[Editor's Note: Oscar Prospects is your weekly analysis of an awards contender and how it's likely to fare come Oscar nomination morning. The column is comprehensive, so beware of spoilers.]
It's getting on that time when it's nearly impossible to keep up with an Oscar hopeful's precursor tally, as trophies and nominations steadily roll in from a dizzying slew of acronymic awards bodies. Hastily kicked off by the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), precursor season is most certainly in full swing, with the BFCA, AFI, SAG, LAFCA (Los Angeles), BSFC (Boston), VFCS (Vegas), TFCA (Toronto), SLFC (St. Louis), SFFCC (San Francisco), and many more having released their picks for the best in 2011 cinema. Amid the frenzy, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris has been resting in a rather safe zone, failing to come close to the top spots so dominated by The Artist, The Descendants, and Hugo, but sitting pretty when it comes to Top 10s and grouped citations. The culture-vulture comedy just snagged a Best Picture nod from the Phoenix Film Critics Society, but, much more importantly, it's landed on AFI's Top 10, been named a Critic's Choice nominee for Best Picture, and, just this morning, counted among the five SAG nominees for Best Ensemble (it competes against The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, and Bridesmaids). The steady inclusion assures that no one has forgotten about this swoony May release, and it affirms what so many already knew: Midnight in Paris is one of your Best Picture locks. Continue Reading »
[Editor's Note: Oscar Prospects is your weekly analysis of an awards contender and how it's likely to fare come Oscar nomination morning. The column is comprehensive, so beware of spoilers.]
Margin Call is an awards season anomaly, an off-the-radar drama that, even after having performed well at festivals, never seemed to be a serious player, its tacky posters and mishmash cast of (mostly) B-Listers suggesting a gem bound for little more than a cult life on video. But after netting some very good ink from some top Gotham critics, one of whom dubbed it "the best Wall Street movie ever made," the film became an unlikely buzz gainer, and went on to collect three Independent Spirit Awards citations (two nods and a Robert Altman Award win), a National Board of Review Spotlight Award for first-time writer/director J.C. Chandor, and a Best First Film award for Chandor from the New York Film Critics Circle. The artistic community's general support of—or, at the very least, deep fascination with—the Occupy Wall Street movement has certainly helped this smart, well-acted, dawn-of-collapse thriller to gain attention beyond a Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. But the perception of certain critics—and wannabe tastemakers who fancy themselves critics—that Margin Call is a bona fide Oscar candidate in multiple categories, including Best Picture, is the stuff of wishful delusion. Continue Reading »
Funny how quickly the world changes. This clip made me think of the first time I logged onto the Internet, around 1994, to look up information about The Simpsons for a TV class.
From the kids at Lawrence High School comes a new video—a punk update of Mack David's "Sunflower"—that is a celebration of Kansas (now 150 years young), the arts (a cut in funding has recently been proposed in the state), and the diversity of the state's youth:
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
Though Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling were snubbed, the Screen Actors Guild nominations are still a class act compared to what the Golden Globes came up with a few days ago.
French goremeister Jean Rollin passed away last night. He was 72.
Coming in March from the Criterion Collection: Mikado, The Times of Harvey Milk, Topsy-Turvy, Yi Yi, The Naked Kiss, and Shock Corridor.
For Fandor, Michael Joshua Rowin on the inception of movie editing and the art of D.W. Griffith.
House contributor Steven Boone fancies himself a mogul, and he will work for the going rate of a McDonald's franchise manager.
The best and worst of 2010 according to our friends at The A.V. Club.
Dear fucking Jesus:
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
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