In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Fish Tank’ trailer

    It’s been six weeks since I saw (and loved) Andrea Arnold’s Cannes Jury Prize winner “Fish Tank” at the Edinburgh fest, and the film simply will not leave me alone. Scenes and images from Arnold’s simultaneously exhilarating and devastating portrait of an Essex adolescence keep popping vividly into my head at random intervals — and I’m more and more convinced that young Katie Jarvis has given the single best performance of 2009 to date.

    I’m afraid this trailer doesn’t do a great job of selling what distinguishes the film from its kitchen-sink peers: Arnold’s impressionistic use of music and sound, its ambiguous sexual currency, the zest and rhythm of its dialogue. Just take my word for it that this is a very special piece of work. It’s out on 11 September in the UK; Americans must wait indefinitely. (It will, of course, play at Toronto next month.)

  • 8/7 Web Round-up

    Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar on the set of Broken Embraces• Patrick Goldstein revisits a collection of filmmakers’ tributes to John Hughes, “the Tolstoy of American teenagers.” [The Big Picture]

    • The irrepressible Pedro Almodovar talks aging, Cruz and “Broken Embraces.”  On a side note, how sweet is the photo to the right? [Daily Telegraph]

    • Meryl Streep has a problem with male bloggers. Love you anyway, Meryl. [Salon]

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘Flame & Citron’ director Ole Christian Madsen

    Ole Christian MadsenSince opening in its home country of Denmark over 18 months ago, and embarking on a lengthy festival tour that included well-received stops in Toronto, Telluride and London last year, Ole Christian Madsen’s “Flame & Citron” has taken its sweet time arriving in American theaters. (It opened in limited release last Friday.)

    But then patience has been evidently a watchword throughout the conception and execution of this handsome WWII biopic-cum-thriller, a long-gestating pet project for 43 year-old Dogme 95 alumnus Madsen.

    For starters, the story of the titular duo has been nagging away at him since the age of 12 – ever since his father, a former army colonel, gave him a book on heroes of the Nazi Resistance.

    The story of Flame and Citron (aliases for Bent Faurschou-Hviid and Jorgen Haagen Schmith), a pair of native freedom fighters working against the German occupation in 1940s Copenhagen, fired the young Madsen’s imagination, as he sensed a greater moral ambiguity behind it than the history written on the page.

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  • ‘It’s Complicated’ trailer

    Looks frothy. Of course. But the way Alec Baldwin delivers the line “I like it” at the beginning kind of cracks me up.  Added ammunition for Meryl’s forthcoming lead actress nomination for “Julie & Julia”:

  • New ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ trailer

    I should say something. I really should. But I’m speechless. In a very good way.

    Let the wild rumpus start, indeed.

  • Is it wrong that I’m totally looking forward to this?

    Jennifer AnistonCall it summer silliness or the fact that I truly am a moron after all, but for all the intriguing projects announced in the last month — Cronenberg taking on DeLillo should be a treat, while I’d be lying if I said my curiosity isn’t perversely piqued by Joe Eszterhas telling the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe — but this is the one my heart really wants to see. One sentence, via Variety:

    “Grey Gardens” helmer Michael Sucsy will make his feature directorial debut on “Goree Girls,” with Jennifer Aniston headlining the true story of an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s.

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  • The economics of 3D … and why I don’t care

    CoralineI’m going to sound about three times my actual age for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: I could not care less about 3D.

    I know it’s important, I know it’s fun, I know it’s the future. I know all this largely because almost 20 years ago, a group of cheery traveling 3D promoters visited my elementary school in New Jersey, and told the packed assembly exactly the same thing.

    “Hey, 3D! Yay, 3D! Everybody see in 3D!” they sang, before showing us some jazzed-up motocross footage in the third dimension. Does anybody else remember sitting through the same demonstration?

    I wasn’t thrilled then, and while I’m aware of the massive leap and bounds the technology has made since I was 7 years old, I’m not particularly thrilled now. I like a gosh-wow gimmick as much as the next man — a stupid part of me wishes I’d lived through Smell-O-Rama — but once the novelty of items popping off the screen settles in, I find 3D a dispensable accessory: an extra “D” doesn’t amount to a lot of beans in the cinematic departments I really care about — writing, storytelling, performance.

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  • Berney/Pohlad’s Apparition to release Malick’s ‘Tree of Life’

    (from left) Bob Berney and Bill PohladWe can all stop using “Unnamed Bob Berney/Bill Pohlad Company” to classify the domestic distribution of Jane Campion’s forthcoming “Bright Star.”  Apparition, as the new indie distributor is calling itself, had something of a coming out party today announcing the new moniker and, the real newsy item, that Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” will be one of the films domestically released under its banner.

    Bob Berney is one of the good guys, so I was pretty bummed when Picturehouse closed up shop last year, not least of all because it was one more death knell for indie cinema but because a smart guy didn’t have a ship to steer.  The news of a new company, with partner Bill Pohlad, was good enough for me, but only Campion’s film (acquired at Cannes) was in the mix.

    No release date has been set for Malick’s film yet, but the film is surprisingly expected to receive a 2009 bow.  There was confusion for a while in some quarters that Summit Entertainment would be releasing the film in the US, but that company was only ever involved with the international release, I believe.

    Full press release after the jump.

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  • Regrettable: ‘Ice Age 3’ becomes highest grossing animated film overseas

    Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursThose who follow the site know I’m a “Finding Nemo” devotee.  The film has grown on me more and more over the years, and despite landing at #3 on my 2003 top 10, I’ve been toying with the idea of including it in my top 10 films of the decade list (which will be unveiled later in the year).  I’ve always felt a certain security knowing that, not only is it Pixar’s highest grossing film to date, but it is also the second-highest grossing toon worldwide and the top box office dog internationally.

    Or at least it was.  In a Variety piece gloomily (to me) titled “Nemo slips on ‘Ice,’” Pamela McClintock gives us this:

    Over the weekend, 20th Century Fox’s three-quel “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” became the highest-grossing animated title ever overseas, posting a cume of $551.4 million through Sunday.

    It took six years for a toon to overtake Pixar and Disney’s “Finding Nemo,” which grossed $524.9 million internationally in its 2003 release.

    Depressing.  Chad’s Sunday Cents column on the film’s opening weekend here.  Of course, with Chad’s preference of adjusted figures, this doesn’t move the needle.  But still.

  • R.I.P. John Hughes

    Stolen from us, a true staple of the 1980s cinema, “Mr. Mom,” “Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Weird Science,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Home Alone,” the great “Christmas Vacation” and, of course, a personal favorite I’ll defend to the ends of the earth,” “The Breakfast Club.”  Dead at 59 from a sudden heart attack.

    Saturday, March 24,1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.

    Hughes got an entire generation.  That’s an artistic commodity, no matter how you slice it.  He will be missed.

  • ‘District 9’ on the way

    Sharlto Copley on the cover of Entertainment WeeklyNeill Blomkamp’s “District 9” is primed to explode on the cinema landscape next week.  At least I hope it is.  I’m never good at reading the populist pulse, especially as it pertains to predicting box office and things like that, but on a $30 million budget, and being an exceptional piece of work that should become a word-of-mouth success on home video if not theatrically, I can’t imagine the film won’t pull a profit.

    Entertainment Weekly’s cover story this month features actor Sharlto Copley, praised on high in this space during last month’s San Diego Comic-Con International, with the fetching headline: “Why ‘District 9’ will blow you away.”  That’s a good start.  I know plenty of people who ask me daily, “What’s the deal with ‘District 9?’”  Breeding intense curiosity is always a win.

    Scott Bowles sat down with the film’s producer, Peter Jackson (who made his first ever trip to Comic-Con to promote the film), in San Diego and got some great stuff, particularly Jackson’s revelation that working on the film reminded him of his guerrilla filmmaking roots.

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  • Is ‘Hurt Locker’ locked in?

    The Hurt LockerA few months ago, before the Academy completely altered the playing field for this year’s Oscars, “The Hurt Locker” looked like the longest of long shots for Best Picture consideration.

    Its unpopular subject matter, absence of stars, a respected but genre-based director, and the languishing delay between its 2008 Venice debut and its summer 2009 release — none of these factors inspired much confidence in its chances.

    But then a weird thing happened. Just after the Academy effectively doubled its chances of a Best Picture nod in June, an ecstatic wave of reviews for the film started rolling in, the ardently passionate consensus of which took many off-guard following its warm but hardly explosive reception on the fest circuit last year.

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  • ‘Burning Plain’ is Arriaga at his best

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainLast night I caught Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” and like Guy, I’m having trouble settling my thoughts on the piece.  I suppose our combined ponderings will have to serve as the film’s review here at In Contention, but unlike Guy’s relatively reserved recommendation, I have to say I wholeheartedly endorse it as perhaps Arriaga’s most focused and, therefore, effective work yet.

    As a screenwriter in tandem with filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu (a partnership which crumbled around the production of 2006’s “Babel”), Arriaga has proved adept at twisting his narratives with potent themes and powerful, evocative structures.  But “The Burning Plain” represents a brave move inward rather than forward.

    I agree with Guy’s notion that the debuting director may have been “looking to safely downshift gears by making a tasteful, intelligent mainstream melodrama,” but more than that, I believe the film to be Arriaga’s most successful character study to date.

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  • ‘Coco Before Chanel’ poster

    Zzzzzzz…

    Coco Before Chanel

    (Courtesy: Cinematical)

  • 8/6 Web Round-up

    Nation's Pride• Nikki Finke takes umbrage with the “Nation’s Pride” trailer being used to promote “Inglourious Basterds.” [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

    • Graeme McRanor sits down with “District 9” composer Clinton Shorter. [Jawbone.tv]

    • Top 10 movie pregnancies. [The Film Experience]

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  • R.I.P. Budd Schulberg

    I just came back from one of the most expertly written films of the year (Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain”) to the sad news that one of the great screenwriters of our time, Budd Schulberg, has passed on from this mortal coil.  At 95 years old, he seemed to get everything you can possibly get from life.  He is perhaps best known and remembered for “On the Waterfront,” for which he won an Oscar and gave us the immortal line: “I coulda had class.  I coulda been a contenda.  I coulda been somebody.” He will be missed.

  • There is a God

    A.O. ScottIs there anyone out there whose heart doesn’t leap upon hearing the following news? In an unusual triumph for journalistic ability over boneheaded determination, “At the Movies” is getting a fresh pair of hosts, less than a year after its disastrous makeover. Taking over from the dread Bens, Lyons and Mankiewicz, are the New York Times’ A.O. Scott and The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips. Via Variety:

    “We are thrilled that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips will be lending their well-respected and influential voices to At the Movies,” said Brian Frons, president, Daytime, Disney-ABC Television Group, who oversees ABC Media Productions, which produces the show. “They are regarded by millions of people as authorities in film criticism and will take the series back to its roots of one-on-one film debate that was established when the show first began with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.”

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  • The triumph you might never see

    Matthew Newton in Three Blind MiceIn autumn last year, I lost my heart to a miniature Australian gem called “Three Blind Mice.” At the end of a long day of press screenings, I sleepwalked into a theater at the London Film Festival not particularly eager to see a film I knew nothing about. A brief blurb describing it as a zany comedy about three naval officers on shore leave before shipping out to Iraq did little to whet the appetite.

    A few minutes later, I was startled into full consciousness as writer-director-star Matthew Newton’s alternately riotously funny, sombre and shocking study of masculinity in crisis burned up the screen with whip-smart Pinteresque writing and dazzling ensemble work, earning a spot on my “best of 2008” list in the process.

    I wasn’t the only one, either — the entire audience was abuzz with talk of the film after the screening, and it duly claimed the FIPRESCI Critics’ Prize at the festival.

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