The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
| Ang Lee overwhelmed by Oscar nomination Posted: 10 Jan 2013 08:09 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ang Lee already has an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, but the Taiwanese director said he was overwhelmed by the wealth of nominations accorded his acclaimed fable Life Of Pi on Thursday. "I am deeply honored, and frankly a little overwhelmed, by all of the nominations that Life Of Pi has received this morning," Lee (pic) said in a statement shortly after the fantasy shipwreck film received 11 Oscar nods, including one for best picture. "So many talented people gave everything they had to this film ... and to see all of them receive this kind of recognition is something I am incredibly grateful for," Lee added. Across Hollywood, reactions from other nominees poured in after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' announcement of who would vie for the film world's highest honors, to be handed out on February 24. Producer Harvey Weinstein, known for his aggressively effective but sometimes controversial Oscar campaigns, scored eight nominations for the all-star Silver Linings Playbook and another four for the more controversial Django Unchained. "I am blown away!" Weinstein enthused, adding, "I can't say thank you enough to the Academy for their support of our films." Amy Adams, nominated as best supporting actress for The Master, said she was honored, and paid tribute to her co-stars, saying, "I'd also like to send congratulations to the other nominees, and to my co-stars Philip (Seymour Hoffman) and Joaquin (Phoenix)." British singer Adele turned to Twitter after Skyfall, from the James Bond movie of the same title, received a best original song nomination, posting "Oh my god I feel like Meryl Streep!! Thank you x." "What can you say? It's so unbelievable," Roman Coppola, nominee for best original screenplay with Wes Anderson for Moonrise Kingdom, told Reuters. "I was lucky enough to be in a car with my parents heading to the airport when I got the call and my mom started whooping," said the son of Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola. The acclaimed independent film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" scored a host of major nominations, including one for best adapted screenplay for co-writer Lucy Alibar. "I think it's tremendous for the film," Alibar told Reuters. "We were such a small, tiny film, it's huge, especially for a film that really works on word of mouth." Maverick director Tim Burton said his best animated feature nominee Frankenweenie "is a very personal film for me." Citing the animators, cast members, set builders, and puppet makers who worked on the film, Burton said "I'm so honored that the Academy has recognized this film as one of its nominees." The director of A Royal Affair, which was nominated for best foreign language film and is set in the court of a mentally ill 18th-century king whose queen romances the royal physician, noted the global reach of the Oscars. "It's a big thing in Denmark. It's the biggest thing this year," director Nikolaj Arcel said. "It's the biggest thing that's happened to me in my career," added Arcel. "It probably hasn't sunk in yet." |
| Hollywood watchers blame Washington for 'Zero Dark Thirty' Oscar snub Posted: 10 Jan 2013 07:29 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kathryn Bigelow's snub by Academy Awards voters stunned her cast and awards pundits on Thursday, with some pointing the finger at Washington politicians for the Zero Dark Thirty director's omission from the best director Oscar shortlist. Bigelow (pic) was seen as the biggest casualty on Oscar nominations day after her controversial Osama bin Laden thriller won five nods, including best picture, but the director herself was cut out of the running for the industry's biggest honors. "Kathryn Bigelow was robbed," tweeted Megan Ellison, one of the movie's producers, after the nominations were announced. The movie about the decade-long U.S. hunt for bin Laden has come under fierce attack in Washington. A group of senators in December chided distributor Sony Pictures in a letter, calling the film "grossly inaccurate and misleading" for suggesting torture helped the United States capture bin Laden in May 2011. The Senate Intelligence Committee has also launched a review of CIA dealings with Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal. Hollywood watchers say the negative publicity affected the choices made by the Academy of Motion Pictures, whose 6,000 members are working professionals in the industry. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan blamed the snub for Bigelow on what he called Washington bullies. "Chalk up this year's (Oscar) nominations as a victory for the bullying power of the United States Senate and an undeserved loss for Zero Dark Thirty in general and director Kathryn Bigelow in particular," Turan wrote on Thursday. Noting that the film has been "almost universally acknowledged as formidable," Turan added that "three members of the Senate, a deliberative body not previously known for its cinematic acumen, decided to place their feet on the neck of this particular film." Bigelow, who won directing and best picture Oscars in 2010 for her Iraq war film The Hurt Locker, was silent on Thursday. But Boal, who got a screenplay nod, said pointedly that "none of us would be so honored today without the genius and remarkable talent of Kathryn Bigelow, and to her we are forever grateful." Bigelow and Boal have said repeatedly that their film shows a variety of intelligence methods that were used to find bin Laden, and have denied being leaked classified material. Jessica Chastain, who plays a determined young CIA agent credited with tracking down the al Qaeda leader to a house in Pakistan, called her best actress nomination "bittersweet." "I'm so excited, but I also feel the shock of Kathryn not being nominated," Chastain told entertainment industry website TheWrap.com. Hollywood awards pundits noted that Bigelow was nominated just two days ago for a Directors Guild award. Tom O'Neil of Goldderby.com told Reuters the controversy in Washington may have caused a backlash in Hollywood. But Pete Hammond, awards columnist for website Deadline.com, said the snub for Bigelow could bring a sympathy vote for the movie itself at the February 24 Oscars ceremony. "Despite the controversy, people may use the snub of Bigelow to make a bigger statement about artists having the right to make the movies they want to make without the interference of the government," Hammond told Reuters. Speaking at the Zero Dark Thirty premiere in Washington on Tuesday, Bigelow said she found the criticism on Capitol Hill "surprising, but I also respect their opinions and I think that unfortunately the film has been mischaracterized." Argo director Ben Affleck, Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) and Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) were also left off the director shortlist although their films were among the best picture nods. |
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