Cinemascope

Cinemascope has obtained a copy of the rundown for tonight’s Oscar telecast. The show is timed at 3 hours and 29 minutes, with Denzel Washington slated to present the award for Best Picture.

Jon Stewart’s opening monologue will last 8 minutes and include a VTR of Oprah Winfrey. VTR segments throughout the evening will introduce “oscar Icons” such as Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta Jones, Steven Spielberg, Paul Newman and Barbra Streisand.

The first prize will be awarded at 5:54 PM (PT): it will be the costume design and the presenter is Jennifer Garner.

AWARD #2
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
(Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway): 5:54 PM (PT)

AWARD #3
MAKEUP
(Katherine Heigl): 5:57

PERFORMANCE - SONG #1 (26) 6:03:09
“Happy Working Song”(2:07)
(Amy Adams-vocs, orchestra)

AWARD #4
VISUAL EFFECTS
(Dwayne Johnson): 6:09

AWARD #5
ART DIRECTION
(Cate Blanchett): 6:13

Here Jon Stewart will joke about Blanchett’s double nomination as Queen Elizabeth and as Bob Dylan.

AWARD #6
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
(Jennifer Hudson): 6:18

PRESENTER INTRO PERFORMANCE 6:27
(Keri Russell)

PERFORMANCE - SONG #2 6:27
“Raise It Up”
(Jamia Simone Nash, Impact Repertory Theatre of Harlem [21],
Total Praise Community Choir [15], Orchestra)

AWARD #7
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
(Owen Wilson): 6:30

AWARD #8
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
(Barry B. Benson=VTPB): 6:36

AWARD #9
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
(Alan Arkin): 6:39

SCI-TECH AWARDS RECAP 6:49:20
(Jessica Alba)

AWARD #10
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
(James McAvoy, Josh Brolin): 6:50

PRESENTER INTRO PERFORMANCE 6:57:38
(Miley Cyrus)

PERFORMANCE - SONG #3
“That’s How You Know”
(Kristin Chenoweth-vocs, Dancers [32],
Marlon Saunders-singer, Steel Drummer,
Kids [2], Tuba Players [4], Chorus [16]): 7:00

AWARD #11
SOUND EDITING
(Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen): 7:06

AWARD #12
SOUND MIXING
(Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen): 7:09

AWARD #13
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
(Forest Whitaker): 7:15

PERFORMANCE - SONG #4 7:27:43
“Falling Slowly”
(Glen Hansard-vocs, gtr, Marketa Irglova-vocs, piano,
Orch)

Here Jack Nicholson will present a montage of Best Picture winners over the last 80 years.

AWARD #14
FILM EDITING
(Renée Zellweger): 7:33

HONORARY OSCAR TO
ROBERT BOYLE
(Nicole Kidman, Randy Thomas VO-Live, Robert Boyle): 7:38

AWARD #15
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
(Penélope Cruz): 7:47

PRESENTER INTRO PERFORMANCE
(Patrick Dempsey)

PERFORMANCE - SONG #5 7:54:46
“So Close”
(Jon McLaughlin-vocs, Featured Dancers [4],
Ballroom Dancers [14], Band Member Extras [9],
Bill Conti-Conductor)

AWARD #16
ORIGINAL SONG
(John Travolta, Ballroom Dancer-Valentina): 7:55

Here Stewart will perform a comedy bit with a Wii console.

AWARD #17
CINEMATOGRAPHY
(Cameron Diaz): 8:04

IN MEMORIAM TRIBUTE (3:00) 8:11
(Hilary Swank)

AWARD #18
ORIGINAL SCORE
(Amy Adams): 8:15

(She will refer to the most famous musical phrases in movies, e.g: Jaws, Close Encounters and Rocky).

AWARD #19
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
(Tom Hanks, Special Guests [6] VTPB): 8:19

AWARD #20
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
(Tom Hanks): 8:22

AWARD #21
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
(Harrison Ford): 8:30

AWARD #22
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
(Helen Mirren): 8:37

AWARD #23
DIRECTING
(Martin Scorsese): 8:47

AWARD #24
BEST MOTION PICTURE
(Denzel Washington): 8:49

GOODNIGHTS 8:53:49
(Jon Stewart)

Ever seen an Indiana Jones poster with Hebrew text? Well, here’s your chance. Behold: the Israeli teaser poster for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in Hebrew, below the title it reads “May 2008″. The Hebrew name, thank goodness, is an accurate translation (this coming from the same distributor that translated “No Country for Old Men” into “Rough Country” in Hebrew), but it still sounds clunky in either language.

Click to enlarge.

It’s good to be awake when the west coast is fast asleep. At an early hour, 3 A.M (PT) to be precise, WGA president Patrick Verrone, has sent WGA members this email, outlining the draft of the tentative agreement that was reached between the striking writers and the employers (the studios). This agreement will be presented to the WGA membership Saturday afternoon and if approved would mean the end of the writers strike, that started November 5th 2007.

More to come…

Update: Nikki Finke is up. saying it ain’t over yet. I think it is. The deal is only for three years - a blink of an eye in TV and movie time - and has let the WGA stick a foot in the door on issues that were considered “never-gonna-happen” by the AMPTP when the strike began.

Oscar nominee Joseph Cedar, whose Israeli smash hit “Beaufort” is nominated for a best foreign language Oscar this year, was busy prepping an Israeli financed musical bio-pic about Hassidic singer Shlomo Karlebach, better known as “the singing rabbi”, when he temporarily shelved the project. The reason: Cedar was approached by London based producer, Rainer Grupe (”Buffalo Soldiers”) to direct a feature film about German filmmaker Veit Harlan, who was considered the official film director of the Third Reich. He was later tried for crimes against humanity but acquitted. Although he kept making movies until his death in 1965, the film, says Cedar, is “about Harlan and the production of his 1940 film ‘Jud Süss’”.
“Jud Süss” is considered one of the most atrocious, and most successful, anti-Semitic films produced in Nazi Germany, but it was directed by a filmmaker whose ex-wife was a Jew that later perished in Auschwitz.
Harlan is better known these days as the uncle of Christiane Kubrick, widow of the late Stanley Kubrick, and her brother Jan Harlan, who served as executive producer on all Kubrick films from “Barry Lyndon” to “Eyes Wide Shut”. Cedar cited Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” as an inspiration for his own “Beaufort”.
No cast and no starting date have been announced yet for this production.

A very reliable source in Park City, attending the Sundance festival, has sent along this message: Producers with whom he has spoken, who are close to the academy’s foreign language film screenings, which were held this past Friday and Saturday, are saying that three films have already secured a spot among the top five nominees: Russia’s “12″, Austria’s “The Counterfeiters” and Israel’s “Beaufort”. The remaining two spots are now a toss-up by points between the other six contenders.

The actual nominees will be announced Tuesday morning.

Things you discover upon repeat viewings of Blade Runner (now out on a stunning - STUNNING! - new DVD transfer in the Final Cut DVD set): the screen inside the spinner, the flying police car in 2019 Los Angeles has the same graphic design as the screen inside the Nostromo in Alien. Both directed by Ridley Scott.

See for yourself:

The top image was captured at the 15 minute mark on the Alien Director’s Cut (found on Alien Quadrilogy (Alien/ Aliens /Alien 3 /Alien Resurrection)
The bottom image was captured at the 9 minute mark on the Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition).

What do we make of this? Option 1: Scott is (or was) a consummate visionary, and in his head Blade Runner and Alien take place in the same universe, albeit at different corners of it, and that perhaps the Nostromo and the Spinner were made by the same corporation.
Option 2: Scott needed footage for the screen design and ripped-off his own movie.

This looks like a match made in comedy-heaven: Judd Apatow (Cinemascope’s Man of the Year), Robert Smigel (Triumph, the insult comic dog) and Adam Sandler teamed up to write a movie that doesn’t only sound silly, it reads as utter nonsense: You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. Picking up where Borat left off they mash Hebrew and Gibberish into the story of an ex-Mossad agent leaving his secret identity behind to try to find peace and quiet in New York City. A bunch of Israeli bumheads then come to his rescue when his cover is blown.

Cinemascope got hold of several pages from the screenplay for the movie that is currently being shot, with many Israeli actors in supporting roles.

Sample dialog (about Chelsea Clinton):

Yitzhak: Are you crazy? I liked Chelsea.
Everyone: I would sex Chelsea!
Aharon: She is hot. With the hair.
Oori: You seen these legs.
Yossi: You can fit a marshmallow in between the thighs.

The pages from the screenplay are after the jump.

(more…)

Yesterday one studio head, one former studio head, two producers, two agents and two filmmakers sat on a panel on a stage at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque taking questions from local actors, writers and directors trying to figure out “how to break into Hollywood”. The answers varied from “do something original in your own country and we’ll find you” and “why would you want to come to Hollywood in the first place where you will be abused and robbed of personal style and identity” but quickly enough the discussion turned topical, as the writers’ strike came up, and panel member Brad Silberling (WGA and DGA member argued the case in favor of the writers. Sony chairperson Amy Pascal was not thrilled to hear this, or to absorb the positive vibe his pro-WGA impromptu rally sparked in the room, but gave quite an interesting response - on stage, on the record:
Here’s a transcript of what happened on stage, 41 minutes into the event,
where an AMPTP member and a WGA member sat side by side and thinking Israel
will be a guild-free zone. wrong:

Amy Pascal: We always need fresh talent in Hollywood. By the way, we need writers right now so if there are writers in this room please give me you card.
Arik Kneller, top Israeli agent representing mostly writers and directors,
asks from the audience: Are you serious, or was this a joke?
Amy: Oh, dear. That was a joke. If you write during the strike you’d be
scabs and then you won’t be admitted into the WGA after the strike is over.
Kneller (from the audience): Could you tell us more about the strike.
Amy: Basicaly, the writers want more money, and we don’t want to give it to
them. Must we go into this?
Then in a surprise twist a member of the panel on the other side of the
table takes the mike. This is Brad Silberling (”City of Angels”, “Moonlight
Mile”), WGA and DGA member.
Brad: Actually we do. I don’t want only the studios side to be represented
here. (Here Brad give a quick rundown of the writers’ demands regarding internet residuals. He calls the strike “the perfect storm”, meaning that it’s not only the writers, but also the actors and the directors whose contracts will be up for renewal soon, and the writers were just the first to go, but that come June, SAG and DGA will join them if this is not settled by then).
Amy: Brad is right, this is all about new technologies, it’s all about a new world that none of us understand ,so no one wants to start divvying it up before we know what it means. However it is also true that the writers have been treated like second class citizens in Hollywood forever so their paranoia is justified. And they did make a deal in the past where they didn’t get what they wanted in their cut of the DVD revenue and this is their chance to make up for it. It’s just unfortunate, because even being on the side I’m on I’m also on the other side and it’s a really terrible situation because it’s too soon for this and yet we also know that once we know what this is all about no-one will want to give it up.