Posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2013 by Angie Han
Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to announce the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. Academy members nominated nine contenders for Best Picture, with Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty all in the mix. The choices aren’t totally surprising, but it’s still a strong group of competitors.
It’s always interesting to see how the Best Picture category correlates to the Best Director one, and the notable names shut out this year include Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck, Tom Hooper, and Quentin Tarantino — the first three of whom were all nominated for the DGA prize earlier this week. Another notable snub that I know /Film readers will be all over is the lack of recognition for Looper, which scored in none of the major categories.
On a happier note, The Master hasn’t been getting much love so far but it managed to score three Oscar nominations, all in the acting categories. The Best Actress group proved a historic one, with both the oldest (85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva) and youngest (9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis) nominees in the category. And the animated field went exactly the way you’d suspect, but I’m just happy to see ParaNorman get a nod. Hit the jump to read the list of nominees.
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Posted on Friday, January 4th, 2013 by Angie Han
With just days to go until Oscar nominations are announced, the Writers Guild of America has unveiled its list of nominees for their top screenplay awards. As expected, many of these are films that have picked up plenty of accolades already. It’ll surprise no one to see that Zero Dark Thirty, Moonrise Kingdom, and Lincoln are among the contenders. But they’ve made room for some more offbeat choices as well, including Looper, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Master. (Jason Reitman should be pleased.) Hit the jump to see the list.
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We’re already at the point in the award season where a few films have been solidified as the big winners and prime Oscar candidates. Zero Dark Thirty, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, and Lincoln have been awards frontrunners for weeks, and will likely continue to dominate slates of official accolades until the season ends with Oscars being handed out on February 24.
The Best Picture category in the Oscars is based around the efforts of producers, and so the Producer’s Guild of America nominations are a pretty good indicator of what we’re likely to see as a nomination slate for the Best Picture Oscar when AMPAS announces noms next week.
Today the PGA announced its nominations (one day early) and the ten films that were highlighted for what amounts to the PGA’s “best picture” award are: Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty.
Nothing there for The Master, but that isn’t even much of a surprise at this point, given how things have been going. The inclusion of Skyfall is a bit of a surprise, but mostly for the fact that it is the big commercial outlier rather than The Avengers. Marvel’s The Avengers was a success on many levels, but if any one position should get a sage nod in appreciation of a job well done on that movie, it’s the producers. Same goes for Skyfall, however, so even that “surprise” is a small one.
The press release featuring all of the nominations is after the break.
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This morning Megan Fox, Ed Helms, and Jessica Alba announced the nominations for the 2013 Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization behind the event, is famous for nominating films and performances simply based on their star factor — if there’s an actor that members of the HFPA want to hang out with, they’re sure to get a nomination.
But the HFPA is great at putting on a show, and so the Golden Globes generate a lot of attention every year. And, as the NY Times points out, with the Globes nominations coming just days before Oscar nomination voting starts, there’s a possibility that nominations here could affect Oscar voting. The Best Picture nomination set includes what is already becoming a standard set of awards favorites, such as Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty, but there are also nominations for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and Django Unchained. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen picked up a few nominations, actually, which was one of the big surprises.
The Golden Globes will air on January 13, 2013, hosted by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. The full nomination list is below. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2012 by David Chen
Life of Pi was one of our favorite films of the year, but there was some disagreement during our podcast review
about the effectiveness of the ending. In this bonus episode, Dave and Dan Trahctenberg take another look at the film and delve into the ending of Life of Pi. Be sure to check out Drew McWeeny’s review, referenced copiously in this episode.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.
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Posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2012 by David Chen
Dave and Adam chat about the terribleness of Red Dawn, the sociopathy of Mouse Hunt, and the awesomeness of Key and Peele. Special guest Laremy Legel joins us from Film.com.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993.
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Posted on Friday, October 19th, 2012 by Angie Han
A cinematic adaptation of Life of Pi has been in the works basically since Yann Martel‘s novel was published in 2001, but in the early stages the project had some trouble picking up steam. It passed through the hands of several directors, including M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuarón, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, over several years before finally landing with Ang Lee in 2008.
Now, after four years of hard work, Lee’s movie is finally on the verge of hitting theaters. One of the film’s strongest selling points is its incredible use of 3D, but it’s tough to get that third dimension across on a computer screen. So in this first clip, Fox’s marketing team settles for unveiling a scene where it’s obvious things would be flying at your face if you were in a theater. Watch the scene, with an introduction by Lee, after the jump.
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Posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2012 by Angie Han
If 3D gets a bad rap, it’s often for good reason. Done badly, 3D drives up ticket prices while adding nothing to the experience; done very badly, it robs you blind while destroying the picture. But every so often, a movie comes along that reminds you of how powerful the technology can be when wielded by a master craftsman. Ang Lee‘s stunning, vibrant Life of Pi is one of those cases.
After receiving strong early buzz thanks to some alluring clips and teasers, Life of Pi had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival this week. Lee cautioned us ahead of time that he was still putting the final touches on the movie, so the version that hits theaters may differ slightly from the one we saw. But whether he makes a few last tweaks or not, it’s clear that Life of Pi will be a worthwhile cinematic experience.
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