Should we take "Hunger" into major consideration?

After being well recieved at Cannes and Toronto, can this controversial film from artist-turned-first-time-filmmaker, Steve McQueen, come in as a surprise contender in this year's Oscar race? Hunger is about Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 Irish hunger strike and participated in the no wash protest in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. Hunger dramatises the events in the notorious Northern Ireland's Maze prison six weeks prior to Sands's death.



Steve McQueen won the Camera d'Or at Cannes for Best First Feature Film as well as the DIESEL Discovery Award at the Toronto Film Festival.



Michael Fassbender (300) stars as Bobby Sands, and he is one sure to look out for as a dark horse contender. Fassbender can soon be seen alongside Brad Pitt and Diane Kruger in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards.

Just by looking at the trailer, it looks very compelling, and Fassbender looks unbelievable.

Check out the trailer for Hunger:

The Tidbits For The Day...

To start off:

-Slumdog Millionaire won the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival, the Cadillac's People's Choice Award, voted on by festival audiences... Yeah, it's lookin good now...

-The Visitor won the top prize over at the Deauville Film Festival. While having a surprising box office for a small indie film, Richard Jenkins, the film's star, has been recieving major Oscar buzz for Best Lead Actor. According to Screen Daily News (http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=40839), the Deauville Film Festival has been a very good Oscar predictor, especially for such films as Crash and Little Miss Sunshine.

-Want a taste of Jack White's song for the new James Bond movie. Well in the new Coke Zero (Zero Zero 7) ad, he provides an instrumental sample from his song "Another Way To Die," in which he duets with Alicia Keys. It's a pretty cool commercial too...


-Over at Fataculture (http://fataculture.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/toronto-08-slumdog-wins-peoples-choice-award-poke-yourself-in-the-eye-if-you-didnt-see-that-coming/), they compare Slumdog Millionaire to other past winners of the top prize from TIFF and see how they stood in awards after the festival. They point out that in 2007, Eastern Promises won, in 2006, it was Bella, in 2005 it was Tsotsi, and in 2004 it was Hotel Rwanda. Eastern Promises was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Drama Film and it's star Viggo Mortensen was nominated for lead actor at the Oscars. Bella was not nominated for any Oscars... Tsotsi won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film for South Africa. And Hotel Rwanda's Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo were nominated for Best Lead Actor and Supporting Actress. It was also nominated for Original Screenplay. HR was also nominated for Best Drama Film at the Golden Globes, along with Don Cheadle and Best Original Song.

About the history, Fataculture had this to say:

Whether or not that is an indication of things to come (mass appreciation, wide critical praise, awards recognition…you get the picture) I’m not so sure. Not every film that wins this award makes it in the outside world in a big way. But that doesn’t matter. What does is that it is on the map, and people are going to see it.

And Nathaniel over at The Film Experience broke down past TIFF-gems and how they fared come award season - http://filmexperience.blogspot.com/2008/09/naked-gold-man-tiff-prizes.html

-The Creative Arts Emmys were this weekend, and a few early honors were handed out, like the Guest Acting awards. For the drama side, Cynthia Nixon won Guest Actress for Law & Order: SVU and Glynn Turman won Guest Actor for In Treatment. For the comedy side, Kathryn Joosten won a second time for Guest Actress for Desperate Housewives and Tim Conway won for Guest Actor for 30 Rock.

The always hilarious Kathy Griffin won a second time for her reality show "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List," which is probably the only reality show that I watch and actually love. But this year, Kathy tried to keep her speech clean because she didn't want to get fired from presenting at the Emmys this Sunday. But way to go Kathy!

And you can now call Sarah Silverman an Emmy winner! She won Original Music and Lyrics for "I'm F*cking Matt Damon" for Jimmy Kimmel Live! Since then, Silverman and Kimmel have broken up, but the song is still hilarious!


John Adams was the big winner with 8 wins, but Mad Men was the big winner for a series with 4 wins.

Oscar Buzz for Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn?

Their new film Lovely, Still just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and has been recieving some great reviews, even hinting at Oscar buzz for past winners Landau and Burstyn.

From the TIFF website, Lovely, Still's synopsis is:

Robert Malone (Martin Landau) is an elderly perennial bachelor who leads a tidy, uneventful and some might even say empty life. This Christmas, for whatever reason, Robert is feeling the lack of family more keenly than usual. Then one day, like a single man's dream, Robert comes home from his job at a grocery store to find a beautiful woman in his house.

Her name is Mary (Ellen Burstyn), and while Robert is initially shocked and angry, she quickly explains that she has just moved in across the street, saw his door open, and was concerned for the welfare of the homeowner. Their flap settled, Mary is on her way out when she turns to Robert and pertly asks him out to dinner. A little nonplussed, Robert agrees, and thus begins a late-life courtship that leaves the bachelor in a constant state of wonderment and surprise. He eventually must admit that he is falling in love.

But there's something about Mary that seems not right. She's overeager, almost pushy, in the way she engages Robert almost every hour; within days, they are like teenagers, conjoined in first love. Robert is besotted, but soon becomes unnerved by the intensity of his love. He grows paranoid, jealous and erratic, all from fear of losing her. At this point, the narrative takes an extraordinary turn, with a development in the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock or the novelist Daphne du Maurier. This tectonic shift in perspective leads to a powerful, tremendously moving conclusion, made all the richer by a heightened understanding of what has come before.

Lovely, Still is a remarkable achievement for so young a first-time director as Nik Fackler, who understands that bringing together two Academy Award®-winning actors of extraordinary ability can only elicit great expectations from the audience. Lovely, Still meets its full potential and provides a challenging and fulfilling experience that will linger in the viewer's memory for some time to come.

Here is the first clip released for Lovely, Still, which stars Landau and Adam Scott where Robert (Landau) asks his boss, Mike (Scott) about tips for a date with Mary (Burstyn).


Can Martin Landau and possibly Ellen Burstyn get back into the Oscar race with this feel-good, tearjerker (holiday) film? And also what's interesting is that the writer/director, Nik Facker, who is 23 years old, wrote this film about a love story between two older people, and he had this idea when he was a teenager... Amazing!

The Wrestler. Springsteen's Song Leaked, Fox Searchlight Picks Up, Clips Released, Is It Really An Oscar Contender?

To start off, hear it while you can, In Contention has Bruce Springsteen's song for The Wrestler. And I have to say, its a very beautiful, soft, acoustic song. This will surely be a contender for Best Original Song at the Oscars this year, and it should definetly make "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" seem scared - http://www.incontention.com/?p=1746

And since we are on the topic of The Wrestler, not only did it win the top prize at Venice, but it was just picked up today by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Just recently, Fox Searchlight Pictures also picked up another hot Oscar contender from the festivals, Slumdog Millionaire. And also in The Wrestler news, here are the first few little clips from the movie along with an interview with Darren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke from The Associated Press.


But then again, it is kind of funny to see that this movie is being considered as Oscar worthy after seeing this video:


I don't know, maybe I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but this really doesn't seem like the Oscars's cup of tea... Especially with these photos of Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei (a bloody wrestler and a stripper). I think it will actually turn Oscar voters away. I mean we are talking wrestling and strippers here, people! I dont know. I really just don't get it...:

The song is really good, kudos Bruce, I love it, but even though The Wrestler just won over at Venice, I really am still not completely sold on this yet, but maybe I should just see the movie when it comes out, but I'll be damned if the Oscar voters open their arms really wide for this movie come nomination time...

Tom O'Neil and Jeffrey Wells claim they just saw one of the five Best Picture nominees for this year!

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. There it is, the indie darling of the year. Make note of it!