With its surprise wins at the Producer’s Guild awards and the Director’s Guild awards, The King’s Speech has inched ahead of previous favorite The Social Network to become the new frontrunner for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards. But there’s one chink in Speech’s strong armor: Christopher Hitchens. The renowned author and raconteur’s strongly-worded rebuke of the film’s historical accuracy (“it perpetrates a gross falisification of history”) has been a pretty hot read in Hollywood circles since it first appeared on Slate a couple of weeks back. Now, since The King’s Speech is no longer the underdog, Hitchens’s takedown could be a problem for the filmmakers.
Or maybe not. The Academy’s motives for their choices are sometimes inexplicable, but Oscar voters have never worried too much about flaws in their history. Here’s just a few of the questionably-accurate movies that have won major awards over the past few decades.
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Having undoubtedly seen thousands of movies in his time, Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to the art of the homage — in fact, certain detractors would say that he’s made a career out of it. To give credit where credit is due, Tarantino has proudly (or maybe brazenly) raised a well-exercised middle finger to his naysayers and divulged a handful of the cinematic influences at work in Inglourious Basterds. We suggest that you add these films to your queue.
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For the first time in 67 years there will be ten Best Picture nominees, rather than the typical five, at this year’s Oscars — which is not good news if you’re a betting man. So we’ve done some research to help your odds. Among what we discovered: In the past ten years only one book based on a true story has won Best Picture — A Beautiful Mind in 2002. So if history repeats itself The Blind Side, Up in the Air, An Education, and Precious won’t be bringing home top honors. And despite its marker as the highest grossing film in history, we can pull Avatar from the list, as well as District 9, as sci-fi flicks aren’t popular with the Academy. Comedies are rarely winners — even dark ones — which rules out A Serious Man. Plus, the Coen brothers already won in 2007 with No Country for Old Men. And let’s face it, as adorable as Up! was, there’s no way an animated film could ever win in this category.
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1. Kid Cudi is leaving Lady Gaga‘s Monster Ball Tour to focus on his next album and acting commitments. He will perform at scheduled dates through the end of January. [via Billboard]
2. Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, and Precious led the 16th annual SAG Award nominations. [via indieWIRE]
3. Sarah Palin was spotted in Hawaii wearing a John McCain campaign visor with his named blacked out. She coyly claims she was trying to go incognito. [via The Awl]
4. Morrissey has released an official statement in which he apologizes to fans for his last album, Swords, calling it a “meek disaster.” [via NME]
5. Good news: Your Big Mac will soon come with a side of free WiFi. Will McDonald’s become the new Starbucks for bloggers? [via Geek Sugar]
Bonus link: The decade’s best unread books
To scalp or not to scalp? The critics have weighed in on this question, and the consensus is… decidedly mixed. Roger Ebert is hailing Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds as the best film of year, while the folks at The New Yorker have written it off as “pure sensation.” Not sure what to think? Are you, too, slightly puzzled by the grassroots, spray-painted advertising we found outside our office? Check out our review roundup and give us the verdict: Will you be seeing Inglourious Basterds tonight?
“Immediately after Pulp Fiction played at Cannes, QT asked me what I thought. ‘It’s either the best film of the year or the worst film,’ I said. I hardly knew what the hell had happened to me. The answer was: the best film. Tarantino films have a way of growing on you. It’s not enough to see them once.”
-Rogert Ebert [via Chicago Sun Times]
View what the rest had to say after the jump. Read More »
1. House Majority Leader Tom Delay will be on the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars. [via Mediaite]
2. New Yorker critic David Denby says Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is too silly to be enjoyed, even as a joke. [via The Daily Beast]
3. Peter Jackson-produced District 9 topped the weekend box office taking in $37 M. [via AP]
4. Radiohead releases “These Are My Twisted Words” on their website for free. [via EW] Or not.
5. Someone stole a large collection of stuffed birds from London’s Natural History Museum over the weekend. [via Unbeige]
An article in today’s New York Times explains that film studios usually reserve August for difficult movies that might not do so well if they were released, say, a week after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Which makes sense. But because box office sales are down this summer, some of these tricky August releases are shouldering more weight than anyone — the studios, producers, or directors — expected or hoped. After the jump we preview five of the month’s biggest releases and rank them according to buzz and box-office potential. There may still be some surprises, a la The Hangover, in store for us this summer. Read More »
After the jump, find the trailer for Tarantino’s forthcoming World War II flick Inglourious Basterds, which was inspired a 1978 Italian war movie; what follows is a play by play of our extremely analytical first viewing. Let us know if you concur in the comments, and if anyone has the back story on the incorrect spelling in the title, do share.
00:12 – Splattered blood graphic in the titles. Uh-oh. This is going to be just as violent as Kill Bill, a film which we adore but were unable to watch in a movie theatre because it made us wig out.
00:16 – Brad Pitt! And he’s using his Southern Benjamin Button voice!
00:28 – We LOL when he says “thang.” Both times.
00:30 – Why does he say the word “Nazis” like that?
00:33 – It’s Ryan from The Office!
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