Hollywood was set for its biggest night of the year yesterday, as two odes to filmmaking — silent movie The Artist and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo — vie for Oscars glory at the 84th Academy Awards.
After months of campaigning and a flurry of lesser prizes, Tinseltown’s annual awards season reaches its high point with the most prestigious honors of them all, the coveted golden statuettes.
Hundreds of millions around the globe will tune in for the ceremony hosted once again by veteran US actor Billy Crystal, after A-listers strut their stuff down the most-watched red carpet in the world.
Photo: Reuters
“Added excitement for #Oscars. One envelope will contain a live scorpion!” Crystal, who has done the job eight times before, joked in a Twitter message ahead of the greatest show in Hollywood.
As usual, the annual march to Oscars coronation has not been without a few twists and surprises. British actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who turned in a subdued performance in Hugo, has ruffled feathers with his apparent plans to promote his upcoming film The Dictator in full faux strongman regalia on the red carpet, flustering the top brass at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The list of presenters is chock full of heavy-hitters — last year’s best actress and actor Natalie Portman and Colin Firth will join Halle Berry, Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Tom Hanks and Angelina Jolie among others.
Scorsese’s Hugo, a visually rich 3D tribute to a French film pioneer, goes into the show with the most nominations, at 11, with black-and-white Hollywood love letter The Artist just behind on 10.
Scorsese is not the only legendary director in the mix — Woody Allen is in the running for best picture honors for his comeback hit Midnight in Paris, and Steven Spielberg will gun for the top prize with War Horse.
Buddies George Clooney and Brad Pitt will duke it out for best actor, but Artist star Jean Dujardin, who has won a slew of awards for his role as a struggling silent-era movie star, could best them both.
Pitt is up for his role as coach Billy Beane in baseball movie Moneyball, while Clooney has been hailed for playing against type in The Descendants, a family drama set in Hawaii that is also in the hunt for best picture glory.
Mexico’s Demian Bichir is on the best actor shortlist for his poignant turn as an undocumented migrant in A Better Life, as is British veteran Gary Oldman for Cold War spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The Artist got a boost on Saturday at the Spirit Awards honoring independent film, taking home prizes for best picture, best director for Michel Hazanavicius, best male lead actor for Dujardin and best cinematography.
The French director, fresh off the plane from Paris after his film’s big night at France’s annual Cesars ceremony, said he was starting to feel the heat.
“I’m a little bit nervous ... the outside pressure is rising considerably,” Hazanavicius said after the Spirit Awards ceremony, held in Santa Monica, California.
Meryl Streep could take home her first Oscar in three decades for a powerful turn as former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, in a battle against cross-dressing Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs.
Rooney Mara, who plays damaged hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is also in the running for the best actress prize, as is Michelle Williams for her take on Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn.
However, Oscar watchers say they could all be beaten by Viola Davis, whose role as a black maid in The Help — set in Mississippi against the backdrop of the 1960s civil rights struggle — has earned her an outpouring of praise.
Davis’ co-star Octavia Spencer is seen as a top contender in the best supporting actress category. Castmate Jessica Chastain is also nominated along with Berenice Bejo from The Artist and Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids.
Janet McTeer rounds out the category with her gender-bending turn opposite Close in Albert Nobbs.
The Help is also among the nine movies nominated for best picture, along with War Horse, The Artist, Moneyball, The Descendants, Midnight in Paris, Hugo and powerful Sept. 11, 2001, film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Also up for the top prize is Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, which won the coveted Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Supporting actor top tips are Christopher Plummer in Beginners and Max von Sydow in Extremely Loud. Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn, Jonah Hill in Moneyball and Nick Nolte in Warrior are also in the race.
The easy foreign language film frontrunner is Iran’s A Separation, which has already won a series of awards season prizes including a Spirit Award on Saturday.
The Iranian film is up against Belgium’s Bullhead, Footnote (Israel), In Darkness (Poland) and Monsieur Lazhar (Canada).
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
RSS