Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1250 Oscar nominations announced

The quality of "Silence of the Lambs" is truly a rare film in ten years. This kind of thriller is different from ordinary horror movies. There are not many "scary" scenes in the whole film. The most violent scene is when Hannibal beats the guard to death in the cage. In this plot, the director also used symphony and camera editing to greatly weaken the time and degree of violent scenes.

The horror of thrillers is a kind of horror that mainly stimulates people's mental imagination and is psychological horror. This also places extremely high artistic demands on the director. Not everyone can inspire the audience's imagination from a plain picture, thereby scaring themselves.

And after they frightened themselves enough, they immediately told their relatives and friends the news and invited them to go to the cinema to be frightened.

Therefore, the box office numbers of "Silence of the Lambs" appear to be very good. Rushed to the top of the rankings.

Although the overall box office in the off-season was not good, it still ranked first. TriStar Pictures received a big gift from Ronald, Frank Price and Mike Medavoy, two people who were excluded from Sony Columbia. The fringe executives are speaking a lot louder now.

After all, Columbia Pictures, which is personally managed by CEO Peter Guber, has far more resources than Samsung Pictures, which has the status of a concubine, and no movie has reached the top of the weekly box office list.

They came to visit Ronald together. In addition to thanking him, they also hoped that Ronald would have more films released by Samsung Pictures.

"If you can control Coppola, then his project, tentatively titled Dracula - The Untold Story, actually has good potential." Ronald knew that Coppola's weakness was He will be biased by the inspiration that appears during the shooting process. If he can be like the Godfather when he was shooting, and let his endless inspiration emerge in the preparation stage, then the shooting will follow the plan more.

"I prepared a gambling agreement for him. If he can complete the filming according to the schedule and on time and within the budget, he will be given a generous bonus. If he goes over time and over budget, he will be held accountable. "Mike Medavoy has experience managing talent.

Frank Price disapproved of this, but because of Coppola's reputation for frequently overspending, he let go of the production and only focused on the script and casting.

"Francis, TriStar Pictures has done it..." Ronald then called Director Coppola.

"Really? It's really great. Many distributors are not willing to watch this movie..." Coppola still faces great financial pressure, and he has high hopes for this movie.

"I told them that you can often create miracles in this state. Frank Price is your close confidant. In fact, without me speaking, they will most likely give your project the green light."

"Needless to say, I took note of it this time. We are good friends. But when I went to the Directors Guild a few days ago, it seemed that not many votes were cast for you..."

"I don't have high hopes either. After all, it's a romance film with a religious plot. Thank you anyway."

Coppola was talking about the Directors Guild voting on nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director. Most of the people with voting rights in the academy are members of the Directors Guild.

Although he said he had no idea, Ronald turned on the TV when he returned home and watched the televised announcement of the Oscar nominations.

"Welcome to the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, where today we continue our tradition of unveiling the new Oscar nominees."

The newly appointed president of the Academy of Motion Picture Technology and Arts, Karl Malden, still likes to show off as he did last year. He talked about a lot of things, and then together with last year's Best Supporting Actor, Denzel Washington, announced the nominations for the new Oscars.

When the nominations were announced last year, he was with the previous Best Supporting Actress Geena Davis. It seems that they want to turn this into a new tradition at the Oscars.

"The nominees for Best Actor are, Gerard Depardieu, Richard Harris, Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, and Kevin Costner."

"The nominees for Best Actress are Kathy Bates, Anjelica Huston, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Joanne Woodward."

There is no suspense in the nominations for the two acting awards. There are popular movies, there are quotas for foreign actors, and there is also the factor of respecting the elderly and caring for the young.

Joanne Woodward is the wife of Paul Newman, the only Oscar-winning actor and actress couple. They co-produced a movie last year, "The Bridgets", which only averaged at the box office, and to be honest, their performances were not that great. But many people who have voting rights in the Screen Actors Guild are also veteran actors. This is respecting the elderly.

Julia Roberts has two consecutive box-office successes, and her screen image is also very beautiful. Those who have the right to vote also got to know the face of this strange young actor through a lot of public relations work. This is love for children.

This also has something to do with the cleverness of the subject matter. Julia Roberts plays classic heroines in classic Hollywood genre films, and the old judges like it.

Ronald also applied for a nomination for Best Actor and Actor for "The Ghost Story", but without any surprise he lost. What movie actors probably dislike the most are their peers who appear to have put little effort into their performance, yet achieve astonishing box-office success and catapult themselves into stardom.

Demi Moore actually doesn't care very much. The increase in her net worth and popularity gained from this movie will allow her to manage it for many years.

Next up was Best Supporting Actress, and Whoopi Goldberg, who Ronald focused more on public relations, was nominated. Sometimes, public relations work is about avoiding highly competitive categories. Gothenburg's performance worked well if it was placed in the supporting actress category where the competition is not so fierce this year.

Annette Bening is also new to the film industry. Although she played very hard in "The Bet" and gave her peak performance in both physical and acting aspects, the film studio may not have paid enough attention to her and did not want her to be involved in the film. Another actress, Anjelica Huston, who competed as the actor's mother, only applied for Best Supporting Actress.

This is the practice of making people pay without receiving anything in return. Annette Bening was very old when she entered the industry and had no connections. This movie had an average box office, and she was not recognized by the box office, and was classified as a supporting actress at a lower level in terms of awards... In this movie, she had a lot of frontal nudity scenes, and she made such a big sacrifice, and the box office and The awards are not satisfactory...

Compared with Demi Moore, it can be said that it fully explains why actresses should enter the industry as early as possible.

Mary McDonnell and Graham Greene, who played the Sioux tribe, were also nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Actor. Graham Greene, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Andy Garcia were nominated at the same time for their roles in gangster films. The trio starred in Dick Tracy, The Godfather Part III, and Goodfellas.

"I'm coming……"

Diane, who was watching the TV broadcast together, was more nervous than Ronald. Immediately announced are the nominations for Best Director.

"Francis Ford Coppola - The Godfather Part III, Martin Scorsese - Goodfellas, Stephen Frears - The Fatal Gamble, Babe Schroeder - Reversal of Fortune... "

Four of the five nominations were announced. For a moment, Ronald thought he would be the next one, and his hands were sweating... "Kevin Costner - Dances with Wolves"

"Hey?"

Diane exclaimed, how could Costner still be nominated for the Best Director Award? She looked at Ronald, and the disappointment on her husband's face flashed across her face. She immediately leaned over and put their faces together to express comfort.

"It's still the same problem, they don't like romantic comedies very much." Ronald acted calmly, but in fact he was complaining in his heart. Can Kevin Costner be nominated for best director?

Alas, among the directors nominated this year, only Martin Scorsese is the one who deserves the honor. You go and run with me.

Scorsese has produced many masterpieces over the years, including Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, all of which are highly artistic and innovative, but by some strange coincidence he did not win the Best Director award.

However, the Oscars have always had a tradition of awarding you a statuette based on historical performance and overall consideration.

This year, Coppola's third film The Godfather fell short of expectations, and the other two nominated films were even more disparate in quality. Even if Ronald was nominated, he didn't have much hope. After all, the idea that Scorsese deserves a statuette has been popular in Hollywood and film critics for a long time.

The next nominations were announced, and Ghosts and Dances with Wolves were nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay respectively. For best film, these two were also nominated.

Relatively speaking, the nomination of the best film is less affected by the box office. Among several major art awards, it is easy to see that the higher the box office, the fewer nominations. This is also a problem that easily occurs in voting awards.

"Then there is the Best Foreign Language Film. After selection by the Academy of Motion Picture Technology and Arts, we selected five nominated films from non-English films sent from around the world. They are..."

The Best Foreign Language Film nomination is different from other award nominations. It is registered by the film associations of various countries, not by the film producers. The voting selection is also the same as the best film. It is not a special industry association vote, but all voting judges vote together.

"Yimou Zhang, Ju Dou... use Chinese."

"Huh?" Ronald discovered that an acquaintance who won the Golden Bear at the West Berlin Film Festival was actually nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this time. He immediately picked up the phone and called Director Wu who helped him collect old Chinese movies.

"Director Wu, did you watch the broadcast? Yimou was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film."

"What? Is there such a thing? Well, when he comes to Los Angeles, I will make dumplings for him to eat." Director Wu did not watch the live broadcast. He recently discovered many Chinese-language movies from the 1940s from the US military's copy warehouse. Copies of movies may not be so well preserved in China. They have only been screened a few times and have high-quality copies with no scratches.

This is because the US military has always been rich and shows movies every week to entertain the soldiers. At that time, some troops stationed in Asia purchased local movies and showed them to soldiers and some local people who served the soldiers.

When the U.S. military withdrew from Asia a few years later, these copies returned to the mainland on ships and lay in the U.S. military's warehouse for decades. However, the storage conditions of the US military's warehouses are better than those of some Hollywood studios, and it is rare for them to be passed down to this day.

Among these copies, there are also several classics that have been passed down by word of mouth in domestic circles, such as Spring in a Small Town and Eternal Fragrance. Director Wu was already very happy, and when he heard it today, he felt double happiness.

"I called him to congratulate him and set a time. When he comes to Los Angeles, can you find a time to chat with him? I always feel that he still has potential."

"Come on, come on... Then you can also make some dumplings for me and Diane. The last time we had them, they tasted very good. Bring your daughter with you." Ronald was very happy and prepared to receive her grandly. At that time, Director Huang from Xujiahui will also come, and he will be responsible for the expenses. Let them also meet and communicate with Ang Lee, who is preparing to promote, and learn about the Hollywood production process.

In his heart, Ronald still thinks more highly of these filmmakers than those in Xiangjiang. There are certain themes and genre films that only they can make. The Asian craze brought about by The Last Emperor has not completely subsided yet. Maybe there will be a Chinese director-led The Last Emperor by then.

However, things are unpredictable. One day later, Director Wu called again.

"I'm really sorry, Director Luo, Xiao Zhang can't come. He has other things to do and can't come to Los Angeles to attend the awards show."

"Can't come?" Ronald was a little confused when he received the call. Doesn't the mainland attach great importance to Western awards like the Oscars? Seeing such a good opportunity, how could you give up?

The Oscar is not a third-rate film festival award in the world. You can win it by spending money. If you don't come, the Oscar will never award you the award.

In history, only Marlon Brando and George C. Scott have ever refused to accept the award. But that was only when the award was presented, and the Oscar organizing committee had no choice but to hold their noses and admit it.

If you express your intention not to come before voting like this, let alone this time, you will have no chance in the future.

"Hey, I already scolded him. However, I can't blame him entirely for this matter."

It turns out that there is another hidden reason behind this matter. Which film is selected to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is entirely decided by national associations. This Ju Dou is similar to director Yimou Zhang's previous "Red Sorghum" in that they both reflect the backward rural life of 1949.

Ju Dou is about the oppression of free humanity by feudal ethics. It is actually a pretty good story, adapted from a best-selling novel.

However, after Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear Award, there was a voice in the mainland that believed that Yimou deliberately made some backward stories and showed these bad things to foreigners to satisfy their desire for novelty.

Although this time, "Ju Dou" was still selected as a gift at the beginning, the leader actually did not think that this movie would be disapproving of the Oscar judges. Can the Germans' achievements in movies be compared with those of powerful movie countries such as America, Russia, and the Soviet Union? The West Berlin Film Festival is still far behind Cannes and Oscars.

Who knew that when the nominations were announced, Ju Dou would actually enter the final round of the last five films. The leader was under pressure all of a sudden. He couldn't lose his face. He didn't want Yimou to go, but he couldn't stop him directly. In the end, he had to tell the outside world that he had other important matters and couldn't go.

"What else is more important than winning an award? Damn it, forget it, get ready and come with me to visit Mr. Karl Malden, the chairman of the academy. Tell him about your difficulties, otherwise don't talk about it in the future. Yimou, I don’t think other directors can hope to win Oscar favors in the future.”

(End of this chapter)