When Milk wins the Oscar for Original Screenplay on February 22, it will be the first biopic to take the award in 26 years. Back then Gandhi faced some stiff competition, including two fellow Best Picture nominees, Tootsie and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, as well as An Officer and a Gentleman and Diner. And three of these opposing titles were 1982’s three top grossing films. Gandhi’s main obstacle, though, was not one of the other nominees. It was the difficulty of winning a category that’s typically associated with originality. Plenty of movies based on true stories have been nominated for Original Screenplay, but that “based on” factor can be a drawback, and the Academy tends to favor scripts born completely out of the imagination here.
Unfortunately for Milk, that Academy disfavor has been strong for the past three decades, passing over such ‘nonfiction’ films as The Queen, Shine, Nixon, Braveheart, Bugsy, Hotel Rwanda, Erin Brockovich, The Aviator and Good Night, and Good Luck for more “creative” efforts like Little Miss Sunshine. But this year, the ‘fiction’ films nominated for Original Screenplay are not strong candidates, whether for critical, commercial or political reasons. So fortunately for Milk, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black will partly win the Oscar by default. Not all voters will be choosing Milk in a process of elimination, though. Some will actually see that Black has penned a great “original” biopic and that it is indeed the most deserving of the nominated screenplays.
The 9th Annual Golden Trailer Awards were held in Los Angeles last night with what seems like a thousand winners announced in all sorts of categories representing movie marketing. There were awards for trailers, TV spots and posters divided up by genre (comedy, drama, horror, independent, etc.) and technical achievement (sound editing, motion graphics, etc.). While having too many categories can lead to questions of consistency — how does The Dark Knightbeat out Iron Manfor Best Action trailer but the latter film wins the Summer 2008 Blockbuster award? — it’s interesting to know which film’s ad employs the best music (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and which has the best voice-over (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford).
Regarding Jesse James‘ win, though, I have to wonder how a film’s marketing can be so great if it doesn’t actually bring in an audience. In addition to its trailer being honored, its poster also won in the Best Drama category. Plus (and this is me just being picky), isn’t awarding the trailer’s voice-over a bit unfair considering it just utilizes part of Hugh Ross’ narration from the actual film? To me, this category should probably be honoring those “In a world … ” trailer voice-over guys. Nonetheless, I do love the trailer and the film and so I’ve included it for repeat viewing above.
Of course I understand that the Golden Trailers are more an honoring of craft than of successfulness. Still, if the trailer for In Brugesand the stencil poster for Ramboare the most original works in film marketing in the past year, we need some new designers right away.
Check out the list of winners and nominees after the jump
Karina is now in Utah, where she’ll be spending the next week and a half covering the Sundance Film Festival. I’ve stayed behind in New York, as I’ve got other obligations. But just because I’m not at the Festival doesn’t mean I can’t pretend — or at least participate. So, starting today I’m going to be reviewing trailers for movies that will be playing at the festival. As of yet, I haven’t found enough trailers to carry me through next Friday, but with hundreds of movies set to screen in Park City over the next ten days, they have to be around somewhere (feel free to direct my attention to some).
First up is a trailer you may have already seen. It’s been out for at least a month, but I figured it made sense to start with it, since the movie, In Bruges, opens the festival tomorrow night. Plus, I’ve embedded the video that begins with an introduction from Oscar-winning writer-director Martin McDonagh. This way, it feels like you’re really at the Sundance premiere, where movies are almost always introduced by their makers. Of course, here there’s no Q&A afterward, but feel free to direct your questions at the computer screen and imagine McDonagh giving you a reply. Isn’t make believe fun?
Hi. My name is Christopher Campbell, and I’m not going to Sundance next year. In fact, 2008 will be the third consecutive year I don’t attend the festival. I’ve actually only been once, in 2005, and it was one of the best times I’ve ever had. Without much of an assignment, without anybody to schmooze with, interested only in seeing films and avoiding actually writing about them, I saw 37 features in seven days (do the math). I was in heaven. But, alas, I will not be heading to Park City this January. And therefore I won’t be seeing Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, which has been announced as the festival opener.
At least In Bruges, which stars Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes, already has a distributor, Focus Features, so it might not be too long before I get to see it. I can’t stand when I read about hot Sundance titles and then have to wait months, or even more than a year, to see them released to theaters. And by that time, I’ve usually lost interest — unless it’s supposed to be life-altering-good. According to The Hollywood Reporter, there may be a lot of English-language movies with strong star appeal in next year’s program, and more studios may be out and about making deals. Could this mean I’ll see more Sundance 2008 movies within a reasonable time?
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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