Nominees for the 80th Annual Academy Awards have been announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Golden Compass has earned two nominations in technical categories: Best Art Direction (Direction: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock) and Best Visual Effects (Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood). You can view the entire list of nominations here.
Oscar ceremony scheduled for Feb. 24 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. However, there are still fears that the on-going writers’ strike could cause the ceremony to be cancelled, with awards announced in similar fashion to the recent Golden Globes.
Alexandre Desplat has also been nominated for two awards for the film’s soundtrack by the International Film Music Critics Association. The score is up for awards in the categories of Best Score of 2007 and Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction Film. Desplat also has five other nominations, including Film Composer of The Year (a full list of the nominations can be viewed here). The winners will be announced on Friday, February 15.
The British Academy of Film and Television arts has nominated Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Woods for the award Best Special Visual Arts for their work on The Golden Compass. In addition, the Costume Designers Guild has nominated costumer Ruth Myers for her work for dressing Best Fantasy Film. The BAFTA award ceremony will take place 10 February and the Costume Designers Guild Awards winners will be announced 19 February.
ComingSoon.net reports: Despite its lackluster performance in the North American box office, The Golden Compass has been doing quite well in the international market, reaching 315m USD since its premiere. “The fantasy epic has performed strongly in various foreign territories — including the United Kingdom, Spain, South Korea and Australia — where this genre continues to be popular.” The last remaining major box office territory awaiting the film’s release is Japan, where it screens beginning 1st March. Read more.
It’s not long until the big day and here at BridgetotheStars we’ve got a couple of contests for you. For those of you in the USA and Canada we have the opportunity to win a special personally signed copy of the much sought after Tim Kirk Lyra print (which we are still giving away here). To enter send an email to us at contest@bridgetothestars.net with the subject ‘North America Lyra Print’, your full name and full postal address.
For the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, there’s the opportunity to win the set of three limited edition film-tie-in books which have only been available with Shreddies, once again by simply sending us an email at contest@bridgetothestars.net with the subject ‘Rest of world book give away’, your full name and full postal address.
Entries close for both give-aways at midnight GMT on December 25th.
Reuters reports that the Vatican, Wednesday, condemned the film adaptation of The Golden Compass as well as Philip Pullman himself. The long editorial in l’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, was supposedly the harshest since the release of The Da Vinci Code. ‘”In Pullman’s world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events,” the editorial said.’ The Vatican newspaper described Pullman’s world as hopeless and Godless, demonstrating that “when man tries to eliminate God from his horizon, everything is reduced, made sad, cold and inhumane.” Read more.
The official movie blog has announced a live chat with Dakota Blue Richards (Lyra) for Wednesday, 19 December at 630pm ET to be hosted by Scholastic Kids. They have also uploaded video footage of press junket interviews with Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter) and Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel) here.
The Broadcast Film Critics Association has honoured the film adaptation of The Golden Compass with two nominations for the 2007 Critics’ Choice Awards. Richards has been named for ‘Best Young Actress’ for her part as Lyra and the movie was nominated for ‘Best Family Film (Live Action)’. See all the nominees here.
The Los Angeles Times‘ Kenneth Turan praises the film’s efforts, declaring, ‘though it takes some doing, “The Golden Compass” retains enough tastes and traces of the original to fascinate and involve viewers.’ Also from the LA Times, Sam Adams takes a look at this season’s batch of fantasy films and the contemporary audience in attendance. Says director Chris Weitz, “One’s always tempted to go the rather stock route of saying it’s escapist fare, and we really need that now, but if you look at Lord of the Rings’ or ‘His Dark Materials,’ they’re not really escapist inasmuch as they deal, at least in analogy, with some of the things that are going on in politics and society.” Read more.
Cleolinda of m15m Movies in Fifteen Minutes has uploaded her parody of The Golden Compass. Unlike her other parodies which have simply been posted as LiveJournal entries or pubished in her 2005 book “Movies In Fifteen Minutes: The Ten Biggest Movies Ever For People Who Can’t Be Bothered,” this parody is available only by download from MegaUpload to fundraise for Project Download. Download it in four parts here.
Monica Edinger reveals in her blog educating alice more inconsistencies between the cinematic release of The Golden Compass and the merchandise which accompanied it. Like the video game, the official movie quiz book includes content (i.e. plot details) from the last three chapters of the story, or the final section of the film displaced just before release. This indicates how last minute these edits and changes were, considering how accompanying materials were already well into production. Questions include, “What does Asriel do to Roger’s daemon?” Read more.
Philip Pullman’s official website has been updated since the release of the film adaptation of The Golden Compass, with the message: “I shall have more to say about it in due course, but for the moment there are two interviews I did recently in which I think I’ve managed to say a few things clearly.” He links to Peter Chattaway’s FilmChat blog with whom he conducted a lengthy interview by e-mail, and a conversation with editor-in-chief James Mustich for the Barnes & Noble Review on the art of storytelling. The e-mail interview was conducted earlier for an article in Christianity Today but wass posted by the original interviewer in its entirety on his personal blog. The Barnes & Noble interview was conducted 1st November, likely during Pullman’s North American tour.
The Golden Compass movie had its ending controversially cut and little is known about what we might have seen other than what we have seen in the trailers and teasers released. However, The Golden Compass video game contains clips from the movie, including the moment when Lyra arrives at Lord Asriel’s laboratory on Svalbard with Roger in tow. You can watch the clip here, or just below.
The official movie blog has announced a live chat with Dakota Blue Richards (Lyra) for Wednesday, 19 December at 630pm ET to be hosted by Scholastic Kids. They have also uploaded video footage of press junket interviews with Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter) and Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel) here.
Monica Edinger reveals in her blog educating alice more inconsistencies between the cinematic release of The Golden Compass and the merchandise which accompanied it. Like the video game, the official movie quiz book includes content (i.e. plot details) from the last three chapters of the story, or the final section of the film displaced just before release. This indicates how last minute these edits and changes were, considering how accompanying materials were already well into production. Questions include, “What does Asriel do to Roger’s daemon?” Read more.
