Forest

I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas. Here’s a snippet I discovered through the Goldderby forums. Roger Friedman was recently talking to Forest Whitaker about the upcoming awards race, and this is what transpired:

“At the screening, I asked Forest Whitaker, slimmed down and refreshed from his Oscar win last winter for “The Last King of Scotland,” to whom he expected to hand the Best Actress award in February — assuming we have an Oscar ceremony.

“Marion Cotillard!” he shouted. “Did you not see her in ‘La Vie En Rose?’ She’s transforming! That’s it!” It’s nice to see someone has an opinion.”

Pretty cool, says I. As you might remember, Marion co-starred with Forest in “Mary,” a film I’ve been wanting to see for a long time but which has yet to be released in the US.

Earlier this year I speculated on the possibility of Forest, as last year’s Best Actor winner, reading Marion’s name from the envelope and handing her the Oscar…sigh.

Along with Cate Blanchett, Keira Knightley, Ryan Gosling, Julia Stiles and now Forest, it’s pretty cool to see that actors, Marion’s peers (and, as it happens, the largest voting branch of the Academy) are coming out in her support.

In any case, nice to see Forest supporting his girl.

Source

Marion wins big @ Satellite Awards

Marion beat out Julie Christie (Away from Her), Keira Knightley (Atonement), Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart), Laura Linney (The Savages), and Tilda Swinton (Stephanie Daley) to pick up the Best Motion Picture Actress (Drama) prize at the 2007 Golden Satellite Awards yesterday. La Vie en Rose was up for six other awards, including Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director (Olivier Dahan), and Best Supporting Actress (Emmanuelle Seigner).

Ellen Page won for Best Actress (Comedy) for Juno, Viggo Mortenson won the Best Actor (Drama) award for his performance in Eastern Promises, and Ryan Gosling won the Best Actor (Comedy) award for Lars and the Real Girl. Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) tied for Best Supporting Actor, while Amy Ryan picked up yet another Best Supporting Actress win for her work in Gone Baby Gone.

No Country For Old Men and Juno took home the two Best Picture prizes, while Sicko won for documentary, Lust, Caution won for foreign language, and Ratatouille won the animated feature award.

See the full list of winners here. Image from GettyImages.

Gurus

Yes, I realize it’s still early, but when did that ever stop me? The Gurus O’ Gold have posted their own predictions (subject to change), and I’m loving it! Here’s their breakdown for the Best Actress category:

01. MARION COTILLARD – La Vie En Rose (111 points)
02. JULIE CHRISTIE – Away from Her (95 points)
03. KEIRA KNIGHTLEY – Atonement (79 points)
04. ELLEN PAGE – Juno (69 points)
05. CATE BLANCHETT – The Golden Age (53 points)
05. ANGELINA JOLIE – A Mighty Heart (53 points)

Sweet. For more on their methodology, click
here. Thanks to Awards Daily for the heads up.

AwardsDaily

AwardsDaily (formerly known as Oscarwatch) is one of my favorite Oscar prognosticator sites. They’ve been doing it for a long time and, to quote LL Cool J, doin’ it well. Yes, I’m down.

In any case, here are their predictions in the Lead Actress category (based on films already released):

Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Keri Russell, Waitress

No fifth spot yet, but I’d definitely put Cate Blanchett in that list–I just can’t fathom the idea of her not getting nodded for The Golden Age.

That being said, I’d remove Ms. Russell from the list and put Keira Knightley in for “Atonement.” I’d go even further and take Ms. Jolie off the list as well. That leaves the wild card spot, generally reserved for an astonishing debut (Keisha Castle-Hughes) or a well-established legend (Meryl Streep, Dame Judi Dench, take your pic). So my list would look something like this:

Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Cate Blanchett, The Golden Age
Keira Knightley, Atonement
Meryl Streep, Lions for Lambs or Rendition