Jacki Weaver says she has no Oscar game plan except to buy a new pair of shoes. “I love shoes. I love shiny things,” the Australian actress told Movieline this afternoon, after learning she had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fine work in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook . Weaver, who plays an Italian-American Philadelphia housewife so well that you can almost smell the braciole when she’s onscreen, explained that she learned of her nomination while watching TV “in my Qantas pajamas” after flying into Los Angeles en route to Texas for her next acting gig, as Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, in David Landesman’s Parkland . “I wasn’t sleeping well so I turned on the TV. I honestly wasn’t expecting it, and it did take me quite by surprise,” Weaver said. “I yelled out a rude word.” That word began with “f, as in Freddie,” the actress said in her jammy Australian accent. “And it sounded like the way Australians say ‘park,'” she explained. “We drop the ‘r’ and say, ‘pahk.'” She went on to explain that said word is “a term of wonderment” in her country,” then laughed: I don’t know why I don’t just say the word.” She never did, but did tell us that she had not spoken to her fellow cast members and nominees, Robert De Niro , Bradley Cooper or Jennifer Lawrence , but had talked to Russell. “He told me that he’s really proud of me and he’s thrilled,” she said. “I adore David.” She likes Americans a lot, too. Weaver explained that “I haven’t changed but my life has changed,” in the two years she since earned her first Oscar nomination for the brutal 2010 Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom . “I’ve now done my fifth film in America and to be embraced so heartily by Americans has been wonderful. It’s a very generous culture, American culture,” she added. “I know you can’t generalize 300 million people, but everyone I’ve met her has been so lovely to me.” Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Sony Pictures Classics took North American rights to the latest film by Woody Allen , starring Alec Baldwin , Cate Blanchett , Bobby Cannavale and more. Also in Tuesday’s news round-up, Australia’s Academy picks its nominees just two days before the Oscar noms; the Domestic Box Office hits a record; Mark Romanek is exiting Cinderella ; and R.I.P. director David R. Ellis. Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine Headed to Theaters Allen’s latest starring Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg, which centers on the final stages of an acute crisis and a life of a fashionable New York housewife will head to theaters via Sony Pictures Classics. Silver Linings Playbook , Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty Tom Australian Academy Nominations The nominees for Australia’s International Award for Best Film include: Argo , Les Misérables , Life of Pi, Lincoln , Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty . More nominations from the organization available on Deadline . Domestic Box Office Sets 2012 Record The U.S. box office hit a record $10.8 billion with a 6 percent rise in admissions, the largest in more than a decade. The foreign box office is also ahead of the $22.4 billion set in 2011, Variety reports . Mark Romanek Exiting Disney’s Cinderella The studio and Romanek are parting ways on the updated fairy tale that has Cate Blanchett attached to star. The two apparently did not see eye to eye on how to re-tell the story, with Romanek preferring a darker version of the story, Deadline reports . Director David R. Ellis Dead at 60 The veteran stuntman and director of Snakes on a Plane and Final Destination 2 died Monday morning in Johannesburg, South Africa prepping to direct is anime adaptation, Kite . The project wold have re-teamed Ellis with his Snakes on a Plane star Samuel L. Jackson, Variety reports .
In five decades, James Bond has racked up many feats from babes to bombs, but one figure 007 hasn’t charmed is Oscar, though that will begin to change this year. 007 will receive a full tribute at the 85th Academy Awards . [Related: Steven Spielberg Hoped To Direct James Bond – But Got A ‘No’ ] Oscar organizers will fete the franchise in celebration of its 50th anniversary during the telecast on Sunday February 24th. The original secret British operative was played by Sean Connery, starting with Dr. No in 1962. Connery stayed on for five Bond films when the mantle was handed off for one film to George Lazenby for 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Service before returning to Connery for 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever , Since then Roger Moore took on the role for seven installments, followed by Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. Daniel Craig is 007’s latest manifestation with three features under his belt, including the franchise’s latest and most successful film yet, Skyfall , which became the 14th film to hit the $1 billion mark in its worldwide theatrical run. Despite not being a big seducer of Oscar, Bond has scored some wins over the decades, including seven nominations and two wins. Goldfinger (1964) won a Best Effects, Sound Effects Academy Award and 1965’s Thunderball took another for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects. Noted Oscar telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron: “We are very happy to include a special sequence on our show saluting the Bond films on their 50th birthday. Starting with Dr. No back in 1962, the 007 movies have become the longest-running motion picture franchise in history and a beloved global phenomenon.”
Oscar heavy-weights Zero Dark Thirty , Argo , Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are among the titles nominated for screenplay recognition by the Writers Guild. Documentary shortlisted films The Invisible Man , Mea Maxima Culpa and Searching For Sugar Man are also among the nominations in the non-fiction category for the 2013 Writers Guild Awards, which will be held Sunday February 17th in simultaneously in Los Angeles and New York. [ Related: Academy Names 15 As Best Documentary Oscar Contenders; ‘Central Park Five’ Snubbed ] The nominations follow: Original Screenplay Flight , Written by John Gatins; Paramount Pictures Looper , Written by Rian Johnson; TriStar Pictures The Master , Written by Paul Thomas Anderson; The Weinstein Company Moonrise Kingdom , Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola; Focus Features Zero Dark Thirty , Written by Mark Boal; Columbia Pictures Adapted Screenplay Argo , Screenplay by Chris Terrio; Based on a selection from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez and the Wired Magazine article “The Great Escape” by Joshuah Bearman; Warner Bros. Pictures Life of Pi , Screenplay by David Magee; Based on the novel by Yann Martel; 20th Century Fox Lincoln , Screenplay by Tony Kushner; Based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin; DreamWorks Pictures The Perks of Being a Wallflower , Screenplay by Stephen Chbosky; Based on his book; Summit Entertainment Silver Linings Playbook , Screenplay by David O. Russell; Based on the novel by Matthew Quick; The Weinstein Company Documentary Screenplay The Central Park Five , Written by Sarah Burns and David McMahon and Ken Burns; Sundance Selects The Invisible War , Written by Kirby Dick; Cinedigm Entertainment Group Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God , Written by Alex Gibney; HBO Documentary Films Searching for Sugar Man , Written by Malik Bendejelloul; Sony Pictures Classics We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists , Written by Brian Knappenberger; Cinetic Media West of Memphis , Written by Amy Berg & Billy McMillin; Sony Pictures Classics
After a momentary holiday lull, it’s back on! Or as Calvin Candie says in Django Unchained . “We got us a fight going on that’s a good bit of fun.” Academy voters were given one extra day to mull over their Oscar nomination ballots, thanks to a voting deadline extension necessitated by complaints and concerns over the Academy’s first-ever electronic voting system. They could use that 24 hours to digest the Producers Guild Award nominations , which were announced Wednesday, a day early. From here, the awards season proceeds at 48 frames per second , bringing the Oscar race into sharp focus. The Director’s Guild of America nominations for Best Director will be announced Jan. 8, with Oscar nominations announced on the 10th,in advance of the Golden Globes, which will be handed out on the 13th. The PGA ceremony will be held on the 26th, followed by the SAG awards the following night. Feb. 2 brings the DGAs, one of the most reliable Oscar indicators, followed by the Independent Spirit Awards (and the Razzies) on the 23rd and the Oscars on the 24th. This is the earliest Oscar voting in history, Variety’s Jon Weisman noted, and he feared for the “dark horse” candidates as voters race to catch up to the big ticket films such as Django Unchained and Les Miserables that were released at the end of the year. “We’ll never quantify the impact… on the coming Academy Award nominations, but I’m thinking negative,” he writes. The Best Picture race was most impacted this week. So, let’s consult the Gold Linings Playbook to see which films benefited from the PGA bump. Best Picture Since 1990, the winner of the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures -winner was denied on Oscar night only seven times, most recently in 2006, when The Departed took Best Picture honors instead of the PGA’s choice, Little Miss Sunshine . Its 10-film field included most of the expected nominees from A ( Argo ) to Z ( Zero Dark Thirty ). Django Unchained ’s n-word – nomination – only accelerated its momentum, while Beasts of the Southern Wild , a non-union production, deemed ineligible for SAG consideration, and also denied Golden Globe nominations, saw its own Oscar cred strengthened. (Apparently, Hollywood Foreign Press Association members would rather party with Nicole Kidman than Quvenzhane Wallis ) biggest surprise was the nomination of Skyfall , which may be poised to do for Bond films what Beauty and the Beast did for animated films; be the first to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. But Skyfall shouldn’t press its Oscar-night tux just yet. Last year, Bridesmaids , The Ides of March and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo did not parlay their PGA nominations into Best Picture bids. The Master , Flight , and The Dark Knight Rises , each snubbed by the PGA, have their advocates, and should not be counted out. 1. Lincoln 2. Zero Dark Thirty 3. Argo 4. Silver Linings Playbook 5. Django Unchained 6. Les Misérables 7. Life of Pi 8. Beasts of the Southern Wild 9. Moonrise Kingdom 10. Skyfall Ones to watch: The Dark Knight Rises, Flight, The Master Best Director The heat is still on Zero Dark Thirty , now officially the target of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation over alleged contact between the filmmakers and CIA officials, but Kathryn Bigelow’s nomination is inevitable. Quentin Tarantino is riding taller in the saddle with Django Unchained ’s PGA nomination, but it’s a tight field and Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook are safer, far less controversial films. Still, it helps to have Samuel L. Jackson in your corner. The PGA snub of The Master sees Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar hopes further recede. 1. Steven Spielberg ( Lincoln ) 2. Kathryn Bigelow ( Zero Dark Thirty ) 3. Ben Affleck ( Argo ) 4. Ang Lee ( Life of Pi ) 5. David O. Russell ( Silver Linings Playbook ) Ones to watch: Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained). Michael Haneke (Amour), Tom Hooper (Les Miserables), Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)
It’s a new year and a new start for Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana , sources confirm to The New York Post : these stars have reportedly called it quits once again. The Silver Linings Playbook actor and the Star Trek beauty originally split in March after three months of dating, but reconciled in September. They had planned to spend the 2012 holidays together in Paris, but… “Zoe spent New Year’s Eve with friends in Miami,” an insider tells Page Six , blaming the break-up on Cooper’s busy schedule . Was she heartbroken over splitting with one of the sexiest men alive? Not according to a witness on the scene in South Beach: “If Zoe was upset… she didn’t show it.”
With the deadline for Academy Award nominations just two days away, perhaps it’s not the best time for Jennifer Lawrence to be talking about how acting is “stupid.” But that’s what she does in the new issue of Vanity Fair . The actress, whose performance in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook should put her in the running for a Best Actress Oscar, is the cover girl for the magazine’s February issue in which she’s named “The Most Desirable Woman of 2013.” But her perspective on acting may not sound so desirable to actors casting their votes for the first stage of the Oscar sweepstakes. “Not to sound rude, but [acting] is stupid,” Lawrence says. “Everybody’s like, ‘How can you remain with a level head?’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I ever get cocky? I’m not saving anybody’s life. There are doctors who save lives and firemen who run into burning buildings. I’m making movies. It’s stupid.’” Okay, so Lawrence hasn’t pulled a Joaquin Phoenix and declared the awards race “the stupidest thing in the whole world.” The context of her comment is unclear because Vanity Fair has yet to release the full story in which this quote appears, but Lawrence sounds like she’s merely being self-deprecating in a safely provocative way. And yet, as much as I admire candor, if I was part of Lawrence’s management team, I’d be telling her to can the “acting-is-stupid” comments until after awards season. I have to imagine that there are a fair number of self-important Academy voters/actors who don’t want to hear their profession belittled, especially since they’re not getting the kind of sought-after roles that Lawrence keeps getting. [ Vanity Fair] RELATED: Oscars E-Voting Too Hard For Tech-Illiterate Academy Members, Also Get Off My Lawn Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
THG is counting down the 100 Hottest Bikini Bodies of 2012! If you haven’t figured it out by now, we’ve been paying tribute to the hottest of the hot with bikini photos galore, and the competition is flat out sweltering. Keeping the heat rising in the #6 spot: Jennifer Lawrence! Most recently, Bar Refaeli bikini photos deservedly made THG’s hot list. Now, it’s one of the hottest actresses around – in more ways than one. What’s most amazing about Jennifer Lawrence – besides her considerable and surprisingly versatile acting talents – is that she’s almost under the radar. She started out her career by playing lead roles in TBS’s The Bill Engvall Show and in the independent films The Burning Plain and Winter’s Bone . Lawrence was also in X-Men: First Class, but is best known as Katniss in The Hunger Games , and most recently for her work in Silver Linings Playbook . You almost wouldn’t know how flat-out gorgeous she is. Whereas we see Rihanna nude photos just about every day, Jennifer is the opposite of an fame-seeking exhibitionist … even if she could pull it off. Once in awhile, she’ll do a photo shoot like the ones seen below, but aside from that, the 22-year-old is actually reserved and a semi-private person. Sometimes, less really is more. Unless we’re talking about the images seen here, in which case more is also more. As long as it’s not overkill. You get the idea. Now try not to drool into your computer too much. Click to enlarge a ton more hot Jennifer Lawrence photos below! Who’s next? Check back to see THG bikini babe #5!
There are Top 10s galore this time of the year, but no doubt Ben Affleck is taking a bit of extra notice on this one. Uber critic Roger Ebert gave Argo his choice for the Best of 2012. He called the year “one of the best recent years in cinema,” noting that he wrote over 300 reviews over the year, which is a personal record. He also noted that it was “unusually difficult” to leave out films in the top ten. Picking Argo , Ebert noted that the feature had the “classic values of a Hollywood thriller” and noted the story, based on true events, “reveals surprises about a story we all lived through. It is told with classic comedy and tension.” Oscar power-house Lincoln placed third on Ebert’s list after Ang Lee’s Life of Pi . He called Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance “powerful,” while describing Pi as a “miraculous achievement.” Also making the list was Sundance winner Beasts of the Southern Wild and perhaps surprisingly considering the momentum of the Oscar race, End of Watch Oslo, August 31 and A Simple Life . Notables not making the cut in the top ten at least include Zero Dark Thirty , Django Unchained , Les Misérables and Silver Linings Playbook . Ebert has long taken a course of his own. You can see his comments on his Top 10 here . Roger Ebert’s Top 10: 1. Argo by Ben Affleck 2. Life Of Pi by Ang Lee 3. Lincoln by Steven Spielberg 4. End Of Watch by David Ayer 5. Arbitrage by Nicholas Jarecki 6. Flight by Robert Zemeckis 7. The Sessions by Ben Lewin 8. Beasts of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin 9. Oslo, August 31st by Joachim Trier 10. A Simple Life by Ann Hui
Do you remember when J.J. Abrams ‘ ABC series Alias was the greatest female spy story of its time? Premiering in 2001, just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it starred an apple-cheeked newcomer with just the right combination of hardness and softness. For five seasons and through hundreds of costume changes — does the CIA really spend thousands of dollars on neon wigs? — Sydney Bristow ( Jennifer Garner ) showed the world that a female spy could be just as clever, alluring, and badass as James Bond , even on a TV budget. Since the premiere of Showtime’s spy thriller, Homeland , last year, however, Sydney has been retroactively exposed as Spy Barbie, a product of the girl-power fad of the 1990s. Homeland and the upcoming film, Zero Dark Thirty , which chronicles the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, make a more serious case for feminism — or a more serious kind of feminism — by pulling their female CIA-agent protagonists from the field and eschewing gold-lamé bikinis for sensible pantsuits. The ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ ‘Homeland’ Comparison Zero Dark Thirty ’s Maya ( Jessica Chastain) and Homeland ’s Carrie Mathison ( Claire Danes) are certainly cut from the same cotton-polyester blend cloth. They’re both young, willowy, fair-haired women hell-bent on finding a man: Maya is after bin Laden and Carrie after Abu Nazir, OBL’s fictional counterpart. They’re no-nonsense women with passion and indignation to spare, and more often than not, the smartest person in the room. They’re frequently the only women in a man’s world, but they’re not the type to make a big deal about it. Their hunches are usually ignored by exasperated higher-ups, but that has less to do with their gender than political convenience and grandstanding. Zero Dark Thirty and Homeland ’s rejection of honeypots in favor of intelligence analysts is instrumental in the reception of the film and the TV show as feminist works. That rejection reflects changing demographics within the espionage community, where female superstar data-crunchers are quickly becoming the norm. Both Maya and Carrie are famously based on real-life women in CIA.. The head of the spy bureau’s Al-Qaeda tracking team recently stated , “If I could have put out a sign on the door [after 9/11] that said ‘No men need apply,’ I would have done it.” But what’s most interesting about the feminisms — that’s feminism with an ‘s’ — of ZDT and Homeland are their different, but equally compelling, approaches to female heroism. The feminism in ZDT follows the “anything a man can do, I can do better” school of thought. It’s impossible not to project that attitude onto ZDT director Kathryn Bigelow , whose filmography strongly suggests a “guys’ girl,” and who received the first-ever Best Director Oscar awarded to a woman for making a macho military movie, The Hurt Locker . It’s difficult not to see Bigelow’s brand of feminism in Chastain’s Maya. Girlish ponytail and pouty lips aside, Chastain’s Maya is essentially a gender-neutral character. When she’s asked about her thoughts on office romance, her response is the closest she ever gets to femininity: “I’m not that girl that fucks.” In other words, the sexless, workaholic Maya briefly dons the mean-girl mask to define herself against all those other “girls” who men might see as sexual partners, instead of colleagues. In a later scene, she takes credit for her discovery of bin Laden’s hideout in a room full of military brass by declaring, “I’m the motherfucker that found this place.” With that short statement, Maya draws attention to her gender by pointedly not drawing attention to it. Anyone can be a motherfucker, man or woman — just like anyone can find bin Laden. Like Zero Dark Thirty , Homeland is rarely about Carrie’s gender. But the character begs to be read as a fervent defense of female hysteria and hyper-emotionality. It’s not PMS that makes Carrie a puppet to her emotions, but her bipolar disorder, a condition that’s spottily and sporadically treated in the show’s first season. Even after a bout of electro-convulsive therapy and a regular regimen of lithium to stabilize her mood swings, Carrie isn’t balanced enough for spycraft. When she helps capture Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), the ex-P.O.W. she alone — and correctly — believed to be a terrorist (and whom she later has an affair with), she screams, “I LOVED YOU!” at him while her embarrassed colleagues handcuff and cart him away. But the reason Homeland is a feminist — rather than misogynist — show, even with a caricature of female emotional instability at its center, is that it transforms a trait that has traditionally been used to denigrate women into a professional advantage. This isn’t the kind of gender-neutral feminism that congratulates female CEOs for shattering the glass ceiling. Rather, it questions the value of gender-neutrality and asks why women should want things that men have designated as desirable. Why should a little girl crash toy trucks together, for example, when playing with dolls will improve her verbal and empathy skills more quickly? Or in the case of Homeland , why should Carrie’s emotional instability be counted against her when it’s her perilous leaps of logic and mania-induced zealotry that enables her to see what nobody else can ? Even her ill-advised affair with Brody, fueled by loneliness and uncontrollable desire, helps her collect evidence of his extremism. The different approaches to feminism that Homeland and ZDT embody prove that there isn’t just one correct approach to gender equity: women (and progressive men) can have their feminism both ways. Now if only we could get a female CIA director, or even just a movie about one, already. Bonus note: Do Homeland and Zero Dark Thirty pass the Bechdel test ? Although the central cast of Homeland is basically Claire Danes and a bunch of dudes, it passes with flying colors. ZDT is a bit more complicated. Maya and a female colleague (Jennifer Ehle) discuss work a lot, but work for them is killing and torturing a bunch of men. It doesn’t pass on technical grounds, but it does in spirit. Whether the banner of feminism should be used to ignore, soften, or justify the brutality of torture, well, that’s a discussion for another day . Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Salon, Indiewire, Boxoffice, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast.” I Follow Inkoo Kang on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
