In Contention

Author: Guy Lodge

  • Was it worth the wait?

    Jamie Foxx in The SoloistWhen Joe Wright’s “The Soloist” was shifted from prime Oscar territory last autumn to a considerably more low-profile 2009 slot, many presumed that the film was something of an artistic disappointment. However, word also went round that the move was a sympathetic one, aimed to place less pressure on a film that, despite the talent involved, was more crowdpleaser than prestige item.

    Meanwhile, two diametrically opposed trade reviews do very little to clear up the picture ahead of the film’s release next week. (They appeared a few days ago, but escaped my notice until now.) Todd McCarthy’s Variety pan confirms the suspicions of the sceptics, actually suggesting that the film appears uncomfortably caught between awards-baiting and more populist urges:

    Neither rarefied art film nor widely accessible inspirational drama, “The Soloist” falls between the cracks both creatively and commercially … Joe Wright’s first American feature has moments of power and imagination, but the overworked style and heavy socially conscious bent exude an off-putting sense of self-importance, making for a picture that’s more of a chore than a pleasure to sit through.

    Charismatic and dynamic as they’ve been on any number of previous occasions, both Foxx and Downey seem to labor here as they grapple with roles viewers will find difficulty warming to. Downey, in particular, fails to find either outer charm or inner soul in Steve Lopez.

    The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt, however, sings a very different tune, describing the film as “excellent, if flawed.” His disagreement is most pronounced on the matter of the film’s lead performances, going so far as to suggest that they remain strong awards contenders:

    Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx are on fire in the lead roles: They’re both charismatic as hell without sacrificing any of the emotional honesty necessary for you to believe that these movie stars are a scruffy reporter and a mentally ill musician … True, Academy members tend to remember only the last three months of a year when voting, but these performances are extraordinary enough that the memory should not fade by fall.

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  • Happy anniversary

    As milestones go, it’s not one for the record books, but the sentimentalist in me feels compelled to note that it is precisely one year today since I made my first modest contribution to this noble site. How time flies.

    Okay, so you all forgot, but I forgive you. No need to send flowers. (But hey, if you were looking for a tenuous excuse to have a few drinks today, let this be it.) Anyway, it’s been a consistent pleasure writing for, and conversing with, you guys over the last twelve months. Long may it continue.

    (Something else that happened exactly a year ago, by the way? My beloved twins “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “In Bruges” were born on the same day in their — and my — home country. 2008 certainly got off to a good early start, didn’t it?)

  • Sofia Coppola checks into ‘Somewhere’

    Sofia CoppolaIt seems to have become fashionable to dismiss Sofia Coppola as a lightweight in recent years, so news of her fourth feature film may be greeted with trepidation by some folks.

    Not me, though. My relationship with “Marie-Antoinette” has shifted over time from guarded admiration to fully-blossomed love, while “Lost in Translation” remains, for me, the impeccably judged mood piece I always thought it was. (Detractors call it “slight”; I prefer “fragile.”)

    In any case, the many who were on board with “Translation,” but disembarked at her hyper-stylised period piece, will probably be relieved to hear that, for her next effort, Coppola is returning to the contemporary, serio-comic territory (and studio) of the former film — luxury hotel setting included. Variety reports:

    Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning will star in the Focus Features dramedy “Somewhere,” which Coppola penned. Story centers on a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter, he is forced to reexamine his life.

    The filmmaker, who said she has been looking to make “an intimate story set in contemporary Los Angeles,” received permission to shoot at the hotel, which has become notorious in recent years as a popular address for tabloid-friendly celebs. Film will lense in L.A. and Italy in June and July.

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  • Rare bird

    James Gandolfini in In the LoopRegular Guardian readers will know that Peter Bradshaw, the paper’s perma-grouch film critic, doesn’t dole out five-star ratings lightly — in the past half-year or so, only “The Class” has made the grade. So I’m interested to see Bradshaw going all out for “In the Loop,” a modest British political satire that had hitherto only been at the edge of my radar, despite some tasty ingredients.

    The film, which opens Friday in the UK and in July Stateside, carries more built-in appeal for followers of recent British TV comedy, principally cult series “The Thick of It” — of which “In the Loop” is a direct spinoff, sharing some characters and the creative team led by Armando Iannucci — here making his feature helming debut.

    Meanwhile, co-writer Jesse Armstrong also is one of the geniuses behind sitcom “Peep Show,” so I’m in regardless. And throwing James Gandolfini into the very limey-flavoured mix only makes things more interesting. Looks like a political weekend at the movies for me, then.

    Very funny trailer after the cut. Here’s Bradshaw’s take:

    Some movies have the knack of arriving at the most painfully right time. Just as Damian McBride’s blood is being Dysoned off the carpet at No 10 and Derek Draper’s fingerprints removed from the Chequers dining table, here comes Armando Iannucci’s horribly brilliant comedy about this government’s culture of spin and muddle … The acting is superb, and the writing is relentlessly funny — vicious and delicious. And refreshingly, there isn’t a sympathetic character in sight.

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  • Pot, meet kettle

    American Apparel ad featuring Woody AllenToday’s most hilarious news item concerns an unlikely pair of names: Woody Allen and, uh, American Apparel.

    The root of the story is commonplace enough: Allen sued the clothing company last year for using his image on a series of advertising billboards, without the filmmaker’s authorisation. A fair enough gripe, surely, though I’d question whether it’s worth $10 million. (Is this Woody’s new method of financing pictures? If so, I’m all for it.)

    American Apparel, however, has responded by taking the decidedly low road:

    The company plans to make Allen’s relationships to actress Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Manhattan on May 18, according to the company’s lawyer, Stuart Slotnick.

    “Woody Allen expects $10 million for use of his image on billboards that were up and down in less than one week. I think Woody Allen overestimates the value of his image,” Slotnick said. “Certainly, our belief is that after the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America’s desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is.”

    It’s a funny tactic, to be sure, but a bit rich coming from a company whose CEO, Dov Charney, famously masturbated in front of a journalist, and has faced numerous sexual harassment lawsuits from his own employees.

    I love Allen, and am wearing an American Apparel T-shirt as we speak, but neither party exactly earned my devotion through ethical excellence — though I think Allen has the upper hand in this instance. More details here, and another of the offending billboards after the cut.

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  • Gorgeous ‘alternative’ poster for ‘Brothers Bloom’

    I may only be lukewarm on the film itself, but I wholeheartedly adore this poster design for “The Brothers Bloom,” which recalls (to me, at least) a 1970’s Robert Altman effort in its intricate, throwback Americana style. Dreamed up by director Rian Johnson’s cousin Zach, it seems it’s only being used for web purposes, though it captures the film’s retro preciousness a lot better than the thoroughly generic official one-sheet (pictured below the cut).

    One quibble with both posters: I realize that Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz are Oscar winners while Mark Ruffalo remains unnominated (where’s the justice in that?), but hasn’t the latter star at least earned the right to be billed above the title?

    The Brothers Bloom

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  • Wells stumps for Bateman

    Jason Bateman in State of PlaySo far, the reviews for Kevin Macdonald’s “State of Play” seem uniformly warm — which comes as a relief to me after the rather indifferent vibe I got from the film’s entire marketing strategy.

    Todd McCarthy describes it as an “efficient, admirably coherent thriller” — welcome adjectives considering the level of condensation required from the original six-hour miniseries — and casts praise in multiple directions, from Russell Crowe’s lead turn (“a brilliant character actor hiding inside a leading man’s body”) to Mark Friedberg’s production design (“won’t likely be matched anytime soon”). Screen International’s Fionnula Halligan sings a similar tune, commending the film for its “edgy bristle” and “surgical” adaptation.

    Both critics also take time to single out the supporting contribution of Jason Bateman for praise, but it’s Jeff Wells who is most impressed by the “Arrested Development” star, going so far as to advocate:

    Hollywood Elsewhere hereby submits Jason Bateman’s performance in State of Play — a performance I admittedly didn’t mention in my review posted earlier today — as the first supporting performance of 2009 deserving of award consideration. He plays a sleazy Washington, D.C. publicist named Dominic Foy, and is quite good in a sort-of sweaty and grotesque way.

    Wells, meanwhile, is also a fan of the film as a whole. Good news all round, then — I’m looking forward to the weekend just a little bit more.

  • Romanek begins shooting ‘Never Let Me Go’

    Never Let Me GoLast week, I mentioned how fully in the tank I am for Lynne Ramsay’s upcoming “We Need To Talk About Kevin.” Today, meanwhile, brings updated news of another British-funded adaptation with a mighty literary source, perfect-on-paper cast and exciting filmmaker who has been quiet for too long.

    The film in question is Mark Romanek’s take on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 masterpiece, “Never Let Me Go.” Both Fox Searchlight and Film4 (a pairing that previously brought us “Slumdog Millionaire”) have a hand in the project, which started principal shooting today in the UK. Anyone familiar with Ishiguro’s novel will see why it’s a potentially snug fit for Romanek, the music video auteur extraordinaire who hasn’t settled on a feature-length vehicle for his gifts since the mixed bag that was 2002’s “One Hour Photo.”

    Ishiguro’s supremely elegant science-fiction tale — a romantic dystopian narrative hard to synopsise without entering spoiler territory — should provide the right balance of elegiac emotional texture to complement Romanek’s sometimes distancing visual sheen. With Alex Garland (“The Beach,” “28 Days Later”) handling script duties, the project promises a very exciting merger of three pristine stylists.

    Meanwhile, the cast — a veritable showcase of Britain’s brightest rising talent — isn’t too shabby either: Sally Hawkins has just been added to a roster that already includes Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield (so riveting in “Boy A” and “Red Riding”), with Charlotte Rampling adding veteran class.

    Even if you don’t know the source material, you have to admit this sounds pretty exciting on paper. Of course, Ishiguro’s opalescent, china-fragile prose (okay, I’m a long-time devotee) provides numerous opportunities to trip up less delicate filmmakers — but as the Merchant-Ivory team proved back in 1993, it can be done, and with less intrinsically cinematic source material to boot. I’m sensing something special in the works here.

  • Simon Channing Williams (1945-2009)

    Simon Channing WilliamsThese days, there aren’t many producers in the often too-cosy British film industry who genuinely earn the adjective “fearless,” but Simon Channing Williams, who passed away last Saturday after a long battle with cancer, was one of them.

    As much credit as auteur Mike Leigh deserves for changing the landscape of British cinema with his stinging social comedy and defiantly unorthodox creative process, Channing Williams merits the same appreciation for backing Leigh on every one of his projects since his breakthrough feature “High Hopes” in 1988 — however tenuously defined or commercially unsound they may have appeared to be at the outset.

    The constance of Channing Williams’ collaboration gave Leigh the wherewithal and confidence to push his art into ever more challenging and surprising directions, encompassing the icy philosophising of “Naked,” to the warm domestic melodrama of “Secrets and Lies,” the brittle classicism of “Vera Drake” to the loose-limbed yet black-edged comedy of last year’s “Happy-Go-Lucky.” It truly stands as one of the industry’s greatest producer-director partnerships, and it’s hard to imagine a future Leigh film without Channing Williams’ name attached. As Leigh himself commented:

    He was a natural-born producer, a great leader, always an enabler, a protector; never a dictator or an interferer. Infinitely generous, his life was all about doing things for people, and bringing out the best in everybody. He was the ultimate fixer, and a phenomenal organiser. He relished the impossible challenge, and loved the cut-and-thrust of negotiations, at which he was a genius.

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  • Startling ‘Antichrist’ trailer

    Put Lars von Trier and Charlotte Gainsbourg together, and you have me at hello, so I don’t need to be sold — but damn it if this fragmentary-nightmare trailer doesn’t sell me on the film anyway.

    I wasn’t quite expecting a full-throttle dive into horror from von Trier, but that’s certainly the vibe given off here. Intriguing. I assume this will crop up at Cannes?

    [Source: First Showing]

  • Take the money and run, part two

    Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las VegasJust a few days after I bemoaned the fact that an actor of Jackie Earle Haley’s calibre must resort to headlining a retread of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” comes even more depressing news.

    Almost fifteen years after collecting an Oscar nomination for a performance that most actresses would find to be career-making, poor Elisabeth Shue is reduced to starring in Alexandre Aja’s remake of “Piranha.” In 3-D, mind you.

    Shue’s career trajectory, post-“Leaving Las Vegas,” has long been a mystery to me: beautiful, well-liked ingenue with a decent commercial track record finally gets a chance to show her serious dramatic chops, is duly recognised for her efforts, and then … nothing, save the obligatory Woody Allen ensemble slot, some window-dressing in a few flop action flicks, and now the chance to work with the creative force behind “Switchblade Romance” and “The Hills Have Eyes.” (The remake, of course.) Lucky lady.

    Somebody stop the madness. Or the remakes. Whichever comes first.

  • Sporting chance

    Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood on the set of Untitled Nelson Mandela ProjectRegular visitors to his entertaining blog will know that Nathaniel Rogers has become the latest lunatic to enter the fray of (nearly) year-in-advance Oscar predictions, and as ever, they make for great reading. He has a number of pretty interesting hunches, some of which line up with my own (sight unseen, I also think “An Education” could emerge as a biggish deal) and some in a decidedly crazysexycool vein. (Terry Gilliam a Best Director nominee? I can’t see it, but I wish I could.)

    For his top pick in the Best Picture category, however, Rogers sticks a little closer to the presumed script, guessing (like many others) that Clint Eastwood’s Mandela project is in the driver’s seat. He does, however, cannily note what too many other pundits have not — that the possibly-still-untitled film (we can only hope they find a more flavourful moniker than the bone-dry “The Human Factor”) is not strictly a Nelson Mandela biopic, but a sports drama of sorts:

    The inspirational sports film is a regular staple of the multiplex. Most of them come and go with nary an Oscar blip. It’s kind of the ugly stepchild within the family of stories Oscar really loves, the true story period piece. Every once in a while, though, this overly populated genre does attract Academy eyeballs (Chariots of Fire, Seabiscuit, Hoosiers) and if there’s any pairing that comes with automatic prestige cred and appealing “important!” political background, it’d have to be Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman mixed with Nelson Mandela and South Africa. It’s guesswork. Maybe it’ll be too light for the Academy.

    Having now read both Anthony Peckham’s script and John Carlin’s source book “Playing the Enemy,” I think Rogers might be on to something with the word “light” — though a serious-minded piece, the political content that you might expect in a film concerning arguably this era’s most revered politician is notably played down.

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  • As good as it gets

    Tilda Swinton at the 2007 Academy AwardsEver come across a match of star, director and project so uncannily perfect it gives you chills just thinking about it? That’s how I’m feeling upon learning (belatedly, I admit) that Tilda Swinton has signed on to star in Lynne Ramsay’s long-delayed adaptation of the Lionel Shriver bestseller “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”

    I’m not sure how it took the news so long to reach me (the NYT’s Carpetbagger blog reported this last month), given that “Kevin” has been my most anticipated cinematic endeavour — bar none — for several years now.

    There are a number of reasons for this. Shriver’s extraordinary novel (for the uninformed, it’s an epistolary breakdown of the circumstances leading to a high school massacre, as told by the teenage killer’s guilt-ridden mother) hit me like a well-aimed punch in the gut three years ago and resonates with me still. And Ramsay utterly earned my devotion with her first two features, “Ratcatcher” (1999) and “Morvern Callar” (2002): the young Scot could have the most distinctive aesthetic sensibility of any British filmmaker currently working.

    Meanwhile, the lead role is as complex and risky a challenge as any actress could hope to take on — a mother bereft of any maternal connection to her offspring from the outset, as candid as she is ultimately self-deluding, she both invites and repels empathy. Few actresses walk the line between fragility and opaqueness as intelligently as Swinton, and fewer still would be brave enough to take on such a defiantly unsympathetic part. This is a casting bullseye.

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  • When does he sleep?

    Only the other day, I mentioned how glad I was to see David O. Russell keeping himself busy after the lengthy, hobbled production of his upcoming comedy “Nailed.” But I didn’t realize he was keeping himself this busy.

    Mere days after the announcement of his attachment to the Weinstein Company’s “The Silver Linings Playbook,” comes news of yet another directorial commitment for the man: this time a romantic comedy, “Aaron and Sarah,” that apparently has John Hughes overtones. Variety reports:

    Story centers on a nerdy guy and a popular girl who meet as freshmen and, over four years of high school, four proms and one funeral, become friends and eventually fall in love. Husband-wife team Chad Gomez Creasey and Dana Resnik Creasey penned the screenplay.

    Producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen (“American Beauty,” “Milk”) lend extra cred. Meanwhile, if I don’t hear word of another new Russell project before the month is out, I’ll be deeply disappointed.

  • One from the vault

    No, it’s not a vintage Grateful Dead gig poster, but it’s close enough. I love that this new one-sheet for Ang Lee’s upcoming “Taking Woodstock” made its first appearance on the Rolling Stone site. I love that they’ve fully embraced the fabulous-slash-hideous design possibilities of its era. And I love that a relative prestige picture isn’t disguising the tongue-in-cheek element in its marketing approach. Good work.

    Taking Woodstock

  • Under the radar: ‘Song of Sparrows’

    Song of SparrowsAs the box office charts reveal, spring can be a harsh season for the discerning filmgoer — with the industry shifting its focus from prestige product before February’s Oscar winners can even shake off their hangovers, we have to dig deeper than usual for fare with more on its mind than monsters, aliens and petrol.

    The good news is that this fallow period affords a few miniature gems more breathing room than they would otherwise receive in the crush of awards season. With so little else to entice them, more adventurous viewers may be inclined to take a chance on a range of challenging stragglers from last year’s festival circuit, the brilliant “Hunger” and “Sugar,” and the much-acclaimed “Goodbye Solo,” among them.

    Joining this selection of specialist titles in New York last week (and in LA this Friday) is “Song of Sparrows,” an unusual and thoroughly winning comedy-drama from Majid Majidi, the veteran Iranian auteur best known for such gently humanist works as “The Colour of Paradise” and “Children of Heaven.”

    The latter film made him the only Iranian filmmaker to date to receive an Oscar nomination — no minor distinction considering his compatriots include Abbas Kiarostami and Samira Makhmalbaf. Though “Song of Sparrows,” Iran’s official 2008 Oscar submission, fell short of repeating that feat, it displays many of the same aesthetic and thematic principles — its mellow, deliberate pacing, its observational, sentimentality-skirting use of child’s perspective, its unwavering concern with issues of faith and community — that distinguished his earlier works.

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  • Sort-of-new ‘Brothers Bloom’ trailer

    Not significantly different from the one they put out way back in the mists of 2008, this one comes with not one, but two ringing critical endorsements from AICN. Make of that what you will.

    From what I remember of my now 6 month-old viewing of the film, it’s a nice enough little trifle, elevated by a sly pair of comic turns from Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz. (Adrien Brody, by contrast, looks a little uneasy with this sort of gossamer material.) And it looks terrific, with some award-level costume design in particular — but I found the film’s overriding tweeness a little oppressive.

    All of which is to say I fear it might still struggle to find an audience, so I’m unsure if it stands to benefit from being pushed back so far. We’ll know next month.

  • Take the money and run

    Jackie Earle Haley in Little ChildrenJackie Earle Haley’s recently resuscitated career is a textbook example of how true the banal platitude “the nomination is the reward” can sometimes be. Prior to 2006, the former child star hadn’t made a film for 13 years; one devastating performance (in Todd Field’s undervalued “Little Children”), a smattering of critics’ awards and a richly deserved Oscar nomination later, he’s a steadily working character actor with a reasonably high-profile slate of projects to his name.

    Sure, “Watchmen” may not have panned out all that well, but it was a pretty amazing get for a 47 year-old non-star — and his performance is deemed by many to be the embattled film’s brightest spot. And getting to work with Scorsese in “Shutter Island” is none too shabby either, I would imagine. So when people say that awards are inconsequential, I’m sure the likes of Haley might beg to differ.

    So it was with mixed feelings that I read the news that Haley is taking on the role of Freddy Krueger in New Line’s upcoming reboot of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise. On the one hand, it’s nice for the thesp to get to be the centrepiece of a project for a change, and a potentially profitable one at that; on the other, surely yet another remake of an iconic horror title is good news for precisely no one else. When will this particularly lazy trend run out of steam?

    I understand that an actor of Haley’s age, appearance and profile probably doesn’t have a wealth of tempting projects to choose from, but it’s a little grim that a gifted actor has to resort to this. Here’s hoping there are more  Fields and Scorseses in his future yet.