Good Morning Oscar, January 18: The Dream Eater

The Palm Springs fest gives out awards, and BAFTA helps Amy Adams dash another actress’ hopes once again

While most eyes (including, apparently, ours) were turned elsewhere, awards were also handed out by the Palm Springs International Film Festival, at a luncheon where the emcee no doubt did not make fun of the presenters, the winners or the festival.  The Canadian film "The Whistleblower" was named Best Narrative Feature, the rousing documentary "Louder than a Bomb" won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, and the FIPRESCI jury award for foreign-language film went to Xavier Beauvois' austere "Of Gods and Men." Other winners included Lars Rosing and Anne Coesens for Best Actor and Actress for "Nuummioq" and "Illegal," respectively; "Nothing's All Bad" for the New Voices/New Vision Award; "Summer Pasture" for the John Schlesinger Award for Outstanding First Documentary; and Spanish Oscar entry "Even the Rain" the Bridging the Borders Award. (Palm Springs International Film Festival)

Amy AdamsBest instant analysis of the BAFTA nominations comes from In Contention's Guy Lodge – who, like "The King's Speech," has home-court advantage since he lives in London.  His reactions will no doubt appear on the website before long – but in the meantime, his Twitter feed did some scolding ("TOY STORY 3 for Best Visual Effects over TRON LEGACY? You're not voting for Best Film here, guys"), pointed out injustices, ("BAFTA's writing branch put WINTER'S BONE in their Top 5. General votership dumped it for GIRL/TATTOO. This is why you let the branches vote."), and supplied needed perspective: "Two years ago, BAFTA nominated Amy Adams but not Viola Davis for DOUBT. Today, they nominated Amy but not Melissa Leo for THE FIGHTER. … Lesson learned: if you're an older actress and you want a BAFTA, do not co-star with Amy Adams. SHE WILL DEVOUR YOUR DREAMS." (Twitter)

Steven Zeitchik says that "The Social Network" is now the Oscar front-runner, because the Golden Globes "are a harbinger of the Oscars." As someone who resisted the inevitable for quite a while, I feel compelled to point out that what happened at the Beverly Hilton on Sunday night really didn't alter the film's Oscar chances one iota: it was the frontrunner going in, and it would have been the frontrunner coming out regardless of what 80 foreign journalists thought. But the story is an entertaining roller-coaster ride: in his nine paragraphs, Zeitchik spends two supporting his thesis and four pointing out the reasons why he could be wrong. He says that "TSN" is now the movie to beat because it won the Globe, but then adds that Tom O'Neil points out that the Globes and Oscars have only agreed once in the last six years … and Nicole Sperling says the movie's not emotional enough … and it's not violent enough either, the way "The Departed" and "No Country for Old Men" and "The Hurt Locker" were … and it was released in a month (October) that hasn't produced any Best Picture winners recently. So is it the frontrunner, or not? I'm so confused … (24 Frames)

Sasha Stone, of course, isn't confused, and hasn't been ever since she saw the Facebook movie. So she creates a nice chart to spell it out: "The Social Network" has won more important awards than any film ever, if by ever you mean the last 17 years. (Awards Daily)

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