Can Sally Hawkins be a Best Actress Academy Award nominee this year for “Happy-Go-Lucky”?  After winning the National Society of Film Critics’ Best Actress prize this weekend, the nearly unknown Hawkins has managed a series of triumphs with critics – winning New York, Boston and LA critics prizes — to consolidate her standing as a must-be nominee.  It could happen; the Academy has a habit of rewarding Mike Leigh’s actors with nominations as they did for Brenda Blethyn (“Secrets and Lies”) and (“Vera Drake”).

That means Hawkins who is not a SAG nominee would join Oscar’s other supposed shoo-ins Anne Hathaway (“Rachel Getting Married”), Melissa Leo (“Frozen River”) and Meryl Streep (“Doubt”).  That leaves one slot open and the prime candidates are Angelina Jolie (“Changeling”), Kate Winslet (“Revolution Road” or, more reasonably, “The Reader”), and the longshots Michelle Williams (“Wendy and Lucy”) and Kristin Scott Thomas (“I’ve Loved You So Long”).

I noticed there were several anti-Sean Penn comments in reaction to his winning yet another prize with the National Society’s Best Actor – and the comments had more to do with his liberal politics than his acting.  This is sad.  Should John Wayne or John Ford, two of the 20^th century’s greatest film artists, be reduced in stature for their right-wing stances?  Should Jane Fonda for her long-ago political activism?  An artist, any artist, should be judged on their art.  I know sometimes that’s hard if you feel they are hateful politics involved but they’re not asking to be judged in these instances for speaking out but what they do on camera.

As for “Waltz with Bashir,” a personal animated documentary from Israel about a wartime atrocity, will its winning the Best Picture slot of the National Society boost its chances to join “Wall*E” and “Kung Fu Panda” as the three Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature? 

The questions keep coming – the answers arrive Jan. 22^nd when Academy Award nominations are announced. 

Happy New Year!  Inescapably a time of reflection, a moment to wander the corridors of memory and consider New Years of yesteryear, this New Year’s Eve found me at Indochine, near the East Village where the sublime Joey Arias and genius puppeteer Basil Twist held court after their sensational run in “Arias with a Twist.”
The word is that this one-man (one woman?) extravaganza with puppets just might be memorialized in an HBO presentation for all those who couldn’t get into the 60-seat HERE theater off-Broadway where “Arias with a Twist” held sway for nearly six months.
Amid the honking party horns and raucous music at Indochine I couldn’t help flash back to bygone New Year’s Eves – a Bette Midler Carnegie Hall concert (or was it Avery Fisher Hall?), Sam Waterson’s brattily adolescent Hamlet at Lincoln Center on a steeply raked stage with the great Irene Worth as Gertrude, Jane Alexander and David Birney in a Broadway revival of “Washington Square,” a pleasure now impossible since Time Square has become a security zone and access to most Broadway theaters closed on New Year’s Eve.
Most memorable are the incredibly tout New York parties that the late David Newman, the screenwriter of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Superman” movies, and his wife Leslie Newman, a glorious chef, gave annually for so many years.  The Newmans’ Central Park West apartment was like being an extra in a Mike Nichols comedy where you might bump into Woody Allen in the kitchen or talk to Jean Pierre Aumont about his marriage to Maria Montez alongside the book-lined walls of the living room.
If all this is enough to summon a chorus of “The Way We Were,” that figures, especially after seeing it sung so buoyantly by a radiant Beyonce earlier this week on CBS’s broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors.
This annual awards show isn’t usually this interesting.  What this year’s lineup which included a galvanizing Rob Thomas and an irrepressible B.B. King repeatedly stressed was how thrilling a live performance can be.  Whether it was Beyonce rising from the mist as part of the Barbra Streisand tribute, the elegant Idina Menzel’s riveting twists and turns around another Streisand classic, “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” or Bettye Lavette’s soulful takeover of the Who number, “Love Reign O’er Me,” it was a reminder why music has such power to move us in so many ways.
That was certainly true of Earth Kitt, the truly unique, indomitable star of so many venues who died last week. Kitt’s film career was negligible; it was as a live performer that she created her legacy.  I remember her as the high point of a ‘90s London revival of Sondheim’s “Follies” where she generated goosebumps with that diva anthem, “I’m Still Here.” 
Let us hope come 2010, we’re all still here to sing another chorus of that anthem.  Does that qualify as a New Year’s resolution?

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah 

 Time for my Ten Best Movies 2008
1. “Tell No One”
2. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
3. “Slumdog Millionaire”
4. “The Reader”
5. “The Tale of Despereaux”
6. “Frost/Nixon”
7. “Gommorah”
8. “Changeling”
9. “Nothing But the Truth”
10.  “Frozen River”

I’ll post my comments after Christmas.  My “Beyond the Subtitles” show on Art Radio International will have a rundown with Wilson Morales, film critic for blackfilm.com.  That should go up after Christmas as well.  Until then, discuss!

Are critics’ groups geek squads that operate as fan clubs?  As the year-end cycle of awards resound throughout the land, you have to wonder.  The Critics Choice nominees include two leading men – Josh Brolin and James Franco – nominated for supporting work in “Milk” – but leave out Jason Butler Harner, the year’s creepiest and most memorable villain in “Changeling.”  This group (of which I’m a member) showed no sense in naming six – SIX! – nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress and then consigning Kate Winslet to the supporting category for “The Reader.”  Did anyone see “The Reader”?  This is patently ridiculous.

The L.A. Film Critics, as if taking personally the idea that the way to boost the Oscar ratings is to nominate movies people have actually seen (rather than just critical favorites), for the first time gave an animated movie, Boston’s Andrew Stanton’s “WALL*E” the Best Picture prize – the runner-up was the Batman sequel, “The Dark Knight.”  These were two of the year’s biggest hits.  But they also went gaga over Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” voting Sally Hawkins the year’s Best Actress when she seems to have fallen out of Oscar’s radar as well as giving it a screenwriting honor.  What’s puzzling about the L.A. winners is that there is no connection between the director and the best picture.  If Danny Boyle gets Best Director, shouldn’t “Slumdog Millionaire” which is pretty much entirely due to its directorial vision, be honored as well?

More grousing in the future is promised.  For now, here are the nominees and winners. 

CRITICS CHOICE NOMINEES (Awards are given in a nationally televised ceremony January 8th):

BEST PICTURE
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
The Wrestler
BEST ACTOR
Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Beckinsale - Nothing But the Truth
Cate Blanchett - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
James Franco - Milk

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Vera Farmiga - Nothing But the Truth
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
Kate Winslet - The Reader

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Milk
Rachel Getting Married

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant - Milk

BEST WRITER (Original or Adapted Screenplay)
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Peter Morgan - Frost/Nixon
Eric Roth - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley - Doubt

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Wall-E
Waltz With Bashir

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS (Under 21)
Dakota Fanning - The Secret Life of Bees
David Kross - The Reader
Dev Petal - Slumdog Millionaire
Brandon Walters - Australia

BEST ACTION MOVIE
The Dark Knight
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
Quantum of Solace
Wanted

BEST COMEDY MOVIE
Burn After Reading
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Role Models
Tropic Thunder
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

BEST PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
John Adams
Recount
Coco Chanel

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
A Christmas Tale
Gomorrah
I’ve Loved You So Long
Let the Right One In
Mongol
Waltz With Bashir

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
I.O.U.S.A.
Man On Wire
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Standard Operating Procedure
Young At Heart

BEST SONG
“Another Way to Die” (performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys, written by Jack White) - Quantum of Solace
“Down to Earth” (performed by Peter Gabriel, written by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman) - Wall-E
“I Thought I Lost You” (performed Miley Cyrus and John Travolta, written by Miley Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele) - Bolt
“Jaiho” (performed by Sukhwinder Singh, written by A.R. Rahman and Gulzar) - Slumdog Millionaire
“The Wrestler” (performed by Bruce Springsteen, written by Bruce Springsteen) - The Wrestler

BEST COMPOSER
Alexandre Desp lat - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood - Changeling
Danny Elfman - Milk
Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard - The Dark Knight
A.R. Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire

LA FILM CRITICS AWARDS:
Picture: “Wall-E”
Runner-up: “The Dark Knight”

Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, “The Dark Knight”

Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk”
Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”

Actress: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Runner-up: Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”

Supporting actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

Supporting actress: Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “Elegy”
Runner-up: Viola Davis, “Doubt”

Screenplay: Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, “Synecdoche, New York”

Foreign-language film: “Still Life”
Runner-up: “The Class”

Documentary: “Man on Wire”
Runner-up: “Waltz With Bashir”

Animation: “Waltz With Bashir”

Cinematography: Yu Lik Wai, “Still Life”
Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, “Slumdog Millionaire”

Production design: Mark Friedberg, “Synecdoche, New York”
Runner-up: Nathan Crowley, “The Dark Knight”

Music/score: A.R. Rahman, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

New Generation: Steve McQueen, “Hunger”

Douglas E. Edwards independent/experimental film/video: James Benning, “RR” and “Casting a Glance”.

Oscar’s Best Picture?

With three weeks to go, the Best Picture Oscar race is nearly over.  Over in the sense that finally the year’s awards hungry movies have all been seen.  Now Academy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice voters decide by ballot on the nominees.
Here is my rundown on the Best Pic entries and their chances:
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – The kind of ambitious, elegant and nearly three hours’ long movie that divides people into love it or hate it camps.  Paramount Pictures is mounting a massive campaign for David Fincher’s backwards life story and it may do the trick. 
OSCAR CHANCES:  Solid.

“Revolutionary Road”  — Kate Winslet’s long beloved dream project is yet another horror tale about stifling Fifties suburbia.  It’s well-done but does it hit the gong?  I think not.
OSCAR CHANCES:    A long shot.

“The Reader” – Kate Winslet’s other year-end entry is a complex tale set mostly in postwar Fifties and Sixties Germany.  It’s certainly like nothing we’ve seen and the three leads, Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and newcomer David Kross, are sensational.
OSCAR CHANCES:   Likely nominee.

“Frost/Nixon” – Having seen the Broadway and London stage hit I had little faith that anyone, much less Ron Howard who’s been on a slide with “Cinderella Man” (Yuck!) and “The Da Vinci Code” (Embarrassingly yucky!), could take the stagey stuff and come up with a movie.  Howard’s triumphed.  “Frost/Nixon” scores as one of the year’s best.
OSCAR CHANCES:   A shoo-in.

“Doubt” – Something was lost in the transistion from the stage, even with the starry power of Meryl Streep (a nice try but not equal to Cherry Jones onstage) and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  It may depend on whether voters feel there is doubt here – and that it’s not stacked against the priest – and if they can take the immersion in Sixties Catholicism that is at the film’s core.
OSCAR CHANCES:  Probably but still iffy.

“Gran Torino” – Clint Eastwood’s old-fashioned, entertaining comedy-drama about a racist retiree in Highland Park, Michigan, seems too much a “Walking Tall” meets a retired Dirty Harry movie to be original.  But it works.
OSCAR CHANCES:  Very iffy.

“Milk” – Gus Van Sant’s biopic of gay martyr Harvey Milk doesn’t play like an emotional weepie but rather a study of the Seventies’s fight for Gay Rights.  That distancing gives “Milk” a measured intensity and admirable intelligence.
OSCAR CHANCES:  Good.

“Burn After Reading” – The Coen brothers triumphed last year with the stark, bloody “No Country for Old Men.”  Can they do it again with this nastily funny, very murderous comedy?
OSCAR CHANCES:  None.

“The Dark Knight” – The big guns of Oscar campaigning are out, the box-office is mighty and Heath Ledger was sensational.  Will this popcorn superhero movie with a conscience sway voters it is a movie for the ages and not last summer?
OSCAR CHANCES:  Iffy.

“Slumdog Millionarie” — Danny Boyle’s exuberant take on a trio of slum kids in Mumbai and how they grew – and conquered – is a feel-good movie with a conscience.  Destined to be a box-office hit and certainly an original.
OSCAR CHANCES:  A shoo-in.

“WALL*E”  – This acclaimed Disney/Pixar animated fantasy would like to be considered in the Best Picture Oscar race as well as Best Animated Feature where it’s a no-brainer and the frontrunner.
OSCAR CHANCES:  No go.

COWABUNGA BEST PICTURES!
Anyone in the mood for a boxed DVD set for a Christmas gift couldn’t go wrong with the impressive Columbia Pictures’ Best Picture Collection.  The 11 films here are all Oscar-winning Best Pictures and five of them are must-see, must-have classics that can be seen again and again:
*  “It Happened One Night” which was the first movie to win the top five Academy Awards – for 1934’s Best Picture, Director Frank Capra, Screenplay Robert Riskin, Actor Clark Gable and Actress Claudette Colbert.
*  Two David Lean hits:  1957’s exotic and mesmerizing “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and 1962’s epic for the ages, “Lawrence of Arabia.”
*  Marlon Brando’s Oscar winner as Terry Molloy, the 1954 “On the Waterfront,” probably the most influential film of the Fifties.
*  And Fred Zinnemann’s “From Here to Eternity,” the 1953 Pearl Harbor drama that sparked Frank Sinatra’s comeback (and figures as a fictionalized subplot of “The Godfather”) and is blessed by iconic turns by Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling in the surf and Montgomery Clift’s unforgettable Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt.
The half-dozen other entries here are hardly minor:  “Oliver!” the great British musical made from Dickens’ Oliver Twist, “Kramer vs. Kramer,” a landmark for both Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, “All the King’s Men,” a still-rousing look at a political demagogue, Richard Attenborough’s old-fashioned, all-star biopic “Ghandi,” another Fred Zinnemann hit, though not as timeless as his “Eternity” is “A Man for All Seasons” buoyed by a Best Actor turn by Paul Scofield, and Frank Capra’s other 1930s Best Picture, “You Can’t Take It With You,” a 1938 antique which is blessed by its first-rate cast headed by Jean Arthur and James Stewart, a year before he teamed with Capra on “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Naturally, the set comes with loads of extras, including the original poster art which casts a spell all its own and commentaries.