Daily Awards Buzz & Rumors: Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Jeffrey Wells and Sasha Stone on Oscar ratings… David Poland on the tech winners… David Carr talks to Peter Rice… Kristopher Tapley on Oscar surprises… The Vulture on Amy Adams… David Edelstein on Best Actor… Nathaniel Rogers and Karina Longworth on Oscar headlines… Cinematical on how Oscar can improve… S.T. VanAirsdale recaps his night
“The Oscar telecast audience last night was the lowest rated in history. A lousy 32 million viewers tuned in, which is a huge disaster considering that 95.5 million sports fans watched the Super Bowl earlier this month. This is the way of American culture – more and more followers of competitive games in which men on steroids try to take possession of a ball, and fewer and fewer true movie fans. I guess this means...what, ABC might earn a bit less in the way of ad revenues next year? I need to figure out why I'm supposed to care about this.” – Jeffrey Wells is unbothered by whether people actually care about the thing he spends half his year worrying about at Hollywood Elsewhere.
“History will look more kindly on these winners, though, than the years where the general crowdpleasers were honored. Having said that, I suspect the tide will soon turn with the Oscars leaning more towards the big studio movies and/or the awards-worthy crowdpleasers. The trouble is, the critics murder the Big Oscar Movies and thus, they haven’t a chance in the Oscar race these days and the awards appear to be going to the most worthy rather than the most popular.” – Sasha Stone also thinks its okay people don’t care at Awards Daily
“People shocked by ‘Transformers’ not bringing home The Gold are focusing, at least partially, on the wrong issue. Early word was that ILM would get behind ‘Transformers’ and not ‘Pirates’… but apparently, there was some split and the single focus Rhythm & Hues vote pushed ‘Golden Compass’ to the win. Also… I think general Oscar voters just didn’t want to vote for the big, dumb summer movie… which is not how the earlier ‘Pirates’ and ‘Rings’ films were seen. They are not analyzing effects.” – David Poland wraps up the tech categories at Movie City News
“Peter Rice, the Fox Searchlight honcho who watched happily as Diablo Cody took home a screenwriting Oscar for ‘Juno,’ isn’t buying into the whole Euro-trend story… ‘Two of the Europeans won for playing roles in Texas and one in California,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to get more American than that.’” – David Carr gets into the “international Oscars” idea at the New York Times
“There were surprises in store for some. Such as Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton taking the leading and supporting actress trophies, swooping in at the last minute to steal away the thunder of the night's frontrunners. Personally, I saw this coming, but no one could deny the possibility was there and the situations were ripe for upsets. Both speeches, by the way, were quite good. Cotillard was appropriately emotional (as was Diablo Cody, who even choked me up with her teary acceptance). Swinton, meanwhile, offered that Tilda charm and sass that has become something of a staple this season for the ‘Michael Clayton’ star.” – Kristopher Tapley is surprised by nothing at Variety
“Did Amy Adams insult Gil Cates’s mother or something? … the charming Adams was placed all alone on a bare stage in a single spotlight for her number. We would understand that, maybe, if the song was a torchy ballad. But the song was the light, fluffy ‘Happy Working Song,’ which is tolerable in the film only because its performance is accompanied by the sight gag of rats, pigeons, and cockroaches cleaning an apartment. What sadistic producer heard ‘Happy Working Song’ and thought, Let’s put Amy Adams onstage all by herself, but let’s give Kristin Chenoweth a lot of help for her number? Adams didn't do terribly, but she’s no Broadway star, and we felt kind of awful for her.” – The Vulture asks a question wondered by many at New York magazine
“Helen Mirren (maybe the most stunning presenter – take that, Jessica Alba) fluffed a very bad joke in a very bad intro but then ushered in the best moment of the night: Daniel Day-Lewis accepting his Oscar by kneeling before her. Yes, she’d played The Queen, but the gesture went deeper than that: It was the sincere tribute of one brave acting soul to another — and it had a nice symmetry, since at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner, Day-Lewis presented an award to Javier Bardem, who got down on his knees and genuflected. If that doesn’t make your heart leap … Then Day-Lewis said the script ‘sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson’ — and this time it was the sincere tribute of one beautiful madman to another.” – David Edelstein enjoys a moment at New York magazine
“On the subway to midtown I see the big splashy headlines on the NY Post or the daily news or one of those trashy cheap papers everyone reads. ‘Dull Show to Honor Movies No One Sees’ and I feel a little thumpy again. Now obviously these dailies are slow working gray matter poison for New Yorkers but sadly this attitude is widespread. There is never any context to these arguments about Oscar honoring ‘unpopular’ movies. It’s just knee-jerk bitching. Is it really Oscars fault that the studios won't even release half of these movies until after Oscar is honoring them? No. Do we really want the Oscars to be based on box office?” – Nathaniel Rogers reacts to the general reaction at the Film Experience
"Unlike other major papers, which mostly went with a cover shot of a resplendently emotional Marion Cotillard, the ever-classy New York Post puts former stripper Diablo Cody on the cover of their Oscar morning-after edition, letting her outdated job description stand in for her name. And with THAT, the rags-to-riches transformation from strip club Cinderella to Oscar winner, as well as the little indie-choo-choo-that-could fiction that made it happen Oh, and did we mention that the Post, like Fox Searchlight, the teeny-tiny independent company that made and released Juno, is owned by Rupert Murdoch? Vertically integrated corporate strategy is a beautiful thing." – Karina Longworth, conspiracy theorist and corporate watchdog, at Spout
"After they announced the second sound-related award last night, I turned to my friend and noted that they couldve easily replaced one of these sound categories with something a little more fan-friendly. Or even if they want to stick with what they have, perhaps more people will watch if they have more say in how the awards show plays out. So in the spirit of brainstorming, what would be a good category to add to future Oscar telecasts? Best fanboy film? Best comedy? Or how about a viewers choice award? Would something like asking, ya know, actual paying moviegoers which film they liked the best take away from the epic-like ceremony?" – Erik Davis wonders how to win back some viewers at Cinematical
"As the host of a hopping annual Oscar party in Manhattan, I rarely have an optimal chance to view or listen to the awards show while bumping around the room. Thats the bad news. Its also the good news, because between the total lack of surprise in virtually every category, Jon Stewart laughing at his own jokes, and overwrought filler montages exploiting 79 spotty years worth of previous winners, I never had the sense I was really missing anything. Some might disagree, but if it wasnt for the Oscar pool I was losing on account of those dodgy technical awards (did Kevin OConnell really come up short again?) and my ill-advised side bet that Tilda Swinton would not give her award to her agent, then Id have had absolutely no horse in the race and would likely still be napping in coat check." – S.T. VanAirsdale recaps his night at Vanity Fair
(Photo courtesy AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
