In Contention

Author: Guy Lodge

  • Tarantino’s love letter to ‘Bright Star’

    Abbie Cornish in Bright StarQuentin Tarantino is obviously quite the epistolarian. Just yesterday, I mentioned the sincerely admiring letter that he wrote to controversial “Kinatay” director Brillante Mendoza, praising the brutally violent and widely unpopular Filipino film for its daring and authenticity.

    Evidently, that wasn’t the only letter QT wrote in his Cannes hotel suite. And while it’s not unexpected that he’d support a fellow provocateur like Mendoza, some might be surprised to hear that he’s equally passionate about Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” which I flipped for earlier this week.

    UK site Moviefone unearthed the following gushing note (written, like the Mendoza letter, in red ink) from Tarantino to Campion:

    My favorite film of yours … I don’t like period pieces like that. I loved this!!! Never has heartache been so realistically and movingly portrayed as Abbie taking to her bed … The lovers kisses … Abbie and Ben … touching … Brilliant. I loved it!!! Love – Your fan – Quentin Tarantino.

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  • John Lasseter to receive Selznick Award from PGA

    John LasseterThis is turning into quite the year for John Lasseter. A little over a month ago, he and his fellow Pixar directors were honored with the career-achievement Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Now comes the news that Lasseter has been named the 2010 recipent of the Producers Guild of America’s highest career honor, the David O. Selznick Achievement Award.

    Lasseter is the first animation producer to receive the award, which was last handed earlier this year to Michael Douglas. Previous recipients include Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, Roger Corman, Clint Eastwood, Jerry Bruckheimer, Dino De Laurentiis, Robert Evans, Billy Wilder … the list is long and intimidating. The award will be presented at the PGA Awards ceremony on January 24.

    Congratulations, then, to Lasseter — it’s a splendid feather in his cap, and a further omen that this might be the year that Pixar finally cracks the awards-season big league. Industry goodwill for the studio really couldn’t be any higher at the moment.

    Press release soundbites after the cut.

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  • Smooth ride for ‘Up in the Air’ continues in UK

    Vera Farmiga and George Clooney in Up in the AirI’m always interested to see how the more hyped Hollywood contenders for Oscar glory play in Britain, largely because there are few hard-and-fast rules for determining what will take UK critics’ (and audiences’) fancy.

    Last year was a case in point: audiences here shrugged off “Milk,” while “The Wrestler” became a mini-phenomenon — though neither film offers an obvious inroad for a foreign audience. And who could have predicted that “Changeling” would find safe critical haven (not to mention a slew of BAFTA nods) with the Brits, despite receiving a kicking at home?

    So I was curious to see how “Up in the Air” fared with the British press following its London premiere on Sunday, given that it’s a film with quite an American outlook. However, the universality of its recession-minded story has evidently carried through, as early reviews are uniformly warm.

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  • 10/21 Oscarweb Round-up

    Tilda Swinton• Pete Hammond joins the speculation that yesterday’s Oscarcast producer announcement bodes well for a Jackman repeat. [Notes on a Season]

    • Nathaniel Rogers is awed in the presence of Tilda Swinton at the New Yorker Festival. (Where, apparently, “Michael Clayton” was never mentioned. Huh.) [Tribeca Film]

    • David Poland brands the Gotham Awards “meaningless” for not trying to predict the Oscars. I despair. [The Hot Blog]

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  • ‘An Education’ for Best Original Song?

    Beth RowleyThis morning I highlighted a few areas where the “An Education” team might want to angle for nominations beyond the slam-dunk that is the Carey Mulligan Express. What I forgot to suggest is that the film could theoretically put itself in the hunt for Best Original Song.

    You could be forgiven for thinking that the lovely, woozy torch ballad “You’ve Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger” — which features prominently in the trailer, as well as twice in the film itself — is a dusty archive find from the early 1960s.

    However, it’s actually a contemporary track co-written and performed especially for the film by 28 year-old British jazz-pop chanteuse Beth Rowley (who appears as a nightclub singer in the film).

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  • Shankman and Mechanic named new Oscarcast producers

    Adam Shankman on the set of HairsprayWell, we were getting a bit impatient for the names to drop, but finally they have: Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic have formally been named as the producers of the 2009 Academy Awards telecast.

    As was the case last year, Oscar bosses have handed the reins to a pair of newcomers. Shankman, a choreographer-turned-filmmaker (not to mention “So You Think You Can Dance” judge) best known for his direction of “Hairspray” and “A Walk to Remember,” and Mechanic, a producer and former Fox chief, seem to represent a pairing of showbiz glitter with old-school industry brass.

    This kind of inside-baseball stuff isn’t really my forte, but I will venture a guess that the selection of Shankman indicates a willingness to stick to the musical-inspired, let’s-put-on-show mandate that Bill Condon and Laurence Mark set last year. (In which case Hugh Jackman might return as host after all.) And if Shankman brings the same level of slickness and sincere enthusiasm to this assignment as he did to “Hairspray,” I’m not complaining.

    Press release after the cut.

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  • David Carr rolls up the carpet

    David Carr, the original CarpetbaggerI must say, I’m a little sad to hear that ace NYT journalist David Carr has retired from his position as lead writer for the Times’ seasonal Carpetbagger blog. Site colleagues excepted, he was my favorite Oscar pundit bar none, striking the tricky balance of bringing jaded wit to the silliness of awards season without stooping to easy snark, and it goes without saying that he’s one hell of a writer on any topic that takes his fancy. (Still haven’t read his memoir “Night of the Gun?” Rectify it.)

    Still, the Gray Lady hardly lacks for talented scribes, and so it is that we welcome Carr’s replacement, Melena Ryzik, who will take over the blog as of December 1. From the press release:

    In addition to being a general assignment culture reporter, Ms. Ryzik chronicles cultural life in New York for the UrbanEye video series, and writes the UrbanEye e-mail, a daily guide to events around town. As the Carpetbagger, she succeeds media columnist David Carr, who originated the blog but is retiring his tuxedo from the red carpet beat after four seasons. He will continue as a media columnist and a general assignment reporter.

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  • ‘An Education’: more than Mulligan

    Rosamund Pike and Lone Scherfig on the set of An EducationAt this morning’s press screening for “An Education,” which has its UK premiere at the London Film Festival tonight, I was impressed afresh by what a layered, deceptively gentle and generally terrific little picture it is.

    Some have complained that it’s a little too soft, a little too easy — though only its overly pat denouement, for me, merits any such claims — but this is a film that knows its audience, as well as how to sneak more subversive material by them, and deserves credit for its intelligence in doing so.

    I’ll admit that this morning, the thought of it actually winning Best Picture crossed my mind, albeit built on a shaky pile of ifs; either way, it strikes me as a genuine Academy film, and for a change, that isn’t meant as an insult.

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  • Tarantino cheers ‘Kinatay’

    Quentin TarantinoSome of you may have read my defense last week of Brillante Mendoza’s grimly violent “Kinatay,” a film that provoked mass hostility at Cannes in May for portraying the rape, murder and dismemberment of a young woman in unrelenting detail. Roger Ebert declared it the worst film ever to play at the festival, and the announcement of Mendoza’s Best Director award was roundly booed in the Cannes press room.

    For all that, the film does have its champions, and as it turns out, Quentin Tarantino is among them. Thanks to Ben Mortimer at ComingSoon for pointing me to this letter (itself courtesy of Letters of Note) written by Tarantino to Mendoza, congratulating the latter on his Cannes win and pretty accurately nailing why the film works. (For us, at least.) Spelling errors preserved:

    Bravo on your diffcult troubling work. Your decission to never dramatize the murder, never indulge in movie suspense…. was bold, daring, and to me, the whole point of making the movie in the first place. I felt it was completely a eyewitness acount of a horroble murder. I believed everything I saw. Your point wasnt to dramatize it. It was to capture it.

    The actual document is after the cut, in case you’ve always longed to see QT’s handwriting.

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  • New ‘White Ribbon’ trailer

    I’m about to head into an LFF press screening of what is possibly my most anticipated film of the year, Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.” As if my excitement levels couldn’t be any higher, The Guardian points us to this exquisite new trailer for the film. (They’re claiming it’s a world exclusive, though Trailer Addict offers a near-identical one, embedded below.)

    I sense it’s a film that will merit a full review, so I hope to cobble one together by end of play today. “Hope” being the operative word.

  • Desplat wins Composer of the Year award

    Alexandre Desplat You’d be hard pressed to disagree that Alexandre Desplat is pretty much at the top of the game in contemporary film scoring. In addition to his genius (“Birth” looks likely to remain my favorite score of the decade), his prolificity is awe-inspiring. This year alone sees the Frenchman’s name on seven features, running the gamut from “Julie & Julia” to “A Prophet” to “Fantastic Mr. Fox” to the latest “Twilight” installment.

    He seems bound to figure in the awards race for one film or another (“Cheri” would be my personal pick so far), so it’s a nice — if not terribly prescient — omen that he just won Composer of the Year at the 9th annual World Soundtrack Awards yesterday, as well as score of the year for his Oscar-nominated work on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

    It’s a 2008-leaning list, with “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Reader” also resurfacing, though a Lifetime Achievement Award for Marvin Hamlisch is clearly a nod to “The Informant!”

    The awards, handed out by the World Soundtrack Academy in Ghent, Belgium, an educational organization dedicated to the art of film music, don’t carry much weight to speak of, but since we’re having a day of small awards announcements, it’s a fun list of winners to add to the pile. Full list after the cut.

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  • Jennifer Aniston: best comic actress of her generation?

    Jennifer Aniston in The Good GirlApropos of nothing really, since the article is a week old and even I have no intention of seeing “Love Happens,” but my friend Jamie — who knows, albeit not very supportively, of my longstanding admiration for Jennifer Aniston — sent me this interesting Independent piece, and I thought I’d throw it out there.

    As some of you may have read before, I’ve long held the belief that Aniston is a genuinely gifted actress — and I haven’t had an awful lot of company on that one. Ben Walsh, however, joins me on that limb, saluting her consistently valiant contributions to largely unworthy films:

    These cynical, quite often facile films may lack depth, subtlety and, well, imagination, but Aniston never lets anybody down. In fact, now that Meg Ryan appears to have imploded, Aniston is probably – and this is a tad bold – the most gifted American comic actress of her generation. Her comic timing is immaculate and she could muster up playful sexual chemistry with a sideboard. And while her acting range isn’t huge, she’s never less than compelling.

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  • LONDON: ‘Micmacs,’ ‘The Time That Remains’

    Dany Boon in MicmacsI am presently seeing films at the London Film Festival at a greater pace than I can write them up — expect a round-up of curt (by my standards, at least) capsule reviews either later today or tomorrow.

    Some films, however, demand to be reviewed in pairs, as is the case with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest, the frothy action caper “Micmacs,” and Elia Suleiman’s rather more subdued Cannes entry “The Time That Remains,” which I saw this afternoon and yesterday respectively — two polar-opposite films that nonetheless both blend naive physical comedy with a political agenda, to very different tonal effect.

    “Micmacs” (**)

    As a filmgoer, few things are as dispiriting as the sensation that everyone on screen is having more fun than you — and not being able to join in. Such, I regret to inform, was my experience watching the latest eccentricity from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Amélie,” “Delicatessen”), which floods the screen with inventiveness, enthusiasm and his trademark sepia-stylized visuals — special kudos to Aline Bonetto’s production design — but is so claustrophobic, and so convinced of its own charms, that the narrative is lost somewhere in the bustle.

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  • LONDON: A thing of beauty

    Abbie Cornish in Bright StarRegular readers will know that Kris and I frequently disagree as to the merits of certain films — and cheerfully so, since a range of opinion is kind of the point of having multiple contributors to a site like this.

    But I don’t think our opinions have ever been so sharply opposed as they are over Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” — which has its UK premiere tonight as the Mayor of London’s Gala selection, and which thoroughly enthralled me at this morning’s press screening.

    I realize that the film is relatively old news in the States as I write this, but I nonetheless feel compelled to add a rejoinder to Kris’s fair but frosty take from Telluride last month, as for my money, Campion has turned in a rhapsodically beautiful work, a possible four-star effort that sits easily with her finest.

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  • LONDON: ‘In the Air’ tonight

    George Clooney in Up in the AirTo use the umpteenth bad aviation metaphor in connection with the film, “Up in the Air” landed in London this evening with a gala festival screening — though this time it came unaccompanied by George Clooney, who had skipped off to the Rome fest after doing double-duty at the LFF earlier this week with “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The Men Who Stare at Goats.”

    (Given that “Up in the Air” is plainly his prime 2009 work, I’d have shuffled things around to ensure he could make it, but never mind.)

    Given the raft of glowing notices from Telluride and Toronto — not least Kris’s own elated take — my expectations for Jason Reitman’s third film couldn’t have been any higher as I settled into the press screening this morning. And as the lights came up 100 minutes later, they’d been satisfyingly met in one sense — and left frustratingly dangling in another.

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  • LONDON: ‘Father of My Children,’ ‘Bellamy’

    Gerard Depardieu in BellamyIt’s been a busy weekend at the festival, but aside from “Up in the Air” — which I finally encountered this morning and will offers some thoughts on in due course — it’s also been a rather low-key one. Several films I had seen in pre-screenings made their London debut; I’ll round them up with some brief capsule reviews later.

    The best film of the weekend would have been Jessica Hausner’s critical darling “Lourdes,” if I hadn’t already seen it in Venice. Happily, a pair of different French-language titles made for a most enjoyable Saturday, even if I can only make significant claims for one of them.

    Viewed in succession, Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Father of My Children” and Claude Chabrol’s “Bellamy” made for a fascinating transition between two guards of French cinema: the former, low in star wattage, is the sophomore effort of 28 year-old director, while the latter marks the first collaboration between two industry titans, 79 year-old Chabrol and 60 year-old Gérard Depardieu. One, I think, has the potential to be a major arthouse hit — it might not be the one you think.

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  • LONDON: ‘Dogtooth,’ ‘Kinatay,’ ‘Burrowing’

    DogtoothOnce more, Friday’s major festival screenings covered ground I’d already trod in Venice — the day’s glossiest gala slot was reserved for “The Road” (which you know did little for me), with a less prominent early evening slot for Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” (which did rather more).

    Given the current buzz levels for each film, they perhaps should have swapped places, but festival programmers can be forgiven for not knowing that in advance.

    In fact, it was a crammed day for anyone hoping to catch up on the hot Venice titles, including “Life During Wartime,” “The Double Hour” and “White Material,” still my film of 2009 so far. (Friend and critic Tim Robey shares my enthusiasm for the film, claiming the LFF will have a hard time topping it. Truth.)

    Hard as it was to resist giving “Material” another whirl, I took advantage of my head-start to catch a stark Swedish mood piece and two provocative Cannes winners that had been intriguing me since May, and not only because of Old Man Ebert’s proclamation that Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay” was the worst film ever screened on the Croisette. See if I agree after the cut.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Foxes, festivals and foreign contenders

    Fantastic Mr. Fox• 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.

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