Helen Mirren, Godzilla And Kubrick, ‘Maestro’ And Messi: Oscar Notebook

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit.

This week, Helen Mirren at the American Cinematheque Awards, the history-making connection between Godzilla Minus One and Stanley Kubrick, plus live on stage with Maestro and Anatomy of a Fall.

Helen Mirren got the royal treatment a queen deserves Thursday night from the American Cinematheque in a ceremony delayed by the actors strike but finally taking place right during crunch time in the Oscar race.

In my opinion, Mirren easily should have been in the Oscar Best Actress hunt for her stunning portrayal of legendary Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, but alas the spring opening and indie Bleecker Street’s limited campaign budget makes it hard to compete against particularly strong heavyweight competition this year.

I caught up with her last night at her table, right in the center of the action of course, at the Beverly Hilton ballroom and we did talk about the nomination Golda did get, for Achievement in Makeup and Hair Styling. She said she is so proud of the team that transformed her flawlessly into Meir, and noted they are very young women who formed a company and broke through against much better known and financed veterans in the craft. This is their first Oscar nomination.

Seated next to Mirren was husband Taylor Hackford on her right, and 1923 co-star Harrison Ford on her left, the latter assuring me that despite media speculation since 2022 he will not be starring in Marvel’s Thunderbolts. He presented Mirren with her award at the end of the evening, when he called his Mosquito Coast and 1923 “wife” and himself her “oldest living husband still in service.”

There were also tributes of praise on stage from Mirren’s three-time co-star Bryan Cranston, and also Hackford, who shared the story of how they met when she came in to read for his White Nights but nearly stormed out when they kept her waiting 20 minutes (it all worked out in the end — she got the part and the guy, and they have been married 40 years). Other tributes included from Pierce Brosnan, who made his film debut in a movie with her; Andrea Riseborough; Patrick Stewart, who shared tales of their time together in the Royal Shakespeare Company; Alan Cumming; and her Fast & Furious cohort Vin Diesel.

Mirren got big laughs after a puzzling start in her acceptance speech where she seemed to be almost mocking sincerity with a gushy speech full of clichés. After saying “thank you” she revealed that speech had been written for her by AI and dramatically tore it to shreds.

In more heartfelt comments she said, “My career is a coat of many colors. For me, the overriding color in the landscape of my life, honestly, is the rosy glow of the generosity, kindness, wit, intelligence, dedication and the inspiration of all those thespians. Those lovies, the talent, the actors I have worked with… I’m one of their people. Theirs is the language I speak, no matter which country they come from. Thank you all. You are my career and I am you.” She also said the tribute was “f*cking amazing.” It included several packages of clips detailing her career in sections from “historical roles” to “action” to “loving” to even one extolling her cleavage so to speak.

Also honored was Kevin Goetz and his research company Screen Engine, which received the Power of Cinema Award from presenter Jim Gianopulos. He pointed out that Goetz has a unique place in the success of films as he is the one who first shows them to test audiences and then offers up advice and counsel to filmmakers and studios on the up-or-down verdict, always interpreting it carefully — even when tough love might be needed. His reel contained high praise from the likes of Charlize Theron, Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, every studio head you can think of, filmmakers and stars galore, all appreciative even when the results aren’t exactly what they wanted to hear. We just got a new Oscar category approved for Casting last week. Could one for Test Screening be far behind? If so, Goetz would get an Academy Award for what he does, at least on the basis of the enthusiasm by these heavy hitters.

At my table Thursday night by the way was Oscar-nominated director Moses Bwayo, whose National Geographic film Bobi Wine: The People’s President is up for Best Documentary Feature Film. It chronicles the singing star-turned-activist Bobi Wine who was constantly placed under house arrest by Uganda’s ruling dictators after he keeps challenging their leadership. According to Bwayo, who spent six years with his cameras following Wine, the Oscar nomination has made them stop for now because of all the attention it has brought globally to Wine’s movement; they have eased up due to this renewed scrutiny. Wine and his wife Barbie, in fact, appeared on the GMA set in New York this week and at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon earlier this week. Wine’s plight against the government reminds of the late anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny, whose tragic death was reported earlier today. The documentary on him, Navalny, won the Oscar for Documentary Feature last year. This is third day this week alone I have run into Bwayo at the same Hilton ballroom after the DGA Awards, the Oscar lunch and now the Mirren tribute. I told him we ought to just get a room there. It’s that time of year!

WHAT DO GODZILLA AND KUBRICK HAVE IN COMMON?

The one person Godzilla Minus One director-writer Takashi Yamazaki really wanted to meet at Monday’s Oscar Nominees Luncheon as a nominee for Achievement in Visual Effects was Steven Spielberg, a filmmaker he idolized for years as he made his way through Japan’s film industry. Well, mission accomplished: Yamazaki not only got to meet Spielberg, he also left the superstar director with a a souvenir. He, along with the three other Godzilla nominees, brought along two of the very cool priceless figurine models used in the movie and guess what? Spielberg got to go home with one of them. If Spielberg had brought along one of the dinosaur models from Jurassic Park it could have been an even swap, but looks like he made out like a bandit.

Yamazaki was still talking about it later that evening when I met up with him and his team for a chat after an SRO WME screening of his hit movie, one that has astounded Hollywood not just as perhaps the best Godzilla film ever made, but one that was made for a reported $15 million (actually thought to be closer to an incredible $10 million). When I asked him for the actual price he said he’d take “the Fifth” on that because “then everyone’s gonna want me to make a movie for that number!” One of the Visual Effects governors told me at the lunch that when the committee saw the film’s presentation at the bakeoff to determine nominees, they were astounded by what this ragtag Japanese team accomplished with so little money, compared to what the other nominees in this category spent – and usually always spend making large-scale effects-driven films.

Godzilla Minus One, which is a return to form for Toho, the studio behind all the original Godzilla movies before studios like Sony and Warners started making behemoth versions. It hit the zeitgeist with this one, not only becoming the second highest-grossing foreign film in America, but also grabbing a Visual Effects Oscar nomination against all odds, and now is the little engine that could in the race. Watch below as Yamazaki and his team, with their Godzilla models joining in, react to their good fortune when nominations were announced January 23:

The nomination also represents the first and only other time a film’s director has also gotten recognition for visual effects. In 1969, none other than Stanley Kubrick won his only Oscar as part of the Effects team for 2001: A Space Odyssey (given as a special award). Yamazaki could be the second. I asked how he felt about being linked with Kubrick in Oscar history. “It’s very, very humbling and I couldn’t believe it,” he told me. “I had to go home and look it up. It is just very, very surreal.”

Godzilla Minus One is also the first period version as it is set right at the end of World War II and in a bombed-out Tokyo, where Godzilla emerges post-atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. In that way it has an odd correlation to this year’s Best Picture frontrunner Oppenheimer, and that was not lost on Yamazaki.

“It’s interesting because the world was much different when began development on this film. But as we entered post-production, and we’re working on the VFX, there was almost every direction we felt the world was heading into and I think everyone felt that to some degree that we’re getting closer and closer to war of some sort,” he said. “And perhaps that was the same phenomenon that was happening with Oppenheimer, and the top five films in Japan also deal with war in some way or postwar Japan, whether it’s animation, anime or live action. So there’s this very bizarre air I would say, and you look at different films around the world. I think that perhaps filmmakers and creatives are feeling something and they feel a need to express this somehow.”

Interestingly, Oppenheimer is nominated in 13 categories but Visual Effects is not one of them. It failed to make the top 20 finalists shockingly (that may be because Christopher Nolan deemphasized the use of effects in talking about the movie). Godzilla Minus One’s competition is The Creator, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and Napoleon.

The movie is critically acclaimed because the humans in it are three-dimensional and relatable, almost to the point where the monster that emerges from the deep is a supporting character. And speaking from emerging from the deep, all the very complicated water-simulation shots were accomplished by 25-year-old Tatsuji Nojima, a lower-level member of the 35-person force until they discovered he might be the key to doing what would normally be very prohibitive water sequences.

“We hired him as a compositor for our VFX pipeline, but it turns out as a hobby on his home PC, he actually simulates water,” Yamazaki laughed. “So he came into the office and he showed it to me and I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is really good.’ And I wrote in more water scenes. Why not?”

Nojima explained how he got into this: “Well, it’s hard to say because when I’m at work and while I’m at home, I’m always on Houdini experimenting with different VFX. For me looking back I think I was in elementary school and Pirates of the Caribbean came on the scene where the ship just emerges from the water. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that’s so cool. How can you get that level of visual expression?’ “

Well, he certainly figured it out. Now he and Yamazaki, along with their collaborators Kiyoko Shibuya (the only woman in the category this year and one of the rare female nominees in this male-dominated field) and Masaki Takahashi, are all going to the Oscars.

SNAPSHOTS FROM THIS WEEK’S OSCAR CAMPAIGN EVENTS

Maestro had a big musical moment in New York City on Wednesday night as the New York Philharmonic performed selections by Leonard Bernstein featured in the film, with Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducting. Star/director/co-writer/producer Bradley Cooper (nominated personally for three Oscars for the film), his nominated co-star Carey Mulligan and Yannick sat for a conversation afterward. Spike Lee, Candice Bergen, Ellen Burstryn and more were at the sold-out event in the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.

‘ANATOMY OF A FALL’S LIVE SCRIPT READING INCLUDES MESSI THE DOG STAR

On Valentine’s Day, Neon and Film Independent had a live read of their Oscar-nominated French hit Anatomy of a Fall with a starry cast onstage at Beverly Hills’ Wallis Theatre. Riley Keough, Bob Odenkirk, Jay Ellis, Kate Berlant, Brett Goldstein, Danny Ramirez and Olivia Wilde were among those taking on the roles of the film, which is up for five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actress for Sandra Hüller, Best Director and Original Screenplay for Justine Triet, who was on hand along with Hüller (whose role was played here by Keough). Messi, the French Border Collie who so dramatically played family dog Snoop in the film, was the only original cast member to participate in this live read following a big week in which he stole the spotlight at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon and appeared on GMA among other shows.

Here are a couple of snaps of the show.