In Contention

Author: Guy Lodge

  • A flash of ‘Fox’

    Thanks to the combined efforts of Lars von Trier and Wes Anderson, 2009 should hold a unique place in cinematic history as the year that brought us not one, but two screen depictions of talking foxes.

    The films they appear in couldn’t be any more different, though after looking at these two new stills (courtesy of Filmsactu) from Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I find the woodland critter who pops up halfway through “Antichrist” to reassure us that “chaos reigns” less unsettling than these zombified-looking stop-motion creations.

    Fantastic Mr. Fox

    (More thoughts, and a second still, after the cut.)

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  • Miss January

    Kris already drew your attention to today’s Emmy nominations, and since we don’t really do TV here at InContention — and since the Emmys are quite possibly the most eternally frustrating of all major showbiz awards — we won’t go into a detailed bitching session about how the voters cocked this or that up. Anyway, there were pleasant surprises to be had: “The Flight of the Conchords!” Sarah Silverman! Hope Davis!

    Kris highlighted Denis Leary as his pet snub of the morning, but I can’t be the only one baffled that, amid the 16 well-deserved nominations for the best show on TV, there was no room for its standout performer of the season. Hell, make that the standout performer of the season. January Jones, we salute you.

    January Jones in Mad Men

  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “Push” by Sapphire

    Push by SapphireAs is clear from their determination to cling to the ungainly handle “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire,” the team behind the upcoming big-screen adaptation of New York poet Sapphire’s well-regarded 1996 novella are keen to acknowledge the film’s literary heritage. (And not just because a lousy February release stole their original title.)

    It’s not surprising. “Push” was a minor publishing phenomenon in the 1990s that has since become a solid modern entry in the canons of both African-American and youth literature – the book wears its debt to Toni Morrison and Alice Walker proudly on its sleeve – so the film obviously wants to announce itself to Sapphire’s devoted readership.

    More subliminally, however, I suspect the film’s prominently advertised literary cache aims to differentiate it from any number of urban-leaning titles with similar themes but minimal artistic cred – and to lend it a varnish of prestige to awards voters wary of the subject matter.

    A glance at the bare-bones synopsis for “Push” or “Precious” – illiterate, physically and emotionally abused Harlem girl recovers sense of self-worth thanks to inspirational teacher – offers little indication of how the final work will be superior to Hollywood schlock of the “Dangerous Minds” ilk, or even Lifetime TV territory. (On the surface, this could easily turn into a facsimile of “Life is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story,” minus the eventual fame and fortune.)

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  • ‘Antichrist’ vs ‘True Lies’

    Jamie Lee Curtis in True LiesOver at the Guardian, Michael Hann is rehashing an argument that, over the last two months, has become a very tired one indeed: that Lars von Trier hates women, that “Antichrist” is his most overtly misogynistic expression yet of said hate, shock, outrage, blah blah blah.

    As you know, the “misogyny” complaint is not one I have any time for, given that a) Von Trier is one of the few auteurs out there evincing a clear fascination with women in his work, b) the sympathies of “Antichrist” lie more with its emotionally riven female protagonist than her passive-aggressive husband, and c) the film’s gender politics serve principally to reinvigorate horror-film tropes.

    It’s something I discussed at greater length in my review of the film last month, but you can expect to hear the “m” word bandied about a lot more as the film bows in the UK next week.

    That said, even as he calls it “an expression of fear about female sexuality, with no greater purpose than the “Saw” or “Hostel” films,” Hann allows that greater offenders exist within the Hollywood system, with James Cameron’s 1994 actioner “True Lies” as his prime example.

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  • Amen, brother

    Hugh Jackman at the 81st annual Academy AwardsI loved this nugget from from MCN columnist Noah Forrest’s constructive rant on how to improve the Oscars (Hint: he doesn’t think the Academy recent changes do the trick.) Rather than try and streamline the ceremony as the Academy has done by ditching the honorary awards (a fate that far too many people feel should befall the technical awards too), he actually wants to extend it:

    Every year we hear the same complaint about how the show is too long. The people complaining about this are the same folks who buy tickets to a baseball game and then whine about how the game is so slow. If you’re tuning into the Oscars, you are already expecting that the show is going to be a bit long, so get over it. The Academy shouldn’t be trying to cater to those curmudgeons who want a shorter show.

    It’s important to recognize who the audience is for this show; a large majority of the people who watch the Oscars are fans of film just like the people who watch baseball games usually enjoy that sport. Catering to people who aren’t particularly big fans of what you’re doing doesn’t really seem like the wisest move.

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  • Finding trends in Oscar’s ten

    Ralph Fiennes in The English PatientOver at MCN, David Poland has offered his first formal Oscar column of the season (can we say “the season” in July?) and he has some strong points to make. Prediction junkies who just jump straight to his top 10 forecast for Best Picture will find some (delete according to taste) interesting/exciting/eccentric choices in the mix — he’s certainly the first pundit I’ve heard suggest that Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” is a frontrunner, while “Julie & Julia” hasn’t previously entered the discussion much either.

    But the column itself is of more interest, largely because he brings up a key (and I think under-discussed) point about the potential impact of a 10-nominee race: namely, that with such a broad field, it becomes much more difficult to pinpoint voter and industry trends from year to year:

    How will 10 nominees change the dynamic of desperate efforts to spin trend stories? How can it be The Year Of… anything with such inevitable diversity?

    It could, I guess, be The Year of Matt Damon, who has Invictus, The Informer!, the animated Miyazaki film, Ponyo, and maybe even Green Zone coming out. It could be The Year Of Not Bio-Pics, in spite of the Nelson Mandela film from Eastwood, Invictus, and Meryl Streep invoking Julia Child.

    Some will try to make it The Year of The Woman, with Nine leading the way for such hopefuls as Julie & Julia, Bright Star, Precious, An Education, Broken Embraces, the 2 SPC Coco Chanel movies, Amelia, Cheri, and even the female director of The Hurt Locker. And maybe they will have a point… there could be 5 nominations in that group.

    Or not.

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  • Plumping for Pike in ‘An Education’

    Rosamund Pike in An EducationIt seems that Lone Scherfig’s British period drama “An Education” continues to steal the heart of pretty much everyone who sees it — this has been near the top of my “most anticipated” list for some time now.

    You may remember a recent piece where Kris, while echoing the resounding praise for the film and its breakout star Carey Mulligan, really flew the flag for supporting star Alfred Molina.

    Now comes further applause for the film — and an emphatic endorsement for yet another member of the film’s ensemble — from an interesting source: Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling.

    In an ecstatic note to Jeff Wells, one of the film’s earliest champions, Durling likens watching the film to “a state of movie nirvana” and declares Mulligan both “sublime” and “the leading contender at this point for Best Actress.” But I’m most interested to see that he singles out the supporting work of 30 year-old British actress Rosamund Pike for special attention.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Buried treasure, reading pleasure

    Leonardo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams in Shutter IslandEntirely slipped my mind to do this on Friday, but here’s what we (and you) were talking about this week:

    • At 2009’s halfway mark, this week’s list shone a light on the year’s most undersung films thus far.

    • In Page to Screen this week, we eagerly sank our teeth into Dennis Lehane’s “Shutter Island.”

    • As the respective “Ice Age” and “Transformers” rehashes battled for box-office glory, “Up” quietly became Pixar’s second-highest grosser.

    • Meanwhile, soon-to-be titan “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” garnered mixed-to-positive notices.

    • Burton, Lasseter, Miyazaki, Zemeckis … the upcoming Comic-Con just got a lot more auteur-heavy.

    • Speaking of comics, “The Green Lantern” has a lead … and his name is Ryan Reynolds.

    • Away from the big screen, we discussed the joys of bargain-bin DVDs.

    • And stirred up debate with a celebration of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

  • Letterman and Brüno sell the movie

    “Don’t you want to see a crazy gay Austrian who isn’t the governor of California?” What can I add to that? Enjoy:

  • Jennifer’s Basterds

    What’s with all the poster action today? I can’t keep up. Anyway, in the interests of efficiency, I’ve paired up the new one-sheets for “Jennifer’s Body” and “Inglourious Basterds” (yes, another one) for your viewing pleasure. Why not? After all, they’re both advertising blood-spattered comedies from smart-aleck Oscar-winning writers, and they both seem destined to grace a lot of teenage boys’ walls, albeit for fairly different reasons.

    Jennifer's BodyInglourious Basterds

    [Source: Bloody Disgusting and Screen Rant]

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  • Hope Davis is Hillary Clinton

    Hope DavisYou may recall, a few months ago, Kris confessing his undying love for one Ms. Hope Davis, a crush I fully understand even if I don’t entirely share in it. (My heart is still yours, Ms. Keener.) Bottom line: quirky-beautiful woman, wonderful actress, all-round fox.

    So I’m curious to know how Kris feels about the news of his would-be paramour replacing Julianne Moore to play Hillary Clinton in Peter Morgan’s third Tony Blair project “The Special Relationship.”

    I’m quite pleased with the development: great actress that Moore is, she doesn’t quite strike me as a strident enough screen presence for Clinton. I find it easier to imagine Davis walking the walk with tongue ever-so-slightly in cheek, and to be honest, I find her a moderately closer physical match too. (No offence meant, Kris.)

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  • ‘Brothers’ poster debuts

    I mentioned last week that I wasn’t entirely sold on the trailer for Jim Sheridan’s remake of the Susanne Bier drama “Brothers,” which played a little too shrill and on-the-nose for my liking. I have no such issues, however, with this superb poster: elegant, unusual and one of the few one-sheets I’ve seen lately that uses composition to intelligent thematic effect. Brownie points to all involved.

    Brothers

    [Source: Cinematical]

  • 10/7 Web Round-up

    Jodie Foster• How “Brüno” could forever change Hollywood’s depiction of homosexuality. [Slate]

    • Or should that be “Humpday?” [Time]

    • Jodie Foster goes back behind the the camera, directing and starring opposite Mel Gibson in “The Beaver.” Ahem. [Variety]

    • Given the ubiquity of the Harry Potter kids, Gill Pringle considers the rise of the well-behaved movie star. [The Independent]

    • Eternal maverick Isabelle Huppert on her “internal adventure” of her acting career. [indieWIRE]

    • Must-read of the day: Andrew O’Hehir takes a fresh look at “The Seventh Seal.” [Salon]

    • Inspired by the title of Michael Moore’s latest, Xan Brooks contemplates cinema’s least appropriate date movies. [The Guardian]

    • By the way, have you been playing Nat Roger’s fantastic “First & Last” game this month? Check it out. [The Film Experience]


  • Yes, but you didn’t actually WIN

    There are several reasons I’m bothered by this one-sheet for gay rom-com “I Love You Phillip Morris,” which has built up a fair amount of goodwill from its appearances at Sundance and Cannes this year.

    I Love You Phillip Morris

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  • ‘Let the Right One In’ director Alfredson goes British

    Tomas AlfredsonIs a John Le Carré adaptation now some kind of rite of passage for lauded foreign directors crossing over to English-speaking audiences?

    Okay, I’m stretching. Still, it’s interesting that a few years after Fernando Meirelles made the switch with his take on Le Carré’s “The Constant Gardener,” we now have “Let the Right One In” helmer Tomas Alfredson taking on the British author’s defining work “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”

    ScreenDaily reports that UK stalwart Working Title is shepherding the first big-screen version of Le Carré’s classic espionage novel — which was very successfully adapted for TV in the 1970s, with Alec Guinness famously taking on the role of George Smiley, an elderly spy brought out of retirement to hunt an MI6 mole in the Cold War era.

    No cast has yet been announced for the film, which begins shooting next year. In something of a “Frost/Nixon” reunion, the film is being produced by Working Title heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, while Peter Morgan (also an executive producer) is on script duty.

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  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane

    Shutter Island by Dennis LehaneDeep into Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel noir “Shutter Island,” there’s a wonderfully telling exchange between the two central characters. Reflecting on the gothic heights to which their situation has spiralled, one observes, “It’s all a bit Grand Guignol, don’t you think?” His partner’s reply: “I don’t know what the fuck that means.”

    Ostensibly a nod to class difference within the narrative, it’s also arguably a tongue-in-cheek dig at the novel’s self-reflexive straddling of high and low culture. “Shutter Island,” of course, is Grand Guignol of the highest order, but with an acute awareness of the term: steeped in references to throwaway pulp fiction and lurid 1950s B-movies, but written with the literary discipline and deference of a serious novelist.

    Needless to say, Boston-ish setting aside (and even then, “Shutter Island” goes to significant dramatic lengths to distance itself from the city), the novel is a very different beast from the two Lehane titles successfully given the screen treatment in recent years. For all their whodunnit trappings, “Gone Baby Gone” and “Mystic River” traded largely in earnest authenticity; “Shutter Island,” by contrast, hinges on artifice.

    Lehane has apparently stated his admiration for Graham Greene’s alternation between “novels” and “entertainments”: this, carefully wrought and quotation mark-enclosed as it is, is plainly his idea of a pure entertainment, a funhouse, a ride.

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  • Disney sends all-star auteur team to Comic-Con

    Tim BurtonWell, this is impressive. Hayao Miyazaki, John Lasseter, Tim Burton and Robert Zemeckis have all lined up to help represent Walt Disney Studios at Comic-Con in San Diego later this month, in the interests of showcasing a range of new and/or revived Disney features at the geek mecca. This is the first Comic-Con for all four filmmakers, so it’s quite a coup for Disney to assemble them in one place.

    Burton and Zemeckis will be joining a panel on 3D filmmaking (the first time Comic-Con has broached the subject), which will include discussion, not to mention exclusive footage, of their respective upcoming 3D features “A Christmas Carol” and “Alice in Wonderland.”

    Meanwhile, Miyazaki and Lasseter are set to participate in an animation panel (which also includes such veterans of  hand-drawn Disney animation as “The Little Mermaid” duo Ron Clements and John Musker), in which a range of upcoming animated titles — including “Toy Story 3,” “The Princess and the Frog” and “Ponyo” — will all be previewed.

    Both sound likely to be hot tickets. Kris, of course, will be on site in San Diego and covering the whole shebang for your reading pleasure. Lucky man. (Full press release after the cut.)

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  • 9/7 Web Round-up

    David Lynch• Jeffrey Wells offers his own mid-year assessment of 2009’s best and worst so far. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • How New Line mutated from house of horror to chick-flick central. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Memo to “Baywatch: The Movie” producers: it’s about the jugs, not the jokes. [The Guardian]

    • Too lowbrow for you? Here’s David Lynch on his unlikely collaboration with musos Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse. [Sight & Sound]

    • Apparently, Meryl Streep gained 15 pounds making “Julie & Julia.” Wow, she really does want that third Oscar. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Francis Ford Coppola talks movies, wine and why he wanted Scorsese to direct “The Godfather Part II.” Really. [Esquire]

    • An “Up” doubter (commercially speaking, anyway) eats his words. [The New York Times]

    • Not movie-related (yet), but a “Catcher in the Rye” sequel without J.D. Salinger’s involvement? Stop the madness. [The Wall Street Journal]