In this morning’s roundup of Oscar news ‘n’ notes from around the web, sisters are apparently doing it for themselves.
Is it really The Year of the Actress at the Oscars? Zorianna Kit thinks so, and talks to a few others who say that the heated competition for the five Best Actress slots means that “women are the talk of the town.” She trots out some ludicrous generalizations about how it’s usually so much harder to pick winners in the actor categories than the actress ones, overlooking the fact that Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz were every bit the prohibitive favorites that Sandra Bullock and Mo’Nique were; and she ignores the inconvenient truth that for the most part this year’s female contenders some from smaller, lower-profile films than their male counterparts. But she does spotlight a broad range of Best Actress candidates, from Nicole Kidman (above) to Jennifer Lawrence, and she’s right that some worthy contenders will certainly be left out when the nominations are announced. (Reuters via theStar.com)
Chalk up another award for “The Social Network,” and it’s one that emphasizes the embarrassment of riches the film has in the supporting categories. The Hollywood Awards Gala, which is affiliated with the Hollywood Film Festival later this month, will present its Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award to the film’s Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Josh Pence, Brenda Song, Rashida Jones, Douglas Urbanski and Rooney Mara. How do they decide where to draw the line? Anyway, they’ll get their awards on October 25 – and Garfield will get two, since he’s also being honored with the Breakthrough Actor Award. (Awards Daily)
The Hollywood Awards, meanwhile, figure prominently in David Poland’s “20 Weeks to Oscar” musings, which focus on some of the honors that’ll be handed out over the next couple of months. (“Premature awardulation,” he calls it.) He dubs the Gotham Awards “sincere and well-intended,” and then rakes the Hollywood Awards soiree over the coals (“cynical, ugly, somewhat desperate”) and wonders why the media doesn’t “burn this thing to the ground.” His answer: because who can argue with giving awards to people like Robert Duvall, Annette Bening, Sam Rockwell and the below-the-line talent who are honored? No one, that’s who. (Movie City News)
Who needs professional Oscar prognosticators? Kris Tapley hands things over to his readers, and gives them a poll with which they can pick their 10 predictions for Best Picture nominees. So far, the amateurs look a lot like the pros: their top choices are “The Social Network,” “The King’s Speech,” “Toy Story 3,” “Inception” and “True Grit,” followed by “127 Hours,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “Another Year,” “Black Swan” and “The Fighter.” The places are slightly different, but nine of those 10 are also on the Gurus o’ Gold chart at Movie City News; the only difference is that Kris’ readers go for “The Fighter,” while the pros pick “Hereafter.”
