In Contention

Author: Kristopher Tapley

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 most anticipated films of the 2011-2012 Oscar season

    If you haven’t noticed, this week has pretty much launched our 2011-2012 Oscar season coverage in earnest. Since it has been ages since we dusted of our lists feature here at In Contention, it seemed a good way to peek into the season was offering up a personal list of anticipations.

    I’ve seen a few things here and there, but mostly, I’m still fresh on what’s to come. I’ve been cautiously optimistic about what the season might hold all year long, because there are quite a few intriguing projects in the mix and I think we’re always just hungry for a healthy film awards season. Nevertheless, I found a few filmmakers curiously absent from my list.

    For instance, I haven’t heard much about Cameron Crowe’s “We Bought a Zoo,” but there is something about the project that isn’t clicking for me yet. The premise isn’t all that appealing. And when you tie that into the director’s last film — massive air ball “Elizabethtown” — well, let’s just say he’s dropped off my radar as of late. That having been said, I really want Crowe back on his game because he’s one of the great writing talents of the industry.

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  • ‘The Ides of March’ poster

    Some weeks back we posted the intriguing banner-style poster for George Clooney’s “The Ides of March.” I’ve been waiting on a typical one-sheet to make its way here and now, it has, fit with a dry tagline and more of that double imagery, given the placement of Clooney and Ryan Gosling’s heads. The film is set to play Venice very shortly. I imagine Guy will post a review some time in the next 24 hours. Check out the full poster after the jump.

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  • 8/30 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Mirren on her bod, ‘Exotic Marigold’ gets some press, films skipping fall fests

    • Helen Mirren on “The Debt,” getting played by Jessica Chastain and everyone’s ongoing obsession with her body. [Vulture]

    • Newly minted UK resident Julianne Moore talks “Crazy, Stupid, Love” across the pond. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Susan Wloszczyna talks shooting in India with “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” principals. [USA Today]

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  • Tweetminder

    Just a note, given the Telluride and Venice festivities on the way, and the fact that sometimes we can’t get back to the computer to file quick enough, be sure to follow @guylodge and me, @kristapley at Twitter for one-offs and general reactions to the two fests we’ll be covering.

  • McCarthy on Telluride and why a secret line-up works

    This morning’s festival preview Off the Carpet column offered up a cross-section of films taking bows in the next few weeks. But a number of them can’t exactly be confirmed for Telluride, because, as always, the line-up is kept secret. It’s a unique strategy that has served the fest well over the years, and over at The Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy pays tribute to the tactic.

    McCarthy is a very well-versed Telluride vet, so he knows what he’s talking about here. He charts the course of Oscar’s dance with the early fall fest, which first proved to be a launching pad for such a campaign back in 1992 when Neil Jordan’s “The Crying Game” waltzed unassumingly into the mountain village. But it was 2005, McCarthy notes, with the bows of soon-to-be Oscar big guns “Brokeback Mountain,” “Capote” and “Walk the Line” that studios really started to get serious about taking their products there for an early peek.

    Naturally, McCarthy eventually gets around to spit-balling potential films on the program, everything from the generally-expected “The Descendants” to Martin Scorsese’s set-for-Toronto documentary “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.” But the true virtue, again, is the sense of being surprised.

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  • Listen to Chris Cornell’s ‘The Keeper’ from ‘Machine Gun Preacher’

    I haven’t heard too many great things about Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher,” which is set for a bow at Toronto next month. I’ve been interested in it mainly for the contribution of Chris Cornell on the soundtrack, as the Soundgarden front man cooked up the original song “The Keeper” for the film.

    I haven’t seen the film so I can speak to how the song is used. It might be used organically within or saved for the closing credits. (Remember, it’s key to understand how a song is used in a film because that impacts perception in the Best Original Song voting.) It’s a rolling little ditty that’s pleasant enough, the kind of acoustic lingering Cornell seems to relish outside of his work with Soundgarden.

    The song was released exclusively today via Cornell’s website with an option to donate to Sam Childer’s Angels of East Africa charity. (Gerard Butler plays Childers in the film.) It will be available for download tomorrow via iTunes. Have a listen to “The Keeper” after the jump.

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  • Michael Shannon is a beast in the spectacular ‘Take Shelter’

    Not to overstate things, but it’s time to talk about Michael Shannon and the fact that it’ll be amazing if there is a better, more refined, more electrifying performance this year than his work in Jeff Nichols’s “Take Shelter.” This is his best work to date and it deserves a huge swell of awards support.

    I got to know Shannon a few years ago when he was on the campaign trail for “Revolutionary Road” (which yielded him a surprise Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor at the end of the year). When you know the softhearted guy behind the work, it’s all the more impressive. And in “Take Shelter,” he covers so much performance terrain with such controlled ease that it’s just awe-inspiring. He is one of the best of his generation, hands down.

    Oh, and that the performance comes in the midst of one of the year’s standout films, surrounded by equally confident portrayals of all shades, well… How many good things can you say about something before it’s just embarrassing? Let me try.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Fall fests look to boost early Oscar hopes

    On a warm Saturday afternoon in Telluride last year, I sat in the crowded Chuck Jones Cinema and felt the warmth in the room as Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” screened for its first audience of the year. Six months later, at the end of a road with plenty of twists and turns, the film’s producers held aloft the Oscar for Best Picture.

    In 2008, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” after previewing in Telluride, screened on the very same day as Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” at the Toronto International Film Festival. Six and 18 months later respectfully, same results. In 2007, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men” started its victory march at Cannes before moving into autumn fests. In 2004, Paul Haggis’s “Crash” bowed for Toronto audiences before a summer 2005 release and an eventual Oscar win.

    The obvious connection here is the festival circuit, particularly the fall festival circuit, which has become a significant launching ground for awards contenders in the last half-decade. And starting in two days with Guy’s Venice coverage, the 2011 fall festival season — and the awards potential it is sure to bring with it — officially kicks off around these parts.

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  • Almodovar tapped as Guest Director for AFI Fest

    The press release, in part:

    American Film Institute (AFI) announced today that internationally acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar will serve as its Guest Artistic Director at AFI FEST 2011 presented by Audi. AFI FEST — celebrating its 25th year in 2011 — will take place November 3 through 10 in Hollywood, California at the historic Chinese Theatre, the Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

    As Guest Artistic Director, Almodóvar will present a screening of his 1986 film, LAW OF DESIRE, commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the film and his production company, El Deseo S.A. He will also curate a sidebar program of films that have inspired his work (to be announced in October), and he will be featured in the creative campaign of AFI FEST 2011 presented by Audi…

    “I have an enormous respect for AFI FEST, which has always been very generous with me, so I am very honored to be its Guest Artistic Director this year,” said Almodóvar. “This will give me the chance to present a selection of some of my favorite films along with one of my own, LAW OF DESIRE, on its 25th anniversary. I’m looking forward to being in LA this November with my AFI FEST friends.”

    [Photo: Atomic Popcorn]

  • 8/29 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Help’ detractors racist?, Stoll on Hemingway, ‘Dangerous Method’ buzz

    Welcome to the new season…

    • “‘The Help’ isn’t racist. It’s critics are.” [The New Republic]

    • Pete Hammond takes note of indies looking to make Oscar plays this year. [Deadline]

    • Steve Pond talks to “Midnight in Paris” star Corey Stoll. [The Odds]

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘The Help’ stays on top

    At the end of the day, “The Help” could potentially be the #1 film at the box office for three straight weeks, a feat no film — not even “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” — could manage in 2011. That’s plenty of fuel for the upcoming Best Picture push. And though it may be the dog days of summer, with no real competition out there, that kind of nuance will just fade away when publicity starts banging the drum on the film’s box office.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba

    Disney held it’s big premiere for “The Lion King 3D” today at The El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, fit with live African bongo music, a green carpet (made of fake grass) and a “Hakuna Matata” dress code. Not a bad way to spend an early Saturday afternoon, and I’ve been looking forward to this for a little while now, I must say.

    First thing’s first: the 3D. It’s actually quite wonderful. I was struck by how much the conversion had to work with, as there is a lot of depth built into the film as is. Whether it’s the foreground/background of the ants and zebras in the prologue, the use of Red-billed Hornbill Zazu in flight or just the opportunity to lend striking separation in sequences like the pulp Nazi-inspired “Be Prepared” number, there was just a lot of opportunity to make the 3D effective. That’s always helpful.

    The movie, for me, is a perfect one, and my favorite animated film ever. I’ve always been taken by it’s story, taking cues from Shakespeare and painting one of the studio’s most indelible, thematically potent gems. I haven’t seen it in a theater since the summer of 1994, and I was choking up five minutes in.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • ‘The Artist’ trailer

    Guy offered up the new poster for Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” yesterday. Today we get a look at the trailer for the film, which played at Cannes, is set for Toronto and will more than likely pop up in Telluride, too. The first Gurus chart of the year had it very much in contention for a Best Picture nomination, so you can count this as one of the big possibilities of the upcoming season. Check out the trailer via Apple by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump. (But beware. It seems to me it lays out the whole damn story.)

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  • Taking questions for Oscar Talk

    If you can get them in quickly, we’re going to be recording tomorrow’s podcast in a few. I forgot to put this up earlier in the week, but anyway, maybe there is something pressing you want to run by us. Try to keep it to one question if you can. Rattle them off and we’ll see what we can get to.

  • “You don’t want the opinion of another writer.”

    One of the biggest delights of the year for me was Corey Stoll’s performance as Ernest Hemingway in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.” I had a giant grin on my face, ear to ear, the whole time he was on screen. So I’m glad David Poland dedicated one of his long-form interviews to the actor.

  • ‘Blackthorn’ trailer

    Things were looking up for the western after “True Grit” pulled in solid bank last year. But after “Cowboys & Aliens” took a massive dump at the box office this summer, well…I’m trying to keep the faith. We have a few projects on the way, others still percolating. One of them is Mateo Gil’s “Blackthorn,” featuring Sam Shepard as Butch Cassidy and proceeding from the premise that the famed outlaw made it out of Bolivia alive. The trailer was released today via Apple. Check it out by clicking the image below, or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • ‘The Lady’ poster

    Luc Besson’s “The Lady” doesn’t have domestic distribution in place yet, but the wheels are already turning as a teaser trailer dropped at Yahoo! Movies today. Meanwhile, a Shepard Fairey-designed poster based on the artist’s own piece celebrating Burmese revolutionary Aung San Suu Kyi has also hit. This film could certainly be an awards play for actress Michelle Yeoh and actor David Thewlis. It’ll be part of our festival preview in next week’s Off the Carpet column. For now, check out the full image after the jump.

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