Some interesting notes: True Grit didn’t get a single award despite ten (10!) nominations; Christopher Nolan didn’t receive any awards despite Inception being entirely original and praised for its design, winning 4 other awards no less; Anne Hathaway, poking fun at the Academy’s attempt at appealing to a younger demographic is the presentation’s youngest host ever at 28 and last but not least, 8-time Oscars host Billy Crystal made a friendly and fun appearance making some wish he was back to host ag
We meet the family, consisting of Marla, a younger brother and her parents. The first half of the documentary tells the story of what led up to the discovery of Marla’s paintings (first displayed at a local coffee shop just for fun) and the ensuing fame and eventual media blitz. The Olmstead’s introduction to the world came through a local newspaper reporter who comes across as extremely ethical on both the journalism side of things as well as the human side. Before writing her initial story about Marla and her paintings, she asked the Olmsteads very clearly whether they really wanted her to write the story, because although there was a positive side to the publicity there could also be some negative consequences down the r
For much of the evening, Michael Hazanavicius’ black-and-white silent film homage, The Artist , swept the Golden Globes in the comedy category, coming out on top overall with three wins for Best Original Score, Best Actor and Best Picture. Over on the drama side, Alexander Payne’s The Descendants t ook home the most awards in the drama category with a Best Actor win for George Clooney and Best Pict
The Academy Awards telecast, seen by most as Hollywood’s biggest night, has been enjoying slight upticks in the ratings over the past couple of years. Whether that is due to the producers’ choices of popular hosts (Seth MacFarlane and Ellen DeGeneres) or the nominated films posting very healthy box office numbers is up for debate. What matters to the Academy is that people were tuning in to their s
Jakes Gyllenhaal said it best this evening, pointing out that it would be the shorts that make or break our Oscar Pools. I am usually able to get half of them right by watching them and https://moviefestivalhub.com/ picking favorites but this year I got them all wrong. Amongst the big categories there were few surprises though, outside of Tom Hooper ( The King’s Speech ) beating out David Fincher ( The Social Network ) for achievement in directing. But hey, Chris Nolan wasn’t even nominated for Inception so without further
This was good stuff and is destined I think to be a cult film favorite. The combination of story, writing, action and gore really worked, and with the romance it even makes you care about the characters. Always a bonus in a movie of this type and one that makes the difference between a movie that quickly disappears and one that endures for ye
There was a short film before the main feature called Little Farm which was shot in only 48 hours. Given that constraint it wasn’t bad, except for the fact the two of the three main characters gave pretty close to the worst performances I’ve ever seen on screen. Aside from that, although it was pretty strange, in the end it delivered some pretty good scares. I actually had a woman sitting next to me ask if that was the main feature.
At the time of the documentary was shot, the Olmsteads had sold more than $300,000 worth of Marla’s paintings. Those in the art world compared her work to Kandinsky, Pollock and even Picasso. Due to her extremely young age, her work captured the imagination of the world. Art openings, limousines, and television appearances became part of the family’s routine. Then, thanks to a 60 Minutes segment which aired and cast doubt on the authenticity of Marla’s work, and the Olmsteads’ world changed in an inst
Several indie and lesser-known critical-darlings received little-to-no love from the Hollywood Foreign Press, including titles like The Tree of Life , Warrior , Drive , Martha Marcy May Marlene , and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . Similarly, there were more than a few surprising snubs (no Best Director nod for David Fincher on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ? No Winnie the Pooh for Best Animated Feature?) and certain films fared far better than anticipated (namely, The Ides of March ). However, there were also more than a few no-brainers (ex. Meryl Streep being nominated for The Iron Lady ) and some rather unexpected choices (ex. Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Lov
My Kid Could Paint That was the last film I saw at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and is a fascinating look at the story of four year old Marla Olmstead, who a couple of years ago took the art world by storm by rocketing from lower middle class obscurity to international fame through the sale of her paintings. This documentary by director Amir Bar-Lev is extremely well done and is about as close to neutral as I think one could