My Oscar predictions: the 2011 Academy Awards

I've given my preferred ranking for the 10 Best Picture nominees, but I'm getting my prediction for the Oscars themselves in under the wire. I predict that The King's Speech will win 6-8 awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Screenplay (David Seidler) and yes, even Best Director (Tom Hooper). That will be a close race of course.

Many people believe that David Fincher's win at the BAFTA Awards meant that the momentum had swung his way. I don't believe that at all. There was no momentum swing. Rather, it's a very close race that was a coin-toss and still is. But I think that Tom Hooper's accomplishment is greater and the Academy will recognize that. It's hypocritical for critics to complain that the Academy doesn't always reward the best, yet they feel that Fincher is "owed" an Oscar for something even he doesn't consider to be his greatest work.

I see Inception taking three technical categories, and The Social Network taking Adapted Screenplay and Editing.

True Grit may get shut out entirely, but it should capture at least Cinematography and maybe Best Supporting Actress.

The rise of The King’s Speech and defriending of The Social Network

It’s been a month since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards at the end of January. In that time we’ve seen some interesting developments, the usual dirty campaign tricks, some shoddy journalism and just plain silliness.

The story of the 2011 Oscars goes back even further to the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival when The King's Speech won the Audience Award and immediately became the Oscar frontrunner.

But then The Social Network was released to rave reviews. Then it started winning all the critics' awards starting with the National Board of Review. That was soon followed with victories with the critics in Washington, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Toronto, Chicago, and on it went all the way up to the Golden Globe Awards. Critics everywhere were virtually unanimous in their coronation of The Social Network as the best film of 2010.

Around the same time that this avalanche started, Scott Feinberg reported on December 5, 2010 that an anonymous "Academy member" emailed him and told him that many presumably Jewish AMPAS members wouldn’t vote for The King’s Speech because its subject King George VI had Nazi sympathies and was anti-Semitic - not true, as screenwriter David Seidler (whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust) pointed out. This seemed like the kind of dirty negative campaigning for which Harvey Weinstein usually gets all the blame. But The King's Speech was his film, so it most certainly was not from his camp.

31st Annual Razzie Awards - "winners"

The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation hosted their ceremony for the 31st Annual Razzie Awards at Hollywood’s Barnsdall Gallery Theatre on Saturday night. As expected, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender won the main award for Worst Picture.

It also claimed four others -- Worst Supporting Actor for Jackson Rathbone, Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3-D, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay. The latter two were for Shyamalan himself. It had led the nominees along with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse with nine nominations total. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse had to content itself with sharing the Worst Supporting Actor award for Jackson Rathbone.

Sex and the City 2 was the other big Razzie winner. It was named Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel and its entire cast took the awards for Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple/Worst Screen Ensemble.

Ashton Kutcher received the award for Worst Actor for both Killers and Valentine’s Day. Jessica Alba was named Worst Supporting Actress for all four of her appearances in The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete, and Valentine’s Day.

26th Film Independent Spirit Awards - winners

Three months after announcing their nominees, Film Independent held their ceremony for the 26th Spirit Awards on the beach in Santa Monica. Black Swan dominated the evening by winning Best Feature, Best Director (Darren Aronofsky), Best Female Lead (Natalie Portman), and Best Cimenatography (Matthew Libatique). It won all four categories for which it was nominated.

Winter's Bone had led with seven nominations. It came away with two supporting acting awards for Dale Dickey and John Hawkes.

Oscars co-host James Franco won the award for Best Male Lead. He said, "Independent film is important to me, so this means a lot." He thanked Aaron Ralston for his "big big gift" and said "the crew, director and writer became my costars. It was a crazy crazy experience that I don't think I'll ever repeat."

Oscar front-runner The King's Speech won for Best Foreign Film. It was the only category for which it was eligible.

Nuit blanche à Montréal, tonight!

As part of the 12th Festival Montréal en lumière (Montreal Festival of Lights), tonight is the 8th Nuit blanche à Montréal. From 6pm to 6am, there will be nearly 200 event to enjoy. Most of them are free.

To help navigate the events, the city has grouped the activities into three quartiers and one pôle: Old Montréal and the Quays of the Old Port, Centre-ville (Downtown) and Quartier des spectacles, Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mile-End and the Pôle Maisonneuve.

"Nuit blanche" is a French term that literally means "white night" but is an idiom that means an all-nighter or "sleepless night." They were all-night cultural attractions that started in Europe, before Montreal and then Toronto also began hosting them. While Toronto's is always in the fall, Montreal's Nuit blanche always takes place in late February as the climactic event of the Festival Montréal en lumière.

14th Montreal International Children’s Film Festival (FIFEM), Feb 26-Mar 6

The Festival international du film pour enfants de Montréal (Montreal International Children’s Film Festival) or FIFEM holds its 14th edition from February 26th to March 6th, 2011 at Cinéma Beaubien.

FIFEM presents more than 60 films from twenty countries with 12 films in competition. The festival promotes films from around the world to a 2 to 12 year-old audience and their family members. The last edition brought together 15 000 parents, grandparents and children who enjoyed Award-winning films from the Netherlands, Norway, Israel, Sweden, Ireland, Indonesia, etc.

Today's opening night film is Vorstadtkrokodile 2 - Die coolste Bande is zuruck (The Crocodiles Strike Back), or en français Les Crocodiles sont de retour.

9th annual ACTRA Awards in Toronto - winners

The Toronto branch of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) has announced their winners for the 9th Annual ACTRA Awards at a gala ceremony at the Carlu. They honoured two late great actors with posthumous awards.

The late Maury Chaykin was declared winner of the ACTRA Award for Outstanding Performance – Male, for his role as the series lead as Sam Blecher on Less than Kind. He passed award in July on his 61st birthday after a lengthy struggle with kidney disease. His wife Susannah Hoffmann accepted the award on his behalf.

The late Tracy Wright the award for ACTRA Award for Outstanding Performance – Female with her co-star Molly Parker for their work on the Bruce McDonald film Trigger. It was her last film role before passing from pancreatic cancer at the age of 50. Her husband, writer/director/actor Don McKellar accepted the award on her behalf. 

Sean Cullen won the ACTRA Award for Outstanding Performance – Voice for his work in the animated childrens' show Jimmy Two-Shoes as the evil Lucius.

2011 Africa Movie Academy Awards - nominations

The African Film Academy has announced the nominees for their 2011 Africa Movie Academy Awards. Congo's Viva Riva leads the pack with twelve nominations, including Best Film, Best Director (Djo Tunda Wa Munga), and the four main acting categories.

Next with nine nominations was Ghana's Sinking Sands. It recently won four awards at the inaugural Ghana Movie Awards, including Best Picture. Its nominations includ Best Film, Best Director (Leila Djansi), Best Actor (Jimmy Jean-Louis) and Best Actress (Amake Abebrese).

The other Best Film nominees were Hopeville (eight nominations), Aramotu (seven nominations), A Small Town Called Descent (six nominations) and Soul Boy (five nominations).

36th annual César du cinéma (César Awards) - winners

France's Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma held its ceremony for the 36th annual César du cinéma (César Awards) tonight at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris. The big winner of the night was Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men) by Xavier Beauvois, which took Best Film. It also captured Best Supporting Actor for Michael Lonsdale, and Best Cinematography. Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men) had led with eleven nominations.

But the French co-production The Ghost Writer took more awards with a total of four. It won Best Director for Roman Polanski, Best Adapted Screenplay (Polanski and Robert Harris), Best Original Score and Best Editing. Polanski was on hand to accept his awards and said, "I'm not used to making speeches but since this film was finished, I would like to thank all those without whom it could not happen, everyone who supported me, my wife and my daughter, my associates and all my other friends."

Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg (vie héroïque) won for Best Actor (Eric Elmosnino), Best Sound and Best First Feature. Le Nom des gens (The Names of Love) was also a multiple winner with Best Actress (Sarah Forestier) and Best Original Screenplay (Michel Leclerc, Baya Kasmi).

Hungarian Film Week February 25 - March 3

Starting today in Montreal, the Cinéma du Parc will host a week of screenings of Hungarian films. The opening and closing night film will be Szabolcs Hajdu's Bibliotheque Pascal, which was Hungary's submission to the Academy Awards for consideration for Best Foreign Language Film.

The films will be in English or in Hungarian with English subtitles. 

Many of the films are award-winners. The program includes films made by Canadian-Hungarian directors and there will also be an exhibition of photography by Gabor Szilasi, Kamera Hungarica.

The Cinéma du Parc is located at 3575 av. du Parc, 514 281-1900.

2011 International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) Awards - winners

The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) has announced the winners of its 2011 IFMCA Awards. John Powell's score for How to Train Your Dragon captured the top prize for Film Score of the Year. It also won  Best Original Score for an Animated Feature.

Composer Alexandre Desplat had led with 7 nominations for both The King's Speech and The Ghost Writer. He won three awards for Film Composer of the Year, Best Original Score for a Drama Film (The King's Speech) and Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film (The Ghost Writer).

Desplat's score for The King's Speech came under criticism by some for utilizing work by Beethoven and Mozart. This criticism was uninformed, as it didn't appreciate that it was intentional, smart and how well it was integrated into the film. Ironically, most of this criticism came from fans of The Social Network (whose score was not nominated) and they gave that film a pass for using work by Edvard Grieg, among others.

2011 Jameson Empire Awards - nominations

The comic adaptation Kick-Ass leads the field with six nominations over Oscar front-runner The King’s Speech in nominations for the 2011 Jameson Empire Awards. Kick-Ass was nominated for Best Film, Best British Film, Best Sci-Fi Fantasy, Best Actor (Aaron Johnson), Best Director (Matthew Vaughan) and Best Newcomer (Chloe Moretz).

The King's Speech was next with five nominations, for Best Film, British Film, Director (Tom Hooper) and Acting nominations for Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. Next was Inception with four nominations, and The Social Network and 127 Hours with three each.

Inception and The Social Network were nominees for Best Film with Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. The other three nominees for Best British Film with the two leaders were 127 Hours, Four Lions and Monsters.

Empire is Britain's best-selling film magazine, and their awards are voted for entirely by the British filmgoing public. Last year's big winner was Avatar, which took three awards including Best Film.

37th Annual Saturn Awards for genre films - nominations

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films has announced their nominations for the 37th Annual Saturn Awards. Christopher Nolan‘s Inception led with nine nominations, including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and both Best Writer and Director (Christopher Nolan).

Let Me In and Tron: Legacy were next with seven nominations each. Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter received six nominations. Alice in Wonderland, Black Swan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Never Let Me Go and Shutter Island each took five nominations.

The Saturn Awards are given annually to genre films. They have four separate Best Film categories: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Fantasy Film, Best Horror/Thriller Film, and Best Action/Adventure Film.

In the television section, The Walking Dead led with 6 nominations, while Breaking Bad, Fringe, and Lost followed closely with 5 each.

Reel Artists Film Festival 2011, Feb 23-27

The Canadian Art Foundation kicks off the 8th edition of the Reel Artists Film Festival tonight in Toronto with its selection of 17 documentaries on top contemporary art and artists. Tonight's gala screening is the world premiere of KOOP, Katherine Knight's portrait of Wanda Koop.

It takes place at Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory. The director and artist will be present and will participate in a Q&A after the screening with Jane Perdue, critic and urban planner. The evening also includes a pre-screening reception and an opening night celebration.

The rest of the screenings will take place at the festival's new home, the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Reitman Square, 350 King Street West. Two other films will be having their world premieres -- Nam June Paik: Open Your Eyes and Picture Start.

Many of the filmmakers and featured artists will be in attendance, including for the films Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawings, Aakideh: The Art & Legacy of Carl Beam, Ghost Noise and Picture Start.

2011 Gracie Awards for women in media - winners

The Alliance for Women in Media has announced the winners of the 36th Annual Grace Awards, given each year to outstanding women in the broadcast industry. The awards are named in honour of radio and television star Gracie Allen, of the famed comedy act Burns and Allen with her husband George Burns.

Winners include actress Claire Danes for her role in Temple Grandin, as well as Betty White for Hot in Cleveland, Piper Perabo for Covert Affairs, and Rosie Perez for In Plain Sight.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) won a number of prizes. CBC Radio One won for Outstanding Talk Show-News with the program The Current: Egg Freezing/Older Parents. CBC Television won for Outstanding Documentary (Africa on the Move: A Woman's World), Outstanding Investigative Program or Feature (The Fifth Estate: Behind the Wall), Outstanding Talk Show - Entertainment/Information (The Mean Girl), and Outstanding Host-News/Non-Fiction (Alison Smith).