• If you’re dismissing the Oscar potential of “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” Gregory Ellwood says, “Not so fast.” [Awards Campaign]
• Meryl Streep on why Hollywood’s men don’t trust women. [The Times]
• Betsy Sharkey sits down with “Precious” director Lee Daniels. [The Envelope]
The press release, in part:
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted tonight to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer-executive John Calley, and Honorary Awards to actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman, and cinematographer Gordon Willis. All four awards will be presented at the Academy’s inaugural Governors Awards event on Saturday, November 14, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.
“These four individuals have each, in their own unique way, made lasting impressions on the motion picture industry and audiences worldwide,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. ”I’m thrilled that the Academy’s Board selected them to be honored at our new Governors Awards event, which will be full of memorable moments celebrating their accomplishments.”
The full release here.
I spoke briefly with Viggo Mortensen at the Telluride film fest over the weekend, fresh off a tribute at the Palm Theater the night before and being gracious as ever with his time. The last time we spoke was four years ago for “A History of Violence” and as ever, he’s a soft spoken guy who can fill a digital recorder with wall-to-wall perspective. Sometimes you just feel guilty interjecting with a question.
But something I had to ask Mortensen concerned my favorite scene from “The Road,” a back-and-forth with Robert Duvall that could have been more but nevertheless comes close to representing the best a story like this has to offer, I feel.
The scene is in the book so it’s nothing much in the way of a spoiler. The Man, The Child and the Old Man (the actual character names, for those unaware) sit by a campfire discussing, briefly, their lives before whatever calamity has struck their world. Mortensen spoke with clear reverence for the opportunity to work with Duvall, as well as real joy for living and free-wheeling in the moment as a pair of actors working through a key scene.
The posters for Lionsgate’s “Precious” have been sublime so far, and even though this image — from a Toronto cocktail reception invite — isn’t a poster image, I wanted to pass it along because it’s equally indicative of an intriguing visual strategy for the film:
One of the stories I’m tracking most curiously this awards season is the rise of brand-spanking-new distribution company Apparition, whose impressive slate of upcoming titles belies their fledgling status.
“The Tree of Life,” “Bright Star” and, to a lesser extent, “The Young Victoria” are obviously the titles on people’s lips right now, but there are some interesting projects in the pipeline too: Doug Liman’s Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson biopic “Fair Game,” with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, as well as music video director Floria Sigismondi’s “The Runaways” — another biopic, this one about the cult girl band of the title.
Former Picturehouse chief Bob Berney has been the more-discussed name in connection with the outfit, but Variety has a handy little profile of Berney’s Apparition co-pilot Bill Pohlad, whose feature producing career only really started four years ago with “Brokeback Mountain.”
FYI, Paramount has lined Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” for a November 13 limited release with an expansion to come on November 25. The Thanksgiving corridor is a nice place for this film to settle. We’ll see how it plays against other awards contenders in “The Road” and “Nine.”
I was tipped off this morning to an interesting new site co-founded by actress called Natalie Portman called MakingOf.com. The site’s “about” page states the intended mission: “to champion the art and craft of entertainment creation…we realized that so much of what goes into entertainment creation is unavailable to the people who love and consume it the most.”
You’ll find interviews with filmmakers (refreshingly both above and below the line) on an array of topics, but given our dedication to crafts coverage here at In Contention, I was particularly interested in this interview with “Dick Tracy” costume supervisor Elisabetta Beraldo. It’s a bit brief, but take a look:
We’ve been getting you up to speed on the Best Original Song situation over the last couple of weeks. After putting together a rough early look at some contenders, we revealed yesterday that Mary J. Blige would have a song in Lee Daniels’s “Precious.” Today we’ve got the skinny on the music from one of the season’s most anticipated films.
“Up in the Air,” which played like gangbusters in Telluride, will have two original tracks. The first is a title song which runs over the closing credits and, like Blige’s “I See in Color,” it has an interesting backstory.
After “Juno” was released in 2007, with its use of pre-existing songs and a hit soundtrack, director Jason Reitman told the first ever audience of “Up in the Air” at this weekend’s fest that he began receiving tons of music from people. One night he was approached by a man who had recently lost his job and had written a song he thought might go well with the director’s latest film.
• Peter Travers is pissed about the “Shutter Island” bump to 2010. [Rolling Stone]
• “Me and Orson Welles” gets a distributor in Freestyle Releasing. [The Wrap]
• “The Road,” meanwhile, gets pushed to Thanksgiving, in direct competition with the Weinsteins’ other Oscar hopeful, “Nine.” [Variety]
No reason, really. John’s list of Toronto memories from yesterday had me reminiscing and I was catching up on HBO’s “Hung” last night. Few scenes are as expertly conceived and realized as this. Cinema bliss:
Two weeks ago we were spit-balling contenders for this year’s Best Original Song category. So far, the best bets seem to be tunes from “The Princess and the Frog,” “Nine” and “Where the Wild Things Are.” There has been some movement since, however, so I thought it was a good time for an update.
In that first piece, I mentioned Mariah Carey’s “100%” from Lee Daniels’s “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” As it turns out, that song will no longer be included in the film. Instead, a new contender has joined the fray: Mary J. Blige, whose original track “I See in Color” was included for the first time in a print of the film screened last week at Lionsgate in Santa Monica. But it’s the story behind it’s inclusion that is most interesting.
I’m told Blige reacted to “Precious” quite emotionally. What she saw on the screen hit her so close to home that she became personally invested in the film and wanted to contribute in some way. “I See in Color,” which plays during a key scene in the film (and therefore has a leg up with the music branch), is the result.
Contenders in the original song category are beginning to firm up, so we’ll have more updates for you in the coming days.
Thanks to The Film Experience for sharing this wittily out-there potential Australian poster design for “Antichrist,” which is still awaiting approval. You don’t need to have seen the film to know how daring this is, though it’s still on the right side of subtle. I love it.
Whether due to general festival raggedness or some iffy shrimp, I’ve been decidedly under the weather today, and a day spent in a darkened movie theater was not the obvious solution. So I’m writing to you from a quiet cafe on a canalside terrace near the Biennale site, where a combination of sunshine and pistachio pastries are doing the healing.
Luckily, my festival time-out has coincided with a bit of a lull in the lineup, apparently quite normal at this stage in the proceedings: no Competition title in the last two days has really set the Lido alight, with the reviews for George A. Romero’s “Survival of the Dead” suggesting the Venice programmers’ mainstream punt hasn’t paid off.
(I was, however, a little disappointed to miss a midnight premiere of Antoine Fuqua’s out-of-competition “Brooklyn’s Finest,” which has accumulated some buzz for Ethan Hawke’s performance.)
Today is 9-9-09, and we all know what that means: the theatrical release of Shane Acker’s animated film “9.” Seriously, how serendipitous can you get with a release date?
Anyway, with the film’s release comes an opportunity to win some goodies from the film. We’ve got a nice picture book, which comes in its own nifty burlap sack, as well as a satchel featuring some of that burlap design and a neat-o 9-9-09 button.
So here’s how to win. A trivia question!
What is the other significance of the September 9 date as it pertains to a different film very much in the fall movie discussion?
First to answer correctly wins.
UPDATE: As I was typing this very post, reigning Oscar champ Japan announced their submission: Ryoichi Kimizuka’s thriller “Nobody to Watch Over Me.” Screen International has details.
PREVIOUSLY: As you know, I like to keep up with the international submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as and when they emerge, and this morning’s Screen International report on the entries from Hong Kong and Taiwan reminded me that I’ve missed a few.
To deal with those first, Hong Kong has selected Yonfan’s “Prince of Tears,” a lavish period melodrama set around the island’s communist witch-hunts of the 1950s. It premiered last week at Venice to polite, if not exactly passionate, reviews — sadly, it’s one title I missed — but seems to have quite strong international prospects. Said to be both romantic and visually breathtaking, it also has a gay subtext that may or may not be to the branch’s taste.
I guess it’s landing a little early. /Film has the exclusive teaser for Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” which the director conceived himself exclusively for the internet. It’s a beautiful piece that really captures the tone and spirit of the film.
I generally prefer trailers put together by filmmakers (Paul Thomas Anderson does it a lot) because they tend to be free of the usual marketing tropes and have an artistic value unto themselves. Reitman didn’t do the actual editing (he gives credit there to the folks at Acme, who also do his opening credits sequences). But still, it clearly comes from the same mind that conceived the film. You don’t get that very often. There will be another trailer down the line, something geared toward the masses, I’m sure (and there’s obviously a necessity for that), but I’m glad this one’s out there:
