'Precious' sweeps spirit awards

Best Feature: 'Precious'

Best Director: Lee Daniels ('Precious')

Best First Feature: Scott Cooper, Robert Duvall, Rob Carliner, Judy
Cairo, T-Bone Burnett ('Crazy Heart')

John Cassavetes Award: Lynn Shelton ('Humpday')

Best Screenplay: Scott Neustader, Michael H. Weber ('500 Days of Summer')

Best First Screenplay: Geoffrey Fletcher ('Precious')

Best Female Lead: Gabourey Sidibe ('Precious)'

Best Male Lead: Jeff Bridges ('Crazy Heart')

Best Supporting Male: Woody Harrelson ('The Messenger')

Best Supporting Female: Mo'Nique ('Precious')

Best Foreign Film: ('An Education')

Best Documentary: ('Anvil! The Story of Anvil')

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins ('A Serious Man')

Robert Altman Award: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Ellen Chenoweth, Rachel
Tenner, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Jessica McManus, Fred Melamed,
Michael Stuhlbarg, Aaron Wolff ('A Serious Man')

Piaget Producers Award: Karen Chien ('The Exploding Girl', 'Santa Mesa')

Acura Someone to Watch Award: Kyle Patrick Alvarez ('Easier With Practice')

Chaz and Roger Ebert Truer than Fiction Award: Bill Ross and Turner Ross (45365)

'Precious' at home

Out on DVD in the US today! Yippeeeee!

Not only do you get Lee Daniels harrowing and stirring triumph of a film, but you get some wonderful extras including Gabourey Sidibe's awesome audition, and some other extras.

Buy it today.

Also, for those of you who are hotly anticipating Daniels next project 'Selma' which is based on the US civil rights march in 1965, there is casting news. Not Robert DeNiro was circling the project (perhaps to play president Lyndon B. Johnson or Alabama Governor George "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" Wallace) but the only official casting new is that Hugh Jackman has joined the project - no matter what IMDB says.

Now the only role I can see him playing is that of George Wallace (evil, racist = Oscar bait) or civil rights campaigner and Unitarian Universal minister from Boston, James Reeb who was beaten to death while marching (saintly martyr = Oscar bait).

The roles of Johnson (DeNiro would be a good fit physically), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (please say no to Jamie Foxx and yes to Jeffrey Wright - he was born in 1965 so it is fitting), Coretta Scott King (Viola Davis (born same year) or Regina King please!) are yet to be cast.

Anticipating this one very much!

DGA Nominations

F**k all the people with the obvious hatred for Lee Daniels. The DGA has nominated its first black gay man (or black man period) and a woman in the same year.

Times, they are a changing!

Stunning

From Vanity Fair

Marching

Racism is very ugly. We all know this, unless of course, dear reader, you are a racist and have no idea what the word means.

In 1965 three marches took place that helped turn the tide for the African-American struggle for equality. The marches were from Selma, Alabama to Mongomery which was 57 miles and would last 5 days. The reason for the three marches is that due to police beating, tear gas and violence, the first march never got to the destination.

For the second march Martin Luther King Jr. gathered hundreds of people to march however an injunction was put on the march preventing it reaching Montgomery.

The third march made it.


Please forgive my horrendous slimming down of a Historical event. Please read more about it here.

My reason for posting this is because Lee Daniels is going to direct the film version. This story of hope and determination against immense odds is nothing new to Daniels, and given his need to try and get emotional truth over on the screen leads me to believe this could be very powerful stuff.

Perhaps he could be back in the Awards race next year as well?

The Heat is On in Saigon

Although far from being my favourite musical (I didn’t really like the music that much) I do remember sitting watching it years ago thinking, ‘Miss Saigon’ would work so much better on the big screen.
It is epic is scope and a lot of the subtext of a woman's plight in Vietnam during the war was lost the further back you sat.
Plus the Helicopter scene would work so much better.

Well it looks like it is going to be made into a war movie musical extravaganza of very expensive proportions.

Tom Cruise’s former producing partner Paula Wagner is producing it with the original show producer, the legendary Cameron Mackintosh.

If that is not your thing, then the news that ‘Precious’ director Lee Daniels may be directing this, which shows that people believe he is more than a one trick pony.
He has not said yes, but it would be a great project for him.

Given that a few people have said he should direct a musical, solely based on the fantasy sequences in ‘Precious’, this may be cause for celebration. Also, given his ability with women, this could be made to be even stronger than the stage show especially if told mainly from Kim’s perspective.

The story is tragic and horrible and really sends home the atrocities that happened in Vietnam, especially to the local women.
The musical, a reworking of the opera Madame Butterfly set during the Vietnam War, sees a young G.I. called Chris fall in love with bargirl Kim in 1975 Saigon. The two are in love, but Chris is about to head home to the US and with the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon they are ripped apart.
I would love to see the original Kim take to the stage, but Lea Salonga may be too old, as would Naoko Mori who played Kim in London when she was 17.
It would, however, be great to find a Vietnamese singer/actress to play the part, none of this ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ bullshit please. I am sure most of the world wouldn't care, but some of us do (Salonga was Philippine and Mori was Japanese)

This could be a very exciting production. Should Daniels take the job, he could be in a position to create a very honest and perhaps brutal portrayal of life for women in Vientman, and hopefully without jazz hands.

Lee Daniels

I am so going to try my best to get tickets to see ‘Precious’ at the London Film Festival so that when I talk about it, at least I would have seen it.
I completely get the ridiculousness of blogging rabidly about a film I have yet to see, and I seriously hope to rectify that very very soon.

Anyway I just wanted to bring you attention to this wonderful article/interview over at The Envelope which looks at Director Lee Daniels.
If he is nominated he will be the first black and openly gay man nominated for Best Director.
The article gives a little insight. I have read a few reviews/pieces about the film that say that the abuse shown is a little too much – as though it doesn’t happen (pick up a paper y’all).
I have never seen someone get shot, but I’m sure as sh*t it happens.