Woody Allen will most likely be rewarded for ‘Midnight in Paris,’ but we have our hearts set on ‘A Separation.’ By Kevin P. Sullivan Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams in “Midnight in Paris” Photo: Sony Pictures Classic One of the major complaints about this year’s Academy Awards race is that most of the winners feel decided already. Sure, “The Artist” is going to win Best Picture. Viola Davis probably already has Best Actress locked up. But the competition for Best Original Screenplay doesn’t even feel like a competition at all. The Academy has already spoken, and they’re going with an Oscar favorite. What’s really unfortunate here is not that the category is so predictable, but that the Academy didn’t venture more into independent film to find their nominees. “A Separation” stands out as one of the more refreshing nominees, but as the obligatory “indie” nominee, “Margin Call” could easily be swapped out for the likes of Jeff Nichols’ “Take Shelter” or Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” Of all the films nominated for original writing, here are our predictions for the category in 2012: Who Will Win : Woody Allen for “Midnight in Paris.” After 40-plus years of making movies, Allen delivered a film that went on to become his most financially successful ever. An achievement by a writer/director of his caliber will rarely go unrewarded at the Oscars, and deservedly so. “Midnight in Paris” is perfectly all right with being ridiculous, even going as far as to not explain the main character’s time-traveling abilities. More importantly, the film was about something, the allure and emptiness of nostalgia, in a year that’s been obsessed with traveling back in time emotionally. Even if the plot became repetitive at times, even the most cynical viewers had to find some joy in watching the like of Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds speaking words written by Allen. Who Should Win : Asghar Farhadi for “A Separation.” Anytime the Academy has an opportunity to do something utterly unexpected, that’s where my heart will lie. A win for the Iranian film would not only buck old Academy stereotypes, but reward a truly deserving film. “A Separation” follows a married couple as they decided whether to stay in Iran and care for an ailing parent or leave to better the life of their young daughter. Launching from that already provocative starting point, the film goes unexpected places while keeping the audience’s attention every step of the way. The MTV Movies team has the 2012 Oscars covered! Stick with us for everything you need to know leading up to the awards show, and on Sunday, February 26, tune into MTV.com at 5:30 p.m. ET for our three-hour red-carpet live stream and updates on the night’s big winners. Related Photos 2012 Oscar Nominees
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Artist made off with Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and and fistful of other hardware at tonight BAFTA Awards ceremony in London, its final stop before the silent film’s Oscar express pulls into the Kodak Theater terminus on Feb. 26. Meryl Streep also won a key awards-race victory as the institute’s Best Actress, while Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer continued their own hot streaks in the supporting categories. Read on for all of 2012’s winners, and drop back by Movieline on Wednesday to find out how the latest developments affect our Oscar Index . BEST FILM THE ARTIST OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER TYRANNOSAUR — Paddy Considine (Director), Diarmid Scrimshaw (Producer) DIRECTOR Michel Hazanavicius, THE ARTIST LEADING ACTOR Jean Dujardin, THE ARTIST LEADING ACTRESS Meryl Streep, THE IRON LADY SUPPORTING ACTOR Christopher Plummer, BEGINNERS SUPPORTING ACTRESS Octavia Spencer, THE HELP FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE THE SKIN I LIVE IN DOCUMENTARY SENNA ANIMATED FILM RANGO ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Michel Hazanavicius, THE ARTIST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY ORIGINAL MUSIC Ludovic Bource, THE ARTIST CINEMATOGRAPHY Guillaume Schiffman, THE ARTIST EDITING Gregers Sall and Chris King, SENNA PRODUCTION DESIGN Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo, HUGO COSTUME DESIGN Mark Bridges, THE ARTIST MAKE UP & HAIR Marese Langan, Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland, THE IRON LADY SOUND Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty, Tom Fleischman, John Midgley, HUGO SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS Tim Burke, John Richardson, Greg Butler and David Vickery, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2 SHORT ANIMATION A MORNING STROLL SHORT FILM PITCH BLACK HEIST THE ORANGE WEDNESDAYS RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public) ADAM DEACON ### [Top photo of (L-R) Artist star Jean Dujardin, producer Thomas Langmann and director Michel Hazanavicius via AFP/Getty Images]
Must be nice! What kind of stroller did Beyonce get from pal Gwyneth Paltrow? A Bugaboo, naturally! Paltrow was among the very first to tweet about the birth of her BFF Beyonce’s daughter Blue Ivy in early January — and the actress, 38, knew just what to gift the chanteuse and her bundle of joy. Paltrow treated Beyonce and husband Jay-Z to a Cameleon stroller by Bugaboo, boasting a dark gray base and off-white fabric; the posh baby-transporter retails for $979. (As it happens, Beyonce, 30, scored one of many smash singles with Destiny’s Child in 1999 with the song “Bugaboo,” about a male suitor who just doesn’t know when to give up.) But here’s a question: what the hell are Beyoncé and Jay-Z going to do with a stroller? That child is not going to see the light of day until she already knows how to walk, or maybe she won’t even need to walk because she’ll be carried aloft on a platform everywhere she goes. Actually, maybe they could use it to push the baby around inside her 2,200-square-foot nursery. Either way, props to the Gwenny for the nice gesture. Do you think the gift was excessive? Source More On Bossip! All The Single Ladies, All The Single Ladies: A Gallery Of The Most Eligible Celebrity Bachelorette Bangers Basketball Wives Season 4 Extended Trailer: Evelyn Tries To Jump Jennifer Williams And More Scraps Than The Previous Seasons Put Together! [Video] Would You Wife This? Lindsay Blowhan Shows Off Body In Photo Shoot…And Doesn’t Look Horrible! We Know What You Like: These Celebrities Seem To Date A Certain “Type”…And We Think We’ve Figured Them Out!
Sometime after getting her start on NBC’s short-lived but well-loved cult series Freaks and Geeks , starring in two live-action studio Scooby-Doo movies, appearing for six seasons on ER , and turning in various screen performances (including a role as Ennis del Mar’s waitress fling in Brokeback Mountain ), Linda Cardellini took a break to reassess her career. “I wanted to step back and reevaluate myself as an actress and find out what I was capable of,” she told Movieline, describing her turn as a shell-shocked female soldier readjusting to life at home in this week’s Return , “and this was sort of the perfect role for that.” Return brought the actress in close collaboration with filmmaker Liza Johnson, who wrote and directed the drama about Kelli (Cardellini), a wife and mother who’s recently come home to her suburban Ohio town after a tour of duty in the Middle East with the National Guard. Despite the fact that she suffered no notable trauma overseas, Kelli finds that her familiar world has been utterly changed nonetheless; nothing seems to be in its right place anymore, in her home and in her mind. Despite her best efforts, Kelli’s emotional dislocation begins to sabotage her relationships and threaten her marriage as she grasps to keep control of it all. It’s an unusual perspective on war and its tragic effects, and one that Cardellini eagerly poured herself into. And it’s a performance that’s garnered new acclaim and attention for the actress, who also added roles in Kill the Irishman and Super to her post-break resume. Cardellini rang Movieline last week – expecting her first baby any day, she joked that both of her big projects could debut at once – to discuss Return , her career moves, and more. The director, Liza Johnson, workshopped this film for a while – how did it come to you and why do you think you tapped into it? After I finished ER I went to New York and I was thinking about doing a play, I sort of took a step back and thought I wanted to do something different than what I had been doing for so long. While I was in New York I was sent this script, I read it that night, and the next day I met with Liza. Really, I just sort of fell in love with the role because even though it’s a giant undertaking it’s a fantastic role for an actress, and I just thought it was an unusual way to take a look at a soldier returning, especially from a woman’s perspective. What kind of impression did Liza and her vision for the film make on you? When I met with Liza I thought she really had an interesting voice; she had a lot of ideas about the silences and the small details that have caused the unraveling in this person’s life, rather than the one big traumatic and catastrophic event, which was a really interesting way to play it and hopefully for people to relate to this type of character. She had things written in the script about the way things smelled, and the way things felt on her feet, and it was different than other scripts that I had read. Liza’s idea of how to shoot it and who this person was, we really just fell in sync close to immediately. I was very lucky that she chose me! We had the luxury of time because it’s so hard to put together a truly independent film – we had a little over a year together, talking about the film, obsessing over the film. For me and for Liza, we really enjoyed educating ourselves as much as we could about people returning and their stories, and people’s stories surrounding them. I’m onscreen the entire time – I’ve never had such great trust between myself and a director, and that was a wonderful feeling. We very rarely hear about, let alone see depicted, the experience of a female soldier. How did you learn about that world and that unique point of view, through talking to real life servicemen and women? We tried to find as many people as we could that would talk to us, and people were very generous in speaking to us. People’s experiences were very different. There was one woman who was happily returning to her third or fourth deployment, and I spoke with another girl who, after one deployment, her life had been turned completely upside-down. The differences between those stories, and also the common threads – and I spoke with men as well, to get the generalized version of the story and to understand things that weren’t necessarily gender-specific, things that were common threads for men and women, so that the story could be accessible to many people since it wasn’t based on one person’s actual story. We spoke with psychologists and vets from other wars, people who had family members returning – and what it was like to be shut out from that – and went to places where we thought she’d have grown up. We went to places she’d have visited with her family; we did things she would have done in basic training even though you never saw them in the film. We just tried to fill her life as much as possible, especially because there are so many silences and so many small details and there’s so much restraint in her character, I wanted to be able to seed those silences with all the details I had learned. There are many instances where we realize, after the fact, that she’s felt off despite being back home and in her “normal” routine – and many small details that are not verbalized, but come through in quiet, subtle cues. Yeah. And the script didn’t tell me what to think, or how to think, but also as Kelli I don’t know how to say the things that I’m feeling, which is what I think happens in life. I don’t think that we’re always the most articulate we can be when we’re going through something traumatic or life-changing. Hindsight is 20/20 – you don’t realize for years to come that you’re going through and how they affected you. I imagine that Kelli, in the years to come, will understand more about herself than she does at the moment. Things are very jarring for her from the moment we meet her; she’s just come home from a tour of duty and trying to readjust to her old life, not quite sure why things feel different. How would you describe her headspace? She frequently explains, when people ask her what happened “over there,” that “other people had it a lot worse.” She’s in denial, for sure… I think she’s in denial, I think there’s some guilt, I think there’s some sadness…loss at her perspective of the world right now, I think there’s an innocence lost. I think she’s going through a lot of things that she doesn’t quite know how to put into words, but she certainly didn’t lose a limb like people that she saw, she didn’t lose her life, she didn’t get raped – she’s forced to count her blessings based on some of the things she’s seen but still does not feel her old self, and still feels changed by everything that’s happened, so it’s confusing. We spoke to this psychologist and she said sometimes people don’t have one specific trauma, but the idea of being in a broken and war-torn world where you see things that change your opinion of what mankind can be like is enough to cause trauma in your life. I think that’s an interesting thing; a lot of returning soldier stories have one big catastrophic event where someone gets hurt or there’s an outburst of violence, and I think those things do, of course as we’ve seen, really happen. And I think there’s another version of that, with people returning with stories that aren’t quite as explosive but that can be life-changing for them as well. I think that’s something that people come home with and can be healed from, but also some people are healed from it and some people are not. The idea of “returning” is made exponentially stressful given the possibility of redeployment for many soldiers like Kelli, and that constant feeling of being torn between two worlds seems even worse than having to adjust even once back to normal life. Absolutely. And what do you do with that commitment that you’ve made and the duty that you have – and the duty you have to your family? And what are your alternatives? Not to mention that in focusing on a female soldier’s perspective you get the added element of maternal demands – Kelli’s husband at one point asks her to try to be a mother to her children. The idea of these two potentially conflicting duties, service and motherhood, pulling a woman in two different directions is even more complex. Yeah, and I think it’s maybe just as difficult for men to do the same but we’re used to it. The idea of a woman leaving her children [to serve in the military] is a newer concept for people, so dealing with the fallout of that is something I think she has to deal with as well. Because the expectations of her returning home are different than they would be if she were a man. And the expectations of the man staying home are different as well, and Michael [Shannon]’s character is really interesting in that way too, in that he’s been holding things together waiting for her to come back and be normal and that just can’t happen. It’s really, really sad. Did Michael come to the project after you were attached? No, I think he was first! I don’t know if Liza knew him before or what, but he was attached first and very, very early on – it took at least a year after that, if not two, for the movie to be made. Then I came on and everybody else after that. What was it like playing opposite Michael and, by contrast, John Slattery, who plays an interesting character in that he and Kelli seem to get each other through their similar military experiences even if it doesn’t exactly work out… No, and I think he’s a surprise to her, too. I think she feels that she’s finally found somebody that maybe she can trust, and you get a glimpse of Kelli when she’s a little more carefree. She’s laughing, she’s having a good time, she’s talking, and she actually opens herself up a bit more before you realize how quickly that is an illusion, and how quickly she shuts down. Things are still not as she hopes them to be. I think it’s interesting, too, how he deals with his return – he’s a returning vet from a different war, versus her coming home from a more recent war, and it’s a common thread yet they have very different approaches to dealing with it. But John’s great; it was really fun to be able to play on set. It was very fun to have a different version of Kelli come out in those scenes, and I wanted people to understand what she was like when she could smile easier, and laugh, and relate to people a little bit better. With Michael, I had been on set a long time shooting by myself and when he showed up there was this whole family dynamic that came with him. For all the crazy parts he plays he’s a really wonderful, good person. Such a dynamic and amazing actor, it was a thrill to work with him and we had such a good time. We had this chemistry that just worked in terms of the opposition and the affection we had towards each other. How has your process evolved over the years in terms of the projects and characters that you choose? You know, it’s hard to say. It’s a good question. I’ve always tried to choose things where I could be different than what I have been doing, and I really like to be able to surprise people with what I’m able to do. I sometimes can shy away from the limelight a little, and I took a break after ER . I could have done several things but I just waited until I found a role… I wanted to step back and reevaluate myself as an actress and find out what I was capable of, and this was sort of the perfect role for that. I’m lucky that Liza trusted me with such a giant undertaking. It’s the first time someone’s been able to hand me a role like that, and it felt so good to sink my teeth into that and really understand myself again as an actress. But I love to do comedy too! I like to choose things that excite me and challenge me, and this was definitely one of them. [Laughs] It was very fast and furious shooting, too. And also I wanted to know more about that subject matter, so it was an education as well. You mentioned those few years that you took off to re-assess your career direction and the kind of projects you wanted to take on. When you look back on Freaks and Geeks , it has such an enduring legacy and even Paul Feig, for example, has had huge recent success. Yeah! It’s so great. When you look back on that time, how do you feel about the fact that many people still associate you with Freaks and Geeks and have such a love for the series, even now? It’s amazing. It really speaks to the power of the DVD because while we were on network television we got very much ignored, like the freaks and geeks of the industry. [Laughs] But I love it. I’m so proud of the show, I’m so proud of everybody who went on to do all the different things that they’ve done. It was such an interesting and unique group of people. Our [2011Paleyfest celebration] was like a high school reunion. We drove up and I said, ‘God, what are these people waiting for?’ And we realized they were here for Freaks and Geeks , to be part of the event, and I thought, wow – what a change, from being cancelled and not even getting to a full season! A line around the block a decade later. And I run into people who are still discovering the show. I think we’re all pretty proud of it. You followed Freaks and Geeks with a number of roles in big mainstream films – the Scooby-Doo movies, for instance. Considering this more recent career refocus, are there any earlier roles that you might reconsider doing if you had to do them over again? You know, everything I’ve done has brought me to where I am. Some people wonder where that is, but to me it’s the story of my life and I’ve had a pretty good life, so I’m pretty happy. And this latest role, if I would have stepped in a different direction I wouldn’t be in this film now, and to me it’s one of my greatest accomplishments so far. Return is in select theaters this Friday. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
We’ve been discussing that shady French Elle and their comments about black folks all week , and now they have finally decided to respond: French fashion magazine Elle has denied charges of racism after unleashing a storm by suggesting that a black American elite, inspired by the Obama couple, was finally embracing “white” fashion. The January 13 blog post entitled “Black fashion power” has drawn volleys of angry protest on both side of the Atlantic, with the New York Daily News tabloid saying it managed to “insult black Americans as a whole”. In the piece, which has since been removed from Elle’s website, journalist Nathalie Dolivo cited singers Erykah Badu or Rihanna and the actress Zoe Saldana, as black Americans who understood “the importance of style”. “In an America governed for the first time by a black American president, chic has become a plausible option for a community up until then bound by its streetwear codes,” she wrote. “In 2012, the ‘black-geoisie’ has integrated all the white codes … but with a twist, bourgeois with an ethnic reference that recalls their roots,” she argued. The US website Huffington Post slammed the piece last week, saying a clumsy attempt to praise black style had “unravelled into a string of controversial, stereotypical and insulting statements”. “So, being chic and sophisticated beyond jeans and a T-shirt has only been an option for black people since 2008 when Michelle Obama became First Lady?” it asked. French star journalist Audrey Pulvar, one of the rare black faces in France’s media landscape, also called the article “racist and imbecilic”. In a statement issued on Wednesday night, the body representing journalists at the style weekly defended their title. “No Elle is not racist,” the Societe Des Journalistes said in a statement, insisting the magazine had “never stopped campaigning for the dignity of all women for more than 60 years”. Elle editor Valerie Toranian also published an online apology, saying the weekly was “deeply sorry” to have caused offence, and has invited an anti-racism body to take part in a debate about the article. In a new post on Elle’s site, Dolivo also apologises for the article, saying it was an attempt to take a “positive” look at US society and style. SMH. We call bullsh*t on this one. Discuss… Source More On Bossip! Pure Comedy: Bin Laden’s Potty-Mouth Ex-Boo-Thang Kola Boof Responds Directly To BOSSIP About Her Husband-Fuggin Tweets!! On The Party Scene: Rick Ross Celebrates His B-Day In Atlanta With His Banger Boo “Basketball Wives Beef”: Laura Govan Says She Will Never Speak To Shaunie O’Neal And Explains Why She Loves The Pistol Packing Player Who Is Papa To Her Kids! Hate It Or Love It?!?! The Notable Women Of Color (Mostly) In Ask Men’s Most Desirable Women Of 2012
It’s a little difficult for the specialists at Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics to come into work these days, what with the pall of predictability settling in over the awards landscape and the painstaking studies into backlash physics yielding less and less of practical substance. What’s a frustrated kudologist to do? Besides drink for the next four weeks straight, I mean. Let’s look for ideas and encouragement for all in this week’s Oscar Index. The Final 9: 1. The Artist 2. The Help 3. Hugo 4. The Descendants 5. Midnight in Paris 6. Moneyball 7. The Tree of Life 8. The Daldry 9. War Horse The Artist followed up its ostensible Oscar-clinching Producers Guild win with triumphs at last weekend’s Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild awards — sort of. Michel Hazanavicius did somewhat soundly establish his front-running creds over sentimental favorite Martin Scorsese, supplementing along the way his film’s chances in Best Picture. And Jean Dujardin nabbed SAG’s Best Actor prize over presumed favorite George Clooney, further reinforcing The Artist ‘s standing among actors. But then, also at SAG, came The Help — first with Viola Davis taking a commanding lead over Meryl Streep (and thus Harvey Weinstein, the season’s resident awards Merlin who distributed The Iron Lady and, of course, The Artist ) in Best Actress and, more surprisingly, The Help swiping Best Picture to close out the night. Factor in Octavia Spencer expected Supporting Actress sweep, and you’ll spot all the signs of a surge stirring where it matters the most: in the Academy’s Actors Branch, the most populous voting bloc in an organization whose final Oscar ballots just went out today. Nice timing, there. Still: Does it matter? Maybe so, comes the word from some corners of the awards commentariat. “[W]henever you watch history being made you feel the power of what these silly and otherwise pointless awards shows can sometimes do: move the needle ever so slightly,” observed Sasha Stone at Awards Daily. “No movie has taken three SAG awards since Chicago , which went on to win Best Picture — as did three of the last four movies to win the Cast award,” notes Mark Harris at Grantland. Or maybe not, suggest others. “Tate Taylor’s debut didn’t land a best film editing Oscar nomination,” wrote Gregory Ellwood at HitFix. “The last time a film won best picture without an editing nod? Ordinary People in 1981, 31 years ago.” Womp womp . All that being said, I increasingly doubt that this is a race that will come down to historical precedents — at least not statistical precedents, anyway. In fact, Harris offered the most provocative “data” of the week, which was ultimately just conjecture (but very interesting conjecture): Front-runners can’t be taken down abstractly; votes need to coalesce around a single opposition candidate, and even if there had been a chance of that happening this year, the unexpectedly wide field of nine nominees probably would have demolished it. Remember, The Artist doesn’t need to be a consensus choice to win Best Picture — depending on the way the ballots fall, it could technically win by receiving just 12 percent of the votes, and very credibly win with three out of four Academy members voting against it. I happened to be in the Oscar auditorium the year Crash won Best Picture, and I can report that what sounded on TV like a gasp of surprise resonated in the theater as something closer to horror. Very few people I ran into that night had voted for Crash . But it didn’t matter, because the vast majority of Oscar voters weren’t anywhere near that theater. They were at home watching TV. And a lot of them loved Crash . And a lot of them love The Artist . This would mean that Best Picture is shaping up as the kind of hearts-and-minds battle we’ve all seen before. Which, despite all my confidence in The Artist on Monday (and despite even Oscar oracle Harris’s conclusion that “[t]here’s no reason to assume it isn’t going all the way”), suggests that peer respect for the Help ensemble, persisting conversations about race during awards season , and the Academy’s enduring white guilt are precisely the types of influences that The Help needs to shepherd that aforementioned 12 percent of votes out of The Artist ‘s stable and into its own. Think of it this way: It already has at least the 5 percent of first-place votes required just to be nominated. In that respect, The Help and The Artist are on even turf. Each will have its devotees beyond that; it’s anyone’s guess how they match up. But if you were told that you were an underdog versus a favorite against whom you’ve rallied demonstrable support among working actors and writers , and you could build a game plan around a franchise player like Viola Davis, wouldn’t you feel like you had a pretty good shot at the frontrunner? Especially with the Weinsteins facing a hilariously timed lawsuit over other, erstwhile Oscar bait and with DreamWorks able to reinforce The Help ‘s aesthetic powers with its commercial muscle. Plus they can turn around and say it’s not even the biggest awards-darling in its native France . That’s got to be worth something, right? In other, lower-wattage news, Madonna — an Academy member herself — is stridently Team Tree (which, incidentally, got a rare, favorable Academy allowance to list four producers as its Best Picture nominees): ” Tree of Life is stunningly beautiful. That’s my favorite,” she told the L.A. Times . “I think it’s a spiritual, deeply profound movie. My mouth was hanging open the entire time I was watching it.” Talk about winning hearts and minds! Suck it, The Daldry . The Final 5: 1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist 2. Martin Scorsese, Hugo 3. Alexander Payne, The Descendants 4. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life 5. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris And that’s not all! Check out what Madge said about Terrence Malick: “He really does make the movie he wants to make. It’s completely and utterly authentic. And I feel like he really is channeling something without anybody else’s input. No one’s saying he should do that, he shouldn’t do that. He gets amazing performances out of his actors.” Enh, really I’ve got nothing here beyond the DGA Awards usual. Hazanavicius is either the utmost symbol of his film’s imminent supremacy or the last high-voltage blast of Artist glory you’ll see before The Help pulls its plug. I lean toward the former, but imagining Malick getting up onstage at the Kodak Theater and quietly asking the producers to “Please turn that clock off; this will take a few hours” is a dream worth savoring. The Final 5: 1. Viola Davis, The Help 2. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady 3. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn 4. Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 5. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs I don’t have much to add about Davis that wasn’t either covered above or elucidated in Nathaniel Rogers’s exquisite tribute this week at The Film Experience: I think the true indicator that Viola Davis is the likely winner of the Best Actress Oscar is not the win itself with SAG, which has a much wider more diverse voting body than Oscar, but the crowd response. Reducing co-stars to tears is probably no great achievement. They were in the trenches with you, so naturally Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer and Cicely Tyson were crying their eyes out. But making Zoe Saldana and Angelina Jolie all misty? Boosting Dick Van Dyke’s mood when he was already high on life? I think what it comes down to is the unruly power of emotion, or “heart” as its sometimes called in movie parlance and awards narratives. The heart wants what it wants and for a lot of people, that means Viola Davis in The Help this season. There’s more where that came from . I recommend it — as well as takes from Kristopher Tapley (at Davis’s Santa Barbara Film Festival appearance), Jimi Izrael (“There are flaws in the film, but Viola Davis is not one of them”) and Ryan Adams , who had the definitive reaction to Davis’s extraordinary SAG acceptance speech: “Anyone who thinks I’m wrong to be angry about a sneering attitude toward this speech, come at me, bro. Come at me.” That’s OK! The Leading 5: 1. Jean Dujardin, The Artist 2. George Clooney, The Descendants 3. Brad Pitt, Moneyball 4. Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 5. Demi
File under the ever-thickening berth labeled “Dirty Oscar-Season Tricks”: No sooner did the sun rise on the Academy’s final-ballot mailing day than word circulated about the author and publishers of The Reader suing The Weinstein Company for undercompensation. I know, I know — you’re shocked. In a nutshell, author Bernard Schlink and his publishers claim that they are owed 2.5 to 5 percent of gross receipts from 2008 film — AKA the other Daldry co-produced by Scott Rudin that was hustled into theaters at the last minute only to shock the world with a Best Picture nomination (and eventually earn Kate Winslet a Best Actress Oscar) — but that they “have received only one profit participation statement from TWC that says no monies are due.” Of course. More from Deadline : The suit also alleges overstatement of production costs of which $10 million were subsidized by the German government, overstatement of distribution fees as well as overstatement of costs of advertising, marketing, publicity, promotion and of the negative cost of the film. Specifically the charges include breach of contract, fraudulent concealment, money had and received, breach of implied contract and accounting. Plaintiffs seek $1 million or more in consequential damages, a complete, up to date and correct accounting of monies due plus 10% interest from the dates any sums were due, punitive damages and court costs. Just when things were going so well for The Artist , too! Speaking of which, the Weinsteins’ designated awards-season legal representative Uggie responded to the suit this morning with typically eloquent defiance: [ Deadline ]
The most demoralizing awards season in recent memory continued over the weekend, with the Directors Guild and the Screen Actors Guild handing out their hardware to pretty much everyone you expected to receive it. I’ll factor all this into Oscar Index on Wednesday for a complete-race breakdown, but here are the five basic takeaways worth keeping in mind: 1. The Artist is not coming back. Michel Hazanavicius’s DGA win for Best Director, paired with last weekend’s Producers Guild win for Best Picture, all but cements The Artist ‘s standing as the thoroughbred way, way out in front of the Oscar pack. It isn’t about to slow up, either; the most that the teams behind such films as The Descendants , The Help and Hugo can hope for is that their principals cure cancer this week. And even that might not be enough goodwill to ratchet up their momentum. 2. Michel Hazanavicius/Tom Hooper/Quentin Tarantino are to 2012 what Robert Rodriguez/Kevin Smith/Quentin Tarantino were to 1994. If mellow is what wins, then Harvey Weinstein will give awards voters mellow. He’s about to go two-for-two with this (mostly) new stable of directorial talent, having previously made nominees of Tarantino and (ahem) Stephen Daldry. Next up in 2013, it’s Tarantino again with Django Unchained and Paul Thomas Anderson perhaps giving us back some edge as well with his new one. But mostly just look for Harvey to continue making whatever myths he can in the perennial quest to bolster his own. 3. Bank on Viola Davis. It’s not so much the precursors won — her SAG and Critics Choice awards for Best Actress, for example — that now have her ahead of Meryl Streep in the Oscar race. It’s her extraordinary class and grace and humility in accepting her plaudits — her belief in her work, her colleagues, and the power of what they created. Only the Artist gang has really shown any ability to match that, and thus look for both to be rewarded next month with the majority of the Academy’s top prizes — including… 4. Jean Dujardin should pull through. I don’t know what surveys or rankings some experts were reading that made Dujardin’s SAG win on Sunday an ” upset .” Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has had the guy tracking in the lead for two months now , with Clooney only recently pulling even after the Golden Globes. Now Dujardin returns to the solo lead, probably for good. Big deal. 5. The Academy embarrassed itself nominating Glenn Close. I don’t have much outrage left about this year’s Oscar class, but just watching another goddamn tired Albert Nobbs clip and seeing Tilda Swinton’s gracious recognition of her own SAG nomination and thinking about Swinton and Charlize Theron and Kirsten Dunst and Elizabeth Olsen and at least three or four other actresses more worthy of Close’s Oscar nomination and what could have been had me so irretrievably embittered all over again. What a bunch of bozos we’ve built this beat around. Or maybe we’re the bozos. Either way, it’s a waste. 6. It won’t get any better next year. Who’s ready for the great John Hawkes ( The Surrogate )/Daniel Day Lewis ( Lincoln ) battle of 2013? I said, who’s ready — enh, forget it. And for the record, find the complete list of SAG motion picture award winners below. Congrats to all! 18th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® RECIPIENTS THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role JEAN DUJARDIN / George – “THE ARTIST” (The Weinstein Company) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role VIOLA DAVIS / Aibileen Clark – “THE HELP” (DreamWorks Pictures / Touchstone Pictures) Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER / Hal – “BEGINNERS” (Focus Features) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role OCTAVIA SPENCER / Minny Jackson – “THE HELP” (DreamWorks Pictures / Touchstone Pictures) Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture THE HELP (DreamWorks Pictures / Touchstone Pictures) JESSICA CHASTAIN / Celia Foote VIOLA DAVIS / Aibileen Clark BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD / Hilly Holbrook ALLISON JANNEY / Charlotte Phelan CHRIS LOWELL / Stuart Whitworth AHNA O’REILLY / Elizabeth Leefolt SISSY SPACEK / Missus Walters OCTAVIA SPENCER / Minny Jackson MARY STEENBURGEN / Elaine Stein EMMA STONE / Skeeter Phelan CICELY TYSON / Constantine Jefferson MIKE VOGEL / Johnny Foote Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Don’t miss ‘MTV First: This Means War’ at 7:56 p.m. ET Tuesday on MTV, followed by an in-depth chat on MTV.com. By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Reese Witherspoon Photo: MTV News In addition to her successes as an actress and her respectable reputation, Reese Witherspoon is the envy of millions of Twilighters after working alongside superstar heartthrob Robert Pattinson in not one, but two films — not to mention the fact that she’s kissed him too . When MTV News caught up with Witherspoon recently as part of “MTV First: This Means War,” we asked her the first thing that comes to mind when she thinks of her “Water for Elephants” and “Vanity Fair” co-star. “I would say [he is] the hardest-working person I’ve ever worked with, honestly,” she said. “[He’s] professional, hard-working, so appreciative, more grateful than I’ve ever seen anyone for where he is in life.” Pattinson dished details on how he prepped for his shirtless scene! Kristen Stewart got super embarrassed when looking back at her first MTV interview! Take a look back at the classic “MTV First: Breaking Dawn.” Given the fact that Witherspoon has been in the business for decades and experienced every facet of being famous, we asked her to weigh in on the current fan frenzy that surrounds Pattinson wherever he goes and how it may or may not affect a person. “I’ve never experienced what he has — going to premieres and there’s just millions of people waiting for him to touch them,” she said. “I think it must be strange, but I don’t even know how to process what he deals with and Kristen [Stewart] deals with. I don’t know.” Justin Bieber revealed the secrets behind his “Mistletoe” music video and why his fans are perfect just the way they are in “MTV First: Justin Bieber.” The Oscar-winning actress said Pattinson handles his fame very well, despite the sometimes-chaotic circumstances. “[He’s]a really cool guy,” she said. Don’t miss our exclusive sit-down with Witherspoon during Tuesday’s “MTV First: Reese Witherspoon.” Tune in to MTV at 7:56 p.m. ET, when the actress will premiere a previously unseen clip from her upcoming film “This Means War,” followed by an in-depth interview on MTV.com. Before ” MTV First: This Means War ” hits MTV on Tuesday at 7:56 p.m. ET, check out Reese’s first-ever, totally adorable MTV interview , when she opened up in 1991 at the age of 14 about what drew her to Hollywood. And make sure to stick with Reese’s chat when it moves to MTV.com after an exclusive “This Means War” clip premieres Tuesday on MTV! Related Photos ‘Water For Elephants’
Co-stars Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer triumph in actress categories, while ‘Artist’ star edges out George Clooney for Best Actor. By Kevin P. Sullivan Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis and Brad Pitt onstage at the SAG awards on Sunday Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images A surprise win for “The Help” for Best Ensemble capped off a rather predictable night at the SAG Awards on Sunday (January 29). The adaptation of the best-selling novel picked up individual awards for both Octavia Spencer, who won Best Supporting Actress, and Viola Davis, who won Best Actress. The rest of the Screen Actors Guild Awards were dominated by category favorites. Christopher Plummer kicked off the night with another win to add his impressive amount of gold for his role in “Beginners.” The legendary actor expressed his job satisfaction by stating, “I can’t tell you what fun I’ve had being a member of the world’s second oldest profession.” A mild shock came in the Best Actor category for film, when French actor Jean Dujardin edged out George Clooney for his role in the awards favorite “The Artist.” The silent ode to the golden era of filmmaking had been a favorite for the evening’s biggest categories, but huge wins from “The Help” stole the thunder from the Oscar favorite. Past winners in the TV categories took the stage at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium as repeat winners. Betty White seemed more confused than anyone when she won the award for Best Actress in a comedy series for the second year in a row. The cast of “Modern Family” stormed the stage with a painfully pre-rehearsed acceptance speech for Best Comedy Series, and Steve Buscemi took to the mic twice for wins in the Best Actor in a Drama Series and Best Drama series categories for “Boardwalk Empire.” Other winners in the television categories included Alec Baldwin for “30 Rock” and Jessica Lange for “American Horror Story.” Kate Winslet and Paul Giamatti won their respective categories for actors in a TV movie or miniseries. Stick with MTV News all night for the 2012 SAG Awards winners , and don’t miss all the fashion from the red carpet ! Related Photos Backstage At The 2012 SAG Awards SAG Awards 2012 Red Carpet Stars Light Up The SAG Awards Stage
