Sunday, February 25, 2007

Posnock Predictions


By Susan Thea Posnock

Note: I went 12/24 -- yikes!!!!


Now that my favorites are out of the
way, time for some last minute Oscar predictions.

I'll preface my picks by noting that I considered 2006 a rather tepid year in film. With the exceptions of Volver and The Departed, I don't have intense rooting interest tonight. At least not compared to the emotional investment (some would call
it "insanity") I had during The Lord of the Rings years.

Read the rest at Oscarwatch.com

(Note: This post is currently missing!)

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Poscar Winners


By Susan Thea Posnock

It's too late. No matter who wins the First Annual Poscars, the ballots for those other little awards, (hint: rhymes with Poscars), have been cast.

I planned to offer up my personal favorites of 2006 on Valentine's Day, but I was too busy trying to decide what to wear to the big event. And while it's true that the "big event" only entailed my sitting alone in front of my computer, you just never know. Perhaps ThinkFilm, in their infinite wisdom, planned to have Ryan Gosling personally deliver a screener of Half Nelson to my door. Or what if Joan Rivers decided to stop by and see what designer I was wearing? (For the record: Gap sweats.)



But enough preamble: no need to sit through three hours of bad production numbers and rambling speeches. In fact, I'll start with the "big one."

Continue reading here...

Friday, February 16, 2007

Oscars and omelets: A Conversation with Patrick Marber

By Susan Thea Posnock

One aspect of being a writer is to dream of immortality through words.

For a screenwriter, an Academy Award is the ultimate way to achieve this. But, as I discovered over a recent chat with Best Adapted Screenplay nominee Patrick Marber--the comedian-turned-playwright-turned-screen scribe of Notes on a Scandal--restaurant menus offer another way to grasp that “Holy Grail.”

Sitting in the lobby of Manhattan’s famed Algonquin Hotel, our conversation veered off on a tangent about one of its most notable regulars, Dorothy Parker.

“You can buy a Dorothy Parker burger here,” he pointed out. “In London there’s a hotel where there’s a Virginia Woolf burger. I’ve always thought that was hilarious.”

Throwing good taste to the wind I wondered aloud, “Do you dip it in water?”

Read the rest here...

Friday, February 09, 2007

The First Annual "Poscars"

By Susan Thea Posnock



Yes, the Academy Awards are important, but I know that in secret [perhaps super-duper secret] what people in the film world really yearn for this time of year isn't the Oscar. It's the Poscar.

What? You've never heard of it? Well, okay, I did just make it up. But if Martin Scorsese is brutally denied another directing Oscar for The Departed, he will rest easy knowing this was the year he snagged the Poscar.

In coming up with these "prestigious" awards, I must give credit to my friend Nathaniel over at The Film Experience, whose brilliant (and recently completed) Film Bitch Awards provided inspiration.

Read the rest here...

Friday, February 02, 2007

Big stars, Oscar campaigning and the Internet

A conversation with director Roger Michell

By Susan Thea Posnock

otoole.jpg

I met with director Roger Michell—who guided Peter O’Toole to his eighth Best Actor nomination in Venus—over lunch on a brisk afternoon last fall.

Before I could begin my interview in earnest, he noted the presence of failed presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, at a nearby table.

"The Oscars are a bit like John Kerry sitting over there: vastly campaigned for," he said. "They're quite corrupt in that way. They're not this sort of simple meritocracy."

He would know. Michell, who was born in South Africa but now resides in England, got his start as a theater director (and still dips in those waters between films), but has been helming features for more than a decade.

His first effort was Persuasion in 1995. Not only did it kick-off the Jane Austen big screen movie-a-thon, but this beautifully understated film remains my favorite among the numerous adaptations of her works. Over the years Michell’s worked on a mix of star vehicles and smaller, more personal films. He's probably best known for 1999's Notting Hill, with superstars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.

Read the rest here