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AWARDS SEASON 2009 – MPM CELEBRATES THE HUMAN SPIRIT

With Awards Season upon us, with year-end reminiscences and 20/20 hindsight, Moving Pictures honors the best of 2008 with a place on our honor roll.

As our new Winter issue hits the newsstands with its focus on celebrating the human spirit, we acknowledge (in alphabetical order) the achievements and accomplishments of the auteurs, the artists and the collaborative cinematic efforts that have moved and amused us in 2008.

And the honorees are…

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Maryse Alberti – The Wrestler
Sean Bobbitt – Hunger (see our movie review) (and view our video interview with writer/director Steve McQueen)
Roger Deakins – Revolutionary Road
Anthony Dod Mantle – Slumdog Millionaire (view our video interview with director Danny Boyle)
Claudio Miranda –The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (see our movie review)
Wally Pfister – The Dark Knight
John Christian Rosenlund – O’ Horten (see our movie review)
Steven Soderbergh (as Peter Andrews) – Che (see our movie review)
Hoyte Van Hoytema – Let the Right One In (see our movie review)
Mandy Walker – Australia (see our movie review)

BEST SCORE
Alexandre Desplat – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (see our movie review)
Clint Eastwood – Changeling (see our movie review)
Danny Elfman – Milk (see our movie review
David Hirschfelder – Australia (see our movie review)
Nico Muhly – The Reader (see our movie review)
Thomas Newman – Wall-E
James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer – The Dark Knight
Rachel Portman – The Duchess (see our movie review) (and view our video interview with director Saul Dibb)
A.R. Rahman – Slumdog Millionaire (view our video interview with director Danny Boyle)
Hans Zimmer – Frost/Nixon

Tomorrow – Best Screenplay and Best Director

MANIFEST HOPE:DC

Here's a cool opportunity for artists that came across our desks today: No matter what your party bias, the message of this memo is an opportunity for all artists to "Manifest Hope" in three categories that all must admit are in the forefront of the collective consciousness...

MANIFEST HOPE:DC Announces Inauguration Art Gallery and Nationwide Art Contest
Winners' Work to be Shown at "MANIFEST HOPE:DC Gallery" During the Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C.
 
                       obama.gif

(December 29, 2009  Los Angeles, CA) MANIFEST HOPE:DC (www.manifesthope.com) and its partners MoveOn PAC, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Obey Giant, launches a contest today calling for entries of visual artwork from artists across the country in an online contest. The online contest calls for works that use positive messaging to convey the urgency and importance of encouraging a national dialogue about three themes - Heath Care Reform, the Green Economy and Workers' Rights.

Building upon the success of MANIFEST HOPE at the Democratic National Convention, MANIFEST HOPE:DC will, once again, gather under one roof the nation's most talented visual artists and musicians to celebrate the unparalleled grassroots campaign that helped carry President-Elect Barack Obama to victory. Art played an unprecedented role in this election. MANIFEST HOPE:DC celebrates that role, inviting artists to contribute to this remarkable moment in history by creating a forum for both artists and activists to use their powerful voices in maintaining the momentum that will bring about true change in the United States.

MANIFEST HOPE:DC and its partners are offering the public an opportunity to submit art in an online contest, with three chances to win.  The contest is comprised of three parts.  Artists can make one submission per category, totaling a maximum of three submissions:
• Manifest Opportunity - Stimulating The Green Economy
• Manifest Change - Health Care Reform
• Manifest Unity - Protecting Workers' Rights

Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges, including famed artist Shepard Fairey; Director, Spike Lee; Washington, DC-based musician, Eric Hilton of the Thievery Corporation; Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Anne Ellegood; SEIU 775NW Healthcare President, David Rolf; Creative & Cultural Director of MoveOn.org, Laura Dawn; and Co-Founder and President of Green For All, Van Jones. Fifteen finalists will be selected to show in the MANIFEST HOPE:DC Gallery alongside well-known artists such as Shepard Fairey, David Choe, Ron English, Ray Noland, Maya Hayuk, Sol Sender and Mike Murphy.

MANIFEST HOPE:DC co-creator Shepard Fairey is known worldwide as one of the most prolific urban artists and as designer of the highly visible Obama HOPE posters, stickers and shirts that have been embraced by Obama supporters as the symbol of the grassroots movement. Fairey's prolific image sparked a maelstrom of grassroots art that has been hung not only in high-art galleries but volunteer and campaign offices as well.

Creating an inviting and inspiring destination for both those in town to celebrate the inauguration and for residents of Washington, DC, and the area, MANIFEST HOPE:DC (3333 M Street NW, Washington DC 20007) will be open to the public from Friday, January 16th, 2009, through Monday, January 19th, 2009, from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm.  Visitors will be invited to take in spectacular art, participate in interesting onsite activities and, most importantly, encouraged to continue to engage in the grassroots movement that carried Barack Obama to the White House.

In addition to the public art gallery, MANIFEST HOPE:DC will host a private, invite-only opening event on Friday, January 16th, 2009 and a closing celebration & inauguration party on the evening of Monday, January 19th, 2009. 

MANIFEST HOPE:DC is produced by Evolutionary Media Group and brings together a diverse coalition of organizations working to achieve shared goals. 

MANIFEST HOPE:DC Gallery
3333 M Street NW
Washington DC 20007
www.manifesthope.com

Harold Pinter, 1930-2008

The first play I saw on the Great White Way after migrating to New York from Australia in 2000 was Pinter's Betrayal - starring John Slattery, Juliette Binoche and Liev Schreiber. Unveiling backwards, the writing created its own theatrics, and the effect inspired me for months. Jerry and Robert and Emma and delicious subtextual drama.

He may have preferred cricket to knighthoods, and the present to the past, but, as the Nobel Prize-winning author of Betrayal, The Homecoming, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker et al, once said, “Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?”

Well, there are the Pinter pauses in which the answer to that question lies...

Harold, may you rest in peaceful contemplation, and may the absence of your presence stir echoes of significance.

AWARDS WATCH 2009 - SAG AWARDS

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
RICHARD JENKINS / Walter Vale - “THE VISITOR” (Overture Films)
FRANK LANGELLA / Richard Nixon - “FROST/NIXON” (Universal Pictures)
SEAN PENN / Harvey Milk - “MILK” (Focus Features)
BRAD PITT / Benjamin Button - “THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON” (Paramount Pictures)
MICKEY ROURKE / Randy - “THE WRESTLER” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
ANNE HATHAWAY / Kym - “RACHEL GETTING MARRIED” (Sony Pictures Classics)
ANGELINA JOLIE / Christine Collins - “CHANGELING” (Universal Pictures)
MELISSA LEO / Ray Eddy - “FROZEN RIVER” (Sony Pictures Classics)
MERYL STREEP / Sister Aloysius Beauvier - “DOUBT” (Miramax Films)
KATE WINSLET / April Wheeler - “REVOLUTIONARY ROAD” (Paramount Vantage)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
JOSH BROLIN / Dan White - “MILK” (Focus Features)
ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. / Kirk Lazarus - “TROPIC THUNDER” (Paramount Pictures)
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN / Father Brendan Flynn - “DOUBT” (Miramax Films)
HEATH LEDGER / Joker - “THE DARK KNIGHT” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
DEV PATEL / Older Jamal - “SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
AMY ADAMS / Sister James - “DOUBT” (Miramax Flms)
PENELOPE CRUZ / Maria Elena - “VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA” (The Weinstein Company)
VIOLA DAVIS / Mrs. Miller - “DOUBT” (Miramax Films)
TARAJI P. HENSON / Queenie - “THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON” (Paramount Pictures)
KATE WINSLET / Hanna Schmitz - “THE READER” (The Weinstein Company)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
DOUBT (Miramax)
FROST/NIXON (Universal Pictures)
MILK (Focus Features)
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (Paramount Pictures)