Oscars: How Natalie Portman became a real dancer for 'Black Swan'

"She absolutely, convincingly becomes a dancer" in "Black Swan," insists director Darren Aronofsky in this new promo video dramatizing the physical ordeal Natalie Portman endured to slip into toe shoes for the role.

Portman's trainer was former New York City Ballet trouper Mary Helen Bowers, who recalls how Portman prepared for the role's physical challenges by working out "five hours a day, six days a week for months and months and months leading up to the film -– while she was working other jobs."

Portman endured, noting, "I love dancing so much that I decided that it would be so fun to be able to dance at work! That would be part of my job. [Then] I realized how physically grueling it would be."

Displaying such extreme physical commitment to a performance often helps stars to win the Oscar -– as Hilary Swank ("Million Dollar Baby") and Robert De Niro ("Raging Bull") discovered when they overhauled their bodies to become boxers on screen.

-- Tom O'Neil

Photo: "Black Swan" (Fox Searchlight)

Oscar nominee Darren Aronofsky looks ahead to Wolverine and Noah

 
Director Darren Aronofsky, Oscar-nominated for “Black Swan,” has plenty of experience with haters questioning his projects, his taste, his sanity. And the detractors are at it again, wondering why he’s wasting his time directing the “X-Men” offshoot “The Wolverine.” (Short answer: Money — both for himself and his movie’s budget.)

But for those Aronofsky true believers worried that the filmmaker behind such downbeat, indie favorites as “Requiem for a Dream” and “Pi” is turning conventional, the 42-year-old director reveals he’s not past pushing for ambitious projects on the level of “The Fountain,” his demanding Mobius strip meditation on love, death and religion.

Next up (“fingers crossed,” says Aronofsky): A sci-fi adaptation of the Noah’s Ark tale from the Book of Genesis.

“I’m a huge fan,” Aronofsky says, noting his interest goes back to childhood when he saw the low-budget Sunn Classic Pictures documentary “In Search of Noah’s Ark” at a movie theater.

Aronofsky has been working on the screenplay for the past six years and plans on soon publishing the first of a four-part graphic novel based on his story and drawn by Canadian artist Nico Henrichon. He hopes the novel will secure studio financing so he can move forward with the film after finishing “The Wolverine.”

Aronofsky’s Noah might be a bit different from the bearded boat-builder most remember from the Bible. Aronofsky sees Noah as the “first environmentalist,” a complicated character tormented by surviving an apocalypse as well as the “first person to plant vineyards, drink wine and get drunk.”

In other words: Don’t plan on bringing the family to this biblical epic.

“I was stunned going back and realizing how dirty some of those stories are,” Aronofsky says. “They’re not PG in any way. They’re all about sleeping with your brother’s sister who gives you a child who you don’t know. That kind of stuff got censored out of our religious upbringing.”

 — Glenn Whipp

Photo of Darren Aronofsky by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

BAFTA Awards: 'The King's Speech' wins best film

 
"The King's Speech" won best film Sunday evening at the Orange British Academy Film Awards. The film, directed by Tom Hooper, tells the story of Britain's King George VI and his struggle to overcome a stutter as the nation hovers on the brink of World War II. 

The film has swept recent guild awards in the U.S. -- including the producers guild -- and is considered to be in a tight race with "The Social Network" for the top Oscar. The British awards and the Oscars have aligned fairly closely in recent years.

"The King's Speech" was in competition against "Black Swan," "Inception," "The Social Network" and "True Grit."

The awards, presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, were given out at the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden, London.

-- Susan King

Photo: Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech." Credit: The Weinstein Company.

Poll: Can Annette Bening pull off an Oscar upset?

Last night I was flabbergasted when an Academy member told me who he's picking for lead actress: Annette Bening ("The Kids Are All Right"). He's not just any voter. He's a member of the producers' branch who almost always goes with the winner. He has backed all of the underdogs who ended up winning in recent years -– "Crash," Marion Cotillard, Tilda Swinton -– so, at this point, I've learned to take his ballot very seriously when he tattles ahead of time. But, come on! Could he possibly be right again when most pundits say Natalie Portman ("Black Swan") will prevail?

Well, not all pundits are picking Portman. Some savvy naysayers include Peter Travers (Rolling Stone). And Bening does have some big advantages. She plays gay, which helped Sean Penn ("Milk") and Tom Hanks ("Philadelphia") to win in the past. She's overdue (three past losses) and she's the ultimate industry insider -– she's a member of the Academy's Board of Governors.

Furthermore, Bening has been campaigning vigorously in the home stretch. Read our Awards Tracker report detailing her stops along the derby track.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what else this Oscar voter is checking off on his ballot, here goes: "The King's Speech" (best picture), David Fincher (director), Colin Firth (lead actor), Christian Bale (supporting actor), Melissa Leo (supporting actress).

-- Tom O'Neil

Photo: Focus Features

Annette Bening fires up her Oscar campaign

Natalie Portman ("Black Swan") may have more pundits predicting she'll win the Oscar, but Annette Bening ("The Kids Are All Right") is hitting the campaign trail hard in this home stretch while hoping to make a late surge.

She recently introduced "The Kids Are All Right" at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and was honored at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. She's made the TV rounds: "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (Jan. 25), "Live with Regis and Kelly" and "Nightlight" (last Friday), "Charlie Rose" (Monday), "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" (Wednesday night) and "Nightline" (Thursday night).

Meanwhile, Bening is being honored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation Women's Cancer Fund at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Thursday night. She's receiving the Nat King Cole Award for charitable work at the event, which is hosted by Conan O'Brien.

She hasn't made herself widely available to Oscar bloggers and journalists, but she did do interviews with the Envelope and Deadline Hollywood for the print issues mailed to academy members. And she did participate in Q&As held by the Envelope, Variety, Screen Actors Guild and the Women in Film organization.

Bening has a few strong pluses in her favor: She's a member of the Academy's board of governors and in "The Kids Are All Right," she portrays a lesbian. Playing gay helped Sean Penn ("Milk") and Tom Hanks ("Philadelphia") to win Oscars.

-- Tom O'Neil

Photo: Annette Bening in "The Kids Are All Right" Credit: Focus Features

Weighing the success of SAG's iTunes screener experiment

 
Ahead of voting for the Screen Actors Guild's Jan. 30 awards, five studios offered the union's members the chance to watch such movies as "Black Swan" and "The Fighter" via Apple's iTunes (instead of mailing out costly DVD screeners). Was the experiment a success?

Turns out, more than a fifth of SAG's total membership took advantage of the opportunity, and the studios seem pleased with the results. The one blemish on the experiment was that the majority of the films available were pirated at least once each — though that's hardly a bad rate compared to how often DVD screeners are pirated.

According to Twentieth Century Fox, which spearheaded the effort last month, 21,000 SAG members accessed the system that allowed them to watch one of the studio's three films ("127 Hours," "Black Swan" and "Conviction") once over a 24-hour period. The three films were downloaded 58,311 times. According to a studio spokesman, the experiment was a hit, and Natalie Portman's taking the best actress trophy from the guild seemed like more proof that the test run was effective.

However, both "Black Swan" and "127 Hours" were pirated, as proved by the specific embedded codes that accompanied the iTunes downloads. Apple says that its systems weren't compromised. The consensus among studio executives is that the piracy originated with a SAG member using capture software that circumvents iTunes security measures and allows a movie to be copied as it plays on screen. 

"The Fighter" was also pirated. SAG members watched that film 10,000 to 15,000 times, a number Paramount Pictures representatives said they were happy with, especially since the movie was made available to members only two weeks before the awards. (Both Christian Bale and Melissa Leo walked home with SAG trophies too.)

Sony Pictures said that "The Social Network" was not pirated via the iTunes SAG experiment but noted that the movie was already available on DVD and had already been pirated before the availability of the iTunes screeners. Same can be said for Focus Features and its Oscar-nominated drama "The Kids Are All Right." David Brooks, Focus' president of marketing, said the film was downloaded thousands of times via iTunes. " 'The Kids Are All Right' was released in theaters in July and then on DVD and digitally in November so we did not face the same issues as films in active theatrical release," he said.

The Weinstein Co. saw "The King's Speech" downloaded around 5,000 times but the studio made the film available on iTunes later in the cycle and had sent out DVDs to the entire membership. All in all, the experiment seems to be a success. Whether iTunes will be used more next year will depend on the specific films up for awards, which filmmakers are involved, and at what point the films are in the release cycle. But going green via iTunes could solve some problems around awards season.

— Nicole Sperling

"Black Swan" photo from Fox Searchlight

Oscar luncheon: Schmoozing joined with a little lecturing

 
If Hollywood is some kind of weird manifestation of high school and the Oscars are prom night where the king and queen are crowned, surely the Oscar luncheon held Monday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel is graduation day.

This year's class of nominees first posed for a group photo before being issued their certificate of nomination and the requisite photo with Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences President Tom Sherak. The only things missing were the caps and gowns.

This year's event was the most well-attended of all with a record 147 out of 191 nominees present. (Most notably absent were supporting actor nominee Christian Bale and director David Fincher.) Despite some good, old-fashioned schmoozing that saw Oscar night producer/director Don Mischer and his wife posing for a photo with lead actor nominee Javier Bardem; "Black Swan" director Darren Aronofsky chatting up Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, the director of foreign language film nominee "Biutiful"; and "The King's Speech" director Tom Hooper getting in some face time with Oscar producer Bruce Cohen, the luncheon was also instructive. 

Mischer and Cohen were present to remind nominees to make meaningful, short and special speeches. The duo presented a video clip featuring Tom Hanks with detailed instructions on how to give an Oscar acceptance speech. The simple, but important, instructions involved beating the 45-second clock each nominee is given to accept their award; deciding ahead of time for the group awards who is going to accept the award; and, most important, never take out a piece of paper to read from. "Reading a long list of names only shows us your bald spot," quipped Hanks on the video as a slew of balding noggins appeared on the screen. Mischer even went so far as to pull out research showing that any time a winner pulls out a piece of paper, the Oscar telecast loses hundreds of thousands of viewers.

The producers also showed the audience a new indicator that will appear on the center camera that graphically counts down the 45 seconds each winner has to speak. The new method, which replaces the flashing "Please Wrap Up" message that would normally appear at 30 seconds, was met by some audience laughter. But the academy is so serious about sticking to the allotted time that it is sending home practice DVDs with the 45 second graphic, which depicts an inverted triangle that fills up more and more of the screen as time goes on.

"Playing you off to music is disrespectful to you, to our audience, to the academy and to our industry," said Mischer. "Our dream, our fantasy is to never have to play any of you off to music."

The majority of the event was spent with Hollywood luminaries chatting each other up. Best actor nominee Colin Firth blew Annette Bening a quick kiss after receiving his certificate of nomination along with the official Academy Awards gray sweatshirt that each nominee is given. (Bening immediately threw on her sweatshirt, perhaps to fight off the frigid ballroom chill.) Documentary nominee Lucy Walker ("Wasteland") and her date, musician Moby, who contributed music to Walker's film, chatted up Hooper, while best supporting actress nominee Amy Adams ("The Fighter") commiserated with her costar and fellow nominee Melissa Leo. Jeff Bridges, who received the prime front-and-center seat, with Bening on his lap, chatted up Ed Begley Jr., on hand as one of the academy governors.

The event (see a gallery of photos here) ended rather abruptly after dessert was served, with many nominees running off to do more interviews, or in the case of sound mixer Mark Weingarten, returning back to work on Fincher's latest film, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." Sherak didn't seem ready for anyone to leave, joking, "We have the room til 6 tonight."

Related:

Red carpet photos

Panorama: Inside the Oscar nominees' luncheon

--Nicole Sperling

Photo: Javier Bardem at the 83rd Academy Awards nominations luncheon on Monday. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

 

'King's Speech,' 'Black Swan,' 'Inception' take art direction awards

 
"The King's Speech," "Inception" and "Black Swan" won the top feature film awards at the 16th Art Directors Guild Awards on Saturday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
 
Eve Stewart won for excellence in production design for a period film for "The King's Speech"; Guy Hendrix Dyas won in the fantasy film category for "Inception"; and Therese DePrez took home the award in the contemporary film category for "Black Swan."

On the television side, Dan Bishop won for the "Public Relations" episode of "Mad Men" in the single-camera TV series category; Robb Wilson King won for television movie or miniseries for "Secrets in the Wall"; and Richard Berg earned the award for half-hour single-camera TV series for the "Halloween" installment of "Modern Family." The award for multi-camera, variety or unscripted series went to Keith Raywood, Eugene Lee, Akira Yoshimura and N. Joseph De Tullio for the Betty White/Jay Z episode of "Saturday Night Live." 

David Rockwell won in the awards, music or game show category for "The 82nd Annual Academy Awards," and Jesse B. Benson won in the commercials and music video category for the Dos Equis commercial "Ice Fishing."
 
Honorary awards were presented to production designer Patricia Norris for lifetime achievement, and to Syd Dutton and Bill Taylor for outstanding contribution to cinematic imagery.

For more information on the awards go click here.

-- Susan King

Photo: A scene from "Black Swan." Credit: Fox Searchlight

Will 'The King's Speech' surpass 'The Social Network' at the box office too?

 
Buoyed by its 12 Oscar nominations issued Jan. 25, "The King's Speech" reaped an additional $11 million at the box office for a total domestic take of $72 million. The British WWII-era drama has finally reached the wide release level that most populous movies start out with in the market and should therefore play rather successfully over the next few weeks in advance of the Oscars.

In contrast, "The Social Network" opened in October, topped out at $92 million around Christmas and has slowly been ekeing out its last few million in its quest to reach the $100-million milestone. It's likely though that "The King's Speech" could surpass "Social Network" at the box office, which would really pour salt in the wounds of those filmmakers who seemed so unstoppable on their way to the Oscars only to meet with sudden steep awards competition from "King's Speech."

As Oscar prognosticators and other insiders take a closer look at why "The Social Network" is in the underdog position after being declared the absolute winner a few weeks ago, one question that continually crops up is, did the film peak too early? It's difficult to maintain the momentum of a front-runner from October until the end of February. Those behind the film had one piece of comfort in that if they couldn't win the gold, they at least got the box office coin. Now it seems that "The King's Speech" may get both, which leads one to wonder, should "The Social Network" have opened later in the year?

Hindsight is always perfectly focused, so it's easy now to question the film's release date. But if "The Social Network" had opened in December opposite such films as "True Grit" and "Black Swan" it might not have been able to reach the heights it did. And nearing a $100 million on a tough adult drama is a feat in itself, one that not long ago felt impossible but now appears to be commonplace with such films as "King's Speech" and "Black Swan" getting so close despite their unconventional subject matter.

— Nicole Sperling

 Photo: Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in "The King's Speech." Credit: The Weinstein Co.

Poll: Which SAG winner is most likely to lose at the Oscars?

Historically speaking, about three out of four SAG Award champs go on to repeat at the Oscars every year. Assuming the same pattern continues, who is most vulnerable among the most recent crop of guild victors?

I think it's Melissa Leo ("The Fighter"), who could get bumped by Hailee Steinfeld ("True Grit"). A good case can be made for Christian Bale ("The Fighter"), though. If "The King's Speech" bandwagon keeps gathering momentum, Geoffrey Rush could cop a ride and toss Bale overboard.

Or maybe it's Natalie Portman ("Black Swan")? After all, Annette Bening is a queen of Hollywood overdue for her Oscar crown, and many industry leaders would like to see her get it for "The Kids Are All Right." She plays gay in it — that's how Sean Penn ("Milk") and Tom Hanks ("Philadelphia") won Academy Awards.

Are we all agreed that no one — absolutely no one — is seizing the lead actor crown from Colin Firth ("The King's Speech")?

— Tom O'Neil

 

Photo: Screen Actors Guild