How’s this for an unusual double feature: the 3D version of James Cameron’s massive, big-budget blockbuster “Avatar,” followed by the quiet, tense, very low-budget military drama “The Messenger.”
Or “Precious,” with its near-operatic drama and rage and emotional pyrotechnics in a squalid urban setting, followed by the genteel, repressed 19th Century British love story “Bright Star.”
Or a “don’t ask, don’t tell” special: “The Hurt Locker,” followed by “A Single Man.”
Those are some of the options available to Academy members over the next three weeks, as the annual AMPAS screenings of nominated films take over the organization’s theaters in Beverly Hills and Hollywood.
The screenings begin on Saturday morning with a pair of Foreign-Language Film nominees, “The Milk of Sorrow” and “The White Ribbon,” and run through Sunday, February 28, when they come to a close with a double bill of “Il Divo” and “In the Loop.”
In between, each nominee will be screened at least twice, once in the 1,012-seat Samuel Goldwyn Theater in the Academy’s Beverly Hills headquarters and once in the more intimate Linwood Dunn Theater in its Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood.
The hardest films to see, the Foreign-Language, Documentary and short films, will all screen four times each; in those categories, members must see every nominee to be eligible to vote.
The foreign films, docs and shorts were slotted into the screening schedule even before the nominations were announced. Then studio reps participated in a nominations-morning lottery to choose the remaining times, resulting in some unusual juxtapositions as well as some pairings that work nicely.
In the latter category, February 9 brings a British teen night to the Goldwyn: “An Education” at seven p.m., followed by “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” at 8:50.
The next night provides a trip into a pair of fantastic fantasy worlds: “Coraline” at seven, “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus” at 8:50.
And you could call February 18 Nine Night: first “District 9,” then “Nine.”
On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine too many viewers being equally disposed towards Neil Blomkamp’s sci-fi actioner and Rob Marshall’s lavish musical.
And are any Academy members who go to see the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” on February 21 liable to stick around for Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” afterwards?
Of course, it’s not just offbeat double bills we’re talking about here. With two movies at the Goldwyn every night but as many as six at the Dunn, the schedule can make for some awfully wide-ranging movie days for adventurous Academy members.
On Sunday, for example, voters could start with a pair of foreign films, Israel’s “Ajami” and Agentina’s “The Secret in Their Eyes,” then shift gears for “Transformers,” then see the profane British comedy “In the Loop” and the documentary “Which Way Home.”
The members screenings bump gritty documentaries up against frothy animated features and big movies against little ones, and they produce some odd start times: 8:47, 4:02, 9:18.
