In case you were wondering, these British (but American-accented) critters apparently celebrate Thanksgiving. Globalization is happening everywhere you look. Anyway, cute marketing gimmick — click the image for fun and games. More “Fantastic Mr. Fox” talk to come tomorrow, from the press junket I attended last month. You seen the film yet?
• Jeffrey Wells grills New York waitresses on their knowledge of the mere existence of “The Hurt Locker.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• Oscar hopefuls “Anivl! The Story of Anvil” and “Food, Inc.” among IDA Award nominees. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Tim Gray gets quotes making a case against The 10. [Variety]
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.
(This is the first of a new series of columns splitting the weekly Sunday Cents column in half. We’ll cover the weekend box office on Sundays and save the forecasts for Thursdays from here on out.)
Roland Emmerich returns this weekend to popular landmark destruction for the fourth time in his career. He has experienced gargantuan openings in each previous attempts, so there’s little reason to think that “2012” won’t win the box office weekend by a mile.
Sony has spent a fortune on the making and advertising of this film, although the studio seems to have saved some money by not hiring an editor as the finished product clocks in at a totally gratuitous 158 minutes. Squeezing in less showtimes may factor microscopically in the grosses, but theaters will be playing this sucker around the clock beginning tonight at midnight.
“Independence Day” opened with $81.6 million during the fourth of July weekend in 1996 for a venue average of $28,311. “Godzilla” earned $67.4 million during Memorial Day of 1998 for an average of $20,373. “The Day After Tomorrow” also bowed on Memorial Day, in 2004. with $79.5 million and an average of $23,206. Clearly, audiences have a taste for the Emmerich touch when it comes to disaster flicks. His various attempts to make films outside this micro-genre have been met with relative shrugs at the box office (“The Patriot” and “10,000 B.C.”).
It’s that time of year, when studios roll out their awards-centric websites for films in play. You get screening info, news and notes, reminders of how AMAZING their films are (with critical quotes to back it up), goodies like screenplays and such, etc. It’s a good way to see how wide the net is cast during the season (since any and everything gets a “For Your Consideration” blurb), but I’ve always found it’s a good way to revisit the year’s films.
First up, Universal Pictures has put together its standard assemblage hawking “Public Enemies,” “Bruno,” “Funny People” and “It’s Complicated.” Skimming through the “Public Enemies” section I was instantly reminded that Elliot Goldenthal’s score was actually quite wonderful and could be a sleeper to watch in a field that is notorious for its insularity. You can even skim through tracks in a dedicated section and download the screenplay.
“Funny People” has a similar set-up, with score toggling, the script, etc., while “Bruno” has no script to offer. But you can listen to the raved out score again if you wish. The “It’s Complicated” section has material to come and only mentions “in all categories” as it pertains to FYC business.
• Deborah Sontag talks “The Messenger” with Oren Moverman, Woody Harrelson, etc. [New York Times]
• Roger Ebert sits down with the fast-becoming new “it” girl, Gabourey Sidibe. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• With movies still to be seen in 2009, Noah Forrest pegs “25th Hour” as the decade’s best. Brave choice. I’m a fan. [Movie City News]
I don’t think I need to explain why I love this. Props to graphic designer Sam Smith (and Jeff Wells for bringing it to light).
Yahoo! Movies has an awesome exclusive look today behind the scenes of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and the unusual process by which he and his team of actors recorded voices for the film. Check it out:
Just when you thought last year’s Best Picture victor was down for the count, Fox Searchlight goes and shakes things up in November. First, some background…
When we kicked off our coverage of the 2009-2010 Oscar season a year in advance, one of the more anticipated titles was Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” based on the novel by Thomas Cobb about an alcoholic country music singer on the road to redemption. The film stars Jeff Bridges in the leading role, along with Colin Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall.
In July, Searchlight picked the film up, touting Bridges’s “performance of a lifetime,” but the studio slated the release for the spring of 2010. It seemed a shame at the time given the fact that the film was shaping up to be a potential awards vehicle for Bridges at the very least, perhaps more. But with “Amelia” on the way, a (so we thought) potentially major player in the race with its typical AMPAS tropes. But that ship has sailed, leaving the studio with only the animated “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Marc Webb’s summer entry “(500) Days of Summer” to hawk for awards consideration.
Until now. Maybe.
Two weeks ago we told you about the animated feature film category’s state of flux and how a little film no one has heard of called “The Missing Lynx: Paws on the Run” could be its saving grace.
With “Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone” and “A Town Called Panic” currently off the qualification list, and Disney trying hard to pad the field of eligible titles by submitting Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol” (when Zemeckis has gone on the record as saying such a thing is a “disservice to the great animators”) and even squeezing in the formerly-straight-to-DVD “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” the magic number of 16 has been too close to call.
Well, today at 5:00pm is the official deadline for submissions, and prints of qualifying titles are due by November 13. It’s now or never, and things will start to take shape soon. But getting back to “The Missing Lynx,” Steve Pond is reporting that the film was officially submitted and gets some great quotes form director Raul Garcia about the situation.
I haven’t had a chance to preview/write-up AFI Fest due to some a dizzying weekend and family obligations, but I should probably do that with the festivities entering a fourth day.
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” kicked things off last week and with the festival moving from the Arclight on Sunset to the historic Chinese Theatre on Hollywood, there is, I’d wager, a glitzier vibe to things this time around. The galas are coming fast and furious, the most recent being a big spread for “Precious” last night.
Speaking of which, at an after party for the film at the Chateau Marmont, Oprah Winfrey was on hand to introduce singer Mary J. Blige, who performed original song contender “I Can See in Color” to a standing-room-only crowd. It was the first time the tune had been performed publicly.
Tonight I’ll finally cross paths with “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” one of a slew of films I hope to catch up on at the fest. The only big reveal for me will be “Everybody’s Fine,” which screens tomorrow night and could instantly put Robert De Niro in the thick of the Oscar hunt (more on that in today’s Off the Carpet column).
• Peter Knegt writes up a list of honest-to-God Oscar underdogs, but where’s Tom Hardy? [indieWIRE]
• Peter Bart and Michael Fleming go back and forth on the new Oscar paradigm. [BF Deal Memo]
• Francis Ford Coppola chimes in with cheery news: “The cinema as we know it is falling apart.” [Bloomberg]
• Perpetuating the false myth that this is a weak year for leading ladies. Not everything should be viewed through the prism of Oscar… [Awards Campaign]
• Following up on our Oscar Talk discussion, Anne Thompson considers the awards prospects of Oren Moverman’s “The Messenger.” [Thompson on Hollywood]
• Amidst his fully-in-the-tank review of “Where the Wild Things Are,” David Poland calls for Oscar to take note of James Gandolfini’s vocal performance. [The Hot Blog]
• The 53rd annual London Film Festival kicked off with Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — we reviewed it here.
• Speaking of festivals, the AFI Fest unveiled its own complete lineup, with “Fox” and “A Single Man” as its bookends.
• This week’s edition of The Long Shot considered the extensive possibilities for black, gay and female filmmakers in this year’s awards race.
• With actors like Meryl Streep and Christopher Plummer straddling lead and supporting territory this year, we addressed the awards category shuffling that may lie ahead.
Welcome to the sixth installment of Oscar Talk, a weekly awards-centric kudocast featuring yours truly and Anne Thompson of indieWIRE’s Thompson on Hollywood.
As we move further into the season, there is finally substantial grist for the mill. Here’s what we’re discussing today:
• With 65 countries locked in for consideration in this year’s Best Foreign Language Film category, Anne and I offer up rough expectations for the eventual nominees and spotlight a handful of pics we hope to catch very soon.
• As the animated feature film category seems ebb and flow with contenders the last few weeks, we talk about how the category might shake down and discuss Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” playing the London Film Festival and set for an AFI Fest bow next month.
• “Where the Wild Things Are” opens today, so Anne and I (of like minds on the film) offer our thoughts.
• Making good on last week’s tease, we discuss Oren Moverman’s “The Messenger,” starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton.
• And finally, we get into a late-comer to this year’s Oscar landscape, Christopher Plummer, suddenly looking at a campaign in the supporting actor category for “The Last Station” and the lead actor category for “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” plus a debate on his classification in the former.
We ran a little long today (and got into some fights along the way), but have a listen to this week’s podcast below. And, as always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.
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• Pete Hammond digs into the truth about “Amelia” and potential new found hope in a recent re-edit. [Notes on a Season]
• The Rome film fest gets with it, structures a “women in contemporary cinema” theme around this year’s festivities. [The Independent]
• Variety’s Peter Debruge has a bit of mash-up fun with the “Antichrist” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” trailers. [YouTube]
London Film Festival
Rather like two well-matched friends that one sets up on a failed blind date, Roald Dahl and Hollywood really ought to have got along better over the years. Taken at face value, Dahl’s rightly beloved children’s books should be a cinch to film: the concepts are high, the imagery vivid, the storytelling swift and snappy.
Yet for all these virtues, and for no lack of trying on Hollywood’s part, a stone-cold classic filmization of one of his novels still awaits us. Some stand by Mel Stuart’s irony-deficient “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”; others will put in a word for Henry Selick’s vividly textured but emotionally inert take on “James and the Giant Peach.” No filmmaker has exhibited more understanding of Dahl’s cruel streak than Nicolas Roeg, but his largely dazzling “The Witches” still loses its nerve in the final reel with a facile ending.
Though the men share a broad eccentricity, Wes Anderson’s fey, faintly solipsistic creative touch once more seems a less-than-perfect match for the nastier, more arch sensibility of Dahl – and there are a few glib missteps in his otherwise appealingly ragged riff on “Fantastic Mr. Fox” that show up the disconnect.
But Anderson has at least been savvy in picking one of Dahl’s youngest-skewing, most sweet-natured narratives for his first ever adaptation. The brevity and elemental simplicity of the book’s survival-themed tale provides a lot more room for Anderson’s trademark affectations and diversions – be it the familiar 1970s-style duds or a jangly nonsense ditty from Jarvis Cocker – than Dahl’s later, darker work would.
• Dave Karger, in a slow news week, digs up the old “‘Hangover’ for Best Pic” notion. No. [Oscar Watch]
• Jeff Wells face-to-face with “Fantastic Mr. Fox” director Wes Anderson. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• Susan King talks to editing legend Anne V. Coates, whose career was showcased at the Academy last night. [Los Angeles Times]
(Apologies for the “Fantastic Mr. Fox” review that appeared prematurely here as a result of embargo confusion. It will be reposted later today.)
There may have been silence on my end these past few days, but I assure you it hasn’t been for lack of activity. The days leading up to the London Film Festival — which officially kicks off tonight with the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — have been crammed with press screenings and assorted admin duties.
Yesterday, meanwhile, was given over to the film’s extraordinarily elaborate, and most enjoyable, press junket, staged across a range of picturesque locations in Roald Dahl’s home village of Great Missenden, an hour’s train ride from London. (More on that later.) Fox has spared no effort or expense in the launch for this unusual film, which culminates tonight with the LFF Opening Gala party at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea.