Arthur Laurents puts Rob Marshall in his place- Page 2

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 2:10pm

As Pgenre already pointed out, Best Picture reflects on the director as well.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 2:26pm

And just because Richards ACCEPTED the award does not mean he was the only one to RECEIVE the award. If everyone who received an award got to speak on the telecast the TONYs would have to cut all categories but BEST MUSICAL and give out the award at 8:03 to allow all the producers enough time to talk. Film is not that different. Ir's a common misconception though, just clarifying.

P

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 4:02pm

Pgenre---Martin Richards was the only one to receive the award for Best Picture ("Chicago"). He was listed solo as the producer.

There's a difference between Executive Producer, Supervising Producer, Producer, etc.

Generally the award goes to the Producers (only), not Exec., Supervising, etc. This is because they are the ones "in the trenches" actually in charge of bringing everyone together to get the movie made. That's what the Academy wants to honor---the people actually making movies. The exec. producer usually represents the studio and the money. He's the "client," as it were, approving everything from a business perspective. That would be Harvey Weinstein, in this case.

Harvey has won only one Oscar as one of the Producers (not Exec. Producer) for Shakespeare in Love. He was nominated personally only one other time, for Gangs of New York. Yet he has Exec. Produced many award-wining films.

Still, when a film wins Best Picture, key people are frequently given unofficial credit for that win, including the director, writer, stars, the studio(s), and the entire producing team.

But "officially," the Best Picture Oscar for Chicago went to Richards alone.

(Trivia: Until 1951, it went to the studio that released the film, i.e., Warner Bros., MGM, Universal, Fox, etc. Only post-1951 did they give it to the producer or producers working on the film instead.)

Updated On: 12/12/09 at 04:02 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 4:41pm

Based on that rule, and looking at the official production credits for "Nine," the producers are:

John DeLuca
Rob Marshall
Marc Platt
Harvey Weinstein

If the movie were to be nominated for Best Picture in February, 2010, they would all share that nomination. If it were to win, they would each get an Oscar as one of the producers of "Nine."

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 5:32pm

Let's be fair to Marshall not winning. He was up against Scorsese and Polanski who were both the favorites to win, mostly on sentimentality. Let's also not forget Almodovar was up for a directing nomination as well as Stephen Daldry. Considering how this was his first motion picture, I could not have seen him winning at all against three certifiable legends and an equally astute filmmaker in Daldry. I don't care how much Weinstein magic there is or was, nobody could have gotten people in the academy to vote for Rob Marshall no matter how great Chicago was, which it was in my opinion.

I don't get why people assume Marshall's next possible musical endeavor will be the same. He didn't write the screenplay. Bill Condon wrote Chicago's screenplay, Anthony Minghella and Michael Tolkin wrote for Nine.

Directing a movie is an overrated job and we all know it. You just say yes or no. What else do you do? Nothing.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 5:40pm

strummergirl---the main reason Marshall was a bit of a surprise not winning for Chicago was because he had already won the Directors Guild Award for it. Very few people in history have won the DGA without winning the Oscar. So it was (for some) an upset that he lost that night. Even with the stiff competition you mentioned.

Updated On: 12/12/09 at 05:40 PM

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 5:50pm

I still think Marshall was robbed. CHICAGO was a director's movie, he was pretty much responsible for the whole thing. It's absurd that it was awarded Best Editing and Best Picture, nominated for all top categories save for Best Leading Actor (another faux pass, IMO) and it didn't win Best Director.
I was hoping this year would be Marshall's year but it seems like some people have decided not to like him anymore.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 5:58pm

In retrospect I would have given it to either Marshall or Almodovar. I loathed Gangs of New York (which was shut out by the Academy) aside from DDL's performance and knew that The Hours was too polarizing for Daldry to get an award. That being said I was shocked that Brody and Polanski won Oscars. The Pianist is a nice film and an amazing story but that was a dime a dozen biopic.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:09pm

"I was hoping this year would be Marshall's year but it seems like some people have decided not to like him anymore."

I think they feel he's a one-trick pony in the musical genre. He needs to break through his "it's only a dream or in my mind" concept and try something else or he'll be called on it every time as being stuck in a narrow rut.

While the concept was a wonderful departure from the stage show in "Chicago," and worked so well on film, with "Nine," it feels like old hat for some critics.

I personally don't care if he does it in 20 films ... as long as it works. If this concept doesn't work, then they'll blast him for pulling it out of his trunk each time.

I haven't seen the movie yet, so my judgments are all based on the the clips (audio and video). But from what I can tell, the concept works well here, but there's another problem. Everything is so "organized" and compartmentalized with each of the women having a number and then (for the most part) disappearing from the story. And Guido himself gets one big number and then "I Can't Make This Movie" which is a short musical moment, not really a full song. So far, that's my biggest problem (okay IN THEORY), that there is no real anchor here, particularly musically. Guido may be the protagonist, but he's only one of the gang in the lineup, musically. I think it's thrown out of focus because of it. If they had kept more of his musical musings (parts of Grand Canal when he is figuring out what to write or the Bells of St. Sebatian), we might have more insight into his struggles. More weight would be placed on them.

Again ... only a hunch. But based on what I've seen/heard, Guido is merely on the bill as one of the players in his own variety show.

Updated On: 12/12/09 at 06:09 PM

[bk]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:13pm

"As producer, Marshall technically did win the Oscar for CHICAGO as did Weinstein as producer. Weinstein never specified that it was a directing Oscar.

Misleading, yes. Wrong? Not really."

While it's wonderful to make this stuff up as you go, and while it's wonderful that others have corrected you, but not quite to the extent necessary, here's a complete list of the producers of Chicago, The Movie:

Produced by
Jennifer Berman .... executive producer
Don Carmody .... co-producer
Sam Crothers .... executive producer
John M. Eckert .... line producer: additional photography (as John Eckert)
Julie Goldstein .... executive producer
Neil Meron .... executive producer
Meryl Poster .... executive producer
Martin Richards .... producer
Bob Weinstein .... executive producer
Harvey Weinstein .... executive producer
Craig Zadan .... executive producer

The one name I do not see on this list is - Rob Marshall. Therefore, "wrong" - really.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:21pm

Ah, yes. I made a mistake. Sorry for any confusion, folks!

P

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:49pm

Idina was rumoured to be cast as Rose.

Does nobody else think that Elaine Paige would be an amazing Rose?

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 6:57pm

^ No, she wasn't lol. Apparently she auditioned for Saraghina. I highly doubt she was considered for Rose. Marshall wanted Zeta-Jones, but Laurents canned the idea.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 7:00pm

Great. So now I can just forget my dream of NICK & NORA: THE MOVIE MUSICAL directed By Marshall, Screenplay by Arthur and starring CZJ, Richard Gere and Idina (in the Christine Baranski role). Just great.

P

P.S.

[Brick]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 7:26pm

Critical response is all about expectations.

CHICAGO had low expectations and vastly exceeded them. NINE has very high expectations, especially if its true that critics feel they overpraised CHICAGO.

And it's the same AVATAR is getting such high marks. It looked ridiculous in the trailer and promotional materials and apparently it's good.

Expectations.

Unfortunately, we never know what the expectations climate will be like when our work is done.

[alterego]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 8:12pm

Do we even need ANOTHER filmed version of GYPSY?

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 8:15pm

^ Yes, we do. To make up for 2 mediocre film versions.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 8:44pm

I never heard of Chicago having low expectations.

Certainly there were movies honored/overpraised for the fact their film was deemed a disaster/dead-on-arrival eg Titanic. But that was a big-budget epic and even so, Nine had production halted on two different occasions big-name actors (Bardem and CZJ) left, not to mention one-half of the screenwriting team perished. Hmm... maybe that's why Harvey has revealed the 'big struggle' that happened when filming in Italy.

I am definitely pro-Gypsy movie.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 9:22pm

"^ Yes, we do. To make up for 2 mediocre film versions. "

Amen to that!

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 9:40pm

Can we at least agree that the Bette Midler Gypsy was a vast improvement over the first one?

[raker]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 9:48pm

I thought the Gypsy movie with Rosalind Russell was perfect, and the Bette Midler version was a horror.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 9:51pm

I think the Midler movie is pretty awful. Not much better than the original.

[James885]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 10:00pm

I did not like the Midler film at all. Both movies are pretty bad, but I preferred Rosalind Russell's interpretation of Rose even though Russell was dubbed. Bette Midler was just way too over the top.

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 11:33pm

I also prefer the Roz Russell version. I never found it as bad as its reputation makes it out to be.

Wasn't Judy Garland supposed to star in the 60s movie? Has she, you know, not been strung out of God-knows-what, that would have been amazing.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/12/09 at 11:43pm

Judy as Mama Rose?

Has there already been a thread of Who Would Judy Play? That would top the list of intrigue.