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Friday, December 18, 2009

Reality TV Attempts to Close the Barn Door on Actual Psychos

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Richard Rushfield on 12/11/09

The producers of reality television want you to know they are as upset as you are about the post-apocalypse circus they've unleashed on America and they are really trying to do something about it.

Who would have guessed, you select people for stardom based on their borderline disorders, reward them with more attention and airtime for unhinged behavior — and out of nowhere some of them start acting not funny crazy but really truly crazy?

Well, after one reality contestant broke into the White House and another, oh, just, murdered his ex-wife, the LA Times reports that reality moguls are making the expected harumphs about better screening processes, higher standards, guidelines...you know all those things you harumph about when you want to make it look like you are going to change everything when you really have no idea what you're going to do.

Furrowing their brows, the producers quoted express particular concern that the case of Ryan Jenkins, that two-time reality contestant who murdered his ex-wife and then fled the country was

the game-changer for everybody," said Michael Hirschorn, a former VH1 executive who helped develop such genre-expanding shows as "I Love New York" and now runs the independent production house Ish Entertainment.

Hirschorn said dating shows and programs that feature contestants dealing with difficult psychological problems, such as drug addiction, are now being approached more warily. More broadly, a rollback is already underway across the genre, he said.

"Vetting processes are going to get a lot stricter," he said. "The background checks are becoming more and more rigorous. Clearly, each time there's a slip-up, the bar goes higher."

Since the Jenkins case, television industry requests for background screenings have gone up 25% at Control Risks, an international risk consulting firm with offices in Los Angeles, according to Elaine Carey, national director of investigations.

The problem is of course, shows like Real Housewives and Rock of Love are built around bringing around bringing in people who are completely batty on a good day and poking and prodding them to see what jaw-dropping heights of insanity they can climb. It's all well and good to say we're looking for people who are just tantrum-crazy, tearing apart a Rock of Love bus crazy, betraying their best friend crazy, but certainly not killing their ex-wife crazy. That's where we draw the line.

Yes, it's easy to say, but we'd like to see the screening process that will let through the certifiably nutso but raise the drawbridge on the criminally psychotic. And until VH1 starts running reality shows about America's Favorite Tea-Cozy Knitters, our national debate on just how insane do we want our TV stars to be is likely to rage on.


 
 

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The Avatar Debate: It Will Suck

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Richard Rushfield on 12/11/09

For 12 years, the world has awaited director James Cameron's follow up to Titanic. Today, the misguided prayers of a zillion fanboys have been answered, and they will be sorry.

We stand before you today to proclaim, sight unseen that Avatar will suck.

We offer a caveat: When you see this film you may not realize that what you just experienced was a nightmare from the bowels of entertainment. You may be so overwhelmed by the graphic experience and special effects that you walk away thinking that what you just experienced was, in fact, great. In the weeks that follow while you watch the massive box office total rise and rise, you may experience the rush of being on an enormous bandwagon sweeping you away into something enormous.

But somewhere deep inside, a part of you will know you are living a lie. And someday down the line, a reckoning will come. Perhaps it will be a quiet moment, sitting alone late at night four years from now when you catch a moment of the film on cable; perhaps it will be decades hence when you stare in the eyes of your grandchildren, their pain of betrayal piercing your soul as they ask "Did you really like this boring movie grandma?" But the day will come when you will see that Avatar did in fact suck, that you had allowed yourself to be caught up in a mass hysteria, and as a result your every opinion about art and indeed about the affairs of mankind should be considered suspect.

As I write this item, the embargo on Avatar reviews has just been broken and the internet is being flooded by critics proclaiming the film is actually great. Before our eyes we are witnessing even hardened Cameron skeptics, breaking down and falling in line behind the film. These are the moments that test men's souls, but we will not bend.

To begin with, we submit to you the track record. Although we like the early, blowing-stuff-up period of James Cameron, with Titanic he took a drastically wrong turn into the deeply overwrought pretension, and once you have gone down that road, and been so wildly celebrated for it, there is no turning back. And all available evidence suggests that turn back he has not.

In fact to know how the history of Avatar will play out one need look no further than Titanic. Bowled over by the megalomaniacal technical accomplishment, critics and audiences alike suspended all rational judgment and bestowed all the laurels our society has to offer on Cameron's boat sinking blunderbuss. From the Academy of Motion Pictures to mobs of teenage girls, the one thing we as a society could agree on — or else — was that Titanic was a masterpiece.

Only 12 years later are the scales beginning to fall so that sensible people can agree, Titanic was perhaps the worst movie ever made.

The first half of Titanic is the most mind-numbingly tedious tour through Cameron's big erector set driven by romance story that seemed to have been written by a 14-year-old on his first day high school filmmaking class given an assignment to write a new project for a ressurected Joan Blondell. And then came the second half which was essentially an aquatic snuff film in which we spend an hour watching people in olde timey dress get drowned. And then there was a Celine Dion song. And a bookend from the present.

Not having seen Avatar, but judging by the ample footage available in trailers and promotional materials, all the crimes of Titanic look to be present in Avatar: overwrought pretentious themes and infintile storytelling and characterization grafted on to an atomic bomb on a technical achievement meant to bludgeon you into submission with its effects prowess.

Now, we're all for imagineers creating breathtaking new worlds for audiences; and the place where such accomplishments to be beheld properly is on a ride at Disneyland. We'd be delighted to line up for an eight minute "James Cameron's Mission to Pandora; The 3D IMAX Experience." That sounds like just the right amount of Pandora for us.

And we're also all for mindless action movies. It's when mindless action movies attempt to convey big meaningful themes — Avatar is about the environment — that they morph from amusingly stupid to laughably stupid; like having a 14-year-old boy suddenly lecturing you about your duty to the world, as told through a parable of blue space creatures.

And to recap some of the crimes of Avatar we've previously compiled in our lonely truthwatch:

  • The aliens have cougar noses and look like Jar Jar Binks.
  • The characters have names like Colonel Miles Quaritch, Trudy Chacon, Selfridge, Neytiri and Jake Sully.
  • Sample line of dialouge: "every living thing wants to kill you and eat your eyes for Jujubees."
  • James Cameron employed a USC linguistics professor "to create an entire functioning language for the tribe of 10-foot-tall blue aliens who inhabit Pandora, the setting for the film's conflict." Which is all well and good that the Na'vi tribe got a functioning language, but raises the question why couldn't Cameron have commissioned a functioning language for the film's humans? Wasn't there any linguistics professor available who could put the kibosh on lines such as "We're not in Kansas anymore. We're on Pandora," whose moldy, phoned-in essences threaten to murder the mother tongue from which their ancestors descended?
  • And of course there was this interview in which Cameron detailed the obsessive overtime work his crew did to get the ten foot tall blue alien heroine's boobs exactly right.

Throw in the two hour and 40 minute running time and all we can say is that may be long enough to bludgeon you into submission to Avatar, but is it really long enough to kill off that part of you, somewhere deep inside, that knows very well that this is wrong and someday, somehow, someone must speak up?

Happy viewing space warriors.


 
 

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Facebookarazzi: Stalking Celebrities Just Got a Whole Lot Easier

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Ryan Tate on 12/11/09

The implications of Facebook's recent privacy rollback will likely take months to reveal themselves. But it's already clear they go beyond Mark Zuckerberg's stash of intimate pics; we're already starting to learn new things about Hollywood celebrities.

Take Angelina Jolie, for example: Did you know the sought-after actress has just 27 Facebook friends, and they're almost all A-listers? Talk about a meticulously curated list:







Then there are the surprising affiliations. Will Smith, for example, is a member of the Facebook page "Jesus Daily," which posts bible quotes from Jesus each morning, even though the actor has made repeated donations to groups affiliated with the Church of Scientology; echoes the cult's "spiritual physics" rhetoric; has set up a middle school staffed with Scientologists; and has said Scientology is filled "brilliant and revolutionary" ideas. Smith was raised Baptist and has insisted he takes ideas from multiple religions. A look at his page (click to enlarge):




And you can send direct Facebook messages to a surprising number of celebrities, right from the "Send message" command in the upper left corner of their profiles, though it's not clear to what extent, if any, this has been affected by the new privacy framework, since some celebrities, like Tobey Maguire, still have messaging turned off. Some who have it enabled:

More, we're sure, to come.

(Top pic: Jolie, giving an interview to NBC's Matt Lauer in 2008, via INF)


 
 

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Hollywood Elite Loves the Conniving Facebook Flick Script

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Ryan Tate on 12/11/09

There's a lot of lying going on in Aaron Sorkin's Facebook movie, and industry insiders love it: The script for The Social Network made this year's Black List, top screenplays as chosen by execs paid to read scripts all day.

The film tells the story of Facebook's creation, adapting Ben Mezich's book Accidental Billionaires. Entertainment Weekly has the top ten in this year's Black List (which is determined by how many times a scripted is mentioned by the several hundred voters) and Sorkin's script came in with 42 mentions vs. the 47 for The Muppet Man biopic that Christopher Weekes has written The tag line in the Black List (see below) is: "The story of the founders of the social networking website Facebookand how overnight
success and wealth changed their lives." But EW sexes it up as a film combining "fascinating biographical elements of Shattered Glass" — the movie about fabricating magazine writer Stephen Glass — with "the courtroom drama of Kramer vs. Kramer." Which means it will directly tackle the dispute over who started Facebook, and the question of whether CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole the company away from its true creators.

It sounds like someone involved in the now-historic Facebook fight is going to come out looking like a liar. And if there's anything Hollywood's studio managers must crave, it's seeing a fabricator publicly exposed.'

(Pic: Sorkin, via Getty)


 
 

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Nelson Mandela to Battle the Lovely Bones at the Multiplex

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Richard Rushfield on 12/11/09

After a slow build-up, Oscar season is coming in like a lion. Mandela! Tom Ford directing! An Alice Sebold novel! This weekend's got prestige written all over it.


THE LOVELY BONES
The Story: A slain 13 year old girl looks down from heaven recalling her rape and murder.
The Pitch: Witness meetsThe Ice Storm
Who It's For: Literary fiction devotees who haven't yet learned that adaptations of their beloved reading group selections always turn out badly.
Cause for Hope: Director Peter Jackson returns to his strongest Heavenly Creatures territory at the intersection of teenage girls and murder.
Cause for Concern: CGI-fantasyland version of heaven leads one to believe Jackson has spent too much time with trolls and giant monkeys to go back to making movies about humans again.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 7


INVICTUS
The Story: In the aftermath of apartheid, President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) attempts to unite his divided nation behind a mostly white, underdog rugby team.
The Pitch: Amistad meets The Bad News Bears
Who It's For: The entire family and your high school history class.
Cause for Hope: What could have been an overblown, pedantic story may be genuinely stirring in a non-manipulative way in the calm, understated hands of director Clint Eastwood.
Cause for Concern: Having to watch a movie about rugby, a sport combines the torpor of soccer with the meatheadness of hockey.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 8


THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
The Story: The story of the frog prince relocated to Jazz Age New Orleans.
The Pitch: The Little Mermaid meets Angel Heart
Who It's For: The kids.
Cause for Hope: Disney's first animated African-American star; the throwback 2D animation looks rather quaintly lovable.
Cause for Concern: Encouraging young women to commit intimacies upon reptiles promotes interspecies cruelty.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 7


A SINGLE MAN
The Story: A college professor (Colin Firth) in the early 60's struggles to come to terms with the death of his partner.
The Pitch: Brokeback Mountain meets Mad Men
Who It's For: The very artsy
Cause for Hope: The always watchable Colin Firth; designer Tom Ford's directing debut received very favorable festival buzz.
Cause for Concern: Trailers have attempted to majorly gloss over the film's central gay theme.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 8


THE SLAMMIN' SALMON
The Story: A down on his luck restaurant owner starts a table-waiting contest to repay his debts.
The Pitch: Best in Show meets Rocky Balboa
Who It's For: Comedy Nerds
Cause for Hope: The Broken Lizard Comedy troupe which made this film is always a delight.
Cause for Concern: Table-waiting comedy may not be ready for its moment in the sun.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 9


 
 

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A Play-By-Play of the Jersey Shore Kids' Night in Hollywood: "Fu*k UNICO!"

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Foster Kamer on 12/12/09

The Jersey Shore crew's in Hollywood this week. The nu-celebrity's true trial—what kind of paparazzi coverage is devoted to them, and how they react to it—is here. Behold, The Harvey Levin Litmus Test: passed with flying colors.

How'd they pass?

1. They stonewalled the photographer.
2. They playfully dignified the photographer.
3. They gave the photographer an incredible quote.
4. They gave the photographer an incredible scene of drunken jackassery.
5. They left the photographer in an Escalde with tinted windows.
6. They kept the interaction under two minutes.

These six elements are essential to a perfect TMZ interaction. The Jersey Shore kids are bona fide celebrities. This is no joke, folks.

Presenting 'Jersey Shore' Yutzes Up Hollywood, Dir. Harvey Levin.

[Ed. Since the TMZ embed isn't working—or Supernatural Forces of Snookie are just breaking everything in the universe everywhere, right now—you're just going to have to either (A) use your imagination or (B) actually go to their site to watch it. Apologies.]

00:16: Snookie getting punched is astutely rendered an "unfortunate incident" by Donatello—the one with the bowstaff—who smiles while he says this.

00:24: Snookie finds herself dealing with an unfortunate bout of SnookieNoodle, wherein both gravity and the rapture of the universe catch up to her, knock her over, and send her "noodling" to the ground.

00:35: The cast of Jersey Shore are asked by their intrepid, Tavis Smiley-esque TMZ interviewer to address the situation with UNICO.

00:36: "What's UNICO?" He was probably confusing them with ATTICA.

00:39: Snookie, who may or may not be aware of UNICO's work to further the cause of Italian-Americans (though, really, she's probably confusing them with UNIQLO) offers her nuanced political dissent for the group: "Fuck UNICO!"

00:41: The TMZ cameraman impressive attempts to spout off UNICO's credentials: "It's the largest Italian-Amer...." He decides to go another route.

00:45: He tries a different route: "What do you think of the whole defamation thing?" but gets stonewalled.

00:48: BroHugs.

00:50: The TMZ guy tries one more time: "Do you think the portrayal of you guys is true? A lot of people are upset about the whole thing..."

00:55: He speaks! "Ah, come on, man, everybody knows young people make mistakes and then learn from them." The Jersey Shore cast exhibits their deft media strategy: answering a totally different question that the one asked of them while castigating the interviewer for finding himself in a glib position of inquiry.

1:00: Now the TMZ interviewer is on a roll. "In regards to being a guido," his question begins. But...

1:05: ...they laugh! They're celebrities! People in LA now understand their genus/species! This is like when Cornelius and Zara land on Earth in Escape From The Planet of the Apes, except Cornelius was played by Roddy McDowell, who'd kill himself if he had to take this role. No, literally, kill himself.

1:08: The TMZ photog is desperate! He tries to communicate with them in their native language using the SOS sign for attention: "Yo! Bro! Do you got a Cadillac sign on your side?"

1:11: The response is, naturally, fantastic. Indeed he does. A tattoo is shown. An Escalade is climbed into. And just like that, new stars are birthed from the Universe in a supernova of awesomeness.


 
 

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Which Actor Likes to Invite Both Men and Women Home for Threeways?

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Brian Moylan on 12/14/09

This guy uses his celeb girlfriend as a pimp. She brings home tricks for ménages à trois, and he dates them. He looks even more the cad next to a generous actress and comedian. There's still good in the world.

1. "Girl A just can't seem to catch a break. This gorgeous actress wanted to please her equally famous significant other – an actor who we'll call Boy A – for his birthday. His fantasy was to invite a second girl to a join them in the bedroom. So original, right? He begged for this for months, continuously assuring Girl A that it was going to be a one-time thing. Girl A finally caved in and invited some random pretty young thing (Girl B) to join them for a one-time party. She even wrapped a red bow around Girl B so that Boy A could unwrap his gift. Unfortunately, Boy A liked his gift a little too much and started seeing Girl B on the sly. When Girl A found out about it, she went ballistic (not surprising, as she has a tendency to do that).

To try to calm her, Boy A told her that he would do absolutely anything she wanted. Well, to get back at him, Girl A decided to invite Boy B, a working actor, to join them for a romp. She wanted to give Boy A a dose of his own medicine, and thought that Boy A would be incredibly jealous of Boy B. Unfortunately, that plan backfired too. Boy A enjoyed the festivities a little too much, and has since started seeing Boy B on the side. Even we were a little shocked to hear that, as we had never heard of Boy A going in that direction before." [Blind Gossip]

2. "This one was a bit of a shocker to hear, but hey, it's Hollywood so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This C list movie actress got her big break recently and on the set of her big break got involved with her married A list movie actor co-star. They have continued to see each other since shooting wrapped." [CDaN]

3. "This gorgeous B- list movie and television actress with a string of hit television shows and movies as co-star but not the best luck as star doesn't always get the biggest paycheck but she is really good in donating it. In her last two projects she has donated her entire paycheck to a shelter that houses homeless women that have been the victims of domestic violence. She also volunteers her time at the shelter and tries to get as many of them jobs as possible on her productions." [CDaN]

4. "This C list comic actor who used to be A list and on what seemed like every show on a network for awhile was at an event for one of his children. The event was to raise money for music programs. The school was just trying to raise enough money for one year for one class. Our actor wrote a check that will allow the program to hire two teachers and fund their salaries for the next five years." [CDaN]


 
 

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Up in the Air Is The Grapes of Wrath for the Rich and Out of Touch

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Brian Moylan on 12/14/09

In yesterday's New York Times, Frank Rich says the George Clooney flick Up in the Air will, "salve national wounds that continue to fester in the real world." Did he see the same movie we did? Because he's totally wrong.

For those of you who rushed out to see the movie during its big city engagement before it opens wide on Christmas day will know, Up in the Air is the story of Ryan Bingham, a man who travels around the country firing people who have been downsized by their respective companies. Rich thinks this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, if we could all still afford a loaf of bread or a knife to cut it with.

Here is an America whose battered inhabitants realize that the economic deck is stacked against them, gamed by distant, powerful figures they can't see or know. Up in the Air may be a glossy production sprinkled with laughter and sex, but it captures the distinctive topography of our Great Recession as vividly as a far more dour Hollywood product of 70 years ago, The Grapes of Wrath, did the vastly different landscape of the Great Depression.

Steinbeck did actually tell the story of Up in the Air in The Grapes of Wrath. Early in the novel, he gives a few pages to the bank men who came to kick farmers off their land:

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank or the Companyneedswantsinsistsmust have as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

And then Steinbeck moved on to the true characters, the Joads and their trek west, full of empty dreams and shattered promises. The only way this movie — that tries to humanize the corporate hatchet man — could be anything like The Grapes of Wrath is if John Steinback came back from the dead and rewrote it so that it focused on and humanized the men who show up at the Joad's house to tack a foreclosure notice on the front door. But he didn't because his tale is about the people whose livelihood was lost due to natural and financial disaster and who subsequently wander around doing anything just to survive. Through it we can sympathize with the once-proud people who have been laid low by the Great Depression.

Up in the Air, on the other hand, is a film about the man who flies around in first class collecting frequent flier miles for sport and still has a job, an expense account, an apartment, and so many hotel key cards that he doesn't even need to pony up for a night at the Milwaukee Hilton unless he wants to. After a peek into his luxe lifestyle, it asks us to feel sorry for him, because his job firing people is so hard and he doesn't have a life outside of work. He's lonely. Sad face.

While director Jason Reitman uses "real people" who lost their jobs as the sorry spectres loosed from this employment coil by Ryan, how do you think watching this movie must feel for someone who has met the Brooks Brothers-clad grim reaper in a beige conference room in their very own workplace? They're intended to muster up even the slightest bit of sympathy for this dude, who still gets a paycheck, because he doesn't have a life? Yeah, that's not salve we're putting on that wound, Frank, it's salt.


 
 

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"Fuck Them": Times Critic On Hollywood, Women, & Why Romantic Comedies Suck

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Irin on 12/14/09

"I usually maintain a fairly even temper about Hollywood because I couldn't do my job otherwise," Manohla Dargis told me today. But the formidable NY Times film critic has fighting words for Hollywood and how it treats women.

Dargis' "fuck them" - the first of several - refers specifically to a fact she highlighted in her piece this weekend on the lack of progress in Hollywood films for and about women: Two major studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures, didn't release a single movie directed by a female, even in a year of renewed prominence for women in film. One bright spot: The Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow (pictured above) is sweeping the early critics' awards: in the past two days alone she and her film have gotten top accolades from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the American Film Institute, The New York Film Critics Online, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

In a wide-ranging conversation this morning on women in Hollywood, Dargis, who has been a chief New York Times film critic (a title she shares with A.O. Scott) since 2004, had similarly strong words for Hollywood conventional wisdom and the studio system overall. "My tendency is not to talk in sweeping terms, but one thing I can say in sweeping terms is that there's a lot of sexism in the industry," she says. Here are some of the other highlights from the conversation.

On why women in Hollywood aren't faring any better: This business is really about clubby relationships. If you buy Variety or go online and look at the deals, you see one guy after another smiling in a baseball cap. It's all guys making deals with other guys. I had a female studio chief a couple of years ago tell me point blank that she wasn't hiring a woman to do an action movie because women are good at certain things and not others. If you have women buying that bullshit how can we expect men to be better?

On working within the system: For me the most sobering thing of the last ten years is that there really was a point where four of the studios were run by women… and you would have thought that would lead to an uptick of women directors. I'm not saying I've done a systematic analysis, but it doesn't look like it changed very much… Working within the system has not worked. It has not helped women filmmakers or, even more important, you and me, women audiences, to have women in the studio system. … I think the studio system as it exists now is a no-win situation for women filmmakers.

On director Kathryn Bigelow's success (achieved in part by getting funding outside of Hollywood, detailed in Dargis's June profile of her): Something like a woman winning best director for directing an action movie and not a romantic comedy is symbolically important. Whether it then leads to a lot of women doing things outside of the pathetic comfort zone of romantic comedy – and I say that as someone who loves romantic comedy – we'll see. We know that because women are allowed to make romantic comedies that they can make romantic comedies. That's in everyone's comfort zone. The idea that a woman can be a great action director is not is everyone's comfort zone. That's [Bigelow's] exceptionalism.

On Bigelow's chances for Oscar or future commercial success: The only thing Hollywood is interested in money, and after that prestige. That's why they'll be interested in something like The Hurt Locker. She's done so well critically that she can't be ignored.

Let's acknowledge that the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them. But they are important commercially... I've learned to never underestimate the academy's bad taste. Crash as best picture? What the fuck.

On male and female directors being held to different standards, as Dargis suggested in comparing Bigelow and Michael Mann in her piece: Do you think that a woman would have been able to get forty million dollars to make a puppet movie the way that Wes Anderson has been able to make, bringing to bear all the publicity and advertising budget of Fox? After two movies that didn't make a lot of money? I think this is true for a lot of black filmmakers too – they're held to a higher standard. And an unfair standard. You can be a male filmmaker and if you're perceived as a genius – a boy genius or a fully-formed adult genius – that you are allowed to fail in a way that a woman is not allowed to fail.

On whether there's an essential difference between male-made and female-made movies: Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary. That's all we need to say about that. But I do think as 51 percent of the population we should be given a chance… It's very boring to watch the same people coming from a certain kind of background make the same kinds of movies.

On Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron: I personally don't think either of them is a good filmmaker — they make movies for me that are more emotionally satisfying but with barely any aesthetic value at all. I really like Something's Gotta Give, but I don't think it's a good movie…. I'm of two minds. Sometimes I think what women should do what various black and gay audiences have done, which is support women making movies for women. So does that mean I have to go support Nora Ephron? Fuck no. That's just like, blech.

On Sandra Bullock, whom she recently wrote should use her production company to "start giving female filmmakers a chance to do something other than dopey romances": Use your power for good, Sandy!

On why so many romantic comedies are so terrible: One, the people making them have no fucking taste, two, they're morons, three they're insulting panderers who think they're making movies for the great unwashed and that's what they want. I love romantic movies. I absolutely do. But I literally don't know what's happening. I think it's depressing that Judd Apatow makes the best romantic comedies and they're about men. All power to Apatow, but he's taken and repurposed one of the few genres historically made for women. ….We had so few [genres] that were made specifically for the female audience and now the best of them are being made by Judd Apatow. But what are his movies supposed to be about? Nominally about the relationship between a man and a woman, but they're really buddy flicks. Funny People was supposed to have an important role for a woman, but she was uninteresting and an afterthought.

On representations of women onscreen: There's a reason that women go to movies like Mamma Mia. It's a terrible movie… but women are starved for representation of themselves. I go back to Spike Lee and She's Gotta Have It. I remember going to see it at the Quad in New York, surrounded by a black audience. People are starved for representations of themselves.

On women being taken seriously as moviegoers: It's a vicious cycle. We're not going to movies because there aren't movies for us. Therefore we're not seen as a loyal moviegoing audience. My point is that if there are stories about women, women will come out for that…

That's why [women] go to a movie like The Devil Wears Prada and make huge hits. They want to see women in movies. People in the trade press constantly frame that as a surprise. This, gee whiz, Sex and the City's a hit, Twilight, hmm, wonder what's going on here. Maybe they should not be so surprised. In the trade press, women audiences are considered a niche. How is that even possible? We're 51 percent of the audience.

On this quote from a box office analyst for Hollywood.com, in The Washington Post: Fuck him. What an asshole. Yes, that's what I want! That's exactly what I want. If Angelina Jolie had been cast in a movie as a good as The Bourne Identity with a filmmaker like Paul Greengrass, I would have gone out to see it, and I'm sure I wouldn't be alone. That is absurd. That's blaming female audiences – you get what you deserve? Is that what he's saying?

On being a female critic reviewing and featuring women's films: I wanted to get [Bigelow] on the cover of 'Arts and Leisure'. I wanted this fantastic woman director to get her face on the front of the New York Times…[But] I am an equal opportunity critic. I will pan women as hard as men. I've had testy people imply that I should go easier on women's movies. I find that incredibly insulting. Are you kidding me? I don't want to be graded on a curve. None of us want to be a good woman writer.

I don't want to be the woman critic. I don't want to be the feminist critic. I don't want to be the shrew. What I want to do is talk about the art that I love and point out, every so often, inequities….It's a weird balancing act and I'm not saying there aren't contradictions.

On whether the prominence of women-directed films in 2009 will change anything, even if they're not statistically significant compared to other years: It's pretty shitty right now. Anything positive can only help a little bit. How's that for optimism?

Women In The Seats But Not Behind The Camera [New York Times]
Kathryn Bigelow Makes Movies That Go For The Gut [New York Times]
Now Starring At The Movies: Famous Dead Women [New York Times]
With Strong Female Characters, Hollywood Suffers From a Fear Of Failure [The Washington Post]

Related: Double X Films [The Atlantic]

Earlier: Things Are Not Getting Better For Women In Hollywood


 
 

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Oscar Standings: Everyone Gets a Bump from Weekend Awards

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Richard Rushfield on 12/14/09

Another slew of awards and nominations came in this weekend and the result is that this year's stagnant deathmarch of an Oscar race got a tiny bit shaken up, or at least it got a bit more confusing.

To recap, for most of the season a troika of damaged contenders have been assumed to have a lock on nominations, with the assumption that one of them would take the top prize, despite the fact that each has big minuses. The top three have been Precious (too heavy-handed) Up In the Air (just not quite fantastic enough) and The Hurt Locker (too obscure, unseen by the public). And of those three, Up In the Air has remained the front runner with Hurt Locker taking a distant third at the back of the pack.

By weekend's end, however, the big three had been transformed into the big four, with Hurt Locker suddenly making a move on the outside.

The first piece of non-game changing news was the announcement of the slightly influential but important sounding American Film Institute's Top Ten list. The list reaffirmed the big three, giving them all slots. The one real possible game-changer was the stunning inclusion of The Hangover on the list, which has been mentioned as a dark horse contender for one of Oscar's ten best pic slots.

Next to weigh in was the LA Film Critics Association. The dwindling band of full time movie reviewers began what might prove to be a late surge for Hurt Locker, giving the little bomb-disposal movie that could the year's top honors.

A couple of other long-shots kept their dreams alive with the perhaps-not-all-that-influential Broadcast Film Critics nominations. The Weinstein Company's two dark horses, Inglorious Basterds and Nine, (the latter of which has met with very mixed, at best, critical response) led the pack with the most nominations as well as each scoring Best Picture nods.

And finally today, the New York Film Critics weighed in, seconding their LA brethren's support of Hurt Locker; naming the film as the best of the year and giving Kathryn Bigelow the best director nod.

However, the biggest news shaking up the race was not in the awards but in a flurry of reviews that emerged this weekend for James Cameron's long awaited Avatar. While widely assumed to be a stink-bomb in the making (by us at least) the film has met with rapturous, over-the-top hosannas, leading a stunned awards guru, David Poland, to write,"Avatar joins the 3 or 4 locks for an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture."

Here then are the current standings in the thrilling race to be Oscar's Best Picture of the Year, with a mere three months and a half months left to go; noting by the way, that the most important milestone on the Oscar trail, the Golden Globe nominations, happens tomorrow morning, potentially throwing the entire race in uproar once again.

THE STANDINGS:

1. UP IN THE AIR ↔
The Rap: Liked by almost everybody, head-over-heels loved by very few; a vulnerable front-runner. But who could knock it off its pedestal?
Favorable Winds: Continues to make best picture lists.
Negative Winds: Makes lists but leads very few. The "relevant" topicality, as pushed by Frank Rich, is a quality that generally fades in Oscar's mind as the season draws on and hype dies down.

2. THE HURT LOCKER ↑
The Rap: Little film with a lot of very very committed fans in the critical world.
Favorable Winds: Swept critics awards this weekend; possible Cameron vs. ex-wife director Bigelow storyline may be irresistible for Oscar.
Negative Winds: Bestowing the top trophy on a film no one has seen (grosses still total under ten million) is a potentially suicidal move for Oscar.

3. PRECIOUS ↓
The Rap: The little drama's power and messageyness still hits Oscar where it hurts, despite heavy-handedness.
Favorable Winds: Still riding its sweep of the Spirits.
Negative Winds: Hard hitting horror show story showing strong signs of looking less interesting as time passses.

4. AVATAR ↑
The Rap: James Cameron's 3D outer space epic exploded into the race with rapturous reviews this week, but remains unseen by Oscar voters.
Favorable Winds: The reviews have been strong enough that Avatar could potentially be that rare film Oscar prays for; the giant blockbuster with enough critical standing that it comes in and sweeps the table — and boosts ratings, like Titanic or Lord of the Rings.
Negative Winds: Question mark whether the 3D effects and 2D plotting will prove just too much for voters to swallow in a Best Picture.

5. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS↑
The Rap: Quirky war epic may be the Tarantino film with broad enough appeal to win him a seat at the table.
Favorable Winds: Led the Broadcast Film Critics nominations; retains a base of hardcore admirers.
Negative Winds: Remains a highly love-it-or-hate-it film, and with ultimately more post-modern fluff than weighty Oscar appeal.

6. AN EDUCATION ↔
The Rap: Charming little film that won't fade away.
Favorable Winds: Keeps making friends and wears perhaps the best of the Oscar dramas; should pick up lots of acting nominations.
Negative Winds: Too small and non-messagey a film to be a serious contender for the big prize.

7. UP! ↓
The Rap: Pixar cartoon is beloved by many, but Oscar remains no friend of the cartoon.
Favorable Winds: Shows up on almost every ten best of the year list.
Negative Winds: Has yet to show the sort of awards muscle with other prizes it would need to stampede over anti-cartoon prejudice and force its way into the top tier.

8. INVICTUS ↓
The Rap: The South African rugby picture is widely appreciated, but has few jumping with glee.
Favorable Winds: Oscar's love for Eastwood remains strong; Morgan Freeman's performance almost guaranteed nomination.
Negative Winds: Weak box-office performance has sapped what momentum the film have; Eastwood has been so celebrated by Oscar already that the bar has become very high for him to earn yet another.

9. NINE ↓
The Rap: Huge Oscar pedigree, but early response is very tepid.
Favorable Winds: Topped nominations in Broadcast Critics awards.
Negative Winds: Palpable lack of excitement about what should have been a shoo-in.

10. A SERIOUS MAN ↔
The Rap: What was thought to be the Coen's most obscure and personal film continues to win over fans.
Favorable Winds: Strong showings on ten best lists.
Negative Winds: Obscurity of topic and structure continue to keep it at arm's length from top tier.

11. THE MESSENGER ↑
The Rap: Almost entirely buried in its theatrical release, continues to impress those who have seen.
Favorable Winds: Should get acting nods for its strong performances by Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson.
Negative Winds: Could be the first film that failed to gross a million nominated for Best Picture in recent history.

Third tier contenders: White Ribbon, Lovely Bones, A Single Man, The Road, The Blind Side, In the Loop, Julie and Julia, The Hangover.


 
 

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2009 Moviegoers Defied Recession to Reward Bad Filmmaking

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Richard Rushfield on 12/14/09

Despite ongoing economic collapse, American audiences are still finding the cash to reward studios for producing the most mediocre slate of films in memory with attendance at US theater up five percent in the past year.

The LA Times reports on the possible reasons for the upswing, in a report that shows both audiences and the industry in a state of almost complete denial about what constitutes entertainment, and what constitutes "value."

The most preposterous claim made in the piece, as industry savants try to explain the inexplicable uptick, is that the return to the theaters has "led to plenty of talk in Hollywood that recent movies might simply be better quality."

Now look here 2009, you may not have taken us off a cliff like we thought you would, but for a year in which Transformers 2 is the highest grossing film, in which seven of the top ten are franchise installments, in which Paul Blart: Mall Cop is on the top 20 — for such a year to talk to us about an upswing in quality suggests a hubris worthy of Nebakanezer himself.

Also on the LAT's list of possible causes for the return to the theater — Hollywood's now familiar Pied Piper for all that ails it — the call of 3D. They quote an industry titan:

"This is people rediscovering going to the movies."

The rapid expansion of 3-D projection this year has undoubtedly helped the industry, offering a compelling experience in theaters that can't yet be replicated in the home — along with ticket price surcharges that help the studios' and exhibitors' bottom lines.

Yes, we certainly understand the hope that moviegoers of the world will be so thrilled by the notion of pointy things jumping out of the screen that they will flood back to the multiplexes, but we fear that although the technology may be less headachey than it was in the 50's and 80's, the previous times we went through this, sooner or later the world is going to realize that they are getting the exact same lousy film except with some stuff floating in front of the screen; and they have to pay more and wear annoying glasses to see that.

Then again, maybe they won't. Demonstrating that the real answer for the trend might just be that Americans are suffering from some kind of severe brain damage or post traumatic stress, the LA Times quotes a survey:

Research firm OTX discovered in a survey early this year that consumers ranked moviegoing as the best value for their entertainment dollar.

In early 2008, a similar survey ranked moviegoing fifth, behind going out to dinner, watching a DVD at home, watching favorite TV shows, and surfing the Web.

Yes, suddenly paying 10 - 15 dollars a head, plus another 10 for popcorn, plus parking, is now a better value than watching television...which is, all included, free. So perhaps the failure of American society in general will provide all the solutions to Hollywood's problems. Rather than making movies better, we can sit back until more people to be spat out of the post-apocalypse education system and let the sea level fall until the audiences are stupid enough that they actually think:

1. Transformers 2 is good.
and
2. They are getting a great value on it.

Just like in a Hollywood movie, looks like in the end, everything's going to fall into place just fine.


 
 

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Which Actor Is Waging the War on Christmas?

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Brian Moylan on 12/15/09

Hollywood is trying to ruin Jesus' Birthday for America, like this actor who told kids there is no Santa. Not as awesome as a dirty photographer or a rapper trying to patent a sex move, but still a cool move.

1. "If you were at The Mall Of America this weekend in Minneapolis you might have seen this very good looking B-list actor from one of those network initial shows. He was walking through the mall when a woman stopped him and asked our actor for his autograph. No problem. The actor obliged and even took a photo. So, where is the Jackass behavior? Well, the actor asked the woman what she was doing in the mall. What, is this like pick up time? Anyway, she pointed down to her 4 year old twins and said they were about to get in line to see Santa. The actor then bent down to the kids and said, "You should know by now there is no Santa." He then walked away." [CDaN]

2. "This hip-hop 'rapper' is so confident of his moves in bed, he is currently in the process of having one trademarked. We kid you not, the man is trying to put a copyright on a sex move. He bragged to friends that once that is done, he plans to launch a whole marketing scheme around the name. Underwear line, men's cologne, etc. No word yet on the name of the move (the celeb is keeping it super secret) but we're currently trying to track down anyone who has had the pleasure(?) of experiencing the move firsthand so we can see if it is all it is cracked up to be. Not Sean John/Diddy/Puff DaddyCombs." [BuzzFoto]

3. "It's great to have hobbies. This guy loves to sing and he loves to take photos. All of those girls whom he has bedded over the past few years should pay attention to the second part of that statement. If you wondered why he asked you to come home with him for the night, watch out! He's just waiting for you to fall asleep so that he can take some photos of you in your birthday suit. Before you start popping Xanax, though, you should know that he doesn't really have any intention of ever making those photos public. However, the possibility alone is one of the reasons why none of these women badmouth him after dating him." [Blind Gossip]


 
 

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Your Golden Globe Nominations Are Here

 
 

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via Gawker: defamer by Gabriel Snyder on 12/15/09

The hacks of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have taken a pause from endless junketeering to release their list of the year's most excellent movies and TV shows. Up in the Air and Avatar continue their inexorable awards march.

Here's the raw data:

1. BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. AVATAR
Lightstorm Entertainment; Twentieth Century Fox
b. THE HURT LOCKER
Voltage Pictures C/O 42West; Summit Entertainment
c. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
The Weinstein Company; The Weinstein Company
d. PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
A Lee Daniels Entertainment / Smokewood Entertainment Group Production;
Lionsgate
e. UP IN THE AIR
Paramount Pictures; Paramount Pictures
 
2. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. EMILY BLUNT THE YOUNG VICTORIA
b. SANDRA BULLOCK THE BLIND SIDE
c. HELEN MIRREN THE LAST STATION
d. CAREY MULLIGAN AN EDUCATION
e. GABOUREY SIDIBE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL
PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
 
3. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. JEFF BRIDGES CRAZY HEART
b. GEORGE CLOONEY UP IN THE AIR
c. COLIN FIRTH A SINGLE MAN
d. MORGAN FREEMAN INVICTUS
e. TOBEY MAGUIRE BROTHERS
 
4. BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
Watermark Pictures; Fox Searchlight Pictures
b. THE HANGOVER
Warner Bros. Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures
c. IT'S COMPLICATED
Relativity Media, Scott Rudin Productions; Universal Pictures
d. JULIE & JULIA
Columbia Pictures; Sony Pictures Releasing
e. NINE
The Weinstein Company; The Weinstein Company
 
5. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR
MUSICAL
a. SANDRA BULLOCK THE PROPOSAL
b. MARION COTILLARD NINE
c. JULIA ROBERTS DUPLICITY
d. MERYL STREEP IT'S COMPLICATED
e. MERYL STREEP JULIE & JULIA
 
6. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY
OR MUSICAL
a. MATT DAMON THE INFORMANT!
b. DANIEL DAY-LEWIS NINE
c. ROBERT DOWNEY JR. SHERLOCK HOLMES
d. JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
e. MICHAEL STUHLBARG A SERIOUS MAN
 
7. BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
a. CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS
Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation; Sony Pictures Releasing
b. CORALINE
Laika, Inc.; Focus Features
c. FANTASTIC MR. FOX
American Empirical Picture; Twentieth Century Fox
d. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios
Motion Pictures
e. UP
Walt Disney Pictures/PIXAR Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures
 
8. BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
a. BAARIA (ITALY)
Medusa Film; Summit Entertainment
b. BROKEN EMBRACES (SPAIN)
El Deseo SA; Sony Pictures Classics
c. THE MAID (CHILE)
(LA NANA)
Forastero; Elephant Eye Films
d. A PROPHET (FRANCE)
Chic Films; Sony Pictures Classics
e. THE WHITE RIBBON (GERMANY)
(DAS WEISSE BAND – EINE DEUTSCHE KINDERGESCHICHTE)
Wega Films; Sony Pictures Classics
 
9. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
MOTION PICTURE
a. PENÉLOPE CRUZ NINE
b. VERA FARMIGA UP IN THE AIR
c. ANNA KENDRICK UP IN THE AIR
d. MO'NIQUE PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL
PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
e. JULIANNE MOORE A SINGLE MAN
 
10. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
MOTION PICTURE
a. MATT DAMON INVICTUS
b. WOODY HARRELSON THE MESSENGER
c. CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER THE LAST STATION
d. STANLEY TUCCI THE LOVELY BONES
e. CHRISTOPH WALTZ INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
 
11. BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
a. KATHRYN BIGELOW THE HURT LOCKER
b. JAMES CAMERON AVATAR
c. CLINT EASTWOOD INVICTUS
d. JASON REITMAN UP IN THE AIR
e. QUENTIN TARANTINO INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
 
12. BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
a. NEILL BLOMKAMP, DISTRICT 9
TERRI TATCHELL
b. MARK BOAL THE HURT LOCKER
c. NANCY MEYERS IT'S COMPLICATED
d. JASON REITMAN, UP IN THE AIR
SHELDON TURNER
e. QUENTIN TARANTINO INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
 
13. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
a. MICHAEL GIACCHINO UP
b. MARVIN HAMLISCH THE INFORMANT!
c. JAMES HORNER AVATAR
d. ABEL KORZENIOWSKI A SINGLE MAN
e. KAREN O,
CARTER BURWELL WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
 
14. BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
a. "CINEMA ITALIANO" - NINE
Music & Lyrics by: Maury Yeston
b. "I WANT TO COME HOME" - EVERYBODY'S FINE
Music & Lyrics by: Paul McCartney
c. "I WILL SEE YOU" - AVATAR
Music by: James Horner, Simon Franglen
Lyrics by: James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell
d. "THE WEARY KIND (THEME FROM CRAZY HEART)" - CRAZY
HEART
Music & Lyrics by: Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
e. "WINTER" - BROTHERS
Music by: U2
Lyrics by: Bono
 
15. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
a. BIG LOVE (HBO)
Anima Sola and Playtone in association with HBO Entertainment
b. DEXTER (SHOWTIME)
Showtime Presents, John Goldwyn Productions, The Colleton Company, Clyde
Phillips Productions
c. HOUSE (FOX)
Universal Media Studios in association with Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z
Productions and Bad Hat Harry
d. MAD MEN (AMC)
AMC
e. TRUE BLOOD (HBO)
Your Face Goes Here Entertainment in association with HBO Entertainment
 
16. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES –
DRAMA
a. GLENN CLOSE DAMAGES
b. JANUARY JONES MAD MEN
c. JULIANNA MARGULIES THE GOOD WIFE
d. ANNA PAQUIN TRUE BLOOD
e. KYRA SEDGWICK THE CLOSER
 
17. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
a. SIMON BAKER THE MENTALIST
b. MICHAEL C. HALL DEXTER
c. JON HAMM MAD MEN
d. HUGH LAURIE HOUSE
e. BILL PAXTON BIG LOVE
 
18. BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. 30 ROCK (NBC)
Universal Media Studios in association with Broadway Video and Little
Stranger Inc.
b. ENTOURAGE (HBO)
Leverage and Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO
Entertainment
c. GLEE (FOX)
Twentieth Century Fox Television
d. MODERN FAMILY (ABC)
Twentieth Century Fox Television
e. THE OFFICE (NBC)
Universal Media Studios, Deedle Dee Productions, Reveille LLC
 
19. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES –
COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. TONI COLLETTE UNITED STATES OF TARA
b. COURTENEY COX COUGAR TOWN
c. EDIE FALCO NURSE JACKIE
d. TINA FEY 30 ROCK
e. LEA MICHELE GLEE
 
20. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES –
COMEDY OR MUSICAL
a. ALEC BALDWIN 30 ROCK
b. STEVE CARELL THE OFFICE
c. DAVID DUCHOVNY CALIFORNICATION
d. THOMAS JANE HUNG
e. MATTHEW MORRISON GLEE
 
21. BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. GEORGIA O'KEEFFE (LIFETIME TELEVISION)
Sony Pictures Television
b. GREY GARDENS (HBO)
Specialty Films and Locomotive in association with HBO Films
c. INTO THE STORM (HBO)
Scott Free and Rainmark Films Production in association with the BBC and HBO
Films
d. LITTLE DORRIT (PBS)
Masterpiece/BBC Co-production
e. TAKING CHANCE (HBO)
Motion Picture Corporation of America and Civil Dawn Pictures in association
with HBO Films
 
22. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION
PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. JOAN ALLEN GEORGIA O'KEEFFE
b. DREW BARRYMORE GREY GARDENS
c. JESSICA LANGE GREY GARDENS
d. ANNA PAQUIN THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA
SENDLER
e. SIGOURNEY WEAVER PRAYERS FOR BOBBY
 
23. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION
PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. KEVIN BACON TAKING CHANCE
b. KENNETH BRANAGH WALLANDER: ONE STEP BEHIND
c. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR ENDGAME
d. BRENDAN GLEESON INTO THE STORM
e. JEREMY IRONS GEORGIA O'KEEFFE
 
24. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A
SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. JANE ADAMS HUNG
b. ROSE BYRNE DAMAGES
c. JANE LYNCH GLEE
d. JANET McTEER INTO THE STORM
e. CHLOË SEVIGNY BIG LOVE
 
25. BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES,
MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
a. MICHAEL EMERSON LOST
b. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
c. WILLIAM HURT DAMAGES
d. JOHN LITHGOW DEXTER
e. JEREMY PIVEN ENTOURAGE
 
 
WINNERS BY MOTION PICTURE DISTRIBUTOR
AND TELEVISION NETWORK
MOTION PICTURE DISTRIBUTOR
The Weinstein Company 12
Warner Bros. Pictures 9
Paramount Pictures 7
Sony Pictures Classics 6
Lionsgate 5
Twentieth Century Fox 5
Fox Searchlight Pictures 4
Sony Pictures Releasing 4
Summit Entertainment 4
Universal Pictures 4
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 4
Focus Features 2
Relativity Media LLC 2
Apparition 1
Elephant Eye Films 1
Miramax Films 1
Oscilloscope Laboratories 1
 
TELEVISION NETWORK
HBO 17
FOX 6
SHOWTIME 6
NBC 5
CBS 4
LIFETIME TELEVISION 4
ABC 3
AMC 3
FX NETWORKS 3
PBS 3
TNT 1
 
And for those of you who like to count things, here's who got the most nominations:

WINNERS BY MOTION PICTURE
AND TELEVISION SERIES OR PROGRAM
MOTION PICTURE
UP IN THE AIR 6
NINE 5
AVATAR 4
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 4
THE HURT LOCKER 3
INVICTUS 3
IT'S COMPLICATED 3
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE 3
A SINGLE MAN 3
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER 2
BROTHERS 2
CRAZY HEART 2
THE INFORMANT! 2
JULIE & JULIA 2
THE LAST STATION 2
UP 2
BAARIA 1
THE BLIND SIDE 1
BROKEN EMBRACES 1
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 1
CORALINE 1
DISTRICT 9 1
DUPLICITY 1
AN EDUCATION 1
EVERYBODY'S FINE 1
FANTASTIC MR. FOX 1
THE HANGOVER 1
THE LOVELY BONES 1
THE MAID 1
THE MESSENGER 1
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG 1
A PROPHET 1
THE PROPOSAL 1
A SERIOUS MAN 1
SHERLOCK HOLMES 1
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE 1
THE WHITE RIBBON 1
THE YOUNG VICTORIA 1
 
WINNERS BY MOTION PICTURE
AND TELEVISION SERIES OR PROGRAM
TELEVISION SERIES OR PROGRAM
GLEE 4
30 ROCK 3
BIG LOVE 3
DAMAGES 3
DEXTER 3
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE 3
GREY GARDENS 3
INTO THE STORM 3
MAD MEN 3
ENTOURAGE 2
HOUSE 2
HUNG 2
THE OFFICE 2
TAKING CHANCE 2
TRUE BLOOD 2
CALIFORNICATION 1
THE CLOSER 1
COUGAR TOWN 1
THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA SENDLER 1
ENDGAME 1
THE GOOD WIFE 1
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER 1
LITTLE DORRIT 1
LOST 1
THE MENTALIST 1
MODERN FAMILY 1
NURSE JACKIE 1
PRAYERS FOR BOBBY 1
UNITED STATES OF TARA 1
WALLANDER: ONE STEP BEHIND 1

 
 

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