In Contention

Author: Guy Lodge

  • Ubiquitous

    Mia WasikowskaWhen I heard today that Mia Wasikowska had landed the lead in Cary Fukunaga’s upcoming adaptation of “Jane Eyre” for Focus Features, my first thought was, “Well, who else?”

    Not that there aren’t other suitable young actresses who could ace the part. But 20 year-old Australian Wasikowska seems to have hit a sweet spot in the Hollywood casting game. A year ago, few who didn’t watch HBO’s “In Treatment” had heard of her; today, she seems to be nabbing every plum role going in her age bracket.

    Two years ago, Ellen Page’s name was linked to this latest dusting-off of the Charlotte Brontë chestnut; the eventual casting of Wasikowska suggests that even young Hollywood has its minute generational shifts.

    Not that I’m complaining about Wasikowska’s sudden rise. I was as impressed as everyone else by her tangy work as a suicidal teen in “In Treatment,” and was pleased to see that promise completely followed through with a precise, perceptive turn as the daughter of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in Lisa Cholodenko’s deserved festival hit “The Kids Are All Right.”

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  • Happy St. Patrick’s Day

    A favorite from a favorite:

  • IFC previews its wares

    Isabelle Huppert in White MaterialDo you live in New York? Lucky you. I say that for many reasons, but chief among them right now is that you can attend this weekend’s Focus on IFC Films mini-festival, in which the dedicated indie distributor previews a selection of their upcoming theatrical and VOD titles at Brooklyn’s BAMcinématek.

    I mention this principally as another excuse to plug my favorite film 0f 2009, Claire Denis’s “White Material.” IFC acquired U.S. rights to this staggering Isabelle Huppert-led study of post-colonial Africa last month, and will introduce it under their banner on Friday night.

    Other films in the lineup include Ken Loach’s “Looking for Eric,” which I reviewed upon its UK release last June, Ji-woon Kim’s batty Korean spaghetti western “The Good, The Bad, The Weird,” which I thoroughly enjoyed at the London fest in 2008, and Elia Suleiman’s “The Time That Remains,” which I briefly reviewed in October.

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  • Anton Corbijn blogs ‘The American’

    If only for the names involved, Focus Features’ thriller “The American” is one of my more anticipated films of 2010 — George Clooney stars, Rowan Joffe (who had a hand in my best-of-decade contender “Last Resort,” and also has “Brighton Rock” coming up this year) writes and, best of all, Anton Corbijn directs.

    Corbijn’s 2007 Ian Curtis biopic “Control” was a remarkable debut — though it felt less like an introduction than an extension of the director’s iconic work in the realms of photography and music video. I’m interested to see how he fares with a glossier genre piece. Blogging the shoot over at Focus’s site, he’s posted some production stills — they look a little like outtakes from one of his Depeche Mode videos, but that’s fine by me.

    The American

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  • Fincher and Mulligan for ‘Dragon Tattoo?’

    Noomi Rapace in The Girl With the Dragon TattooAs hard as it is to imagine the button-cute Carey Mulligan festooned with body art and facial piercings, kicking all kinds of corporate ass, it’s an intriguing possibility we must now consider.

    Over the past few days, the newly-minted Oscar nominee’s name, along with that of director David Fincher, has been connected with the much-fancied Hollywood remake of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Nothing has been confirmed, but Fincher and Mulligan would be a suitably A-list fit for a project that already boasts Scott Rudin as producer, with a script by Steven Zaillian.

    The original Swedish thriller, based (in case you’ve been living under a rock these past few years) on the first part of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling “Millennium” trilogy, just opened in the UK to sturdy business for a foreign-language title, and lands Stateside on Friday.

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  • Was that so hard?

    As a film-poster enthusiast, one of my bigger headscratchers from last year was why, with so many vivid stills to work with, the publicity team behind “The White Ribbon” couldn’t devise a one-sheet that didn’t look either fan-made or positively medicinal. Leave it to Australia’s Jeremy Saunders to finally cobble together a real poster — nothing revolutionary, just clean, crisp design:

    The White Ribbon

  • No pressure

    Variety

    UPDATE: It gets worse: Joshua Newton quotes Variety president Neil Stiles as saying “No one takes these reviews seriously,” and that the paper plans to cease reviewing altogether this year.

    EARLIER: After firing most of their chief critical staff, just one week after it came to light that they’d suppressed a negative review in order to appease a film’s well-moneyed producers, Variety hasn’t been much of a friend to the struggling art of film criticism lately.

    Amazingly, however, in this NYT take on the situation, the powers that be at the venerable trade paper find ways to make themselves look even worse. I refer to this stunning foot-in-mouth statement from editor Tim Gray, as he attempts to smooth over the Robert Koehler-“Iron Cross” fiasco:

    Of the “Iron Cross” go-round, Mr. Gray said he removed the [Robert Koehler’s] review from the Web after a lawyer for the director and producer, Joshua Newton, objected, but reposted it after viewing the film and deciding to “stand by the review as it was written.”

    The line between church and state, wrote Mr. Gray, remains as firm as in Sime Silverman’s day. “There is no advertising influence or pressure on the editorial independence of our reporting.”

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  • Apparition adopts Sundance pic ‘Rileys’

    Kristen Stewart in Welcome to the RileysFresh off their first Oscar win (Best Costume Design for “The Young Victoria”), fledgling distributor Apparition has picked up a well-regarded Sundance indie that could end up buttressing their 2010 awards campaign for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.”

    “Welcome to the Rileys,” a domestic drama starring James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo as bereaved parents and Kristen Stewart as the teenage prostitute who comes between them, marks the sophomore directorial outing for Jake Scott, son of Sir Ridley. (His sister Jordan, by the way, made a respectable debut last year with “Cracks.” Busy family.)

    Variety reports that Apparition and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group have finalized a seven-figure deal on the film, with a view to an autumn release.

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  • ‘Please Give’ trailer and poster

    This trailer for Nicole Holofcener’s latest breezy ensemble dramedy lets slip the film’s biggest laugh upfront, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect. As I said in my Berlin review last month, the film is bright, slight and intelligently acted, but I must confess I haven’t given it a moment’s thought between then and now. It opens April 30.

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  • Everything old is new again

    I heard word last year that Larry Clark was remaking Neil Jordan’s “Mona Lisa,” but had no idea whether it was really going ahead or not. This promotional one-sheet design from All City Media, found on their spiffy new website, suggests that it might be. However the film turns out — if at all — the poster, at least, is eminently frameable.

    Mona Lisa

    Two more intriguing teases from All City (including one for my most anticipated film of 2011) after the cut.

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  • The weary kind

    Thanks to the concerned (or hopeful?) couple of readers who emailed to ask if I had “retired,” but I’m still around, and will chime in this weekend. After a season of nearly six months, you’ll have to forgive me for feeling a little like Faye Dunaway here, in my favorite Oscar-related photo of all time. Except I don’t have an award to show for it.

    Faye Dunaway, the morning after her Oscar win, 1977

  • Wow

    Just … wow. From The Wrap:

    Todd McCarthy, who has been writing at Daily Variety for 31 years, was fired on Monday along with two other critics, as the trade elected to cut costs and move to freelance reviews.

    [McCarthy says,] “Everyone’s going to speculate, and all I can say, It’s the end of something. What that is I don’t know. I know what it means for me. I’ve been fiercely and proudly reviewing at full speed since all the cutbacks. I made sure we had no slippage in our festival coverage and film reviewing, I’ve worked hard in recent times to make sure nothing slipped. The reviews have been the most unchanged part of Variety, period. Forever.

    What a sour note to follow the Oscars with. How Variety can call itself the leading trade voice in the business and not retain a staff film critic is something I don’t quite understand, but there you have it. Commiserations all round.

  • Michael Moore on ‘Hurt Locker’ politics

    Michael MooreOne of the most common lines (usually used in praise) on our newly-crowned Best Picture winner is that it’s deliberately apolitical, taking no sides in the Iraq conflict as it aims simply to present the soldier’s experience on the ground. Kathryn Bigelow herself dismissed that as something of a misconception in a recent interview with Steve Pond:

    I guess my feeling is that graphic portrayals of innocent children killed by bombs, and soldiers incapable of surviving catastrophic explosions … I think that’s pretty clear. And then also, to add to that, the movie opens with a quote, “The rush to battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” So it’s definitely taking a very specific position.

    Blogging last night on the Oscar race, Michael Moore says much the same thing — less tacitly, of course, than Bigelow:

    The truth is “The Hurt Locker” is very political. It says the war is stupid and senseless and insane. It makes us consider why we have an army where people actually volunteer to do this. That’s why the right wing has attacked the movie. They’re not stupid — they know what Kathryn Bigelow is up to. No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”

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  • The gift, not the wrapping

    Kathryn Bigelow in The Hurt LockerLike a Tiffany engagement ring presented in a Happy Meal box, sometimes the most beautiful gifts come in really cruddy wrapping. And such was the case with last night’s Academy Awards ceremony.

    On the one hand, the show managed to delight (if not surprise) me with one of the unlikeliest sweeps in Oscar history, making history in more ways than one — and for a film that just happened to be my favorite U.S. release of the year. I can’t say that about every (or any) Oscar show I’ve watched in my lifetime. On the other hand, this remarkable turn of events was merely the silver lining to a confounding debacle of a ceremony, one of the most lazily conceived, sloppily staged and lumpenly paced efforts I’ve witnessed in two decades of Oscar-watching.

    I’d dearly love to bring a sunnier perspective on the matter than that of Kris, but just as we were in near-complete agreement on our predictions (save for, ahem, Best Animated Short), I can only echo every gripe he expressed in last night’s wrap-up. Unlike many others, I wasn’t the greatest fan of Bill Condon and Laurence Mark’s streamlined, revue-style reboot of the Oscars last year, but it had a tonal consistency and moved at a clip that last night’s show could only dream of.

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  • Ranking the categories

    The Hurt LockerAh, Oscar lists — the gift that keeps giving. I’m not going to ape Kris’s impressive ranking of all the nominated features: we’d have the same #1, for starters, and we’re agreeing on far too many things these days. So here’s something else to play with.

    I’ve had a number of emails asking me how I would rank the 10 Best Picture nominees, were I filling out the preferential ballot. I was happy to oblige, but then went a little crazy and applied the same process to all the other races. Hey, Oscar day comes but once a year: get your geek on. With that, my personal Oscar ballot, in full preferential order:

    Best Picture
    1. “The Hurt Locker”
    2. “A Serious Man”
    3. “An Education”
    4. “District 9”
    5. “Inglourious Basterds”
    6. “Up in the Air”
    7. “The Blind Side”
    8. “Up”
    9. “Avatar”
    10. “Precious”

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  • Oscar day nuggets: Bigelow and Boal

    Kathryn Bigelow and Mark BoalPlenty of interesting Oscar-related floating around the web on the last day for any such discussion, but two pieces related to tonight’s principal “Hurt Locker” hopefuls stand out.

    Kathryn Bigelow’s likely win tonight will probably prompt some over-optimistic speculation in some quarters about the future of female directors in Hollywood. With that in mind, the L.A. Times’s Rachel Abramowitz seeks to keep those hopes in check with some sobering stats of present-day industry inequality that one Oscar can’t fix on its own:

    Although successful female directors appear to have gained higher profiles of late, the actual percentage of top films directed by women has remained static for 25 years at 7% to 9%, according to an annual study of women writers, directors, and producers of the 250 top-grossing films of the year by the Center for the Study of Women in Film and Television at San Diego State University.

    For instance, neither Warner Bros., the world’s largest studio, nor Paramount Pictures hired a single female director last year, while Walt Disney Studios and Universal Studios hired just one apiece. No woman has ever been hired to direct an event picture with a budget of more than $100 million, the kind of film most valued by the Hollywood machine.

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  • Why ‘Lebowski’ will win Bridges the Oscar

    Jeff Bridges in The Big LebowskiSpot quiz: how many award mentions did Jeff Bridges receive for his inspired comic turn in “The Big Lebowski” 11 years ago?

    If you guessed anything other than a single Satellite Award nod for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical, you’d be wrong. (That’s right, even the Golden Globes preferred Robin Williams in “Patch Adams” to The Dude.) Today, however, it ranks as possibly the most beloved creation in a beloved actor’s career, the character’s nickname having become Bridges’ own in a few short years.

    In a nice EW piece, Owen Gleiberman explains why that performance was never going to catch the Academy’s eye — yet at the same time, is partly responsible for his all-but-inevitable win for “Crazy Heart” tonight. Likening the scenario to disguised career-achievement Oscars for Al Pacino or Kate Winslet (or, more contentiously, Sandra Bullock), Gleiberman nonetheless thinks it’s this one 1998 performance that seals the deal for him.

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  • Guy’s final Oscar predictions

    Christoph Waltz in Inglourious BasterdsAnd so it comes to this: more months than I care to count of watching, thinking, sweating, fretting, writing, deleting and occasionally not caring boil down to single predictions in 24 categories. There’s a lot to get through here, and I’m not going to delay things with an introduction.

    Well, except for this one caveat — apology, even — of sorts. As you wade through my list, you may notice that my predictions look quite similar to those of one Mr. Kris Tapley. Remarkably similar, in fact. Unhealthily similar, even.

    What can I say? Short categories aside (which were subject to further research), the following predictions haven’t wavered in my mind since nomination day, over a month ago — and I see no compelling reason to go out on a limb this year. Sometimes great minds think alike. Frequently wrong, but alike nonetheless.

    With that, my predictions, preferences and rationales continue, category by category, after the cut.

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