A very brave and courageous, nevermind talented lady, Ann Dowd, is trying to mount her OWN ONE-WOMAN Oscar campaign for Best Supporting Actress, even though she’s the lead, in Sundance sensation “Compliance.” Listen as Ann explains all.
Camera & Editing ~ Kevin Teller
Well, Tom O’Neil’s Oscar throw-down at http://www.goldderby.com has certainly stirred the waters! Oscar Goddess Sasha Stone at http://www.awardsdaily.com parses even further with “Is It Too Early To Predict the Oscars?” And yes, it is. The Silly Season, as it was so named by David Kehr of the NY Times when he pounded the Red Carpet beat with his historic Carpetbagger column, IS far away.
But it’s NOT for those behind-the-scenes folks, the industry peeps who are assembling all this for our delectation. This is stuff is planned YEARS sometimes in advance. And carefully planned, too. Yes, there are people called Oscar Consultants, who are a whole breed of PR people unique unto themselves. And behind the scenes they are working like dogs chasing a bone. Already. Yes, already.
Sasha and others like her have revealed how much it is the Oscar campaigns behind the actual voting that really does sway, yes, the actual voting.
At this time last year, who woulda thunk “The Artist” was gonna win Best Picture? And Jean Dujardin Best Actor? And certainly, Meryl Streep winning her THIRD Oscar was unexpected and a shock to all Oscarologists. Who could’ve predicted it? Well, actually, Tom O’Neill sorta did.
That’s why one has to give credence to his prognostications. If you followed closely at Gold Derby, VERY closely, who could feel the tide shifting at the last minute AWAY from George Clooney and towards Jean Dujardin. A lot of people saw that coming. But Streep? Only O’Neil. But not his staff of Ditto-heads(I refuse to call them Butt-heads, though my spell check changed it to that…lol…) all kept saying Viola Davis.
That’s why, for instance, I give Tom more credence than say, Anne Thompson at Indiewire and Thompson on Hollywood last year. She stubbornly clung on to George Clooney ~ AND Viola Davis til the very last. And she was wrong.
Just to show that the Oscars still have some life in them.
I knew the Weinstein wizards were working like crazy last year behind the scenes and subtlety as is their wont. But I read the tea-leaves wrong and thought it was Michelle Williams, not Meryl, who would reap the rewards.
Viola Davis, ably abetted by that egregrious Entertianment Weekly issue and cover which pictured her and George Clooney, dressed to the nines, getting out of a limo, like they had actually won already!. That proved to be BOTH their ondoings. An Academy Voter upon seeing that cover and then reading the embarassing self-congratulatory interviews with BOTH of them “WELL! The Nerve! They haven’t won YET! “would be an Academy members thinking, I thought at the time and still do. Or “Don’t tell US who to vote for!?!“…Viola Davis was doing herself NO GOOD, but the obvious heavy-handedness of all her talk show appearances. I mean, she was on “The View” FOUR TIMES!?!? If that wasn’t overkill…I don’t know what is…
I know. I know. Disney owns ABC, which “The View” is on, and Disney had “The Help.” But in the end as I said at the time, Disney does not know how to run an Oscar campaign.
Whereas Harvey Weinstein does. Of course. But he has to have the goods. I don’t know if “Django Unchained” ANOTHER bloody shoot’em by Quentin Tarantino, is gonna fly all the way with Oscar voters, who historically have avoided blood-shed. IF THEY CAN HELP IT. You can of course point to “The Departed” winning recently and also “No Country For Old Men” But as Sasha has pointed out there were other stories going on in those years i.e. Marty Scorcese never won & ditto, the Coens for “NCFOM”.
I wonder if Universal who has “Les Misearables” is going to be able to do the trick this year.
Paraphrasing Sasha, she feels that Tom O’Neil in listing “War Horse”. oops! I mean “Lincoln,” as the Frontrunner NOW, is putting an albatross, around “Lincoln”s neck. Or as I’m calling it handing Spielberg “The Golden Albatross” award, this far ahead. Sasha is saying basically that Frontrunners never win. Which is a very interesting observation. Especially lately.
Some people feel that that “Les Miz” trailer with Anne Hathaway is “pre-mature” but I don’t think so. It’s established Hathaway as the one to beat in Best Supporting Actress, and the Best Supporting Actress race is run by a whole different set of rules. I mean, look. That’s where “The Help” won. And the year before that that’s where Melissa Leo, totally off her own bat, won. So different rules apply.All of Disney’s heaving breathing and heavy lifting on “The Help” reaped them ONLY a Best Supporting Actress win. Personally that’s my own favorite category, but still…
Also, Universal is trying to establish a fan-base with a genre that the fanboys of today just don’t flock to. Musicals. Just from that point alone, I think “Les Miz” has an uphill battle. But the general public is not the Academy.
I mean, just look at this year’s big grossers “Hunger Games” and “Avengers” both of which are films I just can’t bring myself to see….at least not yet…will the Academy award box-office over quality? They certainly haven’t been looking at the bottom line with films like “The Artist” or “The King’s Speech”….Who do they listen to? Well, Harvey Weinstein. But “Django Unchained”? Quentin Tarantino??? I don’t know about that. This sounds like it’s gonna be “Inglorious Basterds” all over again with that film.
And in conclusion, no it’s never to early to predict the Oscars. That’s what we do.
Oscar Goddess Sasha Stone is back in Hwood and she and Jeffrey Wells just put up their podcast Oscar Poker, now looking back on Cannes. And mostly “Amour.”
Sasha of http://www.awardsdaily.com loves it. And Jeff begrudgingly now has to say he “admires ” it, but says the film that just won the Palme d”Or in Cannes, made him want to commit suicide.
Ok, it’s about Death, he says, and Sasha says it’s about Love, with a capital “L.” Jean-Louis Trintignant is taking care of his dying wife of over 40 years, who does not want to go to a hospital and so he has to do everything for her that a hospital staff would. And he wants to. He doesn’t want to let her go. She looses her appetite. She has two strokes. And it won the Palme d’Or.
Sasha proclaims the film a classic. Jeff can barely bring himself to talk about it. But he does. With Sasha’s prodding. He’s in Prague on his way back to the States, and she’s in L.A.
She talks about her grandmother’s death, and how her father did not want to let her go, and…well, take a listen. Jeff and Sasha both go “there” It’s very heavy. And profound, and reveals a lot about both bloggers.
Sasha also again avers her affection for “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and that with Fox Searchlight’s help, she thinks it’s going to get Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay nods. Jeff thought they’d put the little child in Best Supporting Actress since she’s only 6 years old in the film. Sasha thinks that that rule about putting child actors in Supporting doesn’t apply anymore since the little girl in “Whale Rider” got a Best Actress nom.
But I say, look at the Coen Bros. next to last film, “True Grit” and remember where Haillee Stoddard ended up. In Supporting. And she lost there. To Melissa Leo for “The Fighter” a few years back. Leo made a big point of doing practically everything wrong on her road to the Oscar, but win it she did. But Haillee Stoddard has just vanished…so much for fame….and Hollywood’s 15 minutes rule…
Sasha also points out the way to be a success on the Internet is to constantly put up new material EVERY DAY. And more than once again, so that “The people reading your site will go back and back, several times a day, like I do with Jeff’s site. I check it three times a day.” And so, I have to admit, do I. I go back to Awardsdaily multiple times a day. I check it almost as much as I do my own You Tube channel, and more than I do this blog.
But Sasha’s advice is to post CONSTANTLY. I haven’t been doing that. And I didn’t have a sympatico, working computer from March til May. I dropped my Toshiba and more or less broke it and now I have a new, nice, working Sony. I HOPE it stays so…
Jeff uses a Toshiba also, the top of the line one, and carries it with him everywhere and posts from everywhere. I don’t do that. Sasha seems to only post from her home/office. Except on the rare occasions that she travels to a film festival. Like to Cannes.
Me? I just do what I can. Who can do more? And thank to all my readers, cineastes all, who keep reading me now matter what, or how infrequently I post. Compared to Jeffrey and Sasha, I’m really a slug-a-bed.
I was GOING to try to go to “The Avengers” this AM, but both Sasha and Jeffrey were dumping on it so bad, I really wonder if I’ll get there…No Oscar chances anywhere on that film, they both agreed (And so does everyone else.) Me? I only do Oscar-seeking movies, and “The Avengers” is just all about money, the gigantic amount of money it has made. Doesn’t mean it’s going to get propelled into the Oscar race, both Jeff and Sasha agreed, so why bother? I’m talking myself out of going…
So as of yesterday, the Oscar Voting for the Best of 2011, closed at 5pm PST. Now what happens? Well, we all just sort of COUNT THE HOURS til Sunday night’s BIG SHOW. And try to figure out what went wrong, or right, depending. Me, I’m just over-the-moon delighted with how incredible an Oscar response the beautiful French bon-bon received. “The Artist” is poised, thinks Oscar Goddess Sasha Stone, who lives and breathes this stuff even more than I do, she thinks “The Artist” is going to take home NINE out of its’ ten nominations!
That would be divine, as far as I’m concerned. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Score, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Costumes is what I thought would happen. And then Scott Feinberg, STILL the only Oscarologist who’s linked to this site.Thank you, Scott.
Scott ALSO predicted the same number 7, and he even wrote a comment on the previous blog post here, saying so. And no, I didn’t read Scott’s “The Hollywood Reporter” til AFTER I had written and posted mine. And I was kind of shocked that we agreed so completely.
This after last year’s Melissa Leo debacle.
Well, you can look that one up for yourselves. But every time I mentioned the words “Melissa Leo” last year, the hits SOARED! This year, not so much. But any way, Scott and I are now copacetic this Oscar year. And so much so we were predicting the same seven wins for “The Artist!” INCROYABLE! Scott’s at www.thehollywoodreporter.com
Then Sasha said “Nine” at www.awardsdaily.com and I nearly fainted! But she who knows all,(She lives in Hwood, too, so she’s right in the middle of it) thought that additionally Michel Hazanaviscius would trounce Woody Allen for Best Original Screenplay!!!! And she hasn’t been the only one saying that lately.
And that “The Artist”s production designer, who had to work in Black and White, mind you, only, that he would win over Dante Ferretti’s 3D and color work on “Hugo.”
Well, who am I to disagree with Sasha at a final moment of the season like this?
I’m just over-the-moon about Jean Dujardin’s pulling ahead of G. Clooney with the SAG and BAFTA wins for Best Actor!
The only hold-out for George still seems to be Anne Thompson, who is parsing the possibilities over at www.indiewire.com Anne says that it’s the only interesting race left. The Jean v. George smack-down. Speaking of Tom O’Neill’s favorite word “smack-down, over at www.goldderby.com he has one of his editors Aussie Matt Noble do a very funny video about George Clooney being told that he wasn’t going to win Best Actor. Check it out. It’s hilariously done. And yes, as Tom states, George will never forgive Matt Noble for this. But the voting’s closed. So it can’t influence voters one way or the other.
That was all done three weeks ago or more when the nominations went out.
And evidently they FLOODED back in, so says Pete Hammond at www.deadline.com
which I have been mistyped as www.deadlinehollywood.com all season. Sorry Pete. Sorry Nikki(Finke). But I’m sure you avid Oscar readers have been all over Pete Hammond’s great pieces all season long. And it IS a season. From Toronto til now, it just doesn’t stop.
And to think that Harvey Weinstein could be TRIUMPHING for a second year in a row, it’s just mind-boggling! Where would “The Artist” be without his excellent producing skills? And his drive? And his uncanny ability to read the Academy voters and play them like violins.
Although I must say, when I saw “The Artist” I DID think “The Academy is going to LOVE this! It’s all about THEM!”
But without Harvey “The Artist” would just be a small tres charmant French film, playing the Festivals and the art house circuit and not the PHENOMENON he turned it into! Bravo! Once again, all of Hollywood owes you bigtime for making the Oscars so exciting again!
And Jean! As I told Jean and Berenice Bejo when I interviewed them back in November in NYC at “The Artist”s press junket, they were going to become VERY famous in America and that they would win the Oscars! And once again, the Oscar Messenger’s message came true. Just like I told Colin Firth and Tom Hooper of “The King’s Speech” their great Oscar news a year ago last September at the Toronto International Film Festival.
You can see me telling them the good news if you search for Jean DuJardin -Stephen Holt show on You Tube. Or just go to my YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/StephenHoltShow and search for it there. It’s gone viral with over 45,000 hits at this point. Ditto Colin Firth from last year who is now up to 92,ooo hits!
And TWC also sent me over the moon with two terrific satellite interviews with Penelope Ann Miller and James Cromwell, also of “The Artist.” They played George Valentin’s neglected, unhappy wife and his loyal Butler/Chauffeur respectively.
And Best Actress???? Well, that’s another topic ENTIRELY! I’ll get into that next!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
What, I ask myself at this time of year with Hallowe’en fast approaching, is the worst, scariest thing that could possibly happen to an Oscar seeker? The answer is plain, simple and deadly ~ Category Confusion! It’s what happened to the wonderful Leslie Manville in “Another Year” last year. Leslie who? Well, Sony Pictures Classics whom I ADORE really messed up on that one. How? They ran her in Leading Actress. When clearly there were many who thought she was Supporting. Like BAFTA. That’s where they put her. And she lost there. Poor Leslie. Poor, poor Leslie. Category confusion. It’s Oscar’s most deadly disease. And this year, it’s back and seems to be infecting several prominent nominees. ALREADY.
The National Board of Review gave Leslie Manville BEST ACTRESS, and that seemed to be the way to go for her…I guess…but then she turned up…NOWHERE. EVER. AGAIN. And it was a stunning performance. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I wrote about it on this blog over and over and you can go back and check. I loved her lost, sad, mad Mary. A suburban singleton of un age certain who was desperate to get married before it was too late. So desperate for any kind of human contact whatsoever she permanently attached herself to her friendly married couple. And they put up with it. To a point.
Mike Leigh at his surprising best. Torturing a full length film out of such an unlikely topic. Single adults and their happily married friends…”Another Year” Catch it on DVD if you can.
Well, poor brilliant Leslie’s career state-side was not launched. Lost is more the word.
And this could happen again this year with a couple of very notable actresses. For some reason, it doesn’t infect male actors as easily as it does female. They are more fragile at Oscar time, and Awards season which is upon us, whether you know it or not, it’s particularly contagious.
And this year both Viola Davis of “The Help” may catch it. Is she lead? Or is she supporting? And so may Jeffrey Well’s crusade du jour unknown, middle-aged British actress Olivia Coleman in “Tyrannosaur” may also succumb, long shot though she is. I haven’t seen “Tyrannosaur” yet. Not many people have, but most have liked it, like Oscar Goddess Sasha Stone of www.awardsdaily.com And you can read about Jeffrey’s latest crusade(s) at www.hollywood-elsewhere.com
And the Chicago Film Festival critics who gave Olivia Coleman Best Actress.
But some who have seen it have felt she was Supporting in “Tyrannosaur” and therefore should be campaigned in that category. Uh-oh! Here we go again! Leslie Manville-time! And she also has a supporting role in Meryl Streep’s “The Iron Lady” as Margaret Thatcher’s daughter. Confused?
You see the Academy who gives out the Oscars can place actors, on a written ballot, in any category they see fit.
They are supposedly GUIDED by the “For Your Consideration” Campaigns that the various studios and distributors put out, at great expense. But other organizations like the Golden Globes or the BFCA (Broadcast Film Critics) ARE guided by the studios in category placement. The leading critics groups, not so much. They follow their own whims and wisdoms.
I just hope Disney or Dreamworks or whoever is watching over “The Help” sticks to its’ Viola Davis as Lead campaign. And Davis as brilliant as she is, may not be the leading character. The lead is clearly the Emma Stone character. BUT if they put Viola in lead she may lose there to a younger actress, specifically Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in “My Week with Marilyn.”
And all my fellow Oscarologists are keeping Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in the still unseen “Iron Lady” as their Numero Uno Belle of the Ball.
If Viola Davis is put into Supporting, she would surely win that still kind of wide open category. But in that category ALREADY ARE possibly TWO other cast-mates from “The Help” Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain. No one has ever won an Oscar when THREE people from the same movie are all in the same category. Vis a vis “On the Waterfront”, neither Rod Steiger, Karl Malden or that other guy won. They all cancelled each other out. As did the three Supporting Dames in “Tom Jones”, leaving another Brit darling, Dame Margaret Rutherford to triumph that year for “The V.I.P.s”
So it’s in Viola’s best interest to be put – where? In Best Actress where she may not win? Or Best Supporting Actress, possibly knocking out one of her presumed nominee cast-mates?
Is a puzzlement. To quote Yul Brynner in “The King and I’
OR a disease. Look what happened to Leslie Manville! Category Confusion! AND IT KILLED HER!
And also the same can be said, BTW, about Julianne Moore last year. She was campaigned in lead for “The Kids Are All Right,” and if Focus Features had put her more firmly in Supporting,(they didn’t) she too, like Leslie Manville was shut out completely. At the Oscars. At the Globes. At the Broadcast Film Critics. Everywhere.
How can this happen, you say? Well, it’s vote-splitting, is what it is. These two actresses specifically Manville and Moore, and just last year, both split their own vote and ended up sitting at home on Oscar night. And watching Melissa Leo say “f**king” and generally lower the level of the Awards forever. A case can be made that either Manville or certainly Moore would have won over the little-known Leo. But Melissa Leo did win. And she did it HER way. But it was always clear WHAT category she was in. She was always Supporting and Natalie Portman was always lead and they both won.
Viola Davis’ performance in “The Help” is a towering achievement. But neither she nor any one I feel is going to topple the beauteous young Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe. Nobody is confused as to what category Williams as Marilyn is supposed to be in. She’s like Natalie Portman in “The Black Swan” last year. Unstoppable. So it does make some sense to put Viola Davis in Supporting.
And then there’s Fox Seachlight’s cock-eyed attempt to campaign Brad Pitt as Supporting for “Tree of Life,” when he’s CLEARLY the lead in that mixed-up muddle of a movie. But what that may do is take votes away from his lead campaign in his career-best performance as Baseball manager Billy Beane in “Moneyball.”
Academy Members of their Acting Branch get confused soooo easily. But they got it absolutely RIGHT a couple of years back when they put Kate Winslet stunning performance as Hannah Schmidt, an illiterate Concentration Camp guard, into lead, when she was being campaigned as Supporting for “The Reader.”
They did absolutely the right thing then. And Winslet won! And made the cover of Time Magazine, BTW.
What will they do this year? Only time will tell. Stay tuned.
The Hollywood Reporter seems to have picked up on what Anne Thompson of Indiewire’s Thompson on Hollywood www.indiewire.com and I (who have been saying this for ages) that Helena Bonham Carter’s chances for an upset are growing by the day in Hollyweird.
Here’s what they have to say, calling her “The Anti-Pimp” ~
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/race/why-anti-pimp-helena-bonham-100373
This is, of course, in reference to Melissa Leo’s unfortunate phraseology of ” The Oscars are pimping yourself out” This phrase has now entered the Oscar Hall of Shame(or Fame, depending on if she wins or loses) But Helena Bonham Carter is definitely given her a run for her self-bought ad money.
And while we’re on the subject of the ever-more-boisterous Best Supporting Actress category 2011, just HOW many Supporting Actress Oscars has Harvey Weinstein won for his fillies in contention?
Let’s see there was Judi Dench, “Shakespeare in Love”, Juliette Binoche,”The English Patient”, Katherine Zeta Jones “Chicago” and Renee Zellweger “Cold Mountain.” That’s a HUGE number in that ever-unpredictable category.
So Helena’s got a kind of history behind her. Just saying….
An interesting Oscar fact, prompted by Lauren Bacall’s large Vanity Fair interview and profile, in their Hollywood Issue (a must-have, must-read) abutting in the same issue an equally large and in depth piece on Harvey Weinstein.
Now, what has this got to do with this year’s Oscar race? More than you might think.
Lauren Bacall in her memoir goes on and on about how Harvey Weinstein cost her last chance at a legitimate Oscar when she was nominated in 1996 for Best Supporting Actress for “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” directed by Barbra Streisand, who also starred. Bacall played her mother. Bacall just received a career Oscar this past year, but it’s not the same thing. Nice, but no cigar.
That was the year that Juliette Binoche upset everyone’s Oscar predictions, including mine. There weren’t so many Oscarologists as there are today, but I WAS doing it on my TV show even way back then. Tom O’Neill’s Gold Derby was racing, but not many others….
You see Bacall, the great Hollywood legend, WON the Golden Globe and then the SAG Award, and seemed absolutely unstoppable, and she, shockingly, LOST to Juliette Binoche, in the “English Patient.”
Why is this suddenly sounding VERY familiar? Well, Melissa Leo won both those awards also(There was no BFCA in those days.) and now she’s up against, in the same category, an actress in a British film. That would be Helen Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech.” And yes, that’s Harvey’s film, too.
“The English Patient” swept the awards as “The King’s Speech” is expected to. And it could very well sweep Helena B-C, in too…Harvey has a unique way with that category, Best Supporting Actress. I think he’s gotten more actresses that particular award than any other producer in recent memory. Besides Binoche, he got Renee Zellweger her only Oscar in that category for “Cold Mountain” in 2004 and also Catherine Zeta-Jones in that category for “Chicago” in 2003! Why do I feel Harvey W. rules this category?
As Oscar Goddess Sasha Stone always muses…Just, saying….
Stephenholtshow's Blog 
Written
on November 19, 2012