Oscar Campaign Game Plans

(photo from Goldderby.com)

 

 

I didn't realize how complicated can this Oscar campaign season be with so many films equally as good for Best Picture.  Here's a very interesting article from the LA Times about the Oscar game plans of the Best Picture contenders.

For Your Consideration

The Awards season is in full swing starting this past Monday (Dec. 3) when the New York Film Critics Circle came out with their winners for the year.  It was then followed on Dec. 5 by the National Board Review Awards.  Here are a sample of the "For Your Consideration" print campaign:

National Board Review gave Les Mis the Best Ensemble Award

Zero Dark Thirty is off to a good start winning Best Picture, Director (Kathryn Bigelow) and Cinematography (Greig Fraser) at NYFCC and followed that up with a Best Pic, Director and Best Actress (Jessica Chastain) at the National Board Review

Though not a Best Pic contender (well according to the experts),

 this is a good print campaing for The Dark Knight Rises

Lincoln won Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Supporting Actress (Sally Fields) and Screenplay (Tony Kushner) at the NYFCC

Marion Cotillard might be another Best Actress

contender for French film Rust and Bone

Argo, a favorite among the critics might win Ben Affleck his Oscar for Direction

Silver Linings Playbook already won a

Best Actor (Bradley Cooper) Award from the National Board Review

but Jennifer Lawrence is also considered the Best Actress front runner this year by the experts

 

 

List of dates for Nominations and Awards shows are as follows:

 

December 5. The National Board of Review announces nominations.

December 9. Los Angeles Film Critics will announce its awards.

December 10. The American Film Institute will honor its Top 10 films of 2012.

December 11. Broadcast Film Critics Association nominees for the 18th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards will be announced.

December 12. Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees will be announced.

December 13. Golden Globe nods live at 8 a.m. on NBC.

December 16. Satellite Awards presentation.

January 3. The Producers Guild of America will announce nominees / Nominees for the Writers Guild of America Awards announced.

January 8. Directors Guild Awards will announce the five Feature Film nominees / The National Board of Review awards ceremonies.

January 10. Academy Awards -- Nominations announced 5:30 a.m., PT. / Critics’ Choice Movie Awards (broadcast on CW network 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET)

January 13. Golden Globes live on NBC.

January 26. Producers Guild of America awards ceremonies.

January 27. Screen Actors Guild Awards on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. (ET)

February 3. Directors Guild Awards presented at annual dinner.

February 17. Writers Guild of America Awards will be given out.

February 24. The 85th Academy Awards (aired by ABC network)

 

This is one exciting season!  Good luck to everyone!

 

(photos from IMDB.com)



Go See Argo

 Ben Affleck is fast becoming one of my favorite directors.  Argo is set during the Iran hostage crisis that began in 1979.  Unbeknownst to us until the Clinton administration declassified CIA documents, six Americans managed to escape from the embassy and find refuge in the Canadian ambassador's home.  (Victor Garber as Ambassador Ken Taylor.)  And they did it with a little help from Hollywood.

Affleck's Tony Mendez, the CIA exfiltration expert enlisted the help of an unlikely friend:  Oscar-winning make up artist John Chambers---the always charming John Goodman---to get the Americans back home.  The wacky plan is for the foreign service workers to pretend to be Canadians location-scouting for the sci-fi movie "Argo" in Iran.  A hilarious Alan Arkin plays the sardonic producer Lester Siegel, who agrees to make the fake movie.  Bryan Cranston is Mendez's superior, Jack O'Donnell, who agrees to the "best bad idea".  This part of the movie provides the comedy as it lovingly satirizes Hollywood.

The film opens with a scorching history lesson on American involvement in Iran, and goes right into the frightening embassy siege.  (Benghazi immediately came to my mind.)  The rest of the movie is a nail biter, as the crazy plan gets executed.  Even though we know how it ends, the filmmakers manage to keep the suspense up.   Mission accomplished, Mr. Affleck.


(photo from Beyond Hollywood)