Jake Gittes

Gitesh Pandya ‏@giteshpandya FRI-SUN BO: BD2 $43.1M/$227M, Skyfall 36/221.7, Linc 25/62.2, Rise 24/32.6, Pi 22/30.2, Ralph 16.8/149.5, Dawn 14.6/22.

No. It got pushed to April 2014 because Spielberg was too busy with Lincoln post-production. There weren't any problems.

TWILIGHT: BDp2 takes the turkey trot--#1 again--$43M (3-Day) $64M (5-Day). Total is now $226M.

ROTG is the first DWA movie to open with less than $30m and face a very serious danger of missing $100m total in more than a decade.

3D is on the naughty list. RISE OF THE GUARDIANS was on 2900 3D/IMAX screens (3653 total) & accounted for just 35% of its $32M gross.

Too bad we are in 2012.

I'm thinking 275-305 final range for Skyfall atm.

Great PTA hold for SLP considering how many theaters it added and the competition. The WOM is there.

I dunno. Both? I think The Social Network is a masterpiece (and I don't throw that word around) and The King's Speech is a good film with three great performances in it (by Firth, Rush and Guy Pearce). I don't think there was anything in it to warrant a "Best Picture" award from anyone, it's much more slight, bland, predictable and forgettable than not only TSN, but several other contenders from that year. But hey, it's feel good and inspiring, so they decided to stop their great 4-year run of awarding more risky and ambitious material than usual (from Departed to Hurt Locker) and go back to safe and conventional. Anyway, I need to stop, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here.Speaking of unconventional, I'm not the biggest fan of Silence of the Lambs and I don't know if it's the best film of that year for me, but simply awarding 5 major Oscars to a serial killer thriller was one of the most inspired, unbiased decisions the Academy ever made. A shame that Se7en didn't follow in its footsteps, it deserved a lot more nominations than editing (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Spacey) and Cinematography, at least).

Of the ones not mentioned, Chicago over The Pianist, Ordinary People over Raging Bull AND The Elephant Man, An American in Paris over A Streetcar Named Desire.I agree that A Beautiful Mind didn't deserve to win, and even while Mulholland Dr. hadn't been nominated, they could have had a worthy winner in either FOTR or Moulin Rouge. All About Eve completely deserved to win, in my opinion, a much bigger travesty was Gloria Swanson losing Best Actress. I've recently watched Sunset Blvd for the second time, and while the film itself didn't grow on me (it's quite good, but not a masterpiece), I appreciated her performance more and thought she was better than even Bette Davis.The two biggest snubs in my mind are Dances over Goodfellas and TKS over The Social Network (that last one made me want to never watch the Oscars again when it happened right before my eyes. I didn't watch it this year and I'm no longer really emotionally invested in it, no matter how much I argue about the nominees and winners).

Would've been even better IMO if Atonement had then been replaced with Zodiac.

Let Me In was definitely the worst. It was a 11am Sunday showing and I figured there wouldn't be many people, but whaddaya know, the last several rows were filled with popcorn-munching jackasses regularly breaking into laughter. Not all my theater experiences went very well, but that was the only time when I wanted to go full-on Inglourious Basterds on my audience. Another notable one is The Tree of Life. It was a working day and an afternoon showing, but the auditorium was still filled almost completely, and with pretty much totally wrong audience. What's interesting, is that there were rarely any loud disturbances - more people silently walked out than commented or laughed - but the sense of general awkwardness and uneasiness was so thick and overwhelming you could almost touch it in the air. A full-on uncompromising art film watched by a room full of people most of whom had zero fucking idea what to make of it... quite an experience.

If A Separation, an equally acclaimed foreign film, didn't win any BP awards from critics last year, I'm not sure why Amour is supposed to do that without breaking a sweat, especially in a year with so many strong American films.

I enjoyed Skyfall a lot but I feel like if I watch it again, the plot will seem way too ridiculous and the acting/dialogue/action/cinematography won't be fresh and exciting enough to make up for it. Let the first impression stay. On the other hand, Casino Royale I feel like I can rewatch any time and love it all over again. At the end, it's just a superior, more emotionally investing story. And... yeah, Eva Green.

Absolutely

SLP is basically The Descendants-lite in terms of box-office right now, and considering that film ended up with $82m, I'd say over $50m is not inconceivable for SLP - all it would really need is a BP nom and a subsequent theater count expansion. Too early to say for certain, though.

If there were enough people to get behind The Tree of Life, I think there'll be enough to get The Master in there. It's far from guaranteed, though.

I also wanted to put Django in my personal BP/BD/BOS wishlist, but held myself back. Of those I've seen, though... very personal and very much deserving would be Denis Lavant for Best Actor (Holy Motors), Skyfall for Best Song and Cloud Atlas for Best Make-up and Editing.

All-time domestic as of Sunday:Die Another Day $160,942,139Skyfall $160,941,621lol

There were 20 strong Best Actress contenders last year, this year I can't count more than 10 with any sort of buzz. Lawrence, Wallis, Mirren, Cotillard, Riva, Chastain, Knightley, Streep, Watts and Winstead. I'd say Cotillard definitely has a better chance than the last four in that list. All we really need now is some strong, reliable word about Chastain's work.

She definitely might get a nom. It could change, but this point, I'd pick her over Chastain any day of the week. And definitely over Knightley.Lawrence, Wallis, Cotillard, Mirren, Riva. For now, imo.

Anthony Hopkins' opinion of Oscars isn't at all different from Phoenix's: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/anthony-hopkins-hitchcock-oscars_n_2156179.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Agreed. See how the DGA nominated Fincher last year and the director branch went for Malick.

Hooper actually has a better chance of winning the Globe than the Oscar because that's where TSN got to clear up. Plus, it's Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and Les Miserables is star-studded and known all around the world. Affleck would probably be too boring for them, but they'd eat Hooper up this time around.

To counter Riczhang, I think he has a damn great chance there. As I've said before I don't believe there is anything award-worthy about Amour's screenplay, which leaves us with Wes Anderson, PTA and QT. Tarantino's film will definitely be the most commercially successful of the three and most likely as well received critically, and he was clearly snubbed for IB in favor of The Hurt Locker (which, just like Amour, was a screenplay far less rich in plotting, dialogue, characterisation and imagination than his). PTA has three previously-received nominations at his side, as well as no wins, but yeah I think The Master is a kind of film that's a dark horse at best here.