In Contention

Category: Daily

  • The Times names Haneke’s ‘Caché’ the decade’s best

    Cache (Hidden)I’m not sure why the British broadsheets are all falling over themselves to publish their ‘best of the 2000s’ lists in early November, but mere days after The Telegraph critics declared Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” the film of the decade, The Times has weighed in with their own Top 100.

    In their list, a different Michael comes out on top: Haneke’s cryptic and rather brilliant 2005 thriller “Caché” (or “Hidden,” if you prefer), which only came in at #44 on the Telegraph list, is their pick of the last 10 years. (Has that threat of a Ron Howard remake gone away yet?) I must say, I’m happier with that choice than the Moore film, which doesn’t even feature on The Times list.

    That said, the lists’ objectives are different: The Telegraph aimed to gather the most significant films of the decade, disregarding aesthetic worth in some cases, while The Times has gone for a blunter ‘best films’ claim. Both lists are equally contentious and sometimes silly, as such group-think collectives tend to be. (“Team America” in the top 10 is an obvious attention-seeking ploy, but what of the British bias that places “Casino Royale” and “The Queen” similarly high?)

    (More, and the Times Top 20, after the cut.)

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  • Same-but-different ‘A Single Man’ trailer

    Well, they may have buggered up the poster, but they knew better than to mess with the gorgeous trailer we saw back in September. The Weinsteins’ first official trailer for Tom Ford’s startling debut replays the lush, wordless montage of the original, with a couple of Oscar-chasing quotes inserted for effect. (And not subtly, either: “There is already Oscar buzz for Julianne Moore” isn’t a critical endorsement, it’s a non-statement.)

    Regardless, it’s still neck-and-neck with “A Serious Man” (don’t tell me you’re still hazy on those titles) for the ‘trailer of the year’ distinction.

  • The Great Performances: 1999

    Terence Stamp in The Limey1999 was a strange year.  And it’s hard to believe a full decade has slipped past since.  There were some great award-winning performances, to be sure, but there seemed to be just as many not nominated that certainly should have been.

    Ten years later, I remain stunned that Reese Witherspoon was not nominated for her brilliant work in “Election” as a pathologically ambitious, grasping social climber student doing anything it takes to head up the student council in Alexander Payne’s astute and black comedy.

    Witherspoon won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Actress, besting eventual Oscar, LAFCA and NYFCC champ Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry.” What made Witherspoon’s work so incredible was that we all must have known a Tracy Flick during our high school days, and the actress created such an accurate depiction.

    Swank was a most deserving winner for her superb performance, winning over nominees, Annette Bening in “American Beauty,” Janet McTeer in “Tumbleweeds,” Julianne Moore in “The End of the Affiar” and Meryl Streep in “Music of the Heart” (perhaps the perennial Oscar favorite’s least accomplished nominated performance).

    Bening’s performance was brilliant, she won the Screen Actors Guild award for it, and though there seemed to be a swell of support for her as Oscar night approached, there was no denying Swank for her career-altering work.

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  • Christopher Plummer talks Tolstoy, “S&M” and his under-the-radar film career at AFI Fest

    Christopher Plummer was feted at AFI Fest Tuesday evening and I popped in for the brief toast before heading over to an unrelated Gala screening.  LA Weekly’s Scott Foundas was the moderator for an all-too-brief back and forth with the actor, who comes off as someone with whom you’d like to have a drink or 10.

    Some of the discussion was dedicated to Plummer’s memoir, “In Spite of Myself,” and a little bit of “The Last Station” thrown in here and there as well.

    I grabbed a couple of quick videos of the event. iPhone vids, mind you, so no 1080p detail going on here, but decent audio. Here’s Plummer discussing his work developing and performing the “character” of Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s “The Insider,” which leads to discussion of his role in Michael Hoffman’s Tolstoy biopic, which will likely land the actor his first ever Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.

    Two more quick vids after the jump.

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  • What is going to win Best Picture and why?

    Go.

  • A more fantastic fox

    I don’t think I need to explain why I love this. Props to graphic designer Sam Smith (and Jeff Wells for bringing it to light).

    Fantastic Mr. Antichrist

  • ‘A Prophet’ dominates European Film Award nominations

    Tahar Rahim in A ProphetIs “A Prophet” gradually stealing awards-season momentum from “The White Ribbon?” (It’s the superior film, if you ask me.) Too soon to say, of course, but it certainly came out on top in this morning’s European Film Award nominations.

    Jacques Audiard’s searing chronicle of French prison gangs leads the field with six nominations, to four for Michael Haneke’s German Palme d’Or winner. The two films, seen by many pundits as the chief contenders for the foreign-language Oscar, also appear to be the frontrunners here, continuing a rivalry that started way back in May at Cannes.

    Also beating “Ribbon”‘s total, with five nods (six, if you include the People’s Choice Award), is “Slumdog Millionaire,” which didn’t make last year’s cut-off date. The film’s popularity clearly still lingers (to the point that it even eked out a Best Actor nod for Dev Patel, ahead of, say, Michael Fassbender), though I sense its moment has passed.

    (More discussion, and a full list of nominees, after the cut.)

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Oscar hosts, Bridges arrives, animated five

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart• Oscar season ramped up this week, with the popular selection of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as this year’s Oscar emcees.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column surveyed the runners and riders for Best Actor …

    • … only to be immediately outdated as Jeff Bridges and “Crazy Heart” arrived to turn that race on its head.

    • Big news in the Best Animated Feature race, as last-minute entry “A Town Called Panic” ensured we’ll have five nominees.

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  • Tell us what you thought of ‘A Christmas Carol’

    A Christmas Carol

    It feels a bit strange to be discussing the release of a Christmas film less than a week removed from Halloween, but here we are.  I spoke up with my thoughts on Robert Zemeckis’s “A Christmas Carol” yesterday, but with the film hitting theaters today, it’s time for you to sound off.  Head on back and let us know your thoughts once you see the film.

  • ‘It’s Complicated’ poster

    It's Complicated

    (Courtesy: IGN)

  • The Telegraph picks the decade’s Top 100

    Fahrenheit 9/11I’ve lately been immersed in a marathon of DVD viewing and re-viewings, catching up on films that slipped through the cracks and reassessing former favorites — all in preparation for my own year-end “Best of the 2000s” list.

    It’s a process that has resulted in some unexpected fringe challengers (“Longing,” an underexposed work of New German Cinema, won’t leave me alone), as well as some shifted perspectives (Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Distant,” which I adored on first viewing six years ago, burned a little less brightly second time around). Nat Rogers is currently doing similar homework at the Film Experience, on a year-by-year basis.

    At this stage, I have only a faint idea of what my list will eventually look like, but I’m already fairly sure that it will have little in common with the Top 100 of the decade that has just been unveiled at The Telegraph. Compiled by the British paper’s three critics, including IC friend Tim Robey, it’s an interesting and occasionally perplexing list.

    They state upfront that their aim is to represent the decade’s “pick ‘n mix” culture, though the headline promises the decade’s “Top 100 movie masterpieces.” “Mamma Mia!” and “Saw,” both in the top 20, may fit the former description, but “masterpieces” they ain’t. Then again, popularity or influence aren’t the principal criteria either, as the list includes such obscurities as “Los Angeles Plays Itself.”

    Whatever the system of selection, the result, you may or may not be thrilled to hear, is that Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” is the film of the 2000s.

    (More, including the Telegraph’s Top 20 films, after the cut.)

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  • The honorary Oscars: “A dying ritual”

    Lauren BacallAs I’ve said before, I’m dismayed by the Academy’s decision to relegate the honorary Oscar winners to a separate, untelevised ceremony, which will take place next Saturday. Even more than the inflation of the Best Picture nominees, it’s a move that betrays desperate self-doubt and compromise on the Academy’s part.

    Meanwhile, they only rubbed salt in the wounds by making such roundly well-received choices for this year’s honorees: few would disagree that the likes of Lauren Bacall and Gordon Willis are  well due for Oscar recognition, so it truly insults the recipients (not to mention film fans in general) to deny them a public moment in the spotlight.

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  • ‘Fish Tank,’ ‘Woman Without Piano,’ ‘Ajami’ honored at AFI

    AjamiLife came calling earlier this week, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to as many AFI Fest screenings and events as I had hoped.  I did catch Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” however (a bizarre, confusing misstep with a wonderful performance from Heath Ledger) and “Everybody’s Fine” (D.O.A.).

    I also caught the tribute to Christopher Plummer, who makes it known that he doesn’t want to discuss “The Sound of Music” in interviews, but given the tribute setting, poor Scott Foundas had to bring it up, right?  After some mumbling, Plummer finally shouted, with an uncomfortable smile, “Why did you ask me that?!”  I thought said tribute could have run a little longer than 20 minutes, but it was a modest event plugged in just before the festival screening of “The Last Station.”

    Anyway, the festival has announced this year’s New Lights Competition award winners, a designation that “was created to acknowledge and honor vital, groundbreaking films by first and second time feature filmmakers from around the world,” according to AFI. Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank” and Javier Rebello’s “Woman Without Piano” shared the honor.

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  • Gurus on the march

    Gurus o' GoldIt’s been so long since I actually ranked the Best Picture contenders (given that we did away with the charts some weeks back), that when I sat down to do so for this week’s Gurus o’ Gold update at Movie City News, I really didn’t know which way was up.  It’s liberating to stop thinking about things in reductive terms, but I gave it a go, as did 14 other pundits, and this is what we came up with.  Sasha Stone also has charts from past years up for comparison.

    It seems like USA Today’s Anthony Brenican is the only guy who got his votes in after the big “Crazy Heart”/Jeff Bridges news, but suffice it to say the film would likely be a bit higher on the Best Picture chart and certainly Bridges and Gyllenhaal would be formidable in the lead actor and supporting actress fields.

    “Up in the Air” is leading the pack, though “Precious” isn’t that far behind.  My top 10 matches the Gurus’ exactly, except rather than Quentin Tarrantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” I’ve placed a bet on James Cameron’s “Avatar” (which sits at #11 on the chart).  Intriguingly, Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” is close to the bubble, at #12.  I’d say that’s too high, frankly, but critics adore the movie.

    Head on over to Movie City News for the full spread.

  • 11/6 Oscarweb Round-up

    Helen Mirren in The Last Station• Celebrating 20 years of “Wallace and Gromit,” Google style. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

    • Jeffrey Wells says believe the hype on Helen Mirren’s performance in “The Last Station.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • “The Cove” receives a record-tying seven Cinema Eye nominations. [Cinema Eye Honors 2010]

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  • Same-but-different trailer for ‘It’s Complicated’

    Handily coinciding with its two male stars’ big news this week, the second trailer for Nancy Meyers’ romcom mostly overlaps with the first, with a few added flourishes.

    Despite having never liked a Meyers confection before, something about this one is working for me. Steve Pond has a mole who says the film is “absolutely terrific,” though of course that means little. Either way, mature audiences are going to turn out in droves for this.

  • ‘Crazy Heart’ gets a release date

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartFox Searchlight Pictures has settled on a December 16, 2009 release date for Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” which I wrote up yesterday.  Here’s the synopsis from the studio.  Nothing you don’t know, but at least it’s “official” verbiage:

    Four-time Academy Award® nominee JEFF BRIDGES stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film CRAZY HEART from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart.

  • Carey goes for the de-glam vote

    Mariah Carey in PreciousMariah Carey is clearly well-versed in Oscar strategy. Or, at least, one strategy in particular: the “uglying-up” route that has won kudos for multiple attractive actresses (Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Marion Cotillard et al) “brave” enough to shed makeup and/or don prosthetics for their art.

    I say this because Carey currently seems to be telling anyone who will listen about the makeunder she endured for her extended cameo in “Precious.” To the New York Times, she recently gushed, “People say to me, ‘You’re so ugly in this movie,’ and I take that as a compliment,” before revealing how Lee Daniels ordered her to remove her blush. (Quelle horreur!)

    Meanwhile, she tells Us Magazine that she “drank some ugly juice” to achieve her level of “hideousness” in the movie. And in case we hadn’t got the idea, she reiterates in an interview in today’s LA Times that she’s unable to so much as look at her “hideosity” on screen.

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