In Contention

Author: Guy Lodge

  • Gérard vs. Juliette

    A couple of weeks ago, Emma Thompson ruffled a few feathers when she dismissed the talents of one Audrey Hepburn, so it’s apparently open season on knocking gamine screen beauties off their perch. Today serves up another actor-on-actor fight, this time between two living legends of French cinema. It may be a fairer fight — in this case, the victim is alive to defend herself — but it’s a considerably less polite one.

    In short, if you’ve ever wondered why Gérard Depardieu and Juliette Binoche, arguably the two most ubiquitous French stars of the past quarter-century, have never worked together, we now have our answer. Depardieu, to put it mildly, doesn’t think much of his beloved, Oscar-winning compatriot.

    Never the most discreet of interviewees — as those who recall his self-sabotaging remarks during his 1990 Oscar campaign will know — he has now taken it upon himself to share this opinion with the world.

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  • Honorary Oscars for Coppola, Godard, Wallach and Brownlow

    So, you’d think that five competitive Oscars — three for writing, one apiece for producing and directing — would count as an elegant sufficiency of awardage for even the most revered talent in the industry.

    Not so, apparently, in the case of a certain Francis Ford Coppola. In their wisdom, AMPAS brass have decided that Coppola needs a sixth statuette, this time the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for production excellence. I can only speculate that they still feel really bad about “Kramer vs. Kramer” beating “Apocalypse Now” in 1979. As well they should.

    Of course, this news comes minutes after I opined in our speculation thread that honorary awards for previous Oscar champs tend to feel a little superfluous. Goes to show why I’m not an Academy member. Still, from that point of view, I must applaud the most outré of this year’s choices: Jean-Luc Godard.

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  • ‘Inside Job’ trailer

    I reviewed Charles Ferguson’s smart financial recession study at Cannes in May, describing it as “a thorough, incisive if faintly dry breakdown of the current economic crisis that plays a little like last year’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” on a heavy dose of Ritalin.” Most other critics are less measured in their praise; though there are no sure things with the Academy’s wilful documentary branch, the film looks a cinch to score an Oscar nod, and very possibly the win too. The Sony Pictures Classics acquisition will play Toronto next month, before hitting US theaters on October 8. Apple has the first trailer; click on the image to check it out there, or watch the embed after the jump.

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  • Picking the best new lensers

    As you know, we at InContention are dedicated to spotlighting below-the-line talent, so this excellent cinematography-themed piece at The Playlist caught my eye — in it, Oli Lyttelton singles out five individuals that he feels are spearheading an exciting new generation of DPs, breaking down their past achievements and future promise in some detail.

    The focus on newer names is both refreshing and necessary, given how awards voters can be resistant to outstanding work from comparatively untested talents. Of the five worthy names he puts forth, three — Greig Fraser (“Bright Star”), Eduard Grau (“A Single Man”) and Adriano Goldman (“Sin Nombre”) — arguably deserved awards traction in the 2009 season than they eventually got, while two — Robbie Ryan (“Fish Tank”) and Michael McDonough (“Winter’s Bone”) — seem destined to be similarly slighted this year, given their low profile and the gritty unprettiness of their projects.

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  • Brit critics flip for ‘The Illusionist’

    Yeah, yeah, everybody loves “Toy Story 3.” Enchanting, amusing, heartbreaking… all those swell things. We hear it every year: Pixar shames every other Hollywood studio, transcends the limits of animation, etc, etc. Pencil in a second consecutive Best Picture nomination, and stick a fork in the Best Animated Feature race — for the fourth year running.

    Except it shouldn’t be that easy. Pixar may have expertly capped a beloved film franchise, but they haven’t made the best animated film of the year. That title, bar a late-year surprise, goes to Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist,” which knocked me out at the Berlinale in February and thoroughly sustained the magic on a second viewing this weekend.

    It occurred to me that the visually rapturous film, a beyond-the-grave collaboration with French comic master Jacques Tati, would form a neat (if very moist-eyed) double feature with the Pixar juggernaut: both take a melancholic approach to themes of growing up and letting go, but it’s the Chomet film I found more searching and soulful.

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  • Defriending ‘The Social Network’

    With David Fincher’s “The Social Network” already accruing positive buzz ahead of its New York Film Festival premiere next month, its handlers would do well to pre-empt the inevitable pushback over matters of factual accuracy — complaints that have already dogged the film’s sloppy source book, Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires” (discussed at length in Page to Screen here).

    No one will (or should) be seeing “The Social Network” for an exhaustive journalistic essay on the origins of Facebook. Rather, what we’re hoping for from writer Aaron Sorkin is a tangy interpretation of the facts that reaches for broader truths about the social-networking generation; dramatic flexibility, then, is the order of the day. Needless to say, the powers behind Facebook, including founder (and “Social Network” protagonist) Mark Zuckerberg, don’t quite see things that way. This recent New York Times piece goes into the friction between them and the film’s producers.

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  • ‘Another Year’ UK trailer

    At Cannes, I was with the critical majority in admiring Mike Leigh’s latest, and the valentines will surely continue to roll in when the film plays Toronto next month ahead of an awards-season run. The Guardian (quite the experts lately in nabbing British trailer exclusives) has the first trailer for the film, which gives a pretty accurate sense of the film’s delicate pitch between dry comedy and crushing drama. Interestingly, rather than granting the spotlight to Lesley Manville’s showy, buzz-generating turn, it represents the film as the ensemble piece it is; one wonders if Sony Pictures Classics will be quite so democratic with the US trailer. Click on the image to check it out at the Guardian site, or watch the embed after the jump.

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  • Oscar buzz (or not) for Noomi Rapace in ‘Dragon Tattoo’

    If we didn’t mention last week’s big casting news of Rooney Mara landing the role of Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s English-language remake of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” it’s because a) the story hardly wanted for coverage, and b) I don’t exactly share many people’s keen interest in Stieg Larsson’s mega-selling literary franchise. I find the books diverting but undistinguished airport fare, and the hit Swedish screen adaptation of “Tattoo” a one-note televisual slog.

    That said, I’m fine with any phenomenon that compels mainstream audiences to read both books and subtitled movies — yet I draw the line when people start suggesting that the film should be in line for awards recognition. Deadline Hollywood’s Nikki Finke, however, suggests that the film’s backers sense awards potential for the screen’s original Lisbeth, 30 year-old actress Noomi Rapace:

    I’ve learned that Music Box Films is about to hire an Oscar publicist, probably Melody Korenbrot, to promote Noomi for a Best Actress nomination. That’s right, Best Actress. She’s already won the Swedish equivalency of that for the film. Her new agents at UTA and managers at Magnolia are comparing her to Marion Cotillard, who appeared in a small foreign film, came out of nowhere to be nominated and then win the Best Actress Academy Award, then landed big roles in major studio tentpoles.

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  • December welcomes ‘The Tourist’

    It’s difficult to know how to interpret the news that “The Tourist,” the first English-language feature from Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, has been yanked forward into the 2010 release calendar, following a reportedly well-received screening for studio bosses. The film will now hit US theaters on December 10, a release date it shares with the latest “Chronicles of Narnia” instalment and, more pertinently, David O. Russell’s Oscar hopeful “The Fighter.”

    Why difficult? Well, the buzz on the film has heretofore been so quiet that we have little idea what manner of beast it is. I haven’t seen “Anthony Zimmer,” Jérôme Salle’s well-regarded but underexposed 2005 French espionage thriller from which von Donnersmarck’s film is adapted, but it appears to be a lightweight genre effort.

    While many will assume that the rescheduling positions “The Tourist” as a serious awards prospect, it could just be that Sony sees the film as a commercial winner for adult audiences in the pre-Christmas rush. (We only need look back at last year’s brutal holiday season to be reminded that a December release is no guarantee of awards gold.)

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  • SAG honors Ernest Borgnine

    There will no doubt be some mixed responses to this announcement, given that 93 year-old Ernest Borgnine is now recognized by a younger generation less as an Oscar-winning actor than “that bigot who refused to see ‘Brokeback Mountain,’” but he has just been named the recipient of the Life Achievement Award at next year’s Screen Actors Guild ceremony.

    As career awards ago, this one is more hard-earned than most: Borgnine’s résumé is long and peppered with notable contributions to notable films: between “The Wild Bunch,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Bad Day at Black Rock,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “Escape from New York,” “Johnny Guitar,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Gattaca” (even if he doesn’t care much for it) and, of course, “Marty,” SAG directors should have a pretty easy time assembling a highlight reel. Plus, you know, “Airwolf!”

    The 2010 SAG Awards ceremony will take place on January 30, 2011. Edited (if hardly brief — did we need to cover his Freemason status?) press release after the cut.

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  • UK poster for ‘Winter’s Bone’

    The British quad for “Winter’s Bone,” which finally bows in the UK on September 17, isn’t an especially distinguished bit of design — it’s certainly cruder than the American one-sheet and the tagline, though a pithy line in the film, doesn’t sit quite right. More interesting, however, is that it seems to have conceived as a veritable For Your Consideration ad for star Jennifer Lawrence: her lovely (and scrubbed-clean) face pushed to the foreground, with a critic’s quote that directly invokes Oscar recognition while emphasizing her impressive youth. It’s almost as if the marketers know how much BAFTA voters depend on Oscar buzz to guide them these days. Check out the poster (courtesy of Empire) after the cut.

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  • Undressing ‘Inception’

    Happy anniversary, Cobb! Today makes it exactly one month since “Inception” first hit theaters — I bring this up not to make any point, but as an excuse to those readers who cry foul over each new post about the film. May I continue?

    Anyway, while most discussion on the film is largely played out, I did want to draw attention to this interesting interview with the film’s costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, on the excellent, self-explanatory website Clothes on Film. (To be fair, the piece appeared over a fortnight ago — I’m the one behind the beat here.)

    As Gerard noted in his Tech Support column, costume design is the least likely technical area (Best Original Song excepted, of course) for the film to receive Oscar notice — though it’s probably a shoo-in for a nod in the Guild’s contemporary category. Still, Kurland’s stylish, subtly defined threads remain, for me, one of the film’s most intelligent visual cues. They’re easy to write off as a bunch of sharp suits and shimmery gowns until one notices the considered differences in tailoring that distinguish the male characters in particular: Cobb’s cautious American classics versus Arthur’s fussier three-pieces, or Eames’s rumpled, anachronistic linen verus Fischer’s severe corporate uniform.

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  • Boyle on ‘127 Hours’: “We want it to be a challenge to you.”

    As much as I’ve remained interested in Danny Boyle’s work through thick and thin, I’m struggling to pinpoint why I’m not more excited about his well-buzzed “127 Hours.”

    The story of Aron Ralston — better known to some as “that mountain climber dude who cut off his arm” — is a remarkable one, and yet I question how many potential avenues of discovery it presents on a big screen. Boyle will need to be at his least fussy, and James Franco galvanizing, to make the film more than a gruelling technical exercise.

    The trailer premiered this weekend at London’s Movie-Con, so it will surely surface online soon enough. Empire has posted an extract from Boyle’s onstage interview accompanying the trailer — from which it seems that the film’s makers and handlers are well aware of the marketing challenges posed by a film that centers on a single immobile character over the titular period of time.

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  • ‘127 Hours’ to close London Film Festival

    Last year, London Film Festival organizers managed to secure a pair of world premieres — “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and the John Lennon bio “Nowhere Boy” — to open and close proceedings. This year, they haven’t been so lucky, bookending the festival’s 54th edition with two hot tickets from Toronto instead.

    With that said, they’re still thoroughly respectable, and suitably British, picks. We already knew that Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go” would kick off the festival; now comes confirmation that the closing night gala is Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours,” which stars James Franco in the well-known survival story of mountaineer Aron Ralston. The film reunites Boyle with producer Christian Colson and writer Simon Beaufoy; you may recall that a certain other collaboration between the trio closed out the London fest two years ago.

    Both films will be making their European premieres at the festival, which runs from October 13 to 28. The news suggests that, after luring out a number of American journos last year, the LFF is setting its sights a little closer to home. Statements from Boyle and LFF director Sandra Hebron after the cut.

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  • Telegraph predicts “global hit” for ‘Dagenham’

    Two weeks ago, when I made my first Oscar predictions of the 2010 season, I went out on a bit of a limb for “Made in Dagenham,” the upcoming true-life Britcom that will have its world premiere at Toronto next month.

    I have yet to see the film, but the story material, the talent involved and the promisingly perky trailer (embedded after the jump) combined to suggest one of those undemanding, broadly appealing UK charmers that sneak up on the Academy every couple of years — and that, as “An Education” proved last year, face a gentler climb to a Best Picture nod in a field of ten.

    With the Academy’s sizable British voting bloc having often made their presence felt even in the days of five nominees — hello, “Atonement” — the odds do favor at least one British film making the cut in most years. Many see Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” as the prime candidate for that hypothetical slot this year, and it’s certainly a worthy one, but it remains a tough sell in many respects: a quiet, sometimes despairing essay on middle-aged loneliness unlikely to register beyond a rarefied arthouse audience.

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  • Not just Lawrence

    With indie darling “Winter’s Bone” beginning to sidle out of American theaters, the most important gain it leaves with — besides its not-inconsiderable $4 million gross — is a healthy head of Best Actress buzz for breakout star Jennifer Lawrence.

    Sure, recognition for the screenplay may be on the cards too; even a filler Best Picture nod isn’t inconceivable, should critics rally for the film in December the way they did for “Frozen River” two years ago. But its awards hopes begin with its 19 year-old lead: she’s the story, the bright young thing whose achievement even the film’s detractors can agree on.

    But should she be getting all the glory? Not so fast, says Nathaniel Rogers. In this week’s instalment of Best in Show, a self-explanatory weekly column for Tribeca Film, Rogers argues that Lawrence, fine as she is, may not even be the film’s most valued player. That position, he says, is held jointly by older character actors John Hawkes and Dale Dickey.

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  • Emma vs. Audrey

    British papers have probably made more of Emma Thompson’s recent dismissal of Audrey Hepburn than her slightly flip comments warranted, but it has prompted an interesting amount of side-taking over the merits of one of Old Hollywood’s most beloved (or so we thought) icons. If you’re new to this story, Thompson’s jabs at Hepburn were made with specific reference to her performance in “My Fair Lady,” for which Thompson herself is scripting the upcoming big-screen remake:

    [T]here needs to be a new version. I’m not hugely fond of the film. I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee. Twee is whimsy without wit. It’s mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that’s not for me. She can’t sing and she can’t really act, I’m afraid. I’m sure she was a delightful woman – and perhaps if I had known her I would have enjoyed her acting more, but I don’t and I didn’t, so that’s all there is to it, really.

    It was Cecil Beaton’s designs and Rex Harrison that gave it its extraordinary quality. I don’t do Audrey Hepburn. I think that she’s a guy thing… It’s high time that the extraordinary role of Eliza was reinterpreted, because it’s a very fantastic part for a woman.

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  • ‘Monsters’ poster and trailer

    A smart little horror-romance-road movie hybrid, and an eye-catching debut for British writer-director-DP-production-designer-FX-creator Gareth Edwards, “Monsters” was one of my top finds of June’s Edinburgh Film Festival, where it deservedly won the New Directors Award. Judging from this new poster and UK trailer, the film’s marketers are obviously feeding off the comparisons that have already been made to “District 9” — and though Edwards’s film is very much its own beast, it’s easy to see why they sense similar indie-genre-crossover potential. Keep an eye on this one. Poster (via IMDb) and trailer after the jump; read my review of the film here.

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