Thursday, March 25, 2010

Coffee is for closers

A memo from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Mamet (Heist) has shown up on the Internet this week that he wrote to the writing staff of his now-cancelled but entirely excellent TV show, The Unit. The memo is dated 2005, and rather explicitly (and with a fair amount of humour) describes how to write scenes and plot. It's a fantastic read - check it out here. Mamet's work is singular in its sparse use of exposition and its labyrinthine plotting, is is wholly awesome.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

A good sport

Each year, the Razzie Awards are handed out, recognizing the supposed worst performances and films of the year. Sandra Bullock has become the second actor ever to pick up her Razzie, for the film All About Steve, ironically shortly before she won an Oscar.

Her acceptance speech is pretty great - check it out here.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Dan's 2010 Oscar Predictions

Roger Ebert recently commented on how easy to predict many of the Oscar categories are this year, and I would tend to agree - a lot of these seem like a slam dunk. I still think Best Picture & Best Director could go either way, and I'm torn on Best Actor, but for now I'm putting my rep on the line with these calls:

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Mo'Nique, Precious
Animated Feature Film: Up
Art Direction: Avatar
Cinematography: Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds
Costume Design: Sandy Powell, The Young Victoria
Documentary Feature: The Cove
Film Editing: The Hurt Locker
Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon
Makeup: Star Trek
Original Score: Michael Giacchino, Up
Original Song: 'The Weary Kind' from Crazy Heart
Sound Editing: Avatar
Sound Mixing: Avatar
Visual Effects: Avatar
Adapted Screenplay: Up in the Air
Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker