Oscar nominations: Fascinating facts, figures and milestones

With invaluable assistance from our many forum posters, here are interesting stats about this year's nominations for the Oscars.

Nine not so fine: "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" lead this year's derby with nine nominations each; "Nine" managed just four nominations. However, beginning with "The Life of Emile Zola" in 1937, there have been 77 films that have landed 10 or more Oscar nominations. Last year's big champ "Slumdog Millionaire" won eight of its 10 races, while "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" managed just three wins from 13 nominations.

Money matters: On nomination day, "Avatar" broke the domestic box office record of 1997 best picture champ "Titanic" when it reached $601 million in receipts. The foreign title -- also held by "Titanic" -- fell to "Avatar" last week. While "Avatar" would thus be the highest-grossing best picture champ, "The Hurt Locker" -- with domestic receipts of $12.6 million -- would be the lowest when adjusted for inflation.

Take five: With double the number of entries in the best picture race, it is not so surprising that all five directing nominees helmed a contender. In the eight years from 1936 to 1943 when there were also 10 best picture nominees, the five directing nominees each year had a hand in one of those contenders save for 1936 and 1938. In 1936 Gregory LaCava ("My Man Godfrey") was the spoiler, while in 1938 it was Michael Curtiz ("Angels With Dirty Faces") who was the odd man out. Frank Capra took home the directing award in both those years, while Curtiz won his only Oscar in 1943 for helming "Casablanca" -- the last best picture champ to win over nine rivals.

All in the family: Father and son Ivan and Jason Reitman are nominated for producing "Up in the Air." Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are double nominees for writing and producing "A Serious Man." Onetime married couple Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker") and James Cameron ("Avatar") are each nominated for best director.

Something old, something new: Supporting actor nominee Christopher Plummer is a first-time contender at age 80 for his 86th movie, "The Last Station," while Gabourey Sidibe landed a lead actress nomination for her film debut in "Precious." Plummer also lends his voice to best picture nominee "Up."

Batting 1.000: Animated short nominee Nick Park ("Wallace & Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death") has won all four of his previous Oscar races -- animated short (1990, 1993, 1996) and animated feature (2005). In 1990 he was a double nominee, winning for "Creature Comforts" over "A Grand Day Out with Wallace & Gromit." In 1993 he won for "Wallace & Gromit in the Wrong Trousers," in 1996 for "Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave" and in 2005 for "Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit."


Animated features: "Up" is the second animated feature after "Beauty and the Beast" to contend for best picture. While "Beauty" had five other nominations in 1991, including three song bids, score and sound, "Up" is contending in four other categories -- screenplay, score, sound editing and animated feature. That last category wasn't created till 2001, and this is only the second year -- after 2002, when "Spirited Away" won -- that there have been five rather than three nominees.

Only the lonely: The nominations for lead actor Colin Firth ("A Single Man"), lead actress Meryl Streep ("Julie & Julia") and supporting actor Stanley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones") are the only Oscar nods for those films.

Return engagement: Only two of last year's acting nominees are back in the Oscar race this year -- lead actress nominee Meryl Streep and supporting actress nominee Penelope Cruz ("Nine"). Cruz -- who won that same award last year for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" -- follows in the footsteps of supporting actress champs Estelle Parsons ("Bonnie & Clyde," 1967) and Lee Grant ("Shampoo," 1975), who both contended again the year after their victory; neither won. Bette Davis and Greer Garson share the record of most consecutive years nominated at five apiece in the lead actress category. Davis kicking off her reign in 1938 with a win for "Jezebel" while Garson began her run in 1941 with a nod for "Blossoms in the Dust."

Source:goldderby.latimes.com/

A Few Random Thoughts on the 2010 Oscar Nominations

A Few Random Thoughts on the 2010 Oscar Nominations
First posted Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

The 82nd Academy Award nominations have been announced, with Disney/Pixar's Up getting a nod for Best Picture in addition to the expected Best Animated Feature nomination. I have to admit that as much as I liked the movie, I don't think it's the one I would have picked among Pixar's total output to get the nod for Best Picture. However, it was a pretty good if not great year for movies, it seems, and to paraphrase the parable about life on the African veldt, the Best Picture of the year only has to be better than all the other movies released in the same year, not the Best Picture ever.

In any event, I think the question of whether Up will become the first animated feature to win the Best Picture Oscar is moot once you look at its competition. The good news about animation being seated at the big kids' table is that it's another acknowledgment, however small, that animation is a serious medium capable of making great art and not just the kiddie stuff that a good portion of America (or at least a good portion of Hollywood) seems to think it is. The bad news is that this year's animated film has to stand toe-to-toe with the work of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, as well as with the very highly acclaimed The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, and Precious. This would be tough competition for any movie, regardless of medium, and to be honest I'd eliminate District 9 and Avatar as possible winners in this category as well. Science fiction and fantasy fare about as well as comedies in the Best Picture race, with barely a dozen movies from those genres getting nominated in the past 40 years and only The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's winning in 2003.

Avatar also happens to sit right in the crux of a few different issues I've been grappling with for the News. As our readers will have noticed, the headlines Avatar has been grabbing in the mainstream press are not reflected on our News Ticker. Like King Kong, the later Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and modern video games in general, I think Avatar uses similar techniques to more traditionally animated features, but that doesn't make it an animated movie in my view. At best, I'd call Avatar a hybrid film (at least from the clips I've seen -- I have not watched the movie and judging by the movie's phenomenal box office success, I may be the only person who was never that interested in it). I don't think many people would call Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or Mary Poppins "animated" movies, either, despite their heavy reliance on animation. In this, I'm afraid I break with our friends over at Cartoon Brew, who are congratulating Avatar for being the second animated movie in the Best Picture race. In any event, Cameron himself insists that Avatar is not animation, with an attitude that I think is merely another variation on the, "Cartoons are just for kids" mentality, so I'm happy to lock him out of the clubhouse. He will just have to find solace from my peevish snit in the billions of dollars he's made on the movie so far.

The second issue that Avatar brings up relates to the lack of recognition of actors in animation. Cameron himself has complained over perceived snubs at the acting of his Avatar performers in the SAG awards, and the movie's acting was bypassed by year's Oscars as well. I would point out the notable absence of acting award nominations for Cameron's films in general and humbly suggest that perhaps the technology is not to blame for the snubbing of the acting in Avatar, but he can gripe much more loudly about a point that animation fans have felt for some time: voice actors are routinely treated as second-class citizens to their on-camera equivalents. The shoddy treatment of the cast of Space Jam at the movie's premiere is a visible example, as is Cameron's own brusque dismissal of Meryl Streep's performance in Fantastic Mr. Fox. There is also the issue that the animators themselves are as responsible for the "acting" of a character as the voice actors, which begs the question of who exactly should get the credit for a particularly good performance. I would like to see wider recognition of a good performance in animation, but I must admit I don't really know how to get there. However, such nuances are probably well beyond the Academy members, and this is why we have the Annie Awards anyway.

I don't have any serious complaints about the nominees for Best Animated Feature. I think it was a very good year for animated movies in general, and I think swapping in a different movie released last year would shortchange one of the other nominees. I can say little or nothing meaningful about the Best Animated Short category.

In any event, no ruminations on the Oscars would be complete without predictions, although I openly admit mine are blissfully unencumbered by any biases that might arise from actually seeing many of the movies nominated. But hey, I'm just a guy on the Internet exercising his right to spout off about things he knows nothing about. As I mentioned, I don't think Up has even a long-shot chance at winning the Best Picture Oscar. Unfortunately, it will probably have to settle for the honor of being nominated, because I also suspect that Fantastic Mr. Fox will be the winner for the Best Animated Feature due to the Academy's general adoration for the works of Wes Anderson. It would be something of a shame if Pete Docter walked away from the ceremonies empty-handed, especially since I still believe he was robbed of an Oscar in 2003, but it looks like it might happen again this year. At least he won't be losing out to such a vastly inferior movie like Shrek. I don't hold out hope that the Academy will recognize the movie in the Best Original Screenplay category. This marks the 6th time an animated movie has been nominated for a writing Oscar (the other 5 being Toy Story, Shrek, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and WALL-E; the number goes to 6 if you want to call Mary Poppins animated), but none of them have ever won and again, Up faces some very stiff competition.

In any event, I would still like to congratulate all the nominees and wish them the best of luck. We'll see you all on Oscar night.

Source:toonzone.net/

Oscar beckons for Weta team

The visual effects team of nearly 1000 based in Wellington that helped bring the alien world of Avatar to life has put the movie on a path to Oscar glory.

The film received nine Oscar nominations, including for best picture. Nine New Zealand film industry figures are also Oscar nominees.

Weta Digital workers were behind Avatar and District 9 – two out of the three films nominated for the best visual effects award.

The Weta Digital team of Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R Jones are collectively nominated for the best visual effects Oscar for Avatar.

Weta Digital's Matt Aitken has been nominated for the company's visual effects work on Neill Blomkamp's and Sir Peter Jackson's science-fiction thriller District 9.

Sir Peter could also add to his Oscar collection if the low-budget alien film wins best picture.

Other Kiwis who got the Oscar nod include Avatar set director Kim Sinclair for best art direction and sound recordist Tony Johnson for best sound mixing. Both were part of team nominations.

Weta's Mark Sagar has already won a Scientific and Engineering Oscar at the "geek version" of the awards for Avatar.

Wellington producer Finola Dwyer will also be at the glitzy Oscar ceremony, with her British film An Education, which is up for three awards. Sir Peter's The Lovely Bones was nominated in only one category, with Stanley Tucci getting a nod for best supporting actor.

Kiwi director Jane Campion's film Bright Star also got one nomination – Australian Janet Patterson for best costume design.

Yesterday, three men who worked on Avatar for Weta Digital talked of the hard work paying off.

Visual effect supervisor Wayne Stables said 950 staff had worked long days for three years on the film.

"I don't actually think that we're that surprised really at all [with the nomination]. It's a huge body of very high quality work. We're very proud of the work that we all did on it."

Eric Saindon and Guy Williams also supervised visual effects teams on Avatar.

Mr Williams said it had attracted a lot of workers to Weta Digital, and added to the company's fast-growing reputation.

Director James Cameron had showed the Weta workers some early images of Avatar without the visual effects about three years ago.

"We got really excited about it. We came out of it and thought `This is going to be an amazing film. I hope we get it [Oscar]."

Source:stuff.co.nz/

Oscar Nominations: Hitler's pissed off about Star Trek

Star Trek, Director J.J. Abrams widely acclaimed "reboot" of the popular television and movie science fiction series, was widely expected to be one of ten Oscar "Best Picture" nominees. Instead it was snubbed for the competition, causing a loud, Worldwide outcry from Star Trek fans. The movie was marketed as "Best Picture Material."

Still, it didn't win. Avatar, Hurt Locker, District 9, and the surprise entry, The Blind Side, were named to compete for Oscar, Best Picture.

What happened and why Star Trek didn't get a nominations is anyone's best guess. But one thing is clear: Hitler's not happy. Just as he was unhappy about a number of life's happenings, lets just say he was more than a little worked up about Star Trek's miscue:


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Source:sfgate.com/

Mel Gibson reminisces over some old pictures: 'Braveheart,' 'Lethal Weapon' and more

Mel Gibson nodded toward a DVD copy of “Braveheart,” which was perched atop a stack of movies from the Oscar winner’s three-decade career. “It doesn’t always end well for the guys I play, does it? They get their guts cut out or it gets nasty at the end. This new guy, he’s like that too.”

The new guy is Thomas Craven, the main character in “Edge of Darkness,” which marks Gibson’s first leading-man job since 2002. The Craven role is fairly familiar character territory for Gibson — he’s a desperate father, a cop on the edge, a man looking for revenge — but the 54-year-old is on uncertain ground with moviegoers after a career calamity with the worldwide press coverage of his anti-Semitic rant while in police custody for a 2006 DUI.

The trajectory of Gibson’s career has been startling in its left turns — when People magazine put the actor on the cover of its first “sexiest man alive” issue in 1985, who would have suspected that he would go on almost two decades later to direct, produce and co-write a film that would become a flash point in contemporary American religious life?

Last week, Gibson sat down to reflect on some mile markers in his own cinematic journey by watching scenes from past films. “I don’t revisit, it’s not something I do,” he said, studying his youthful visage from “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior,” the high-octane film that kicked off a decade that saw Gibson go from an unknown Australian actor to one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. “Look at him, I’m not sure I even know this guy.”

For Gibson's thoughts on "Lethal Weapon," "The Passion of the Christ" and more, click on the image of "Braveheart" above.

Source:latimesblogs.latimes.com/

The resignation of Oscar Lafontaine and the crisis of the Left Party

The decision by Oskar Lafontaine to resign as chairman of the Left Party and give up his parliamentary seat has thrown the party into a deep crisis.

Lafontaine declared that his decision was based “exclusively on health reasons.” In December, he had an operation to deal with a cancer condition. The operation was successful, but his state of health meant that he was advised to limit his political activity. Therefore, Lafontaine stated last weekend he intended to restrict his work to the state parliament in Saarland, where he also sits as a deputy. He gave no details on his state of health. Media reports state his prostate gland illness was recognised and treated in time.

The state of health of Lafontaine is insufficient, however, to account for the profound state of crisis in the party that he played a major role in founding. In reality, his resignation is confirmation that his political conceptions have failed.

Lafontaine already has one resignation behind him. Eleven years ago, he resigned from his posts as chairman of the Social Democratic Party, federal finance minister, and vice-chancellor of the SPD-Green coalition following fierce pressure from business circles. When chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) stressed that he would not implement any policies against the interests of big business and the banks, Lafontaine resigned without putting up any sort of fight, leaving Schröder and the rest of the SPD leadership to press ahead with massive attacks on the working class in the form of the government’s Agenda 2010.

Lafontaine only returned to political life after huge numbers of SPD members and voters turned their backs on the party. The decay of social democracy was greeted with alarm signals by significant layers of the bourgeoisie—after all, the SPD had played a crucial role in maintaining bourgeois order in Germany for nearly a century. In 1918, it was the SPD that ensured the survival of capitalism after the emperor had been swept from his throne. After the Second World War, the SPD defended private property and the orientation to the West. Following the student revolts and spontaneous strikes of 1968/1969, it was SPD leader Willy Brandt who defused the protests.

Lafontaine’s goal was to prevent the decline of the SPD. To this end, he organised the merger of the Election Alternative for Jobs and Social Justice (WASG) in west Germany—a repository of disillusioned social democrats and trade union bureaucrats—with the Party of Democratic Socialism, which emerged from the east German Stalinist party, possessed a large party apparatus and had numerous mandates in east German state and municipal administrations.

From the outset, the new party was characterised by deep divisions. In east German states, the newly formed Left Party used its political influence and mandates to enforce the radical social attacks embodied in Agenda 2010, while Lafontaine toured the country employing leftist clichés to denounce social cuts and job reductions. The Left Party never had a genuine programme. Lafontaine’s oppositional poses were of a purely rhetorical nature based on maintaining social-democratic illusions for as long as possible. Wherever the Left Party assumed office, its politics were indistinguishable from the SPD and conservative parties.

Lafontaine’s main project was a future coalition between the SPD and Left Party at a federal level aimed at preventing any broad popular mobilisation against the political elite. It is no coincidence that Lafontaine saw himself as the political heir of Willy Brandt. Brandt had received his political training before the war in the centrist Socialist Workers Party before becoming mayor of Berlin after the war. He then took over as vice-chancellor of a grand coalition of conservative parties and the SPD before finally assuming the post of chancellor. As chancellor, he was able to largely dissipate the 1968 protest movement, which had also won the support of broad sections of workers, by promising more democracy and social reforms.

Lafontaine also has considerable experience in defusing social crises. As longtime prime minister of Saarland he succeeded in closing down swathes of the state’s steel and mining industries without provoking a social rebellion.

Now, Lafontaine’s plans have been thwarted by the collapse of the international financial system and the consequent economic crisis. His social-reformist demagogy became completely untenable. He had nothing more to offer in the way of a solution to the social injustices he addressed in his speeches than appeals to the German constitution, which refers to the social responsibility attached to wealth. Any prospect that one could return to the sort of reformist policies pursued 40 years earlier by Willy Brandt was rendered absurd on a daily basis by the devastating consequences of the economic crisis.

Lafontaine’s attempts to form a coalition with the SPD at a state level in Saarland and in Thuringia as preparation for a federal government participation also collapsed after the SPD in Thuringia and the Greens in Saarland decided to form coalitions with the Christian Democratic Union. The only state to produce an SPD-Left Party coalition was Brandenburg, on a programme based on the slashing of one in five public service jobs.

Tensions had been mounting in the Left Party long before Lafontaine’s cancer condition became public. In the east, where the party is deeply integrated into the state apparatus, Lafontaine’s populist rhetoric was increasingly regarded as disruptive, while in the west the party feared it could lose its credibility much too quickly if it too readily identified itself with the austerity policies of the German government.

The tensions then erupted in an open conflict between Lafontaine and the Left Party secretary, Dietmar Bartsch. Bartsch, whose power base rested in the east of the country, was accused by western party circles of spreading rumours about an extramarital affair by Lafontaine. In the end, Bartsch was forced to resign following pressure from Lafontaine. Now, Lafontaine has also thrown in the towel. His departure will only intensify tensions in the Left Party, as is already apparent from the conflicts emerging over who should take his place.

With a party congress due in May, the leadership hoped it could dispense with its existing compromise solution of a dual leadership drawn equally from the east and west of the country. But frictions are so advanced that the latest proposal for a new leadership involves not only two new chairpersons (once again representing east and west), but also two party secretaries.

The decision for the two future chairpersons makes clear the future orientation of the party. The former Stalinist functionary Gesine Lötzsch from Berlin has regularly supported the right-wing policies of the capital city’s Senate (also a coalition of the Left Party and SPD), while the western candidate Klaus Ernst is a full-time official for the IG Metall engineering union and typifies that layer of bureaucrats who have long since adopted the role of company co-managers.

The future of the Left Party remains open. What is clear is that, based on its past, the party will inevitably react to this latest crisis by striving even harder to demonstrate its credentials as a force for the stabilisation of the capitalist order.

Source:wsws.org/