Posted on 01/22/2006 4:47:02 PM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Gay cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain" has left its competition in the dust, surging to the front of the Oscars race just as voters cast their ballots for next week's Academy Awards nominations.
Taiwanese director Ang Lee's story of forbidden macho love in 1960s Wyoming got a huge boost by reining in four Golden Globe Awards, Hollywood's second-highest plaudits, just five days before polls were to close ahead of the January 31 unveiling of nominees for the 78th annual Oscars.
The 5,798 Academy members had until Saturday evening to fill out their nomination ballots and hand them in to auditors, who will tally the votes under great secrecy and determine the identity of the nominees in 24 categories.
But Hollywood pundits are already convinced that in a lacklustre awards season, dominated by smaller independent movies rather than major studio productions, "Brokeback" is the unequivocal early favourite for the top Oscars.
"'Brokeback' is way, way out front and was given major momentum by coming out the most honoured movie at Monday's Golden Globes," said Tom O'Neil, writer for the GoldDerby.com and the Los Angeles Times's TheEnvelope.com.
"But the race isn't over yet, and a lot could happen between now and the Oscars ceremony in March," he said of the prospects of the film starring Australian Heath Ledger and American Jake Gyllenhaal.
"Brokeback" is based on a short story by Annie Proulx and tells of two farmhands in rural America who fall in love and maintain an unfulfilled relationship over two decades. Lee won the best director Golden Globe for his interpretation.
The Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line," starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, is also a hot Oscars contender and is considered by many a favourite for best picture, best actor and best actress nominations, after picking up three Globes, including best musical, best actor and best actress.
"'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Walk the Line' are now the Oscars frontrunners, and I think that 'Capote' is a potential winner with good strength, not only for Philip Seymour Hoffman but also as a potential best picture nominee and winner," said Marty Grove, columnist for the HollywoodReporter.com.
Hoffman won the Golden Globe for best actor in a drama -- beating out Ledger for the prize -- for his startling turn as US author Truman Capote in the story of the circumstances surrounding the writing of his book "In Cold Blood."
George Clooney's politically charged drama "Good Night, and Good Luck," the story of 1950s US television anchorman Edward Murrow's crusade against the communist witchhunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy, is also seen as a likely best picture and best director contender at the Oscars.
Also vying for Oscar nods is Paul Haggis's racial drama "Crash," starring Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle and Matt Dillon, which O'Neil said could make a strong showing in the Oscars, despite its low awards profile so far.
"Crash" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" could be serious competition down the line for "Brokeback," O'Neil told AFP, warning that the Clooney film may yet snatch the best picture and best director statuettes from "Brokeback" and Lee.
But, experts said, while major studio epics -- including Peter Jackson's much-vaunted remake of "King Kong," starring Naomi Watts, and "Munich," Steven Spielberg's drama about Israel's hunt for Palestinian terrorists -- may win some Oscar nods, they are unlikely to dominate the awards.
Creating additional uncertainty in this year's race is the fact that Oscars organisers pushed back the ceremony to March 5 from February, creating an awards season vacuum in usually frantic February.
"There is this wild card this year, as the season is interrupted after the guild awards in January and then resumes in March, which could give Oscar voters the time to get bored and change their minds about their early favourites before the Oscars," O'Neil said.
The very influential Producers Guild awards will be given out on Sunday, the Directors Guild honours will be doled out on January 28 and the critical Screen Actors Guild awards will be handed out on January 29 -- more than a month before the Oscars.
"We'll have to wait and see whether this will be a boring Oscars year, where the outcome will be clear from the day of the nominations, or whether it will be one full of suspense and surprises," O'Neil said.
These awards are a joke anyway and I think that our side would benefit from the spectacle. Plus it would be "noise" not created by any of the usual suspects on the right. Maybe Auntie will stay up late that night and get the word!
Definitely true. People need to know who their enemies are.
Yes they certainly will. Right now they think unborn babies are a choice, they think marriage is a temporary situation, they think liberty means looking however they want and wearing pajamas to school. I'm sure a large percentage think gender preference is an option.
"Prances " -- ROTFL!!!!!!!
Their agenda would seem to be to promote good movies. That is clearly not the case.
Believe it or not Larry McMurtry wrote it. He also wrote The Last Picture Show, Texasville, Lonesome Dove, and other well written novels/stories/screenplays.
Go figure?
NO, McMurtry merely ADAPTED a short story by the same title that was written by this horrid author called Annie Proulx. She's been awarded a Pulitzer Prize (just saying, not commending) for writing that is so tortured and crude as to be butchery of the English language and one of her short stories is "Brokeback Mountain," which was adapted to the screen by Larry McMurtry.
He gets screenwriting credit but as an adapatation...the screenplay is, literally, a direct replant of the short story with very little to no additions so McMurtry was used here not as an original creative writer, not relied on to provide original content.
He's reliably great with dialogue and particularly of the somwhat cryptic but realistic barest of human environments, such as are rougher, stressed, less polished frontiers and such. But he didn't create these characters, nor the story, but adapted Proulx's story to the screen.
Anyone can go read her short story on the internet by the same title and save themselves the ticket price and a questionable viewing experience because everything that's in the film is in the short story.
But you have to then contend with Proulx's ranting of writings. She purports to author "prose" when she does, in fact, write in something like a beat-poetry style but I regard her work as immensely crude, and do not agree that it should be rewarded. She's deconstructed the English language to something akin to baking an egg on a sidewalk and then lapping it up right there where it lays. Pretty crude stuff, and that's even before you deal with the content she composes by way of that egg-frying method.
More like, sashays to the head of the Oscars race.
Suddenly, I'm no longer hungry...
Maybe Russell Crowe is going to be punished by Hollywood again, but he's one of the greatest actors out there with his stunning performances. "A Beautiful Mind" is another example of a mesmerizing performance.
I'll pass and stick to the standard classics and the KLV.
Yes, I completely agree...he's just about, if not is, my most favored/revered actor. Almost anything he does, I'm fascinated.
My favorites of his are, of course, GLADIATOR and second to that, both LA CONFIDENTIAL and MASTER AND COMMANDER, The Far Side of the World.
I also really liked PROOF OF LIFE, despite the naysaying as to that film, and A BEAUTIFUL MIND, and have all his films on DVD. Even ROMPER STOMPER, which is probably his first, truly awesome performance.
I'll see anything he does. I read that he's keen to star as Liberace in a filmed rendition of Liberace's life, which should be incredibly interesting to view, if he does that. What he's supposed to be working on next, however, is what he describes as "an Australian 'Gone With the Wind'" with Nicole Kidman also to star.
Certainly an incredibly talented man, no doubt about it.
I have no idea why and how CINDERELLA MAN was overlooked this year. I agree that it's a bit more of the "Hollywood retaliation" mess that happens. He's just not Hollywood material, but far above that, in the same realm to my view as Mel Gibson, just entirely not Hollywood at all, but truly artists on screen in how they select their material and develope it, even before they perform.
Excellent decision!
Oh, sorry, retracting previous! I thought you were referring to your decision to bypass reading Annie Proulx, which I think would be an excellent decision.
I don't know what "KLV" means, sorry.
A Good Year (2006)
Plot Outline: An Englishman, Russell Crowe,inherits a vineyard in Provence. Upon arriving at his new property, he meets an American woman who claims that the land is hers.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401445/
from the book by Peter Mayle
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679731148/qid=1138034209/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-0972481-1911042?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Oh, right, that's the title, thanks! How I could ever not mention Ridley Scott as director of that title, is beyond me...
I wasn't aware it was to be an adaptation, however. Book looks appealing, thanks.
Book is A YEAR IN PROVENCE, which I HAVE already read!
I think this is going to be a really.good.movie.
I didn't know that sheep "gallop".
Sashay maybe... or prance perhaps.
Boy, this gay movie get more free advertising from the press that any film I can remember.
What's the temp in Alaska today?
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