Just Like That Monaghan's a Truckin' Into the Oscar Race
It obviously doesn't take much to rattle the cage
Photo: Monterey Media
Last night a press release arrived in what appears to be most everyone's inbox announcing the October 9 limited release of Monterey Media's Trucker starring Michelle Monaghan (Mission: Impossible III, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) as Diane Ford, a young truck driver, who leads a carefree life of long-haul trucking, one night stands and all-night drinking until the evening her estranged 11-year-old son shows up at her door.
Already Awards Daily and In Contention have grasped onto the film's potential to bring Monaghan an Oscar nomination as even the press release that was sent out says the October release puts "it right into the middle of the Fall awards season."
Written and directed by James Mottern, the film co-stars Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt, Jimmy Bennett and Joey Lauren Adams. Is it possible this film could come out of nowhere and earn a nomination? Your damn right it is.
Last year a pair of lesser-known and lesser-seen films where hot in the awards race and one managed an Oscar nomination while the other just steadily made a name for itself, and coincidentally both were sporting much talked about lead female performances. Of course, I am talking about Melissa Leo and her Oscar nomination for Frozen River and Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy. While Frozen River was a little more well known heading into the Oscar race, Wendy and Lucy was the little guy that, in the end, did earn Williams an Independent Spirit Award nomination. On top of an Oscar nomination, Leo won Best Female Lead at the Spirit Awards and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award.
On top of the announcement we have the first look image you see above as well as the trailer included in this article. I am sure a more official trailer will be released soon. You can get a slightly larger look at the image right here.
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Saw the trailer. Not really sold on it yet. Just doesn't come off convincing enough to me. Have to see how it plays out though.
To be honest it doesn't look that great. Michelle's performance looks decent though.
You have GOT to be kidding! Cliche ridden, both in plot and in performance. If this is what it takes to be in Oscar contention then the Oscars have become irrelevant.
And, gotta say, this is just what a typcial woman trucker looks like? After living a hard life? Only if you live in LaLaLand. She looks maybe a day out of the manicurist/hair salon throughout the entire trailer.
Haven't seen the trailer, but the plot (a woman living a "carefree life of one night stands and all-night drinking"), minus the son, reminds me of Joey Lauren Adams' own "Come Early Morning". Can Michelle Monaghan pull an Ashley Judd?
I'm not sold yet, but I can honestly watch Monaghan in anything (and I mean anything, I saw "The Heartbreak Kid" AND "Made of Honor") and come off at least enjoying her performance. Plus Nathan Fillion is in this movie. Awesome.
For the record, I never mentioned the word "Oscar" when I posted the trailer and a glowing review of Trucker. Our site is "Awards Daily" not "Oscar Obsessed" no matter what bloggers like Jeff Wells might have you believe.
@Ryan Adams: Don't get too upset with Wells, he just took everyone a little too seriously. I would have thought my adding the quote saying the release date puts "it right into the middle of the Fall awards season" would have been enough for most people to realize this film is merely a possibility, but in now way a lock.
"Wells, he just took everyone a little too seriously."
Wells should wait to take me seriously when I climb way out on a limb and jump up and down like I'm on a high-dive springboard with my balls hanging out. As he did with Funny People.
I might have posted my comments without any mention of awards being a possibility. Who exactly is Jeff Wells?
First let me apologize for reading too much into your post and inadvertently joining the hysteria about this little film. But I see that several of the comments from Ryan Adams' site agree with my assessment.
@Colin:http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/
Monaghan looks like she's not even trying to act, I'm sure the hardest thing she did in this movie was learning to drive the truck.
@Patricia
Let me clarify a little further, first by making crystal clear that Awards Daily is the domain of Sasha Stone who deserves exclusive credit for creating the site more than 10 years ago under the name OscarWatch. I'm just Sasha's rowdy sidekick. I'm Sasha's Tonto.
Hard to see how I could've provoked your "hysteria" by saying "an interesting point of light has appeared on the radar tonight" and listing the cast.
I quoted the director, I quoted a review, and I ended by asking a question: Is this the sort of praise that leads to awards?
As for the comments on Awards Daily, we can't control what our readers want to write. Sure, AD discussions revolve around awards speculation, but we try to keep a lid on wildass proclamations this far out.
Anyway, I get the impression that our readers are a little skeptical about Trucker. I don't think anyone ever heard of it until last night — and that's why I brought it up.
The saddest result of this whole overblown episode is that now Colin has been exposed to Jeff Wells.
Im gonna keep on truckin'
@Ryan Adams: You were not provocative. I've read your original column and it seems all things reasonable. I rose too easily to the bait of the word "award" that headlined this thread. (Brad, you agent provocateur.) I'm ashamed of myself. But I have very easily forgiven Brad as he not only provides a readily available and interesting blog on all things film, but has had to overlook many a misspelled word from me over time as well as an occasional rant. As I said, I rose too easily to the bait.
As for exposing Colin, that was very bad of me. I guess I'm the agent provocateur in this case.
Other than Williams and Leo, also similar to Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky.
@patricia
Maybe we should all be ashamed of ourselves for getting excited about the vague promise of a supposedly interesting movie. But I'm glad we're not; I'm glad we can still get the tingles.
I need to stop commenting on this now, because it's beginning to feels incestuous, and it's creeping me out how Brad's hooded Bengt Ekerot gravatar keeps staring at my turbaned O'Toole gravatar.
@Ryan Adams: Bengt can do that to a person… Just hope he never asks you to play a game of chess.