With an impressive lineup of “Nine,” “A Single Man,” “The Road,” and “Inglourious Basterds” already in their stable of Oscar contenders, the Weinsteins are going to quietly lead another film out to the awards pasture. “Youth In Revolt,” which was previously scheduled for an October release date, only to get pushed to January 8th, will be opening in limited release for at least one week in December in order to qualify for awards consideration.
According to the LA Times’ Pete Hammond, producer David Permut says the Weinsteins think Michael Cera’s double performance is at least worthy of a Golden Globes nomination for Best Actor in a comedy or musical. Whether his performance will pick up steam from there or not, we’ll just have to wait and see.
In other awards news, the producers behind the Algerian film “London River” are pushing for a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Brenda Blethyn. The film, which currently has no US distribution, will have a one week qualifying run in Los Angeles beginning on November 13th and screeners will be sent to Academy members. The film, about a mother looking for her daughter after a London bus bombing, was Algeria’s official entry for the foreign film category, but was rejected for having too much English dialogue (bizarro Oscar rules strike again!). Blethyn is no stranger to Oscar, having previously been nominated for her lead turn in Mike Leigh’s excellent “Secrets & Lies” and for her supporting role in “Little Voice.”
It looks like the awards season already has a few surprises up its sleeve, and we still have about two months of releases and further Oscar jostling to go, but if you are looking for a few laughs in Oscar season — and there are always generally a few — you can snicker at the New York Post’s Lou Lemenick, who thinks Roland Emmerich’s the upcoming end-of-the-world thriller is an Oscar Best Picture contender. Lemenick is an everyday nitwit so this silly posit stands to figure, but that one takes the cake even for him. Other laughable Oscar predictions are those that claim, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” is a Best Picture contender.