Oscar Outlook 2012: Lovelace

Biographies usually raise the eyebrow of most prognosticators.  Even if it deals with an infamous porn star, with Boogie Nights already fifteen years old (wow), it's not necessarily a deal-breaker for Oscar.  In fact, this film reminds me a lot of the People Vs. Larry Flynt, which scored Woody Harrelson his first Oscar nod and even generated talked about Courtney Love of all people.  (For those who don't/can't recall, Love cleaned up her act for a brief time in the mid-90s, developed a pretty killer body in the process and was creating the foundation of a sound acting career.)  If you throw in documentarians (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, who did The Celluloid Closet) who recently made a respectable splash in the world of features (Howl), then said eyebrow even goes up further.  With The Paperboy due this year and another project of interest (The Iceman), studio Millennium Films appears to be stepping up their game.  But, then, you say, the star is Amanda Seyfried?  Hmmn.  She certainly has been ratcheting a great deal of box-office points over the last eight years verses her twentysomething competition, but I stopped seeing her as awards bait material the minute she started opening her mouth during interviews.  Still, the girl appears to have a plan and this could be the ace up her sleeve.  I will be overjoyed if Amanda Seyfried throws a curve ball at us.  I wouldn't mind liking her again.

[Pictures Via Film Equals, Reelz, EW]

Should Seyfried get ready to walk the circuit
or drive her Oscar hopes off a cliff?

The cast is full of names, that both lift and question the potential quality of the venture, though many of them appear to be cameos.  Peter Sarsgaard plays Traynor and Wes Bentley second husband Larry Marchiano.  The rest of the cast includes James Franco, Sarah Jessica Parker (filling in for a recovering Demi Moore, whose initial presence helped put major doubts into this project, even if it's a small role), Juno Temple, Sharon Stone, Hank Azaria, Eric Roberts, Adam Brody, Chloë Sevigny, Chris Noth (Carrie's Mr. Big), Robert Patrick, Bobby Cannavale, Debi Mazar.

Screenwriter: Andy Bellin wrote the David Schwimmer internet nightmare Trust.  Film Editing: Robert Dalvia, nominated for his work in The Black Stallion, he also worked on the recent Captain America.  Cinematographer: Eric Alan Edwards has worked on several Jennifer Aniston and Gus Van Sant films, including My Own Private Idaho. In Couples Retreat, he lensed the visage of Malin Åkerman, who was cast to appear in a competing currently unproduced Lovelace project.  Production Designer: William Arnold.  Past collaboration partners include P.T. Anderson (but not on Boogie Nights), Paul Weitz and Topher Grace.  Art Director: Gary Myers (plenty of television and the upcoming Sparkle).  Set Decorator: David Smith (lots of TV and partners with William Arnold a great deal).  Costume Designer: Karyn Wagner (lots of TV, The Green Mile, The Notebook and the upcoming Decoding Annie Parker).  Makeup Artist: Tina Roesler Kerwin (Big Love, Tea Leoni films, and Boogie Nights, of course).  Composer: Newcomer Steven Trask.  The $10M production filmed in the LA-area this passed January.

Lovelace or Linda Susan Boreman (her given name) appeared in the famous hardcore pornography film Deep Throat in 1972 at the age of 23.  She played a woman with a clitoris located inside of her throat and searches for a husband by giving various suitors test drives.  The act was rarely performed on film at the time; she also engaged in other seldom seen behaviors.  It was the crown jewel in an otherwise short filmography consisting of such titles as Piss Orgy and Dog Fucker.

She grew up in a working class Bronx family with a tough mother and inattentive father.  After a move to Florida during her teenage years, she got pregnant and gave birth at nineteen.  Her parents put the child up for adoption, lying to her that it was actually foster care and baby and mother would be reunited soon.  Feeling betrayed and forlorn, she moved back to New York where she fell into a relationship with verbally and physically abusive pornographer Chuck Traynor.  He married her and forced her into his films.

Years later, she met producer and choreographer David Winters, who introduced her to the cultural side of the city and stole her away from the smut, although she would go onto star in two more albeit soft-core porn films, as well as appearing in pornography magazines.  She had also submitted to a life of drug use to numb her pain.  She was married at that point to a journeyman and had two children.  But, she would never find happiness with him.  Like many who succumbed to the world of porn, she soon did an about-face and denounced pornography all together and went on a crusade, citing the questionable conditions for how she was coerced, manipulated and taken advantage of.  She died from massive trauma and internal injuries incurred from an accident in 2002.

Also on the Radar:

Anna Karenina     Beasts of the Southern Wild     The Dark Knight Rises     Dark Shadows     Great Expectations     The Great Gatsby     Hope Springs     The Hunger Games     Hyde Park on the Hudson     Lawless     Lola Versus     Lovelace     Low Life     Prometheus     Ruby Sparks     Smashed     The Surrogate     Won't Back Down 


The Avengers     The Amazing Spider-Man     Men in Black III