In Contention

Category: Daily

  • Jennifer Hudson sings for Michael Jackson

    I’m sure many of you have been watching the Michael Jackson memorials proceedings just as I have, so there’s no need to remind you of what went down. A largely tasteful, moving affair, I’m pleased to say.

    In the interests of keeping things movie-related (I mean, how many other Oscar winners can claim to have performed for the King of Pop?), I thought I’d put up this clip of Jennifer Hudson belting “Will You Be There” with immense spirit. Not the man’s greatest song, but it hardly matters. Say what you like about Hudson as a thespian, but by God, that voice can move mountains.

  • Small victories

    As “Transformers” hangs on by a hair to the the top spot for another week Stateside, there’s at least some minor consolation for the film’s detractors (and Michael Mann champions) in the weekend figures for the UK box office, where it wasn’t even a contest for the win:

    Title Weekend Takings Total to Date
    1. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs £7 639 884 £7 639 884
    2. Public Enemies £2 228 291 £2 228 291
    3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen £2 214 505 £20 785 050

    .

  • Really, Hollywood? Really?

    Charlie Sheen in Major LeagueWe’re all accustomed by now to Hollywood’s insatiable appetite for rehashes, but nonetheless, two reports yesterday of imminent sequels still gave me pause. While one is as depressing as it is predictable, the other is just, well, weird.

    To deal with the former project first, by now you’ve probably all heard the confirmation that Mssrs. Spielberg, Ford and LaBeouf are set to dethaw Indiana Jones’s frozen corpse one more time. Of course, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull” all but promised a sequel itself last year, but there was always the hope that time might stop, gravity might reverse itself, and the fifth film might not come to pass.

    Cinematical yesterday expressed faint hope that the series can be salvaged (if only because it could hardly get worse), but suffice to say the majority of the blogging world isn’t with them. Of course, I’d say this is the sequel that nobody asked for, but since last year’s atrocity still raked in the dollars, I can’t.

    No, yesterday’s title of “sequel that really nobody asked for” had to go to “Major League 4.” That’s right, “Major League 4.” (If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about, look it up. And then please kill me.)

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  • 7/7 Web Round-up

    Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard in Humpday• Good piece from David Poland about the age-old disconnect between audiences and critics. [The Hot Blog]

    • Marshall Fine implores you to see “Humpday” instead of “Bruno.” Why not see both, I say. [Hollywood & Fine]

    • While we’re on that subject, “Transformers” won the weekend box-office battle after all. Ew. [New York Times]

    • At the mid-year point, Peter Knegt reflects on the indie box-office winners and losers. [indieWIRE]

    • Cute feature, this — a rundown of the greatest credit sequences. Today: “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” [Cinematical]

    • On the web’s smartest new blog, a panel of critics re-evaluate Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice.” [The Auteurs’ Notebook]

    • Pamela McClintock contemplates the implication of the PG rating — after the franchise’s dip into PG-13 waters — for the latest “Harry Potter” effort. [Variety]

    • Speaking of which … my, how they’ve grown. [The Guardian]

  • Baldwin, Ford, Affleck … Clooney?

    George ClooneyIsn’t it funny how there are some high-profile films that you anticipate, see, thoroughly like at the time … and then promptly forget about until they crop up on late-night TV, in conversation or in some news archive, and you think, “Hey, that wasn’t half bad?”

    Such is the sort of flashback I had while reading on Anne Thompson’s blog about the possible resurrection of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise.  My first thought was that the films are collectively something of a 1990s time-capsule item, and perhaps best left in that era — but then, my first thought was that we’d left the franchise in Harrison Ford’s hands 15 long years ago.

    For whatever reason, it entirely slipped my mind that the Ryan saga had already been rebooted and de-aged for the 21st century, in the shape of Phil Alden Robinson’s disposable but thoroughly enjoyable 2002 “The Sum of All Fears,” with a pre-backlash Ben Affleck doing the honors. Whether or not the film, with its terrorist-heavy plot, came too soon after 9/11, it did respectable business, but the overhaul didn’t seem to stick in the wider public imagination.

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  • Celebration of amorality?

    Johnny Depp in Public EnemiesAmid the mixed critical reaction to “Public Enemies,” I’ve been surprised at how few critics have responded to the film’s contemporary resonances: the dialogue (intentional or otherwise) between the film’s portrait of the Great Depression and the bleak economic landscape of the present day.

    One reader recently (and rather astutely) noted the film’s general lack of interest in the “people’s champion” side of Dillinger’s persona, which might indeed have brought the film’s social agenda more to the fore. But David Cox at the Guardian believes the film already celebrates Dillinger quite amply, and draws parallels between the film’s events and the present-day corruption of the banking system. The only difference, he argues, is that the Dillingers of today lie within the system:

    As he did in Heat, Mann toys with the much-favoured Hollywood theme of moral equivalence between wrongdoers and their state-ordained antagonists … It’s this air of pervasive amorality that most clearly links Mann’s tale with its present-day analogue. We may be seeing less bloodshed now, but we’re not short of our own kind of depravity. In some ways it’s even worse than the version that Mann portrays.

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  • Cheap thrills

    I was tickled by — and completely related to — this piece by Cinematical’s Elisabeth Rappe in which she expounds the joys of embarrassing bargain-bin DVDs.

    You know, the movies you know you shouldn’t own (and in some cases, don’t even like that much) but can’t resist picking up when you’re in the store and spy a mark-down sale sticker slapped on the cover. The ones you bury at the back of your bookshelf lest your cineaste friends see that you actually spent money on “13 Going on 30.” (Yeah, I did … and a well-spent pound it was too. Anyway, “Legally Blonde” needed company.)

    Here’s Rappe on her latest red-faced purchase:

    This week’s guilty grab was Australia, a film I was very disappointed in, and planned never to see again unless I stumbled on it while flipping through cable channels. But there it was on half.com, “watched once, brand new” for $5.00 … It’s really the perfect movie for knitting to, because I can just concentrate on turning my sock heel, and look at the pretty cinematography.

    My DVD shelf is chock full of such films. Kate and Leopold, The Long Kiss Goodnight (worth far more than whatever I paid), my entire Mel Gibson collection, Marie Antoinette, The Wedding Singer, and so on. The list is long and not very illustrious (Vanishing Point remake, anyone?), but at least I can say I didn’t go out of my way for most of them.

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  • Warm reviews for latest ‘Potter’

    Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceI must admit upfront that I don’t really get the Harry Potter franchise. I don’t dislike it — not having exposed myself enough to its components to justify such a response — but I’ve never felt remotely compelled to deepen my acquaintance with the material. I’ve tackled one of my J.K. Rowling’s novels, but the lumpen functionality of her prose didn’t tempt me further.

    As for the films, I’ve sat through two of them — and yes, one of them was Alfonso Cuaron’s expertly crafted but still personality-deficient effort — and found them both painless yet unengaging watches. I understand that they please millions of viewers, and I commend them for that. But for fear of breeding actual resentment, I think it’s better that I no longer watch them. The Potter films and I have reached an entente cordiale, if you will, and it works for both of us.

    All of which is to say that the more enthusiastic reviews emerging for the sixth (!) installment, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (am I the only one who always has to look the full titles up?), don’t really move me one way or the other. It would appear that director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves (are we ever getting another “Wonder Boys” from him?) have maintained their general success in streamlining the unwieldy novels with equal attention paid to character and craftsmanship, which is a significant achievement this far into a franchise. But I remain thoroughly untempted to get in line.

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  • Chief basterd

    These new “Inglourious Basterds” character posters have been knocking around for a few days now, but I only really paused to look at them this afternoon. I must say, whatever my suspicions of the film itself, the marketers deserve a bouquet: I wholeheartedly love the cinema-steeped wit and intelligence of the artwork we’ve seen thus far, and this is no exception.

    Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

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  • 7/6 Web Round-up

    Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince• Ahead of the latest Harry Potter instalment, a profile of no-longer-boy wonder Daniel Radcliffe. [The Guardian]

    • Ever a must-read, Nick Davis continues reviewing the decade, taking on “American Psycho.” [Nick’s Flick Picks]

    • Dredging up the Marion Cotillard 9/11 “controversy” … again? Jeez. [Times of London]

    • Nathaniel Rogers tweaks his Oscar predictions, elevating “The Lovely Bones” to pole position. [The Film Experience]

    • A Brit offers his perspective on the ten-wide Best Picture field … and remains on the fence. [ScreenDaily]

    • List of the day: the top 10 “apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic” movies. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Jim Fusilli chats with “Public Enemies” composer Elliot Goldenthal. [Wall Street Journal]

    • Andrew O’Hehir catches up with the wonderful oddity “Tony Manero,” which is gradually making its way across the the U.S. [Salon]

  • ‘Jennifer’s Body’ red-band trailer

    As someone who believes “Juno” largely succeeded despite its multi-garlanded screenplay, rather than because of it, I can’t say I’ve been looking forward to Diablo Cody’s follow-up with great anticipation. (Evidently hot soundtrack notwithstanding.) Still, while this cheerfully tacky trailer for “Jennifer’s Body” does little to change my mind in that regard, I do credit Cody for playfully running as far from Oscarland as she could with this effort — a canny way to keep the industry pressure at bay.

    To any Karyn Kusama fans waiting for another “Girlfight” … keep waiting. To any Megan Fox fans waiting for cleavage shots … voilà.

  • ‘Up’ becomes Pixar’s second-highest grosser ever

    UpI expect Chad may get into some of this later in today’s Sunday Cents column (unless his silly inflation observation gets in the way), but Pixar’s “Up” grossed another $6.5 million today, bringing the domestic total to $264.8 million, surpassing the $261.4 million “The Incredibles” racked up in the fall of 2004 to become the studio’s second-highest domestic grosser ever behind 2003’s “Finding Nemo.”

    I would assume the answer here is lack of demographic comeptition to an extent.  “Monsters vs. Aliens” was the only animated film within earshot of “Up”‘s May 29 release date until “Ice Age” came along this weekend.  And there hasn’t been much else for the kids beyond “Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian.”  That’s a solid month of focused box office play for the film.

    Obviously “Nemo”‘s $339.7 million is safe and will likely remain safe for a long time to come (and it’s worth noting that “Up” opened in the same frame), but Pixar’s latest has nevertheless become a personal record-breaking success for the studio?  And yet it’s not even in the top 25 for the decade, which tells you the leaps and bounds box office has made in the last 10 years.

    So, congrats to all involved.  Well-deserved.  Check out my interview with “Up” director Pete Docter here if you missed it.

  • Love your ‘Enemies’

    Marion Cotillard in Public EnemiesI’ve had a busy week, so I’m a bit late to the table on “Public Enemies” — but in a way, it seemed fitting to wait until the 4th of July to watch such a muscular, intrinsically American piece of cinema.

    Much has already been said on these pages about the film, so there’s no need for me to discuss it at great length, but I do want to say how befuddled I am by the numerous lukewarm-to-cool critical reactions out there. I went into the theater with guarded expectations — not being an ardent devotee of Michael Mann’s oeuvre in the first place — only to be greeted by something rare and rather special: a broad, red-blooded blockbuster that is nonetheless tailored specifically for adults.

    Calling it Mann’s finest film since “The Insider” may sound like faint (albeit merited) praise. Perhaps more meaningful is to declare the film — with its elegant synthesis of crisp, confidently linear storytelling and rich, unfussy visual construction — the most completely realized major American studio picture of the last two or three years.

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  • On the Academy’s tune tribulations

    Eminem in 8 MileFor the most part, I feel like this Eric Felten op-ed (in a new weekly Wall Street Journal arts column called “De Gustibus”) has its heart in the right place.  But in chastising the Academy for all but doing away with the Best Original Song category with a recent rule change, he takes some rather cheap shots at the group for awarding, in fact, some of the most worthy movie tunes of the alst few years.

    Forgive me but I happen to think Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and Three 6 Mafia’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” to be, however on the nose, powerful additions to their respective films, and the Academy uncharacteriztically brave for singling them out.

    That having been said, it is true that members of the Academy rarely seem to recognize song work that stands the test of time.

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  • Happy ID4

    One of the greatest teasers ever.  Knocked me on my ass back in the day.  Fire up the grill, throw back a cold one and watch the Fresh Prince make bitches out of some invading chumps.  Happy Independence Day.

  • My stance on foreign cinema

    Beauty and the BeastOn Independence Day, no less…

    There seems to a huge misconception on the site that I dislike foreign language films and know little about them. While it is no secret I love American cinema and praise it frequently, I do indeed believe great films are made around the globe, and try to see every one I can at the festivals I attend and the screenings I attend on a weekly basis. My love for foreign language cinema, admittedly, is not as deep as the one I have for American cinema (and remember, I am Canadian), but when I see a great one (which is often) I do indeed champion it.

    Foreign language films can be extraordinary experiences, though the acting styles differ, the cultures are often radically different, yet the storytelling techniques, for the most part, are the same, which is what makes cinema a universal language.

    If I recall, the first foreign language film I saw was “Beauty and the Beast,” which was a stunning work of art from French director Jean Cocteau that I saw as a child on a French TV station here in Canada. It was wildly imaginative, fantastical and stunning, a black and white beauty. I watched as many films on that station as I could, including “Breathless,” which I knew as a teenager was bold and brilliant, and “Jules and Jim” from Truffaut.

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  • New Yorker semi-reviews ‘Julie & Julia,’ exalts Streep

    Meryl Streep in Julie & JuliaAs far as I know, Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” is still under a reviewing embargo, but the New Yorker’s Ariel Levy has sneakily buried a brief, incisive critique of the film at the tail of a substantial profile of Ephron. (Thanks to Jeff Wells for pointing it out.) You’ll need a subscription to read the whole thing, but here are the juiciest bits on the film — which will no doubt please the numerous Streepophiles out there:

    The truth is, “Julie & Julia” is not a fair fight. For half he film we are in Paris with Julia Child played by Meryl Streep. It is pretty transcendent. For the other half, we are stuck in Long Island City, Queens, with the ‘lowly cubicle worker’ Julie Powell, a character who is immature, self-pitying, and frazzled (which is to say, an average human being). Powell is played by Amy Adams, who is a talented actress, but she is up against the queen herself.

    When Adams, as Julie, is on the screen, it necessarily means that Streep, as Julia, is not, and you come to resent her for this. It is possible that the film would not have worked if it were simply a biopic of Julia Child — that it derives its narrative thrust and commercial potential from the interplay between a young woman idolizing and relying upon Child in the more-or-less present and the splendid story of Julia Child’s past. Perhaps Child is able to emerge in this film as an almost mythical creature because she is presented in contrast to a mere mortal.

    But there may be another reason the Julia Child portions of “Julie & Julia” are so irresistably vivid and the Julie Powell bits feel a little flat. It is possible that Nora Ephron no longer understands half as well what it’s like to be ordinary as she understands being remarkable.

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  • Statue of Liberty crown to re-open this holiday weekend

    For the first time since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, the National Park Service is opening the crown atop the Statue of Liberty for tourist visitation.  17 days ago, “Ghostbusters 2” celebrated its 20th anniversary.  Yes, I can bring anything around to movies.