Alvin and Once make strange bedfellows. (Fox Searchlight)
In the mania for awards promotion, the studios have been known to do strange things. For example, in the promo package for the Will Smith blockbuster I am Legend , Warner Brothers included a copy of the book the film was based on. This meant that you could compare the book and the film to discover what a shoddy script Mark Protosevich and producer-turned-writer Akiva Goldsman had crafted.
But the other day I received what has become an awards season tradition: the form letter thank you from a celebrity. These letters contain thanks for nominations and serve as a means of reminding you to vote for whomever sent the note when the final ballots are sent out. But this particular letter was from Glen Hansard, the star and musician of the innovative Irish musical Once . Now Hansard is fully deserving of any and all nominations and awards for his lovely work in Once . However, I think Fox Searchlights should have thought twice about enclosing Hansard's note in an envelope stamped with a postmark advertisement for the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. I mean Once is a classy, sublime musical, and well... Alvin isn't. I guess the crash commercialism of Alvin allows the studio to pick up smaller films like Once but really, couldn't they have exercised some good taste and left Alvin off of Glen's Xeroxed personal note?
Oh well, the note and its envelope gave me a good chuckle. But I'll be upset if Alvin somehow manges to snag a music nomination alongside Once at the Oscars. That would simply be too much to take.
You can check the Broadcast Film Critics website tomorrow to see if Hansard won the award for best song. The BFCA event managed to air despite the writers strike and might end up the only awards with a ceremony and party this year.
