Holding out hope for Best Director

For me, Best Picture is a moot point. I've talked about it to death, I don't care to go back over the same stats, and I'm just trying to relax and not get worked up about the show until we get there.

But watching the Golden Globe win from last month, I have to say... I really, really want David Fincher to win Best Director.

Predictions to hit Sunday morning

For any curious parties, I'll be posting my final predictions, notes and commentaries on mid-Sunday morning, mainly because I'm hosting an Oscar pool and I don't want those turning in ballots on the day they're due (tomorrow) to get an advantage on me by seeing my picks.

Expect a rundown on the categories still in major contention as well as the logic behind each of my picks, and where the upsets could be.

As a final note to those making their own predictions: Expect an upset. There's been so many back-and-forths this year, not only between King's Speech and Social Network, but between Inception's near dominance of the tech guilds and True Grit's left-field possibility. Never forget crazy years like 2000, 2002, and 2005. This is the perfect year for the Academy to do something ridiculous, and I'm getting a sneaking suspicion they just might.

Coming back for everything

Property The Daily Gamecock

Midway through “The Social Network,” Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) spreads his arms and exclaims to Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), “This is our time.”
The scathing drama about the rise of social networking website Facebook is, indeed, about “our time.” In a story of several lonely geniuses fighting for control over a bold concept that now defines how many of us interact with and experience our friends, our family and our world, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher made a film with ambivalence and complex cynicism that sticks a cold knife into a central nerve of contemporary culture.
And for the longest time, it looked like it was “their time” to be honored. “The Social Network” shot out of the gate like a cannon when it was released in October, earning more four-star, rave reviews than any other American film of 2010. When the dust settled at the end of the year, it would also hold top honors from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, among dozens of other honors and mentions from regional film critic organizations and individual critics’ top 10 lists.

Read the rest here.

Why 'The Social Network' deserves to win

Property The Daily Gamecock

"The Social Network” is, to use a phrase only the boldest of film critics should use, perfect. It’s like watching a no-hitter; it’s like watching a Triple Crown winner; it is nirvana, and it makes you high off its dazzling quality.

From the first image through the end credits, the film’s craft blows all of its surrounding peers out of the water. It stands effortlessly as both a deep reflection of our times and as something altogether timeless.
Enough has been written about Aaron Sorkin’s relentlessly fast dialogue and the stunning performances of the whole ensemble; you’d be hard-pressed to find a more flawless group of actors cohering on exactly the level each performance requires. So let’s not talk about that.
Let’s instead focus on how David Fincher poured his obsessive tendencies as a director in every frame and every inch of this film. (In case you didn’t know, he did a total of 99 takes for that ricochet opening scene.)

Read the rest here.

Some ceremony news

Hollywood Reporter has a nice feature about some of the changes to the ceremony this year, including:

-- Virtual Reality Set: The producers abandoned the idea of a traditional set altogether to enter a world of virtual reality via a series of "projections" designed to give the show a constantly-changing look. The virtual end goal is for Franco and Hathaway to take viewers on a trip through Hollywood history with six or seven scenic transitions. "The hope is that we briefly leave the Kodak in 2011 -- not literally but metaphorically -- and take the audience," says Cohen.

 Also, Pete Hammond on Deadline Hollywood says Tom Hanks will be the first presenter, and will be presenting Art Direction (one of the most hotly contested categories of the night) and Cinematography.

'King's Speech,' 'Alice' win CDG

Costume Design Guild winners:

Excellence in Costume Design for Contemporary Film: Black Swan
Excellence in Costume Design for Period Film: The King's Speech
Excellence in Costume Design for Fantasy Film: Alice in Wonderland

Another cool stat

This, paraphrased from the discussion over on Awards Daily:

Those people predicting David Fincher to win Best Director and The King's Speech to win Best Picture actually do have historical grounds for doing so apart from Hooper's DGA win and Fincher's Globe win. Check it out:

Since 1948, when the Best Picture-winner's director has directed two or fewer films prior to their Oscar-winning film and they are additionally not an established star (in order to account for one-offs like Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson who get rewarded for essentially crossing over into directing), and when the director who wins was previously nominated for Best Director, a split occurs approximately 43% of the time. Tom Hooper has directed one other theatrical release apart from The King's Speech (last year's The Damned United).

Here's how it shakes down:

Ang Lee beat Paul Haggis in 2005. Crash goes on to win Best Picture. Haggis had previously directed Red Hot in 1993. Lee had previously been nominated for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lee also won the DGA in 2005.

Roman Polanski beat Rob Marshall in 2002. Chicago goes on to win Best Picture. It was Marshall's first film. Polanski had previously been nominated for Chinatown and Tess. Marshall won the DGA in 2002.

Warren Beatty beat Hugh Hudson in 1981. Chariots of Fire goes on to win Best Picture. It was Hudson's first full-length narrative film. It was only Beatty's second directorial effort, but he was previously nominated in the category for Heaven Can Wait. Beatty won the DGA in 1981.

This year, Tom Hooper has directed one other movie, and David Fincher was previously nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

In years where this didn't happen:
Sam Mendes wins for American Beauty in 1999. First movie. Won DGA.
James L. Brooks wins for Terms of Endearment in 1983. First movie. Won DGA.
Michael Cimino wins for The Deer Hunter in 1978. Second movie. Won DGA.
Delbert Mann wins for Marty in 1955. First movie. Won DGA.

I hope these are the only instances. I tried to fact-check this one as best I could very quickly. Interestingly though, if a "new" director is going to win the Oscar, he must win the DGA, which Hooper has done.

'Inception' tops MPSE awards

The Motion Picture Sound Editors' Golden Reel Awards for 2010:

Best Sound Effects and Foley Editing in a Feature Film: Inception
Best Music Editing in a Feature Film: Inception
Best Dialogue and ADR Editing in a Feature Film: The Social Network
Best Music Editing in a Musical Feature Film: Country Strong
Best Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue, ADR Editing in an Animation Feature Film: How to Train Your Dragon
Best Sound Editing in a Documentary Feature Film: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

'Speech' vs. 'Inception vs. 'Grit' vs. 'Alice'

This year, the technical categories are giving us a run for our money. I can't remember the last time so many categories seemed so up in the air with a week left in the running.

Even beyond places like foreign film, where I can legitimately see it going about three different ways, or Documentary, where Exit Through the Gift Shop is suddenly in place to take down Inside Job, not to mention the huge question mark over whether the supporting categories will cause chaos to erupt, things are getting tricky.

'True Grit' wins CAS

The sound team behind True Grit has won top honors from the Cinema Audio Society, beating Oscar favorite Inception.

Great choice; I personally think the mixing in True Grit is out of this world. In case you were wondering, CAS has matched with Best Sound Mixing at the Oscars eight of the last 14 years.

'Social Network' wins ACE

Best Edited Feature Film, Drama: The Social Network
Best Edited Feature Film, Comedy: Alice in Wonderland
Best Edited Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Best Edited Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Big win for Exit Through the Gift Shop. Could we see a coup at the Oscars where Banksy actually gets an Academy Award? Stranger things have happened...

For those who care to know... the winner of the ACE has gone on to win Best Editing at the Oscars every year since 1996 except for 2000, where Gladiator and Almost Famous won honors at ACE and Traffic won at the Oscars.