In this morning’s roundup of Oscar news ‘n’ notes from around the web, there’s (potential) gold out there where nobody’s looking.
Turning away from the usual suspects for a moment, Peter Knegt looks into the margins to find 10 actors who aren’t being talked about as Oscar contenders, but who he thinks should be. There’s a little bit of cheating going on here, though: he includes Edgar Ramirez for “Carlos,” the monumental but thoroughly ineligible five-and-a-half hour French miniseries about the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. Others on his list include Jonah Hill for “Cyrus” (“takes the audience on a squirm-filled ride of comic horror”), John Hawkes (left) in “Winter’s Bone” (absolutely, I’d say), Ryan Gosling in “Blue Valentine” (isn’t he in the conversation already?) and Jim Broadbent and Peter Wright in “Another Year” – who, he points out, are facing an uphill battle because “no male has ever managed a nomination for a [Mike] Leigh film.” (indieWIRE)
Treading through similar territory, Jeff Wells is not particularly enamored of “Made in Dagenham” or “Barney’s Version,” but he’s spotted an Oscar contender in both movies – and it’s the same actress, Rosamund Pike, who he says “easily gives the most arresting performance in both, and has earned full consideration for Best Supporting Actress honors as a result.” And he calls upon people to realize that he’s right, and to “do and say something about that.” Okay, Jeff: I’ll happily testify that Pike is wonderful in “Barney’s Version,” though I can’t vouch for “Dagenham” until I see it later this week. (Hollywood Elsewhere)
Maureen Dowd, Oscar blogger? A couple of days ago, she considered “The Social Network” through the lens of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” – and now she’s taking a look at “Fair Game,” Doug Liman’s upcoming film about the Bush administration’s outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Of course, hers isn’t a straight movie review, but an essay about the “short-term memory loss” affecting the political landscape, and how it’s important that the film serve as “a vivid reminder of one of the most egregious abuses of power in history.” Plus she likes the “deliciously diabolical turns” by the actors who play Scooter Libby, David Addington and Karl Rove. Need I even add that your view of Dowd’s piece will depend entirely on your politics? (The New York Times)
Is Clint Eastwood going to be in the Oscar race again this year with “Hereafter?” Maybe, maybe not. I bet it doesn’t matter much to Anthony Breznican, at least not after the 80-year-old icon drove him around the Warner Bros. studio lot in a golf cart, pointing out the sights and rummaging through closets to pull out stuff like the battered poncho he wore in “A Fistful of Dollars.” (USA Today)
Kris Tapley compares the Academy’s documentary-short shortlist of eight films with the doc-short list of 11 finalists for the Cinema Eye Honors, and finds only one film on both lists: “Born Sweet,” Cynthia Wade’s chronicle of a boy growing up in rural Cambodia, where arsenic has poisoned the water supply. “Interesting,” he says. And probably irrelevant as well, to be honest. (In Contention)
