"The Social Network" takes Kansas City, and Meryl Streep will win an Oscar … in two years.
Another critics group, this one made up of about two dozen journalists from Kansas City. Colin Firth and Natalie Portman won the lead acting awards, Christian Bale and Hailee Steinfeld the supporting prizes, "Toy Story 3" got Best Animated Film, and "Inception" won for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror Film. And let’s see, what else did they hand out at what they call the Loutzenhiser Awards? Oh yeah, Best Film. Well, you probably know the winner there: "The Social Network." (Kansas City Film Critics Circle)
Stop me if you've heard this one before: the Academy is thinking about moving the Oscars from late February into January. AMPAS admitted as much months ago, and then said it would not make the move for the next two Oscar shows – but that doesn't stop Michael Cieply from trotting out another look at the pros and cons of moving the show in 2013. The Academy has nothing new to say about it, of course, but Cieply gets former show producer Bill Mechanic and producer Tom Pollock to go on record saying they approve of a move, and a few others (including a publicist and a studio exec) saying they don't. Stay tuned, because this story will come back around again lots more times. (The New York Times)
Tariq Khan has a theory that Oscar voters don't respond to films about "young folks," including college students. To prove his point, he lists 10 times when the movie about youngsters lost to a movie about older folks. But his examples are either so utterly beside-the-point (what on earth could "Boys Town" losing to "You Can't Take It With You" in 1938 have to do with this year's race?) or misguided ("No Country for Old Men" and "Unforgiven" were quite simply better movies than "Juno" and "Scent of a Woman," regardless of the age of their casts) that it's hard to take his argument seriously. Unless you think that the same state-of-mind that gave "Patton" a victory over "Love Story" 40 years ago is going to somehow mean "The King's Speech" or "The Fighter" will beat "The Social Network." (Gold Derby)
Are you sick of pundits predicting who's going to win Academy Awards in a couple of months? Well, here's a change of pace: according to Jeff Wells, Meryl Streep is going to win the Best Actress Oscar … in 2013. (Hey, maybe that'll be January, 2013!) This is sure to happen, he says, unless John Wells' film of Tracy Letts' award-winning play "August: Osage County" is finished in time for a 2011 release, in which case he says she'll win in 2012. For the record, this is a movie that will not begin shooting for at least four months. Streep hasn't done a thing yet, but you heard it from Wells first: the Academy will have "almost no choice" but to give her the Oscar. That sound you hear is every other actress with dreams of Oscar glory calling her agents to get release dates rearranged to avoid Meryl's apparent fait accompli. (Hollywood Elsewhere)
