Movie Trailer of the Week: The King's Speech

For the past couple weeks I wasn't able to find a trailer that really stuck out to me. Nothing seemed blogworthy. So, I didn't post anything. But as awards season approaches, this week I had a hard time choosing from a slew of new movie trailers.

I could have chosen either of two upcoming Ryan Gosling films (All Good Things or Blue Valentine). I think Gosling is maybe the best young actor in the world right now. I could have featured a truly depressing trailer for Rabbit Hole , a film with two of my favorite actors Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, that I'm sure will be uplifting in the end. I could have forgone all of the award-seeking fodder for Scream 4.

Ultimately, the trailer that resonated with me the most was for the film The King's Speech. The king in question is stuttering, stammering King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. He is played by Colin Firth, who I'm certain will be a multiple award nominee for this film.

The King's Speech, also starring Helena Bonham Carter, Geoffrey Rush, Michael Gambon, and Guy Pearce, releases Thanksgiving weekend on November 26.

CCM Magazine's Dove Award Predictions

The Gospel Music Association's Dove Awards are April 23. Check out CCM Magazine's predictions.

This year, for the first time, the GMA is allowing fans to vote for Artist of the Year and New Artist of the Year. Vote here.

Beliefnet Film Awards

This year's winners include Wall-E, Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire and Dark Night.

See the list here.

It would have been interesting if they had strayed away from a strictly Oscar-esque group of films.

For instance, I just watched a film called Henry Poole Is Here starring Luke Wilson. The film centers around a dying man whose house becomes a bit of a spiritual landmark when the image of Christ appears on the side of his house.

Check out the trailer below:

2009 Oscar Predictions

• Picture - Slumdog Millionaire
  
  
• Director - Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
  
  
• Lead Actor - Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
  
  (For me, this is the hardest race to predict. This could easily go to Sean Penn. They have won almost an exactly equal amount of awards. I'm giving Rourke the edge because he won the BAFTA and that awards show has matched up with Oscar in the acting categories every year since 2001.)
  
  
  
• Lead Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
  
  
• Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
  (This is the most sure-fire of the night)
  
  
• Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
  
  
• Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk
  
  
• Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
  
  
• Animated Film: Wall-E
  
  
• Foreign-Language Film: Waltz With Bashir
  
  
• Documentary Feature: Man On Wire
  
  
• Documentary Short: The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306
  
  
• Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
  
  
• Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
  

• Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
  
• Costume Design: The Duchess
  
  
• Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
  
• Score: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
  
  
• Song: "Down To Earth" - Peter Gabriel, Wall-E
  
  
• Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
  
• Sound Editing: Wall-E? (I may change this before the show)
  
  
• Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire? (this one too)
  
  
• Live Action Short: Spielzugland (Toyland)
  
  
• Animated Short: Presto
  
  
  

Getting Ready for Oscar - The Guilds

The most famous "guild awards" is the Screen Actor's Guild. There are guilds and organizations for just about every other Oscar category though, and they provide a decent ruler by which to measure Sunday night's wins.

Screen Actors Guild

• Leading Actor - Sean Penn, Milk
• Leading Actress - Meryl Streep, Doubt
• Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
  
• Supporting Actress - Kate Winslet, The Reader

This year's SAGs aren't much help in the actress department this year. Kate Winslet was nominated for both lead and supporting at the SAGs. She was beaten by Meryl Streep for leading but at the Oscars Kate's only nominated for The Reader...as Lead. Confused?


Producers Guild of America

• Feature Film - Slumdog Millionaire
• Documentary - Man On Wire
• Animated - Wall-E
  

This award reflects on the best picture nominees. The other nominees at the PGA were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Dark Knight. The only difference in nominees for best picture at the Oscars is that Dark Knight was replaced by The Reader. Harvey Weinstein is campaigning ruthlessly for it to win but I'm hoping (and fairly confident) that Slumdog will still take best picture. Man On Wire and Wall-E are both no-brainers on Oscar night.


Director's Guild of America

• Feature Film - Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
• Documentary - Ari Folman, Waltz With Bashir
  

A couple things about this:

1. Usually at the Oscars, when the director wins, his film wins.
2. Oscar doesn't offer a director's award for documentary, but this is another reason Waltz could win Foreign Film, beating out the other leading contender The Class.

Writer's Guild of America

• Original Screenplay - Milk
• Adapted Screenplay - Slumdog Millionaire
• Documentary Screenplay - Waltz With Bashir

It is odd that the Academy didn't nominate Waltz for Documentary when so many other awards did. Oscar doesn't award a screenplay for doc, so here's yet another argument for Waltz to win foreign.


American Cinema Editors

• Dramatic Feature - Slumdog Millionaire
• Comedy or Musical Feature - Wall-E

Wall-E is not nominated for editing at the Oscars and Slumdog is likely to win.


Art Director's Guild
This one offers no real help. There are separate categories for Period Film (Benjamin Button), Contemporary Film (Slumdog), and Fantasy Film (Dark Knight). So, the three leading contenders in the Oscar category of art direction were all given awards by this guild. More often than not, Oscar rewards period films though.


Costume Designer's Guild
There are three categories for this guild as well, but it's much more helpful than the ADG winners. The CDG passed out their awards on Tuesday night and the award for best period film went to The Duchess. Fantasy and Contemporary matched the ADG, but it doesn't matter because they aren't nominated for an Oscar in this category. So, one could assume from this win that The Duchess will edge out its biggest competition, Benjamin Button on Sunday night. Come to think of it though, The Dark Knight should have been nominated in this category for the Academy Awards.



The American Society of Cinematographers

• Slumdog Millionaire
  

Motion Picture Sound Editors Guild
The MPSE Golden Reel Awards will be handed out Saturday night. The nominees are listed at their site.

M.I.A. Wants To Sing At The Oscars Through A Hologram

M.I.A. wants to sing at the Oscars through a hologram. The 31-year-old rapper - who gave birth to her baby son last Wednesday, just days after she performed at the Grammys - is so keen to sing at the upcoming award ceremony she is considering using a computer-generated image of herself.

M.I.A. is up for an award in the best original song category for her collaboration with Ar Rahman on "O Saya" - a song which features on the soundtrack of the Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire.

Speaking about the new mother's possible Oscar performance, Indian composer Rahman said: "She wants to. In fact, she said she'll do it with a hologram. She has all these ideas. I don't know how it's going to be possible, though. Having a baby is such an important thing in your life - more important than winning an Oscar."

Read the rest of the article at icelebz.com.

Getting Ready for Oscar - Win Your Oscar Pool

The Oscar Guy is an invaluable resource. Here's his predictions. Here's a tally of the awards the nominated films have already won.

Here's Entertainment Weekly's predictions.

Here's another helpful site, Awards Daily.

My predictions are coming soon. I am usually sure I'm going to win because of all my research ,but then end up losing to my wife's guessing.

Oscar wants to make the show a little more boring.

So, I'm watching the Grammys and I have to say it's been a great show so far. More performances, less awards. But as John Mayer accepted his award for "Say" I thought, "Hey, that song was from the soundtrack to The Bucket List."

That made me remember how irritated I am that only three songs were nominated for Academy Awards this year. The nominees don't even include Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" from the nominated film of the same name. It's not as though the awards show hasn't become one of the most boring things on television. So, why take away two of the musical performances?

I have not seen any of the High School Musicals and I don't plan on it, but it might have been nice to see one of the big numbers performed on the show. Might have been nice to hear Beyonce perform "Once In A Lifetime" from Cadillac Records. We could have continued our love/hate relationship with Miley Cyrus as she sang "I Thought I Lost You" from best animated nominee Bolt.

I would have loved to see Jason Segel perform "Dracula's Lament" from Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Alicia Keys and Jack Black perform "Another Way to Die" from Quantum of Solace.

What we will hear is "Down to Earth," by Peter Gabriel from WALL-E and two songs from Slumdog Millionaire with words I won't understand.

So, when you're trying to win the Oscar party pool it's a safe bet the Slumdog songs will cancel each other out and Peter will arrive on stage to collect his golden statuette. He won the Grammy tonight for "Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media".

Here is a complete list of the songs that were eligible for this year.

Here's the winner:

Oscar on DVD

It's that time of the year. The nominees for the 81st annual Academy Awards were announced in the wee hours of this morning. But in the current economic climate, who can afford to go to the theater these days? The Oscars will be handed out on February 22. So, there's time to catch up on DVD. Here are the nominees already available:

1. Dark Knight
   
   
2. Tropic Thunder
   
   
3. All the animated films (Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E, Bolt)
   

   
   

4. The Visitor
   
   This is a great movie you may not have seen.
   
   
   Although all of the acting in this film is stellar, The Visitor's lone nomination is for Richard Jenkins as best actor. While definitely deserving of the nomination, he will most likely be beaten by The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke.
   
   
   
   
5. Iron Man (Sound Editing / Visual Effects)
   
   
6. The Duchess (Costume Design)
   
   
7. Encounters at the End of the World (Documentary)
   
   
8. Man on Wire (Documentary)
   
   You can watch it on demand at Netflix.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Wanted (Sound Editing / Mixing)
   
   
10. In Bruges (Original Screenplay)
    
    
11. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Supporting Actress for Penelope Cruz) - January 27
    
    
12. Frozen River (Actress, Original Screenplay) - February 10
    
    
13. Changeling - February 17
    

AFTER THE AWARDS:

1. Australia (Costume Design) - March 10
   
   
2. Happy-Go-Lucky (Original Screenplay)
   - March 10
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Rachel Getting Married (Lead Actress - Anne Hathaway) - March 17
   

As far as I can tell that's it for now.

None of the best picture nominees or nominees for foreign film are available on DVD. You can count on the studios to announce more release dates over the next few weeks.

GMA Week and KNAPSACKHEROES!

Well, it's Gospel Music Association week - the few days in April when Christian music professionals from across the globe gather in Nashville for training, fellowship, tons of concerts, and free swag. GMA Week culminates with The GMA Awards (better known as The Dove Awards).

My band, KNAPSACKHEROES!, will be a part of the experience this week and I'd love for you to come out to see us.

We'll be in concert at the Back to the Music Showcase at 12th and
Porter on Monday night at 9 PM and will be followed by Rush of Fools (EMI/CMG /
Midas Records). This show is free to everyone. There will be great music all evening before and after us.

Tuesday night KNAPSACKHEROES! will be in concert at The Rutledge with dcTalk's
Kevin Max and Sarah Macintosh (former lead singer of Chasing Furies). That show is $7 to the public and free to GMA registrants.

For more information on these concerts, visit
myspace.com/knapsackheroes.

I'd love to see you there!

Oscars

This is the first year in nearly a decade we haven't had an Oscar party and I'm depressed about it and having withdrawals. I'll post my predictions for the awards tomorrow.

Tenneessee Bloggers

I just discovered the Tennessee Bloggers website.

You may already know about this... I didn't until Shaun Grove's wrote that his Schlog had won an award for Best Nightlife and Music News Blog. (It is a good site.)

I'm wondering why some of the blogs I read regularly didn't get a nod for "Best Faith-Based Blogs".

Anyway, check the site for yet more blogs to add to your Bloglines (or whatever RSS thang you use).