ScottFeinberg.com

By Josh Abraham

This year’s winner of the Hollywood Fashion Awards – Best Dressed at Gala Ceremony: actress Michelle Williams.

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Each awards season, moviegoers and the media devote their attention to some new breakthrough star (i.e. Amy Adams, Carey Mulligan, Jennifer Lawrence, etc.), but the people who make the industry go ’round — studio chiefs, agents, managers, publicists, etc. — focus even more on a breakthrough filmmaker (i.e. Jason Reitman, Oren Moverman, Tom Hooper, etc.).

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• Los Angeles Times: Michael Palin, an actor who is best known for his BAFTA Award winning performance as a stutterering buffoon in “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988), pens an op-ed in the New York Times in which he shares the story of his father’s real battle with a stutter, his own work to help those who suffer from the affliction, and his feelings about the importance of “The King’s Speech.”

• Thompson on Hollywood: Anne Thompson suggests that Helena Bonham Carter, a best supporting actress Oscar nominee for her performance as the Queen Mum in “The King’s Speech,” has gained ground on presumptive frontrunners Melissa Leo (“The Fighter”) and Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit”) because of her witty behavior at the recent Oscar nominees luncheon and acceptance speech at the BAFTA Awards.

• Editors Guild Magazine: Michael Goldman profiles Pamela Martin, the Oscar-nominated editor of “The Fighter,” who previously worked with director David O. Russell on his directorial debut “Spanking the Monkey” (1994) and subsequently received an ACE Eddie nod — if not an Oscar nod — for her work on “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006). I find it noteworthy that two of the best movies set in the male-dominated world of boxing, “Raging Bull” (1980) and “The Fighter,” were both edited by women!
• The Odds: Steve Pond shares a slideshow of recent street-art that has gone up in and around Hollywood and is believed to be the work of Banksy, the famously-anonymous street artist who is now an Oscar nominee for his documentary (feature) “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Is this, as Pond and others have suggested, part of an unconventional “Oscar campaign”?

• Art of the Title: Jim Helton and Charles Christopher Rubino share their inspirations for and creative process designing the stunning end credits of Derek Cianfrance‘s “Blue Valentine,” which — spoiler alert — features photos from various stages of the relationship that has apparently just come to an end, set against exploding fireworks.

• Hollywood-Elsewhere: Jeff Wells has his doubtsabout the soon-to-be-released indie comedy “Meet Monica Velour,” which stars Kim Cattrall as a has-been porn star, but I actually saw the film at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, before Anchor Bay Studios picked it up, and felt that it was quite good, in a quirky, “Napoleon Dynamite” (2004)-meets-”Little Miss Sunshine” (2006) kind of way.

• MSNBC: Mickey Rooney, the 90-year-old Hollywood legend who I had the privilege of interviewing back in July, has been granted a restraining order against his 52-year-old step-son, whom he is accusing of abuse and intimidation.

• Vanity Fair: Matt Tyrnauer, the director of the grossly-underappreciated doc “Valentino: The Last Emperor” (2009) and a great writer, has penned one of the finest long-form articles that I have ever read about Hollywood — or anything else — in this month’s magnificent “Hollywood Issue.” Do yourself a favor and read this remarkable true story of Janet de Cordova, a Beverly Hills socialite, and Gracie Covarrubias, her loyal friend.

Photo: Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech.” Credit: The Weinstein Company.

PLEASE NOTE: The following rankings and remarks reflect my personal opinions and do/will not in any way impact my projections or analysis on this site, wherein I strive above all else to correctly forecast what will happen, not what I believe should happen. My demonstrated ability to do that over the years is what has led most of you to my site, and any failure to do that will undoubtedly lead you away from it, so you can rest assured that I mean it when I say that one has/will have no bearing on the other.

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“Deep Vote,” an Oscar winning screenwriter and a member of the Academy, will write this column — exclusively for ScottFeinberg.com — every week until the Academy Awards. He will help to peel back the curtain on the Oscar voting process by sharing his thoughts about the films he sees and, ultimately, his nomination and final ballots, as well. His identity must be protected in order to spare him from repercussions for disclosing the aforementioned information.

Thus far, he has shared his thoughts in column one about his general preferences; column two about “Winter’s Bone” (Roadside Attractions, 6/11, R, trailer) and “Solitary Man” (Anchor Bay Films, 5/21, R, trailer); column three about “Alice in Wonderland” (Disney, 3/5, PG, trailer), “Toy Story 3” (Disney, 6/18, G, trailer), and “Mother and Child” (Sony Pictures Classics, 5/7, R, trailer); column four about “Get Low” (Sony Pictures Classics, 7/30, PG-13, trailer), “The Kids Are All Right” (Focus Features, 7/9, R, trailer), and “The Social Network” (Columbia, 10/1, PG-13, trailer); column five about “127 Hours” (Fox Searchlight, 11/5, R, trailer), “Biutiful” (Roadside Attractions, 12/17, R, trailer), and “Shutter Island” (Paramount, 2/19, R, trailer); column six about “Inception” (Warner Brothers, 7/16, PG-13, trailer), “Made in Dagenham” (Sony Pictures Classics, 11/19, R, trailer), and “Somewhere” (Focus Features, 12/22, R, trailer); and column seven about “Another Year” (Sony Pictures Classics, 12/29, PG-13, trailer), “Fair Game” (Summit, 11/5, PG-13, trailer), and “Rabbit Hole” (Lionsgate, 12/17, PG-13, trailer).

This week, he assesses three more awards hopefuls: “Blue Valentine” (The Weinstein Company, 12/29, R, trailer), “The Fighter” (Paramount, 12/10, R, trailer), and “True Grit” (Paramount, 12/22, PG-13, trailer)…

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Earlier this month, I spoke by telephone for about 20 minutes with the 30-year-old actor Ryan Gosling, who has since been nominated for a Golden Globe for best actor (drama) for his extraordinary performance opposite an equally impressive Michelle Williams (also Globe-nominated) in Derek Cianfrance’s controversial “Blue Valentine.”

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO OF OUR CONVERSATION!

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• Deadline New York: Mike Fleming confirms that the MPAA’s appeals board voted unanimously to overturn the NC-17 rating that the MPAA had previously bestowed upon Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine.” The landmark decision came shortly after the board heard testimony from The Weinstein Company’s co-chief Harvey Weinstein, who flew out from New York to Los Angeles to personally plead the case for his film. The film, which is now rated R, will hit theaters — and many more of them that it would have before yesterday’s ruling — on December 31. (The studio lost its other appeal, to have the R-rating bestowed upon “The King’s Speech” reduced to a PG-13, but was in a celebratory mood nonetheless.)

• The Wrap: Dominic Patten reports that Beverly Hills Police Department detectives investigating the murder of noted Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen several weeks ago now believe that Chasen’s death was caused by “a random act of violence.” They stated during a press conference that Harold Smith probably acted alone in the killing; that he was probably riding his bicycle at the time; and that the incident was probably brought about by “robbery gone bad.” Indeed, a ballistics tests indicate a match between the murder weapon and the gun that Smith used to shoot himself last week when police tried to serve him with an arrest warrant.

• Movie City News: Noah Forrest screens “All Good Things,” the first feature film directed by the documentary filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, and observes that it has the same theme of father-son (Frank Langella-Ryan Gosling) problems as Jarecki’s Oscar nominated doc “Capturing the Friedmans” (2003). He also singles out Kirsten Dunst for giving a standout performance, noting, “I haven’t historically been a big fan of Dunst, but she is really outstanding here, giving her best performance since ‘The Virgin Suicides.’ She’d be on my short-list for best supporting actress nominees.”

• The Carpetbagger: Paula Schwartz gets the details on the best actress Oscar campaign that was recently launched for the performance of Danish actress Paprika Steen “as an actress recovering from alcoholism and seeking to regain custody of her two sons” in the critically-acclaimed Danish film “Applause.” The awards bid for the 46-year-old, whom Schwartz calls “a most decided long shot,” is a pet project of veteran publicist Gary Springer, who has subjected his client to a whirlwind of travel and self-promotion over the past week. Her first stop was Los Angeles, where “she was subject to a dizzying round of screenings, receptions, power breakfasts and meetings with Academy and Screen Actors Guild voters voters. Then she jetted into New York on Saturday for nearly a week of the same.”

• Awards Tracker: Nicole Sperling wonders if the lack of a distinguishable “hero” will prove to be the “Achilles’ heel” for the Oscar hopes of the Aaron Sorkin-scripted and David Fincher-directed “The Social Network.” She feels that it may be in danger of becoming a film that “people admire but don’t love because they aren’t emotionally involved.”

• The Race: Tim Appelo ponders the best supporting actress prospects of Helena Bonham Carter — “one of the all-time icons of period film (and the great-granddaughter of British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith)” — for her performance as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in “The King’s Speech.” Appelo writes, “Ordinarily, it’s a slam dunk: You play a queen superbly, you get an Oscar… [but] Bonham Carter’s problem is this: She played two queens the same year, Elizabeth and the macrocephalic Red Queen in Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland.’” (Personally, I’m not sure that’s a problem, or a factor at all, really.)

Photo: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine.” Credit: The Weinstein Company.

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of spending about 45-minutes on the telephone with Michelle Williams, who is not only one of America’s finest actresses — and, at 30, will probably remain one of them for decades to come — but who is also a deeply intelligent woman; a devoted single mother; and a real survivor. (She’s also not bad on the eyes!)

Williams became a star at the tender age of 17 on the hit TV show “Dawson’s Creek” (1998-2003) — I remember when it happened because I’m about the same age as her and often tuned in. She proved that she had the acting chops to match her looks in a number of early films, but especially “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), for which she received a best supporting actress Oscar nod. She attracted the interest of the tabloids when she first began dating her “Brokeback” co-star Heath Ledger, with whom she would eventually have a daughter, Matilda — and again in early 2008, when Ledger died suddenly. After a period of mourning and seclusion, Williams reemerged in a series of roles that brought her widespread acclaim — from the bare-bones indie “Wendy and Lucy” (2008) to the eccentric ensemble piece “Synecdoche, New York” (2008) to the Martin Scorsese-mystery “Shutter Island” (2010) — and, before long, she’ll be seen portraying another movie star who died far too young, Marilyn Monroe, in a biopic entitled “My Week with Marilyn.” Things have never looked better for her in terms of her career, but she’s not ruling out the possibility that she might wake up one day, decide that she’s had enough of it all, and call it quits. There’s more to life than being a movie star, she has learned.

Over the course of our conversation — a full transcript of which follows — Williams and I discussed virtually all of the above. We focused particularly, however, on the pinnacle achievement of her career up to this point: her remarkable performance in Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine” (The Weinstein Company, 12/31, NC-17, trailer), a gritty, honest, adult drama about the complexities of a relationship. (To me, at least, it’s somewhat reminiscent of a play and film that preceded it by half a century, “A Streetcar Named Desire.”) To play the part of a woman who falls in — and, six years later, out of — love with the same man (Ryan Gosling), a lot was asked of Williams — extensive emotional and physical nakedness, a quick weight gain, and even some tap-dancing — and, as anyone who has seen the film can attest, she certainly rose to the occasion.

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• Movie Line: Chris Rosen points out that “Blue Valentine” helmer Derek Cianfrance isn’t the only director — or even the only director of a 2010 film distributed by The Weinstein Company — who has a major beef with the MPAA this year. His film received a particularly harsh rating (NC-17) for questionable reasons relating to one of its scenes, and now so, too, has Tom Hooper′s “The King’s Speech.” An R-rating has been slapped on the Toronto Film Festival Audience Award winner because — get this — of a scene in which King George VI (Colin Firth) is asked by his speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) to “unleash a torrent of swear words” as part of an effort to help him overcome his stutter. It remains to be seen if Harvey Weinstein will re-edit the scene and then re-submit the film with the hope of getting a more box-office friendly rating.
• The Odds: Steve Pond precedes his interview with “Toy Story 3” director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K. Anderson by noting, “Two years ago, the question in Oscar and animation circles was, ‘When will a Pixar movie finally crack the list of best picture nominees?’ Now that the roster of nominees has grown from five to 10, there’s a new question: ‘Will ‘Toy Story 3′ become the first animated winner?’” That’s getting a little ahead of ourselves, but it’s nevertheless interesting to hear Unkrich hammer home a talking point (of questionable accuracy) that Oscar voters will have to accept for the film to have a shot — namely, that ‘TS3′ is not a “kids movie.” (“We do make sure the movies are appropriate for kids. But I think the moment you try to make a movie for kids, you make garbage.”)
• Denver Post: John Moore reports that Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, the cousin of the recently deceased director George Hickenlooper and the Democratic nominee in yesterday’s Colorado gubernatorial race, was elected with an impressive 50% of the vote over independent Tom Tancredo and Republican Dan Maes. “Hickenlooper called it a bittersweet victory,” Moore reports, because it came just three days after the sudden death of George (who had actively campaigned for John) and just two days before John was to introduce George’s latest film, “Casino Jack,” at the Denver Starz Film Festival.
• Risky Business: Jay A. Fernandez learns that Paramount has decided to push up the release date of Ethan Coen and Joel Coen′s “True Grit” from Saturday, December 25 (Christmas Day) to Wednesday, December 22. As Fernandez reports, “the move could be a sign of the studio’s confidence in the picture, since the film will now go head-to-head with the Universal comedy ‘Little Fockers′ and the Fox adventure-comedy ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’” It’s far from a safe bet, though, since Westerns have not done well at the box-office in recent years, and only one of the Coen brothers’ many films has ever had a big opening weekend at the box-office — “Burn After Reading” (2008) came in at number one with a take of $19,128,000, but that was on a slow fall weekend, not the busiest holiday weekend of the year.
• Speak Easy: Michelle Kung also chats with “Toy Story 3” director Lee Unkrich on the occasion of yesterday’s DVD/Blu-ray release of the film, which grossed over a billion dollars in theaters around the world. Unkrich says that, financially speaking, “We had hoped, at best, that maybe we could have a chance at passing ‘Finding Nemo′ as Pixar’s biggest film, but we never imagined we’d get as big as we did.” Unkrich, who is an active Tweeter, adds that Twitter has proven to be a very useful “grassroots marketing” tool in promoting the film.
• The Wrap: Dylan Stableford writes that “The Hollywood Reporter is set to relaunch its print publication as a weekly glossy on Wednesday, and the first issue of the multimillion-dollar overhaul has some of the Janice Min trademarks developed at the helm of Us Weekly.” He notes that the debut issue’s cover — which features a group photo of awards hopefuls Amy Adams (“The Fighter”), Annette Bening (“The Kids Are All Right”), Helena Bonham Carter (“The King’s Speech”), Nicole Kidman (“Rabbit Hole”), Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”), and Hilary Swank (“Conviction”) — rather resembles Vanity Fair‘s “Young Hollywood Issue” in terms of its layout, is “just as white,” and “will look right at home at the supermarket.”

Photo: Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech.” Credit: The Weinstein Company.