Wow, oh wow! It has been busy at the Toronto Film Festival and I have been hording links like an animal. I am serious, keeping up with these new fandangled blogger types is insanity when you have as many as I do on the RSS feeder. However, I managed to sort a few things out and can bring a few updates to “The Contenders” section today on the likes of The Dark Knight, Che, The Hurt Locker, The Duchess, The Brothers Bloom and The Secret Life of Bees. I am still working on my review of Burn After Reading, but hope to have the review and a complete update for that one early today.
So, first off, about four days ago I added six new sections to “The Contenders.” These sections will chart the likely nominees for Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Director. I am only going to be adding names and films that have been seen and commented on and are receiving
Next up, as I said already, IFC Films picked up Soderbergh’s Che and plans a one-week qualifying awards run in December. Question is how will the film be released? One four hour film? Two films (Argentine and Guerilla)? My guess is … Well I think they are going for two films, but that basically makes the Oscar push impossible for anything other than Benicio del Toro and maybe Steven Soderbergh. We’ll know soon enough.
Forget The Hurt Locker as a potential nominee if you were thinking about it. Turns out Summit Entertainment did pick it up for release but they aren’t planning on releasing it until summer 2009 according to Variety. However, that doesn’t have to stop you from reading all the buzz at Hollywood-Elsewhere (twice), Time, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.
An update on The Dark Knight tells us Warner Bros. is planning a January re-release for a major Oscar push. Is Best Picture in or out of the picture? I say in for right now. Get that chart here.
The verdict is in on The Duchess and I will now say with a certainty it will get a nomination for Best Costumes and I wouldn’t be surprised if it won the category based on early reviews and the fact the official site has a section specifically designated to Michael O’Connor’s work. However, that’s where it ends. Every review I have read cites script problems, it’s about 50/50 on Ralph Fiennes’ performance and Keira Knightley is basically given a pass. Neither actor looks to be in consideration for top noms. Get the complete update RIGHT HERE.
The first bit of news surrounding The Secret Life of Bees, a film adapted from the best-selling book by Sue Monk Kidd, is coming out of Toronto and while the reviews are comparing it to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants with John Anderson at Variety calling it “cloyingly sweet and gooey, and you’re not quite sure you can swallow it undiluted” there is a little bit of buzz. Get the complete update RIGHT HERE.
We can finally start talking buzz for Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom, his follow up to Brick, as it has been seen and is receiving low marks from most. Johnson’s Brick hit home with many and I seem to be in the minority on thinking it wasn’t all that. Based on Devin Faraci’s review at CHUD I may be one of the best folks to review it as he says “to compare Johnson’s second film to his first will likely be overwhelming for some,” which is something the folks at The Playlist seemed to do in their extremely egotistical and hardly legible review (at least for lay persons such as myself) when they say it is “overwrought eccentricity” and say “those with a distaste for capriciousness that flirts with being hyper-whimsy at every turn should be forewarned.” Get the complete update RIGHT HERE.
