Winners of 69th Golden Globes

GOLDEN GLOBES 2011  The 69th Golden Globe Awards - Sunday, January 15, 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, NBC. Morgan Freeman, recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award WINNERs       Best Picture, Drama:  The Descendants  The Help Hugo The Ides of March Moneyball War Horse Best Picture, Comedy/Musical: The Artist Bridesmaids Midnight in Paris My Week With Marilyn 50/50    Best Actress, Drama:  Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady  Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs Viola Davis, The Help Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin Best Actor, Drama:  George Clooney, The Descendants Brad Pitt, Moneyball Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March Michael Fassbender, Shame Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar    Best Actress, Comedy:     Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn Jodie Foster, Carnage Charlize Theron, Young Adult Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids Kate Winslet, Carnage  Best Actor, Comedy:  Jean Dujardin, The Artist Brendan Gleeson, The Guard Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50 Ryan Gosling, Crazy Stupid Love Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris   Best Director, Motion Picture:    Martin Scorsese, Hugo Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris George Clooney, The Ides of March Michael Hazavicius, The Artist Alexander Payne, The Descendants  Best Screenplay, Motion Pictures:     Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, The Ides of March Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball Best Supporting Actor, Drama:  Christopher Plummer, Beginners Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn Albert Brooks, Drive Jonah Hill, Moneyball Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method  Best Supporting Actress, Drama:   Octavia Spencer, The Help Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs Berenice Bejo, The Artist Jessica Chastain, The Help Shailene Woodley, The Descendants Best Animated Motion Picture:    The Adventures of Tintin Puss and Boots Winnie the Pooh Arthur Christmas Rango Best Foreign Language Motion Picture:                      A Separation (Iran)  The Flowers of War (China) In the Land of Blood and Honey (USA) The Kid with Bike (Belgium) The Skin I Live In (Spain) Best Score, Motion Picture: Ludovic Bource, The Artist Abel Korzeniowski, W.E. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Howard Shore, Hugo John Williams, War Horse Best Original Song, Motion Picture: "Masterpiece" (music and lyrics by Madonna, Julie Frost, Jimmy Harry), W.E. "Hello Hello" (music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin), Gnomeo & Juliet "The Keeper" (music and lyrics by Chris Cornell), Machine Gun Preacher "Lay Your Head Down" (music by Brian Byrne, lyrics by Glenn Close), Albert Nobbs "The Living Proof" (music by Mary J. Blige, Thomas Newman, Harvey Mason Jr., lyrics by Mary J. Blige, Harvey Mason Jr., Damon Thomas), The Help Best Mini-series, TV: Downton Abbey (PBS) Cinema Verite (HBO) The Hour (BBC America) Mildred Pierce (HBO) Too Big to Fail (HBO)   Best TV Series, Drama: American Horror Story Boardwalk Empire Boss Game of Thrones Homeland    Best TV Series, Comedy: Enlightened (HBO) Episodes (Showtime) Glee (FOX) Modern Family (ABC) New Girl (FOX)  Best Actor, TV Drama: Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad Kelsey Grammer, Boss Jeremy Irons, The Borgias Damian Lewis, Homeland   Best Actress, TV Drama: Claire Danes, Homeland Mireille Enos, The Killing Julianna Margulies, Good Wife Madeleine Stowe, Revenge Callie Thorne, Necessary Roughness   Best Actor, TV Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock David Duchovny, Californication Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory Thomas Jane, Hung Matt LeBlanc, Episodes  Best Actress, TV Comedy: Laura Dern, Enlightened Zooey Deschanel, New Girl Tina Fey, 30 Rock  Laira Linney, The Big C Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation Best Supporting Actor, TV: Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones Paul Giamatti, Too Big to Fail Guy Pearce, Mildred Pierce Tim Robbins, Cinema Verite Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family     Best Supporting Actress, TV: Jessica Lange, American Horror Story Kelly MacDonald, Boardwalk Empire Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey Sofia Vergara, Modern Family Evan Rachel Wood, Mildred Pierce

National Board of Review and NY Film Critics Circle Award Their "Best Of" for 2011

Three Breakout Movies

 

Last week, both the National Board of Review (NBR) and the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) voted the Iranian movie A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin) Best Foreign Film. Few outside the movie industry hear about the NBR or the NYFCC awards, but I post them because I rely upon them when making my Oscar picks.

 
A Separation, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, was awarded the Golden Bear for best film and the Silver Bear for best acting ensemble at the Berlin Film Festival this year. In addition it won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Riga Film Forum in Latvia, along with many festival nominations and awards from various countries around the world.

I hope A Separation receives better treatment by the Academy this year than Farhadi's 2009 film, About Elly. For a list of films submitted and accepted for a run for and Oscar as Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards this coming February, see the link on the right sidebar.

 
Farhadi has a long list of awards beginning with his first movie, Dancing in the Dust in 2003, through his most previous film, About Elly. Unfortunately, his films have not received a single Oscar nomination. His internationally acclaimed About Elly was submitted to the Academy by Iran, but did not make the first cut. This year, A Separation was submitted by Iran. I hope the cultural, religious and political divides between the USA and Iran will not handicap this movie's chance for an Academy Award.

 
So far, there is hope for a first-time nomination for Farhadi. A Separation is about a married couple faced with a difficult decision. Should they move to another country to improve the life of their child, or stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's? For more on A Separation, click the title of this post.

 
The NY Film Critics Circle bestowed its Best Picture award for 2011 to Michel Hazanavicius’ black-and-white silent film The Artist, along with the Best Director award. I predict good things for this movie at the 84th Academy Awards.  Here is the NYFCC's winner's list:

Best Picture: The Artist
Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree of Life)
Best Screenplay: Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball)
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Best Foreign-Language Film: A Separation
Best Actor: Brad Pitt (Moneyball, The Tree Of Life)
Best Actress: Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain (The Tree Of Life, The Help and Take Shelter)
Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks (Drive)
Best Nonfiction Film: Cave Of Forgotten Dreams
Best First Feature: Margin Call
2011 Special Award: Raoul Ruiz (posthumous).

 
The National Board Of Review Named Hugo Best Film, and Martin Scorsese Best Director for the animated movie. I also predict good things for this movie at the Academy Awards. Here is is the NBR's winner's list:

Best Film: Hugo
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay: Will Reiser, 50/50
Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Descendants
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Breakthrough Performance: Felicity Jones, Like Crazy
Breakthrough Performance: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Debut Director: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Best Ensemble: The Help
Spotlight Award: Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, X-Men: First Class)
NBR Freedom of Expression: Crime After Crime
NBR Freedom of Expression: Pariah
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Documentary: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Special Achievement in Filmmaking: The Harry Potter Franchise – A Distinguished Translation from Book to Film.

The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at 5:30 a.m. PT, in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood and Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Official Site

Telluride Film Festival Wrap

Telluride 2011 Poster

George Clooney

Tilda Swinton

The four-day 2011, 38th Telluride Film Festival (TFF), known as The Show, wrapped Monday, Labor Day. First of all Telluride is a non-competetive festival, meaning there are no grand prize winners. Instead, the sole emphasis is on the films and the film-going experience.

The Festival screened six film revivals selected by Guest Director Caetano Veloso, plus twenty-eight new feature films in its main program, nine Backlot programs, nine classics and restorations, 30 shorts and student films, and hosted nine seminars and conversations between festival guests.

Pierre Étaix

Whew! What a whirlwind that must have been. All that in four days! In addition, the Telluride Film Festival's Silver Medallion awards, given to recognize an artist’s significant contribution to the world of cinema, went to George Clooney, Pierre Étaix, and Tilda Swinton.

I'm fairly certain my readers can identify George Clooney and Tilda Swinton but perhaps not as easily the man in the middle. Pierre Étaix is a French clown, comedian and filmmaker, born in 1928.

Étaix made a series of acclaimed short and feature-length films, which are available again. The TFF festival goers were treated to Frederick Wiseman’s portrait of Paris’s glamorous cabaret of the same name; and Le Grand Amour (Great Love), TFF Tributee Pierre Étaix’s lost masterpiece, never-before-seen in North America. It was screened as a Sneak Preview.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Sneak Previews at Telluride are an unofficial part of the TFF program. They are not revealed in the program. Instead, they are announced at various times during the Festival. This year there were three, Le Grand Amour; Jim Field Smith’s Butter (U.S., 2011) starring Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell, all three of whom were in attendance to present the film; and Crazy Horse (U.S., 2011).

The Special Medallion award, given to a hero of cinema that preserves, honors and presents great movies, went to one of my favorite movie magazine, the British film magazine Sight and Sound.  Editor Nick James accepted the award in-person.

Lots of goodies, including the above poster, are for sale in the Telluride Show Shop.

It Isn't Fall Yet, But Festivals Don't Know It

I tried to stretch my hiatus out a little longer, but when the Venice International Film Festival started Wednesday, I knew it was time to start paying attention to what was happening on the movie scene. Thus, a break from the cookout today for this post.

Venice IFF's Golden Lion Award

Two major Film Festivals are underway this weekend. For starters, the granddaddy of the film festivals, the 68th Venice International Film Festival - La Biennale di Venezia - opened Wednesday, 31 August, with the well-received world premiere screening of The Ides of March, the highly anticipated new film written, directed, and starring George Clooney, in the Palazzo del Cinema, following the opening ceremony.  Co-starring with Clooney are:  Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood and Marisa Tomei.

The Ides of March is the only U.S. film screening in competition. However, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, Germany/Canada, is worth noting. It stars Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung, and Keira Knightley as a troubled young woman seeking treatment. There are no films of note from the USA screening out of competition.
The complete list of films in competition Here.

Telluride

George Clooney

The other festival is the 38th Telluride Film Festival (2-5 September), to which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a $50,000 grant to underwrite this year's  Festival’s Guest Director program, featuring musician Caetano Veloso, who is described as ". . . a musician who loves movies." For more on the Academy's grant to Telluride, click the title of this post.

George Clooney’s The Ides Of March may have been well-received in Venice, but it did not make the Telluride roster.  None-the-less, Clooney headed from Venice to the Colorado San Juan mountain festival to support the other movie in which he stars this year, The Descendants. It is the new film from director Alexander Payne, his first since his Oscar-winner Sideways (2007). Telluride will host tributes for Clooney, and actress Tilda Swinton, who won a best supporting actress Oscar in 2008 as Clooney's co-star in Michael Clayton.

Besides Venice, Telluride is also a stop in the film festival circuit between Cannes and New York. There's The Artist, a black and white silent film directed by Michel Hazanavicius, and Martin Scorsese’s new documentary about the late member of The Beatles - George Harrison: Living in the Material World, plus the Irish drama Albert Nobbs, co-written by Glenn Close, which has the actress playing a shy butler who is hiding the fact that he/she is a woman.

At Telluride, there are the "to be announced" slots, which keep festival goers guessing. In the past, some films shown in these TBA slots, including last year's The King's Speech, received Oscars. Therefore, there is big buzz of speculation about this year's TBA films. One that has been revealed is Butter, a comedy starring Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde and Hugh Jackman. Telluride Festival.

Coming up, the San Sebastian Festival in Spain (16-24 September), has set it's jury members.  Serving as part of the official selection jury will be Babel screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, director Álex de la Iglesia (The Last Circus) and actresses Bai Ling (The Crow), Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) and Frances McDormand (Fargo). American writer and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum will chair the New Directors competition at the festival. This from Nikki Fink's Deadline/Hollywood blog.

National Board of Review Awards

   

SERIES: Hollywood Guild Awards and Oscars®

This new series is to document, compare and discuss the nominations of the film industry guilds. This is the first year I am publishing how I analyze the various awards and pick my Oscar® choices.

The members of the movie industry guilds are also voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, AMPAS®, which produces the Academy Awards®. Most of the major guilds have nominated, and some have named the recipients. Want to actually pick the winners this year? Then, I suggest you follow this series.

The National Board of Review (NBRMP) is not a guild, but an independent board of review. Although the general public knows little of this award, it is the oldest of the major motion picture awards, and a most prestigious award, established in 1909. That's why I am opening this new series with the NBRMP.

The awards were announced earlier, and they will be presented at the annual dinner to be held tomorrow, Tuesday, 12 January, at Cipriani on 42nd Street, New York City.

They named UP IN THE AIR, directed by Jason Reitman, and starring George Clooney, as Best Film of 2009. The French film, Un prophète (A PROPHET) by writer/director Jacques Audiard, will receive the best foreign language film award, and THE COVE the best documentary.

Their other awards may be beacons shinning on the possible Oscar winners - -

Top Ten Films: (In alphabetical order) AN EDUCATION, (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, THE HURT LOCKER, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, INVICTUS, THE MESSENGER, A SERIOUS MAN, STAR TREK, UP, and WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

Best Actor: George Clooney, UP IN THE AIR; Morgan Freeman, INVICTUS.
Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION.
Best Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson, THE MESSENGER.
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick, UP IN THE AIR.
Best Ensemble Cast: IT'S COMPLICATED.

Best Director: Clint Eastwood, INVICTUS.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, UP IN THE AIR; and Best Original Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen, A SERIOUS MAN.

Best Animated Feature: UP.

Special Filmmaking Achievement: Wes Anderson for THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX.

To see all the NBRP awards, click the title of this post.