AFTERTHOUGHTS (41)

41.1 WGA STRIKE
As we hit the midpoint of January, the WGA strike moves into its 11th week, and while talks haven’t yet been resumed since the December 7 collapse, there has been some headway in getting the Hollywood machine up and running again.
Following an interim agreement with Worldwide Pants (which allowed David Letterman to get back on the air with his writers in tow), similar deals have been struck with Tom Cruise’s United Artists, the Weinstein Co., Spyglass Entertainment, and Media Rights Capital.
What this means, of course, is that these companies can resume production and development of whatever projects they have on their slate, getting a jump on the majors who are still mired in the backwash of the WGA strike.
It isn’t the all-encompassing resolution that will end the strike, but it is movement that will hopefully spark a full-fledged return to the bargaining table.
You can read the full Variety story (“WGA pacts with Spyglass, MRC”) here, which partially details the terms of the interim agreement.

41.2 WHAT THE BAFTA?! 2008 (2)
And here are the nominations from the final BAFTA 2008 ballot that have got me excited.

Control:
Best British Film (Orian Williams/Todd Eckert/Anton Corbijn/Matt Greenhalgh)
The Carl Foreman Award [for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First Feature Film] (Matt Greenhalgh, Writer)
Supporting Actress (Samantha Morton)

Eastern Promises:
Best British Film (Paul Webster/Robert Lantos/David Cronenberg/Steve Knight)
Leading Actor (Viggo Mortensen)

No Country For Old Men:
Film
Director (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen)
Adapted Screenplay (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen)
Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones)
Supporting Actress (Kelly Macdonald)
Cinematography (Roger Deakins)
Editing (Roderick Jaynes)
Sound (Peter Kurland/Skip Lievsay/Craig Berkey/Greg Orloff)

This Is England:
Best British Film (Mark Herbert/Shane Meadows)
Original Screenplay (Shane Meadows)

Control’s Sam Riley was also nominated for The Orange Rising Star Award, which is voted for by the public. Riley is up against Disturbia and Transformers star Shia LaBeouf, Juno’s Ellen Page, and Stardust’s Sienna Miller for the award.

Other nominations for films I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before, though have yet to see are:

Away From Her:
Leading Actress (Julie Christie)

The Golden Compass:
Special Visual Effects (Michael Fink/Bill Westenhofer/Ben Morris/Trevor Woods)

Juno:
Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody)
Leading Actress (Ellen Page)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Costume Design (Colleen Atwood)
Make Up & Hair (Ivana Primorac)

Spider-Man 3 was also nominated for Special Visual Effects.

The film with the most nominations is Joe Wright’s Atonement (14), with No Country For Old Men and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood coming in second (9 nominations each).
Congratulations, one and all. (For the complete list of nominees, go here.)

BAFTA night is on February 10, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.

Parting shot: I must say though, that it’s a shame that Once (which was on 3 of the BAFTA longlists prior to the last cut) didn’t get onto the final ballot. Sad, sad shame.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Control, Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, This Is England, Once, Stardust, Transformers, Disturbia and Spider-Man 3 can be found in the Archive.

(Control UK quad and Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, and This Is England OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)

ENTOURAGE
Season 4 Episode 8
“Gary’s Desk”

E decides to get his own office, as working out of the condo isn’t really working for him.
His first order of business: get in touch with Peter Jackson, to try and get Vince some work on a video game. But no one knows who Eric Murphy is, so E tries to take an ad out in Variety. Of course, he doesn’t have any official paperwork to prove he’s actually Vincent Chase’s manager, so that idea goes belly up pretty quickly.
The aborted attempt at an ad reaches Shauna’s ears though (yay, Shauna!), who arranges a short profile on E. But the profile turns into a hatchet job as E is singled out as a prime example of Hollywood’s “New Nepotism” (stars’ friends riding on the coattails of celebrity).
The Variety profile does reach Jackson however, and he gets in touch with E, and they arrange a sit-down to talk things out.

The boys, meanwhile, set off to find a proper desk for E’s new less-than-glamourous office. They set their sights on a $42K piece with history: it was on Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Robert De Niro once owned it.
But it’s already been bought, by none other than Gary Busey (back for his third Entourage go-around)! Busey agrees to part with the desk, if he can paint Drama, which he does, literally, turning him blue.
But the crisis isn’t over. The desk is far too big to get into E’s rathole office, so the boys get an expensive office to go with the expensive desk, swanky work space that’s got offices for Turtle, Drama, and Vinnie too.

The episode’s subplot also kicks a$$.
Just as Mary J. Blige is about to come in for her annual meeting with Ari, there’s trouble that explodes between twin employees: one of them slept with his twin’s wife. To keep the office peace, Ari has to let one of them go. And the numbers indicate that the guy who diddled his sister-in-law is making the agency more money, so the other guy gets the boot.
It turns out though that Mary J. likes that particular twin, and when she finds out exactly why he was fired, she bails on Ari too.
Capping this one off, Ari goes on the warpath and fires the other twin as well.

This one more than makes up for the previous lackluster episode, and with the return of the Busey and the guest spots by Jackson and Blige, this one’s a keeper.

(Images courtesy of hbo.com.)