Hollywood’s biggest night is only two days away — do you have your special Academy Awards sweats picked out yet?
Get a head start on your Oscar weekend debates with Movie Talk with Owen and Lisa — in which EW critics Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum lament how the Oscars aren’t channeling the public anymore and name their picks for who should win Lead Actor and Lead Actress. Spoiler: It’s not “this French guy no one has ever heard of”! READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Douglas Kirkland/AMPAS
For this year’s Oscars, the 20 acting nominees have posed for photographer Douglas Kirkland in what the Academy calls “Out of Character: Portraits of This Year’s Acting Nominees.” Clicking through them, two things quickly become clear: One, with rare exception, the men weren’t too keen on being creative with their poses. And two, with rare exception, the women were keen on doing anything but a straight-forward pose.
Basically, they’re like the fanciest school portraits ever. Here are my four favorites from the acting categories, starting with Best Supporting Actor (all credits to Douglas Kirkland and AMPAS): READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: François Duhamel
We’re finally in the homestretch of the Oscar season, and I’m happy to say we have a handful of real races on our hands this year. Best Actor continues to befuddle me, while Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay could both offer surprises on Feb. 26 . At this point I’m thinking Hugo screenwriter John Logan could capitalize on all the support for the film — not to mention the fact that he’s a sole credited writer, which always helps. At this week’s Oscar nominees luncheon, I was taken aback by the tremendous amount of goodwill directed at Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close supporting-actor nominee Max von Sydow. (Perhaps because Christopher Plummer wasn’t there, von Sydow received an inordinate amount of octogenarian love.) Do I suddenly think von Sydow could beat Plummer? No, but he definitely moves up a few rungs in my rankings this week. On today’s episode of my Oscar.com series Nominated With Dave Karger, we take a closer look at Extremely Loud.
Best Picture
1. The Artist (last week: 1) READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
George Clooney came for the “free booze.” Octavia Spencer was stoked to just be in the “room with all those luminaries,” while Kenneth Branagh claimed it was “the camaraderie” that brought him to the annual Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. But no matter what their reason for attending, most of the folks in the acting categories first stopped by the press room to talk shop, give praise and, in the case of Nick Nolte, threaten to tell a joke (which never materialized).
Here is taste of what the actors had to say about their performances, awards season, and their fellow nominees: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Merie Wallace
One of the biggest question marks at this point in the awards season is Alexander Payne and George Clooney’s domestic drama The Descendants. It emerged from the Telluride and Toronto film festivals as the movie with the loudest buzz and scored rave reviews across the board upon its release in December. It has performed well with every major awards body, most notably winning the Best Drama and Best Actor prizes at the Golden Globes. Then it picked up five Oscar nominations, including Best Director and Best Editing, indicating strong overall support. But it hit a snag this past weekend, as The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin beat Clooney for the Best Actor SAG Award, while The Help took the Best Cast trophy.
Image Credit: Jason Merritt/Joe Klamar/Getty Images
Last night’s Screen Actors Guild Award results certainly made at least one Oscar category a lot more interesting. Jean Dujardin’s win changed Best Actor from a race between George Clooney and Brad Pitt to a fight between Clooney and Dujardin. And as we’ve seen over the years (The King’s Speech, Gladiator, American Beauty), the Academy often likes to pair up Best Picture and Best Actor. I’m not quite ready to predict Dujardin as the Oscar winner just yet, but after I talk to some more voters, I may change my mind in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, The Help‘s Best Cast win (one of three victories for the film last night) was a wonderful moment for that group of actors, but history is not on its side when it comes to its Oscar chances next month. The last time a film won Best Picture without writing or directing nominations was all the way back in 1932. In my mind, The Artist—which has won the Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards—is still the clear favorite. Even though there are several films that lost Best Picture after winning the PGA and DGA (among them Brokeback Mountain and Saving Private Ryan), I don’t sense another film with enough overall support to unseat it. So here are my current rankings in the top 8 categories.
Image Credit: Jack English
Whenever anyone would make a list of actors who shockingly have never been nominated for an Oscar, Gary Oldman was always near the top. And after being overlooked by the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards for his impressively contained performance as MI6 agent George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, it was looking like he’d be an also-ran this year as well. But along with underdog nominee Demián Bichir, Oldman managed to displace Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Fassbender and score a Best Actor nomination after all. Oldman called this morning from Berlin, where Tinker Tailor is premiering.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Congratulations, you’re finally an Oscar nominee.
GARY OLDMAN: I’m in shock. If you were to take the temperature of the past couple of weeks with SAG and the Globes, we weren’t really expecting anything. I’ve never been nominated before, so I’d gone beyond the point of expecting it. It’s thrilling news. READ FULL STORY »
Both the poster and the trailer for Rampart have promised that Woody Harrelson is playing the most corrupt cop you’ve ever seen on screen. And from the looks of the relentlessly intense preview, Harrelson’s hard-drinking, rule-bending police officer could just as well be shouting that Denzel Washington’s crooked cop in Training Day ain’t got s–t on him.
Harrelson, whose performance as L.A. officer Dave Brown earned raves at this year’s Toronto Film Festival (EW’s Owen Gleiberman said the actor plays the part with “intricate demonic force”) and is already earning Oscar buzz, is downright scary in the trailer (this ain’t no Haymitch, kids). (“I hate all people equally,” he boasts.) Of course, while Harrelson is playing a baddie, he’s in good company with the likes of Robin Wright, Ned Beatty, Steve Buscemi, Sigourney Weaver, and his Messenger co-star Ben Foster. Watch the full clip below: READ FULL STORY »
One of the most talked-about performances at this year’s Toronto film festival was Woody Harrelson’s searing turn as a corrupt Los Angeles police officer in Rampart. EW’s Owen Gleiberman called the film “tense, shocking, complex, [and] mesmerizing” and raved that Harrelson plays his role “with intricate demonic force.” Rampart, which will receive a one-week awards qualification run on Nov. 23 before its nationwide release in January, could result in Harrelson’s third career Oscar nomination. (Not coincidentally, the film was directed by Oren Moverman, who guided Harrelson to his Oscar-nominated performance in 2009′s The Messenger.)
But first, below, here is an exclusive first look at the visually arresting Rampart poster, which will begin showing up in theaters this weekend: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images
When an actor delivers two strong performances in the same calendar year, it’s convenient when one is a lead role and the other is supporting so they don’t cannibalize each other in the awards race. Like when Jamie Foxx scored simultaneous nominations for Ray (Best Actor) and Collateral (Best Supporting Actor), for instance. But poor Ryan Gosling, who was undeniably robbed of a nod earlier this year for Blue Valentine (I’m still smarting over that one), has the misfortune of starring in this fall’s Drive and The Ides of March. Though he’s fantastic in both, Academy rules dictate that if the two roles are in the same category, he can only be nominated for one. So what’s he going to do? Pick Ides, which was directed by Oscar pro George Clooney? Or go with Drive, whose director, Nicolas Winding Refn, is so tight with Gosling that they’re already planning to work together again? I chatted with the actor here at the Toronto film festival about his curious dilemma.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: At some point, are you going to make a Sophie’s choice and pick one role to campaign for this season?
RYAN GOSLING: But I don’t feel like they are lead roles. To me they’re, like, ensemble pieces. I guess in Drive I’m in the lead. But when I read them, they felt like ensemble pieces. No? READ FULL STORY »
