' ' Cinema Romantico: One Man's Quest To Get Kelly Macdonald An Oscar Nomination

Thursday, October 15, 2009

One Man's Quest To Get Kelly Macdonald An Oscar Nomination

I think it goes without saying that I am a bit fond of Kelly Macdonald's turn in this year's "The Merry Gentleman". It is my favorite performance of the year - it's not going to be beat, not for me, it's just too personal - and my favorite performance by anyone (male or female) since Hilary Swank's in "Million Dollar Baby". However, I have noted a disturbing trend in recent weeks.

As the season falls upon us in which the most blatant Academy Award bait arrives film critics have begun making very early Oscar nomination prognostications. The one prognistication nowhere to be found?

Kelly Macdonald for Best Actress.

If you "Google" her name or the movie's name with the word "Oscar" you get nothin'. Absolutely nothin'. This situation is unacceptable, and as someone who loves cinema and this performance with so much vigor I cannot sit idly by, twiddling my thumbs, allowing such a grave injustice to proceed. Someone needs to do something. Someone needs to, as Christian Bale's Batman once said, "Rattle the cages." I guess that someone has to be Cinema Romantico.

First things first, I had to determine if there even was a potential Oscar campaign afoot for Macdonald or if I had to go at this alone.

Thus I wasted nary a moment in shooting off an email to Ms. Liza Burnett Fefferman of Samuel Goldwyn Films' Publicity Department, the distribution company of the best film of the year, inquring as to whether or not her studio is on the verge of launching even a miniscule assault on Oscar for Ms. Macdonald. Maybe one For Your Consideration Ad in Variety? Something? Anything?

Four seconds later I received an auto response indicating Ms. Fefferman was out of the office on maternity leave.

Never fear! Ms. Fefferman's reply indicated an alternate contact in the publicity department to be Elena Zilberman and I simply sent along the same email at once!

About an hour later (I'm not making this up) I received a question in the form of a response. It stated (verbatim): "May I ask your relation to Kelly Macdonald please?" (Great! Now Kelly Macdonald is going to think she has a stalker! I'll never get anywhere in Hollywood after this!)

I replied that I was of "no relation" and being the "founder/curator of the noted movie blog Cinema Romantico and, feeling her performance was award worthy, was just curious as to whether or not the studio was planning a campaign on her behalf." I hit send. (Yes, I really used the word "noted". Sometimes you have to fib to get places in this business, people.)

24 hours later and Cinema Romantico had yet to receive a second response. Apparently you have to be related to the actor and/or actress to confirm the existence of an Oscar campaign these days. That seems awfully stringent.

Not that this minor setback would stop me. I turned to the film's actual production company, my local homeys South Water Pictures (the majority of the film was shot in Chicago), to see if they had any inside info of a possible Oscar promotion.

A couple hours later I received a response from Tom Bastounes (yes, that Tom Bastounes! Kelly Macdonald's co-star in the film itself! One of the founders of South Water Pictures! Sent from his Iphone, no less! And no, I'm still not making any of this up!) which stated (verbatim): "Thanks for thinking of us Nick...but with no money there's no push."

Ah, yes, I forgot. The oldest Oscar adage of 'em all. No money, no push. Well said, Mr. Bastounes. So...it looks I'm on my own. It's all up to me to get Kelly Macdonald to the Academy Awards. A daunting challenge, to be sure, but did Batman give up when the Scarecrow spritzed him with hallucinogen?

I'll think of something....I won't give up....

....stay tuned....

1 comment:

Felpin said...

so Apparently to get an Oscar nomination you have to do a promo campaign Whats wrong with picture!