Quebec director gets two Oscar nods
TORONTO -- Quebec director Denys Arcand has two Academy Award nominations for The Barbarian Invasions.
As expected his sub-titled film made the cut Tuesday in the best foreign-film category when the contenders for the 76th annual Oscar race were announced in Los Angeles. The surprise, even for Arcand however, was his inclusion in the best original screenplay competition.
"It's not something that happens very often, that you cross over into the general categories if you're a foreign filmmaker," he said from Los Angeles.
"Exceptional people have done it but it doesn't happen every day."
This makes Arcand's third foreign-film nomination. The Decline of the American Empire, his 1986 predecessor to Barbarian Invasions, was named as was 1989's Jesus of Montreal.
"Who knows?" Arcand replied when asked if this might mean three times lucky.
"This is so unpredictable."
Atom Egoyan earned two nominations for the 1997 Academy Awards, best directing and best screenplay for The Sweet Hereafter.
Barbarian Invasions looks at an aging, cranky Montreal intellectual (Remy Girard) who is dying of cancer and whose friends and family gather around for an emotional but joyous sendoff. Arcand also won a best screenplay prize at last spring's Cannes film festival while Marie-Jozee Croze won for best actress for her performance as a sympathetic junkie.
Arcand said he was feeling truly happy Tuesday morning.
"It's wonderful also for Canada. . .it gives recognition in your own country which is maybe the most important thing. Because you know Canadians always have their eyes turned towards Hollywood, so when you make it there, it gives you a certain aura in your own country which we need, we Canadian filmmakers."
Barbarian Invasions was also named best Canadian feature at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. But on Sunday night, it lost to Osama, an Afghan film, in the Golden Globes foreign film category. Arcand said he was surprised that Osama, which was also at Cannes, didn't make the Oscar cut. He said he hasn't seen any of the foreign films against which he's competing for the Oscar, Evil (Sweden), The Twilight Samurai (Japan), Twin Sisters (The Netherlands) and Zelary (Czech Republic).
"I've heard vaguely of these films but I've never seen them in any festival this year, and so they are really all coming in from left field. So I have no idea."
Arcand said he's not sure what the nominations mean for his film because it is near the end of its theatrical run. "It's the last kick down so to speak. It gives you a little boost at the end."
Arcand said the foreign film nominations are selected by a committee of some 60 Academy members. The winner is voted on by any eligible member who can prove he has seen all five contenders. He said that although he doesn't have the final word on the matter, there will be no dubbed version.
He said that when he goes to the Oscars next month, accompanied by his wife and producer, he plans to wear the same tuxedo he bought 19 years ago.
"It's always the same. It's perfect."
Awards that Deny Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions has won or been nominated for to date:
-- Marie Josee Croze, Best actress, Cannes.
--Best screenplay, Cannes.
--City Award for best Canadian feature film, Toronto International Film Festival.
--AGF People's Choice Award, Calgary Film Festival.
--Best non-European film nomination, European Film Academy.
--Best foreign film , The National Board of Review.
--One of top 10 films 2003 (6), New York Film Critics Online Awards.
--Canada's top 10 2003, Toronto International Film Festival.
--Best foreign language film, 2003 Broadcast Film Critics Association.
--Best screenplay (tie), Toronto Film Critics Association.
--Best foreign language film nomination, Golden Globes (didn't win), Academy Awards.
--Original screenplay nomination -- Denys Arcand, British Academy BAFTA, Academy Awards.
No Sushi at the Governor's Ball, 'Finding Nemo' Directors Ask
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - They guys who co-directed "Finding Nemo" got two phone calls with good news Tuesday morning.
First, that their Disney/Pixar blockbuster has become the first animated feature to pass the half billion mark, and second that their movie has four Academy Award nominations.
"We're just hoping they don't serve fish at the Governor's Ball," laughs Lee Unkrich, co-director of the animated film which has already been declared the most money-making feature 'toon in history and last year's biggest hit.
"We always believed we had a special story on our hands, but we certainly never dared to dream it would reach such heights," Unkrich says in a phone interview with Zap2it.com. "Receiving this Oscar nomination is the icing on the cake of an incredible year."
The story of the lost little clownfish who is being searched for by his dad (voiced by Albert Brooks) and a forgetful fish named Dory (voiced by Ellen Degeneres), has a best original screenplay nomination as well as best sound editing, best musical score and best animated feature.
The film boasts $504.7 million worldwide and is the first animated feature to ever pass the $500 million mark overseas. It is fast approaching "Independence Day," the No. 8 placeholder.
Pixar is responsible for other CGI-animated films "Toy Story" and "Monsters, Inc."
"Years ago we took a conscious risk to make a different kind of film than we had before - something very emotional, with less humor, more character, and extremely personal, all the while worrying that these ingredients might shrink our audience. To see 'Finding Nemo' do the exact opposite, and then end up with several Oscar nominations is beyond belief and oh so rewarding," says co-director Andrew Stanton. "Drinks are on me tonight."
On Sunday, Feb. 29, "Nemo" competes with fellow toons "The Triplets for Belleville" and "Brother Bear" for the best animated film Oscar.
Oscar Nominations Spawn Fun Facts
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - It could be the fact that the Oscars are earlier than ever, or an after effect of the slimming down of the voting pool, but one thing is certain: this year's Oscar nominees are very different than in previous years. Sure, the best picture winners are almost all studio films -- but just take a look at the acting and screenplay categories and you'll find plenty of films that many Americans probably haven't yet had a chance to see -- or in some cases, even heard of yet.
That films as small as "Monster," "Pieces of April" and "City of God" received nominations, along with the fact that -- for the first time ever -- an American female director received a nomination was enough to have Roger Ebert blurt out to NPR, "It's almost as if [Oscar voters] actually knew what they're were doing for a change."
Here's a few interesting facts and the nominees this year:
New Line's "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" earned more nominations than any other film with 11 nods, following closely by Fox's "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World." Interestingly enough, neither film earned any acting nominations.
"Master & Commander" may have beaten "Return of the King" if it had not been ineligible in the best score and best song categories. Director Peter Weir intentionally chose classic musical pieces from the time period to work into the story, thus making the score and the song not "original."
"Master & Commander's" 10 nods is the most Oscar nods Fox has received for one film since "Titanic," which received 13 nominations.
Sofia Coppola is the first American woman to ever be nominated in the best director category -- and only the third women overall. The other nominated female directors are Lina Wentmuller (Italy) for 1976's "Seven Beauties" and Jane Campion (New Zealand) for "The Piano" (1990).
If Sofia Coppola wins in any of the three categories for which she is nominated (best film, best director, best original screenplay), it would make the Coppola family (Carmine, Francis Ford and Sofia) the second three-generation Oscar-winning family. The first were the Hustons (Walter, John and Anjelica).
Diane Keaton has now received one acting nomination in each of four successive decades.
At 13-year-old, Keisha Castle-Hughes is the youngest best actress nominee to date, passing Isabelle Adjani, who was 20 when she got her nod for "The Story of Adele H." However, younger actors have received nominations in the three other acting categories: Jackie Cooper was nominated for best actor for "Skippy" (1930) at the age of 9; Justin Henry was 8-years-old when he received a best supporting actor nod for "Kramer Vs. Kramer" (1979)and Haley Joel Osment was 11 when he was nominated for "The Sixth Sense"; Tatum O'Neal was 10 when she was named one of the contenders for best supporting actress for "Paper Moon" (1973), while Anna Paquin was 11 when she won best supporting actress for "The Piano."
Renee Zellweger is the only one of the 20 acting nominations to have been nominated last year. However, five of the acting nominees are previous Oscar-winners.
"City of God" is the first film to benefit from a 1999 rule change that allows pictures entered in the foreign language category in a given year, and not nominated, to compete in other categories the succeeding year if they have their first U.S. release in that year.
Miramax's run of best-picture contenders stops with Cold Mountain snub
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Miramax, the master of Academy Awards campaigning, is sitting out the top Oscar race this time after Cold Mountain was snubbed Tuesday, ending the company's 11-year streak of fielding at least one best-picture candidate.
In the 1990s, Disney-owned Miramax pioneered the modern marketing blitz that has become the norm for studios seeking awards attention on their films. Miramax's campaign machine has helped produce such best-picture winners as The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love and Chicago, along with other Oscar successes that include Good Will Hunting, Life Is Beautiful and The Cider House Rules.
This time, Miramax was unable to sway voters in favour of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain, directed by Anthony Minghella, the filmmaker behind The English Patient.
Cold Mountain did earn seven Oscar nominations, among them best actor for Jude Law and supporting actress for Renee Zellweger. But despite solid results in earlier Hollywood honours, the film lost out on nominations for best picture, lead actress for Nicole Kidman and screenplay and directing for Minghella.
Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein said Cold Mountain was hurt by this year's shorter Oscar season. The ceremony was moved up three weeks to Feb. 29, and Cold Mountain was the last major contender to hit theatres on Dec. 25, leaving less time for Oscar voters to see it, he said.
"If I had to do it all over again, I'd have opened it in November. It wasn't ready then, but that's what you would do," Weinstein said. "I don't want to take anything away from the films that were nominated. And seven nominations is not so bad."
The company did score multiple nominations for two other films, the stark Brazilian drug-crime drama City of God and the Canadian tale The Barbarian Invasions, a French-language reunion story centring on a dying man.
City of God was a surprise choice for best director (Fernando Meirelles) and earned three other nominations, for adapted screenplay, cinematography and film editing.
The Barbarian Invasions received two nominations, for foreign-language film and original screenplay by its director, Quebecer Denys Arcand.
City of God had been Brazil's entry for foreign-language film a year ago, but when it missed out on a nomination in that category, it became eligible under academy rules for other awards this time around.
Weinstein held off on the film's video release and kept it in theatres for the past year, hoping to build awards buzz.
"Harvey has been very supportive with City of God from the first time he saw the film," Meirelles said. "It's not a big film, so it's not about making money. He really likes the film."
Weinstein said his campaign for City of God shows up critics who say Miramax has grown to put money before art.
In the new book Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film, author Peter Biskind takes Weinstein and his brother, Bob, to task for the company's metamorphosis from artsy niche distributor to big-budget operation.
"People say to me we've lost our focus on the small movies," Weinstein said. "This shoots that down."
Coppola Makes History with Oscar Nomination
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Lost in Translation" director Sofia Coppola found her way into Oscar's history books on Tuesday.
The filmmaker received an Academy Award nomination for best director, making her the first American woman to be so honored. Only two other women have competed in the category: Italy's Lina Wertmuller, nominated in 1976 for directing "Seven Beauties," and New Zealander Jane Campion, nominated in 1993 for "The Piano."
Coppola -- who also received a best original screenplay for "Translation," which is up for best picture -- was still trying to process the historic accomplishment Tuesday morning over champagne.
"I'm kind of in a daze," Coppola said. "It's been a really exciting morning, and it hasn't hit me yet -- this morning was surreal. It is so hard to believe that there have been so few (female directors nominated). I'm happy to be a part of things changing."
Coppola's fellow nominees in the directing category include Fernando Meirelles for "City of God," Peter Jackson for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," Peter Weir for "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" and Clint Eastwood for "Mystic River." Eastwood and Coppola are the oly Americans.
The Oscar nominations cap an impressive award season run for Coppola, daughter of Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. She has already received a DGA nomination for best director, a WGA nomination for original screenplay, three nominations for the IFP Independent Spirit Awards (feature, director and screenplay) and numerous critics' prizes.
The film, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in the tale of two foreigners who form a platonic relationship while visiting Tokyo, also won three prizes at Sunday's Golden Globes: best comedy/musical, screenplay and comedic actor for Murray.
"She's beyond thrilled with her place in history and I think she is very moved by it," said Ross Katz, who produced "Lost in Translation" with Coppola. "I watched her face this morning and she had the biggest smile I had ever seen. She's so honored. Not to mention too that we're both very aware, and she's very aware, of the company that she's in."
While Coppola admires the male nominees in her category, they all had something she didn't: big budgets. "My friends joked that the budget of our movie was like the craft service of these other movies," mused the filmmaker, who made her directorial debut with 1999's "The Virgin Suicides." "It's pretty cool that a low-budget movie is in there with these epics. I never thought when we were running around Tokyo camped out in karaoke booths that we would be going to the Academy Awards."
She may have doubted the prospects for "Translation," but those around her never did.
The nominations are "a testament to the fact that it's her movie," Focus co-president David Linde said. "It was her idea, her gumption to go to Japan. It's very much who she is and what she is."
Added Katz: "She's an incredibly meticulous artist. She doesn't really ever talk about her work and she doesn't say 'I'm good at this,' she just quietly plots along and dreams up these scenarios and makes them real."
Now that her place in history is real, Focus co-president James Schamus said his company and Coppola's team are ready to shoulder the burden that comes with it. "Making history is one thing and being it is another," Schamus said. "She needn't carry the entire burden, she gets to be it. The rest of us should shoulder it, so she can enjoy it."