Arthur Laurents puts Rob Marshall in his place — Page 2

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

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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.)

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

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.

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.

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"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.

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

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

P

^ 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.

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.

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

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

Amen to that!

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

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.

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Judy as Mama Rose?

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