It's Oscartown, Jake
Curtain Call
by Kristopher Tapley

2005 has been a curious year from the start. Politically and socially conscious filmmaking dominated the scene. It was the first topic I wrote about here at Movie City News back in September. The critical consensus bled into the Oscar nominations announcement in January, leaving a slate of Best Picture nominees that reflected the theme of the year, and now a seemingly sewn up race burst wide open the last month of competition, paving the way for a truly surprising turn of events that a few predicted, but most did not.

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The Hot Button
What Broke Mountain's Back?
by David Poland

In the end, Brokeback Mountain was very much in the same boat as Sideways was last year. It needed all the attention to assure box office and awards, but all the early attention gave people plenty of time to fall out of love and to find another. BBM's box office success in December gave it awards life. But as Focus clearly understood, they had milked their best cows before the first of the year and everything that would be national/non-urban would pale in comparison. But first and last, they maximized business for the film. Well done.

As it turned out, The Gurus were right in all but 4 categories... Score, Original Song, Doc Short, and Animated Short... Oh Yes... And #5, Best Picture! The Charts Last Week's Closing Ballots

Digital Nation
by Gary Dretzka

If anyone is going to upset the apple cart on the red carpet, it’s likely to be a free spirit like Mark Zupan, who, since the release of Murderball, has become the country’s most recognizable quadriplegic athlete. When the heavily tattooed Austinian was made aware of the gridlock associated with the annual convergence of A-list celebrities, smarmy studio executives, power-crazed publicists and academy functionaries, a magnificent smile lit up his face.

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The Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

Medea’s Family Reunion withstood a quartet of new releases as top draw in the marketplace with an estimated $12.7 million. There was a lack of real utz in film going for Oscar weekend with 16 Blocks taking second spot with $11.6 million and the bow of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party trailing the freshman field with $6.7 million. The frame also saw the very big screen debut of Deep Sea 3-D grossing $680,000 at 43 Imax locations.
Weekend Estimates (Full List)
Domestic Market Share

3-Day Estimates	Wknd	% Change	Cume
Madea's Family Reunion	12.7m	-58%	47.8m
16 Blocks	11.6m	new	11.6m
Eight Below	10.2m	-36%	58.7m
Ultraviolet	8.9m	new	8.9m
Aquamarine	7.5m	new	7.5m
The Pink Panther	7m	-37%	69.6m
Chapelle's Block Party	6.7m	new	6.7m
Date Movie	5.2m	-43%	40.8m
Curious George	4.4m	-38%	49.2m
Firewall	3.6m	-46%	42.5m

Gross Behavior
All That Glitters ...
by Leonard Klady

The motto of the fictitious Miracle Pictures ("If It's a Good Picture, It's a Miracle") seems all too apt. The contemporary studio miracles occur by happenstance, blackmail or unbelievable endurance and that's shameful. And the trickle down effect can be seen among acting nominees. Only two of this year's 20 hopefuls can be considered movie stars and in those instances roles were taken for the challenge and scale plus ten percent.

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20 Weeks To Oscar
One More For The Road
by David Poland

The Oscars are not a science… they aren't brain surgery… they aren't The Truth. They are a very large variation on a kid's sporting event. Everyone who is on the team gets to play. You can root for your kid, but don't stick your leg out into the field of play to trip an opposing player or curse at the other kids on your child's team for not playing hard enough. It would be naïve not to recognize that there is a whole industry built up around this event. God knows MCN benefits from it. But the spirit gets lost too easily and too often. Discourse has become dis' coarse… and that is a loss for everyone.

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
Domino
by Doug Pratt

" I'm scared of failure. I'm scared I'm not going to satisfy not just myself, but satisfy my film family, my larger family. I want people to like what I do, and I'm scared that I'm going to fail in doing that. So that's why every morning when I wake up, I'm always bolt upright 5 minutes before the alarm clock, whether I've had 1 hour's sleep, 2 hours' sleep or 10 hours' sleep-I don't get 10 hours' sleep, my max is about 5-I'm always bolt upright in fear, in fear of failure, in fear of not actually making my mark, in fear I haven't been able to execute what I wanted to do creatively as good as I could have done it. I think it's healthy to have that fear. I wake up with that same fear whether I'm doing a commercial or whether I'm doing a major movie, and I think my fear with Domino was that I kept pushing the boundaries in terms of what could be perceived as 'too rock 'n roll' and then being silly."
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Digital Nation
by Gary Dretzka

City of God and Amores Perros are the most recognizable examples of the trend, but also representative are such merciless treatises as Our Lady of the Assassins, Sweet Sixteen, the little-seen Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes (from Argentine, it recently was released here on DVD by Facets Video) and the woefully under-screened, On the Outs. While vastly different from each other, newcomers Tsotsi and Dirty fit the same mold of pictures fueled by heartless violence, pulsating variations of American hip-hop music, nearly indecipherable street patois and a refusal by their directors to offer easy solutions or Hollywood endings.

MCN DVD Wrap-Up
Rent

It took 10 years for Rent to make the leap from Broadway to Hollywood, but only a month to disappear from the megaplexes. More >>

MCN Review: If Rent: The Movie was cut by 30 minutes, since somehow, on film, the rent battle becomes truly uninteresting, it might have been really terrific.

Pride, Unprejudiced: Chris Columbus says Rent is the movie he was born to make.

Plus: Wallace and Gromit, Domino, North Country, Rent, Zathura, All The President's Men, Emmanuel's Gift, Grey's Anatomy, The Journey, Just Like Heaven, La Bete Humaine, Midnight Cowboy, MirrorMask, Nine Lives, The Pretender, Proof, Significant Others, The Thing About My Folks, The Dick Cavett Show

Updated throughout the day
Updated: 4:15 pm

Ron Grover Scoops Weinstein Company/MGM Partnership

USA Today Scouts The Backstage Buzz

An Aussie View Of Oscar Night, From Dion Beebe's Win To The Box Office For The Films In Contention
And - The View From Canada

Peter Guber On The Producers Battles Of Crash

Time.com Previews Mel's Oscar Appearance

The Night In Quotes

USA Today Answers The Question, "What's Next For The Oscar Winners?"

How Bad Was The Oscar Telecast?

Ken Turan Knows What Should Have Won, Blaming Fear Instead Of The Possibility Everyone Doesn't Agree With Him
And - Corliss On What Did Win And The Possibility It Was About Being A Company Town
Plus - Ken Turan Embarrasses Himself With Opinion Presened As Fact

Crash Wins Best Picture... Brokeback Mountain Takes Director... Four Films Tie For Biggest Haul With 3 (The other 2 Are Memoirs Of A Geisha & King Kong)
The Oscar Winners
By Category | By Film

It Ain't Movies, But It Might Be Fun
Salon Offers The Liberal Intellectual Version Of Joan Rivers & Daughter... Camile Paglia & Cintra Wilson

Phyllis Huffman, Casting Director For Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven & Many Other Eastwood Films And For WB Television, Passes Away At 61

As Expected, Brokeback Mountain, Crash, And Capote Big At Indie Spirits

The Guardian Offers A Cranky Neil Gaiman Followed By A Cranky JG Ballard

The Man, Sadly, Puts Her Money Down On That Classic Critics' Sucker Bet Of Using Oscar And Box Office To Mirror The State Of The Art

The Paper Of Record Takes A Shot At Walk The Line... Eve Without An Oscar Angle

The Ambition Of Mr Mudd Malkovich

Arriving At The Red Carpet In A Green Hybrid

Trying To Interview Sarah Silverman Before She Hosts The Indie Spirits Can Be Hard On Your Balls

John Travolta Follows In Harvey Fierstein's Footsteps As Hairspray's Edna Turnblad

LA Weekly Tries To Make A Show Business Impact Beyond The Normal Crowd Looking For Massages With Happy Endings By Giving Nikki Finke A Blog... Which She Doesn't Want To Call A Blog... But Hey, It's Better Than Podcasting

The Tyler Perry Parade
White America Discovers The Modern Chitlin Circuit Of Live Black Theater
And - TP's Heading For Television And He's Creating A Brand New Producing And Delivery Concept

Garrett Scott, Co-Director Of Operation Dreamland, Passes Away At The Tragic Age Of 37

The Stinkers Of 2005

After Kicking Roger Ebert For Two Weeks For Picking Crash To Win, The Bagger Puts On The Clown Shoes And Carjacks His Original Horse

Colleen Atwood's Oscar Week Diary

Pevere Goes To Towne.... Robert Towne

Peter Howell's Will & Should Oscar List

With The Skill Of An Award Winning Photoshop Artist & The Generosity Of Santa, Anne Thompson Lays Out What Each Player In The Universal/ DreamWorks/ Paramount Dance Wants You To Think Happened And Will Happen

Tom Hanks Gives Advice To Oscar Nominees In A How-To Make The Perfect (Or At Least Within The Time LImit) Speech Video

Cannibalism Is One Thing, But He Draws The Line At Being Part Of A Horror Film

Ben Karlin... The Man Behind Jon Stewart

The Smoking Gun Goes Hollywood With A Series Of Budgets For Shyamalan Movies

Is That A Prod In Your Hand Or Are You Just Glad To See Me?
The American Humane Association Brands Brokeback Mountain A Sheep Abuser

Oscar Nominee Joyeux Noel Uses The Gunner Palace Argument... Gets CARA To Flop An R To A PG-13

Shortly Following The Publicists Guild Awards Walk The Line, Fox Awards Searchlight's Head Of Publicity Breena Camden Jeff Godsick's HOP Slot At The Big Studio (He's Moving Further Up Into More Of a Marketing Role)... Who Will Replace Breena At P-Rice's Expanding Den? Unknown As Of Now

Ego, Ego, Ego, Money, Ego, Money, Ego, Ego ... Crash!!!

T.K. Arnold Offers Some Perspective On Direct-To-DVD Before Offering "News" On Stuart Little 2: This One May Make Money Like Teh FIrst One Did

E! Attempts To Cross Breed Its Oscar Carpet Content

brandchannel's 2005 Product Placement Awards

The "Source Material Derby" - Worthless As News... Interesting Fodder

Fox Rolls Out An Integrated Early Home Delivery Experiment For FX TV Programming Via The News Corp Owned DirecTV

Whedon Qs & As With Empire

NY Post Horrorscopes Out The Oscars

Oliver's Artful Dodger, Jack Wild, Dies At 53

A Fight Over The Parts That Make The Camera Crew Whole

The Hard Right Leaning "Israel Project" Continues To Beat The Drum Against Paradise Now

Making The Case For Keira Knightley

Meanwhile, Crash Producer Bob Yari Files Suit Against The PGA And The Academy On Denial Of His Producer Credit

Update (4:33p) - The Academy Has Confirmed Its Ruling That Crash's Original Song Nominee, "In The Deep," Is Not In Any Way At Issue And Is Qualified For Its Nomination And Win, If It So Happens On Sunday
Earlier - The Oscar Nominated Song From Crash Is In Another, Undistributed Film Called The Civilization Of Maxwell Bright.... Sources Tell MCN That The Academy Is Now Investigating And Considering Disqualification, Though It Is Unclear Whether Any Academy Rule Has Been Broken

The Woz Cain't Quit Focus Features

The Family Media Guide Says Crash And Munich Are The Most Problematic Oscar Nominees... Though Brokeback Mountain Does Take The Sex Cake

The San Diego Union Tribune Looks At San Diego Native Michelle Williams

The Attacks On Paradise Now Ramp Up, Too Late To Have Any Effect, And In A Way That Grossly Exaggerates The Rage Against The Oscar Nominee

Quiz of the Day
How Well Do You Know Your Oscar Fashion?

Peter Stomare Crushes The Ebonic Language For Volkswagon In The Funniest New Ad Not Involving A Creepy Mask Since The Super Bowl

By The Way... The Oscar Polls Are Closed...

An Ambitious Film Festival Thais One On

Stout Heart, Julian Fellowes

The Origin Of The Oscar Species
Who Taught Bennett Miller & Danny Futterman?

Stu Chats With Bob Berney About The Endanged Domestic Market For Foreign Films
And - How Can Indie Filmmakers Make A Buck?