Newsletter: Gold Standard: ‘The Big Short’ burns the hottest in awards race
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 up to the Oscars. I’m Glenn Whipp, The Times’ awards columnist and your newsletter host. Happy new year! Academy members began voting for Oscar nominations on Wednesday. What movies and performances might top their lists? Let’s take a look ...
‘The Big Short’ is a ‘crowd-infuriater’
Two rival awards consultants told me this week that no movie is hotter right now than “The Big Short,” Adam McKay’s blistering look at the 2008 financial collapse. The movie, which stars Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt as the Wall Street outsiders who saw the collapse coming, has now opened nationwide. The box office has been strong and the film scored well with SAG Awards and Golden Globes voters.
Carell and McKay go back 25 years to Chicago when the two performed with the celebrated Second City improv group. Talking with them was a pleasure, which I think you can sense in this wide-ranging Q&A.
Writer-director Adam McKay and actor Steve Carell from “The Big Short.”
Predicting the Golden Globes
The Golden Globes ceremony will be held Jan. 10. That’s just a little more than a week away, so not too early to take a look at some races and predict the winners. You can find my forecast here.
How do you dress for an apocalypse?
How many belts is Charlize Theron wearing in “Mad Max: Fury Road”? At some points in the movie, I count five. But her character, Imperator Furiosa, goes through a lot in the film, so she probably lost a couple in all the chasing.
Costume designer Jenny Beaven talks about tailoring Theron’s hard-edged look in “Fury Road” in this story, which also includes looks at the costuming behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2.”
John Williams: 49 Oscar nominations and counting
If you’ve seen the new “Star Wars” movie (and you probably have), you likely got an endorphin rush when John Williams’ opening score rang out over the movie’s opening scroll. Williams talked to The Times about returning to the franchise for a seventh go-round. If he earns a nomination for the new score, Williams will have an even 50. And he’s not slowing down. He’ll be scoring Steven Spielberg’s Roald Dahl adaptation “The BFG,” out next year.
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