Image Credit: How many nominees is too many? As every entertainment junkie knows, the most fun thing about the Academy Awards is talking about them. All the speculative chatter — Is it Natalie Portman’s year? Is The Social Network an Oscar movie or too much of a heady/critical darling/digital generation movie? — may be the height of trivia, but it gives us all a (tiny) stake in the outcome, and it’s also a way of trying to nail down, each year, that elusive yet revealing thing that is the Hollywood Value System. Besides, the Oscars are still the ultimate media-buzz-industrial-complex horse race. Can True Grit, after getting snubbed by the Golden Globes, snag a nomination for Best Picture? How about 127 Hours, with its rave response from reviewers, its grisly (if transcendent) final twist, and its just-okay performance at the box office? And what about The Fighter? I personally think it’s a terrific movie, but did the media oversell it as a contender?
In the past, those might have been tasty questions to chew over. This year, however, I find myself having the same Oscar conversation — or, more to the point, giving the same Oscar answer — over and over again. It goes something like this:
YOU: Do you think True Grit will get nominated for Best Picture?
ME: Yes, I do. I’m not sure it would, though, if there were only five nominees. But with ten, it probably can’t miss.
YOU: What about 127 Hours?
ME: Same situation. With only five nominees, I’m almost certain it wouldn’t be nominated. With ten, I bet it will be.
YOU: How about Toy Story 3?
ME: Definitely! And it’s great that they’re finally nominating animated films for Best Picture. Of course, if there were only five nominees, I’m not sure Toy Story 3 would make it…
Do you sense a pattern here? And, what’s more, a certain creeping rhythm of ho-hum tedium? READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Kyle Christy/IFCIt is fair to say Joel McHale was chosen to host this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards more for his comedy chops than his indie movie cred (although he was actually pretty good in Steven Soderbergh’s admittedly major studio-financed The Informant!). The Community star makes the most of that fact in the exclusive promo clip below, which finds him reluctantly watching a selection of nominated movies and reacting with amusing inappropriateness to the likes of 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, and Greenberg (“Oh, Greg Focker, will you ever get it right?”).
