Oscar Week: Watch the Best Original Song Nominees

Since these apparently won't be featured in tonight's Oscars, here's your chance to brush up on the Best Song nominees. The producers of the show reportedly cut the performances a couple weeks ago and I haven't heard anything to the contrary. That kind of blows, because the songs break up the rest of the show rather nicely, and some of them - like "Falling Slowly" from Once two years ago - is definitely worth watching.

This year, the leading candidate to win is "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart. I'd like to see Ryan Bingham (or hell, even Jeff Bridges) sing that tonight. Great song and everything that award is supposed to be about. There are also two nominees from Disney's Princess and the Frog, a foreign language nominee from Paris 36 ("Loin de Paname"), and one of Marion Cotillard's two showstoppers from Nine, "Take it All." You can watch/listen to all five nominees below if you think Crazy Heart might be vulnerable.

Click to read more ...

Penélope Cruz In Talks for 'Pirates 4'

No Keira, no problem. Heat Vision Blog says that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will get its sizzle from Penélope Cruz, who just received her third Oscar nomination in five years for her work in Nine.

Cruz thanked director Rob Marshall in her post-nomination comments, and he's the director of the next Pirates movie. Coincidence? Not likely. As for her role, the specifics are fairly well guarded, although Heat Vision allows, "she is to be [Captain Jack Sparrow]'s foil and equal in many ways."

Click to read more ...

'Nine' Soldiers On Despite Apathetic Reaction, Returns

I really wanted to like Nine, and it felt as though everything could align in its favor. Look at the cast, the source material, and the director, whose Chicago is the most recent musical to win a Best Picture Oscar. However, it just didn't work out very well. Still competently made, beautifully photographed, and featuring a couple knock 'em dead musical numbers, Nine is a few good parts supporting a movie that has nothing else to offer. Not bad, exactly, but certainly not a must-see.

The film was similarly received by the majority of critics, and audiences heeded their words. No, critics can't deter people from seeing New Moon, but some movies rely on positive press, and the lack of it kept Nine in the lower tier of the top ten films of the weekend, making only $5.5 million. Oh...the movie cost $64 million, according to Reuters. I'd read higher numbers for the budget, but $64 makes the case just as well. What case? The one in which Nine joins The Road as embarrassing financial failures for The Weinstein Company, a studio that can ill afford to take major damage. And yet, there's this from TWC operations executive David Glasser: "At this moment in time there has been no plan between us nor the theater chains that we deal with to cut any theaters. We are going to hold our theaters as planned. The movie is working." Really? A per-screen average less than The Blind Side, currently in its sixth weekend, and Nine is "working"?

Click to read more ...

Movie Review - 'Nine'

Nine Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, and Penélope Cruz Directed by Rob Marshall Rated PG-13

Physically beautiful and a little troubled underneath, Rob Marshall’s Nine is the musical of year, although that's based more on a lack of other musicals to compare it to than how well it succeeds. It's the kind of film for which the Golden Globes are made but not the Academy Awards nor permanent places in our memories. Unlike his previous song-and-dance act, Chicago, Nine is bogged down by its story and more musical numbers fail than succeed. In Chicago, to note the difference, the songs fed back into the narrative seamlessly. In Nine, while several of the tunes are absolute showstoppers, that's exactly the problem: They interrupt Marshall's story and it's hard to get it back on track. The setup will sound familiar to fans of classic European cinema, because it is in essence a reborn version of Fellini’s 8 ½, by way of the stage. Guido (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an Italian director struggling mightily with his next project. A week away from production and he has no script. Guido begins imagining the women in his life – from his mother through his first flirtation and up to his concurrent wife, mistress, and muse – as the genesis of a new film, although it appears to be a film he’ll never make. Marshall has assembled a marvelous cast. Only two of its members haven’t won Academy Awards, and only one (the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie) has not been nominated. While it’s interesting to see Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, and even Kate Hudson sing, they all seem a bit limited. The worst impression, oddly enough, is made by the best actor in the cast and maybe the best actor in the world. Daniel Day-Lewis seems uncomfortable with his accent, his clothes, his fellow actors, and even his solo performance.

Click to read more ...

The Screen Actors Guild Award Nominees

We've seen critics groups and the Hollywood Foreign Press pick their favorites at precursors to the Academy Awards, which, like it or not, are the standard for honoring great work in the movies. However, with almost excusive exception, there are no HFPA voters or movie critics who vote for the Oscars, so what they think is really no accurate reflection of the year's biggest prize.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards, like those for the DGA, the PGA, and a host of technical guilds, is a good predictor. Many SAG members are Oscar voters, so if you're looking for potential Oscar nominees in the acting categories, it should look a lot like this. Now, the fact that it very closely mirrors the Golden Globes and the critics lists shouldn't be ignored, either. As usual, certain films will steamroll their way to big wins, and we won't be completely in the dark about them. The biggest surprise is the inclusion of Diane Kruger for Inglourious Basterds in the Supporting Actress field. Otherwise, this is pretty much what we expected. I would have preferred Marion Cotillard over Penelope Cruz in Nine, if you're nominating someone from that cast, but the cast as a whole was nominated in the big SAG category, Ensemble Acting.

Click to read more ...