1980).
Sissy Spacek and husband Jack Fisk, Ellen Page, Casey Affleck, and Oscar Nominees Luncheon photos: Todd Wawrychuk | © A.M.P.A.S.
Jan. 31
More than 100 2008 Academy Award nominees will get together at noon on Monday, Feb. 4, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon.
From the Best Actress and Best Actor categories, Away from Her‘s Julie Christie (who may be shy and reclusive, but who’s all over the map these days), La Vie en Rose‘s Marion Cotillard (who should win an Oscar for Best Accent), Laura Linney (The Savages), Ellen Page (Juno), George Clooney (Michael Clayton), and Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) are expected to attend.
Representing the Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor categories will be Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone), Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), this awards-season’s favorite Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), and veterans Ruby Dee (American Gangster) and Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild).
All six nominees from the Best Directing category – Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Jason Reitman (Juno), and Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) – are expected to attend.
Writers Guild of America strike or no, screenwriters to attend 2008 Oscar Nominees Luncheon
Additionally, all of the 13 Oscar-nominated screenwriters are scheduled to be present at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon – unlike at the Oscar ceremony proper, no scripts are necessary for this particular party; in other words, no one will be breaking any Writers Guild strike rules and regulations.
Besides Tony Gilroy, Paul Thomas Anderson, and the Coen brothers, the other Oscar 2008 writing nominees are Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, and Jim Capobianco (Ratatouille), Diablo Cody (Juno), Christopher Hampton (Atonement), Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Tamara Jenkins (The Savages), Nancy Oliver (Lars and the Real Girl), and Sarah Polley (Away from Her).
Also expected to attend – but not to eat – are swarms of paparazzi and gawking tourists.
If the nominated writers really like the Oscar Nominees Luncheon’s buffet, then perhaps the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony will be able to proceed as usual on Sunday, Feb. 24, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center. Or perhaps not.
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose photo: Picturehouse.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.) website.