Keira Knightley’s Good Luck Card
Keira Knightley’s Good Luck Card
When she was snubbed in the Oscar nominations for her role in “Atonement,” some of Keira Knightly’s former school teachers decided to take action.
Reportedly a few of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actress’ high school teachers came together to wish her well at the upcoming BAFTAs with a good luck card.
One teacher from Teddington School told press, “We have kindly made a card to send to Keira Knightley, congratulating her on being nominated for a BAFTA for Atonement. We are disappointed that she missed out on an Oscar nomination. I know lots of the staff, who were here when she was a pupil, have very fond memories of her.”
And reportedly, the Domino starlet was the model student during her years at Teddington. “She was really hard working and never made a fuss when she was away filming. She just quietly made up the work and slipped back into school life. Most of the students at Teddington are very proud to be associated with Keira through the school. I am always being asked if I taught her and where she sat.”
Daniel Day-Lewis Dressed to the Nine?
Daniel Day-Lewis tends to bide his time between projects, sometimes waiting as long as five years between Oscar nominations, er, film roles. But Nine could be the magic number this time around.
Variety reports the British thesp is in talks to play the role of a film director dealing with personal and creative demons while simultaneously trying to please the many women in his lifea part that previously belonged to Javier Bardemin the big-screen adaptation of the Fellini-inspired stage musical Nine.
The British scene-stealer might not seem like the obvious choice to play Guido Contini, but Bardem ultimately decided he was tired out from his other films and all that awards-season triumphing to carry on. No matter that the Spaniard's girlfriend, Penélope Cruz, is still slated to star, along with Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench.
Chicago visionary Rob Marshall will be directing the Weinstein Co. production. A rep for the studio says no decisions regarding the male lead have been made and that any names out there now are "pure conjecture."
MPAA to Create Hard-R Rating?
This week at ShoWest in Las Vegas, MPAA chairman Dan Glickman will try to convince movie theater owners that a new Hard-R movie rating is needed.
A quick history according to Wikipedia: In the early years of the ratings system, X-rated movies such as Midnight Cowboy, A Clockwork Orange, and Last Tango in Paris, could win Oscar nominations and awards. But the rating, which was not trademarked by the MPAA (as were its other ratings), was self applied by the “adult entertainment” segment of the industry to the point where an X rating could be included in advertising gimmicks and came to be equated strictly with film pornography, which was never the intent behind the original rating. This concern led to a large number of newspapers and TV stations refusing to accept ads for X-rated movies, and some theaters’ landlords forbade exhibition of X-rated movies. In 1989 two highly acclaimed films, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer were released featuring very strong sexual and violent content. Neither one was able to get approved for an R rating so they were left as unrated with limited release. It was around this time that the MPAA decided to re-think the current rating system.
So the MPAA introduced the NC-17, which means No Children Under 17 Admitted. Some media outlets that refused ads for X-rated titles viewed ads for NC-17 rated films as equally unsuitable. While a number of movies have been released with the NC-17 rating, none of them has been a major box office hit. Movies studios would rather release a film unrated than under NC-17. Everything has basically come full circle.
Well the new idea being proposed is to create a new rating for the “Hard R” films (i.e. content so graphic that no one under the age of 17 should be allowed to see it at all in theaters).
I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this issue.
If the creation of a Hard-R rating could successfully remove the dreaded NC-17/XXX stigma, and allow darker films to have bigger theatrical and video releases (newspaper ads, blockbuster…etc) I might be all for it. Many of the modern day horror films are presented multiple times to the MPAA before they are granted the “okay” R-Rating. While the cut content will end up on the inevitably unrated DVD release, it would be cool to see it on the big screen. Art shouldn’t have to be censored, but money talks.
But then again, would the movie studios want to release a film under a Hard R? That would prevent one of the target audience entrance into the film even with an adult. I have a feeling that the Hard R rating would also become the redheaded stepchild of the ratings line-up. So what’s the point?
Clint Eastwood admits Scorsese may win first Academy Award
Clint Eastwood believes that Martin Scorsese will finally claim the Academy Award he so rightfuly deserves, and beat him to the Best Director prize.
Two years ago Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby beat Scorsese’s The Aviator.
“He [Scorsese] probably has a good chance, there is a lot of sympathy for him, but I have no control over any of that. I always feel sorry … for the others, because there are other nominees and they’ve worked very hard on their projects, too. I don’t think any two people should be singled out.”
Scorsese has seven Oscar nominations but has yet to win a Best Director Oscar. This factoid is one of the most told jokes in Hollywood. But there are more than a few great directors who have been nominated but never won a competitive Oscar for directing:
- Alfred Hitchcock (5 nominations)
- Robert Altman (5 nominations)
- Stanley Kubrick (4 nominations)
- Federico Fellini (4 nominations)
- Ingmar Bergman (3 nominations)
- David Lynch (3 nominations)
- George Lucas (2 nominations)
- Orson Welles (1 nominations)
Altman, Hitchcock, Fellini, Bergman, Welles, and Lucas have all been awarded honorary Oscars.
Scorsese’s editor Thelma Schoonmaker claims that Scorsese often says “We should feel lucky we even get to make movies anymore,” of his lack of Academy recognition.
But this year may be the year. Scorsese is 1-5 favorite to win his first Academy Award, as well as Best Motion Picture.