In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Avatar’ sequel a possibility, says producer Jon Landau

    Sam Worthington in AvatarOkay, let me first connect the dots on how I came to this nugget: Le Film via /Film via MTV.  Now that that’s out of the way…

    It goes without saying there will be a lot of people looking at the bottom line on “Avatar,” so any talk of a sequel is obviously silly until the film proves itself a success, which is what producer Jon Landau is getting at at the beginning of the following quote:

    If the public likes Avatar, it’s a possibility. After all, here we are exploring the surface of the planet Pandora. The interior remains to be seen.

    But now that it’s out there, clearly there seems to be more to this world than what Cameron ultimately put up on the screen.  His initial treatment was pretty massive, after all.  Who knows what he had to exclude?  But I’ve been getting the vibe for a while now that vested interests would love to sequel-ize this thing.  There are already toy tie-ins and a video game on the way, the obvious harbingers of a new franchise.

    Anyway, we’ll keep an eye on it.

  • Bigelow, Ephron, ‘Up,’ ‘Transformers’ to be honored at Hollywood fest

    Kathryn Bigelow on the set of The Hurt LockerThe awards keep coming for “The Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow, who is already set to be feted at the Gotham Independent Film Awards.  As her film’s star Jeremy Renner takes down the Breakthrough Actor award at the upcoming Hollywood Film Festival, Bigelow herself will receive the Hollywood Director Award, fest director Carlos de Abreu announced today.

    Elsewhere, Nora Ephron, whose “Julie & Julia” screenplay really did wonders with a troublesome book, will be honored with the Hollywood Screenwriter Award, while “Up” will received the Hollywood Animation Award.

    The Hollywood Visual Effects Award will go to Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

    The awards are set to take place on October 26 in Beverly Hills, but the most significant tip of the hat here is obviously Bigelow.  Is there any real doubt that the Academy would be really stretching to go against the grain if they didn’t acknowledge her work on “The Hurt Locker?” Anything can happen, but I’d be shocked if members missed this opportunity.

    Full list of announced Hollywood fest honorees after the jump.

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  • ‘Brooklyn’s Finest’ to 2010

    Ethan Hawke in Brooklyn's FinestI just noticed the fine print on an invite today that stated “Brooklyn’s Finest,” recently acquired by Overture Films after Senator Entertainment had to give it up, has been slated for a Spring 2010 release.

    The film first landed at Sundance and had its champions there.  In particular, I’ve been hearing a lead actor push for Ethan Hawke was in the cards and many thought he had a fighting chance.  Of course, that category has filled up considerably in recent weeks so maybe it’s wise to get out of dodge.

    Last year Overture did just fine with an April release for “The Visitor,” landing a Best Actor nomination for Richard Jenkins and sustaining the conversation throughout the year.  Maybe a similar strategy will be deployed for Hawke in Antoine Fuqua’s film.

  • New ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ trailer

  • 9/30 Oscarweb Round-up

    George Clooney in The Men Who Stare at Goats• Roger Ebert talks “Capitalism: A Love Story” with Michael Moore. [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Noah Forrest stands up for Megan Fox against a weird culture of hatred toward the actress. [Movie City News]

    • George Clooney vs. George Clooney at the November box office. [Vulture]

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  • Foreign-language tally rises to 57

    Beyond the CircleThough that number will probably be out of date the second I post this, such is the crush of films squeezing in before the deadline these last few days.

    Any, the latest trio of contenders come from minor national film industries all seeking their first nomination in the category: Estonia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

    Estonia’s entry, “December Heat,” follows in the category’s grand tradition of sweeping historical drama, detailing Communist Russia’s failed takeover of the country in 1924 and the establishment of Estonian independence. It has apparently been a massive hit at home; The Economist labels it “lively if rather melodramatic.” I’d like the country’s chances more if only the film were about WWII.

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  • IC on iPhone/BlackBerry

    Attention smart phone users.  If you ever check us out on a BlackBerry or iPhone, you’ll notice we’ve now got a more user-friendly interface on those devices.  Unfortunately there’s an image alignment issue I can’t quite work out, but anyway, let us know if it works for you or not.

  • Selling ‘Antichrist’: arthouse or genre?

    Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in AntichristAs we’ve seen from the wildly varied poster designs for the film, “Antichrist” offers it marketers an unusual range of options. Depending on the region, it’s being sold as a stern art film, a jokey provocation, a horror scream-fest or a mixture of all three.

    We have yet to see how the film performs Stateside, but my eye was caught by an article in this month’s Sight & Sound magazine, in which box-office analyst Charles Gant looks into the successful approach taken by UK distributor Artificial Eye.

    Though it is the country’s most highbrow art house outfit (“The Class” and “Fish Tank” are among the other titles they handled this year), Artificial Eye made the unusual decision to sell the film on its genre elements, playing up its more horror-inspired imagery and emphasizing the various “MOST SHOCKING EVER” critical tags that emerged from Cannes.

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  • ‘Last Station’ to Sony Classics?

    (from left) Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer in The Last StationObviously the only thing Pete Hammond can mean when he writes the following:

    Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti are going to try to shake up the awards season. Look for their new film, “The Last Station” — written and directed by Michael Hoffman and based on the final months in the life of Leo Tolstoy, which premiered sans distribution at the Telluride Film Festival on Sept. 4 — to be released by the specialty division of a major studio (with a slew of other art house contenders already this year including three more Best Actress possibilities) and opened in December in order to qualify for the Academy Awards.

    …is that Sony Pictures Classics is moving in for the kill here.  No other specialty division has a “slew” of titles, let alone a “slew of other art house contenders,” so it’s probably a safe assumption that Michael Barker and Tom Bernard made the leap.

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  • French ‘Hurt Locker’ poster

    No real reason, just noticed this poster plastered all over Paris when I was there recently and liked it. The title change (it means “Defusers”) is a little bland, but probably necessary: the metaphorical English title really doesn’t translate.

    Demineurs AKA The Hurt Locker

  • Tornatore to represent Italy in Oscar race again

    BaariaAs the deadline for Best Foreign Language Film submissions looms on October 1, news of further entries keeps rolling in. Italy, Vietnam and Norway are the latest additions to the list, which presently numbers 54. (By my count, at least.)

    Italy’s selection is obviously the newsiest: the country’s 13 previous wins make it the leading Oscar champ in this category (though France still holds the record for nominations by a sizable margin). They’ve rather lost their golden touch of late, however, scoring only a solitary nom (“Don’t Tell,” 2005) since “Life is Beautiful” won over a decade ago, and I’m not sure they’ve made the wisest choice to reverse that state of affairs this year.

    On paper, their pick of Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baaria” may seem like an Oscar slam-dunk. It’s a lavish, decades-spanning period drama from an Academy-favored filmmaker — Tornatore won for “Cinema Paradiso” in 1989, scored a further nod for “The Star Maker” in 1995 and made the 9-film shortlist with “The Unknown Woman” two years ago.

    Which is all well and good, except that “Baaria” was critically slaughtered when it opened the Venice Film Festival last month. Clearly, the massive budget of Tornatore’s film factored into the decision. I never got to see it myself, but Variety’s pan (“overblown in every sense … awash in phony nostalgia (and) cheap sentimentalism”) was typical of the consensus.

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  • Australia and Spain enter foreign-language race

    Samson and DelilahAs regular readers have probably noticed, I’ve been away (undeservedly, apparently) on vacation for the past week or so, so I’ve missed out on the recent influx of submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film race.

    Fortunately, Kris has been keeping you up to speed with our new foreign contenders page. Thanks, meanwhile, to the many helpful readers who have been keeping me updated with developments via email. Keep ’em coming.

    Today, however, saw two potentially significant players enter the race. Readers who have kept up with my predictions since I first posted them in May will recall that I’ve been instinctively forecasting a nod for Australian critical sensation “Samson and Delilah” from the beginning. Now that possibility has taken one further step towards fruition.

    Thanks to Glenn at Stale Popcorn for pointing us to the news that Australia has officially entered Warwick Thornton’s English and Warlpiri-language debut feature, which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes back in May and recently played at Telluride and Toronto to across-the-board praise. (I’ll be seeing it at the London fest this month.)

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  • ‘Amelia’ set to open Doha Tribeca

    Hilary Swank in AmeliaFrom Brian Brooks’s indieWIRE story:

    Mira Nair’s “Amelia” will open the inaugural Doha Tribeca Film Festival in the Middle Eastern capital of Qatar next month. The Fox Searchlight release recalls legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, starring two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank and Golden Globe winner Richard Gere. The new fest is part of a long-term partnership between the Qatar Museums Authority and Tribeca Enterprises, which oversees April’s annual Tribeca Film Festival. Thirty-two films will screen at the first festival, with 12 coming from the Middle East and additional titles from the international festival circuit. The DTFF will run from October 29 to November 1, 2009 in Doha, Qatar.

  • Talking ‘Avatar’ the video game

    (Courtesy: MakingOf)

  • Conan cracks his noggin

    Cool of NBC to offer this up:

  • 9/29 Oscarweb Round-up

    Amy Landecker• Arguing that “Public Enemies” looks “cheap” due to HD nearly three months after release. [The Huffington Post]

    • Dave Karger wonders if a bona fide left-field Best Picture nominee is in the cards in a 10-nominee paradigm. [Oscar Watch]

    • Getting the 70s bush right for “A Serious Man” (Amy Landecker officially rocks). [Vulture]

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  • Wearing the ‘Wild Things’

    The roll-call of hipster names affiliated with Spike Jonze’s take on “Where the Wild Things Are” is beginning to border on the obnoxious. (I say that with nothing but love and anticipation.) But if Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O was going to be involved, it only makes sense that she should bring her stylist to the party.

    Christian Joy, the outré fashion designer best known for her eccentric, home-made creations for O’s live shows, has teamed with Urban Outfitters to design a set of five “Wild Things”-inspired costumes. The outfits lend Maurice Sendak’s visions a bit of rock-star sparkle, though I can’t be the only one who thinks they recall Sally Hawkins’s “Happy Go Lucky” wardrobe more than anything else.

    Either way, your Halloween problems are solved. More after the jump.

    Christian Joy for Where the Wild Things Are

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  • ’28 Days Later’ in one minute

    (Courtesy: SciFi Wire)