ScottFeinberg.com

By Scott Feinberg
The Hollywood Reporter

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TORONTO — Earlier this week, just hours before the Toronto International Film Festival world premiere of Juan Antonio Bayona‘s The Impossible — a harrowing film based on the true story of one British family’s 2004 trip to a beach resort in Thailand, where they were torn about from each other when a massive tsunami engulfed the nation’s coastline — I had the opportunity to spend some time with the star of the heartwrenching drama, Oscar nominee Naomi Watts.

The 43-year-old British-born, Aussie-raised actress and I talked about her early struggles to find work that almost prompted her to quit the profession (it took her 10 years before she “made it”); the film that changed the course of her career and made her one of the most respected and sought-after actresses of her generation, David Lynch‘s Mulholland Dr. (“That’s sort of the marking point of my career… I couldn’t get a handshake before”); and her eerily consistent streak of appearing in at least one noteworthy film almost every year since: Gore Verbinski‘s The Ring (2002), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s 21 Grams (2003), David O. Russell‘s I Heart Huckabees (2004), Peter Jackson‘s King Kong (2005), John Curran‘s The Painted Veil (2006), David Cronenberg‘s Eastern Promises (2007), Rodrigo Garcia‘s Mother and Child (2009), Doug Liman‘s Fair Game (2010), and Clint Eastwood‘s J. Edgar (2011).

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The Broadcast Film Critics Association, of which I am a voting member, released its 2010 nominations for its 16th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards this morning. “Black Swan” earned a record 12 nods (picture, director, actress, supporting actress, original screenplay, art direction, costume design, cinematography, editing, makeup, sound, and score), while 11 were bestowed upon “The King’s Speech” and “True Grit,” 10 upon “Inception,” and 9 upon “The Social Network.” Nicole Kidman, meanwhile, became the most nominated actor in the organization’s history when she received her seventh career nod (for best actress in “Rabbit Hole”).

Noteworthy inclusions: Noomi Rapace (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) for best actress; Jeremy Renner (“The Town”) for best supporting actor; Mila Kunis (“Black Swan”) for best supporting actress; “The Town” for best adapted screenplay; “The Fighter” for best ensemble; 13-year-old Chloe Moretz was nominated twice in the best young actor category (“Kick-Ass” and “Let Me In”); “I Love You Phillip Morris” for best comedy; “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” for best documentary; and “127 Hours” for best editing

Noteworthy snubs: “Blue Valentine” and “The Kids Are All Right” for best picture; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Biutiful”) for best director; Javier Bardem (“Biutiful”) and Mark Wahlberg (“The Fighter”) for best actor; Julianne Moore (“The Kids Are All Right”) and Tilda Swinton (“I Am Love”) for best actress; Justin Timberlake (“The Social Network”) for best supporting actor; “Black Swan” for best ensemble; “Hot Tub Time Machine” for best comedy; “Shutter Island” for best art direction; “The Social Network” for best cinematography; “Shutter Island” for best costume design; “The King’s Speech” for best editing; and “Iron Man 2” for best visual effects

The BFCA’s picks — which have correlated with the Academy’s picks as often as any awards group’s in recent years — will be announced at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards ceremony at the Hollywood Palladium on Friday, January 14, 2011 at 9pm EST/PST. VH1 will broadcast the gala live around the world.

The full list of nominees follows…

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• The Envelope: Reed Johnson nabs a rare interview with best actress hopeful Annette Bening, one of the two female leads in “The Kids Are All Right,” as well as Lisa Cholodenko, the film’s co-screenwriter/director. Cholodenko says that when it came to casting the part of Nic — “who in many ways is the film’s dramatic fulcrum, just as she is her family’s emotional anchor — mostly for the better, though not without the usual quotient of occasional slammed doors and raised voices” — she thought of only Bening. Fortunately, it turned out that a mutual-admiration existed between the two — Cholodenko thought of Bening because of one particularly special scene of hers from “American Beauty” (1999), and Bening always remembered enjoying Cholodenko’s earlier film “Laurel Canyon” (2002).

• 24 Frames: Steven Zeitchik scans the newly-released slate of films that will play at January’s Sundance Film Festival, and points out some potential “critical darlings” for which we should probably keep an eye out. Among them are “Higher Ground,” the Oscar nominated actress Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut, and “Pariah,” a Bronx-set film that many are likening to last year’s Sundance breakout-hit “Precious.”

• The Odds: Steve Pond noted a little less than a month ago that director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and his new film “Biutiful,” which stars Javier Bardem, has a lot of friends in high places — and the list has only grown since Pond posted his piece. Werner Herzog moderated a DGA Q&A with Inarritu in Los Angeles; Robert Benton moderated a DGA Q&A with Inarritu in New York; Sean Penn, who was overheard telling Josh Brolin that the film is a “fucking masterpiece,” will be moderating a Q&A with Inarritu and Bardem this coming Sunday in Los Angeles; Michael Mann will be hosting a private screening of the film at CAA on December 10; and Alfonso Cuaron will be hosting a csreening in London on December 13. Others who have publicly stated their support of the film include Ben Affleck, Guillermo Del Toro, and Julian Schnabel.

• The Film Stage: Jordan Raup passes along a letter from “Adaptation” (2002) director Spike Jonze to online film critic Peter Sciretta in which he emphasizes how much he loves David O. Russell’s “The Fighter.” Jonze wrote, “Hey Peter — Spike here. I’m writing on behalf of my friend David Russell, regarding his new movie The Fighter. Did you get a chance to see it yet? How insanely great is Christian Bale? Can you do me a favor and post this 2 minute trailer called ‘Pressure’ on your site? The trailer that they put out originally makes the film feel a little generic and I just want to help David get the word out. I got to see it a few weeks ago, and I loved it, and if all you saw is the trailer that’s out, you might not know that it’s as interesting and strong as it is. Thanks for your help! Spike”

• The Contenders: Brad Brevet has, through a variety of means, gathered the scripts of 23 of this year’s top awards contenders and posted them on his site for anyone who would like to read them. His most recent acquisitions? “I Love You Phillip Morris” and “Winter’s Bone.”

Photo: Mia Waskinowska, Lisa Cholodenko, and Julianne Moore on the set of “The Kids Are All Right.” Credit: Columbia University.

This afternoon I had the opportunity to chat for about 20 minutes with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the Oscar-nominated Mexican director responsible for the celebrated “Death Trilogy” — “Amores Perros” (2000), “21 Grams” (2003), and “Babel” (2006) — and, most recently, “Biutiful” (Roadside Attractions, 12/17, R, trailer), a potential player in this year’s Oscar races for best picture, best director, best original screenplay (Armando Bo, Nicolas Giacobone, and Inarritu), and best actor (Javier Bardem, who was the co-recipient of that prize at Cannes back in May).

As you can see in the videos below, we discuss his unusual journey into the world of directing (music to TV to film); his relationship with the screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (which ended after the “Death Trilogy”) and his other frequent collaborators (cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, composer Gustavo Santaolalla, and film editor Stephen Mirrione); his fascination with the subjects of globalization, loss, and sadness (which have been at the center of all four of his films); and then a lot specifically about “Biutiful” — the things that inspired him to make it (“Piano Concerto in G Major,” a piano piece composed between 1929 and 1931 by Maurice Ravel and “Ikiru,” a classic Japanese film from 1952 directed by Akira Kurosawa); the one year and two months that he spent editing it; and much more.

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• Deadline New York: Mike Fleming learns that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful” will be Mexico’s official entry for this year’s best foreign language film Oscar. The film’s star Javier Bardem — whose performance brought him the best actor prize at Cannes earlier this year, and who was already generating best actor Oscar buzz — previously headlined another film, Spain’s “The Sea Inside” (2005), that won that prize.
• Oscar Watch: Dave Karger considers the possibility that three actors from “The Social Network” — Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake — could all end up as best supporting actor Oscar nominees, and notes that it would not be unprecedented: “On the Waterfront” (1954), “The Godfather” (1972), and “The Godfather, Part II” (1974) also pulled a “hat trick” in the category.
• Thompson on Hollywood: Anne Thompson, an unabashed “western fan,” is thrilled that Paramount has finally released a trailer for Ethan Coen and Joel Coen‘s “True Grit,” which she describes as “the 2010 movie I cannot wait to see — and the big unknown for Oscar watchers.”
• 24 Frames: Steven Zeitchik reports that Christopher Nolan, the producer of the forthcoming “Superman” reboot, has reached out to “Black Swan” helmer Darren Aronofsky about directing the film. Aronofsky’s indie films have all been celebrated but his one studio outing, “The Fountain” (2006), was a critical and commercial disappointment.
• Movie Crazy: Leonard Maltin pays tribute to the actress Gloria Stuart, who died on Monday at the age of 100. Stuart, whose film career spanned “The Invisible Man” (1933) through “Titanic” (1997), was the second oldest living Oscar nominee or winner (behind only Luise Rainer).
• Speakeasy: John Jurgensen hears that producer Graham King, who won the best picture Oscar for “The Departed” (2006) and is presently enjoying more success with “The Town,” has formed FilmDistrict, “an acquisition, distribution, production, and financing company” that plans to “aggressively” release four to eight films per year.
• Hitfix: Hitfix confirms that up-and-coming actress Maggie Grace, 27, has joined the cast of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.” Grace, who is probably best known for her work on TV’s “Lost,” will reportedly “face off against Kristen Stewart‘s Bella as a vengeful vampire who blames the Cullens for the death of her lover” in the franchise’s final installment.
• Deadline Hollywood: Nikki Finke details 20th Century Fox’s extravagant plans to mark the upcoming 45^th anniversary of “The Sound of Music” (1965), which include a theatrical re-release with a “sing-along” component on October 19 and October 26; a reunion of the cast on a special edition of “Oprah” on October 29; and the release of a new 3-disc Blu-Ray and DVD combo pack with all sorts of goodies inside on November 2.
• Risky Business: Philiana Ng passes along “Real Time” host Bill Maher’s recent prediction that “The King’s Speech” has the best picture Oscar in the bag: “New Rule: If they’re going to make a historical epic full of British actors in period costumes about Queen Elizabeth [II] helping her father get over his speech impediment, why bother having the Oscars at all? You win… Unless someone in America is making a movie where Meryl Streep teaches Anne Frank how to box, we give up.”

Photo: Javier Bardem in “Biutiful.” Credit: Roadside Attractions.