In Contention

Author: Guy Lodge

  • AMPAS chief Sherak promises “more fun” Oscars

    Tom SherakAs a former Fox chairman with a background in marketing, it’s unsurprising that Tom Sherak, who recently replaced Sid Ganis as president of the Academy, wants to bring a more populist approach to the Oscars.

    In this LA Times interview, he makes it clear that the primary objective of the move to 10 Best Picture nominees is to get more blockbusters into the race — having himself voted for “The Dark Knight” last year — but admits that they may not succeed:

    The point of it was to do something … We need to not be afraid to try things. We need to be positive. The people who are against the idea say, ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ Then we won’t do it again.

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  • Welcome to the club

    Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall and Gordon Willis show off the Oscars they received at last night’s Governors’ Awards. (The fourth honoree, John Calley, could not attend.) More pictures and video footage of the presentations are at the official AMPAS site here.

    (On a side note, one pic on the Academy site is captioned “Honorary award recipient Lauren Bacall and fashion designer Tom Ford.” Given that they’re likely going to be nominating Ford’s debut film in at least one or two categories come January, might they not do him the courtesy of adding ‘director’ to his description?)

    (from left) Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall and Gordon Willis at the 2008 Governors' Awards

  • The Oscar show you didn’t see

    Lauren Bacall accepting her Oscar at the 2008 Governors' AwardsFor those of us not important/famous/rich enough to have attended last night’s honorary Oscars presentation, the Governors’ Awards — tickets began at $350, apparently — Steve Pond has a comprehensive report of the proceedings, complete with pictures and some gossipy details.

    I’ve complained before about the Academy denying us Joe Public movie fans the chance to see industry titans Lauren Bacall, Gordon Willis, Roger Corman and John Calley finally take a trip to the Oscar podium, but what’s done is done. And to go by Pond’s account, the upshot for them (if not for us) is that they got to bask in the spotlight for longer than the main ceremony would have allowed — though Calley was, unfortunately, too ill to attend.

    Indeed, despite featuring only four award presentations, the night ran for three-and-a-half hours, the length of most Oscarcasts. Still, despite some organizational hiccups, a good, relaxed time seems to have been had by all.

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  • An invitation to dinner

    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?

    Fantastic Mr. Fox

  • Brenda Blethyn angles for Oscar attention in ‘London River’

    Brenda Blethyn in London RiverAmid the surfeit of underdog titles vying for Oscar glory, a special prize for maximum cojones should go to the producers of indie Brit drama “London River,” who are mounting a campaign for Brenda Blethyn’s superb lead performance — despite the obstacle of the film lacking a US distributor.

    The film (which was disqualified as Algeria’s Oscar entry due to excessive English dialogue) has just begun a week-long qualifying run in L.A., and if you happen to be around, you owe it to yourself to give it a look.

    As I wrote in my June review of the film from the Edinburgh fest, it’s a quiet, humane piece dealing with the still-sensitive subject of the London terrorist attacks of July 2005. Despite this political currency, the film doesn’t draw overt attention to itself — but it affords Blethyn her finest showcase since “Secrets and Lies,” tempering the familiar rhythms of distraught-parent drama with less flattering streaks of prejudice and self-absorption.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Reflections, early predix, animated contenders

    Coraline• Kris boldly offered some early winner predictions … I (and you) followed.

    • AMPAS unveiled the official list of 20 animated feature contenders, guaranteeing five eventual nominees.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column picked through the leading Best Supporting Actor contenders.

    • In The Long Shot, we reflected on a handful of the Academy’s better moves this past decade.

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  • “Kicking my ass won’t leave you any wiser about me.”

  • British critics fall hard for ‘The White Ribbon’

    Bianca Mey and Mika Ahrens in The White RibbonAmerican audiences will have to wait until 30 December to see Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner “The White Ribbon,” but today marks the film’s UK release — and critically, at least, it’s off to a flying start.

    The film has received unanimously glowing notices in the four major British broadsheets, with the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw and the Telegraph’s Sukhdev Sandhu both affording it five-star reviews. This reception should position the film well for the BAFTAs, whose foreign-language category has few rules and restrictions than the Academy’s, and tend to go for titles with the greatest balance of publicity and acclaim.

    Bradshaw gushes:

    It has chilling brilliance and icy exactitude, filmed in black and white with the lustre of liquid nitrogen, and its director, Michael Haneke, achieves a new refinement of mastery and audacity. He has created a film whose superb technical finish and closure seems to me in contrast to its status as an “open” text, a work which resists clear interpretation … This is a profoundly disquieting movie, superbly acted and directed. Its sinister riddle glitters more fiercely each time I watch it.

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  • David Poland’s Oscar underdogs … where are the ladies?

    Tilda Swinton in JuliaFor those of you bored of reading the same ever-narrowing list of names in the assorted Oscar-speculation pieces across the web, David Poland’s latest column is a slight breath of fresh air.

    Decrying the fact that many pundits are making ludicrous long-shot calls like “This Is It” for Best Picture, while ignoring more deserving contenders who could use the attention, Poland provides a list of less-hyped contenders in the top categories that he feels merit consideration.

    His definition of the term “underdog” ranges from genuinely fanciful contenders (Catherine O’Hara and James Gandolfini for “Where the Wild Things Are,” “In the Loop” for Best Picture) to names still very much in the race who  have lately lost a bit of steam (Matt Damon, Jeremy Renner and Viggo Mortensen, all in the Best Actor category).

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  • ‘Cove’ misses out on IDA Awards nod

    Afghan StarA couple of things struck me as noteworthy on the list of nominees revealed yesterday by the International Documentary Association, which Kris mentioned briefly in this morning’s round-up.

    The five films nominated by the IDA for Best Documentary Feature include “Afghan Star,” “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” “Diary of a Times Square Thief,” “Food, Inc.” and “Mugabe and the White African.”

    Having admittedly only seen three of the five, I’d call that a pretty respectable list. Still, notably absent from the list is the film that many see as the prohibitive favorite for the Oscar: Louie Psihoyos’s environmental doc “The Cove.” (Certainly, when offering your own predictions earlier this week, only four of you bet on anything else.)

    In a year that has lacked a crossover documentary phenomenon on the scale of last year’s “Man on Wire,” it’s been widely presumed that “The Cove”‘s vastly sympathetic cause and high-profile champions would be enough to seal the deal, particularly when Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” failed to catch on.

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  • A soupçon of Cruz in ‘Nine’

    Thanks to AwardsDaily for pointing out this tiniest of glimpses of Penélope Cruz singing and dancing her perfectly formed butt off in “Nine.”

    With such a cluttered field, I’d been leaning towards the idea of none of the actresses from the film’s formidable ensemble making the Best Supporting Actress cut, but this hints at the kind of onscreen barnstorming that is catnip to the actors’ branch.

  • Cormac McCarthy on adaptation and ‘The Road’

    Cormac McCarthyAs much as John Hillcoat’s filmization of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” didn’t work for me, I think it remains one title that could spring a surprise or two this awards season. Though the film has some high-profile detractors including Todd McCarthy and Roger Ebert, many have been profoundly affected by the film, while its prestigious cache is beyond dispute.

    Helping the cause is that Cormac McCarthy, the estimable author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning source novel, is fully behind the film.

    Today’s online must-read is an extensive Wall Street Journal interview with McCarthy, in which he discusses his own personal investment in the novel — much of which is directly inspired by his own relationship with his son — and the decade-long relationship between Hollywood and his writing.

    McCarthy has a healthily hands-off approach to adaptations of his work, bluntly stating that once the rights have been sold, “you don’t embroil yourself in somebody else’s project.” Claiming to have had confidence in Hillcoat from the outset, he goes on to say that the filmmakers “absolutely” caught the spirit of his novel.

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  • Dear Santa…

    I’ve been a good less obnoxious than usual boy this year. And if you’re a devoted reader of our site, you might know that “Gone With the Wind” is my favorite film of all time.

    Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind

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  • indieWIRE lists the decade’s worst Oscar snubs

    Dennis Quaid in Far From HeavenThe end-of-decade reflective mood is obviously catching. In yesterday’s Long Shot column, I looked back on the last ten years of the Academy Awards, singling out some of their most inspired choices and positive developments. You responded in great numbers, rare goodwill towards the Academy dominating the comments thread for a change.

    Of course, however, we all know that it’s more fun to bury the Oscars than to praise them. So today, indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt has compiled something of a flipside to my piece, listing the 50 most egregious snubs in the past decade of Oscar nominations.

    It’s an eclectic list, Knegt’s only requirement for inclusion being that a nomination for the film or individual in question had to be at least within the realm of possibility.

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  • Cameron to be honored by Visual Effects Society

    AvatarHoly crap, how many lifetime achievement awards are there in Hollywood? More than there are people, apparently, since they’re now having to share recipients.

    Anyway, mere hours after the announcement that James Cameron is to receive the Lucky Brand™ Modern Master Award at the Santa Barbara fest (it’s the ™ that makes it special, in my opinion) comes the news that Cameron will also receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Visual Effects Society at their annual awards shindig on February 28. Previous recipients include George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

    Fair enough, given all Cameron has done to advance the effects artform over the last quarter-century. But if “Avatar” storms the awards anyway, might it not seem like overkill? (I’m standing by “District 9” for the Oscar, mind.) More here.

  • Megan Fox: “I don’t want to live that character.”

    Megan FoxAs someone who is neither a fan nor a detractor of Megan Fox, Lynn Hirschberg’s mammoth profile of the actress in yesterday’s New York Times made for fascinating, and rather upsetting, reading.

    Less a straightforward interview than a scientific deconstruction of her star persona, the picture it paints is of a savvy career woman who has invested so much time and effort in building her public image that her own personality has been obscured — even to herself.

    I have no real opinion of Fox as an actress, as we haven’t been given enough to judge her on: she is precisely as good (or bad, according to taste) as her roles demand in “Transformers” or “Jennifer’s Body.” Physically, she’s obviously attractive, but not sparky or distinctive enough to interest me personally.

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  • Martin Scorsese to receive DeMille Award at Golden Globes

    Martin ScorseseThe Hollywood Foreign Press Association has just revealed that the annual Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement will be presented to Martin Scorsese at the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony on January 17.

    Anyone, anywhere, have a problem with this? Didn’t think so.

    You may remember that Scorsese himself presented Steven Spielberg with the award earlier this year, so they’re not exactly digging very deep for their honorees, but sometimes the obvious choices are the right ones. In any case, the Globes have quite a few names to catch up on: prior to Spielberg’s citation, the last full-time filmmaker (as opposed to actor-turned-director) to receive the honor was Alfred Hitchcock in 1975.

    So congratulations to Scorsese, whose DeMille Award will join his Golden Globe bookends for “Gangs of New York” and “The Departed.” His presentation joins Ricky Gervais’s hosting on the list of reasons to look forward to the ceremony even more than usual. (And hey, kudos to the Globes for still actually, uh, televising their honorary awards.)

    Full press release after the cut.

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  • Stanley Tucci on his “multiple personalities”

    Stanley Tucci in Julie & JuliaI recently rewatched “Julie & Julia” at an industry screening, and came to a pair of conclusions that I hadn’t quite reached the first time. The first is that, as grandly as Meryl Streep holds up her end of the film, it’s Amy Adams’s half of the story, curiously enough, that I found more compelling.

    The second is that the truly great performance of the film is given by Stanley Tucci.

    Tucci’s dry-sweet delineation of Paul Child is an actor’s masterclass in making a silk purse from a sow’s ear of a character: it’s difficult to imagine any of his lines or gestures popping on the scripted page, but he listens to Streep’s performance with such intelligence and compassion that his listening becomes compelling in and of itself.

    And his crisp, unexpected exclamation of “Fuck them!” deserves a line-delivery award of its own.

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