Gold Standard: ‘The Big Short,’ ‘Spotlight’ and ‘The Revenant’ make their final cases for voters
Welcome to the Gold Standard, the newsletter from the Los Angeles Times that helps guide you through the ins and outs of the awards season, leading to the Oscars. I’m Glenn Whipp, The Times’ awards columnist and your newsletter host. Final voting for the 88th Academy Awards begins today. Let’s see what’s making news as academy members start to fill out their ballots.
Best picture front-runners sharpen their Oscar pitches
Alejandro G. Inarritu won the Directors Guild’s feature film award for “The Revenant,” meaning that the three major guilds have each gone for a different movie. What are the campaigners behind “The Big Short,” “Spotlight” and “The Revenant” doing to win academy members’ votes? I take a look here.
Leo’s a lock for an Oscar. Who will win the other acting races?
The last three years, all four Screen Actors Guild winners have gone on to win the Oscar. That won’t happen this year as SAG Awards voters gave “Beasts of No Nation” standout Idris Elba their supporting actor award, while the film academy (you may have heard) didn’t even nominate him. I still like the chances of the other three SAG winners prevailing with the academy though. Here’s why, in a last look at the Oscar acting races.
Mr. McKay goes to Washington with ‘The Big Short’
“The Big Short,” Adam McKay’s look at the 2008 economic collapse, became just the third movie to screen for members of Congress. Four U.S. senators — Republicans Roger Wicker and Johnny Isakson and Democrats Sherrod Brown and Jack Reed — hosted the bipartisan evening.
“There were actually more Republicans than Democrats at the screening, which was doubly exciting for me,” McKay told me in a phone call shortly after leaving the event. “I think everyone realizes the movie hits on a very serious truth.”
Read a full account of the congressional screening here.
Stallone: Gonna fly again for ‘Creed’?
Sylvester Stallone was this week’s cover subject for The Envelope. “I thought there was just no way I could find my way back into drama,” Stallone told writer Margy Rochlin, talking about his Oscar-nominated turn in the “Rocky” reboot “Creed.” “When you’re reliant on the physicality, you tend to speak more with your body. But I’m the most inactive person in the movie.” You can read the illuminating profile here.
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