Oscarweb Round-up: More on 2011 as 'the year of The Beard'
Also: In praise of Linda Blair and 'Iron Man 3' takes to North Carolina
Steven Spielberg seems to be all over the place this year.
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Way back on Independence Day I settled on what I anticipated the narrative of the 2011 Oscar season to be: The Year of the Beard. Steven Spielberg is as prolific as ever, and across media, working feverishly both as director ("War Horse" and "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn") and producer ("Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and "Super 8" among others) on the big screen, while helping to usher things to the small screen, too, like "Falling Skies" and "Terra Nova." And he's hard at work in Virginia right now on next year's "Lincoln." Michael Cieply at the New York Times has caught up with this line of reasoning, it seems, and comes at it from the angle of Spielberg coveting recognition as an artist above a commercial player. [New York Times]
Jeff Wells, meanwhile, wants The Beard to take more commercial risks if he's to be taken seriously in the artistic realm. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
Speaking of "Tintin," Jamie Bell talks about his experience working with Spielberg on the film. [Huffington Post]
Steve Pond gets the goods on how the song and score for "Albert Nobbs" came to be. [The Odds]
The economies of style: How Ryan Gosling, George Clooney and Philip Seymour Hoffman mastered the art of the understated suit in "The Ides of March." [The Guardian]
Speaking of Clooney, here's yet another piece about his double-dipping 2011. [Hollywood Reporter]
Greg Ellwood reports on that James Cameron/"Titanic 3D" event Friday. [Awards Campaign]
Josh Horowitz talks to "Anonymous" star Rhys Ifans. [MTV Movies Blog]
It's Halloween, so a good time for Mayukh Sen to defend Linda Blair's performance in "The Exorcist," often reduced to "lying there caked in makeup" by some. [The Film Experience]
"Iron Man 3" heads to my back yard, North Carolina, and will pump $80 million into the local economy. [WWAY]
2012-2013 OSCAR PREDICTIONS
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Original Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Costume Design
Best Film Editing
Best Makeup And Hairstyling
Best Original Score
Best Original Song
Best Production Design
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Visual Effects
Best Animated Feature Film
Best Documentary Feature
Best Foreign Language Film
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October 31, 2011 at 12:07PM EST Reply to CommentAnyone else Wells wants to take "commercial risks"? (Here I am guessing that Tintin doesn't count - apparently because it, too, is successful. Such a shame).
Jeff Wells needs to have a lobotomy if he is to be accepted as a human being. As it is, he is a deeply unpleasant, joyless and highly egosticial douchebag.
pitypie I can barely stand to read him these days - in one of his latest posts, he says waiting for someone to take a picture and not simply walking through the frame is "a mark of middle class cluelessness." Bahaha, cue eye roll.
October 31, 2011 at 12:27PM ESTCasey Fiore Generally i would agree with you, but I must say I sympathize with Wells on this one. I have to wonder why Spielberg puts so little of his own capital into his work, and why he seems not to have made any significant passion projects since Schindler's List. Honestly it doesn't seem very ambitious to me, for a guy who can literally get away with just about anything he wants in this industry.
October 31, 2011 at 1:27PM ESTRashad Saving Private Ryan, AI, and Munich were all "passion" projects. So is Lincoln and Tintin.
October 31, 2011 at 1:54PM ESTI don't really see why he has to put his money into his work. I always thought the first rule of business was use the other guy's money.
loyal_mehnert
October 31, 2011 at 12:34PM EST Reply to CommentWar Horse is screening tomorrow and Wednesday. Can't wait to hear the feedback.
Casey Fiore
October 31, 2011 at 1:24PM EST Reply to CommentI must say I can't understand why you've dubbed Spielberg 'The Beard'... His really isn't a particularly powerful growth of facial hair.
Kristopher Tapley I haven't dubbed him that. It's a legitimate nickname that the man has.
October 31, 2011 at 2:12PM ESTCasey Fiore In that case, this is hilarious, haha.
October 31, 2011 at 6:15PM ESTMoniqueV
October 31, 2011 at 1:45PM EST Reply to Commentthere were so many ads for Moneyball on HE that you could barely see his predictions that Brad will win best actor & the film will win BP
CaptainCanada
October 31, 2011 at 6:56PM EST Reply to CommentJust perusing the latest projections for nominees, and I have to say, Kris, your projections for Best Supporting Actor would be one of the oldest groups of nominees I can recall. The average age would be 64 at the time of the ceremony, and if you remove Oswalt it jumps to 70.