Posts for 'Nominees' Category

For deep-thinking moviegoers, there are underlying themes at work in "A Prophet," the mesmerizing, Oscar-nominated crime drama opening today in New Orleans. It is French, after all. More than anything else, however, director Jacques Audiard's gritty, grab-you-by-the-shirtfront film is a mob movie -- a really, really good mob movie. Think "GoodFellas," but with Gauloises and accent aigu instead of plates of spaghetti and accent Pesci.

In this case, instead of Ray Liotta playing an Irish nobody rising from the bottom rung of the ladder in Brooklyn to become a mob insider, it's the French actor Tahar Rahim playing an Arab nobody rising from the bottom of the prison pecking order to earn favored status in aCorsican gang.

When we meet him, Rahim's character, Malik, is being processed into the Brecourt prison. All we know about him is that he is a habitual juvenile delinquent who has graduated to big-boy mischief. Now 19, he's also graduating to a big-boy prison. Nothing else about his background matters, at least not to the lifers and hard cases at Brecourt.

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The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards are known as the Oscars of the fashion world, and today the nominees and honorees of the 2010 ceremony were announced at president Diane von Furstenberg’s downtown New York store and studio. The winners will be announced on June 7 at the Lincoln Center, and the show will not only include the industry favorites as winners, but also an award for popular vote among the public.

Announced earlier this week, the late Alexander McQueen will be honored with the CFDA Special Tribute Award. Michael Kors will receive a lifetime achievement award for his illustrious career in the fashion industry. Kors became more well-known in the public eye after becoming one of the head judges of Project Runway. In 2011, he’ll celebrate his 30th year in business. Other honors will go to Kim Hastreiter of Paper Magazine (Eugenia Sheppard Award), Tonne Goodman of Vogue (Eleanor Lambert Award), Christopher Bailey of Burberry (International Award), and Iman (Fasion Icon Award).

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‘Hurt Locker’ producer banned from Oscars Commit this name to memory: Nicolas Chartier. For the first time in its history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has banned a nominee from attending the Oscars.

That would be Chartier. He’s that “Hurt Locker” producer who recently sent an e-mail message to colleagues, including academy members, asking them to choose his movie for best picture and “not the $500-million film.”

That would be “Avatar.”Chartier apologized, but the damage was done. For what the academy called his “ethical lapse,” Chartier will not be allowed into the Kodak Theatre for Sunday’s ceremony. His ticket has been revoked, and he can’t even get in as someone else’s guest.

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The countdown to Oscar Sunday is now measured in days, not weeks. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ annual awards show airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC.

Ten films are up for the Best Picture statuette. The Academy made the decision to expand the category to 10 nominees last year after much grumbling over “The Dark Knight” failing to garner one of five nominations. The expansion is the Academy’s attempt to appease the general public, many of whom haven’t seen the artsy films long adored by Academy members, with the inclusion of popular box-office hits.

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Academy Awards  front-runners Sandra Bullock  and Jeff Bridges and at least four other nominees are hitting the Oscar stage as presenters.

Joining Bridges and Bullock as Oscar presenters will be fellow acting nominees Matt Damon, Anna Kendrick and Carey Mulligan and directing contender Quentin Tarantino.

Bridges is the best-actor favorite for "Crazy Heart" at Sunday's show, and Bullock is widely expected to win best actress for "The Blind Side."

Mulligan also is nominated for best actress for "An Education." Damon is up for supporting actor in "Invictus," and Kendrick is up for supporting actress for "Up in the Air."

Tarantino is nominated for "Inglourious Basterds."

An Oscar-nominated documentary on the grisly business of dolphin hunting in Japan is set to be screened at cinemas nationwide for the first time later this year, but with some modifications, its distributor said.

"The Cove," which has been shown in 15 countries and already won several awards, follows a group of activists who struggle with Japanese police and fishermen to gain access to a secluded cove in Taiji, southern Japan, where dolphins are hunted. It features shocking footage of the slaughter.

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Hollywood is in full-on Oscar mode. The red carpet has been laid out in front of the Kodak Theatre, topped with a plastic sheet in case of rain. Traffic is snarled. Tourists are flocking to Hollywood & Highland to see a bit of the Academy Awards preparations and snap photos of themselves with giant Oscar statues.

The theater itself buzzes with activity, as rehearsals continue from morning until night, with the occasional celebrity quietly stepping in to practice presenting the coveted golden guy.

It's Oscar week, and Tinseltown is all aflutter. Here's the latest: FANCY FOODS: The Academy Awards Governors Ball will be set in an art-deco nightclub drenched in bronze and purple, from the tablecloths and napkins to the custom-made outfits on the wait staff and orchestra.

"It will be a very, very grand, elegant evening," says Cheryl Cecchetto, producer of the official Oscars after-party, held at Hollywood & Highland's grand ballroom.

Chef Wolfgang Puck is preparing dinner for the ball's 4,600 guests, and he gave the press a preview Thursday of what's on the menu. There are bite-size Kobe beef burgers, topped with tomatoes and pickles so tiny that a chef used tweezers to artfully assemble each appetizer. Guests can also nibble on ahi tuna cones and Oscar-shaped smoked salmon finished with caviar before the main course: "A twist on the old classic chicken pot pie," Puck says.

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A producer on Oscar frontrunner The Hurt Locker has been banned from Sunday night's awards ceremony for campaigning openly against a rival film. Nicolas Chartier, who financed the $15m Iraq war drama himself, sent emails urging Academy voters to vote for his movie and "not a $500m film", a clear reference to James Cameron's Avatar, which is also in the running for the best picture prize.The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences said yesterday that Chartier was censured by the executive committee of its producers' branch during a special session on Monday for "an ethical lapse". Academy rules prohibit "casting a negative or derogatory light on a competing film". For his pains, Chartier will be barred from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles this weekend, although he will receive a statuette later if The Hurt Locker takes the gong.

The move is being seen as a high-profile effort to police overzealous awards campaigning, though critics have suggested that the practice is widespread and Chartier's punishment unfair. Meanwhile, members of The Hurt Locker's creative team have reportedly moved to distance themselves from Chartier. Screenwriter Mark Boal, also one of the project's three other named producers, told the Daily Beast that the Frenchman was something of a "reactive" personality prone to fits of anger.

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An Army sergeant on Tuesday sued the makers of Oscar-nominated film "The Hurt Locker" five days before the Academy Awards, claiming the central character in the film is based on him. Master Sergeant Jeffrey S. Sarver believes screenwriter Mark Boal based "virtually all of the situations" in the film on events involving him and claims he coined the phrase "the hurt locker," according to a statement from lawyer Geoffrey Fieger in Southland, Michigan, who is representing Sarver.

A news conference is planned for Wednesday at Fieger's offices, at which time more details are expected on what Sarver's lawyers said was a "multimillion dollar suit.

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The unusually high number of Oscar contenders this year has set off a frenzy in style circles as old and new designers clamor to outfit stars for the red carpet -- the fashion runway of all fashion runways.

This year, 10 films instead of five were nominated for best picture -- the widest best movie Oscar contest in more than 65 years that will likely load the Kodak Theater in Hollywood with stars. As important, a host of new faces including Carey Mulligan, Anna Kendrick and Gabourey Sidibe are giving designers new faces and new looks for which to design.

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