It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep, John Krasinski, and Caitlin FitzGerald. Winner of the National Board of Review’s Best Ensemble award, Nancy Meyers’ romantic comedy features Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski, Zoe Kazan, Lake Bell, Rita Wilson, Mary Kay Place, Hunter Parrish, Caitlin FitzGerald, and, at its center, two-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep. Early next year, Streep will likely receive her 148th Oscar nomination – but not for It’s Complicated. Streep is a shoo-in for her performance in another comedy directed by a woman: Nora Ephron’s box office hit Julie & Julia, co-starring Amy Adams.
Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated: Adult-oriented + female-centered ensemble comedy
Written and directed by Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday), It’s Complicated is a romantic comedy starring two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep (Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979; Best Actress for Sophie’s Choice, 1982) as a divorced mother of three and Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant owner who unexpectedly finds herself torn between an attorney (ex-husband Alec Baldwin, now married to Lake Bell) and an architect (paramour Steve Martin).
Love triangles seem to be a thing this fall season, what with Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tobey Maguire in Jim Sheridan’s Brothers, not to mention Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner in Chris Weitz’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
Best Actress Oscar nomination?
Nancy Meyers’ 2003 romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give earned Diane Keaton a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Even so, Meryl Streep’s all-but-inevitable 2010 Oscar nod will most likely come by way of her portrayal of Julia Child in another comedy directed by a woman, Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia.
Co-stars Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, however, if properly pushed in the Best Supporting Actor category, have a better chance of being singled out come Oscar time.
Also in the It’s Complicated cast: John Krasinski, Zoe Kazan, Hunter Parrish, Rita Wilson, Caitlin FitzGerald, Mary Kay Place, Alexandra Wentworth, Daryl Sabara, and John Patrick Stuart.
It’s Complicated, which is scheduled to open in the U.S. on Dec. 25, has won the National Board of Review‘s Best Ensemble award.
Sandra Bullock to receive Santa Barbara Film Festival honor
Sandra Bullock, the star of John Lee Hancock’s year-end sleeper hit The Blind Side, will receive the 2010 Santa Barbara Film Festival’s American Riviera Award on Friday, Feb. 5.
Among Bullock’s notable movie credits are While You Were Sleeping, Miss Congeniality, 28 Days, The Lake House, the Best Picture Academy Award winner Crash, the recent hit The Proposal, and the recent flop All About Steve.
Best Actress Oscar contender?
As per the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s website, the American Riviera Award “was established to recognize an actor who has had a strong influence on American Cinema.”
Past recipients, invariably Academy Award hopefuls, include: Mickey Rourke (2009), Tommy Lee Jones (2008), Forest Whitaker (2007), Philip Seymour Hoffman (2006), Kevin Bacon (2005), and Diane Lane (2004).
It’s Sandra Bullock’s turn now, though her performance in The Blind Side will more likely land her only a Golden Globe nod. Even so, an Oscar nomination isn’t really out of reach, if only for sentimental reasons. After all, Bullock has never even been nominated.
Tickets for the American Riviera Award can be purchased through the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s website.
The 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival runs Feb. 4-14.
Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal. During awards season, Southern California film festivals and events honor – surely just a coincidence – Academy Award-buzzy performers and filmmakers. This year, two of them are Sandra Bullock (at the Santa Barbara Film Festival) and Jeff Bridges (at the Palm Springs Film Festival). Bullock is a possible Best Actress nominee for the sleeper blockbuster The Blind Side; Bridges is a possible Best Actor nominee for Scott Cooper’s $7 million-budget Crazy Heart, which, à la Slumdog Millionaire last year, is supposed to have narrowly escaped from a direct-to-video fate.Jeff Bridges to receive Palm Springs Film Festival honor
Veteran Jeff Bridges will receive the Desert Palm Achievement Award at the 2010 edition of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, to be held Jan. 5–18. The Awards Gala will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 5, at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The ceremony will be hosted by Entertainment Tonight‘s Mary Hart.
Past honorees of the Desert Palm Achievement Award include Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn, Jake Gyllenhaal, Liam Neeson, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, and James Stewart.
Best Actor Oscar contender?
At least some Oscar buzz seems to be a requirement in order for an individual to become an honoree at Southern California events taking place early in the year.
Four-time Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges, who has just received a Spirit Award nomination for his broken-down country music singer in Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart, is by all means a potential Oscar contender. Also in the Crazy Heart cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall, and Colin Farrell.
Believe it or not, Bridges, who turned 60 this past Dec. 4, has been acting in movies for four decades. His Oscar nominations were for:
- Best Supporting Actor in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), Michael Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), and Rod Lurie’s The Contender (2000).
- Best Actor for John Carpenter’s Starman (1984).
Among Bridges’ other film credits are Grant Heslov’s recently released The Men Who Stare at Goats, Iron Man, Seabiscuit, The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Big Lebowski, Against All Odds, and Hearts of the West.
His father was actor Lloyd Bridges. His brother is actor Beau Bridges.
Toronto to host International Indian Film Academy Awards
In other movie award news, Toronto will be the setting of the 2011 International Indian Film Academy Awards; the Ontario metropolis will be the first North American city to host the event. The 2011 edition, which will include festivities and screenings, will take place between June 16–19.
The first International Indian Film Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Millennium Dome in London in 2000, which was followed by events in cities as diverse as Amsterdam, Dubai, Singapore, and Johannesburg. The awards ceremony is supposedly watched by 350 million people worldwide.
Earlier this year, the Indian Film Academy Awards were held in Macao. The top winner was Ashutosh Gowariker’s period romance Jodhaa Akbar, starring Bollywood icons Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in a tale of Muslim-Hindu love set in 16th century India.
Jodhaa Akbar took home 11 trophies including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Music (Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman).
‘Ocean of Pearls’ in Los Angeles
And speaking of South Asian(-related) cinema, Sarab Singh Neelam’s Ocean of Pearls, a drama about traditional Sikh values coming into conflict with life in 21st century North America, opens on Friday, Dec. 18, at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.
Director Neelam will take part in a Q&A following the 7 p.m. shows on Friday, Dec. 18, and Saturday, Dec. 19.
Written by Neelam and V. Prasad, Ocean of Pearls follows a young Toronto-based Sikh doctor – turban and long hair and all – whose life is upended following a career-driven move to Detroit. The film stars Omid Abtahi, Heather McComb, Brenda Strong, Ron Canada, Navi Rawat, and Ajay Mehta.
John Krasinski, Caitlin FitzGerald, and Meryl Streep It’s Complicated image: Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Studios.
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart image: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
“It’s Complicated Movie with Meryl Streep + Oscar-Buzzy Sandra Bullock & Jeff Bridges Festival Honors” last updated in April 2018.