Media Morsels 1.4.13

Happy New Year, dear readers! We'll be begin this week with some odds and ends from last week and then dive right into new news.


Items from last week:
Award Season Update
Oscars
  • The Feinberg Forecast (in which The Hollywood Reporter's awards guru, Scott Feinberg, looks at what's happened in the past week and what impact it has on the Oscars) notes:
    • Christmas Day releases Django Unchained and Les Miserables are doing well at the box office (Django ultimately topped Les Mis), but both are trailing behind The Hobbit. (However, The Wrap says the Django is on pace to be Quentin Tarantino's highest grossing film yet!)
    • Quentin Tarantino will be feted by the Rome Film Festival, receiving its Lifetime Achievement Award.
    • Argo star and director Ben Affleck received the Cinema for Peace Foundation's Humanitarian Award.
    • Ewan McGregor landed a spot on Queen Elizabeth II's New Year Honors list.
    • Prolific director, writer and producer Judd Apatow (This is 40), will receive the Critics' Choice Movie Awards' inaugural Louis XIII Genius Award, which was "created to honor 'an unprecedented demonstration of excellence in the cinematic arts.'"

  • Thompson on Hollywood is reporting more problems for Academy members trying to cast their nominating votes online.

  • Rolling Stone's chief movie critic Peter Travers pleas with Academy voters to remember and nominate certain standout films, performances and directors, like everyone and everything about The Master and Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight Rises.
Other Awards
  • Leonardo DiCaprio is being honored with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's American Riviera Award, joining a list of past recipients that includes Annette Benning and his frequent collaborator, Martin Scorsese. When speaking about the choice, festival executive director Roger Durling said DiCaprio's performance "reaffirms that he is the most relevant actor of his generation." I couldn't agree more! Thompson on Hollywood has more.

  • The Writers Guild of America announced its nominations for achievement in film. (Last month, the nominees for achievement in televisions were announced.) The nominees for original screenplay (first five) and adapted screen play (latter five) are below, and The Wrap has the full list. It's interesting to note that Quentin Tarantino did not receive a nomination for Django Unchained.
    • Flight, by John Gatins
    • Looper, by Rian Johnson
    • The Master, by Paul Thomas Anderson
    • Moonrise Kingdom, by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
    • Zero Dark Thirty, by Mark Boal

    • Argo, by Chris Terrio, based on a selection from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez, and a Wired magazine article "The Great Escape," by Joshuah Bearman
    • Life of Pi, by David Magee, based on the novel by Yann Martel
    • Lincoln, by Tony Kushner, based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
    • The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, based on his book
    • Silver Linings Playbook, by David O. Russell, based on the novel by Matthew Quick

  • The Producers Guild of America announced its nominations for best productions. Among others, producers of Argo, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Lincoln, Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty were nominated. EW has the full list of nominees.  
    • Speaking of Zero Dark Thirty, a Senate panel has been convened to investigate whether or not director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal were given "inappropriate" access to CIA officials and information. Rolling Stone has details. (On the heels of this was an op-ed from Jose Rodriguez, the retired CIA veteran whose job it was to destroy the tapes documenting the torture. Wired has the story.)

  • Golden Globes—Check out this video of Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler talking about the award show:


Theatre News
  • The new production of Pippin that just opened at American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) in Boston is heading to Broadway. This will mark the first Broadway revival of the Tony-winning show. Directed by Diane Paulus (Hair, Porgy and Bess), the A.R.T. production brings a circus atmosphere to the Stephen Schwartz-Roger O. Hirson musical and boasts the talents of Matthew James Thomas, Patina Miller (Sister Act), Andrea Martin, Terrence Mann and Charlotte d'Amboise (Chicago), among others. Casting for the Broadway iteration has not yet been confirmed, but the show, which will begin previews on March 23 and open on April 25, will play at the legendary Music Box Theatre. See Playbill for details and stay tuned for updates.

  • The stellar revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which I named one of my favorite things of 2012, will once again extend its run, playing through March 24.

  • Peter and the Starcatcher is concluding its Broadway run this month (January 20), but there will be more starstuff: producers announced this week that the show will return off-Broadway in the spring. The production, for which casting and exact dates are still to be announced, will transfer to New World Stages. Playbill has more. 

  • City Center's Encores! has announced the creative teams for its upcoming shows, which include Fiorello! and On Your Toes. Playbill has details.
The Great Gatsby is Getting a Great Score
You may have noticed a Jay-Z song ("No Church in the Wild") in the latest trailer for Baz Lurhmann's The Great Gatsby, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and will be in theaters on May 10. We learned this week that Hova, along with The Bullitts, will score the film, and that the soundtrack will include cuts from Prince and Lady Gaga. (The Hollywood Reporter has details.) I'm pretty psyched about Sean Carter scoring the film—Gatsby is so gangsta—and I'm looking forward to the full soundtrack. The first volume of Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet soundtrack was in heavy rotation on my CD player back in the 90s. Watch the trailer for Gatsby below.


Dig This
  • Kristen Chenoweth's February 15 American Songbook concert at Lincoln Center will be filmed and broadcast on PBS at a later date. Playbill has details.

  • After Billie Joe Armstrong's stint in rehab, Green Day are heading back on the road.

  • David Harbour (The Newsroom, Glengarry Glen Ross) spoke to Broadway.com about life on the boards and working with theatre veterans on Newsroom.

  • [title of show] and Now. Here. This. teammember Heidi Blickenstaff tells Playbill about some of her favorite theatergoing experiences. She includes the first Broadway preview of [title of show] (it's on page 11), and though she's describing what was special about that night, she's actually describing what's special and different about live theatre:
I remember feeling like we were taking in the energy from every single person in that house. Like we became everything that everyone in that house wanted to be, whatever it was. We were living the dream for everyone. While we were succeeding, they were succeeding. It was this crazy energy circle that just kept going and going and going. We were little batteries that the audience was charging.

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