Blog: News & Views

Gold Derby Nuggets: January 4

By Gold Derby News Desk

Jan 04 2011 21:11 pm

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 On Jan. 25, last year's Supporting Actress champ Mo'Nique ("Precious") will join academy president Tom Sherak to announce nominees in 10 of the two dozen competitive categories at this year's Academy Awards. The nominations are revealed in the wee small hours -- at 5:30 PT -- so timed as to coincide with the last half hour of the east coast feeds of the morning news shows. The Oscarcast is on Feb. 27 on ABC beginning at the far more civilized hour of 8 pm ET/ 5 pm PT. AMPAS

 One of the frontrunners at this year's Oscars -- Colin Firth ("The King's Speech") -- picked up a Best Actor bid at the London Evening Standard film awards. Among his half dozen competitors is Andrew Garfield who was cited for both his supporting performance in "The Social Network" and a leading one in "Never Let Me Go." That latter film leads with five nominations including duelling best actress bids by Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan. Stephen Mangan will host the Feb. 7 kudos at the London Film Museum. EVENING STANDARD

 Germany's foreign language entry at the Oscars -- "When We Leave" -- dominates the nominations for the German Film Critics awards with seven bids including best picture. Feo Aldag's film about an honor killing contends against seven others for the top prize including Tom Tykwer's "Three" which, appropriately enough, also landed acting nods for all three leads. Winners will be announced during the Berlin filmfest in February. THR

 Could Best Actress frontrunner Natalie Portman ("Black Swan") see her Oscar hopes diminish after her romcom "No Strings Attached" hits theaters on Jan. 21? Richard Lawson thinks that the red band trailer featuring Portman and Ashton Kutcher makes the movie, "look terrible ... I mean really, truly tremendously terrible, like one of those sex comedies that thinks all it needs to do to get a laugh is throw the word 'f**k' around like confetti and watch the box office dollars roll in." Four years ago, "Norbert" opened during Oscar balloting and that bomb may have torpedoed Eddie Murphy's supporting actor bid for "Dreamgirls." GAWKER

 Betty White may have won her sixth Emmy for hosting "SNL" last May but she tells Jay Bobbin that there won't be an encore appearance. "You should quit while you're even but they could not have been nicer. I think ['SNL' mentor] Lorne Michaels is a genius. He's so bright and sweet, and to keep that thing going as long as he has ... you start out with about 45 sketches, and they just keep going through them and gradually weeding them out through the week, until you get down to the five or six that make the show." ZAP2IT

 T Bone Burnett, a 10-time Grammy champ, will be feted by the 6,000 members of the recording academy's producers and engineers wing on Feb. 9. Burnett, who produced the  2002 Album of Year -- the soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou" -- will be honored for his commitment to excellence and ongoing support for the art and craft of recorded music with an event at the Village Recording Studio in Los Angeles. GRAMMYS

 Christopher Tierney, a dancer who suffered life-threatening injuries during a performance of "Turn Off the Dark," tells Patrick Healey that he is willing to take risks for his art, just like the tuner's director Julie Taymor. "Julie’s not a safe person creatively, she doesn’t go for artistically safe choices, and I’m a person who loves being, for lack of a better word, a tool for these artists because I don’t take things safe. I never have. That goes for things artistically as well as physically. I don’t really think in terms of boundaries. One of my talents as a dancer and as a mover is I fall really well. I’ve never been worried that I’ll hurt myself.” ARTS BEAT

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