ScottFeinberg.com

The following list 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.

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I’m very pleased to bring you the eighth episode of “Feinberg & Friends,” a podcast about the awards race that airs on The Race every week.

Each episode features a discussion between me and a different guest — a film blogger, critic or journalist of some other variation — about 10 different awards-related topics (which we list in the text accompanying the audio so that you know exactly what you’re signing up for) and runs for approximately 30 to 40 minutes (so that if one topic is not of particular interest to you it will only be about three or four minutes before we’re on to the next one, which hopefully will be).

I was delighted that my friend Melissa Silverstein, who runs the blog Women and Hollywood (which looks at Hollywood and the awards race through the prism of feminism), agreed to join me for this episode. I really enjoyed our chat, during which we tackled the following 10 questions…

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Just one night after presenting James Earl Jones with an honorary Oscar at the  London theater where he and Vanessa Redgrave are currently starring in a West  End production of Driving Miss Daisy, the Academy tonight honored Redgrave with a  special tribute — the first of its kind to ever be held in Europe, entitled “An Academy  Salute to Vanessa Redgrave” – in celebration of her more than half-century of work  in film.

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This morning, the IFP announced the nominees for the 21st annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. It would be nice if I could tell you to read into the fact that:

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Congratulations to the team behind the excellent Rachel Weisz drama “The Whistleblower” (Samuel Goldwyn Films, 8/5, R, trailer) — i.e. first-time feature co-writer/director Larysa Kondracki and her co-writer Eilis Kirwan; indie producers extraordinairre Celine Rattray (“The Kids Are All Right”), Amy Kaufman (“Sin Nombre”), and Christina Piovesan (“Amreeka”); Samuel Goldwyn’s Sr. VP of Publicity Liza Burnett Fefferman and her crew; and 42 West publicists Tom Piechura and Sara Groves — for scoring the major P.R. coup of motivating United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to not only watch their film (which is pointedly critical of the U.N.’s role in sex trafficking/sexual misconduct in Bosnia during the 1990s), but also to write about it.

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The first half of last year — i.e. January through June — produced two of the 10 best picture nominees (“Winter’s Bone” and “Toy Story 3”), 1 of the 20 acting nominees (Jennifer Lawrence), and 1 of the 10 screenplay nominees (“Winter’s Bone”). The first half of this year, meanwhile, has produced a lot of very good flicks — among them “The Beaver” (Summit, 5/6, PG-13, trailer), “Hanna” (Focus Features, 4/8, PG-13, trailer), “Jane Eyre” (Focus Features, 3/11, PG-13, trailer), “Limitless” (Relativity, 3/18, PG-13, trailer), “The Lincoln Lawyer” (Lionsgate, 3/18, R, trailer), “Meek’s Cutoff” (Oscilloscope, 4/8, PG, trailer), “Rango” (Paramount, 3/4, PG, trailer), “Source Code” (Summit, 4/1, PG-13, trailer), and “Win Win” (Fox Searchlight, 3/18, R, trailer) — but nothing that seems likely to snag an Oscar nod come next January. This, of course, begs the question: which films will be the first serious Oscar contenders of 2011?

Here’s a look at the eight likeliest pre-Fall candidates…

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• 24 Frames: Steven Zeitchik spreads the word about last night’s not-so-”secret Hollywood screening” of David O. Russell’s much-anticipated boxing drama “The Fighter,” a month before its theatrical release, at Grauman’s Chinese Theater as part of the ongoing AFI Fest. (The film will next be screened on tomorrow evening in New York for east coast critics/pundits, who will then be treated to a Q&A with Russell and Mark Wahlberg, the film’s best actor hopeful.)
• Gold Derby: Tom O’Neil recounts the history of producer Scott Rudin (“The Social Network”) and studio chief Harvey Weinstein (“The King’s Speech”), who used to work together but had a falling out a few years ago. In 2008, the two bucked heads while gunning campaigning for Kate Winslet, who was eligible for both the Rudin-produced “Revolutionary Road” and the Weinstein-distributed “The Reader.” (The Academy ultimately nominated — and awarded — her the best actress Oscar for the latter.) This year, as Tom puts it, “not only are the superheroes of indie film production back in the same derby, but they’re [now] chief rivals for best picture.”
• First Showing: Alex Billington posts the “seductive” new theatrical poster for “Blue Valentine,” the new film from The Weinstein Company that stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, and that has been getting a lot of attention ever since the MPAA rather inexplicably gave it an NC-17 rating about a month ago. Billington writes that the poster makes him believe that The Weinstein Company — which reportedly considered appealing the rating and/or re-cutting and then re-submitting the film with the hope of getting a lower rating — “just said ‘fuck it’ and went all-out as spicy as they could… and I like it.”
• The Playlist: Simon Dang confirms that “Meek’s Cutoff,” a western directed by Kelly Reichart and starring Michelle Williams (which played at the Venice, Toronto, and New York film festivals before being acquired by Oscilloscope, the same studio that released the previous collaboration between the director and actress, “Wendy and Lucy“), will not be released in time to qualify for 2010 awards consideration, but rather on April 8, 2011. In related news, Williams, who is presently on the London set of “My Week with Marilyn,” tells a reporter: “After this movie, I’m taking some time off. I’m not working for another year.” (Check out Scott’s recent conversation with the actress.)
• Cinematical: Jacob Hall passes along the news that legendary actor Robert De Niro will be honored at the Golden Globe Awards on January 16, 2011 with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, which he himself co-presented just last year to his longtime friend and collaborator Martin Scorsese. (In a related post, Tom O’Neil wonders why the Hollywood Foreign Press Association once again “snubbed” women and minorities for the honor. O’Neil writes that, upon hearing the decision, “Many of us award-watchers shrugged, thinking: ‘Great. Another old white guy!’” I beg to differ — I don’t think anyone would or should question the worthiness of De Niro for this sort of an honor.)
• The Hollywood Reporter: Lindsay Powers reports that Hollywood’s reigning east coast power-couple, director Darren Aronofsky (whose “Black Swan” will be released later this month) and Oscar winning actress Rachel Weisz (whose “The Whistleblower” was recently acquired for distribution by Samuel Goldwyn Films), have split after nine years of domestic cohabitation. The duo, who were engaged, will reportedly share joint custody of their four-year-old son.
• The Wrap: Steve Pond notes that the “Casino Jack” AFI Fest gala screening “was supposed to have been a festive occasion, given the fact that the screening would mark the Los Angeles premiere of a film in which director George Hickenlooper brought a comic, satiric touch to the tale of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, played with zest by Kevin Spacey,” but was instead a “more somber and emotional experience” because of Hickenlooper’s sudden death less than two weeks ago. Spacey, who was on hand at Grauman’s Chinese Theater to introduce the film, choked back tears as he said, “This one’s for you, George.”
• Company Town: Claudia Eller reports that “increased movie marketing costs” caused Lions Gate Entertainment to post a net loss of $29.7 million for the second-quarter of the fiscal year, despite the release of such films as the blockbuster “The Expendables,” which grossed $102 million domestically. The studio is currently pushing “For Colored Girls,” “The Next Three Days,” and “Rabbit Hole” for awards consideration.

Photo: Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale in “The Fighter.” Credit: Paramount.

Based on over 82 years of history, we all know that the Academy takes to biopics like ducks take to water. This probably explains why close to a dozen films about real people are being promoted for awards consideration this year, an even higher number than usual. Here is a rundown of the real people, the actors who play them, and the films in which they are portrayed…

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Attendees of the 2010 Toronto Film Festival have voted to award Tom Hooper‘s “The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company, 11/26, no trailer yet) the Cadillac People’s Choice Award, the festival’s highest honor. The film prevailed over a number of other crowd-pleasers including “127 Hours” (Fox Searchlight, 11/5, trailer), “Black Swan” (Fox Searchlight, 12/1, trailer), “The Way” (still seeking domestic distribution), and “The Whistleblower” (still seeking domestic distribution).

TIFF’s audience award has existed since 1978. Almost all of its 32 previous winners went on to garner attention from the Academy — they have accounted for 93 nominations (including 9 for best picture for 9 for best foreign language film), 35 of which resulted in wins (including 3 for best picture and 5 for best foreign language film) — which has helped to cement TIFF’s reputation as the first major event of the awards season. (For a full listing of TIFF audience award winners and how they fared at the Oscars, click here.)

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