Brendan Fraser names fellow player he hated on SBIFF tribute; “All Quiet” sounds Oscar; Burt Bacharach’s Rejection of John Ford – Season Notes

A column about talk and happenings in the awards circuit.

I don’t know how you are, but I spent my Valentine’s Day evening on stage at the Arlington Theater for the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s American Riviera Award honoring Brendan Fraser. I have to say, it was definitely a love affair between the sold out crowd at this massive venue and the Oscar, SAG and BAFTA nominated and Critics’ Choice Award winning star of The whale.

Every year, SBIFF presents this comprehensive two-hour tribute to several Oscar nominees, and this year’s production featured Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis and Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson together. I’ve been doing this for two decades and it’s been so much fun, and you couldn’t find a more deserving or genuinely nice recipient. Finally Fraser The air I breathe Co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar presented him with the award.

When I met Fraser at the Academy Awards luncheon on Monday, I told him that I had watched clips of his storied career that morning and that he should be prepared to watch his life flash before his eyes on the screen (especially whizzed in a dazzling four minutes). Reel cut to the Foo Fighters song “Walk” (alternately chosen by SBIFF Artistic Director Roger Durling, the lyrics are about “learning to walk again” – a nice musical touch for Fraser’s own return to fame).

In my opening remarks on Tuesday, I recounted my earlier onstage conversation with Fraser in October 2019, when the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, following a 20th anniversary screening, The Mummy. Back then, right there in the Midwestern town where Fraser was born, I could tell he still had a fanatical fan base. It was like a rock concert, and so was the reception he received in Santa Barbara as I took him through his career with tracks ranging from his groundbreaking 1991 films Encino man And school bands all the way 30 years later to his award-winning and Oscar-contending performance as a 600-pound man desperately trying to reunite with his estranged teenage daughter The whale.

Discussing influences such as Buster Keaton for his portrayal of a caveman and the relevance today of his role as a high school jock experiencing anti-Semitism in those two films from early 1991, we traversed highlights of a varied career that Fraser went through reigned through the nineties and the first decade of this century before cooling off a bit in their characteristics until their “comeback” now enters The whale. But as he told me, “he’s really not coming back” because he always worked as an actor and would go crazy if he didn’t. I kicked off the night as “Welcome to the Brenaissance,” a deserved new appreciation for an actor of wide range, as the clips remind us, from physical comedy Encino man And George from the jungle And bewitched, to the action movie star in the mommy films and worked with the likes of Michael Caine and Ian McKellen her Oscar-nominated performances. It was a night full of memories.

I also pointed out that I rarely interview actors whose filmography includes working with film legends like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, as he did in the live-action/animation hybrid. Looney Tunes: Back in Action, or other various real and CGI animals and creatures. The highlight for me was actually when Fraser decided to do a story about his monkey co-star, Mr. Bink, to do. George from the jungle right after I had Fraser and the audience sing a bit of that movie’s iconic theme song and TV animated series inspiration. There is no way to print this wild story of Brendan and his monkey scene partner or the fake surprise I gave him afterwards, so you just have to watch and see for yourself why audiences went crazy.

Here is the video below:

Thank you Brendan for a nice Valentine’s Day and also for the nice words. An unforgettable evening for all of us. Hopefully Mr. Binks will be smiling somewhere and cheering you on to the Oscars.

‘EVERYTHING QUIET GETS LOUD

Netflix began the season believing it had bigger fish to catch in this year’s Best Picture Oscar nomination than the critically acclaimed but modest (under $20 million) anti-WWI epic. No news from the western front Germany’s entry for the international main race. It wasn’t even one that took them to the big fall festivals, a breeding ground for likely nominees. But it’s slowly gained traction over the past few months, especially among the Academy members I talk to, who are passionate about how good it is. In an upcoming Behind the Lens segment, I briefly caught up with him around town this week during a break from filming his next film The Conclave At the Cinecitta in Rome, director/co-writer Edward Berger spoke about the importance of this story, especially now that we see images of the war in Ukraine on TV that are eerily similar to those in his film, even though it was shot and long before this Russian invasion conceived.

Netflix intends to keep the film in select theaters as well, given its ample global theatrical exposure in early fall before it streams on the service. The streamer will even bring it back to some theaters in select major cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London, with custom 35mm film prints to accentuate the film’s gritty and stunning look that defied all odds. A German subtitled film, it received nine Oscar nominations, including International Picture (where it’s very popular), as well as Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and various craft nods. A whopping 14 BAFTA Awards are also slated for this weekend, so the race could pick up some momentum there.

Can it defy the odds at the Oscars? Statistically speaking, it’s a big mountain to climb. The original screen version of No news from the western front by director Lewis Milestone won the 1930 Award for Best Picture. No remake of a Best Picture winner has ever won an Oscar. It also has the added disadvantage of not having a best director nomination for Berger or nominated actors (the acting section is by far the Academy’s largest). And then there’s this: no film has won the Academy Award for Best Picture without at least one nomination from the major guilds (WGA, DGA, PGA and SAG)—that is, since these guilds collectively hold their own awards ceremonies. The good news for all quiet Despite all this, what has made noise is that precedents continue to be broken in recent Oscar seasons starting in 2019 parasite (the only true foreign language film to win Best Picture). KODA last year

MUSIC TO MY EARS

Speaking of guilds, I had a blast at the Society Of Composers And Lyricists Awards at the Skirball Center on Wednesday night, and at just four years old, it’s becoming a must-do at the awards show, held this time of year become – a big reason because this one has one glorious full band on stage and lots of musical performances. The highlight in that regard was Justin Hurwitz performing a medley of some of his film scores including First guy and his Oscar win the country to his current Oscar-nominated soundtrack for Babylon. All of these films are from director Damien Chazelle, who joined him on stage to accept the SCL’s Spirit of Collaboration Award after Hurwitz led the orchestra in a dazzling segment of Babylonian Score showed it may be be impressive on Oscar night (he’s already won a Golden Globe for it this season).

Unlike some other guild or society dinners, this one’s nominees didn’t match Oscar’s. One of the big winners was Michael Abels’ non-Oscar nominated score NO. Interestingly, one Oscar nominee, Diane Warren, beat Taylor Swift, Rhianna and Lady Gaga in her category for her song “Applause” from the obscure documentary Tell it like a womanIt represents her 14th Best Song Oscar nomination without winning (although she did receive an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November). Tell it like a woman is so obscure that it’s the only Oscar-nominated film this year – and probably every other year – that doesn’t have a single review, critic or audience on Rotten Tomatoes. if you thought No news from the western front Against the grain of Oscar-winning statistics, try for greatness! But if anyone can defy the odds, it’s the inimitable Diane Warren.

THE MAN WHO SHADOWED BURT BACHARACH’S “LIBERTY VALANCE”.

Speaking of songwriters, the late great Burt Bacharach was on the SCL In Memoriam roll just a week after his death at the age of 94. There is no bigger lifelong fan of the three-time Oscar-winning music legend than myself. He wrote the soundtrack of my life and to prove it I have collected more than 80 CDs and albums of Bacharach music, regularly search Amazon and eBay to find new collections, various singers from around the world recording Bacharach, even scratched singles from truly obscure Bacharach works. what I would win at online auctions. The maestro may have left the building, but the music lives on.

My favorite Bacharach story was about what he and his genius lyricist, the late Hal David, did in the early 1960s while writing and recording so-called “exploitation songs,” mainly at Paramount, for films like women and lovers in 1963. That particular movie wasn’t a hit, but the song was a hit (now outdated in the #MeToo era, which forced Bacharach to play it instrumental-only because of its sexist lyrics). The best, however, was Gene Pitney’s 1962 Bacharach/David recording “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” inspired by the western starring John Wayne and James Stewart and directed by the legendary John Ford. The song became a huge hit, but you don’t hear it in the film because, as Bacharach once said in an interview did, Ford used very salty language to say he would never have that shitty song in his movie. The film is a classic and was recently revived by Steven Spielberg The Fables and Ken Branaghs bell tower, but that’s the song not from the movie. Farewell, Burt Bacharach.