The Gold Rush

Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. make an appearance on MTV's "Total Request Live" to promote the movie. Dig Robert's pocket accessory. (Peter Kramer/AP)

We went, we saw, we loved it. "Iron Man" is a triumph, finally making a comic-book movie not seem so forced, so obligatory. We chalk it up to the great casting — Robert Downey Jr. (who we never tire of seeing described as "the best actor of his generation") and The Dude (a hardly recognizable Jeff Bridges playing a thankfully non-alien villain) — and, OK, the schlub factor.

We also find it interesting that the Pop Watch bloggers at Entertainment Weekly have taken the populist stance and called for the Academy to do some hard thinking — and consider Downey Jr. for an Oscar nomination. At the very least, it would be refreshing to have a slate of nominees from films the country — i.e., those same TV viewers you keep lamenting aren't watching the Oscars anymore, in droves — has actually seen.

What do you think? Was "Iron Man" just good escapist fun, or is it deserving of the Ultimate Nod? Comment below...

Posted by Thomas Conner at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

Having been sidelined by the WGA strike this year, the Golden Globes are set to return next year on Sunday, Jan. 11.

On Tuesday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. announced its key dates for its 66th annual awards. Nominations will be announced at 5 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 11.

Continue reading "Golden Globes spinning early next year" »

Posted by Thomas Conner at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — What’s more significant: the inauguration of a new U.S. president or the announcement of the year’s Oscar nominees? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided politics takes precedence, announcing today it has delayed the nominations announcement by two days.

Oscar nominees are usually revealed on a Tuesday about four weeks before the big show, which is typically held the last Sunday in February. For 2009, though, the targeted Tuesday — Jan. 20 — is Inauguration Day.
So the 81st annual Oscar nominees will be revealed Thursday, Jan. 22, and the Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, Feb. 22 — the earliest Oscars ever.

Continue reading "Oscars opt to give new president the Tuesday spotlight" »

Posted by Thomas Conner at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another March, another spent Gold Rush.

Now that the trophies are in the trophy cases, and we've finally recovered from (whew) the Oscar Week that almost wasn't, we're putting the blog to bed till the next show. Thanks for all your eyes and input. See you soon!

Posted by Thomas Conner at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A complete list of the nominations announced today for the Academy of County Music awards:

Continue reading "ACM nominations: Chesney, Chesney, Chesney ..." »

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Diablo Cody, the Chicago-area ex-stripper who just won an Oscar for writing "Juno," is now a columnist for Entertainment Weekly magazine. In her latest missive, she sets the record straight about crying during her acceptance speech: “I get something stuck in my eye and am widely misinterpreted as weeping. Yeah, like I would cry in that situation. You punks obviously don’t know me. I’m tough. I would never break into ragged sobs on live television, and I would also never run off stage immediately afterward and blubber in front of the entire production crew and Helen Mirren."

Posted by Thomas Conner at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Much was made of the fact that several actresses at the Oscars were sporting baby bumps. Jessica Alba, however, was threatened by a real bump.

Continue reading "Jessica Alba at Oscars: I'll tumble for ya ..." »

Posted by Thomas Conner at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Entertainment Weekly interviewed Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, following the news of the dismally low ratings for Sunday's Oscars. He acknowledges that a majority of the traditional viewers simply didn't tune in at all this year, and instead of casting blame to elements of the show or the writers strike, he concedes that, in the movie industry of the future, the Oscars may naturally be a smaller affair.

"Some of these movies are just too difficult for a mass audience, frankly," Davis says. "And if we have moved into an era where there's this dichotomy between big popular studio movies and smaller pictures for more specialized audiences, we may just have to get used to smaller audiences [for the Oscar telecast.] This could be a one-year blip but it doesn't look like one. It looks like something that has been developing over the past few years. It's as if the National Book Awards had to make a choice between giving awards to very serious fiction or to the most popular bestsellers. We've come to that point where there are two kinds of movies, and we're focusing on the ones which, almost by definition, aren't going to be blockbusters."

Posted by Thomas Conner at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)