In Contention

Author: Kristopher Tapley

  • Battersea featured in ‘Dark Knight?’

    This one is a stretch, I know — and many of you could care less.  But I can’t escape “Dark Knight” news no matter where I turn.  Seriously, I just click on a link to a random news story about the revitalization of London’s Battersea Power Station, and there it is, staring me in the face.

    The Batman films are always valuable for their design elements, but I didn’t know this monolith — perhaps best known from the cover of Pink Floyd’s “Animals” (an image replicated two years ago in “Children of Men”) — was going to be featured in the film.  But it seems that’s the case.

    I can, like, see Battersea from my kitchen.  Very cool.

    Carry on…

  • “A duel between two powerful lone wolves”

    Yeah, Opie actually called it that.  A bit much, but anyway…

    Guy already passed along the news this morning that Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” will open the 52nd annual London Film Festival on October 15.  But I also stumbled onto this preview/interview with Howard at The Times of London that offers a little more insight than the Screen International story.

    Here’s more from the director:

    Peter Morgan calls it a thinking person’s Rocky and I agree with him…I loved the audacity of the story, this famous British guy being turned down by the US networks and then cobbling together his own network to clobber the Americans with their own stick. It’s just this tremendous act of entrepreneurial courage.

    And some key lines from Ben Hoyle’s copy:

    The stage play of Frost/Nixon opened at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, London, in August 2006 before transferring to the West End and later Broadway. Howard said that he read the script early on in the initial run. When he discovered that a frantic bidding war for the film rights was already under way, “I jumped on a plane to London with my wife and went to see it.” What he found was “one of the best theatre experiences of my life”…

    Critics adored the performances but some complained that Morgan had oversimplified the story, playing fast and loose with the interview transcripts and suggesting that the interviews sealed Nixon’s ignominy in the minds of the American people…Both Morgan and Howard empha-sise that Frost/Nixon is an impression of what happened in and around the interviews, not a docudrama.

    Check out the rest here.

  • Exclusive ‘Dark Knight’ set piece footage on ET

    I know, I know.  The Batman stuff is coming fast and furious.  Being out of the loop in Britain (re: press screenings) is pushing the site’s coverage of the film into the fanboy anticipatory realm, but I’m okay with that.  Kind of reminds me of the old days.

    Here’s a look at one of the big action set pieces of the film, which Entertainment Tonight showed exclusively last night:

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVWg0KHZl4E

  • Letterman’s top 3 reasons to see ‘The Dark Knight’

    1) Everyone dies in the end.
    2) The motorcycle.
    3) Heath Ledger.

    Yes, it seems late night king of comedy David Letterman got an early look at “The Dark Knight,” and while he pokes fun at the anticipation and, of course, the “keep it under wraps” mentality of the studio, there seems to be some genuine adoration for the effort in there.

    Money quote for Ledger:

    Heath Ledger…oh my God is he great in this one…I’m telling you, this is a tremendous performance.  That’s the reason people ought to go see this film.

    Check it out:

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=6-sXBkQ13EQ

    The new TV spot, featuring spooking Joker narration (after the jump):

    (more…)

  • Yet another early look at the ‘W’ script

    Poor “W” can’t catch a break.

    Stanley Weiser’s take on our Commander-in-Chief (*shiver*), had already caused a stir in more than a few areas before principle photography even began two months ago.  The first shockwave hit when the script was profiled by Marcus Baram for ABC News back in April.  Then The Hollywood Reporter consulted with four Bush biographers to assess the accuracy of the depiction. Their view: not so much.

    New York Magazine’s Vulture blog, always quick with the wit, predicted the film to be the comedy hit of 2009 before later getting their hands on a copy and enlisting the aid of the Upright Citizens Brigade to perform five of the more ridiculous moments for posterity’s sake.

    Weiser’s script quickly became the most widely circulated screenplay I’ve certainly ever heard of, and no one — save Jeffrey Wells — had a kind word to say about it.  So much drama and the film hadn’t even been fully conceived yet, as casting continued and locations were locked in for the April production start.

    We all know Oliver Stone was adament that the film (formerly known as “Bush” — clever titles all around) be in the marketplace “before the president leaves office in January.” But he might be wishing he’d just sprung this thing on everyone like a true October surprise.

    And now, another voice has chimed in.  Ryan Adams of Awards Daily had this to say:

    Sad to report, having now read the complete screenplay, I can assure you that the groaners we saw two months ago were the good parts. The teaser poster publicity material doesn’t try to pretend that ‘W’ intends to portray Bush as anything except an embarrassing joke. But guess what? I don’t find war crimes very funny. Yuck it up Oliver Stone.

    Personally I think Adams is way off the mark and even a bit immature in his assessment of the script’s (and Stone’s) intentions, but if we do share a point of view it is that the screenplay is quite awful.

    I ran a brief one-off when I was about half-way through the script a few months back, but I’ll save the deeper discussion for August when we launch Page to Screen once again.  And of course, the real judgment ought to be saved for Stone’s finished product when Lionsgate releases it in the Fall.

  • ‘Knight’ falls in L.A. tomorrow (and Travers jumps the gun)

    FYI.  Keep those lids peeled for reviews coming form tomorrow’s Los Angeles screening.

    In the meantime, Peter Travers has the first official review up at Rolling Stone.  Here’s a taste:

    Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan’s absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005’s Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There’s something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe.

    And praise for Ledger, as if we weren’t expecting it:

    I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker. Miles from Jack Nicholson’s broadly funny take on the role in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Ledger takes the role to the shadows, where even what’s comic is hardly a relief…It’s typical of Ledger’s total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I’m Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there’s a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976’s Network, sign me up.

    The rest.

  • Patrick Goldstein joins the fray — honest to blog!

    <<< Not anymore!

    I was told last week that LA Times columnist Patrick Goldstein would be launching a blog of his own, and today I see that The Big Picture has morphed into just that.  I must say, even when I was tipped off to this development, I didn’t believe it.  This is the hater of all things blog we’re talking about.  His own publication agrees!

    Anyway, I’m glad the brass downtown finally dragged Goldstein kicking and screaming into the brave new world, however embarassing it might be for him.  Here’s what he has to say about it:

    But in journalism, it’s time for a change–big change. As you might have heard, this newspaper, along with virtually every other paper in the country, is under siege. Our whole business model is in free fall–circulation is dropping, profits are down and lots of talented people are losing their jobs. We can moan and groan about it or we can try something new.

    Now pick your jaw up off the ground and go give him a look.  Personally, I think he’ll enjoy it.  At the very least, that blogger-induced anger will have a daily outlet, and perhaps we won’t have to endure one of those yearly “they’re ruining everything” columns.  Then again…

  • Just do it

    Many thanks to reader Mr. Gittes (perhaps as much a Bat-fiend as yours truly), who pointed me to this Wired story detailing director Christopher Nolan’s torrid love affair with all things practical in the world of action cinema.

    Much has been said and written of Nolan’s preference for saving the CGI drama for your mama and having the cojones to go out and actually do the stunts, prepare the gasp-inducing set-pieces and thereby root the new Batman franchise in the reality it deserves and, in a sense, begs for.

    There are so many quotable lines in Scott Brown’s incredibly thorough piece that I find myself anxiously picking and choosing.  But I suppose it’s worth it to start with the basic leader:

    While today’s action heroes routinely come dressed in shades of the giddy synthetic (à la Spider-Man and Iron Man), movie fans have gorged on digital eye candy — and, perhaps fearing retinal diabetes, now they’re cutting back (Speed Racer, anyone?). Still, gritty naturalism is no small leap for the spandex genre. It’s a mood more identified with art noir and the prestige pic, the kind of cinema built to attract Oscars, not mass audiences…

    …Nolan has a cogent Theory of Applied Batmatics: Insist on reality — no effects, no tricks — up to the point where insisting on reality becomes unrealistic. Then, in postproduction, make what is necessarily unreal as real as possible. “Anything you notice as technology reminds you that you’re in a movie theater,” Nolan explains. “Even if you’re trying to portray something fantastical and otherworldly, it’s always about trying to achieve invisible manipulation.” Especially, he adds, with Batman, “the most real of all the superheroes, who has no superpowers.”

    Then perhaps segue into the most refreshing news yet (news to me, anyway), regarding ADR on the film:

    Nolan would rather fix it while everyone’s still on the set. He hates to loop. “I just think separating the voice from the face and the body is very tricky,” he explains. It is, after all, blatantly unreal.

    So did the director get everything he needed from Ledger before his death? He says yes: Ledger nailed it in principal photography. Thomas adds, “Everything you see onscreen is his performance.” (In other words, there’ll be no clunky digital resurrection, aural or visual, no morbid echoes of Oliver Reed’s posthumous performance in Gladiator.) Besides, Nolan doesn’t believe in bringing an actor back six months later and expecting him to re-create the nuances of a character, any more than he believes a computer can re-create the quality of human camera work on its own.

    But I can’t resist offering up the line Mr. Gittes chose, the line that’ll force the hairs on any fanboy’s neck to stand at attention:

    He was moving on. But there was one small problem with leaving Batman behind: He knew how he wanted it all to end. He had something Godfather-ish in mind, a saga of dark doubles and transfiguration — big, dense, and novelistic.

    It’s quite an absorbing piece, with more than its fair share of tech-talk, from the realities of shooting with giant IMAX cameras to descriptions of filming Christian Bale actually standing on top of the Sears Tower.

    Check it out.  You know you want to.

  • Holy bitchslap, Batman!

  • Leone at the Goldwyn

    I hate that I missed this, but did anyone happen to make the 40th anniversary resotration screening of “Once Upon a time in the West” last week? It screened at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater Friday night. I’d love to know what the print looked like, though news of the exhibition may have flown under everyone’s radar (I know it flew under mine).

  • ‘Dark’ weekend coming up

    Alright folks…we’re getting close.  Judging by that poll a few weeks ago, “The Dark Knight” is far and away the most anticipated film of the summer with the IC readership, so I expect you won’t mind my further indulgence in the lead-up to the release.

    But there’s actually something to talk about now.  The film is junketing this weekend in Los Angeles and I expect there might be an embargo in place, but if reviews and/or opinions start to drift out into cyberspace by this time next week, you’ll know they are legit.  There was already a supposed review at this UK outlet, but I can’t be sure of the veracity given how vague the copy is.

    (I’m still trying to line up a London screening, but dealing with WB’s international publicity has been a painfully slow process.  You’d think being such a friend to the franchise MIGHT count for some diligence and/or returned emails.  Oh well…)

    In the meantime, here’s a clip featuring some of the new score.  It’s pretty dark, expectedly taking off from the themes of “Batman Begins,” but with a harder, more immediate and eerily agressive edge.  I can’t wait to hear the stuff cooked up for the Joker.  Have a listen:

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehSAqruwRtQ

    (More neat-o YouTube DK discoveries after the jump.)

    (more…)

  • “Fuck you, that’s my name.”

    By way of our friends at Cinematical I stumbled across this Onion A.V. Club article — a truly genius post.  It’s a countdown of the top cameo performances of all time, a “one-scene wonders” list of 20 memorable cinematic moments.

    Like Eric Snider at Cinematical, I can’t find a single bone to pick with The Onion’s #1 choice.  In honor of all things Baldwin, I give you the searing opening sequence from James Foley’s (make that David Mamet’s) “Glengarry Glen Ross”:

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY

    I also love the inclusion of Ned Beatty’s Oscar nominated five minutes in “Network,” though the rest of the list is quite arguable.  The “Zodiac” tie in the final slot is an inspired choice, however.

  • Heartbreaking news…

    Because “WALL-E” doesn’t open in the UK until mid-July, there haven’t been, nor will there be any press screenings lined up.  I’ll have to wait until I’m back in the States.

    LAM-E.

  • David Gordon Green hearts Steven Seagal

    David Gordon Green took a strong dive into a typical post-film school career in 2000, and I’ve never been afraid to admit that his breed of cinema failed to speak to me on pretty much every level (despite us sharing an alma mater).  I found “George Washington” to be derivative, “All the Real Girls” to be unqualified (though it is my favorite of Green’s efforts and is certainly striving for something more) and “Undertow” to be an utter mess.  I’ve not yet seen “Snow Angels” (though I plan to).

    However, “Pineapple Express” has real promise.  Not because I want desperately to see something so anti-Green, but because a filmmaker who has so quickly identified himself within a certain milieu is willing to go there.  I have no doubt Green has a sense of humor (we’ve never met though we have countless mutual friends), but it says something when a guy is willing to stretch that part of his creativity and offer a different side of his persona to a fan base that, frankly, might be unnerved by it.

    With that in mind, I’ve been meaning to link to this Guardian item since I read it on the tube a week ago.  It’s a heart-felt appreciation for action star Steven Seagal and, apparently, is part of an introduction for the upcoming book “Seagalogy.”  Since I’ve got “Pineapple Express” on the brain these last few days (M.I.A. on the iPod, supporting actor updates bouncing around my head, etc.), now’s as good a time as any to give it some space:

    Who wants to see Jean-Claude Van Damme in Death Warrant or Cyborg when you could witness the brutal human elegance of Seagal’s Marked for Death or the astonishing Hard to Kill? His stretch of films that promoted themselves with three dramatic words was for me a trademark and a guarantee that I would be getting my money’s worth…

    …A strange tide turned as his fame and fortune grew. Perhaps it was the dazzling spotlight of Tinseltown that prompted a shift in his work. He was no longer studying linguistics and martial arts in the Orient and making intimate action movies. Suddenly, I found myself sitting in front of a slew of message films. Beginning with On Deadly Ground, Seagal began to slip environmental themes, spiritual quests and politics into his films. Perhaps he had lost touch with reality and was living in a vacuum. Where was the soft-spoken shitkicker I gravitated toward in my youth?

    Fortunately, as would any true movie fanatic, I was able to grow to appreciate his personal crusade. I chose to accept this curveball and take my own enjoyment and expectations to the next level.

    Check out the rest here.

    As for “Pineapple Express,” I’m glad to see James Franco popping up on people’s radars lately.  He landed on our charts back in May and two people who’ve seen the film have told me the performance is sensational.  One thought it was destined to make people sit up and finally take notice of the actor, offering that an Oscar nod was indeed possible.  The other guy is completely in the tank for both the film and the performance but thinks Oscar might be a stretch.

    Whatever.  I can’t wait.  Finally someone might be able to reel Judd Apatow in a touch.

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=3ryfqsLt6Y0

  • Reel Geezers on ‘Polanski’

    I rarely link to these, but since Lorenzo from the Reel Geezers has some personal insight into Mr. Polanski, I thought it’d be worth tossing up the video.  The Reel Geezers review “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired”:

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FvE4HQwo-o

  • Off the subject

    To say the least.  But since I just sat staring out my window for a solid five minutes trying to come up with a decent film-related poll for this week (and drew a massive blank in the process), I figured we’d go off the beaten path with something fun and simple:

    WHO’S GONNA WIN EURO?!

    Tell us in the poll.

  • This one hurts

    George Carlin’s passing has been in the cards for a long time.  But MAN it stings.

    Personally I went from youthful (and therefore ignorant) adoration of the guy to a learned and mature wariness of his humor.  Later on, though, I came back around.  He did things with the English language that any writer had to respect, and I have to say, I’m really sad to hear the news.  I’m glad I had the chance to see him live, eight years ago now, and I wish him safe passage to that great venue in the sky.

    To which he’d no doubt say, “Fuck you, there is no God.”

    The infamous one:

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=BTyzTJTNhNk

  • Caine: “Heath might win an Oscar”

    From People magazine, an excerpt from an interview with Michael Caine concerning “The Dark Knight”:

    Caine, contemplating his co-star’s loss, goes so far as to predict Ledger might win an Oscar from beyond the grave for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight. “He was just so scary. Everyone was worried beforehand, because we knew he was going to be compared with Jack Nicholson’s brilliant Joker in the 1989 Batman. He surprised the life out of us all.”

    Not surprising coming from a connected source and all, though truth be told, all of the awards talk for Ledger really began to heat up nearly seven months ago when Caine began singing the highest praises for the performance.

    Also worth noting: An individual who saw the film a week ago didn’t hesitate on these matters when she said, quite confidently, “He’ll when an Oscar.”  Take it with a grain of salt, but just that such comments are making the rounds…

    Oooooh, boy.