Posts Tagged ‘Academy Awards’

A R Rahman, winner of Best Original Song 2009 for "Jai Ho," from "Slumdog Millionaire"

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released their list of all 63 songs eligible for nomination for the Best Original Song Oscar at the upcoming 82nd Academy Awards.

The voters will rate each song on a point basis, with an 8.25 rating needed for a song to be nominated. If no songs receive that high of a rating, the category is scrapped for the year. If only one song receives an 8.25 or higher, it and the runner up will be the only nominations. Up to 5 songs can become final nominees.

The list of all songs eligible for nomination are as follows:

“All Is Love” from Where the Wild Things Are
“Almost Over You” from My One and Only
“Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog
“AyAyAyAy” from The Maid
“Back to Tennessee” from Hannah Montana the Movie
“Being Bad” from Duplicity
“Blanco” from Fast & Furious
“Brothers in Arms” from Brothers at War
“Butterfly Fly Away” from Hannah Montana the Movie
“Cinema Italiano” from Nine
“Colorblind” from Invictus
“Depression Era” from That Evening Sun
“Don’t Walk Away” from Hannah Montana the Movie
“Dove of Peace” from Bruno
“Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog
“Fly Farm Blues” from It Might Get Loud
“Forget Me” from I Love You, Beth Cooper
“God Bless Us Everyone” from Disney’s A Christmas Carol
“Here” from Shrink
“Hideaway” from Where the Wild Things Are
“Hoedown Throwdown” from Hannah Montana the Movie
“I Bring What I Love” from Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love
“I See You” from Avatar
“(I Want to) Come Home” from Everybody’s Fine
“If You’re Wondering” from The Lightkeepers
“Impossible Fantasy” from Adventures of Power
“Innocent Child” from Skin
“Invictus 9,000 Days” from Invictus
“Legendary” from Tyson
“Let Freedom Reign” from Skin
“Loin de Paname” from Paris 36
“Ma Belle Evangeline” from The Princess and the Frog
“My One and Only” from My One and Only
“Na Na” from Couples Retreat
“Never Knew I Needed” from The Princess and the Frog
“New Divide” from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
“New Jersey Nights” from Adventures of Power
“New York Is Where I Live” from Did You Hear about the Morgans?
“No Time for Love” from Simon & Malou
“One Day” from Post Grad
“Only You” from The Young Victoria
“Other Father Song” from Coraline
“Petey’s Song” from Fantastic Mr. Fox
“Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” from Ponyo
“Possibility” from The Twilight Saga: New Moon
“Raining Sunshine” from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
“Running Out of Empty (Make Ourselves at Home)” from Lymelife
“Smoke without Fire” from An Education
“Somebody Else” from Crazy Heart
“Stu’s Song” from The Hangover
“Take It All” from Nine
“Through the Trees” from Jennifer’s Body
“Trust Me” from The Informant!
“Un Bouquet des Violettes” from New York, I Love You
“We Are the Children of the World” from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
“We Love Violence” from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from Crazy Heart
“When You Find Me” from Adam
“Winter” from Brothers
“The Word Is Love” from Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!
“You Got Me Wrapped around Your Little Finger” from An Education
“You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” from Hannah Montana the Movie
“You’ve Been a Friend to Me” from Old Dogs

Hannah Montana The Movie and The Princess and the Frog have the highest number of eligible songs. Official nominations for all categories will be released February 2nd.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

"Bright Star," which was critically acclaimed, hasn't yet earned half its budget due to limited exposure

One of the biggest gripes people have – especially when watching the Academy Awards every year – is that they aren’t able to see many of the limited release films, particularly the ones that get great critical buzz. Even critics get irked about this (as no critic sees every movie that comes out). So how do we go about addressing this issue? My thought is that films that can’t afford widespread distribution to exhibitors (i.e. theaters) might want to start looking at the internet as a solution.

A number of people download movies illegally all the time, which we here at Movie-Thoughts obviously can’t condone, and many people watch streaming movies on Netflix every day; the point being that plenty of people are acclimated to watching movies on their computer, and that number of people continues to grow every day. So, step one of making sure there’s an audience for independent studios on the internet is covered.

Step two is identifying the benefits. What’s in it for these independent studios? Well for starters (and this is huge), exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

Sidibe as Precious

The Producer’s Guild of America announced that it is going to award this year’s Precious with the Stanley Kramer Award, which it gives out to films that illuminate “provocative social issues in an accessible and elevating fashion.” Kramer, whose films include High Noon, The Defiant Ones, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, was known for the provocative subjects of his films.

Past recipients of the award include Milk, An Inconvenient Truth, The Great Debaters, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Hotel Rwanda.

Precious, starring Gabourey Sidibe, is about a 16-year old African American girl growing up in Harlem in 1987 with an abusing mother and molesting father.

“Precious is a remarkable film that sends a powerful message of hope – brilliantly reminding us that we have the power to persevere regardless of life’s difficulties. Stanley Kramer’s legacy is ideally celebrated with the selection of this very worthy film,” said PGA Awards Co-Chairs David Friendly and Laurence Mark. – Variety

The film is expected to be a Best Picture contender at this year’s 82nd Academy Awards.

Source: Variety

Pixar's "Up" is this year's front runner for Best Animated Picture

This year, because the number of films submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reached at least 16, there will potentially be 5 final nominees for Best Animated Picture for the 82nd Academy Awards. The academy has not yet viewed all 20, and so nothing is set in stone, but the odds that five or more films will be disqualified (lowering the number of nominees down to 3) are thought to be minimal.

The 20 submitted features are:

• “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”
• “Astro Boy”
• “Battle for Terra”
• “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
• “Coraline”
• “Disney’s A Christmas Carol”
• “The Dolphin – Story of a Dreamer”
• “Fantastic Mr. Fox”
• “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
• “Mary and Max”
• “The Missing Lynx”
• “Monsters vs. Aliens”
• “9”
• “Planet 51”
• “Ponyo”
• “The Princess and the Frog”
• “The Secret of Kells”
• “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure”
• “A Town Called Panic”
• “Up”

Two records have been made, with 6 submissions being made in 3-D and 4 films being shot in stop-motion.

The last day for a film to be submitted for nomination is next Monday, which also means that all films in the list above have until then to have their L.A. qualifying run.

All Academy Awards nominations will be released Feb. 2nd, with the awards show on March 7th.

Source: Variety

Forever Enthralled

China’s Film Bureau released yesterday that the People’s Republic of China has elected the film Forever Enthralled, directed by Chen Kaige, to be China’s Academy Award nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film is a biopic of China’s most famous Peking opera performers, with Beijing-born pop star Leon Lai in the title role as Mei Lanfang. Kaige has directed two other Oscar nominated films from China (Farewell My Concubine and The Promise).

Austria has also submitted their candidate for Best Foreign Language Film category, For a Moment Freedom. Directed by Iranian-Austrian filmmaker

Arash T. Riahi, the movie tells the story of Iranian refugees and their journey to Austria through Turkey. It has garnered a lot of critical momentum on the festival circuit, earning honors like Best Austrian Film at the Vienna Film Festival and first feature kudos in Montreal and Zurich.

Sources: Variety and Hollywood Reporter