Oscar nods still excite Schoonmaker
As many times as she's been nominated, you might think Thelma Schoonmaker would be blasé about another Oscar nod. "Oh, no, it's great," Martin Scorsese's longtime film editor , who's won two , told us yesterday. "I've been pummeled all day with e - mails and phone calls." Schoonmaker, whose remarkable career will be honored at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in the spring, received her sixth Academy Award nomination yesterday, this time for "The Departed." (She won for "The Aviator" and "Raging Bull.") Schoonmaker set up shop at Emerson while editing the Boston-based crime drama, and said she enjoyed her time here. "We were overlooking the Common and could watch people getting busted for drugs," she said, laughing. Asked about working with Scorsese, she said it's always interesting. "Every job is another hurdle and I'm always stretching myself," she said. "It's never boring with Marty."
Word that Mark Wahlberg earned an Oscar nomination for his fine performance in "The Departed" thrilled his family. "I called and told him, 'It's a long way from Mercier Avenue,' " big brother Bob told us yesterday, referring to the Dorchester street where the Wahlbergs grew up. "He's excited. Who wouldn't be?" Bob, who played an FBI agent in the film, said it was a treat to work with his brother, not to mention Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jack Nicholson. "I'm so grateful that I was a part of that project," he said. "It's nice to be in one of the best pictures in the last several years." . . . And Carolyn Pickman, whose CP Casting worked with Martin Scorsese's casting director, Ellen Lewis, on lining up the extras and smaller speaking roles for the Boston filming, was equally pleased with the nominations. "What Martin Scorsese did was mix the real people with the famous [actors] and did so to achieve the authenticity that the movie has become so famous for and something we worked so hard to achieve," said Pickman, who found a number of the actors she needed at Southie's L Street Bath House , where she also cast "Good Will Hunting" and "Mystic River." Pickman said the entire film community benefited by working with the cast and crew of "The Departed , " particularly those actors who got to meet with DiCaprio , who snuck into Pickman's South End offices to work on his character . " I think it shows in the movie," Pickman said.
At an Oscar nominations breakfast to launch the new Massachusetts Film Office held at the InterContinential Hotel yesterday, the message was unity. "There is now one film office," said Rich Krezwick, managing director of the Massachusetts Sports & Entertainment Commission, which oversees the state's film bureau. "There's one Oscar breakfast. . . . And there's only one Oscar Party this year." And there will be one person running the new film bureau, which Krezwick said will be announced by the end of the week. (Among the names that have surfaced as finalists for the film bureau job are theater producer Nick Paleologos, John Dukakis, an actor turned-music promoter, and Rhode Island's film and TV bureau chief, Steven Feinberg.)
When Robin Williams walks onto the stage at the Comedy Connection tonight, it'll be his first foray into the Faneuil Hall Marketplace club since way back in the '90s, when the crazy comic was shooting "Good Will Hunting" here. Why now? Williams is being paid -- and we suspect well paid -- to perform Friday at the Yankee Dental Congress, and he wanted to do a few warm-up gigs. "He had his assistant call up and say he'd like to come in [tonight] and [tomorrow]," said club owner Bill Blumenreich. "The caveat was we couldn't tell anyone , and we couldn't do any press or advertising." As you might expect, the shows sold out instantly, and now Craigslist is crawling with devotees desperate for a ticket. . . . Boston's Gypsy Bar has landed the big ex- of the year -- Kevin Federline -- to host the Boylston Street nightspot's "Anti-Valentine's Day" party. For the Feb. 9 event, Gypsy Bar will grant entrance into a special VIP area for anyone who brings picture of an ex-galpal or ex-boytoy and runs it through the shredder.
They didn't win any nominations, but Celts Rajon Rondo and Allan Ray acted in a play with youngsters at Blackstone Elementary School in the South End yesterday. The duo dawned goat costumes for "The Family Gruff."
Jennifer Garner, who is slated to appear on Martha Stewart's show this morning, was all smiles for Monday night's red carpet premiere of her new film "Catch and Release."
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