Kidding! Michael Shannon was born to play oddball creepy-types, and I mean that in the best way possible. So his turn as Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer from New Jersey known as The Iceman who killed for sport and for gangsters for three decades, seems fitting. Anyone else feeling curious pangs of sympathy for the Mafia hitman-slash-family man who claimed to have murdered over 100 men over the course of his “career?” Kuklinski grew up in the Jersey suburbs with abusive parents before beating a bully to death at the age of 14; it was his first murder. His double life as loving father and husband and ice-cold killer is one of those fascinatingly true tales (read the gory details here , literally) and Shannon is one of a handful of actors who could probably pull off the dichotomy. So I’m morbidly curious about The Iceman , even as the head shots and stabby glimpses abound in this first trailer. Shannon and his various period wiseguy hair co-star with Winona Ryder, James Franco, David Schwimmer, and Ray Liotta. Oh, also? CHRIS EVANS AS AN ICE CREAM TRUCK-DRIVING HITMAN NAMED MISTER SOFTEE. Worth the price of admission alone, no? Based on the book The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer , The Iceman will debut at the Venice and Toronto film fests. [ Apple ]
In the latest installment of ARRIVALS , spotlighting breakthrough performers, Movieline chats with Dania Ramirez, who cycles to stardom opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon in this week’s Premium Rush . As Vanessa, the tough bicycling beauty of David Koepp’s adrenaline-fueled Premium Rush , Dominican-born Dania Ramirez ( X-Men: The Last Stand , Entourage , Heroes ) bursts onto the screen with such vitality that it’s no wonder director Spike Lee gave Ramirez her big break, years ago, after recognizing her as a former extra on one of his shoots. Ramirez, a onetime college volleyball star, credits her career to Lee (she appeared in his Subway Stories , The 25th Hour , and She Hate Me before carving out a career in TV and film; she’s got Marc Cherry’s Devious Maids series lined up for 2013). She spoke further with Movieline about her career beginnings, the artistic impulse behind her short spoof “Ass and Titties,” her real life job history (McDonalds to Rollergirl!) and her bicycling horror stories from the set of Premium Rush , in which fellow NYC bike messenger Joseph Gordon-Levitt woos her while they both tangle with a crooked cop (Michael Shannon). In a lot of movies it’s a little disappointing to see cutaways in action scenes that make it obvious that the actors are not doing their own stunts, but in Premium Rush it’s at least clear that you guys knew your way around a bicycle. The good thing about this movie is that a lot of the movie takes place on the bikes, so we had to get good at riding, and to a certain extent doing stunts. [Laughs] But don’t get me wrong, this is not to take credit away from the amazing, talented stunt people that were on set helping us out. There’s a fall that I take where I jump into the air and I could never have done that. Thank God for my stunt double! Joe [Gordon-Levitt] had four other people coming in and helping out. But we trained for six weeks in L.A. prior to shooting – to make sure our endurance was up, but also learning how to jump curbs and skid the bike and stop and turn so that we could do most of the cool sort of riding within the scenes and not have to have a stunt person come in. This not a movie full of CGI and effects, it’s a movie that you feel we’re really in danger and the ones doing everything. That’s what’s cool about it. That’s what makes it authentic. During the end credits there’s a neat but kind of horrifying video of [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] bleeding profusely after smashing his bike into the back of a cab. Yeah! He got 31 stitches. He went through a cab’s windshield! We had been filming for, I think, a month and a half, and that was definitely a moment when Joe and I looked at each other and said, ‘Maybe we should let the stunt people come in and do the stunts.’ [Laughs] We were so committed to wanting to be these people, and sometimes as an actor you wind up feeling invincible… That you have your characters’ abilities? Yes – you feel like you are this bad ass bike messenger and the truth is, we’re actors. Did you have any spills yourself? I fell every single day I worked, almost. I had bruises everywhere. I had these two gouges on my leg while I was riding, when I hit the mirror off the cab because my chain went into my wheel and I hit a pothole and hit the ground hard. We hit the ground all the time! I needed make-up all over my legs to cover up my bruises on a regular basis. But I like it. I like the adrenaline. And you’re a former athlete, which probably helped. I played volleyball at Montclair State – I did not ride a bike prior to doing this movie, I actually had a bike phobia. I fell down when I was like seven years old, really hardcore, and I did like three flips in the air with my bike. So this was an opportunity for me to sort of face my fear. And I did, and now I love it! I have two bikes now that I own and I’m training for the Malibu triathlon on September 16, I believe. So I’ve been training! Well, I feel that I can now share with you my secret: I still can’t ride a bike. You have to try! Now that you’ve watched the movie doesn’t it inspire you to go learn? Maybe you can start by the beach, with a beach cruiser. I’ll give it a shot. I think you should! Even if I should learn, at long last – how does one master the art of looking sexy while working up a sweat on a bike? You do that well, along with the rest of the cast. What is the trick to that? You’re the second person to call that sexy – I was not trying to be sexy! I don’t know how that came across sexy! I honestly was sweating, it was New York City in the summertime… Joe and I both were sweating bullets as the cameras were rolling, having to change shirts on a regular basis because we were so sweaty. But I think that’s what makes it so hot! The fact that we were sweaty, and raw, and it’s New York City. [Laughs] Now, let’s take it back to the beginning. Legend has it you were discovered by Jay-Z… My first time on camera ever I did Streets Is Watching , a compilation of music videos that he was doing. It was sort of like a mini-movie. An interesting part about me is that I didn’t grow up in this country and acting wasn’t something that I knew anything about, or something that I grew up thinking I could actually do for a living. So when I got cast in that I took it really seriously – and then came to find out that it was just a music video. [Laughs] But I don’t regret anything I’ve done in my life, and I love the fact that that was the first thing I’d ever done. I went from that to then walking into a featured extra situation with Spike Lee that led to my first starring role in a film, in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me . Spike was actually the first to discover me, as far as giving me respect within the industry. How did that happen? I was 16 years old and I went in for Subway Stories , a little mini-series he did for HBO, and I was a featured extra but it was the first time I got a SAG card. Right after that I started taking acting classes in New York City at the Actor’s Workshop studio and then I took a few years off to go to school. When I came out I did a commercial that Spike Lee directed for Kmart that led to him writing a part for me in 25th Hour and a few months later I went in and auditioned for She Hate Me , to play Alex opposite Kerry Washington. You must have made a great impression at 16. When I did the Kmart commercial he remembered me from Subway Stories ! I remember him remembering me while I was shooting the commercial, he brought it up. That was the last time before I got kicked out of my house that I walked into my dad’s house, we were shooting nights so I got home at like 6 o’clock in the morning and it was the day before I started college. My dad was like, ‘You’re either going to do this and be a lawyer or you’re going to do [acting].’ So I just never went back home. Spike is a very influential part of why I’m here today. Wow. It’s fantastic that he saw that something in you so early. Now, there’s a line in Premium Rush in which your character says she works as a bike messenger because she hates waiting tables. I’ve done every kind of job there is, from working at McDonald’s to doing a music video to roller blading at the Roxy. [Laughs] I was Rollergirl for a while! But I don’t act because I hate to wait tables, I actually act because I think it’s what I was always meant to do. Random question: What’s behind your Instagram handle, @markofthebeast? Mark of the beast! I’m a beast, and I want to leave my mark on everybody that dares to look. [Laughs] I remember watching you in a short film spoof , playing Nicki Minaj… It wasn’t so much a spoof of Nicki Minaj, that was more of a parody of America. To be honest with you, it was a way deeper message than what people took away from it. It’s called “Ass and Titties” and it’s about how in America these days you sort of get paid more for shaking your ass and titties than for your talent. That’s what the parody was about. Why Nicki Minaj? I had to choose – I’m not a rapper! I had to choose someone to channel the song through, so I chose Nicki Minaj. But I think everyone had a good response to it. You know, I’m an artist and I was just being an artist about my views in life, and if you have a good sense of humor about yourself it’s great. I don’t have anything against Nicki Minaj, or anybody that’s [parodied] in it! Premium Rush is in theaters today. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The indomitable bike messenger played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Premium Rush is named Wilee, as in Wile E. Coyote, the less successful half of Looney Tunes’ eternal desert chase duo. A few minutes into the movie, however, it becomes clear he’s more like the Road Runner: Wiry and whippet thin, Wilee darts through Manhattan traffic on his fixed gear bike — chain lock wrapped around his waist — thumbing his nose at the NYPD and evading the dogged pursuit of corrupt detective Bobby Monday ( Michael Shannon ). No Chamois Ass is he. Though Wilee is introduced via a spectacular slow-motion crash set to the sunny opening strains of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” he carries himself through most of the film with a cartoonish sense of imperviousness that could be interpreted as a death wish even before he gets entangled with dirty cops and Chinese gangsters. A favorite trick of the film — directed by David Koepp ( Secret Window , Stir of Echoes ) from a screenplay he wrote with John Kamps— has Wilee mentally projecting different paths through tight situations until he susses out the one that doesn’t leave him smeared on the sidewalk. It’s a device that underscores the character’s precarious vulnerability as he jockeys with all of the heavy metal vehicles careening through the streets of New York. This fuels the chase sequences with excitement and a looming sense of consequence. It’s a good thing too, since the bulk of the film consists of one kind of heart-pounding pursuit or another. Premium Rush is a half-entertaining, half-exasperating movie — one that sells you on the notion of New York bike messengers as great fodder for cinema but then doesn’t know how to build a feature around them. It barely has enough forward motion to make it through its 91-minute run time and spins its wheels — pun totally intended — with sequences (like one in an impound lot) that feel like blatant filler. Premium Rush bobs and weaves stylistically using backward jumps in time to fill in plot details and cuts to a Google Maps-style city grid that establishes the locations of the characters — but ultimately there’s only so much you can do on a bike. The movie tends to get muddled and laggy when the characters hop off their two-wheelers to actually talk, because they’re not good at talking. This is the kind of film in which you constantly find yourself thinking that a particular bit of trouble could have been avoided by characters either coming clean about their problems or yelling for help when the bad guys roll their way. Wilee turns out to be a Columbia Law School grad who chooses to ride all day rather than take the bar exam because, he explains in voiceover, “I can’t work in an office.” (The crushing student loans he has to be shouldering apparently aren’t burdening his free spirit.) He’s got a fellow messenger girlfriend named Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and a professional and romantic rival in the muscular Manny (Wolé Parks), who dares to have gears on his bike. The main action in Premium Rush takes place from around 5pm to 7pm, as Wilee heads uptown to his alma mater to pick up a package from Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) that Bobby is very anxious to intercept. What’s in the package isn’t worth going into — it’s a means for the film to travel to a number of distinctly New York locations. Premium Rush depicts the city as vibrant and lived-in, from the dive bar where bike messengers gather (to watch an extremely intimate live show by the band Sleigh Bells) to a plant-lined street in the flower district, to the back-room Chinatown gambling den where wry bookies and hoods watch the impulsive Bobby dig himself a deep hole playing pai gow. Shannon has a great time chewing the scenery as the off-the-rails detective, and Gordon-Levitt continues to prove that he’s an intriguingly unconventional action hero, albeit one who comes across as a little smug in this movie. That said, he brings a sweaty substantiality to the scenes of Wilee diving through traffic against a light or hitching a ride on a cab. Like seasoned Manhattan cyclists, Gordon-Levitt rides as if his bike is an extension of his body. While the film’s pop psychologizing about Wilee’s choice of wheels would make even the most devoted of fixie fanatics roll their eyes — he doesn’t want to stop, and he can’t, because he doesn’t believe in brakes — there’s definite romance to be found here in the whirling of spokes, the communing of man and machine, and the crazy freedom of cutting through a dense urban landscape like sleek fish easily navigating the currents of a stream. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
David Dinerstein (President, LD Entertainment), William Friedkin, Matthew McConaughey, Gina Gershon, Tracy Letts, Mickey Liddell (CEO, LD Entertainment). Photo by Nick Hunt/Patrick McMullan Co. Killer Joe had a gala screening Monday night in New York with stars Matthew McConaughey and Gina Gershon on-hand along with Oscar-winning director William Friedkin who had some choice words about gun violence, the law and their relationship to movies. His film, which will be released this weekend, described by its official website as a “Totally twisted deep-fried Texas redneck trailer park murder story” received an often-dreaded NC-17 by the MPAA for “graphic disturbing content involving violence and sexuality and a scene of brutality.” McConaughey and Friedkin weighed in on violence and its sources post- TDKR tragedy at the event, hosted by the Cinema Society. “Well, it’s a lot longer answer than I can give you now, but I will just say that is, one thing that we shouldn’t be saying in society when something like that happens anymore, we shouldn’t be saying ‘unbelievable,'” McConaughey told THR at the event. “It happens, and we don’t know the answer to it right now, but there’s definitely, people now more than ever, people can make a very murky line between reality and illusion.” Continuing he added, “They can make a very murky line between the games that are played and civilization, without any thought of consequences at times…” But Friedkin gave a more emphatic response to the violence that took place at the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, saying the Joker references made by the accused gunman James Holmes was simply an act. “He was not insane. He premeditated that. He bought 6000 rounds of ammunition, he was eligible to buy guns and ammo, he set it up, he booby trapped his room…” Violence, insanity pleas and societal ills aside, the event, which was also co-hosted by Bally and DeLeón for LD Entertainment’s Killer Joe was a typically pleasant affair. The after-party took place at nightspot No. 8 and DeLeón tequila flowed. Also attending the event were Tracy Letts who wrote the play and screenplay for the film and other brass from the movie including producers Christopher Woodrow and Molly Conners, Mickey Liddell (CEO, LD Entertainment), David Dinerstein (President, LD Entertainment). Among the other notable guests in attendance were: Mélanie Laurent, Alan Cumming, Ethan Coen, Roseanne Barr, John Stamos, Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Camila Alves, S. Epatha Merkerson, Courtney Love, Rinko Kikuchi (Babel), Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire), Isiah Whitlock (Law & Order SVU), Tony Danza, Russell Simmons, Tiki & Traci Barber, Billy Magnussen, John Cameron Mitchell, Alex Karpovsky (Girls), Stavros Niarchos, Jessica Hart, Rachel Roy, Nicole Trunfio, Dan Abrams, Debbie Bancroft, Daniel Benedict, David Zinczenko, Nicky Hilton and Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir. Movieline will have a full interview with director William Friedkin soon. [ Source: THR , Cinema Society ] [Photo: Nick Hunt/Patrick McMullan Co., courtesy of Cinema Society]
If you thought you were getting any work done during the second part of the day, think again. The good people at Vulture have apparently teamed up with the RAND Corporation and NASA to devise a series of charts with endless permutations that rank today’s most valuable movie stars . But, we ask: Who are today’s Most Valuable Indie Stars? How does one determine who is most valuable? Vulture is more than willing to pull back the curtain on their methodology . (Oh, if only the folks at Diebold could learn a thing or two from celeb-obsessed journalists!) They may have their nifty algorithms, but we’ve got our gut instincts. Using those and those only, we’d like to devise a highly unscientific list of the most valuable indie actors working today. 6. Michael Shannon He’s got many more credits than you might think ( Kangaroo Jack! ) but he first came to our attention as an unusual leading man in Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories . His turn in Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? secured him a lifetime of indie cred, and this was before Boardwalk Empire and Take Shelter . By my algorithm, he can appear in Man of Steel and two sequels and still be considered an indie star. 5. Mathieu Amalric It isn’t crazy to call this French import a next gen Steve Buscemi. Amalric’s worked with a number of top level international directors like Julian Schnabel, Alain Resnais and Arnaud Desplechin. When he works in Hollywood it’s in top tier material like Munich and Quantum of Solace , which, you must remember, looked like it was going to be good on paper. 4. Michelle Williams From Dawson’s Creek to Synechdoche, NY , Michelle Williams is such a beloved indie star we’ll put up with her breaking our hearts ( Blue Valentine ), forgive her, then let her do it again ( Take This Waltz .) No trip to the Park Slope Food Co-op is complete without thinking you see her in the loose tea aisle. 3. Michael Fassbender From his indistinguishable accent to the phallic puns about his last name, it’s impossible not to give this guy a high ranking. I was hesitant to see Hunger because we’d already seen the Bobby Sands story in Some Mother’s Son , but when I realized it was one of the shirtless dudes from 300 we got curious. Since then he’s put in remarkable turns in Inglourious Basterds , A Dangerous Method , Jane Eyre and Haywire . Even when he does a major studio picture it is with an provocateur in the director’s chair like Matthew Vaughn or Ridley Scott. Fassbender is one of the few actors out there that elite moviegoers will follow from project-to-project indiscriminately. 2. Tilda Swinton …and in that regard, he’s right alongside Tilda Swinton. Who else out there has punk rock cred from her early Derek Jarman years and is also the descendant of medieval landed gentry? From the films of the Coen Brothers to Jim Jarmusch to Lynne Ramsay to Wes Anderson to oddball gems like Julia and I Am Love , Swinton strikes me as someone who doesn’t need to work, to the point that she’s very selective about what she does. As such, anything she’s involved in is very much worth your time. 1. Paul Giamatti If you’ve missed Michelle Williams in Brooklyn, maybe you’ve seen Paulie G around. A gifted comic, and uncannily sympathetic, Giamatti brings a level of excellence to everything he does. Barney’s Version is, I hate to say it, not a good movie. Yet Giamatti’s performance made me literally laugh and cry – oftentimes in the same moment. What’s more, Giamatti is quick to use his Hollywood clout to champion far-flung indie films, which was made abundantly clear during this year’s Sundance with the ultra-niche John Dies at the End . Those are our indie-world MVPs. Have more to add? Make your case below!
Gordon-Levitt talks to MTV News about getting in shape for his role as a bike messenger thrown into an ‘extreme scenario.’ By Kevin P. Sullivan Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Premium Rush” Photo: Columbia TriStar Few actors can claim to have a 2012 quite as full of big movies as Joseph Gordon-Levitt . The 31-year-old actor isn’t just reteaming with his ” Inception ” director, Christopher Nolan, for ” The Dark Knight Rises ,” but he’s also starring in one of the most talked-about releases of the year, ” Looper ,” and preparing his directorial debut, “Don Jon’s Addiction.” On top of all that, this summer he’ll headline ” Premium Rush ,” an action film about a bike messenger caught up in a conspiracy. MTV News spoke with Gordon-Levitt about learning to bike like a pro, acting opposite Michael Shannon and trying not to die in the process. MTV News : A bike messenger isn’t exactly your typical action hero. What was your reaction when you first heard the concept? Joseph Gordon-Levitt : I just think it’s kind of a brilliant idea. It’s a summer popcorn action movie. Instead of glorifying cars and gun, it glorifies bicycles. I think that’s great. MTV News : It’s kind of refreshing lo-fi. Gordon-Levitt : I think that makes the action, in a way, a lot more exciting. There’s no computer-generated action in this movie. It’s all guys that actually performed these things. I had four doubles in this movie. Every day, I rode all day, but there are four other guys who are good at different things. One of them is an actual bike messenger; he rides really fast in traffic. One of them is really good at riding a trial bike, a different sort of bike, which is good jumping and stuff. Another guy does tricks but on a fixed gear bike. Another guy’s an actual Hollywood stunt man, so he’s getting hit by cars. Honestly, when an audience sees a real human being doing things, it’s just more exciting than computer-generated, what amounts to a cartoon. MTV News : How realistic is the biking in this movie? Gordon-Levitt : It’s pretty realistic. It’s definitely a fun action popcorn movie, so you know, it’s a guy in an extreme scenario. It’s not like a slice of life, everyday thing. It’s a movie like “Speed” or “Die Hard,” where a guy ends up in an extreme situation and has to deal with it. I’m on the bike most of the time. It is a movie that takes place a lot on a bike, of course, not the entire time. It all takes place in one day, and it’s a chase movie. MTV News : How long did you train to get yourself into bike-messenger shape? Gordon-Levitt : I trained every day for a couple months leading up to this movie. I rode hard every day and all day. That will take it out of you. You have to be in the proper condition to do that kind of thing. I was definitely in really good shape when we were shooting. You can’t get to be like what these guys do in a short amount of time. The guys who doubled me, they rode bikes their whole lives and are some of the best in the world. I wasn’t doing any crazy tricks or anything like that. That’s what the doubles were doing, but I definitely was riding a lot, riding through traffic, riding with cars, riding fast and doing scenes at the same time, performing dialogue and stuff. Those were definitely my favorite scenes to do. The cool thing was that we actually shot it. They would put a camera on the back of a motorcycle and go down the street, and I would ride and perform a whole scene on the phone, riding through traffic. That’s a really fun way to do a scene. MTV News : Where are your priorities when you’re acting in a scene like that? Gordon-Levitt : The priority is not dying. You can do another take and get the scene right, but then it’s just about rehearsing enough. Doing line, that’s something I’m good at. I can do that easy. It actually makes it more fun, makes the lines come to life more, to put them on a bike like that. MTV News : Similarly, having Michael Shannon as the villain has to make that character easier to fear. Gordon-Levitt : Man, that guy! I think he’s one of the best going, honestly. When I found out that he was going to play the villain, I was like, “Oh, wow. Now this is a movie.” To be perfectly frank, he is by far my favorite part of the movie. Honestly, he is so good. It’s definitely worth seeing “Premium Rush” just to see Michael Shannon play this villainous New York cop in an action movie. It’s f—ing great. Check out everything we’ve got on “Premium Rush.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Summer Movie Preview 2012 Related Photos Get Psyched For Summer Movie Flicks 2012!
Any great awards show monologue skewers the nominees and sets the tone for the festivities to come, and this weekend’s awards tour didn’t disappoint — if you were watching the Film Independent Spirit Awards and not the Oscars, that is. Host Seth Rogen trumped Billy Crystal the day before the Academy Awards when he roasted Hollywood’s brightest along with Spirit Award nominees (like “creepy” — and apparently good humored — Michael Shannon). As for Rogen’s best joke? It’s got to be a toss up between his Ratner snipe (“Without awards season we wouldn’t know how much of a horrible bigot Brett Ratner is”) and his Lars von Trier hiding-in-Argentina bit. Hit the jump to watch the magic. Previously: Backstage at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards Highlights from Oscar Night 2012 After Billy Crystal’s Tepid Turn, Who Would Make the Ultimate Oscar Host?
General Zod ‘has some cool speeches,’ actor tells MTV News at Independent Spirit Awards. By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Michael Shannon at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images We know that we can expect at least somewhat of a revisionist take on Superman when ” Man of Steel ” hits theaters next year, but a tap-dancing General Zod? If Michael Shannon is to be believed, Superman’s Kryptonian nemesis could be borrowing a thing or two from the 2012 Oscars Best Picture winner. On Saturday, at the biggest ceremony for independent film, the Independent Spirit Awards , Shannon arrived in support of his nominated film ” Take Shelter ,” and stopped to speak with MTV News about his upcoming role as a super-villain. For one of next year’s biggest movies, we’ve seen next to nothing officially from Zack Snyder’s reboot, but as one of the lucky few working on the film, Shannon has been privy to the top-secret info we’ve all craved. “I saw the dance sequence, but that’s it, just because I have to match the moves,” Shannon joked — we hope. We could even see a silent, black-and-white, song-and-dance film
Movieline’s backstage at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, where Seth Rogen is hosting (and absolutely killing it) at the annual celebration of indie filmmaking, held in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. Want the irreverent, no holds-barred celeb-skewering monologue that Billy Crystal most certainly will not deliver tomorrow night? Stay tuned for clips of Rogen to hit the airwaves tonight. Meanwhile, follow along on Twitter (at @movieline ) and check back here to see this year’s winners updated as they happen! Winners highlighted in bold below as they happen. BEST SUPPORTING MALE Albert Brooks Drive John Hawkes Martha Marcy May Marlene Christopher Plummer Beginners John C. Reilly Cedar Rapids Corey Stoll Midnight in Paris BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY Mike Cahill, Brit Marling Another Earth J.C. Chandor Margin Call Patrick DeWitt Terri Phil Johnston Cedar Rapids Will Reiser 50/50 BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Joel Hodge Bellflower Benjamin Kasulke The Off Hours Darius Khondji Midnight in Paris Guillaume Schiffman The Artist Jeffrey Waldron The Dynamiter BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE Jessica Chastain Take Shelter Anjelica Huston 50/50 Janet McTeer Albert Nobbs Harmony Santana Gun Hill Road Shailene Woodley The Descendants JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD Bellflower Circumstance Hello Lonesome Pariah The Dynamiter BEST MALE LEAD Demián Bichir A Better Life Jean Dujardin The Artist Ryan Gosling Drive Woody Harrelson Rampart Michael Shannon Take Shelter BEST DOCUMENTARY An African Election Bill Cunningham New York The Interrupters The Redemption of General Butt Naked We Were Here BEST SCREENPLAY Joseph Cedar Footnote Michel Hazanavicius The Artist Tom McCarthy Win Win Mike Mills Beginners Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash The Descendants BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM A Separation (Iran) Melancholia (Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany) Shame (UK) The Kid With a Bike (Belgium/France/Italy) Tyrannosaur (UK) ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD Margin Call BEST FIRST FEATURE Another Earth In the Family Margin Call Martha Marcy May Marlene Natural Selection BEST DIRECTOR Michel Hazanavicius The Artist Mike Mills Beginners Jeff Nichols Take Shelter Alexander Payne The Descendants Nicolas Winding Refn Drive BEST FEMALE LEAD Lauren Ambrose Think of Me Rachael Harris Natural Selection Adepero Oduye Pariah Elizabeth Olsen Martha Marcy May Marlene Michelle Williams My Week with Marilyn BEST FEATURE 50/50 Beginners Drive Take Shelter The Artist The Descendants
*: As determined by Movieline’s Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics after crunching 23 weeks of data from the awards cognoscenti and beyond. Thank you for reading; our work here is done. The Final 9: 1. The Artist 2. The Help 3. The Descendants 4. Moneyball 5. Hugo 6. The Tree of Life 7. Midnight in Paris 8. The Daldry 9. War Horse What’s to say? The die was cast long ago, and unless all those old-ass , inactive white dudes who apparently make the Academy magic happen suddenly decide they want to recognize The Help (or come around on Moneyball a la some latecoming pundits or at least one old-ass, distaff counterpart ), then you might as well just plan to go out on Sunday night to take advantage of the quiet restaurants and/or grocery stores. (And maybe follow our livetweeting here if/when the urge strikes.) The Final 5: 1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist 2. Alexander Payne, The Descendants 3. Martin Scorsese, Hugo 4. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life 5. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris Did we ever settle on how many of these guys are actually going to show up to lose to Hazanavicius in person? The Final 5: 1. Viola Davis, The Help 1. 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 Sasha Stone wrote a few days ago about the “general consensus” solidifying around some shakier frontrunners; Davis seems the most locked-in of that class. Anything could still happen this weekend, which is fine by me as long as it happens fast and we can get on with our lives. The Final 5: 1. Jean Dujardin, The Artist 2. George Clooney, The Descendants 3. Brad Pitt, Moneyball 4. Demi
