It’s already September, and this means it’s officially awards season. Well, maybe not officially, but the Oscars seem to be a hot topic of discussion all of a sudden. On the one hand, the big fall film festivals kick off tomorrow with the opening of the Venice Film Festival. And Telluride and Toronto are about to begin, too. This means awards contenders will begin to be seen by critics and other buzz-makers.
Meanwhile, those who aren’t necessarily excited or annoyed with the sudden arrival of the season at least have something to say about the Academy’s latest change of rules. This time they’ve revised the voting process for the Best Picture category — which now will include ten nomineees — in a way that could hurt a lot of films’ chances. The interesting thing is, some people believe the change is bad for The Hurt Locker, while other people think it’s beneficial to the film.
Check out what the film blogs are saying about the season and the new rules after the jump:
It’s only a couple of short weeks before the 2008 Oscar nominees are announced, and the internet is abuzz with prognostications. One hotly debated topic is whether or not Wall-E can pull off a Best Picture nomination, or even a win. It would be the second animated film to be nominated in the category, after Beauty and the Beast, which got the honor before the Animated Feature prize existed. Will the stodgy old Academy seat Wall-E at the kid’s table, giving it an easy win in the animation category, or will it be allowed to play with the big boys?
A best pic nomination for Wall-E would be a rare honor for animation in general, but it would also be a long over due rarity for another reason: Wall-E would only be the second best pic nominated film in the history of the Oscars to be set in the future. The only one to date is A Clockwork Orange. When you consider how many nominees are period pieces (I didn’t care to count), this represents a massive bias on the part of the Academy. It’s clear that they love the past, but they hate the future.
What would the history of the Academy Awards look like if the Hollywood elite wasn’t terrified of speculative fiction? Below, seven movies about the future that should have been nominated for Best Picture:
I never knew it was so easy to add lightsaber effects to any YouTube clip. Earlier this week, when I wrote about the new Clone Warslightsaber game for the Nintendo Wii, I saw it done with the infamous “Star Wars Kid” video (see it here). And now, thanks again to Fark.com, I see it done with a clip from The Princess Bride (above).
After the enormous success of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, there were bound to be more swashbuckling seafarers arriving in theaters. And finally the next big deal pirate project has the go from DreamWorks to set sail. This one will probably be a little less fantastical, though. According to Variety, the plan is to have David Franzoni (Gladiator) script a new film about the notorious real-life pirate Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard). The infamous character has already been portrayed in a number of biopics, including Raoul Walsh’s over-the-top 1952 effort and a more recent Hallmark-produced miniseries starring Angus Macfadyen. But none before have had the benefit of being shepherded by former Philadelphia 76ers owner Pat Croce, who actually owns a pirate museum down in Key West.
Croce seems enough of a pirate expert, having also written a pirate history book titled “Pirate Soul”and an upcoming children’s book titled “My Pop-Pop Is a Pirate.” But DreamWorks will well enough riding on the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that it shouldn’t matter how historically accurate the new movie is. And on top of being able to exploit those film’s subject matter, DreamWorks should also find comfort in being able to capitalize on the success of Disney’s Enchanted, as well. Blackbeard, as the new biopic will be titled, is being produced by Enchanted’s Barry Josephson, so look for the posters and trailers to feature one of those “From the producer of … ” tags.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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It’s already September, and this means it’s officially awards season. Well, maybe not officially, but the Oscars seem to be a hot topic of discussion all of a sudden. On the one hand, the big fall film festivals kick off tomorrow with the opening of the Venice Film Festival. And Telluride and Toronto are about to begin, too. This means awards contenders will begin to be seen by critics and other buzz-makers.
After the enormous success of Disney’s 
