Photo via Flickr/Donna Grayson
The New York Times is offering an interactive Oscar ballot online. You can vote for your picks and compete against friends in your own Oscar pool!
Get the laptops ready and invite friends over for an Oscar party. Allrecipes.com is offerin ideas for Oscar movie menus.
James Earl Jones, born in rural Mississippi, will be honored with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Lifetime Achievement Award during the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (simulcast live one TNT and TBS at 7 p.m. today).
Jones, who turned 78 last week, recently talked to Frazier Moore of the Associated Press about the larger truths of acting. "What fascinates me is that ever actor is given a charge, a task," he said. "No matter what your motive was in taking the role, even if it's just to pay the bills. You're the only person who will be able to present to an audience what the character is all about! You're the public face of all the other work that's gone into it. Your job is to create a performance that no one else would have thought of." Jones adds, "And that is fun."
The International Animated Film Society announced nominations recently for its 36th Annual Annie Awards recognizing the year's best animated features, television productions, commercials, video games and short subjects. DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda leads the field with 17 nominations out of 27 overall for the studio, including Best Animated Feature, and individual nominations for character animation, character design, directing, music, production design, storyboarding, voice acting and writing. Walt Disney Animation Studios and its Best Animated Feature Bolt received 9 nominations and Pixar Animation Studios and its Best Animated Feature Wall-E received 8 nominations.
Winners will be announced at the 36th Annual Annie Awards ceremony on January 30, 2009, at UCLA's Royce Hall, in Los Angeles, CA. For a complete listing of Annie Award nominations, visit www.annieawards.org.
David Carr returns with The New York Times's crack movie team to report on all things Oscar with daily posts on The Carpetbagger and a new video segment, Daily Baggage. Carr is a culture reporter and media columnist at the Times. And this year, two of the Times’s film industry reporters will be joining the coverage – Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes – in addition to contributions from Paula Schwartz and Rebecca Cathcart.
Ballast, a Mississippi movie, tops the nominee list
IFP announced on OCt. 20 the nominees for the 18th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards which will take place on Tuesday, December 2, at New York City's Cipriani Wall Street. It also announced the new name for the awards- the Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Garnering four separate nominations - the most for this year - is Ballast, Lance Hammer's directorial debut. It was nominated for Best Feature, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor and Best Ensemble Performance.
Six films received two nominations, including Antonio Campos' directorial debut from Cannes Afterschool; Courtney Hunt's Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Frozen River; Jonathan Demme's current release Rachel Getting Married; Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut from Cannes Synecdoche, New York; Woody Allen's latest Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Tom McCarthy's sophomore effort, The Visitor.
A total of 22 films received nominations in six categories: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Best Ensemble Performance, and Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You.
Selecting this year's nominees were 18 critics, journalists, and film programmers. Final award recipients will be determined by separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, casting directors, composers and others directly involved in making films. The recipient of The Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award will be determined by the editors of Filmmaker Magazine, a publication of IFP, and a curator from The Museum of Modern Art.
The 18th Annual Gotham Independent Film Award™ nominees are:
Best Feature
Ballast
Lance Hammer, director; Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh, producers (Alluvial Film Company)
Frozen River
Courtney Hunt, director; Heather Rae, Chip Hourihan, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)
Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman, director; Anthony Bregman, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Sidney Kimmel, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)
The Visitor
Tom McCarthy, director; Mary Jane Skalski, Michael London, producers (Overture Films)
The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky, director; Scott Franklin, Darren Aronofsky, producers (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Best Documentary
Chris & Don: A Love Story
Guido Santi & Tina Mascara, directors; Julia Scott, Tina Mascara, Guido Santi, James White, producers (Zeitgeist Films)
Encounters at the End of the World
Werner Herzog, director; Henry Kaiser, producer (THINKFilm / Image Entertainment)
Man on Wire
James Marsh, director; Simon Chinn, producer (Magnolia Pictures)
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Marina Zenovich, director; Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Lila Yacoub, Marina Zenovich, producers (THINKFilm in association with HBO Documentaries)
Trouble the Water
Tia Lessin & Carl Deal, producers/directors (Zeitgeist Films)
Best Ensemble Performance
Ballast
Micheal J. Smith, Sr., JimMyron Ross, Tarra Riggs, Johnny McPhail (Alluvial Film Company)
Rachel Getting Married
Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, Mather Zickel, Anna Deavere Smith, Anisa George, Debra Winger (Sony Pictures Classics)
Synecdoche, New York
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Tom Noonan (Sony Pictures Classics)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz (The Weinstein Company)
The Visitor
Richard Jenkins, Hiam Abbas, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira (Overture Films)
Breakthrough Director
Antonio Campos for Afterschool
Dennis Dortch for A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy (Magnolia Pictures)
Lance Hammer for Ballast (Alluvial Film Company)
Barry Jenkins for Medicine for Melancholy (IFC Films)
Alex Rivera for Sleep Dealer (Maya Releasing)
Breakthrough Actor
Pedro Castaneda in August Evening (Maya Releasing)
Rosemarie DeWitt in Rachel Getting Married (Sony Pictures Classics)
Rebecca Hall in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (The Weinstein Company)
Melissa Leo in Frozen River (Sony Pictures Classics)
Alejandro Polanco in Chop Shop (Koch Lorber Films)
Micheal J. Smith, Sr. in Ballast (Alluvial Film Company)
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You™
Afterschool
Antonio Campos, director; Josh Mond, Sean Durkin, producers
Meadowlark
Taylor Greeson, producer/director
The New Year Parade
Tom Quinn, director; Steve Beal, Tom Quinn, producers
Sita Sings the Blues
Nina Paley, producer/director
Wellness
Jake Mahaffy, director; Jake Mahaffy, Jeff Clark, producers
