Toy Story - We Got Bruce! https://wegotbruce.com The Latest News on Bruce Vilanch Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:16:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 A Case For Throwing Out The Oscar’s Script https://wegotbruce.com/2018/07/25/a-case-for-throwing-out-the-oscars-script/ https://wegotbruce.com/2018/07/25/a-case-for-throwing-out-the-oscars-script/#comments Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:12:34 +0000 https://wegotbruce.com/?p=16876 New York Times Academy Awards 25 Years Ago: Not So Different From Today By Bruce Fretts Feb. 24, 2017   From the moment the host Billy Crystal was wheeled onstage…

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]]> New York Times
Academy Awards 25 Years Ago: Not So Different From Today
By Bruce Fretts
Feb. 24, 2017

 

From the moment the host Billy Crystal was wheeled onstage wearing a straitjacket and a face mask à la Hannibal Lecter in “The Silence of the Lambs,” viewers knew the 1992 Oscars were not going to be normal.

“It was a bit like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” Jodie Foster, the “Silence” star who won best actress that year, recalled in a telephone interview. “You were being catapulted from one surreal experience to the next.”

The circumstances surrounding the Academy Awards 25 years ago were not so different from the ceremony set for Sunday: Presidential politics served as the backdrop (in that case, Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown, whom Mr. Crystal jokingly compared to that year’s self-destructive cinematic rebels Thelma and Louise, were trying to unseat President George Bush). Major social issues played out at the podium (then it was homophobia and sexism), and black filmmakers were making inroads. But in 1992, four of the five best-picture nominees were among the year’s top 20domestic box-office hits; this year, that’s true for only two of the nine contenders (“Hidden Figures” and “La La Land”).

“In those days, people still believed the recipe to make a popular film was to make a good film,” Ms. Foster said. “The way the economy has shaped the industry over the last 25 years, it’s ghettoized films into either big, dumbed-down mainstream movies that are trying to attract as many audience members as possible, and movies that are substantial and meaningful, which are relegated to a different sphere.”

I asked winners, nominees and one of the show’s writers about that year’s most memorable moments.

The Show Opener

A review in The New York Times described the 1992 ceremony as “uncharacteristically lively,” and that began with the first bit the writers devised for the host. “It’s a great entrance for Anthony Hopkins in the movie, so we knew it would work with Billy,” Bruce Vilanch, one of the telecast’s writers, said in a recent telephone interview. “It was kind of irresistible.”

Billy Crystal’s Hannibal Lecter Entrance: 1992 OscarsCreditVideo by Oscars

One-Armed Push-Ups

The bizarre mood was struck early when best supporting actor went to Jack Palance, Mr. Crystal’s co-star in the western comedy “City Slickers.” Mr. Palance gave, as The Times put it, a “cheerfully unprintable acceptance speech.”

“It was an odd thing to say at the Academy Awards,” Mr. Vilanch said, recalling a specific line in the speech. “But that was Jack. He was a genuinely strange and scary guy.”

Then, in a display of his virility, the 73-year-old character actor dropped to the floor and did one-armed push-ups. Backstage in the writers’ room, “we looked at each other and said, ‘We have to go with this — it’s too funny.’” Thus began a run of on-the-fly jokes from Mr. Crystal (“I was just given a bulletin: Jack Palance is now on the StairMaster”) that stretched through the night.

Jack Palance Wins Supporting Actor: 1992 OscarsCreditVideo by Oscars

A Family First

For supporting actress, Mercedes Ruehl won for “The Fisher King,” but it was one of her competitors, Diane Ladd, who made Oscar history. She was the first mother to be nominated along with her daughter (Laura Dern) for the same film, the Southern drama “Rambling Rose.” Ms. Dern and Ms. Ladd also presented the award for best visual effects to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

“When I was standing on that stage, and I looked out at my peers and then over at Laura, it was a great honor,” Ms. Ladd said. “I had to fight to keep from crying.”

A Surprise From Space

More emotional moments played out as George Lucas received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from his old friend Steven Spielberg and, in a bit of technical wizardry, the crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, complete with a floating Oscar. Another satellite link allowed the acclaimed Indian director Satyajit Ray to accept his honorary Academy Award from his hospital bed in Calcutta; he died 24 days later at 70. “Gil Cates, who produced that show, loved technology,” Mr. Vilanch said. “He always had remotes.”

Many Oscar ceremonies come with some controversy, and the 1992 show had its share. Gay-rights advocates picketed over villainous characters in “Silence” as well as in “J.F.K.”(Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for best supporting actor for his turn as a gay man put on trial and acquitted for an alleged conspiracy to kill the president) and in the just-released “Basic Instinct,” which starred Sharon Stone, who was also a presenter. “It was a good discussion, but it was also very stressful,” Ms. Foster said.

The protesters could take solace in the fact that Howard Ashman — who had died a year earlier at 40 — became the first person lost to AIDS to win an Oscar: best original song for “Beauty and the Beast.” His longtime companion, Bill Lauch, accepted the award on his behalf.

A Toon Dispute

Disney’s wildly popular “Beauty and the Beast” stirred up discord when it became the first animated film nominated for best picture, which didn’t sit well with some Oscar purists. “They created the best animated feature category after that because they didn’t want more cartoons nominated for best picture,” said. Mr. Vilanch. (Only “Up” and “Toy Story 3” have managed the feat since.)

Streisand Slight

The night’s loudest contretemps surrounded Barbra Streisand, who was passed over for a best director nomination even though her drama “The Prince of Tides” snagged a best picture nomination. The group Women in Film cited sexism. “In some circles, they said I took her slot,” said John Singleton, who at 24 became the youngest and first African-American best director nominee, for his searing debut, “Boyz N The Hood.” “What people don’t know is that I’m a huge Barbra Streisand fan. She signed my application to get me into the Directors Guild.”

Mr. Crystal gracefully defused the situation with a satirical lyric during a musical number. Referring to “The Prince of Tides,” he crooned, “Seven nominations on the shelf, did this film direct itself?” The cameras quickly cut to Ms. Streisand, laughing appreciatively.

Rookie Mistake

Mr. Singleton lost best director to Jonathan Demme for “Silence,” but he had higher hopes of winning best original screenplay. Yet the award went to another first-timer, Callie Khouri, for the feminist road-trip saga “Thelma & Louise.”

“I was trying not to jinx myself, so I wrote an acceptance speech in pencil,” Ms. Khouri said. “By the time I opened it up, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, so I just winged it. I forgot to thank the producer, so that was fairly horrifying.” (For the record, Mimi Polk Gitlin produced the film.)

A ‘Silence’ Sweep

The biggest winner, of course, turned out to be “The Silence of the Lambs,” which became only the third film in history, after “It Happened One Night” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” to sweep the top five awards: best picture, director, actor, actress and adapted screenplay (by Ted Tally, based on Thomas Harris’s novel).

“Three years earlier, I had won best actress for ‘The Accused,’ and I was the only person nominated from the film, so I was by myself,” Ms. Foster said. “But for ‘Silence,’ it was really extraordinary — we kept winning, one after the other, and we all met backstage. I remember everybody was really hot and sweaty, and we all had our arms around one another.”

Postscript

That wasn’t the only happy ending. Five months later, Mr. Crystal, Mr. Vilanch and his fellow writers Hal Kanter, Buz Kohan, Robert Wuhl and David Steinberg took home Emmys. “We won for throwing out the script and rewriting it on the spot,” Mr. Vilanch said. “That’s Hollywood.”

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]]> https://wegotbruce.com/2018/07/25/a-case-for-throwing-out-the-oscars-script/feed/ 1 Who Da Hell’s Gonna Win? https://wegotbruce.com/2011/01/25/who-da-hells-gonna-win/ Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:14:05 +0000 https://wegotbruce.com/?p=2360 The Film School Rejects Envelope Please: The 2011 Academy Award Nominees January 25th 2011 At the end of the 90s, famous Oscar show writer and Celebrity Fit Club contestant Bruce…

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The Film School Rejects
Envelope Please: The 2011 Academy Award Nominees
January 25th 2011

At the end of the 90s, famous Oscar show writer and Celebrity Fit Club contestant Bruce Vilanch claimed that, “Generally with the Oscars…there isn’t much you can do until the nominations are announced. Then you know what kind of year you’re dealing with – what’s been overlooked, what the issues are.”

He was talking about preparing to write the show, but it applies to everyone from the directors, producers and stars on down to the fans. It’s fun to guess around the water cooler (your office still has a water cooler?), but until now, it’s all been speculation.

Thankfully, almost all that speculation has been spot on, so we can all continue our conversations about whether Black Swan will beat The Social Network for Best Picture. Whether Natalie Portman has any true competition for Best Actress. Whether, most importantly of all, Colleen Atwood will beat Mary Zophres for Best Costume Design.

Here they are. The 2011 Academy Award nominees:

BEST PICTURE
127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
INCEPTION (Warner Bros Pictures)
THE FIGHTER (Relativity Media/Paramount Pictures)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
TOY STORY 3 (Pixar/Walt Disney Studios)
TRUE GRIT (Paramount Pictures)
WINTER’S BONE Roadside Attractions

BEST ACTOR
JEFF BRIDGES – TRUE GRIT
JAVIER BARDEM – BIUTIFUL
JESSE EISENBERG – THE SOCIAL NETWORK
COLIN FIRTH – THE KING’S SPEECH
JAMES FRANCO – 127 HOURS

BEST ACTRESS
ANNETTE BENING – THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
NICOLE KIDMAN – RABBIT HOLE
JENNIFER LAWRENCE – WINTER’S BONE
NATALIE PORTMAN – BLACK SWAN
MICHELLE WILLIAMS – BLUE VALENTINE

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CHRISTIAN BALE – THE FIGHTER
JOHN HAWKES – WINTER’S BONE
JEREMY RENNER – THE TOWN
MARK RUFFALO – THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
GEOFFREY RUSH – THE KING’S SPEECH

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
AMY ADAMS – THE FIGHTER
HELENA BONHAM CARTER – THE KING’S SPEECH
MELISSA LEO – THE FIGHTER
HAILEE STEINFELD – TRUE GRIT
JACKIE WEAVER – ANIMAL KINGDOM

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
TOY STORY 3
THE ILLUSIONIST

BEST DIRECTOR
DARREN ARONOFSKY – BLACK SWAN
DAVID FINCHER – THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TOM HOOPER – THE KING’S SPEECH
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN – TRUE GRIT
DAVID O. RUSSELL – THE FIGHTER

Continue on for more nominations…

–~~~~~~~~~~~~–

Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland, Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
Inception, Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias and Doug Mowat
The King’s Speech, Eve Stewart, Judy Farr
True Grit, Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

Achievement in Cinematography
Black Swan, Matthew Libatique
Inception, Wally Pfister
The King’s Speech, Danny Cohen
The Social Network, Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit, Roger Deakins

Achievement in costume design
Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood
I Am Love, Antonella Cannarozzi
The King’s Speech, Jenny Beavan
The Tempest, Sandy Powell
True Grit, Mary Zophres

Best Documentary Feature
Exit through the Gift Shop, Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz, A Paranoid Pictures Production
Gasland, Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic, A Gasland Production
Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs, A Representational Pictures Production
Restrepo, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, An Outpost Films Production
Waste Land, Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley, An Almega Projects Production

Best Documentary Short Subject
Killing in the Name, A Moxie Firecracker Films Production
Poster Girl, A Portrayal Films Production
Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon, A Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production
Sun Come Up, Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger, A Sun Come Up Production
The Warriors of Qiugang ,Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon, A Thomas Lennon Films Production

Achievement in Film Editing
Black Swan, Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter, Pamela Martin
The King’s Speech, Tariq Anwar
127 Hours, Jon Harris
The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Best Foreign Language Film
Biutiful, Mexico
Dogtooth, Greece
In a Better World, Denmark
Incendies, Canada
Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi), Algeria

Achievement in Makeup
Barney’s Version, Adrien Morot
The Way Back, Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Even more nominees? But of course…

–~~~~~~~~~~~~–

Best Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon, John Powell
Inception, Hans Zimmer
The King’s Speech, Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours, A.R. Rahman
The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Best Original Song
“Coming Home” from Country Strong, Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
“I See the Light” from Tangled, Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
“If I Rise” from 127 Hours, Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
“We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Best Animated Short Film
Day & Night, A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo, A Magic Light Pictures Production, Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let’s Pollute, A Geefwee Boedoe Production, Geefwee Boedoe
The Lost Thing, A Passion Pictures Australia Production, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary), A Sacrebleu Production, Bastien Dubois

Best Live Action Short Film
The Confession, A National Film and Television School Production, Tanel Toom
The Crush, A Purdy Pictures Production, Michael Creagh
God of Love, A Luke Matheny Production, Luke Matheny
Na Wewe, A CUT! Production, Ivan Goldschmidt
Wish 143, A Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures Production, Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

Achievement in Sound Editing
Inception, Richard King
Toy Story 3, Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
Tron: Legacy, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit, Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable, Mark P. Stoeckinger

Achievement in Sound Mixing
Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
The King’s Speech, Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
Salt, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
The Social Network, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
True Grit, Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

Achievement in Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland, Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter, Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Iron Man 2, Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours, Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3, Screenplay by Michael Arndt. Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
True Grit, Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter’s Bone, Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Original Screenplay
Another Year, Written by Mike Leigh
The Fighter, Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception, Written by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right, Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
The King’s Speech, Screenplay by David Seidler

So that’s it.

Not a lot of surprises, frankly, but there never are. Christopher Nolan is probably feeling a little bit disappointed this morning, and rightfully so.

Based on all of the awards, the movies leading the Best Picture pack are The King’s Speech, The Social Network, and The Fighter. True Grit and Black Swan are not too far behind, but Inception will have to pull a Driving Miss Daisy in order to take home the ultimate prize. Not likely at this point.

Still, it’s important to remember that the Oscars are a Democratic process. It’s a vote – not some secret cabal of people deciding in a smoke-filled back room somewhere.

At the end of the day, it’s an honor to be nominated, so congratulations to all of the nominees.

What do you think?

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