Round-up: Scott Rudin joins the EGOT club
Also: Betting against 'A Separation,' and some Streep family history
Scott Rudin added a Grammy to his mantel on Sunday, joining the select group of individuals to have won all four major showbiz awards.
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The showbiz-geek fascination with the holy grail of the EGOT – that is, an individual who wins Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards over the course of their career – is something I don’t entirely share in, largely because because at least one of the wins always comes with some kind of diminutive asterisk. (Seriously, should spoken-word Grammys even count? Call me when someone wins a Best Actress Oscar, Album of the Year and the Nobel Peace Prize. In a single year.) Still, I’d never have guessed that the first new member of the club in over 10 years, joining the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Audrey Hepburn, would be super-producer Scott Rudin: he made the list on Sunday by sharing “The Book of Mormon”’s Grammy for best musical-theater album. At least the man behind “Extremely Loud” and “Dragon Tattoo” has won something this season. [Carpetbagger]
Ed Gonzalez on why "A Separation" will lose the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. I fear he's probably right. [Slant]
Nathaniel Rogers breaks down the "Bridesmaids" scenes that presumably earned Melissa McCarthy her unlikely Oscar nod. [The Film Experience]
Hadley Freeman interviews "god of gravitas" and dark-horse Best Supporting Actor hopeful, Max von Sydow. [The Guardian]
Michael Coleman sits down with the sound team of "Hugo," who won the BAFTA on Sunday and could well take the Oscar. [Below the Line]
Nick Davis on the best visual effects of the year, including two films totally shortchanged by the Academy in that category. [Nick's Flick Picks]
I feel a bit bad for Viola Davis having to constantly field questions about Meryl Streep. But she does so with such grace. [The Race]
From Gary Oldman to Asghar Farhadi to Thelma Schoonmaker, David Poland rounds up his impressive season's worth of interviews with this year's Oscar nominees. [Hot Blog]
I'm just going to quote this headline as is: "Meryl Streep's British ancestor 'helped start war with Native Americans.'" Because that's how much we have left to talk about. [The Telegraph]
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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February 14, 2012 at 12:22PM EST Reply to CommentA Separation losing is gonna cause a MASSIVE outrage and backlash. We have rarely had a foreign language film so broadly acclaimed even by the mainstream American critics (and bloggers). The movie has far too much visibility and face at this point for its loss to be let go lightly.
Guest Guesto lmao@bloggers
February 14, 2012 at 1:17PM ESTThat aside, I have hard time understanding what you are trying to say. Go lightly in what way? What do you think might happen? The bloggers will start blogging? The horror.
Besides, it's not like BAFTAS has lost any populairity and it didn't even nominate the Tree of Life at all.
Guest Guesto
February 14, 2012 at 1:15PM EST Reply to CommentThe geek fascination with the spelling of holy grail of the EGOT – that is, the way each individual letter that stands for an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards are arranged alphabetically over the course of acronym – is something I don’t entirely share in, largely because it's arbitrary and places undue emphais on things that don't need any more undue emphais.
Besides TOGE sounds a lot more like an actual award anywyway.
Guy Lodge I always thought GETO sounded best. Not quite sure why you're mocking my phrasing, though. (PS. There's a second 's' in 'emphasis.')
February 14, 2012 at 6:49PM ESTGuest Guesto Not mocking at all. Appropriating. It just seemed apt for the point I was making. And I wrote the whole thing largely stream of consciousness style.
February 14, 2012 at 8:20PM ESTIn retrospect I should have read it back and fixed the spelling.
GETO isn't bad. I'm fond of GTEO because it sounds so much like that other acronym.
Jonnybon
February 14, 2012 at 1:19PM EST Reply to CommentThere's no way A Separation is going to lose. It may even take best screenplay too.
Guest Guesto
February 14, 2012 at 1:20PM EST Reply to Comment"Call me when someone wins a Best Actress Oscar, Album of the Year and the Nobel Peace Prize. In a single year.)"
I can't be the only one who read that as being (unintentionally or unconsciously) sexist.
I am sure that it will happen one day, tough.
Andrej Bono's pretty close! He's already won Album of the Year twice, and he's been nominated for an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize.
February 14, 2012 at 1:56PM ESTAndrej #southpark
February 14, 2012 at 1:56PM ESTGuy Lodge You'll have to explain to me what's even intentionally sexist about randomly choosing a woman rather than a man to illustrate that hypothesis. You could just as easily make the same accusation if I'd gone the other way. Why all the sniping today?
February 14, 2012 at 7:03PM ESTGuest Guesto I have to admit I really (really) dislike South Park and the people behind it.
February 14, 2012 at 8:21PM ESTAnita
February 14, 2012 at 5:26PM EST Reply to CommentI'm going to have the same horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when A Separation loses that I did when Fincher lost, which also means I will be holding out hope right up to the bitter end. Still, a Clooney win would be the darkest moment of the night.
Evan
February 14, 2012 at 6:48PM EST Reply to CommentOf course A Separation *could* lose, but I really don't see why it would. I feel like the majority of people who say, "A Separation won't win," have only one item of support: the critics' favorite rarely wins. But they neglect to point out that the critic's favorite is often really violent or in some instances, a genre piece. Except for the "AMPAS voters won't want to award Iran" angle, which I'm not sure I buy, I don't understand why people think that AMPAS voters would have trouble with this film.
And if there is an upset, I'm with Kris that Monsieur Lazhar would be the one. In Darkness is long and dark (obviously, but to the point that it's hard to tell characters apart). It just does not seem like one that people would latch onto, in my opinion.
And what about the possibility of vote-splitting between the Jewish film, the feel-good film and the Holocaust film, all of which are probably within the Foreign Language voter demographic?
My bet is still on A Separation.
Liz "I don't understand why people think that AMPAS voters would have trouble with this film."
February 14, 2012 at 7:11PM ESTI agree. I think A Separation is a very accessible film, which is a key factor in its favor. It's a totally different situation than, say, The Secret in Their Eyes winning over A Prophet and The White Ribbon. That's an example of something decent but fairly lightweight trumping two brilliant movies that many Academy members no doubt found actively off-putting.
A Separation has the emotional weight that seems to be a requirement for the win in this category. It's not going to leave voters scratching their heads like Waltz with Bashier or Dogtooth.
Really, if A Separation is too out-there for voters, then there is absolutely no hope for this category.
John-Paul
February 15, 2012 at 4:12PM EST Reply to CommentI'm frankly just worried that if 'A Separation' loses to either 'In Darkness' (a Holocaust film) or 'Footnote' (an Israeli film), the backlash will not be exclusively related to the quality of the films. To spell it out, I fully expect that if either of those movies beat 'A Separation,' there will be accusations of anti-Muslim bias directed at the Academy. The question is, how much of it will be true?
Guest Guesto Considering it's been nominated for best Original Screenplay, I'd say no bias towards the film at all.
February 15, 2012 at 6:14PM EST'A Separation' lost at BAFTAS too, you know. You might be thinking about it too much. There's a loooong history of frontrunners losing the Best Foreign film Oscar, too, from all countries.