Less Than a Week: The Descendants Rises

Good Morning!

Oscar is less than a week away.  Voters ballots must be in by 5pm Pacific time tomorrow.  Here are some Telluride and Oscar related items:

THE DESCENDANTS RISES

It was a good night for Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" last night.  The film won Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writer's Guild of America and it picked the USC Scripter Award honoring Payne as well as Nate Faxon and Jim Rash for the screenplay and Kaui Hart Hemmings for the novel that was adapted into the George Clooney vehicle.  Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" won the WGA award for Original Screenplay.

"The Descendants" also won an A.C.E. guild award for editing, along with "The Artist" and "Rango".
 Even with the nice evening, don't expect "The Descendants" to knock "The Artist" off its Best Picture perch.  As a matter of fact, I'm starting to get the feel that "The Artist" may be headed for a "Slumdog Millionaire" type of night on Sunday with 7-8 wins.

Nevertheless, here are details from last night...

An overview from The Playlist:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/022012/the-descendants-midnight-in-paris-win-top-prizes-at-wga-awards-caesar-must-die-takes-golden-bear-at-berlin

The Hollywood Reporter has the editing awards story here:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/the-descendants-the-artist-ace-eddie-awards-292612

Variety has the story from the USC Scripter announcement:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118050493/

And Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon has a nice combo story here:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/the-descendants-wins-the-usc-scripters-award-and-ace-editing-with-the-artist-and-rango/

Meanwhile, The Cinema Audio Society awarded its top prize to "Hugo".
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/cinema-audio-society-hugo-boardwalk-empire-292626

CLOONEY

Once regarded (and not that long ago) as the Best Actor frontrunner (that's now "The Artist's" Jean Dujardin), THR has a big profile up on George Clooney:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/george-clooney-oscars-brad-pitt-stacy-keibler-descendants-290676


FEINBERG'S FINAL FORECAST

Here's Scott Feinberg's (The Hollywood Reported) "final" predictions for Oscar on Sunday night:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscar-predictions-the-artist-academy-awards-292628