THE AWARDS EDITION 2011-2012

THE AWARDS EDITION 2011-2012

The Awards Edition 2011-2012Issue 01Editorial TeamDEADLINE CONTRIBUTORNikki FinkeDEADLINE AWARDS COLUMNIST & CONTRIBUTORPete HammondDEADLINE FILM EDITOR & CONTRIBUTORMike FlemingDEADLINE TV EDITOR & CONTRIBUTORNellie AndreevaDEADLINE EXECUTIVE EDITOR & CONTRIBUTORDavid LiebermanDEADLINE MANAGING EDITORPatrick HipesAWARDS|LINE MANAGING EDITOR & CONTRIBUTORAnthony D’AlessandroAWARDS|LINE CONTRIBUTORSTim AdlerSharon BernsteinMonica CorcoranJoe DonnellyDiane HaithmanAri KarpelCari LynnCraig ModdernoRay RichmondScott TimbergDesign, Production, & MarketingDEADLINE MARKETING CONSULTANTMadelyn HammondSR. DIRECTOR, MARKETINGMica CampbellSR. DIRECTOR, ADVERTISING OPERATIONSCham KimADVERTISING OPERATIONS COORDINATORDavid LetchworthDESIGN & ART DIRECTION | VERSION-X DESIGNKeith KnopfJason CampbellFOUNDER, CHAIRMAN & CEOJay PenskePRESIDENTAlyson RacerEXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENTPaul WoolnoughV.P. PARTNERSHIPS & PRODUCTCraig Perreault02 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01V.P. STRATEGYWill LeeV.P. ENTERTAINMENT SALESNic PaulV.P. CONSUMER SALESIva CampisanoSR. ENTERTAINMENT SALES DIRECTORCathy GoepfertCONSUMER SALES DIRECTORErica NortonDebbie GoldbergENTERTAINMENT SALES MANAGERBeau LeMireADVERTISING INQUIRIESNic Paul310.484.2517 / npaul@pmc.comIS THE PARENT COMPANY AND OWNER OF:

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Award SeasonOverview: BattleRoyal Between theMajors & the IndiesBy PeteHammondCOURTESY OF DEADLINEwarriorWith awards season kicking into gear we are set for another David vs. Goliathbattle between the majors and the indies, with each side coming prepared withformidable weapons in their respective arsenals.Recently, the majors have been upstaged in the final voteby upstart indies. Last year, The Weinstein Co.’s The King’sSpeech rode a victory at the Producers Guild Awards all theway to a best pic Oscar © over The Social Network (Sony), TheFighter, True Grit (Paramount) and Toy Story 3 (Disney). In2009, Summit’s little-war-film-that-could, The Hurt Locker,had the smallest gross ($17 million domestic) of any bestpicture winner ever but still ran over 20th Century Fox’sAvatar, the most successful film of all time ($2.78 billionworldwide). The Academy has now tweaked the recent ruleof 10 nominees, which helped the majors land best pic slots,creating a scenario in which anywhere from five to 10 titlescan be nominated. Still, the majors have an exceptionallystrong slate and they’re hoping to break their best picturedry spell: The last studio to take home the top trophy wasWarner Bros. for 2006’s The Departed. And though majorstudios seem more obsessed in creating money-mintingtentpoles than bathing in Oscar © glory, the ego still flies onthe lots and majors would like those front-row seats at theKodak just as much as Harvey Weinstein.04 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01Warner Bros.Warner Bros. kicked off its fall season on Sept. 9 andbefore that at the Venice Film Festival with Oscar © -winning director Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, aserious thriller looking at the fight to stop a global virusoutbreak. Although Warners just wanted to grab thegrown-up audience and make some nice change ($120million-plus worldwide B.O.), it still hopes it can be anOscar © contender.Warners’ two biggest bets are the recently released J. Edgarand Dec. 25 biggie Extremely Loud and IncrediblyClose. The latter is a post-9/11 drama with serious Oscar ©cred in stars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock and directorStephen Daldry, whose first three films – Billy Elliot, TheHours and The Reader — each landed him a best directorOscar © nod. As for J. Edgar, it stars three-time Oscar ©nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, was written by Milk’sOscar © -winner Dustin Lance Black and directed byfour-time winner Clint Eastwood. Couple that with aJ. EDGAR| The Majors |biographical portrait of the controversial FBI director andyou have the stuff Oscar © voters usually eat up.The studio also hopes to be back in the animation race withthe sequel to its 2006 winner Happy Feet Two, whichbows Nov. 18. And from earlier in the year it has ambitionsthat voters who have previously ignored the ever-so-lucrativeHarry Potter franchise will decide the summer smash, HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is worthy of theequivalent of a lifetime achievement best picture slot.Walt Disney &DreamWorks StudiosOther than The Muppets (Nov. 23), which is not likely togarner serious awards attention and last summer’s Cars2 and Winnie the Pooh in the animation race, Disney’sbest bets are in its new partnership with DreamWorks,which opened The Help to great box office ($190 millionplustotal worldwide) and Oscar © buzz and has one moregiant contender slated for Dec. 25: Steven Spielberg’sadaptation of the Tony © -winning best play War Horse,an irresistible boy-and-his-horse story set in World War I.The trailer is promising, and the film is already on the tipof every Oscar © pundit’s tongue. As for The Help, it seemsContinued, p06

F O R YOU R C O N S I D E R A T I O NBEST PICTURECLINT EASTWOOD BRIAN GRAZERROBERT LORENZWWW.WARNERBROS2011.COM

The helpWAR horseat the very least a certainty for acting nods for Viola Davisin lead and Octavia Spencer in support.20th Century FoxIn recent years, Fox has seen most of its Oscar © glory goto its indie division, Fox Searchlight. Then there was thetremendous disappointment two years ago when Avatarlost to The Hurt Locker. Big Fox could be on the comebacktrail with Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo whichpossesses all the elements of a family feel-good film to warmthe Academy’s heart. The talented Crowe hasn’t been acontender since winning best original screenplay in 2000for Almost Famous. Fox also may have a supporting actorcontender (in addition to below-the-line nods) with AndySerkis’ portrayal of Caesar, the lead ape in the summer hitRise of the Planet of the Apes, assuming the actorsbranch can get around the whole issue of performancecapture. Rio is the studios big hope for the animation race.be an Oscar © -bait role. With Reitman’s Oscar © -winningJuno scripter Diablo Cody writing, the two-time directingnominee may be contending again, but Paramount isholding it back until closer to its Dec. 9 release, a strategythat worked just fine for the studio last year with best picnominees The Fighter and True Grit.Par also has Martin Scorsese’s 3D debut, the liveactionboy-and-his-robot story Hugo, which provides arare departure for the Oscar © -winning director. Reactionto its “work in progress” New York Film Festival screeningwas mixed among critics but hey, it’s Scorsese: attentionmust be paid. Hugo is set for Nov. 23.Then there is the small Sundance pickup, Like Crazy, aunique trans-Atlantic love story as Anton Yelchin andFelicity Jones try to keep the sparks. This is the kind oftiny film voters will need to discover on their own, or atleast Paramount needs to make them think that’s the case.The studio already had two animated films in the race inhomegrown Rango and DreamWorks Animation’s KungFu Panda 2, and adds two more to completely dominate:DreamWorks’ hit Puss in Boots, and Spielberg andproducer Peter Jackson’s 3D performance captureCGI adaptation of The Adventures of Tintin, whichhas already won rave reviews in its overseas bows; itdoesn’t hit stateside until Dec. 21.Also trying to lift its way out of the summer blockbusterghetto and into the hearts of Academy voters is June releaseSuper 8 from director J.J. Abrams and producer StevenSpielberg. Paramount is aggressively campaigning tobring the very well-reviewed film year-end awards attention.of George Clooney’s political drama The Ides ofMarch co-starring Ryan Gosling. The film got strongreviews and Clooney is an Academy darling. Brad Pitt,who has earned Oscar © talk earlier in the year for FoxSearchlight’s The Tree of Life, is back in Moneyball,which will try to overcome Oscar © ’s aversion to baseball.The critics loved it and audiences have made it a nicedouble for the studio.Finally there’s Roland Emmerich’s 17th century costumedrama Anonymous, which asks the question ‘WasShakespeare a fraud?’ It might just be the front-runner forCostumes.UniversalThe studio is apparently leaving its heavy Oscar © lifting thisyear to indie division Focus Features, which has TinkerTailor Soldier Spy, its strongest contender this fall. Udoes have a campaign going for Judd Apatow’s summersleeper production, Bridesmaids, which is drawingbig Golden Globe © comedy talk and even a supportingactress Oscar © bid for Emmy © winning co-star MelissaMcCarthy. Did writers like it enough to give seriousconsideration in the best original screenplay race?Sony PicturesSony, which is releasing The Adventures of Tintininternationally, has its own domestic animated entry thisfall with Arthur Christmas, a holiday-themed ’toonthat could be a real spoiler in that race.BRIDESMAIDSwe bought a zooParamountParamount surprised pundits by skipping the fall festcircuit with Jason Reitman’s new dark comedy/dramaYoung Adult, starring Charlize Theron in what couldOn the live-action front, Sony is coming back strongwith a slate of potential contenders to avenge its SocialNetwork best picture loss, starting with Network directorDavid Fincher’s intense English-language version ofthe Swedish phenomenon The Girl With the DragonTattoo, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara,unspooling Dec. 21. Sony’s three other hopefuls all hitthe fall fest circuit beginning with the Venice fest openingthe girl with thedrAGON TATTOOHUGO| The INDIES |06 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01For the majors, Oscars © are nice. But for the indies, awardscould mean the difference between a hit film or a miss.With little-pictures-that-could best picture triumphs likeCrash, The Hurt Locker and last year’s The King’s Speech, indieshave proven that with a savvy campaign and a little luck,the right film at the right time can grab the gold. At leastone of these may give the majors a run for their money.The WeinsteinCompanyWith The King’s Speech last year, the Weinsteins scoredtheir first best picture triumph since the heady days ofMiramax. Can they do it two years in a row with anotherBritish bio, The Iron Lady? Just about everyone agreesMeryl Streep’s still-unseen portrait of MargaretThatcher in this December release will put her in strongcontention to finally win that third Oscar © , but can themovie score, too? Time will tell.Harvey Weinstein had a big Cannes triumph with thecrowd-pleasing black-and-white silent picture TheArtist (Nov. 23), and it could have the same effect on theAcademy audience. Certainly Cannes best actor JeanDujardin is a great bet for a nomination.With a busy fall, the company is hoping MichelleWilliams and Kenneth Branagh will land actingkudos for My Week With Marilyn, and judgingfrom the rapturous reaction to Williams’ brilliant workas Marilyn Monroe, that’s a very good possibility. Alsopossible for TWC is Ralph Fiennes (who also directed)in the title role of the contemporary Shakespeareadaptation Coriolanus (Dec. 2). Vanessa Redgraveis extraordinary in a beefy supporting turn.my week with marylinFocus FeaturesWith a sterling cast including Gary Oldman as Britishspy George Smiley and Oscar © winner Colin Firth, thislatest adaptation of John le Carré’s novel, Tinker TailorSoldier Spy, could be butter for Oscar © voters. Buzzis building around Oldman’s performance. Americanaudiences will have to wait until Dec. 9 but it’s got thekind of British pedigree Oscar © voters love.Focus will also have its Sundance winner Pariahentering the fray in December and is fully committed tocampaigning it as well, particularly for its 17-year-old starAdepero Oduye. The Academy success of Precious givesFocus hope this can follow a Sundance path to Oscar ©attention, and definitely Indie Spirits.Fox SearchlightThe Fox specialty division landed eight Oscars © for SlumdogMillionaire in 2009 and a best actress award for NataliePortman’s turn in Black Swan last year. Searchlight’s two bigfall hopefuls include another Sundance pickup, MarthaContinued, p08

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N“One of the very best movies of 2011.”Richard Roeper“‘Contagion’ is brilliant. It is serious, precise, frightening,and emotionally enveloping.”David Denby,BEST PICTUREP R O D U C E D B YMICHAEL SHAMBERGSTACEY SHERGREGORY JACOBSBEST DIRECTORSTEVEN SODERBERGHBEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYSCOTT Z. BURNSBEST ACTORLAURENCE FISHBURNEBEST SUPPORTING ACTORMATT DAMONJUDE LAWBEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSMARION COTILLARDJENNIFER EHLESANAA LATHANGWYNETH PALTROWKATE WINSLETBEST ART DIRECTIONP R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E RHOWARD CUMMINGSS E T D E C O R ATO RCINDY CARRBEST COSTUME DESIGNLOUISE FROGLEYBEST FILM EDITINGSTEPHEN MIRRIONE, A.C.E.BEST MAKEUPM A K E U P D E P A R T M E N T H E A DKATE BISCOEH A I R D E P A R T M E N T H E A DFRÍÐA SVALA ARADÓTTÍRBEST ORIGINAL SCORECLIFF MARTINEZBEST SOUND MIXINGP R O D U C T I O NS O U N D M I X E R SMARK WEINGARTENDENNIS TOWNSR E - R E C O R D I N GM I X E RLARRY BLAKEBEST VISUAL EFFECTSTHOMAS J. SMITHRANDY GOUXWWW.WARNERBROS2011.COM

08 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01DRIVEMIDNIGHT IN PARIStinker TAILOr SOLDIEr SPYMarcy May Marlene with a breakout performancefrom Elizabeth Olsen, who they hope will be this year’sJennifer Lawrence. And Oscar © winner AlexanderPayne (for Searchlight’s Sideways) is back with the GeorgeClooney family drama The Descendants (Nov. 16),already a sizeable hit on the festival and screening circuit.Searchlight picked up the controversial, sexually chargeddrama, Shame (Dec 2) from director Steve McQueenout of its successful Venice, Telluride and Toronto premiereswhere it drew critical raves. It has been slapped with an NC-17rating but there is lots of buzz, particularly for star MichaelFassbender and supporting actress Carey Mulligan.Then there is Terrence Malick’s Cannes Film FestivalPalme d’Or winner, The Tree of Life, which has a lotof passionate supporters, but does it have enough to getenough first place votes to gain a best picture nomination?It still has a strong shot to take the cinematography prizeand Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are in the runningin supporting slots. Malick could well pull off directingand writing nods as well.Sony Pictures ClassicsSPC co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard seemto be banking on world-class directors to put them back inthe Oscar © race, where they seem to be every year.There’s Pedro Almodóvar’s creepy but terrific TheSkin I Live In, which should have won him somethingat Cannes. There’s David Cronenberg’s perioddrama A Dangerous Method (Nov 23), starring thevery hot Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and KeiraKnightley. And there’s Roman Polanski’s adaptationof the Tony © -winning comedy God of Carnage, now simplyrenamed Carnage, with a cast including Jodie Foster,Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz.With superstar directors like that on your slate, who needsWoody Allen? But of course Allen’s Midnight in Parishas been a prime contender since it opened the CannesFestival in May. It is Woody’s most successful film everand SPC’s second-highest grossing film of all time ($55.5million domestic B.O.), making it a prime candidate for abest picture nomination.Another SPC film, Take Shelter, was a Grand Prizewinner during Critics Week in Cannes. Unheraldeddirector Jeff Nichols’ feature is just as accomplishedas some of SPC’s other directors this year and he couldfigure in the Indie Spirits. The company also has its usuallist of strong foreign language contenders: from Lebanon(Where Do We Go Now?), Poland (In Darkness),Israel (Footnote) and Iran (A Separation).SummitEntertainmentWith one best picture (The Hurt Locker) already in its younghistory, Summit’s big fall play is The Twilight Saga:Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Nov. 18), the beginning of theend for the series. While not a likely Oscar © contender, itshould figure heavily, like its predecessors did, in the TeenChoice, People’s Choice and MTV Movie Awards.But in addition to its timely political hot button illegalimmigrant summer release A Better Life and a possibleBest Actor bid for star Demián Bichir, Summit couldfind serious awards traction in the honest, touching andsurprisingly funny cancer dramedy 50/50, which offersaward-level work from Joseph Gordon-Levitt andAnjelica Huston, among others.Roadside AttractionsWith its first best pic nominee Winter’s Bone and foreignlanguage and best actor nominee Biutiful, Roadsideannounced last year it was a major new indie force inthe Oscar © race (it won best documentary feature for TheCove two years ago). This year its hopes are pinned on theSundance pickup Margin Call (which bowed on Oct.21), starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and othersin a riveting drama that may hit too close to home forstock market investors. Their ace player though will be itspickup, Albert Nobbs, in which Glenn Close reprisesher 30 year old Obie wining Off Broadway role as awoman who must disguise herself as a man in order tosurvive in 19th century Ireland. The five-time nomineelooks to be back in the race for the first time since 1988.LionsgateStill a true indie, Lionsgate hasn’t been able to replicateits 2005 best picture heist with Crash, one of the all-timegreat Oscar © -campaign success stories. Last year, it quicklyturned around its Toronto buy of Rabbit Hole to get NicoleKidman a best actress nod. Failing that kind of quickstep again, its hopes seem to ride on the Sept. 9 releaseof Warrior, an emotional drama from director GavinO’Connor set in the world of mixed martial arts thatwas a box office disappointment ($13.7 million domesticB.O.). Still, stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy aregreat and Nick Nolte as their ne’er-do-well father couldland a supporting nod.FilmDistrictGraham King’s new FilmDistrict could have the stuff fora few Oscar © nominations. With its Cannes-winning (bestdirector for Nicolas Winding Refn) noir Drive, RyanGosling is great, and Albert Brooks is definite supportingfodder, uncharacteristically cast as a heavy. Critics love it.Their other contender comes from Angelina Jolie, whomakes her directorial and writing debut with the BosnianWar-set drama In the Land of Blood and Honey. We’llhave to wait until Dec. 23 to find out if Jolie can be the firstfemale acting superstar to pull off a directing nomination.OscilloscopeThis boutique company landed a couple of nominationsfor The Messenger in 2009 and now has its Cannescompetition pickup We Need to Talk About Kevin(Dec. 9) to carry its banner this year. Oscar © winner TildaSwinton’s performance was critically praised, althoughthe film deals with heavy subject matter (her son goes on ahigh school shooting rampage) and got a mixed reaction.She could turn up in a very competitive best actress race.Magnolia PicturesMagnolia is charging ahead with its beautifully shot endof-daysdrama Melancholia despite the Hitler and Nazirantings of its director Lars von Trier in Cannes. Thefilm still went on to win best actress there for star KirstenDunst, and Magnolia plans to make sure awards votersremember her. Magnolia quietly qualified the VOD filmalready in a one-week run deep in the San Fernando Valley.Millennium FilmsMillennium decided to get into the game very late thisyear with its Toronto Film Festival pickup of the grittycorrupt cop drama Rampart, from director OrenMoverman who scored an original screenplay nod forhis little indie, The Messenger a couple of years ago. Thatfilm also won Woody Harrelson a supporting actorbid and he stars here with buzz good enough to gain himserious recognition in the best actor race. •we need TO TALK about kevinALBert nobbsEXtrEMELY LOUD and incrEDIBLY CLOSEthe deSCenDAnts

C O N S I D E R . . .“EPIC AND HEARTBREAKING. EVERY SCENE CARRIESA SENSE OF IMPORTANCE, WITH SOME ELICITING TEARS AND OTHERS TERROR.ETERNALLY ICONIC.”ELIZABETH WEITZMAN,BEST PICTUREDAVID HEYMAN DAVID BARRON J.K. ROWLINGBEST DIRECTORDAVID YATESBEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAYSTEVE KLOVESWWW.WARNERBROS2011.COMHarry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R.

Brian Grazer and Robert LorenzOpen the Files on By Ari KarpelClint Eastwood’s J. EdgarClint Eastwood’s latest film, J. Edgar, is the second production collaboration betweenImagine Entertainment co-chairman Brian Grazer and Malpaso Productionspartner Robert Lorenz (the first was 2008’s The Changeling).10 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01The two producers discuss biopics in the age of dirtyOscar © campaigns, Eastwood’s difficult-to-categorizepolitics, and the challenge of making serious films in anoften frivolous age.Grazer, left, LorenzAWARDSLINE: To start, tell me about how this project came to be, fromthe beginning.GRAZER: I thought it would be interesting to make a movieabout Hoover because he’s such a complex character. Healso, for the most part, originated the FBI. He certainlysustained it. So, I pitched it to Universal and they likedit. I met with (writer Dustin) Lance (Black) and thenpitched it to him. He said he’d been thinking about somethingsimilar. He likes power structures the same way Ilike power structures.So while we were developing it, I’d seen LeonardoDiCaprio a couple times just casually. He was awarethat we were developing Hoover with Lance Black. Heseemed excited by the idea of either reading it or maybeeven doing it. Script comes in and Universal chose notto do it. I suggested we give it to Rob for Clint and forRob himself. We’d already had a great work experiencetogether on The Changeling with Angelina Jolie. He read it,liked it and quickly talked to his partner over there, ClintEastwood. They said ‘we’re in.’ Then that got Leo to say‘I’ll do it.’LORENZ: Whatever work Brian and Lance had done priorwas working because the script came in and we both felt itwas really smart and intriguing. Hoover, whom everyone’sfamiliar with as the director of the FBI, is also this characterwho’s surrounded in mystery because he’s hiding secretsand he has this personal life that everyone has questionsabout. It just seemed like a great subject for a movie.GRAZER: I think that a lot of the subjects within the movie arerelevant today and are even more relevant today in someways. When Lance started writing it prior to Clint andRob’s involvement, he did a lot of research on it – wentto the FBI – and then as Rob and Clint became involved,we just continued to research. That’s where a lot of thestory gets filled in because these guys are great. Clint andRob are just great researchers. I think we made a point tohave it be as accurate as it possibly can be and settle in theaspects that wouldn’t overtake the central story.AWARDSLINE: Obviously, Lance is a naturally political person andvery progressive in his politics (he won an Oscar © for his Milkscreenplay). Similarly, Clint is also a naturally political person,though more conservative. Was that a kind of delicate dance in someway with this project?LORENZ: Well, I don’t think so. People try to label him aconservative. But I’m always impressed by how progressivea figure he is. I think if you look at the subject matter inhis choice of films over the last several years you can reallysee that. I mean choosing to do Flags of Our Fathers andreally sort of glamorizing the Americans and that warand then countering that with the Japanese perspectivewas something that for a lot of veterans tensed them upto think that Clint was going to try and tell their side ofthe story. They resent any need to do that.GRAZER: I think he’s singularly been so successful at doingthese great American tragedies. I don’t know if eitherRob or I have seen anyone else succeeding on his level;doing films that are so hard. He picks these really difficultand complex subjects and finds ways to create cohesivemovies that make sense.AWARDSLINE: Of course we’re in such a polarized political culture,even in the Oscar © races. Brian, from your experience with ABeautiful Mind -- which was probably the most attacked moviein terms of the opposition -- how does that shape how you go intomaking a movie like this that is a likely Oscar © contender?GRAZER: Well, first of all, Rob and I can only hope that it’sthought of with that kind of potential. That’d be great.As far as A Beautiful Mind, I think controversy comes whenyou get pulled into the race. It wasn’t really as controversialwhen we made A Beautiful Mind as it was when peoplestarted competing with each other. On this movie, Clinthas tackled such tough subjects, so I thought he wouldbe perfect for this not only as an artist but someone whoalways struggles and struggles and finds the truth insubjects. I think people, his critics and people who workwithin the business; they all sort of feel that if anyone’sgoing to try a tough subject and do it with honesty it’sgoing to be Clint.AWARDSLINE: Why didn’t Universal want to do this initially?GRAZER: Once Clint said he was interested in doing it,Universal might have come to the same conclusion tomake it. But I think they weren’t going to come to thatconclusion that quickly; whereas, Clint read it and Robread it and they had an enormous amount of passion andurgency. Clint’s pretty busy all the time, so Rob and Clintand I, to some degree, took it to Warner Brothers; theywere ready to make it right away.AWARDSLINE: What did Universal struggle with? Was it the topic,the budget or what?GRAZER: I don’t know. I think it’s hard to get dramas maderight now, right, Rob?LORENZ: Yeah. That’s the same thing Warner struggled with.There are restrictions on it in terms of the budget size. Itwas a risky proposition that a historical drama was goingto make back a big amount of money unless it turned outjust right, which I think it has.GRAZER: A movie like this, everybody takes a lot less moneyand a lot less of everything. You have to make it at a verysmart price [Editor’s note: J. Edgar’s production cost camein just under $40 million]. In some ways, you’re thinking‘I hope people see it and like it or love it the way we loveit.’ You’re not thinking of it the same way you think of anevent movie. You just can’t frame it that way.AWARDSLINE: Now, Clint’s obviously had incredible box office andOscar © success with Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River .But it seems like his last few movies haven’t gotten the attention ofthe Academy that his previous ones have. I’m curious from both ofyou why you think that is.GRAZER: I think a lot of it is the subject and the theme. Ithink this one has those and it’s also a tour de force. So, Ithink we might have a chance.LORENZ: We’ve been out there every year with a project. Ithink enthusiasm goes back and forth. I think the timingis right to open this particular project. •DICAPRIO

“It is sensitive, deeply moving, inspired, honest, and unforgettable. The nuance, the attention to details,and the underlying humanity all add up to a canvas of life in the South.”THE NEW YORK OBSERVER, Rex ReedF O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O NBest PIctUreProduced byBrunson Green, Chris Columbus,Michael BarnathanBest DIrectOrTate TaylorBest ADAPteD screeNPlAyTate TaylorBased on the Novel by Kathryn StockettBest Art DIrectIONProduction Designer:Mark RickerSet Decorator:Rena DeAngeloBest FIlm eDItINGHughes Winborne, A.C.E.Best cOstUme DesIGNSharen DavisBest ActressViola DavisEmma StoneBest sUPPOrtING ActressJessica ChastainBryce Dallas HowardAllison JanneySissy SpacekOctavia SpencerBest cINemAtOGrAPhyStephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSCBest sOUND mIXINGSound Mixer:Willie Burton, C.A.S.Re-Recording Mixers:Scott Millan, David GiammarcoBest sOUND eDItINGSupervising Sound Editor:Dennis DrummondBest mAkeUPBrad Wilder, Camille FriendBest OrIGINAl scOreThomas NewmanBest OrIGINAl sONG“The Living Proof”Written byMary J. Blige, Thomas Newmanand Harvey Mason, Jr.Performed by Mary J. BligeFor screening information,visit www.DreamWorksPicturesAwards.com©2011 DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC

Producers Recall the UnusualGameplan That BroughtMoneyball to the ScreenBy PeteHammondAlthough it had a troubled history with its original director leaving just days beforeproduction was to start, Moneyball is the classic example of producers saying “never saydie,” tenaciously trying anything to keep a good idea alive.De luca12 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01That is certainly the case with Rachael Horovitz whooriginally optioned the Michael Lewis book, Moneyball:The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which dealt withOakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane’s attempts toput a successful team together using unorthodox methodsand a miniscule budget. Horovitz, a former VP at FineLine Features and an exec at Revolution Studios, won anEmmy © and Golden Globe © for her company SpecialtyFilms’ maiden voyage, Grey Gardens, and was bound andHOROVITzdetermined to make this movie happen. Eventually Sonygot into a bidding war with Warner Bros. and broughtin Horovitz’s former New Line colleague MichaelDe Luca to co-produce. De Luca – New Line andDreamWorks’ former production head and now asuccessful producer of films like The Social Network, 21,Ghost Rider and the upcoming Butter and The Sitter – helpedshape the film before Soderbergh’s exit and remained astrong force afterwards when his Social Network colleagueScott Rudin came on board to help steer the course.Horovitz and De Luca told Awardsline about the manycurveballs Moneyball faced on its way to the screen.AWARDSLINE: Rachael, you started this project, you optioned the book.Tell me how this came about.HOROVITZ: The book had terrific heart. I felt that [the role of]Billy Beane would be great for an actor, and that the humanstory of the material was relatable. I was certain thatthe rights wouldn’t be available and they were. So, stunned,I took a shot at trying to set it up and discovered that all ofthe studios passed on it. So then I went back to the drawingboard and came up with a pitch and set it up at Sony. Mikewas just moving over from DreamWorks to being a producerat Sony and we had worked together at New Line.AWARDSLINE: Both of you had worked on a lot of projects together at New Line?HOROVITZ: Two favorite projects we developed were Rushmore,which we didn’t get to make, and About Schmidt.DE LUCA: I knew if it was a Rachael Horovitz project, itwas going to be elevated, plus she’s got great taste. Sowhen I came into Columbia, I leapt at this project, one,because of Rachael and two, because I read the book andimmediately connected with it.AWARDSLINE: At what point did Steven Zaillian come on to write this?DE LUCA: He came in when we knew there was interest fromBrad Pitt.AWARDSLINE: Steven Soderbergh was involved early on and atone point left the project for several years.HOROVITZ: He was the person I wanted when I read thebook and so I had conversations with him about doingit before it was even set up. It didn’t solidify until we hadBrad Pitt. Brad always loved the book and hoped wewould come to him with a convincing package. He hadother stuff on his plate, but always said to keep him inthe loop.AWARDSLINE: But then the project went awry at some point. Whathappened?DE LUCA: It was an honest case of creative differences inthe end. Steven pursued an aesthetic with his re-writingof the Zaillian script that went in a direction that someof us, and Sony, didn’t want to continue the project in.Steven was an advocate for replacing Zaillian’s flashbacks,which illustrate Billy Beane’s life as a player both as ahigh school player and in the minors and majors, withinterviews from contemporaries, which would be shot ala Reds. Everybody reacted favorably to Steven’s initialinstincts. It was the eventual final re-write that wassubmitted before production began that caused the mostserious gut check.AWARDSLINE: That was close to the start of production. Is this the kind ofsituation that just freaks you out? It’s a week before cameras roll, you’vegot Brad Pitt and suddenly you don’t have Soderbergh. What do you do?DE LUCA: Rachael can back me up: As a producer you aredesigned for this. You are accustomed to dealing withadversity and things not happening. Your tool set is tonever lose faith. So it didn’t faze us because we were sopassionate about the material.AWARDSLINE: How fast did you put it back together? And did BennettMiller come in before Scott Rudin and Aaron Sorkin?DE LUCA: Because we were all on Social Network together,Rudin came with Sorkin to jump start the post-Soderberghversion. Aaron wrote a new draft in a short time becausehe’s very fast. That script got Bennett Miller interested.AWARDSLINE: How long was it before you got the project back on track?HOROVITZ: It was about three months before Bennettcame into the mix.AWARDSLINE: And Brad Pitt continued to stay with the project? Pitt isclose to Soderbergh, having starred in a few of his films.DE LUCA: Brad was so committed to that character and thestory of Moneyball in total. I think that’s what carried himthrough this transitional period.AWARDSLINE: Are you surprised at the film’s box office and critical success?DE LUCA: In a way, we weren’t surprised. From Bennett’sfirst pitch to watching Brad and him shoot the movie, towatching different post production cuts – we knew hehad made an inspirational, emotional movie about thisman’s quest for wisdom. It’s always nice when the generalresponse to a film echoes what you’ve always felt as youshepherded it.AWARDSLINE: In terms of awards strategy, for the Golden Globes © , areyou putting this in the drama or comedy category?HOROVITZ: That’s what we love about this movie.DE LUCA: That’s more of a marketing question and it’s outof my pay grade. Pete, where do you think it should be?AWARDSLINE: I think comedy, just like your other movie Butter.With the Academy you don’t have that problem. Mike, you wentthrough this whole award season process last year with The SocialNetwork. Are you ready to go through it again? Do you think it’simportant for the life of this film?DE LUCA: It’s always the icing on the cake. You never planfor it. I was humble and grateful in the face of it; it wasmy first experience with anything on that level. What[award season] does in a great way is focus additionalPR on the movies that have moved us during the year.One always hopes with every movie, that it connects andmoves people. The season is a great place where moviesare celebrated. There’s no downside to it. •PITT

By AnthonyD’AlessandroProducing Partner and LongtimeFriend of George Clooney on thePolitics Behind The Ides of MarchBest friends, co-screenwriters and producing partners at their Sony-based productioncompany Smokehouse, George Clooney and Grant Heslov are known for beinglongtime political-philes; constantly chewing on left-wing conflicts in such collaborationsas Good Night, and Good Luck and The Men Who Stare at Goats.Their adaptation of Beau Willimon’s 2008 play FarragutNorth, based in part on Howard Dean’s 2004 presidentialcampaign, provided Heslov and Clooney the opportunity toreturn to familiar ground after their 2003 D.C. lobbyists HBOdocu-drama series K Street. For both Clooney and Heslov,who share a producing credit with Brian Oliver, Ides ofMarch is less about being a left wing propaganda film, butrather a morality tale that plays to both red and blue states.AWARDSLINE: How did this play fall into your lap?HESLOV: We optioned it. It got to me through someone whoworked for George and me. We read the play, four or fiveyears ago, and decided to pursue it. At the same time,someone at the studio gave it to Leonardo DiCaprio.We both have our deals at Warner Bros. and they askedus to partner up on it. When we departed [our productiondeal] at Warner Bros. for Sony, the project stayed atWarner Bros. George and I continued to develop it. Theidea was that Leonardo could possibly be in it. That’s whyWarners was interested. Schedule wise, it turned out thatwasn’t going to happen. When George and I were readyto shoot, just before Obama was elected, we realized wecouldn’t make this film at that point. We put it aside for awhile and a year after that, we agreed to make the movie.AWARDSLINE: I think the film can play in any political climate, whywas the political landscape so important in terms of moving aheadwith the project?HESLOV: When Obama won the election, it was a positivetime and didn’t feel like the right moment to make thisfilm. A year later, everyone was more cynical. You’re right,you can make this film in any political climate, but for usat such an upbeat moment, it didn’t feel right.AWARDSLINE: When Leo couldn’t commit to the film, what was thegame plan?HESLOV: We asked Warners to give the project back to us.At that point, we asked Sony if they could distribute it,and they said yes. Then, we hooked up with ExclusiveMedia Group and Cross Creek and sold off foreign andaway we went.AWARDSLINE: When DiCaprio couldn’t commit, were youscrambling? Ryan Gosling is an amazing actor, but box officewise, DiCaprio is the bigger sell. How did you settle on Ryan?HESLOV: There was no settle. We saw Leo’s plate and whathe had going on. We had a specific window as to whenwe wanted to go. Leo had J. Edgar and we knew hewas a long shot. We wanted to work with Ryan andhad approached him on another project. Because weultimately knew we would be financing this project, weweren’t worried [about committing to Ryan].AWARDSLINE: Did you ever ask Sony to finance? Why did you financeindependently?HESLOV: Making the film independently gives George andme more control and that’s a pleasure.AWARDSLINE: When you wrote George Clooney in as Governor MikeMorris, was that for both creative and marketing reasons? Hischaracter doesn’t appear onstage in the play, rather he’s talked about.HESLOV: I think it’s both. We did want to make the candidatea character because that was one of the biggest aspectsin opening the play up. Also, we knew that would be agreat part and add more cast to sell to foreign and get thefinancing.AWARDSLINE: There’s a perception in Hollywood that studios areturning their noses up to developing adult dramas. Is it hard nowadaysto get a drama financed and more specifically a political one?HESLOV: You have to remember that we made this filmfor $12.5 million. I think that makes it a lot easier to getone made. Our philosophy is to keep the costs downand put a great cast together and it’s pretty hard to geta ‘No.’ To answer the larger question, I think it’s part ofthat swing we always see, where there’s the [development]of big comedies and then it swings back [to dramas]. Ithink there’s always a market for smart adult comedies.In terms of the political aspect, what interested Georgeand I in the first place was making a morality tale. Wealways said this could be set anywhere. It’s more about thejourney of Ryan Gosling’s character. It just happens thatthis story is set in politics.AWARDSLINE: Let’s talk about George Clooney competing with himselfin an award season. Though it raises his profile, do the two of youever have any conversations about how one of his films will impedethe chances of another film?HESLOV: We never have any conversations in those terms.It’s more like: How do we make sure that both films getwhat they need? In the case of this year, it’s not that hard,it’s George as lead actor for The Descendants, should thathappen and for Ides of March [it’s director] – the picturesare so different. We know when we want to release ourfilms before we make them. So we just put our headsdown and hope it all works out.AWARDSLINE: What’s your take on the Academy and its inclinationtoward liberal political dramas? They typically lean toward them, no?HESLOV: I think they lean toward – I don’t know. Give me anexample. We can talk about films like Reds, that’s a politicalfilm in nature, but doesn’t make a statement about politics.heslov, left, CLOOneyAWARDSLINE: The Academy embraced a lot of Oliver Stone’s earlierwork like Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.HESLOV: Those were good films, so it’s hard to know whatcomes first. I’m not saying anything unusual when Isay there’s a lot of filmmakers who lean toward the left.I don’t know the Academy that well. I don’t know thatmany Academy members. I probably do know a lot anddon’t even know that they’re Academy members.AWARDSLINE: The good news is that Ides of March received a goodreception from the Academy.HESLOV: It got a great reception. Among the screenings weare doing, the response has been fantastic.AWARDSLINE: Do you think box office is correlated to awards traction?If a film has a low gross, does that prevent it from being nominated?This is always a debate. Ides of March got off to a slow start atthe box office [Domestic B.O. through Nov. 11 is close to $40 million].HESLOV: If a small film pops at the box office, it can bereally helpful, especially if it’s good, like Little Miss Sunshine.Nominations also help. I don’t think there’s a formula. Itdepends on what is going on in the marketplace and whatis happening culturally. •

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES, INCLUDING:BEST SUPPORTING ACTORCHRISTOPHERPLUMMERBEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYMIKEMILLS“A never-better Christopher Plummeris simply stupendous. Funny,touching and altogether extraordinary.Writer-director Mike Mills turns‘Beginners’ into something morethan a movie. It’s one from the heart.One of the year’s best pictures.”– PETER TRAVERS,INT Hal’s diningHAL:She proposed to me you know,I said, I love you andwe’re great buddies, but youknow what I am. Then she says,oh that doesn’t matter.I’ll fix that.I thought – Oh God,I’ll try anything.WINNERBEST SUPPORTING ACTORHOLLYWOOD FILM AWARDCHRISTOPHER PLUMMERGOTHAM AWARDS NOMINEEBEST PICTUREBEST ENSEMBLESEX LIFE HEALING SUNLIGHT NATURE SPIRIT LOVEFor up-to-the-minute screening information and more on this wonderful fi lm and extraordinary performance, go to: www.FocusAwards2011.com

Oscar © : Predicting theForeign LanguageShortlistBy Tim Adleronce upon a time in anatoliaThere are 63 foreign language films vying to be among the nine long-listed by theAcademy before the five finalists are announced with Oscar © nominations on Jan. 24.Here’s one possible list of semifinalists:16 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01Declaration of WarCountry: FranceDistributor: Sundance SelectsU.S. Release: Jan. 27Valérie Donzelli’s Declaration of War has been ahuge hit with critics and the public alike. The movie, whichopened Cannes Critics’ Week this year, has sold to morethan 30 territories and has already generated over 810,000admissions in France for distributor-sales agent Wild Bunch.Declaration of War is based on Donzelli’s own life story. Sheand her former partner Jérémie Elkaïm play themselvesin the film, which charts their fight to save the baby theyhad together after he is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Thefilm’s success with audiences is largely attributed to its happyending: the baby survives. Donzelli tells me, “The audienceis confronted with the worst thing you can imagine, and yetthey see people overcoming the situation. It’s not about theanguish of death but passion for life.”The Flowers of WarCountry: ChinaDistributor: Wrekin Hill/Row 1U.S. Release: DecemberThe Flowers of War marks a return to high drama forChina’s favorite director Zhang Yimou and represents hisfourth attempt at an Academy Award © , following defeatsfor Hero (2002), Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Ju Dou (1990).With a budget of nearly $100 million, The Flowers of War –starring Christian Bale – is Zhang’s most expensive filmever. Zhang’s problem: Judges of the best foreign languagefilm category don’t really go for blockbusters.The film is based on events in the former Chinese capitalof Nanjing when the Japanese occupied it during theSecond World War. Bale plays a mortician who goes tocollect the body of an American priest from NanjingCathedral, where he discovers local schoolgirls hidingfrom the carnage outside. Pledging to protect them,he dresses up as a priest and also shelters a group ofprostitutes who have arrived at the cathedral.The Flowers of War ran for seven days in a 22-seat Beijingcinema to meet entry standards for the Oscars © , whichrequires films to be shown in domestic theatres for at leasta week. (It’s reportedly 40% English-language and 60%Mandarin, which lets it squeak by one of the Academy’srules.) Despite little promotion and tickets costing 200 yuan($30), double the normal price, Zhang’s latest sold out within40 minutes of its box office opening.FootnoteCountry: IsraelDistributor: Sony Pictures ClassicsU.S. Release: FebruaryA film about bitter rivalry between two Hebrew scholarsforensically examining the Talmud does not sound like abundle of laughs. So it’s a delight to find that Footnoteis a Mozartian comedy, about a father and son whoare rival professors at a university. Writer/directorJoseph Cedar got the idea after a mix-up when theItalians offered him the wrong award. This got himthinking about what would happen if there was similarconfusion for the prestigious Israel Prize, awarded oncea year for outstanding achievement in arts and sciences.Cedar excavated his story while researching the obscureTalmudic research department of Hebrew Universityin Jerusalem. Footnote was also partly inspired by his owntroubled relationship with his world-renowned biologistfather, Howard Cedar. Cedar’s research paid off when hetook home the best screenplay prize at the Cannes FilmFestival. Cedar was previously nominated for best foreignlanguage Oscar © in 2007 for Beaufort, and the country alsopicked up nominations the following two years for WaltzWith Bashir and Ajami.Le HavreCountry: FinlandDistributor: Janus FilmsU.S. Release: Oct. 21There is a question as to whether director AkiKaurismäki will even attend the Oscars © should Le Havrebe nominated. He has only just ended his “personal boycott”of the USA, which he imposed after the U.S. invasion ofIraq. Kaurismäki told the Academy he could not attendthe 2003 Oscars © when his The Man Without a Past wasnominated in the same category “while the United Statesis preparing to commit a criminal act towards humanity forshameless personal economic reasons”.Politics are much less upfront in Kaurismäki’s new film LeHavre. Shot in French – a language Kaurismäki admits hedoesn’t understand – Le Havre is the purely enjoyable storyof a former author who has turned his back on Parisianliterary life to go and live in the French port as a shoeshineman. There he befriends an illegal African immigrantchild and has to decide whether to blow his anonymityby saving the boy. Kaurismäki has been described asFinland’s Jim Jarmusch with his idiosyncratic films andspoof Soviet kitsch rock band, the Leningrad Cowboys.“The more skeptical and cynical I get, the softer are myfilms,” Kaurismäki said recently. “I can’t help it. I start tobe tender in my old age. I even start to like my characters.”In DarknessCountry: PolandDistributor: Sony Pictures ClassicsU.S. Release: JanuaryThe latest from director Agnieszka Holland returnsher to the Holocaust, the subject of both her filmspreviously nominated for Academy Awards © : bestadapted screenplay in 1992 for Europa Europa and in 1986for best foreign language film Angry Harvest. She admitsit is a subject that has never really ended for her. HerJewish grandparents died in the Warsaw Ghetto duringthe World War II.in DArKNESS

footnoteBased on Robert Marshall’s nonfiction book, InDarkness tells the true story of a group of Jews hidingin the sewers in Lvov, Poland who are helped – for money– by a Polish Catholic sewer worker. What starts out asa straightforward and cynical business arrangementbecomes something unexpected as the sewer worker iscompelled to save these men, women and children alltrying to outwit certain death. “How many honest movieshave you seen about the Holocaust?” she asks, “For meit was the frontline event of our time that asks so manyquestions, and there will never be definitive answers.”Holland originally turned the project down – twice –because the German and Polish co-producers insisted thatIn Darkness be shot in English. She felt equally strongly thatthe story should be told in the original ghetto languages:Polish, German, Yiddish and Ukrainian. “I felt it wouldbe difficult to tell the truth if it was shot in English,” shetells me. The Polish director rejected this Hollywood-izedversion despite working as a director on AMC’s The KillingMiss BalaCountry: MexicoDistributor: Fox International PicturesU.S. Release: Jan. 20Miss Bala (translation Miss Bullet), is a reaction to whatdirector Gerardo Naranjo calls “the virus of melodrama.”Inspired by a real event, Miss Bala is set in the Mexicanborder city of Tijuana and follows Laura, an innocentteenager who inadvertently gets caught up in a violentdrug war on her way to compete in the Miss BajaCalifornia beauty pageant. Trapped in a no-win situation,the innocent is forced to become an unwilling participantin Mexico’s so-called war on drugs – a conflict that hasclaimed the lives of more people than the casualties ofwars in Iraq or Afghanistan.An unrelentingly bleak account of man’s inhumanity toman, the power of Miss Bala comes from the ignorance ofthe heroine, who’s just as much in the dark about what’sgoing on as the audience. “This is Laura’s story ratherthan a violently glamorous story of the drugs trade, andour golden rule was to never leave the point of view ofour character,” says co-writer Mauricio Katz.Given the production values, it is hard to believe Naranjobrought Miss Bala in at thrifty production cost of $1.5million, including an extraordinary 90-second shootout,which he completed in one take. CAA recently signedNaranjo, who says he has been offered a lot of actionmovies on the back of Miss Bala – not surprising given theAmerican Film Institute graduate’s virtuoso technique.For now, Naranjo is more interested in challenginghimself with a more international canvas.Should he score the ultimate prize, Naranjo would be thefirst Mexican director to win an Oscar © for best foreignlanguage film – despite the country being nominatedeight times since 1960.Once Upon a Timein AnatoliaCountry: TurkeyDistributor: Cinema GuildU.S. Release: Jan. 4A true auteur, Nuri Bilge Ceylan co-wrote, directed,produced, lit, edited, color-graded and even mixed thesound for Once Upon a Time In Anatolia. He hasbeen called the Satyajit Ray of Turkey. Once Upon a Time inAnatolia is based on the experience of his co-writer, real-lifedoctor Ercan Kesal and follows the search for a dead bodyon the Anatolia steppe. When the dead man is found at last,themes of guilt and adultery are dug up with him.A SeparationCountry: IranDistributor: Sony Pictures ClassicsU.S. Release: Dec. 30The first time director Asghar Farhadi learned abouthis production A Separation being shut down was whenhe received a text message from Iran’s deputy cultureminister. Farhadi’s alleged crime was speaking out onbehalf of banned Iranian filmmakers such as his friendJafar Panahi, who faces six years in jail on top of a 20-yearmoviemaking ban. Filming on A Separation was suspendedfor two weeks until Farhadi made the right noises andthe ban was lifted. “They wanted to give me a heads-upand warn me that if I speak out, there are going to beconsequences,” he tells me over the phone from Tehran.Seen as the one to beat in this year’s competition, ASeparation won the Golden Bear in Berlin. If nominated, itwould mark the second time that the country will be on theforeign language Oscar © ballot (Children of Heaven, 1998).A Separation begins with a middle-class couple before ajudge: the wife wants to escape Iran with their daughter;her husband feels he must stay behind and look after hisfather who’s dying from Alzheimer’s. They separate. Thehusband hires a burka-wearing peasant woman fromthe country as his father’s caregiver – with disastrousconsequences. The couple is re-united in the court room,except this time the fault line is class difference.Given what has happened to other Iranian directors,Farhadi knows how careful he must be when speakingpublicly. He is also aware that should he lift the Oscar © ,his situation at home will become more precarious. SaysFarhadi, “The more attention I get, the harder things getfor me. Parts of the government are always going to findan excuse to dislike this kind of cinema.”Where Do WeGo Now?Country: LebanonDistributor: Sony Pictures ClassicsU.S. Release: AprilNadine Labaki’s comedy drama won the TorontoFilm Festival audience award, which, having gone to titleslike The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire, is seen as abellwether for Oscar © success. Iran’s A Separation, seen asthe front-runner for this year’s best foreign language filmOscar © , was runner-up.The Lebanese director, who says moviemaking istherapy for her, got the idea for the film in May2008 when she was pregnant with her first child andLebanon stood on the brink of sectarian violence. Asevery parent knows, the world is really divided betweenthose who have had children and those who haven’t.Labaki worried what she would do if her teenager wascalled up to fight. Set in a remote village where churchand mosque stand side by side, Where Do We GoNow? follows a group of Lebanese women who try tostop their blowhard men from starting a religious war.Their diversionary tactics include hash cookies andhiring a troupe of Ukrainian strippers.Growing up in Beirut, Labaki was influenced by repeatviewings of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a child.There were no famous local directors she could hold upas paragons, so she had to teach herself: “I’m learningfrom my mistakes.” •a SEPArATIONla HAVRewhere do we go nOWdeclarATION of WAr

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Tim Bevan and Robyn Slovo thawCold War Spies for a New Generationwith Tinker Tailor Soldier SpyBy TimAdlerWorking Title Films, Great Britain’s premier production company, was having adry spell while it was developing a feature adaptation of John le Carré’s 1974 spynovel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.20 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01With expensive flops such as The Green Zone ($35 milliondomestic box office) and The Interpreter ($72.7 million), thereceived wisdom was that Working Title could not pulloff thrillers, rather mass-pleasing comedy franchises suchas Johnny English ($308 million worldwide over two sequels)and Bridget Jones ($544 million also over two installments).Tim Bevan, Working Title’s co-chairman, admits thateverybody thought he was mad embarking on anotheradult thriller. He proved naysayers wrong. Tinker Tailorhas grossed $22 million-plus in the United Kingdom todate, its first territory of release. Focus Features opensthe film stateside on Dec. 9. Already, the movie is beingtalked about for best picture, director and actor (forGary Oldman) Oscar © nominations, which comes asno surprise as Working Title has a solid track record withthe Academy, having accrued key noms for such titles asAtonement and Elizabeth.AWARDSLINE: What made you think the time was right for a ColdWar thriller?BEVAN: When I was young I spent a lot of time watchingWorld War II movies, which were about 30 years on fromwhen it happened. Today, 20 years on from the Berlin Wallcoming down, it’s a very different world, and I felt that doinga film about the Cold War with the benefit of hindsightwould be quite an interesting idea, particularly when I sawThe Lives of Others. I thought, ‘Why not make an Englishlanguagethriller on the topic, entailing who the enemy wasthen, and what the context was?’ It’s not a world that hasbeen portrayed well in the cinema -- at least nothing in theEnglish-language. This seedy world of spies is a really interestingcinematic world to go into. Nobody really agreedwith me. The only person who’s not totally surprised that itcaught it on here (in Great Britain) is me.SLOVO: It’s true, people thought Tim was out of his mind.University kids today were not even born when the wallcame down and so you can approach a subject with acompletely original eye in that way. Only with distancecan you tell a proper story.AWARDSLINE: So where did the idea come from to remake thisparticular spy story?BEVAN: I hadn’t really thought about Tinker Tailor specificallybut (executive producer) Peter Morgan suggested it tome, and I thought, “Mmm that’s a good idea.” OncePeter mentioned the book, I well remembered it as Johnle Carré’s seminal work and the definitive Cold War story.In this country, reading le Carré is part of the lives ofmost males over the age of 35 or 40. Basically, they’ve allread him. They’ve had their fill of Bournes and Bondsand it always felt that Smiley [the film’s spymaster playedby Oldman] was the real deal. I had the good fortune ofknowing one of John le Carré’s sons so I had a bit of an“in” with the family. We went off to see le Carré and heagreed, much to my surprise at the time, to give us a shotat making the movie.He had the most to lose because the book had beenvery successfully adapted for television (as a 1979 UKminiseries) with Sir Alec Guinness playing Smiley. Thatwas a highly esteemed production and it was thereforequite brave of le Carré to give us his blessing. It had beena long time since the miniseries and we were setting out tomake it for a contemporary audience. I think he realizedthat he could also open himself up to a whole newaudience – certainly, a younger one. The one thing hesaid in that original meeting was that you need to makethe movie different from the TV show, and you need tomake it in its own right.AWARDSLINE: How did Tomas Alfredson, director of Swedishhorror movie Let the Right One In, come on board?BEVAN: We were looking for a director and we got a callfrom his manager saying that he’d heard we were doingTinker Tailor and we met. I was expecting some trendyyoung Swede to walk through the door, but this very bigman, about my age, came in and he was very quiet. Iasked him for his take on the material. He said, “Well, Ithink all the muscle-bound guys, they go and they join thearmy. And the nerds, they are the spies.” I thought, “Now,there’s an angle...” We were looking for a directorial visionfrom a confident filmmaker to firmly guide the audiencethrough the narrative of this complex story. Tomas was abit of an unlikely candidate, but le Carré saw Let the RightOne In and said, “Go with him.”It’s quite a talky book and Tomas wanted to get rid ofas much of the dialogue as possible. He thinks in imagesand he’s a detail fascist. Plus he comes from a completelydifferent culture to make a very culturally specific filmabout Britain. His journey of learning about the cultureis the journey the audience makes.AWARDSLINE: So you’ve got this iconic material, the right director, agood script – and then Universal still passes?SLOVO: As a prospect, it was a film about older men withhardly any women in it.BEVAN: In fairness to Universal, we hadn’t had such agood run with these sorts of movies and they were in aflat stretch. They were nervous about it. The numbersdidn’t work for them and to be honest, they wouldn’twork at any other studio. Universal thought this was adifficult, elliptical complicated piece. You had to look atthe package in its entirety – and studios don’t do that.StudioCanal, which has been involved as a silent partnerin all our movies, stepped up.Bevan, Left, SLOVOAWARDSLINE: StudioCanal came on board, fully financing the $20million budget. How did this tight budget affect the making of the film?SLOVO: The biggest challenge was making an incrediblycomplicated, ambitious film with an enormous cast for arelatively low budget. Two thirds of the film was shot inInglis Barracks, Mill Hill, north London in an abandonedmilitary barracks with ramshackle outbuildings. Thechoice came from having to make the film at a certainbudget level, and we got more creative because of that.BEVAN: Chucking money at it was not an answer. All of thecast apart from Gary were doing other things at the sametime and directors don’t like to work like that. We didn’t haveany choice given the budget we had – and the actors had tokeep on making a living. Colin (Firth) was away shooting,while Benedict (Cumberbatch) was doing War Horse.AWARDSLINE: How did you both divide your producer roles?BEVAN: What I always try to do, having got the package upand-running,is try and be a little more objective than myfellow producer. Robyn was there all the time involved inthe nitty-gritty. That’s why double producing really works.AWARDSLINE: How important is it being nominated for the Oscars ©and BAFTA? Do you enjoy campaigning? After all, you put a lot ofwork into Oscar © campaigning for your co-production with Imagine,Frost/Nixon, but came away empty handed.BEVAN: Being nominated gives a film like this, which is notan obvious slam-dunk commercial proposition, a greatendorsement for the audience outside the film community.A nomination says this is a film you need to see. It’s nice tobe in the game – and note my choice of words.AWARDSLINE: If Tinker Tailor is nominated for best picture, do youthink that it being a thriller might work against it?BEVAN: Possibly. We’ve got to get people to go and see it first.•

“WHAT A SEQUEL SHOULD, OR AT LEAST CAN, BE.”RAFER GUZMÁN | NEWSDAYFOR YOUR CONSIDERATIONBEST ANIMATED FEATUREDIRECTED BY JOHN LASSETERwww.WaltDisneyStudiosAwards.com© 2011 DISNEY/PIXAR

Letty Aronson: Woody Allen’s KidSister Has Her Big Brother’s Back onMidnight in ParisBy AnthonyD’AlessandroWhen it comes to Academy Award © recognition, Woody Allen’s view isn’t that farfrom the Groucho Marx philosophy held by his Annie Hall alter ego Alvy Singer:Allen, Left, Aronson22 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01Allen would never want to belong to a club that wouldwant someone like him as a member. After Annie Hallscored four Oscar © wins (best picture, director, writingand actress for Diane Keaton), it seemed apparent thatAllen was an Oscar © club member for years to come,especially with 21 nods under his belt. Not so accordingto his producer and younger sister, Letty Aronson, whohas shepherded his films since working on 1994’s BulletsOver Broadway. Aronson assesses her collaboration withAllen on Midnight in Paris as well as her brother’saward season track record.AWARDSLINE: Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s highest grossingfilm of all-time ($125 million worldwide). Why did this title resonatewith audiences?ARONSON: When I read the script, I said to Woody, ‘Who’sgoing to come see this?’ No one has heard of Man Rayor Gertrude Stein. He is always determined to make themovie that he has a vision for and it’s my job to alwaysask ‘I wonder who will go see it?’ It’s one thing to read thescript and quite another to actually see the film. How doI account for its success? It’s been a crossover film in termsof younger folks which I attribute to the parents tellingthem about it or taking the kids to it. This was also abreakout film because people have a love affair with Paris.AWARDSLINE: There’s a legend that Woody Allen has a drawer full ofscripts. Why was this the right time to mount Midnight in Paris?ARONSON: Actually, he might have a couple of scripts in hisdrawer, but he has a drawer full of ideas. He has moreideas than time to do (them). He wanted to make Midnightin Paris a few years ago, but he didn’t have the money. Ourbudgets are low and we can fortunately obtain excellentactors below their regular rates. Working in France isexpensive and a few years ago, it was too much. Howeverthey put this tax rebate for international productions inplace which covered about 10% of the budget in France.Mediapro, a Spanish company which we had a threepicture deal with, financed the film.AWARDSLINE: What’s your criteria when choosing a domestic distributor?ARONSON: We like to have a distributor who appreciatesour types of films. Most of the studios are interested inthe high risk-high reward types of films. So I’m alwayslooking for a distributor who has a regard for our films,who wants to distribute them to keep them in the marketfor as long as possible. [Woody and I] are in a verydifferent kind of business then most of the film industry.As an investor, you’re not going to make $100 million onone of our films. You’re not going to lose money either.Michael [Barker] and Tom [Bernard of Sony Classics]are fabulous because they give Woody complete creativecontrol. With Michael and Tom you never have to worryabout ‘Oh today they said yes and tomorrow they havethe wrong ad in the newspaper.’ They have a good senseof how to roll a film out and they’re easy to work with.AWARDSLINE: Is there a script for a financier or distributor to surveybefore they commit to a Woody Allen project?ARONSON: No. I insist that domestic distributors see the film,because I don’t want anyone to buy it, be disappointedand then dump it. If I’m selling in Europe, they don’thave to see the film because they have a high regard forWoody as a filmmaker. They know that his name attachedto a film will do well. Before we’re even finished shooting,many foreign buyers purchase rights. Financiers haveto buy into Woody Allen and his record. In fact they(financiers) do not see a script until money is committed.AWARDSLINE: Is the Academy unfair to comedies?ARONSON: I think that it’s difficult to put comedies anddramas in the same category. If you look over the historyof the Academy or any awards organization, peoplefeel that drama is more important. So, I don’t thinkit’s necessarily just the Academy. It would certainly befairer to everyone to make two distinct categories: You’recomparing apples and oranges.AWARDSLINE: When Woody won for Annie Hall, what did it meanto him?ARONSON: I know that he’s always pleased when his films win.He’s always opposed to awards that are based on ‘This isthe best.’ He thinks it’s fair to say ‘This is my favorite.’ Butit’s hard to judge what’s best.AWARDSLINE: New Yorkers love Woody Allen films, but why do youthink the Hollywood establishment adores him?ARONSON: I don’t think they love him. Why do you ask?AWARDSLINE: Typically when one of his films comes up during anaward season, the Academy and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.have been generous in nominating his work. You won a Golden Globefor Best Comedy on Vicky Cristina Barcelona!ARONSON: That’s a great example. Look at Vicky – awonderful film with great reviews. People loved it. Woodydidn’t get nominated for an Oscar © as best director. He’san exceptional director! If you look at the nominationsover the years, he’s had a lot as writer, but not director.AWARDSLINE: Why do you think that is?ARONSON: I don’t know. He’s not one of the Hollywoodpeople. I think they do celebrate their own. I would like tofeel that they’re completely objective in all of it.AWARDSLINE: Do you think Academy politics were different during thedays of Annie Hall?ARONSON: Were they more objective? There was a timeduring Annie Hall and Manhattan when he was constantlypraised, but over the years, that hasn’t been the case.AWARDSLINE: Woody isn’t known to pander for Oscars © . AsMidnight in Paris gets award traction will you encourage him tostump for Oscars © ?ARONSON: It’s hard to encourage him (to campaign) because hewon’t do it. I wish he would do it because it resonates at thebox office. It’s always easier to raise money when you say thesefilms received so many nominations or awards. He’s happy forus to campaign for everyone involved in the movie; just notfor him. Woody’s view: If the Academy feels he should benominated, then he shouldn’t have to campaign. •Midnight in paris

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O NI N A L L C A T E G O R I E S I N C L U D I N GBEST ACTRESSGlenn CloseBEST PICTUREBEST DIRECTORRodrigo GarciaBEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSJanet McTeerBEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAYGabriella Prekop, John Banville, Glenn CloseStory by Istvan Szabo“A jaw-dropping performanceby Glenn Close…brilliant.In tackling the most demandingrole of her career, Close deliversa restrained, heartbreakingperformance.”- Marlow Stern, Newsweek“A career-crowningrole for Glenn Close.”- Peter Debruge, Variety“A lovely and surprising movie.Great acting…Glenn Close issurrounded by otherexceptional actors,especially Janet McTeer.”- A.O. Scott, The New York Timeswww.roadsideawards.com©2011 Roadside Attractions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Flaring Up & FallingOut at This Fall’sFilm FestivalsEVENTS SERVED AS TESTING GROUNDFOR PROSPECTIVE CONTENDERSGETTY images ©By PeteHammondCOURTESY OF DEADLINECLOONEY AT TOrontoWith the Nov. 10 conclusion of the annual AFI Fest in Hollywood the curtainfinally fell on the 2011 fall film festivals.24 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01So the question remains, has an Oscar © frontrunner emergedafter two months on this circuit?AFI used to be held in the spring but smartlyrepositioned itself to November several years ago. Thesignificant side benefit of that is the Fest has a shot athaving an impact on awards season, not to mentionAFI gets the pick of the litter in terms of prolificcontenders. That strategy has worked again this year,at least in terms of the world premiere opening film,Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar and even for the closingReilly, left, WINSLET AT venicenight selection, Steven Spielberg’s CGI animationcontender, The Adventures of Tintin which alsomade its North American premiere at AFI. Neitherof these directors is necessarily known for putting hisfilms widely on the fest circuit but you can’t deny thathitting the fests can be a good strategy.The last four best picture winners – No Country for Old Men,Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker and The King’s Speech – wereall major festival players, finding their footing on the circuitand then sailing smoothly into Oscar’s © heart. This year,GETTY images ©likely best pic possibilities that began at one fest or anotherinclude The Artist, Moneyball, The Descendants,The Ides of March, Midnight in Paris and now J.Edgar. But there is an even larger number than usual ofthose skipping the circuit and trying other strategies to getthe Academy’s attention. That list includes The Girl Withthe Dragon Tattoo, War Horse, Extremely Loudand Incredibly Close, Young Adult, The Help, TheIron Lady and In the Land of Blood and Honey.Stuck somewhere in the middle is Martin Scorsese’sHugo, which tried to catch the fest wave at the NewYork Film Festival by showcasing a “work in progress.”The ultimate results of the gambit were mixed opinionstoward the film, at least in that form. Then, when thefilm was completed, Paramount skipped the opportunityto show it at AFI and decided to go another direction(at the same time the Fest was going on across town) byunveiling it almost simultaneously to L.A.-based critics,bloggers and members of the Academy. Reaction wasupbeat and the film, which opens Nov. 23rd, is now beingtalked about as a best picture contender, something thatdidn’t happen after its ‘in progress’ New York screening.For AFI, despite its opener and closer, the rest of thelineup was mostly déjà vu from what bleary-eyed festivalgoers have been seeing over the course of the last twomonths, much of it even imported from last May’s CannesFilm Festival which produced its own sizeable number ofcontenders, most notably Midnight in Paris, The Treeof Life, The Skin I Live In and countless other foreignlanguage titles. Whether any of AFI’s non-premiere titlesactually have an impact on awards season is a questionmark but it did give them a high profile opportunity in thetown where most voters live. The Festival itself, though,rivals Toronto and Cannes for the biggest and mostconsistent number of red carpet galas.Those galas consist of movies that seemingly haven’t meta film festival they didn’t like including the WeinsteinCompany’s The Artist (which hit fests big and small since

Jim Burke and Jim Taylor:Giving Birth to Alexander Payne’sThe DescendantsBy Ari KarpelJim Taylor is the lesser-known writing partner of director Alexander Payne, with whom heshares credit on such films as Election and About Schmidt, and an Oscar © for 2005’s Sideways.For The Descendants, starring George Clooney,Payne wrote solo while Taylor stuck to producingalongside Jim Burke, his longtime partner in AdHominem Productions. On the eve of the film’s release,Taylor (who goes by “Jim”) and Burke (who goesby “Burke”) talk about the film’s favorable festival start,editing at Clooney’s Lake Como villa and why Taylor satout the writing of this one.AWARDSLINE: Fox Searchlight optioned the book The Descendants foryour production company, Ad Hominem, about four years ago. Tell meabout the process that followed.BURKE: I read a manuscript that was sent to us by a literaryagent in London. I forwarded it to Searchlight. I think theagent who sent it to us, also mailed it to a number of (production)companies like ours since there was a lot of interestfrom the competition. Searchlight acted quickly on ourbehalf to acquire the option on this book before we had fullydecided who would even direct it. Jim and Alexander at thetime were writing an original screenplay called Downsizingwhich was intended to be Alexander’s next film [to direct].clooney, left, SHAILene WOODLey26 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01So we figured The Descendants would be our next picture toproduce at Ad Hominem and we proceeded along thoselines. We went out and looked for screenwriters to adaptthe book and arrived at Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Theydid a terrific job but it became clear at some point alongthe way that Downsizing was [going to be too big a movie,and take too long to be ready].Alexander became more anxious about starting aproduction shoot and we realized it was going to takelonger [to get Downsizing made]. He became more andmore attracted to Descendants and he decided, ‘I’ll takethis one on.’ Because he decided that it could be donemore in the style that he’s used to, with very little greenscreen.AWARDSLINE: Did Alexander take the script that those guys had writtenand start revising it?TAYLOR: No. They wrote a great script, but the way Alexanderworks is he needs to make what he directs, his own.He went in and made it more personal for himself.AWARDSLINE: So, you’re saying that no matter how good their scriptwas, he had to throw it out and start from scratch in order to write inhis voice and make it his own? And there’s that WGA rule, as therealways is, where they get credit as well.TAYLOR: Yeah, and they wrote a great script, but that isexactly what happened.AWARDSLINE: Jim Taylor, why didn’t you collaborate on this script asyou have with Alexander in the past?TAYLOR: This is a little less comedic than our othercollaborations, so this didn’t feel right for me. Togetherwe tend to write more comedy and the plot of this wasmore emotional.AWARDSLINE: The film received a good response at festivals. Howimportant is it to launch the marketing at a festival like Telluride?TAYLOR: I don’t know. I think that if it’s a strong movie, nomatter where it emerges, it’s still strong and people talkabout it, whether it’s Sundance, Toronto or Telluride orwhatever. Telluride’s such a great festival to be at. It’ssuch a filmmaker-oriented event. We like it because it’seasy to see films there.AWARDSLINE: It’s so hard for an adult drama to get attention now. Itseems like a festival like that really helps it.TAYLOR: Definitely, it does. And Searchlight, you know, they’resome of the only people really making movies like thatanymore, so we’re incredibly lucky to have our home there.BURKE: And I think that they’re equipped to deal with films that arenot easily categorized. I mean, they have many times in the past. It’snot a marketer’s dream (this movie). A marketer’s dream is somethingfrom a comic book.TAYLOR: But it doesn’t hurt to have George Clooney in themovie. In a lot of different ways, not the least of which iswhat a wonderful collaborator he is. But also, I think thatif people are just going looking for another Sideways, theymight be thrown a little bit. So, it’s nice that the only drawisn’t another Alexander Payne movie. It’s also that a lot ofpeople go to movies to see George Clooney’s performances.AWARDSLINE: How do you guys, Jim and Burke, divide yourresponsibilities? Was one of you more on the ground in Hawaii andthe other holding down the fort in L.A.?BURKE: Aside from being business partners, all three of usare very close friends. I think it’s safe to say that we’realways there for each other, whatever we need. It’s neverbeen any kind of an issue, like you do this, you do that.I’m not an artist. Jim and Al are, so they have an artisticrelationship, but they also value what I do for them andfor us; and I, of course, value and highly respect both ofthem. We just do what comes naturally to all of us.TAYLOR: Yeah, I think the term partners really implies what…you know, we’re not always doing the same thing, but we’rea team, and we make sure that everything gets done.AWARDSLINE: This movie was edited by your longtime editor Kevin Tent, but Iread that it was actually edited at Clooney’s Lake Cuomo villa. Is that right?BURKE: It’s sort of right. It was really edited in SantaMonica at our office, but they went over there to his villafor a couple of weeks in the midsummer, just to sort ofwork and, obviously, hang out with George.AWARDSLINE: The leading actor doesn’t usually host the postproductionso does that shift the dynamic a little bit? Don’t you needto shut yourself out and make decisions and not be worried aboutwhat the actor’s going to think?BURKE: Yeah. George, though, is more than just an actor.Not that that’s not enough, but he’s also a filmmakerhimself. He just said, “Hey, listen, man, I have an Avid inmy villa. Why don’t you just come on over and be in Italyfor a few weeks and cut it there?” He wasn’t intrusive atall. All he did was host dinner parties and things like that.And when Kevin and Alexander had a little sequence thatthey were prepared to show him, they did.AWARDSLINE: I’m curious, of course, about the Oscar © campaign forthe film. Clooney is certainly a natural contender; but he also hasIdes of March. Is there a bit of a balancing act with those two?BURKE: Here is how I’d say we feel about an Oscar ©campaign: It’s like the way I feel about getting on anairplane. I don’t pay too much attention to it because Iknow it’s out of my hands.I believe we’ve made a really excellent film and thatknowledge alone just edifies me. I hope other peoplethink that, but it’s so hard to make a movie that even youlike, and often, one of our goals for the three of us at ourcompany is to make movies that we like, that we wouldactually pay to see. I think we’ve done it; and whetherit wins an Oscar © , I don’t know whether it will or not.It’s hard to know. As for [Ides of March,] we’re really coolwith George, too. I know that George understands whata great performance he gave in The Descendants. I justmarvel at it and I feel like he understands that. He has to.Everybody’s telling him that. •burke, left, TAYLOr

“HARRELSON IS EXPLOSIVE. ”Betsy Sharkey, LOS ANGELES TIMES“A SEARING AND RIVETING LOOK at a crooked cop’sdecay amidst the crumbling LAPD at the turn of the millennium.”Kevin Jagernauth, THE PLAYLIST/INDIEWIREFOR YOUR CONSIDERATIONBEST ACTORWoody HarrelsonFor screening info, please visitwww.rampartmovie.com

French Producer Thomas LangmannTurns the Volume Up on theSilent Film With The ArtistBy ScottTimbergFrench producer Thomas Langmann is as much ofa hybrid as the film he is currently promoting: thesilent, black and white title The Artist, written anddirected by Michel Hazanavicius.28 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01LANgmannLike the Artist’s Hollywood matinee idol George Valentin(portrayed by Cannes Film Festival best actor winnerJean Dujardin) who lives between the worlds of silentfilms and talkies; Langmann’s producing sensibilitystraddles the spheres of Hollywood and France.As the son of director Claude Berri, Langmann knowswhat French audiences want, evident in his Frenchblockbuster producer credits Asterix at the Olympic Gamesand the Mesrine French criminal series starring VincentCassel. However, Langmann is also familiar with theAmerican way of making movies, having cut his teeth asa gofer on such productions as Francis Ford Coppola’sThe Godfather: Part III and Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka(produced by Langmann’s uncle Paul Rassam).The Paris-based Langmann spoke to Awardsline about hisroots, producing style and rolling the dice on a long-lostfilm genre that’s a gamble by French and U.S. standards.AWARDSLINE: You came into the film at a pretty early stage. Whatwas it about Michel or his idea that made you want to get involved?LANGMANN: I’ve known Michel for quite a long time: I’veknown his movies and wanted to work with him on aproject called Fantômas, based on a very famous characterin Europe. He said, ‘I want to do it as a black and whitesilent.’ I responded, ‘Well, that’s not really what I want tofor Fantômas, but if you like black and white silent movies– it’s an original idea – why not do an original script?’ Ipaid him to write a script and he completed it within fourto five months. The script was a well-written, simple story.AWARDSLINE: As artistically exciting as the idea was, didn’t it seem like a blackand white silent movie would be commercial suicide, especially outside France?LANGMANN: Yes, even in France. I knew it would be extremelydifficult to finance, maybe impossible. Both Michel and Iare lucky that we’re making commercial movies in France.But television channels here have no interest in black andwhite movies. We had to change distributors; Warner Bros.France came in just as we were shooting.AWARDSLINE: Michel described you as the craziest man in France. Doyou see yourself as a risk-taker?LANGMANN: Well, that’s the way I’ve been told to makecinema. Cinema is gambling. It is better to gamble on aunique film even if it seems like suicide. I told [Michel],especially when The Artist went over budget – he keptasking for more money, we went to the U.S. to make it areal American movie, because of the subject – I told him:‘The only way is if you make it a masterpiece. Otherwisewe are in deep shit.’AWARDSLINE: Let’s talk about The Weinstein Company. What didthe Weinsteins see in the film that made them want to distribute it?LANGMANN: Harvey (Weinstein) flew to France just towatch a black and white silent film he knew little about.He came about eight weeks before we went to Cannes.The film wasn’t completed (in its entirety) at that moment,but Harvey sat alone in the screening room and loved it.He’s also a crazy man. Harvey wasn’t with anyone elsefrom his company nor friends. He was the only one inthe screening room. Afterwards he said, ‘I want this film.’The movie at that stage was nothing. The movie wasn’teven assured to be released in France.AWARDSLINE: What did the film cost and who put the money up?LANGMANN: There are different ways to make up a budget.Michel and Jean reduced their salaries from their usualtake. We were close to 11 million euros and went a bitover budget to 14 million euros. Funding was provided byFrench pay TV channel CanalPlus, France¹s Studio 37,Francois 3 Cinema, Warner Bros. France and my ownproduction company, La Petite Reine.AWARDSLINE: Did the French government put any Euros in?LANGMANN: There were no subsidies at all because wedecided to shoot in the U.S. with an American crew.So we didn’t even ask. We tried to get a tax credit fromCalifornia, but we were unlucky on it. There’s a lottery.AWARDSLINE: You’ve been a successful blockbuster producer in France,with Asterix and the Mesrine films. Did that make financiers morecomfortable working with you on this film?LANGMANN: Not this type of film.AWARDSLINE: The Weinstein Company has had success with movieslike The King’s Speech and Inglourious Basterds. But therehave been some foreign films, i.e. The Concert [$658,000 domesticB.O.] and foreign-themed films, i.e. Miral [$373,000] that theycouldn’t break in this country. What made you think they were the rightcompany to take an eccentric film into the American marketplace?AWARDSLINE: We’ve known the work of Harvey going backto Miramax. I know Harvey is not perfect. But he lovesmovies. For that kind of movie, that’s what you want. Youdon’t think about making money first. For this movie, youneed to be passionate. I knew Harvey could be passionate,but I was in front of him when he saw the movie. We wereknown for making movies for Europe or just for France.AWARDSLINE: Did the Weinstein Company give you any assurance ofan Oscar © push?LANGMANN: We always spoke about going the first step. Wesaid if we got a nomination for best [foreign languagefilm], that would be great. But it’s not really a foreignfilm – it’s a silent film, shot in the U.S. with Americanactors [John Goodman and James Cromwell]; it’s almostmore American than France. It’s a rare case. Harveydidn’t just want to acquire English-speaking countries butnon-English as well – that gave us confidence. So we’d bepleased if the film got a nomination, but that was not ourfirst goal. You cannot make movies with this goal in mind;it never works.DujardinAWARDSLINE: Are Oscars © important to you? Has the Academy beenfair to French films?LANGMANN: I have at my home, for more than 15 years, anOscar © from 1965, The Chicken [Le Poulet], for best short film.[The film came out in 1965; the Oscar © was awarded in1966.] When my father won, he did not have the money tocome to Hollywood, so he received it by mail. He gave it tome years ago and I’ve never touched it. It has the look of’65: I love this object; it has a lot of symbolism. •

for your considerationbest actressMICHELLE YEOH

A ‘Parfitt Fit’ With SeriousFilmmakingBy PeteHammondDavid Parfitt has made his mark in movies and theatre, first as an actor but most notably asa producer of a number of distinguished films including his Oscar © winning best pictureShakespeare in Love as well as Kenneth Branagh’s directorial credits such as Henry V.Now, along with Harvey Weinstein, he has producedMy Week With Marilyn, the film version of ColinClark’s memoir about his relationship with MarilynMonroe during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirldirected by and co-starring Laurence Olivier in 1957.Branagh, Parfitt’s longtime peer of the stage, plays Olivieropposite Michelle Williams as Monroe. Both aredrawing early praise for their performances.AWARDSLINE: It’s kind of risky when you’re dealing with an iconicfigure that everybody knows, like Marilyn Monroe, so was that onyour mind when you took on this project?PARFITT: I have been involved with it for a long time. When(director) Simon Curtis brought the project to me, Ithought “My God, it’s Marilyn Monroe and it would belike a biopic and not terribly interesting to do.” But ofcourse as soon as I read the book I realized it was such adifferent perspective and it was just one small part of herlife. And I thought this was worth looking at because Ididn’t think it had ever been done before.AWARDSLINE: When did you get involved with this project?PARFITT: I commissioned the script nearly seven years ago.Simon had read it. Funny enough, we all knew it was outthere. Simon texted me and said “Where do you rank it?”I loved it so we raised money to develop it. (Developingfilms over a long time span) isn’t uncommon in theindependent world. A lot of projects I’ve done have takenbetween three to seven years. We had a fairly close draftafter 18 months, about the time we negotiated the rights,totaled all the bills and hired (screenwriter) AdrianHodges to deliver the final version to us. After that iswas about making sure we found our Marilyn.AWARDSLINE: When did the Weinstein company become involved?PARFITT: They came in about nine months before we startedshooting. Michelle was already attached. Actually that wasfantastically fortuitous because Harvey had bought BlueValentine and absolutely adored her performance in that.AWARDSLINE: How did the financing work on this?PARFITT: BBC Films and the UK Film Council paid forthe development and then Harvey basically pretty muchpaid for everything else. Lipsync, which is an art houseproduction house, had some money in there as well.AWARDSLINE: It is sort of unusual that they would take all ofthose rights. A lot of times they split up the rights on films.But Harvey….PARFITT: …was passionate about this from the beginning.Right from the first conversation, in a sort of very Harveyway, he said, “I want to take this off the table, we are doingthis.” [laughter] It was sort of one of those conversationsthat, you know, it was his word.AWARDSLINE: I noticed when I saw it that he had a producer creditwith the two of you.ParfittPARFITT: We obviously worked closely on it, from the pointthat he was attached, particularly in the latter stages.Harvey was very much a part of that shoot; he was onthe set every week; during the main shoot too.AWARDSLINE: I’ll get into a little bit of the controversy with the Oscars ©coming up. There was Shakespeare in Love, which sort ofchanged the rules because there were five producers. Now there arethree and it depends on who actually did the producing in terms ofthe actual number. Do you think that was unfair?PARFITT: I think that most people who know the back-storyto Shakespeare in Love understand how that worked. Weinherited some credits there, because Ed Zwick wasattached to direct with Julia Roberts as his lead. Whentheir production fell apart, Harvey acquired it, inheritingsome credits. So, it was a little top heavy there. However,those on set doing the work were me, Donna Gigliotti andHarvey. So I think that if the Academy had wanted tolook at it, the three, if you like, Weinstein credits wouldhave been the ones to go forward. Harvey was a genuineproducer in that.AWARDSLINE: Kenneth Branagh, your old partner and associate, wouldseem to be on the surface of it, probably your only choice as LaurenceOlivier.PARFITT: We obviously made a list of all the parts. On topwas Kenneth and a big part of me said he’ll never do it.But when he read the script he said OK and agreed to doit, which was fantastic! There was some stuff in the BritishPress when he first started out in films: ‘Is this the newOlivier? He’s doing Henry V, he must think he’s the newOlivier.’ But it’s just about doing the right material.AWARDSLINE: How important was the Oscar © for Shakespeare in Love?PARFITT: It’s a nice honor to have and I’m very proud of itas well as my two BAFTAs; I don’t want to belittle that inanyway. Still with the sort of films I make in the UK, it’salways difficult. In that regard, I don’t think it has madea huge difference. People haven’t been jumping up anddown saying, “Oh I must fund that film because of Davidand his Oscar © .” It really doesn’t work that way. Andmy ambitions are really to do the material that I like, in aplace I like working.AWARDSLINE: Right, so it’s a nice trinket, but it didn’t pay the bills.PARFITT: It definitely didn’t pay the bills. [laughter] But it’smore than a trinket. I am very, very proud of it, but I’m stilla working producer, who runs around trying to get money.AWARDSLINE: In terms of the audience for My Week with Marilynwho are you aiming at?PARFITT: You always hope that it will play wide. That wasthe absolute key with Shakespeare in Love. We thoughtpeople who like Shakespeare and classy period movieswould go for it. I think the comedy in particular took itto a broader audience, who we were pleasantly surprisedto reach. With this one, I always thought that just havinga movie involving Marilyn Monroe would broadenthe appeal. Because even my 13-year-old knows whoMarilyn Monroe is and would have a certain interest injust seeing what she was like. •30 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01williams, Left, DougrAY Scott

Chris Columbus and Brunson Green:By AnthonyD’AlessandroHow The Billion-DollarFilmmaker and Mississippi-NativeIndie Producer Harnessed The HelpThe Disney-distributed DreamWorks film The Help took the late summer box officeby storm a few months ago, holding first place for three weeks and ultimatelygrossing over $167 million stateside.Being based on a New York Times bestseller of 103 weeks,which sold 5 million copies, certainly ensured butts inseats, but then word of mouth took over throughout citiesand the heartland. With its mix of comedy and 1960s civilrights drama, Hollywood quickly likened The Help to the1989 Best Picture Oscar © winner Driving Miss Daisy, whichalso charmed the masses ($106.6 million domestic B.O.).As heartwarming as The Help is, so is its journey to thebig screen. Help author Kathryn Stockett wanted noneother than her childhood best friend from MississippiTate Taylor, an untested helmer in Hollywood, to directthe film. Enabling their dream was another mutualfriend from the Magnolia state and Taylor’s producer,Brunson Green, who worked with Chris Columbusto jump the project through hoops in Hollywood.AWARDSLINE: Tell me about the back-story of how The Help madeits way from manuscript to the big screen.GREEN: Kathryn Stockett wrote the manuscript and TateTaylor was one of the first people she allowed to read it.After reading, Tate immediately called me and said ‘Thisis a movie I’m dying to make.’ It was something we bothknew that we had to get the film rights on. After a coupleof months of negotiation, Kathryn agreed to option therights to us before the book was published.COLUMBUS: I met Tate in San Francisco in June 2008 abouta couple of projects; however, he was really interested indirecting a film based upon this book The Help. I gave it tomy wife who read it in two days and exclaimed ‘You haveto make this movie!’GREEN: We never thought this book would become asensation. No one wants to make a movie from a littlebook in the south. As it gained popularity in the top 10,it served as perfect timing as Tate had just finished thescreenplay. We met with [Columbus’ company] 1492in San Francisco and basically got in business together.Over the next few months, we met with several studiosand the movie was a tough sell. It’s a southern storyand lot of those movies don’t have a huge internationalappeal. DreamWorks took a leap of faith with thematerial. Participant Media came in and provided us withadditional financing to make the movie.AWARDSLINE: This is Tate Taylor’s first studio feature. Why didDreamWorks take a chance on him with a period film?COLUMBUS: Tate wrote a brilliant screenplay anddevelopment executives put a lot of stock in that. BothSteven Spielberg and Stacey Snider read it. Theyasked for a commitment from me to be in Mississippiduring filming to oversee the production. Stacey reallytook a leap of faith saying ‘make this movie with the bestpossible cast.’ The picture’s budget wasn’t huge [Editorsnote: $25 million] but it’s not easy to greenlight a periodpiece set in 1962 that’s also female driven. It’s not acommercial project and it took an enormous amount ofcourage on DreamWorks’ part.AWARDSLINE: And how did Tate actually pull off such a big production?COLUMBUS: It’s actually what any director who has workedfor 20 years would do: Tate surrounded himself with anexcellent crew and a great dp [Stephen Goldblatt].I always try and tell filmmakers ‘make a film that’spersonable.’ I don’t think anyone else but Tate couldmake this film. He lived this life and the nuances andvisual touches are there.AWARDSLINE: Typically the Academy bestows best picture on a filmthat makes a big social commentary. That said, what is TheHelp’s message?GREEN: People can make a positive change in theircommunities in small steps, which can eventually makean impact on the world. The Help has now opened inmore than 12 countries, and we had no idea that it wouldeven cross the shores. One line that resonates is whenViola Davis’ character, Aibileen, says ‘Once I told thetruth...I felt free.’ A lot of the film touches and affectspeople’s emotions on different levels.AWARDSLINE: At times, due to some of the older voting members in theAcademy, frosh directors like Tate Taylor have a hard time being lauded,no matter how great the film is.COLUMBUS: I’m still naïve enough to believe that people willtake this movie at face value and vote for the film that they’remost moved by. If they feel that strongly about The Help – Ican’t be so cynical to think that they’re politically motivated.The strength of the film will either make it succeed or fail.GREEN: Look at the swell of support that The King’s Speech receivedand the momentum after everyone had seen that little film.AWARDSLINE: And what was the response from the Academyscreening of The Help?GREEN: We had southern cooking at the reception and peoplewere still talking about the film afterwards which is a good sign.COLUMBUS: The ultimate test was our early preview audiencein Kansas City. We knew we had something then thatconnected with moviegoers. It didn’t matter who saw themovie; we saw people wiping their tears.AWARDSLINE: Disney/DreamWorks sold The Help as a comedy intrailers, but it’s a pretty serious drama. Didn’t this misrepresent thefilm?COLUMBUS: I was asked this before the film opened and myresponse was ‘Let’s talk two weeks after the movie opensand see if these trailers took effect.’ The art of making atrailer is different from making a film. I don’t know howto make a trailer, but if I was cutting one for Help, it wouldbe more dramatic and emotional. However, Disneyknows how to sell a movie; and knows that a little bit goesa long way. The movie performed well because word ofmouth spread. People didn’t feel betrayed by the trailers.AWARDSLINE: Even though Disney reached out to Black leaders andobtained the support of the NAACP’s chairwoman, controversyremained in the African American community over the film’s racialsubject matter.COLUMBUS: The film is about powerful female-drivencharacters and their courage. Whether or not you’reAfrican American, the movie strongly follows what thecharacters choose to do with their lives at this particularlydangerous time in American history. I think when youdeal with a subject matter like this, it’s going to causesome controversy and we expected this. But it’s alwaysgood to have a dialogue and with the endorsement ofthe NAACP and the strong support from everyone in theAfrican American religious community, I believe that thedissenters are small in number. •TAylor, left, COLUMBUSGREEN

Will Oscars’ © New RulesActually Increasethe Campaign Frenzy?like crazy direCTOR doremus in COVeRSATIOn with hammondBy PeteHammondCOURTESY OF DEADLINEkcet - yOLAnDA mARTInez ©The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences © giveth and taketh away. The newAcademy Award © campaign regulations, announced Sept. 21, significantly relaxsome long-standing rules and create a good deal of freedom pre-nominations while reallytightening and restricting activities by nominees and studios post-noms.32 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01Essentially what the new regulations try to do is encouragemembers to see films the way they are meant to be seen: in atheatrical setting. To that end, Oscar © consultants can nowfreely invite members to Q&A screenings and in the prenominationperiod, even hold food and cocktail receptionsbefore or after. It’s almost like the Academy realizesmembers need an incentive to get out of the house and thelazy habit of watching contenders on screeners. Previously,as noted in the Academy’s press release, members were notpermitted to attend screenings that had filmmaker Q&Asand/or receptions attached. Consultants got around thisby inviting guild members who also happened to hold anAcademy card (clever consultants). No problem, althoughafter the noms are out, members can only go to screeningsand Q&As, not receptions.After that date, the Acad promises to beat nominees andtheir campaign staff with a stick (and stiffer penalties too)if they appear at any non-screening event. This wouldinclude the numerous lunches usually hosted by anothermember in honor of a nominee or private parties likethose held last year for nominees The Fighter, The King’sSpeech and others. Now any of these parties will have totake place before the Academy has officially announcedits finalists so that the three-week period between nomsand final ballots being due will be barren of this sort ofactivity. In other words, voters need to stuff their faceand do all their schmoozing before Jan. 24 (check withthe Hollywood Foreign Press Association © for tips onthis, Academy members). This will make all those Guilddinners that come after Oscar © nominations a primeThe important thing is to get members to see themovies, preferably on the big screen.Whether this will have the desired effect of encouragingmembers to get their butts in those theater seats is anyone’sguess, since Academy members who wanted to go toQ&As and receptions went anyway with their guild cards.Still, it is a nice admission by the Acad that their previousrules had gone too far. I am told by one member of theAcademy’s PR committee that this all came up due to aDeadline article I wrote last Jan. 7 about the Oscar © partycircuit. “I think it’s what we’ve all been talking about,”said one studio consultant. “The important thing is to getmembers to see the movies, preferably on the big screen.Rules are one thing, but it’s nice to see the Academyrealizing they can sometimes be to the detriment of thegoal we are all trying to achieve. It’s clearly a new era atthe Academy with (new chief executive) Dawn Hudson.”The new regs also seemingly offer no restrictions on all thosecampaign “events,” lunches and parties hosted by membersfor specific contenders that were so rampant last season. Thatis, before Jan. 24 and the announcement of nominations.target for consultants to try and get as many membersand nominees in the same room. They already do that,but you can expect it to intensify. The Cinema AudioSociety awards are about to become a hot ticket. “Nolunches or parties after nominations?” one incredulousconsultant who organizes some of those asked me. “Well,that sure makes my job a lot easier!”Another player in the Oscar © game who expected theAcademy to get really tough this year was puzzled by theannouncement. “It’s a real mixed bag. The Academymembership clearly doesn’t want to be policed but yourarticle last year pointed out that the perception was thatsome of this campaigning was getting out of hand. But ina way they are opening the floodgates by putting no similarrestrictions on pre-nomination campaigning. And now wecan go directly to members and we could never do thatbefore. It plays into Harvey’s (Weinstein’s) hands. It willencourage more campaigning during the pre-noms, beforeletting the Academy get clubby and official afterwards.”The bottom line is this is a very long season. The threeweekperiod between nominations and final ballotdeadline is just a small part of it. The relaxation of rulesbefore that period is a major step. And it is a smart one.After all how can you tell an Academy member they can’tbe invited to a Q&A or reception with someone whoisn’t even an official nominee yet? The Academy hasfound a middle ground by loosening some of its previousrestrictions while trying to protect the dignity of its processonce it officially begins with the actual nominations.It is the same sort of compromise it crafted in deciding toalter their best picture rule this year by allowing anywherefrom 5 to 10 noms instead of a rigid set number. It will beinteresting to see how these new rules affect the race afterthis year. According to some Academy honchos I spoketo recently, there is a real possibility that the Oscars ©could move to the last Sunday in January, starting in2013. “The date is available,” one top official told me butnothing concrete has been done in this regard yet.Let’s just get through this season first, OK? •A.M.P.A.S. chief executive hudsonA.M.P.A.S. ©

Should the AcademyGive Agents FullBy Pete HammondCOURTESY OF DEADLINEVoting Rights?You can always count on it. Every year, it seems, some talent agency honcho revives thedecades-old quest to gain Oscar © voting rights for agents. The subject always comesup, but the answer, whatever the merits of the idea, will always be the same.It will NEVER happen. The effort is gearing up oncemore: Agency movers and shakers are campaigning forequal Academy voting rights; trying to find sympatheticears in the media to further the cause and make somenoise again.Of course, the Academy has traditionally held a differentopinion. Agents are allowed in only as associate members.The number of agents with that status in the Academyis well under 100 and has included major names likeICM Chairman and CEO Jeff Berg, CAA partner KevinHuvane, WME co-CEO Patrick Whitesell and manyothers like WME’s Brian Swardstrom, who actually hashis own Oscar © but not a vote (keep reading for moreon that). Being an associate means they receive invitesto attend Academy events and maybe access to freebiemovies at local theaters during Oscar © time, but theydon’t have their own branch or any reps on the Board ofGovernors and no voting rights whatsoever, kind of likeillegal aliens.The fact is they’ve never gotten close to those rights,even when complaining that PR people have their ownbranch and get to vote. In recent years, the Academyhas tightened requirements for every branch, includingPublic Relations, and now insists it has a rigid format foradmission. In other words, no personal publicists can beaccepted for the most part. Only those publicists whohave demonstrated a consistent leadership role at studiosand distribution companies or unit publicists, who workdirectly on movie sets, can be admitted.And the Academy now only accepts new membersonce each year. For 2011 it welcomed 178 new votingmembers across all branches considered a part of the“arts and sciences” of motion pictures so prominentlyfeatured in the organization’s name. The definitionapparently doesn’t apply to talent agents, whom the Acadhas traditionally looked at as enablers rather an integralpart of the filmmaking process. No matter which decadeof the Acad’s 83-year history this issue has been broached,you will always have officials worried about the potentialconflict of interest in upping the status of agents.But at least one vocal agent and associate Academymember complains to Deadline that the time has come forchange. “It’s an anachronism. Everyone has a conflict ofinterest, not just agents,” this rep claims. Certainly anyonewho knows the way many voters privately cast their ballotscan attest to that, but who said life is fair? Throughouthistory, winning voting rights for many groups has takenenormous personal toll, sweat and protests. Short oftaking to the streets of Beverly Hills and demanding their“rights,” it’s hard to imagine what agents can do to turnthis around, and not many in the industry seem to havemuch sympathy for their cause. According to publishedreports, former President of the Academy Gregory Peckonce said agents would get the vote “over my dead body.”I guess some would rather not be a member of the sameclub as the person who made the deals that helped getthem there.But hasn’t the perception of what agents really do ingetting films made changed like everything else in thisbusiness? Aren’t the days of looking at them as just adeal maker over? With all the “packaging” and puttingintricate movies together, agents — at least the best ones— really do participate more in the art and science offilmmaking. Without their dogged persistence there mightbe no film in the first place, especially in getting so manyindie movies made these days, like best picture winnersThe Hurt Locker and The King’s Speech. Agenting may be themisunderstood art and science of movies.Proof of that was never made more public than whenactress Tilda Swinton accepted her best supportingactress award in 2007 for Michael Clayton. In her speechshe thanked director Tony Gilroy, co-star George Clooney,but above all her American agent, Swardstrom, whopersuaded her to come to work in the U.S. “I’m givingthis to you,” she said, and later told media, “I’m giving itto Brian. He deserves it. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’tfor him. … It might (calm him down) when I’m on thespeakerphone telling him I’m going to do another artfilm in Europe.” And she meant it. He still has it. WhenI saw her in Telluride in September and asked where herOscar © is now, she looked quizzically at me and said, “It’shis.” For an actor to give their Oscar © away to their agentis the kind of testimony that could be effective in changingperceptions within the Academy hierarchy on this issue.Or not.Bottom line is most members of the Academy either haveor have had an agent, and if they don’t want to play inthe same sandbox with them there’s not much that canbe done. Some in power positions still look at them asobstructionists or roadblocks in the art of making movies,and as far as full membership in the clubby Academy isconcerned, they are still looking in the window from theoutside even as there are voting members who haven’tworked actively in the business for years. In other words,it’s hard to turn this train around.SWintonA.M.P.A.S. ©It’s not unprecedented, though. The Academy ofTelevision Arts & Sciences © doesn’t seem to have aproblem with agents and even has two spots on theirBoard of Governors earmarked for “ProfessionalRepresentatives.” But my suggestion for agents who reallyhave their heart set on casting a ballot for the harderto-crackOscars © and not just Emmys © is to do like somany of your former colleagues have done in the past.Stop being an agent and become a producer, or betteryet a studio head. Just ask Academy voting member andUniversal Studios President and COO Ron Meyer. •

Golden Globes © TVNominees Forecast:Freshmen InvadeBy RayRichmondSeniors’ Territoriesmodern familyThe biggest news this year when it comes to the Golden Globes © television categories iswhat isn’t eligible rather than what is. AMC’s four-time winner Mad Men isn’t eligible,which opens up the voting in the drama series and performing categories significantly.This means that the six or seven people whose votes determinethe winners will need to set their gaze elsewhere. (Just kidding.It’s at least 10 voters.)Here is how one awards handicapper (me) sees the GlobeTV races shaping up this year, with guidance from someGolden Globe © insiders:TV SERIESDRAMA34 The Awards Edition 2011-2012 Issue 01here are your nominees:Boardwalk Empire HBOThe Good Wife CBSGame of Thrones HBOHomeland ShowtimeThe Walking Dead AMCWhy: Boardwalk won last January when most everyonethought it was going to be Mad Men again. Yet it would bea stretch calling that an upset, since the HBO mob dramacarried the Martin Scorsese seal of quality – and stilldoes. But there’s nothing the Hollywood Foreign PressAssn. voters like to do more than yank everyone’s chain,as it proved last year in giving a trophy to the SundanceChannel mini Carlos over HBO’s The Pacific and TemplelynchgleebuSCemi, left, michael pittGrandin. That’s why everyone should watch out here forthe intense terrorism-themed Homeland, a freshmanhour that’s “universally loved” by the membership,according to one insider. That same insider also givesAmerican Horror Story a decent shot at busting through.But the smart money is on Boardwalk Empire, Good Wifeand Walking Dead being repeat nominees.TV SERIESCOMEDY/MUSICALhere are your nominees:Modern Family ABCGlee FoxThe Big Bang Theory CBSCurb Your Enthusiasm HBOThe Big C ShowtimeWhy: Globe voters went gaga for Glee last time out,bestowing three statuettes on it, including one fortop comedy/musical. The shame of honoring it overModern Family may never fully disappear. But thataside, the view here is that nothing new will be breakingthrough this time aside from the return of Curb, whichwasn’t eligible last time out. “I don’t think any of theboarDWALK EMPIrenew network comedies has really blown anyone away,”observes one member. The pair with the best shot areNew Girl and Two Broke Girls. And blasphemousthough it may seem, 30 Rock is no longer a nominationshoo-in after five years. HBO’s Enlightened andShowtime’s Episodes have both generated some buzz,but probably not quite enough to merit a nomination.Unless they do.MINISERIES ORMADE-FOR-TV MOVIEhere are your nomineesMasterpiece: Downton Abbey PBSMasterpiece: Any Human Heart PBSMildred Pierce HBOFive LifetimeToo Big to Fail HBOWhy: Though HBO didn’t win in this category a yearago, it’s always the favorite. At the least, the network isgoing to have a couple of nominees among the handful.By the same token, the HFPA likes its Masterpiece, andfew projects undertaken by the PBS series in recent years

new name. new stories.same great coverage.PRINT EDITIONS7 issuescovering eachfacet of theAwards SeasonNov 16 Overview / ProducersNov 30 Directors / WritersDec 9Animation / Foreign Language / MusicDec 16 Supporting Actor & Actress / Special Effects / CinematographyJan 2Feb 1Feb 8Actor / Actress / Hair, Makeup and cOstumeThe Nominees and The Studio MogulsThe Nominees and The WinnersFor more iNFORmation contact:Nic Paul, Vice President Entertainment Sales | npaul@pmc.comNETWORK:

PETER TRAVERS“CLOONEY CANNILY MAKES HIS POINTS WITHIN THEGUISE OF A PULSE-RACING THRILLER. SMART MOVE.All the actors deserve high praise. Hoffman and Giamatti remind you of just how good they are, digging into the script’s choicestdialogue. Marisa Tomei excels as a New York Times reporter… Clooney knows how to ignite sparks and build momentum. Andhe hands the terrifi c Gosling an all-stops-out role that challenges him on every level – his ravaged face traces the line fromcompromise to corruption. Clooney’s exceptional performance is a mesmerizing study in treachery, sweetly done.”for yourCONSIDERATIONIN ALL CATEGORIES includingBEST PICTUREProduced byGrant Heslov George Clooney Brian OliverBEST DIRECTORGeorge ClooneyBEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAYGeorge Clooney & Grant Heslovand Beau WillimonBased on the play“Farragut North” by Beau WillimonBEST ACTORRyan GoslingBEST SUPPORTING ACTORGeorge ClooneyPhilip Seymour HoffmanPaul GiamattiJeffrey WrightBEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSMarisa TomeiEvan Rachel Wood