It’s getting to that time where little nuggets of information pertaining to this year’s Oscar race will begin leaking out here and there and today we have a couple of festival updates to begin with as Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks has been selected as the closing night film at the 57th BFI London Film Festival. The film stars Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson and is being looked at as a strong Oscar contender for Thompson especially as she plays P.L. Travers to Hanks’ Walt Disney as the film tells the story of how Travers’ “Mary Poppins,” was brought to the big screen.
In other festival closing news, Spike Jonze‘s Her starring Joaquin Phoenix will close the New York Film Festival where Paul Greengrass‘ Captain Phillips will serve as the opening night film and Ben Stiller‘s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has been named the centerpiece selection. All three are being looked at as strong Oscar contenders. Her had its coming out party yesterday with the first trailer, which if you haven’t watched, stop now and do yourself a favor and click here and give it a watch.
Additionally, the New York Festival has posted an interview with Jonze which you can read here. Here’s a snippet:
“What did inspire this… There are so many different aspects to it. There are all these conceptual science fiction areas to the film. Obviously technology has become such a big presence in our lives and, I definitely know, in my life. I think of how much of my daily interaction is with and through technology… and it’s an emotional experience too. You know, you get a buzz when getting texts: ‘Oh, someone’s thinking about me.’
“The movie has all these high-concept ideas, but it is nevertheless mostly a relationship movie. It’s about love and our need to connect and our [method] of connecting. But, at its heart, it is a relationship movie.”
Next, I have updated my Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor predictions after reading Kris Tapley over at In Contention saying Bruce Dern will rightfully be pushed in the Best Actor category for Nebraska rather than Supporting. As a result both categories have undergone some ranking shifts, which you can see right here and here.
Oh, and if you missed ’em, here are the just released new trailer for George Clooney‘s The Monuments Men and Captain Phillips.
