David Spade impersonates Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in this hilarious There Will Be Blood parody video titled “There Will Be Oscars” over at FunnyorDie.com. Spade’s Plainview wants the Oscar gold. He’s worked long and hard for this moment. This is probably the funniest thing Spade has done in years. Watch the video now below.

Thanks to FirstShowing for discovering this.

As much as people like to complain about AMC, but every year they run the Best Picture showcase. What is the AMC 2008 Best Picture Showcase? It is when they show all five films nominated for Best Picture in one day, one ticket, free large popcorn with unlimited refills for only $30. It’s a deal and a a half.
This year’s Best Picture Showcase is taking place on Saturday February 23rd in select theaters (check this link to find a participating theater near you). Sadly, there are no theaters within 20 miles of San Francisco for me to catch the showcase this year. Here is the schedule for those interested in [...]

The award winners for the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild have been announced.

DGA AWARDS
Winner for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film 2007
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen - No Country For Old Men (Miramax Films/Paramount Vantage)
Winner for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary 2007
Asger Leth - Ghosts of Cite Soleil (Sony BMG Feature Films)

SAG AWARDS
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Daniel Day-Lewis / Daniel Plainview – There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Julie Christie / Fiona – Away From Her (Lionsgate)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Javier Bardem /Anton Chigurh – No Country [...]

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival comes to a close tomorrow, and the award winners have just been announced. Here are the major winners from this year’s festival:
Alfred P Sloan Memorial Prize: Sleep Dealer
American Cinema:
Grand Jury Dramatic: Frozen River
Dramatic Audience Award: The Wackness
Dramatic Screenwriting Award: Sleep Dealer, Alex Rivera, David Riker
Dramatic Directing Award: Lance Hammer, Ballast
Dramatic Special Jury Prize for “the Spirit of Independent Cinema”: Chusy Haney-Jardine for Anywhere, USA
Dramatic Special Jury Prize for “Work by an Ensemble Cast”: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly MacDonald and Brad Henke for Choke
Dramatic Cinematography Award: Ballast, Lol Crawley
Documentary Grand Jury Prize: Trouble the Water
Documentary Audience Award: Fields of Fuel
Documentary Directing Award: Nanette Burnstein, American [...]

Recently while on Google Chat with Peter, I predicted that Paul Thomas Anderson would follow-up There Will Be Blood with an intensely signature sci-fi undertaking. You can look at the guy in interviews and gleam all of the sick projects dancing in his eyes and hiding in the best smirk in the business; he looks like he’s ready to do some serious Kubrickian-level genre trail blazing. When journalists have quoted him recently, relating his own gnawing, towering ambition and fighting spirit to that of Daniel Plainview’s, they often seem taken aback as if this were a bad or maniacal confession. Screw that. It’s cause for excitement. When you’ve got [...]

Before we dive into today’s non-Oscar-related news, this is a forum to express your thoughts on the nominations for the 80th Academy Awards. I’m not sure why I expected to grimace when the bigger categories were announced. Good choices, all.
It’s hard to say, for me at least, that any notable pictures were snubbed, except for The King of Kong, one of the top three highest rated films of 2007, for Best Documentary Feature. But the early word predicted that, for whatever reason. I’m sure some will make the case for American Gangster, but not me. That was part of my anticipatory grimace, actually. I expected the sub-par Ridley [...]

Here are the nominations for the 80th Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood
 
Best Director
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
Jason Reitman - Juno
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Joel & Ethan Coen - No Country For Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
 
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away From Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie En Rose
Laura Linney - The Savages
Ellen Page - Juno
 
Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett - I’m Not There
Rudy Dee - American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton
 
Best Actor
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern [...]

The Academy announced the nominations, and BoDog has now announced the first day odds for the 80th Annual Academy Awards:

Best Picture:
No Country For Old Men 10/11
Atonement 3/1
Michael Clayton 3/1
Juno 7/2
There Will Be Blood 4/1

Best Director:
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood 3/1
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - No Country for Old Men 3/1
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton 11/4
Jason Reitman - Juno 5/2
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 9/4

Best Actor:
George Clooney - Michael Clayton 7/2
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood 1/4
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd 15/4
Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah 17/4
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises 6/1

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: [...]

“Damn.”
Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come in regards to the Academy Awards for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood: Jonny Greenwood’s feted instrumental soundtrack for the film, seen as a shoe-in for Best Original Score, has been officially disqualified. The reason? The score contains preexisting music. Red Carpet District reports that Greenwood’s score contains “35 minutes of original recordings and roughly 46 minutes of pre-existing work (including selections from the works of Arvo Pärt, as well as pieces in the public domain, such as Johannes Brahms’ “Concerto in D Major”).  Peripheral augmentation to the score included sporadic but minimal useage (15 minutes) of the artist’s [...]

“Please, Oscar! Don’t!”
The Academy’s famously snide sib, The Razzies, announced its nominations for the worst movies, performances and direction of 2007 today. Leading the lepers is the already cultish Lindsay Lohan stripper-twin-Blue Velvet-for-Proactiv-set thriller I Know Who Killed Me with nine noms, including Worst Picture. And that seals it: I’m finally going to consider watching it stoned one day when I’m 70. Lohan actually scored two Worst Actress noms for playing twins. Cute. But there’s still no way it’s worse than The Number 23, which was excluded for Worst Picture. A travesty. Winners of the Little Naked Gold Man will be announced on February 23rd. Here are the [...]

I have decided to republish an updated version of this popular blog post from last year, because it has again proved relevant.

Okay, first off: Wrong might be a harsh word. It was used to get your attention. And got your attention it did. Extremely flawed doesn’t make an interesting headline. This year’s award winners had a strong bias to films and or stars with foreign origin and or following, at the expense of better movies.
Every year we watch the Globes but Why? Does anyone even have ANY slightest bit of an idea of who decides the winners and losers? Let’s take a look, you might be shocked at what is [...]

The Golden Globes totally sucked.
A few notes: Someone needs to tell the Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight ladies that we don’t care about them, their lame self-absorbed jokes. Most of the films and actors/actresses with foreign film backgrounds took home the gold, most times at the expense of better movies. Aside from nods to Daniel Day Lewis, Javier Bardem and Ratatouille, I completely disagreed with most of the winners. I continue to wonder the merits of this particular award show. And did I mention, Juno was totally screwed over?! Please also read Why The Golden Globes Are Wrong.
How could Atonement win best picture of the year over No Country For [...]

Today the Directors Guild of America announced their annual list of nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. If you’re leaving Earth before the Academy reveals their noms for Best Picture, it’s a safe bet that four of the five films below will make the cut. But really, why not wait it out and enjoy some American Gladiators? Especially since this year’s list might be off by two, or three. Madness! Here are the DGA’s choices.
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Sean Penn - Into the Wild
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen & [...]

NBC is having a press conference this afternoon to announce they are canceling Sunday’s Golden Globe ceremonies. That’s right, the show won’t even go on un-televised, which is probably a good move (imagine how boring the untelevised version could have been). NBC instead plans to run a press conference announcing the winners intercut with clips of the stars at parties. Nikki Finke’s sources claim this will be the new line-up:

7:00pm: Dateline’s clips and interviews with nominees cut from the two-hour piece from the prior night. Meh!
8:00pm: A possible one-hour retrospective/clip show. Snor!
9:00pm: Golden Globe Winner Press conference.
10:00pm: An Access Hollywood style Golden Globes party show. Who cares?

It will be interesting [...]

On Saturday, the American Film Institute picked its Top Ten American Films of 2007. The list is available below in alphabetical order:

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
The Savages
There Will Be Blood

I tend to agree with this list more than I agreed with the Golden Globe nominations. I’m not sure if “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” deserves to be up there, and while The Savages is a great movie, I’m not sure if it deserves to be in the top 10. Fox Searchlight’s Once would have been my choice. errr I forgot the AFI list only includes [...]