To judge by the end-of-year awards from the American critics' groups and from the Golden Globe nominations, Titanic and L.A. Confidential are shaping up as the frontrunners for this year's Oscar for best film. While the best actor category looks wide open, Helena Bonham Carter is surging ahead as the clear favourite to win best actress.
Three of the four critics' groups named Bonham Carter as best actress for The Wings Of The Dove - Los Angeles, Boston and National Board of Review (NBR) - while the New York critics opted for rank outsider Julie Christie in Alan Rudolph's Afterglow. Peter Fonda (for Ulee's Gold) was the New York choice for best actor, while Los Angeles opted for Robert Duvall (The Apostle), Boston for Al Pacino (Donnie Brasco) and the NBR for Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. In the best film and best director categories it was a clean sweep for L.A. Confidential and its director, Curtis Hanson, chosen by all four groups. The NBR lists the films of the year from one to 10 and Hanson's film was followed by, in order, As Good As It Gets, The Wings Of The Dove, Good Will Hunting, Titanic, The Sweet Hereafter, Boogie Nights, The Full Monty, The Rainmaker and Jackie Brown.
The NBR opted for Greg Kinnear (from As Good As It Gets) as best supporting actor, while New York and Los Angeles both chose Burt Reynolds for Boogie Nights. Julianne Moore, also for Boogie Nights, was named best supporting actress by the Los Angeles critics while New York went for Joan Cusack (In & Out) and the NBR for Anne Heche in Wag The Dog and Donnie Brasco.
James Cameron's blockbuster epic, Titanic, leads the field with eight nominations for the Golden Globe awards which are presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are widely regarded as a precursor of the Oscar nominations. Filmed in Dublin last summer, the new Jim Sheridan film, The Boxer received three major nominations - best film (drama), best director to Sheridan and best actor to Daniel Day Lewis.
In the major Golden Globe category for best film (drama), The Boxer is on the shortlist with Steven Spielberg's Amistad, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, Titanic and L.A. Confidential. The nominees for best director are Jim Sheridan, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Curtis Hanson and for As Good As It Gets, James L. Brooks.
In the best actor (drama), Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the five nominees, along with Peter Fonda (Ulee's Gold), Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic), Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting) and newcomer Djimon Hounson (Amistad). Three of the nominees for best actress (drama) are British - Helena Bonham Carter (The Wings Of The Dove), Kate Winslet (Titanic) and Judi Dench (Mrs [R O] Brown) - with Jessica Lange (A Thousand Acres) and Jodie Foster (Contact) the unlikely choices for the other two slots.
The Golden Globes are split between drama and comedy or musical in three categories - best film, actor and actress. The films nominated for best film (comedy or musical) are The Full Monty, As Good As It Gets, My Best Friend's Wedding, Wag The Dog and Men In Black. Up for best actor (comedy or musical) are Jim Carrey (Liar Liar), Dustin Hoffman (Wag The Dog), Kevin Kline (In & Out), Jack Nicholson (As Good As It Gets) and Samuel L. Jackson (Jackie Brown). The nominees for best actress (comedy or musical) are Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets), Julia Roberts (My Best Friend's Wedding), Jennifer Lopez (Selena) and Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy).
The 87-year old Gloria Stuart, who makes a comeback in Titanic, is one of the five Golden Globe nominees for best supporting actress. Stuart starred in dozens of movies in the 1930s - among them Air Mail, Poor Little Rich Girl, Goldiggers of 1935, Roman Scandals and The Old Dark Horse - before retiring from the business in 1939. The other nominees in her category are Kim Basinger (L.A. Confidential), Sigourney Weaver (The Ice Storm), Joan Cusack (In & Out) and Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights).
There are six nominees for best supporting actor: Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding), Anthony Hopkins (Amistad), Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets), Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights), Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting) and Jon Voight (The Rainmaker). Unlike the Oscars, the Golden Globes do not distinguish between original and adapted screenplays, and the five screenplay nominees are L.A. Confidential, As Good As It Gets, Good Will Hunting, Wag the Dog and Titanic.
The Golden Globes will be presented in Hollywood on January 18th. The Oscar nominations will be announced on February 10th and the awards ceremony is scheduled for March 23rd. And the good news is that Billy Crystal will be hosting the Oscars ceremony for the sixth time.
The next deadline for the Film Base/RTE short script awards is Friday, January 9th. Ten scripts will be short-listed and awards of £4,500-£5,000 will be made to three of those. The awards include the use of Film Base facilities, including the Lightworks editing system.
Brothers Fiach and Cuan Mac Conghail are the producers of two of the three successful projects to receive funding in the first year of Oscailt, a TnaG/Bord Scannan initiative to encourage quality film drama in the Irish language. The three successful entries are writer-director Paul Mercier and producer Fiach Mac Conghail for Lipservice; writer Nina Fitzpatrick, director Edel O'Brien and producer Cuan Mac Conghail for Aqua; and writer Darach O Scolai, director Dearbhla Walsh and producer Ciaran O Cofaigh for Cosa Nite.
The remarkable Toshiro Mifune, who died on Christmas Eve at the age of 77, was the most internationally feted Japanese actor of the century. Mifune was born to Japanese parents in Tsingtao, China, in 1920 and served as an aerial photographer in the Japanese army during the second World War.
His acting career was inextricably linked with the great Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, for whom he acted in 16 feature films between 1948 and 1965, beginning with Drunken Angel and continuing with such classics as Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, I Live In Fear, Throne Of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Sanjuro and finally, Red Beard. The actor and director then fell out, for reasons never publicly explained by either of them. Mifune's towering screen presence and formidable range were left mostly undeveloped in the American-produced movies which featured him in the 1960s and 1970s - with the exception of John Boorman's compelling two-hander, Hell In The Pacific, in which Mifune and Lee Marvin co-starred. His other international movies, none of which made any demands on Mifune, included Grand Prix, Midway, Red Sun, Paper Tiger and Winter Kills.
Tom Wilkinson, who was the oldest of the strippers in The Full Monty, and whose other credits include Wilde and Priest, has been signed for his first US movie. He will co-star with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the action movie, Rush Hour, to be directed by Brett Ratner.
Proving that it's never too early to speculate about anything, Screen International reports the rumour that David Geffen has someone in mind to run the studio, Dreamworks SKG, which he owns with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The new studio boss is tipped to be none other than Bill Clinton, who will be otherwise engaged until January 2001.
