Regular readers will know that Claire Denis’s “White Material” topped my list of last year’s best films, and would have placed high in my end-of-decade list were it not officially a 2010 release. If you’ve been wondering what I’m on about, there’s finally a trailer I can show you — subtitle-free, I’m afraid, but you’ll get the idea. It opens in France next month; the rest of the world could take a while.
Author: Guy Lodge
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‘Serious’ wheels
How much do you love “A Serious Man?” Alternatively, how much do you love vintage American automobiles? If the answer to either or both of those questions is “a lot” — and if you have some cash to spare — you might want to take part in Focus Features’ charity auction of the rather awesome 1966 Dodge driven by Michael Stuhlbarg in the Coens’ latest.
Bidding is currently under way on eBay, and all proceeds from the eventual sale go to Variety: The Children’s Charity of Southern California.
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INTERVIEW: Armando Iannucci
He may currently be basking in the glow of a surprise Oscar nomination, but when I call him up at his London home, “In the Loop” writer-director Armando Iannucci is boasting about another achievement entirely.“Our family dog just gave birth to three puppies this afternoon,” he audibly beams, our opening pleasantries barely cooled. “They’re cavoodles, a poodle-spaniel hybrid. You know the Hairy Maclary books?” As a matter of fact, I do, though he’s too excited to wait for a response. “They look just like Hairy Maclary. They’re lovely.”
As I extend my congratulations to the proud mother – on top of those to Iannucci himself – it occurs to me that the topic of hybrid puppies is as appropriate a place as any to start a conversation with this nimble giant of British TV comedy, a man whose writing trades in everyday absurdities and non-sequiturs, whether in the dead-end Norwich media scene (“I’m Alan Partridge”) or the considerably more high-powered world of Downing Street politics (“The Thick of It”).
It is, of course, the latter – a scabrous satire of the alternately petty and ruthless antics of British government spin doctors – that provides the jumping-off point for Iannucci’s first feature film, “In the Loop.” Linked to the TV series by the presence of Peter Capaldi’s perma-scowling, cyanide-tongued political advisor Malcolm Tucker, the film broadens the canvas by taking on Washington as well as Westminster.
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A glimpse of ‘The Illusionist’
The highlight of my Berlin trip last week, and handily my favorite film of this still-young year, Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist” merits all the excruciating magic-based puns that critics will inevitably coin for it in 2010.
To give you an idea of what I’m so excited about, the following Arte.tv video gives a taste of the rapturous animation on offer. (You’ll need to brush up on your French for the accompanying interview.) It’s one of those irritating self-starting affairs, so I’ve placed it after the cut.
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Double vision
Thanks to Glenn at Stale Popcorn for pointing me to this Australian one-sheet for “Fish Tank,” which deservedly took the BAFTA on Sunday for Best British Film. The designer is Jeremy Saunders, also responsible for that extraordinary “Antichrist” poster last year … someone Stateside needs to snap this guy up.
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Who the Oscars really benefit
People get so wrapped in the seasonal mechanics of the Oscars, it’s easy to forget that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences actually has a purpose beyond the doling out of awards. It is, after all, an academy: an nonprofit organization dedicated both to preserving and developing American filmmaking.The LA Times’s Christy Grosz offers a handy reminder of what AMPAS does all year round, and how the Academy Awards — with their $65 million license fee from ABC — essentially fund their activities.
Among the places where that money goes: screenwriting fellowships (Allison Anders and Susannah Grant are previous beneficiaries), college grants, film restoration and archiving of assorted movie memorabilia, with a long-term view toward building a museum of Hollywood history.
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Sweet smell of desperation
It’s almost as if the ratings-hungry Oscarcast producers watched last night’s BAFTA sweep for “The Hurt Locker,” finally accepted they’re going to receive no assistance from the awards, and duly sprung into action.Right on cue comes today’s announcement that Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Zac Efron will all be presenting on March 7. Perhaps if they add Robert Pattinson, they can present the Best Supporting Actress category together, heartfelt individual tributes and all.
Here’s hoping Stewart practises her smile over the next two weeks. Not even a BAFTA Rising Star award could cheer her up last night.
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BERLIN: ‘The Killer Inside Me,’ final notes
Having named its prizewinners yesterday, the Berlinale officially wraps today. I meant to file my last post on the festival once I arrived home on Friday night, but assorted tasks and distractions kept it on the back burner. Too many things, too many things, as Amber Waves would say.My last day in Berlin served up one of the films I’d most been looking forward to, tireless British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom’s Jim Thompson adaptation “The Killer Inside Me.” Winterbottom’s baldly violent noir arrived in town with the embers of its Sundance controversy still glowing, hoping to liven up a staid Competition. Werner Herzog’s jury might not have taken the bait, but many audience members at the press screening I attended did.
“Fuck you!” yelled one German journo, rather lamely, at the screen once Casey Affleck’s Texan sheriff (and moonlighting serial killer) had finished pummelling Jessica Alba’s lovely face to the texture of steak tartare. After that, obediently outraged grumbles greeted assorted scenes of sex and sadism, while a chorus of boos accompanied the end credits.
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‘The Hurt Locker’ sweeps BAFTA Awards
The writing, in case you hadn’t already read it, is on the wall.In the biggest BAFTA haul for a non-British production since “American Beauty” a decade ago, Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq drama took six awards at the Royal Opera House, including Best Film, Director and Original Screenplay. Next up: Oscars. And plenty of ’em, I’m guessing.
I did respectably enough in my predictions, nailing 15 out of 21 categories, though I missed the big one, thinking homegrown favorite “An Education” would come out on top. The Brits did, however, vote local in the lead acting categories, with Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan taking well-deserved honors — probably their last of the season.
“An Education” lost both the top awards it was up for, as the ever-selective Best British Film committee once more looked to the fringes to reward Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank” instead. I’m thrilled to see a major award for my #2 film of last year, after it was blanked entirely in the general categories. Continuing a good night for my pet films, meanwhile, “A Prophet” took foreign-language honors.
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UK trailer and poster for ‘I Am Love’
Back in September, at Venice, I found my senses dazzled and my brain nonplussed by Luca Guadagnino’s “I Am Love” — a fulsomely stylized family melodrama showcasing yet more marvelous work from Tilda Swinton (in Italian, to boot) over an otherwise undernourished story and ensemble.
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BAFTA predictions
Enjoying a curious position this year as the only televised awards ceremony between the Academy Award nominations announcement and Oscar night itself, the BAFTAs will no doubt be relishing their precursor status even more than usual.Since they made the move to precede the Oscars nine years ago, BAFTA hasn’t slavishly anticipated the bigger awards (they’ve matched the Academy’s Best Picture pick only three times), but they have sometimes been at the crest of new waves in voting: late surges of momentum for the likes of Marion Cotillard, Tilda Swinton and Alan Arkin all made their first appearance on BAFTA night.
This year, however, I’m suspecting that the Brits will voluntarily isolate themselves from the Oscar-influencing game. Never ones to shy away from patriotic voting, BAFTA has handed its top prize to a homegrown production for three years running – it’s highly likely that Oscar longshot “An Education,” which leads the nomination count with two U.S. productions, will make it four.
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Berlinale prizes for ‘Honey,’ Polanski
Well, I warned you I wasn’t keeping up with the Competition films at Berlin. I’d love to give you some first-hand perspective on the winners that have just been named by Werner Herzog and his jury, but the truth is, I haven’t seen a number of them.That includes the top prizewinner, Semih Kaplanogu’s “Honey,” a Turkish tale of a six year-old boy who falls into muteness following the disappearance of his beekeeper father. It was kindly regarded at the festival, though I didn’t encounter any critics insisting it was a must-see, either. (I heard more critical buzz around two runner-up winners, Romania’s “If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle” and Russia’s “How I Ended This Summer.”)
The jury’s one concession to the mainstream was a Best Director award for Roman Polanski, whose thriller “The Ghost Writer” opened in the U.S. yesterday to warm reviews. I suppose some might view this as controversy-mongering — and they’d probably be right — but Polanski’s film was one of the few in Competition that genuinely exceeded expectations.
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What might have been
I agree with Anne Thompson in yesterday’s edition of Oscar Talk when she cautiously says that the hosting is one of the few things she’s not worried about in the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. Steve Martin — tried, tested and funny on two previous hosting dates — is the definition of a safe pair of hands, while the gig seems a natural fit for Alec Baldwin’s newfound national treasure status.At the very least, seeing how the duo dynamic works out, after many years (my entire Oscar-watching lifetime, at least) of individual hosts, will be interesting. But show producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic gave us a more intriguing what-if scenario when they revealed their far riskier initial pick for the gig:
The always-candid Shankman revealed that when he and Mechanic first met for lunch, they immediately agreed that the person who should host the show would be none other than Sacha Baron Cohen.
Shankman said, just as quickly as they told the Academy of their idea, “the Academy swatted it down. They thought it was too big of a wild card.”
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WEEKLY WRAP: Top shots, Berlin coverage and more
• You asked for it, you eventually got it: our annual list of the Top 10 shots of the year, part one and part two.• In our ongoing Oscar Guide series, we dug into the supporting actor, foreign language film, art direction, makeup and sound editing races.
• Guy’s Berlinale coverage continued, with “The Illusionist,” “The Kids Are All Right” and “Winter’s Bone” among the highlights.
• We interviewed “The Cove” director Louie Psihoyos, as well as the creative minds behind “Coraline,” Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick.
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Seconded
From Telegraph critic (and Berlinale buddy par excellence) Tim Robey’s neat festival roundup:Maybe they’ll bestow a specially bonkers Golden Bear to mark the occasion [of their 60th anniversary] – for instance, to the one film I walked out of, the Japanese hopeful, Caterpillar, in which a mute war veteran with no arms or legs gets frisky with his unduly appalled wife. As a friend quipped, once we’d snuck out of this mangily shot and edited exercise in Lars von Trierian erotic masochism, “Spare us the whole paraplegic Kama Sutra, already.” Then again, Werner Herzog is presiding over this year’s jury, so all bets are off.
That friend, I’m pleased to say, is me. (And I somehow share his fear that the jury will disagree with us tomorrow. I say that in lieu of any predictions.) Tim also joins me in the, shall we say, select club of “Gentlemen Broncos” fans. Read the rest here.
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‘A Prophet,’ ‘Fish Tank’ lead London Critics’ awards
The BAFTA Awards take place on Sunday, but last night the UK’s premier critics’ body had their say at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards. And what we learned is what the London Film Festival, Sight & Sound and even the BAFTA longlists already taught us: the Brits really, really like “A Prophet.”Busting out of the foreign-language ghetto, Jacques Audiard’s Oscar-nominated prison gang saga took the night’s top award, Film of the Year. That was its lone award of the night, however — Kathryn Bigelow continued her steamroll through every directing honor in sight, while they democratically handed what would have been a rather superfluous foreign-language prize to “Let the Right One In.”
The night’s biggest winner, meanwhile, was another of my pet films: “Fish Tank” took four awards in the British categories, including Best British Film and acting honors for Katie Jarvis and Michael Fassbender. Following Bigelow, Andrea Arnold made it an all-female affair in the directing categories.
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‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ trailer
Banksy’s irresistible foray into documentary-making gathered nothing but goodwill at Sundance, and Berlin followed suit. It lands in the UK in two weeks’ time. This cute trailer emerged a month ago, but check it out if you haven’t already.
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BERLIN: Competition blues
Looking over my Berlinale coverage so far, the thing that surprises me is what a benevolent mood I seem to be in for much of it. By focusing principally on the titles that have impressed (or at least engaged) me, I’ve rather given the impression of a festival packed with delights.As good a time as I am having in the German capital, however, I’m afraid that’s not exactly the case. All around the festival center can be heard the collected grumblings of critics wondering what on earth is going to win the Golden Bear on Saturday — and not for richness of pickings, either.
The festival’s Forum and Panorama strands have served up a number of strong entries, including consensus critical hits like “The Illusionist” and “Kawasaki Rose.” And the out-of-competition Sundance repeats have sustained their buzz from last month’s wintry festival: “Winter’s Bone,” in particular, is the title I’ve heard more in conversations with fellow critics than any other, and scarcely anyone has a bad word for “Exit Through the Gift Shop” or “The Kids Are All Right.”