'Tourist' as Comedy Was the Director's Idea
They all laughed (including star Angelina Jolie) when the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. nominated The Tourist as best comedy or musical. But HFPA's Phil Berk says the much-razzed idea came from director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
"The Tourist was submitted by the studio as a drama," Berk says. "However, the filmmakers involved with the film expressed their opinion to us that the film should be categorized as a comedy. Given the differing opinions, we asked the studio to screen the film for us in advance, and collectively, we decided that the elements of preposterous fun lent the film more to a comedy than a straight drama category. The issue was raised not by the HFPA but by the director himself."
(reporting by Kim Masters)
Covering The Race
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Scott Feinberg
Lead Awards Blogger & Analyst
Scott, whose THR coverage appears both in print and online, is one of the film industry's most experienced and trusted awards analysts, and possesses one of the strongest track records at forecasting the Oscars. His best showings came in 2006 (when he called 21 of 24 winners) and 2004 (when he called 20 of 24 winners); he was also the only pundit to project long-shot best picture nominations for The Reader (2008), The Blind Side (2009) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011). An alumnus of Brandeis University, he previously ran "The Feinberg Files" blog for the Los Angeles Times. He is now a voting member of both the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, and is writing a book about film history for young people for which he has interviewed more than 350 high-profile Hollywood figures.
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Gregg Kilday
Film Editor
Gregg contributes awards news, features online, and "The Race" column in print.
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Tim Appelo
Film Reporter
Tim contributes awards news and features, both in print and online.
