Hammond: Oscar Hopefuls Swarm Hollywood Awards Gala

Across town as President Barack Obama was drawing every celebrity not in contention for awards this season, the 15th Annual Hollywood Awards Gala was taking place at the Beverly Hilton and all the Oscar hopefuls who agreed to show up to accept an award werethere in their Monday finest as this was a place to be seen if you want an ego boost at this early point in the season. With 19 above and below the line categories to plow through this was a surprisingly fun show that if it didn’t already exist, Hollywood would have to find someway to invent. Billed as the”official” kickoff to awards season ( if you don’t count all those film festivals we have just been through), The Hollywood Awards, created – and basically chosen – by Executive DirectorCarlos de Abreu (who with Janice Penningtonfounded the Gala and accompanying Film Festival) are the result ofa months-long negotiation between him and the studios and distributors who are using this early opportunity to get key positioning for the players they hope to advanceduring the long awards season leading ultimately to Oscar. The only caveat is that to get the award you have to agree to show up. This year de Abreuhas his pulse on some real contenders and handed out acting awards to, among many others, Michelle Williams, George Clooney and Christopher Plummer who all could realistically be consideredclose to front runners in their respective categories. A real highlight of the show was when Marilyn Monroe’s Oscar-nominated Bus Stop (1956) co-star Don Murray showed up to present Hollywood Actress of the Yearto Williams who plays the iconic star in The Weinstein Company’s My WeekWith Marilyn.”I’m the last of the the on-screen lovers of Marilyn Monroe and I stilljust happen to have a body that actually works, “the 82-year old actorsaid to much laughter. “Michelle re-created momentsI was so intimately familiarto me as I spent 14 months working withMarilyn. There’s not one thing in this film that’s not truthful. It was a revelation. Michelle’s performance made me appreciate Marilyn Monroe so much more.” Williams, noticeably nervous, said her friends always wanted to see her win a award so she couldbasically sweat through the experience. She did well thoughclosing with atouchingperception about Monroe. “It seems to me that all Marilyn Monroe wanted was to be taken seriously as an actress and she studied so hard and never really there,” shesaid adding that it wasironic Williams herself could get this kind of recognition that so eluded thestar she played. In his acceptance as Hollywood Actor of the year for The Descendants, Clooney kept inserting the word “lucky” into his speech. “I was lucky to land on a hospital show on Thursday nights at 10 on NBC that changed my career. I was lucky to workwith these people. I was lucky to get this part. I was lucky to work with Alexander Payne. And I am lucky to be here with all of you,” he said. Clooney also commented on how bad everyone looked on the giant projection screen behind the podium. I have said it before and I will say it again , these speeches are a really good wayfor the winners to practice giving theirspeeches for the Golden Globeswhich will be held in the same room just 2 1/2 months later. And if that’s the case perhaps the most effective speech would have to be the one 81 year old Christopher Plummer gave in accepting his Supporting Actor of the Yearhonor forBeginners near the top ofthe show.” It’s nice to get this early in the ceremony because it’s way past my bedtime. I want to thank the invisible committee for seriously risking their reputationsin givingme this plaque. I loved doing this film because I have never been this relaxed in front of a camera,” he said. Co-star Ewan McGregor presented it to him and got laughs saying he was nervous meetingPlummer because “I wondered if he liked my version of ‘the hills are alive with the sound of music’ in Moulin Rouge”. Supporting Actress honoree Carey Mulligan, shooting Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby in Australia flew in to accept her award for Shame from Christoph Waltz saying “I begged and begged (director) Steve McQueen for the part and even followed him into a taxi and pretended I was going to Soho.” Some of the most amusing moments of the night were watching the French honorees from The Artist trying to thank Harvey Weinstein (who wasin the audience)for making the film possible. Receiving his award from co-star Penelope Ann Miller Breakthough Director winner Michel Hazanavicius thanked ” Horvey Win Steen” while his leading actor and Spotlight Award winner Jean Dujardinasked ” Do I have to talk? It’s a silent movie. My english is rusty but I want to thank Harvey Whine Stin.” Glenn Close , who is hoping to nab her sixth Oscar nomination this year for Albert Nobbs, flew in for one night from the NY set of Damages to accept the Hollywood Career Achievement Award and said,”It’s humbling and kind of confusing. If anything it points up the fragility of it all,” as she went on to thank all her make up and hair people, the cinematographers, her parents, her first film director George Roy Hill and her husband David Shaw who she said figured out the secret to her success when he observed, “IKNOW what it is. It’s all about the hair.” Some of the best speeches of the night belonged to presenter Anne Hathaway who eschewed the teleprompter for her own cleverly written notes in presenting 50/50 star Joseph Gordon-Levitt with the Breakthrough Actor of the Year award, slyly pointing out he has actually been in the business 20 years,and a very bearded Ben Affleck whobegan hisCinematographer of the Year presentationto The Tree of Life’s Emmanuel Lubezki by saying how he had been mistaken for Jerry Bruckheimer when he drove up to the hotel. In presenting Young Adult writer Diablo Cody’s Screenwriter of the Year award , Quentin Tarantino got big laughs quoting NY Times critic A.O.Scott’s review of her not-so-successful Juno follow up, Jennifer’s Body. ” Scott wrote ‘Do you thinkDiablo Cody isa great writer? Wellonly if you think Quentin Tarantino is a great writer’. Well I do and I DO,” he said. The final award to the ensemble cast of The Help was another highlight. Co-star Viola Davis accepted for the large group with heartfelt remarks about the toll theawards season takes. “Something you lose in self-promotion and the Oscar push and publicists is that this is a collaborative art. There’s a sense of trust that in order to make the art form work you couldn’t do only yourself, ” she said with tears welling up. “Rather than arguing about billing, trailers, locations, you’re all in this together. This cast is 99% women and we all walked away loving each other.” Director of the Year Bennett Miller told me after getting his award from co-star Jonah Hill that he felt good about how Moneyball turned out, despite all its checkered history (original director Steven Soderbergh departed just days before production was to begin). To be standing up there with this award was a real triumph for Miller. With all this Hollywood glitz and glamour it seems odd no one has stepped up to televise the event, even with Starz as the main presenting sponsor . In fact Starz head honcho Chris Albrecht opened the evening and couldn’t help but notice the star-studded room. The only problem is that in order to get them to show up you have to give them an award. That’s really Hollywood.