'Office' exec producer earns writing award
9/4/2008
ShowEast honors Griselda Fortunato
Confab awards kudo to int'l distribution exec
9/4/2008
Jordan joins foreign Oscar race
Matalqa's 'Captain' will be country's first entry
9/4/2008
AFI announces awards schedule
Org to reveal film, TV honorees on Dec. 14
9/4/2008
French, U.K. pics head Euro list
Academy selects 44 films for awards
9/4/2008
Ridley Scott, the master stylist and orchestrator of the thinking man's epic ("Gladiator") tackled the Crusades with "Kingdom of Heaven," even drawing parallels to the current Middle East conflict. But alas, Orlando Bloom is no Russell Crowe, and the film failed to live up to critical and commercial expectations. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called it "a handsome but curiously remote Crusades epic."
Cameron Crowe, of "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous," which racked up nine Oscar noms between them, including a screenplay win for Crowe, paid more attention to "Elizabethtown's" soundtrack than its story and characters. The result was his worst-reviewed film since "Vanilla Sky," and a disappearing act in the theaters. "What in the world has happened to Cameron Crowe?" asked the New Yorker's David Denby.
Roman Polanksi, the director of "Chinatown" whose last film, 2002's "The Pianist, won him an Oscar, brought all of his maturity and personal orphan experience to bear in "Oliver Twist." But despite affecting performances and topnotch production values, the Sept. 23 release got lost in a blizzard of late-year entries and was written off by indifferent critics. "Lacks dramatic urgency and intriguing undercurrents," wrote Variety's Todd McCarthy.
When Rob Marshall, the frosh director of 2002 best pic "Chicago," was handed the "Memoirs of a Geisha" reins from Steven Spielberg, some viewed it as a symbolic passing of the torch from one wunderkind to another. But despite eye-popping visuals and stars Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li, "Memoirs" suffered some of the year's cattiest reviews. "Designing a movie isn't the same as directing one," wrote Robert Denerstein of the Denver Rocky Mountain news.
Curtis Hanson, whose 1997 "L.A. Confidential" collected nine Acad noms but was steamrolled at the Oscars by "Titanic," has been a critics' fave since, but his "In Her Shoes," despite decent r eviews, appeared lightweight and formulaic compared with past efforts like "Woner Boys" and "8 Mile." "Treats love like a pretty accessory to be stored in a plastic box and shoved in the back of a closet when it proves impractical," wote the L.A. Times.
