In Contention

Category: Daily

  • Danny Elfman meets Ennio Morricone

    Hans ZimmerThat’s what I’ve decided the Hans Zimmer score for “Sherlock Holmes” is.  I’ve been listening to it all weekend.  The themes present in that brief snippet we led off yesterday’s Oscar Talk are felt throughout in different ways, but mostly I keep getting a spaghetti western homage.  Specifically, the mandolin picking of Morricone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” score gets a bold tip of the hat, mixed with a jaunty rhythm that just puts a smile on your face.

    I know when I brought this up last week a number of people thumbed their nose at Zimmer, and that’s fine.  I get the animosity to an extent.  But even with the homages, this is a pretty substantial, creative piece of work, in my book.  And I can’t be pegged as being in the tank for bombast because my favorite score of the year is probably still Mark Bradshaw’s subtle work on “Bright Star.”

    I thought I’d offer up the first track on the “Holmes” score, a bit called “Discombobulate.”  Have a listen and tell us what you think:

    [audio:http://www.incontention.com/audio/discombobulate.mp3]

  • D.C. critics fire the starting gun, ‘Up in the Air’ dominates

    (from left) George Clooney and Vera Farmiga in Up in the AirThe Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association has kicked off the critics’ kudos season with a most uninspired list of nominations.  I say uninspired because, aside from a random nomination for Maya Rudolph in the lead actress category, there doesn’t seem to be a single damn original bone in the group’s body.

    “Up in the Air” led the way with 8 nominations and is pretty much on track to be the critics’ darling of the year, while “Precious” and “The Hurt Locker” each landed 7 each.  I imagine a similar tally will be attributed to those films when the Oscar nominees are announced.  Which raises the question: Are the D.C. critics trying to emulate AMPAS here?  I never follow them closely, not beyond the requisite announcement posts each year (I tend to get REALLY burned out on all the critics’ awards, frankly).

    But seriously.  They had to see more than 33 films this year, right?  Because out of 70 possible nominees, that’s how many films were spread across the field.  Kind of sad, really.

    Check out the full list of nominees after the jump.  And the group’s list of winners last year here.

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  • Paramount FYC site goes live

    One of the things I always look forward to each year has been the launch of VantageGuilds.com, an FYC site that was geared toward Paramount Vantage’s product and always had great interactive features and wonderful design.  This year, with Vantage gone, we’ve got ParamountGuilds.com, which just went live.

    You can check out some goodies related to “Star Trek” and “Up in the Air” right now.  I’m told the content for “The Lovely Bones” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” will be available next week.  For now, give the image below a click and have a look.

    ParamountGuilds.com

  • WEEKLY WRAP: NBR winners, Spirit nods and Jeff Bridges

    Jeff Bridges• The National Board of Review offered the season’s first major precursors, with “Up in the Air” sitting pretty.

    • The Independent Spirit Award nominations were topped by “Precious” and, more surprisingly, “The Last Station.”

    • Indie award rivals the Gotham Awards, meanwhile, crowned “The Hurt Locker” as the year’s best.

    • Fresh off his Spirit nomination, we served up an extended interview with the great Jeff Bridges.

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  • Variety reflects on foreign Oscar history

    Giuletta Masina in La StradaThe mark of a true Oscar geek is the self-assignment of nuttily completist viewing exercises. Only a select few understand the drive to track down every Oscar-affiliated titles in existence — however obscure, expensive or awful — all so one can say with absolute authority who should have won, say, Best Actor in 1952. (Alec Guinness, since you ask.)

    As small an achievement as it appears to the uninitiated, I remember the sense of triumph I felt upon excavating a VHS copy of “Cavalcade,” then the last remaining Best Picture winner I hadn’t seen. (Triumph soon turned to agony as I actually watched the film, but I prefer to forget that.)

    So I doff my hat to Variety critic Peter Debruge. Inspired by a montage in the 2007 Academy Awards broadcast — see, the montages aren’t completely useless after all — Debruge set himself the task of watching every Best Foreign Language Film winner in Oscar history, encompassing 61 titles ranging from the canonized to the buried.

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  • When one decade isn’t enough

    Apocalypse NowAmid the plethora of “best of the 2000s” lists doing the rounds, the London Film Critics’ Circle has decided to go one (or two, rather) better.

    Since the end of this decade coincides with the organization’s 30th anniversary, they’ve rather oddly elected five standout films of the last three decades.

    Take note that it’s not a comprehensive “best films” study. The five titles have been selected from the list of previous top-category winners at their own annual awards ceremony. (“The Wrestler” was their choice this year.)

    Anyway, they made the most of their time span, going all the way back to 1979 for their #1 choice: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” I find it hard to argue with that, personally. Anyway, for all you list junkies out there, their top five is after the cut.

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  • 10 live action short films short-listed by AMPAS

    Sidney TurtlebaumThe Academy announced today 10 finalists for the Best Live Action Short category.  They are:

    • “The Door,” Juanita Wilson, director, and James Flynn, producer (Octagon Films Ltd.)
    • “The Ground Beneath,” Rene Hernandez, director, and Kristina Ceyton, producer (Passion Pictures)
    • “Hotel,” Tim Conrad, director-producer (Oyster Films)
    • “Instead of Abracadabra,” Patrik Eklund, director, and Mathias Fjellstrom, producer (Direktorn & Fabrikorn)
    • “Kavi,” Gregg Helvey, director-producer (Gregg Helvey)
    • “Miracle Fish,” Luke Doolan, director, and Drew Bailey, producer (Druid Films)
    • “The New Tenants,” Joachim Back, director, and Tivi Magnusson, producer (Park Pictures)
    • “The Response,” Adam Rodgers, director, and Sig Libowitz, producer (Look at the Moon Productions)
    • “Short Term 12,” Destin Daniel Cretton, director-producer, and Michelle Steffes, producer (Destin Cretton)
    • “Sidney Turtlebaum,” Tristram Shapeero, director, and Daniel Jewel, producer (Third Man Films Limited)

    Check out excerpts/trailers for six of these films after the jump.

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  • ‘Brooklyn’s Finest’ trailer

  • Oscar Talk delay

    Just an FYI, Anne and I are pretty much slammed today.  Everything decided to bunch up at the end of the week.  So we’re going to hold off on Oscar Talk until tomorrow morning.  Stay tuned.

  • Oh yeah, the ‘Nine’ embargo lifted…

    (from left) Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicole Kidman in NineIt’s one of those things when you show a film early and hold everyone to an embargo for a number of weeks.  I imagine there are people like me who run out of the passion and desire to write about some films, and over the last few weeks, “Nine” has been that film for me.

    I discussed the film, of course, with Anne in last week’s Oscar Talk and I think I said most of what I would write anyway.  I will say that I’m probably 99.9% in agreement with what David Poland has written, especially his thoughts on casting, Marion Cotillard’s final number being one of the few moments of actual emotion in the film, the detriment of a central character’s frivolous motives and desires, etc.

    Oscars?  I think what you see in the sidebar, for the most part.  I saw the SAG go wild for it, but I also know this is a film that could run into trouble when it comes to resonating.  So a month from now, would the applause be so grand?  I don’t know.  Marshall could run into trouble with the directors, unless they just feel like honoring him for knowing how to stage a number (keyword: stage).  Day-Lewis could miss.  Dench could slide in over Cruz, given the more interesting throughline she represents for the main character, etc.

    Below the line, of course, nods all the way across.  But it’s a real question mark about how this film will ultimately settle when the high of the music is long gone and people are left with their thoughts on what they just saw, and whether it has the substance to keep reminding them.  We’ll see.

  • Listen to Leona Lewis’s ‘I See You’ from ‘Avatar’

    Leona LewisWe were going to be featuring U2’s track “Winter” from Jim Sheridan’s “Brothers” today, but we’ll hold off until Monday on that as the love theme from one of the most anticipated films of the year has crossed our path this morning.

    Leona Lewis was revealed a few weeks ago as the crooner responsible for “I See You,” the central tune of James Cameron’s “Avatar.” I imagine that, much like Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” in “Titanic,” the melodies of the track will be evident throughout James Horner’s score.  No one has seen the film yet (December 10 is the date for me), so it’s difficult to say exactly how the song is implemented in the film.  I do know it’s a closing credits tune, but again, it could have a presence throughout.

    Dion’s song, of course, won the Oscar in 1997, so it’s fair to think “I See You” will be a formidable contender here, but in this brave new (arbitrary) world of Academy music branch voting, all bets are off.  This is a bit, I don’t know, overly produced, a bit schmaltzy, but I’ll hold off full judgment on it until I saw how it’s used in the film.  It has striking parallels to “My Heart Will Go On” here and there, though.

    Have a listen to the song below and tell us what you think.

    [display_podcast]

  • The Great Performances: 2003

    Sean Penn in Mystic RiverThere is little doubt in my mind I am going to take some heat this week, so let’s kick it off right away with my belief that Sean Penn deserved his Best Actor Oscar for “Mystic River,” a performance of overwhelming ferocity and staggering emotional power.

    Yes, I too loved Bill Murray in “Lost in Translation,” and would have loved to have seen him win, but he didn’t, and frankly he lost to a stronger performance (in my opinion). I know it is a cliche to say the nomination is the reward, but I would hope that Murray would be happy with that.

    But there were so many great male performances in 2003!

    Robert Duvall was superb in “Open Range” as the wily old rancher who ends up in a gunfight for his life with his friend, played by the also fantastic Kevin Costner, by his side. Tom Cruise gave a great performance in “The Last Samurai” for director Edward Zwick, while Russell Crowe was again brilliant in “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” adding to his string of stunning performances.

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  • 12/4 Oscarweb Round-up

    Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones• Peter Knegt talks to “Up in the Air” supporting actress hopeful (and newly minted NBR award recipient) Anna Kendrick. [indieWIRE]

    • Stanley Tucci and how to (reluctantly) play a pervert. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Peter Jackson, meanwhile, doesn’t much care about an Oscar campaign but does hope that people look closely at Tucci and Saoirse Ronan’s performances. [Vulture]

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  • ‘Up in the Air’ wins big at NBR

    Anna Kendrick in Up in the AirThe real question with today’s National Board of Review announcement wasn’t who won, but who didn’t win.

    A couple of ties and a list of honorees that seemed to canvas the entire crop of filmmaking product from 2009 adds something of a diluted quality to the proceedings, I must say.  Of course, it is worth noting that major titles like “The Lovely Bones” and “Nine” were not only absent from the list of the group’s top 10 films of the year, but they weren’t visible anywhere, in any category.

    The big winner was Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” which took down Best Film, Best Actor (George Clooney in a tie with “Invictus” star Morgan Freeman), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Kendrick) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

    “Invictus” also did well, nabbing a Best Director citation for Clint Eastwood (someone the NBR has shown, time and again, that they can’t resist) in addition to Freeman’s shared award and a mention in the Freedom of Expression category.

    (More, including a full list of winners, after the jump.)

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  • Ryan Bingham’s first live performance of ‘The Weary Kind’

    From yesterday’s press day for “Crazy Heart” in Beverly Hills, courtesy of Steve Pond at The Odds (who has an interview with the youngster up now).  Watch for our Tech Support interview with Bingham and T Bone Burnett later this afternoon.

  • Golden Globes announce 15 animated contenders

    Hardly something to stop the presses for, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has revealed the 15 eligible titles vying for a Best Animated Feature nod at the Golden Globes.

    It’s the same as the 20-title longlist from which the Academy will pick its nominees, minus the following five films: “Astro Boy,” “The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer,” “Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure,” “A Town Called Panic” and “The Secret of Kells.” A pity in the latter two cases. (Irish festival hit “Kells” surprised many with a Best Feature nod at the Annie Awards earlier this week.)

    In case you forgot, the Globes have expanded the category to include five nominees this year. Nominations are announced December 15. As you were.

  • Is Hans Zimmer someone to watch for ‘Sherlock Holmes?’

    (from left) Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock HolmesI’ve been hearing from vested interests for a long time now that Hans Zimmer’s score for Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” is something quite extraordinary.  I haven’t paid a lot of mind because it’s all jockeying for position and putting your best foot forward this time of year, etc.

    But the chatter is getting louder lately as more and more people see the film in-house.  It’s the one element that keeps being brought up and I have to wonder if there might be something to this.

    I have no idea what to expect.  Frankly I would have assumed something fairly standard for a film like this, but truly, Zimmer has been doing great work even in films that missed on nearly every other level (like, say, “The Da Vinci Code”).  He’s a seven-time nominee after all, despite his flirtations with action-oriented entertainments.  So it’s fair to assume we may be in for a pleasant surprise.

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  • 12/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    Natalie Portman• Donna Freydkin talks “Brothers” and  transitioning to an adult role with Natalie Portman. [USA Today]

    • Laura M. Holson talks to Tom Ford and others about the former Gucci creative director’s feature film debut, “A Single Man.” [New York Times]

    • Roger Ebert four-stars “Up in the Air.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

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