In Contention

Category: Daily

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Bombshell upon bombshell

    Michael JacksonWeird, unsettling week, this. Here’s how it went down:

    • In the week’s biggest movie news, the Academy threw us all for a loop by announcing a 10-nominee slate for the Best Picture category.

    • But even that shock was dwarfed in scale by the stunning news of Michael Jackson’s passing.

    • And in a rather bleak week for losing talent, we also said goodbye to Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon.

    • On a happier note, we laid eyes on two of our most eagerly awaited films of the year — “Public Enemies” and “Antichrist” — and liked what we saw.

    • AMPAS continues its tinkering, this time in the Best Original Song category.

    • The “Transformers” sequel opened to critical scorn even accusations of racism, but is the film totally indefensible?

    • With “The Hurt Locker” finally going public today, we caught up with the film’s breakout star Jeremy Renner.

    • We revealed our age by celebrating the 20th anniversary of Tim Burton’s “Batman.”

    • Continuing the reflective mood, this week’s list considered the greatest directorial debuts of the decade.

    • Speaking of debuts, “The Proposal” gave Sandra Bullock the biggest of her career.

  • Original ‘Batman’ producer looks back

    Michael UslanOn Tuesday we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Tim Burton’s “Batman” around these parts with a personal retrospective.  There are a number of similar remembrances around the web, many of them linked in that entry, but one guy who really deserves a “huzzah” this week is film producer, pop culture professor and all around comic book geek Michael Uslan.

    Uslan, as he notes in this interview piece with Batman On Film’s Bill Ramey, is actually celebrating his 30th anniversary where “Batman” is considered this year.  After all, he toiled through the Hollywood system to see his vision of the character to the screen for 10 years before anyone would take him, and the Caped Crusader, seriously.

    20 years later, of course, the rest is history.  Uslan exchanges a number of anecdotes with Ramey, specifically the marketing frenzy around the film that would really only be topped by “The Dark Knight” 19 years later.  One memory in particular, an intersection of commerce and political struggle, was particularly amazing, I thought.

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  • Bruno on Conan

    Here’s part one. Part two after the jump:

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  • ‘Bruno’ cut out of respect to Jackson

    LaToya JacksonWell, that was quick. The Guardian reports that, following the coinciding events of last night’s “Bruno” premiere and Michael Jackson’s tragic passing, a hasty — and possibly permanent — cut has been to the film. The scene in question pits Sacha Baron Cohen against Jackson’s sister LaToya:

    The offending scene features Cohen, in the guise of Brüno, attempting to find Michael Jackson’s phone number on LaToya’s BlackBerry. After Brüno reads aloud what he claims to be the singer’s number, an apparently enraged LaToya terminates the interview and storms off the set. Reports suggest that the scene will not be restored for its official release on 10 July.

    It would appear that the scene isn’t particularly derogatory about the late superstar, but the powers that be at Universal decided to remove it “out of respect to Jackson’s family.” Fair enough.

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  • Weinstein threatens more ‘Basterds’

    Harvey Weinstein and Quentin TarantinoThe jury may still be out on Quentin Tarantino’s latest opus following a rocky Cannes premiere, but don’t tell that to Harvey Weinstein. Resurrecting the talk that surfaced over a year ago that Tarantino had designs on more than one instalment of “Inglourious Basterds,” the producer claims to be ready for seconds:

    “Brad wants to do Inglourious II. We all want to do it. And the movie hasn’t even come out yet!” the movie mogul told GQ magazine. “But unfortunately I cannot give away the plot.”

    Weinstein reports that Tarantino has so much material mapped out for the “Inglourious Basterds” universe that there was talk at one point of making a Band of Brothers style TV series.

    “We could do two movies, three movies. I was begging for the movies, but Quentin wanted to do the TV series, Bob [Weinstein, Harvey’s partner in The Weinstein Company] wanted to do the TV series, so it was like two against one, you know?

    “And I was getting outvoted all over the place, so I just figured, All right, forget it, I’m not gonna be a loser, I’ll jump to the winning side. And then Quentin turns it into one movie. Go figure.”

  • AMPAS says there might not be an original song presentation

    A.R. Rahman at the 81st annual Academy AwardsThe headline is slightly misleading, but not entirely untrue.  Following Wednesday’s big shake-up regarding the addition of five more slots in the Best Picture category (which has spurred considerable debate in John’s column today), the Academy has issued this press release indicating that, if no song receives the agreed-upon score minimum, then the category will be nixed for that year and an Oscar for Best Original Song will not be presented.

    The release, in part:

    The governors approved the Music Branch Executive Committee recommendation that if no song achieves a minimum average score of 8.25 in the nominations voting, there be no original song nominees and thus no Oscar presented for the category. If only one song achieves the required minimum, it and the song with the next highest score will be deemed the nominees. If two or more songs achieve the minimum score, they will be the nominees though no more than five nominees can be selected. Previously, the rules dictated that there be no more than five but no fewer than three nominees in the category.

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  • Still hurting, still remembering

    Captain EO

  • 10 friggin’ nominees — a rant

    OscarsSo the Academy, in one of the dumbest moves since awarding Roberto Begnini an Oscar for his incessant mugging in “Life is Beautiful,” is reaching back into its history to allow for 10 films in the Best Picture category.  I just cannot understand why they would make such a blatantly stupid decision after so many years of five nominees!  My God, if they wanted to shake things up, divide the nominees into drama and comedy/musical like the Globes, which is equally stupid, but makes more sense (somehow). Are they concerned they are that out of touch and need more nominees to cover their ass?

    Would it not make sense to bring in a new group of Academy members, perhaps the critics (some of them) or directors and producers? Maybe the active artists, actors, directors, writers, and on and on should vote. In much the same way they nominate, directors for directors, editors for editors, maybe that is also the way they should vote for the winner?  Anything but this.

    So the Best Picture race becomes moot.  All eyes on Best Director now.  That category will become the indicator of the “real” five nominees for Best Pic.  But do they actually think this will open things up for brilliant work like “Into the Wild” and “The Dark Knight” when the sensible thing to do is get rid of the “old” way of thinking and allow for new blood in the Academy itself?

    Ten?  They can’t even get five right!

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  • 6/26 Web Round-up

    (from left) Johnny Depp and Michael Mann on the set of Public Enemies• Hey, why isn’t Christian Bale on the “Public Enemies” posters, too?  Money, silly. [E! Online]

    • Kyle Buchanan interviews Sid Ganis to get the skinny on the Academy’s big Best Picture announcement this week. [Movieline]

    • The 50 greatest trailers of all time.  Intriguing #1 pick.  #12 really stuck out to me back in the day. [IFC]

    • Kathryn Bigelow on the anatomy of a “Hurt Locker” scene. [New York Times]

    • Patrick Goldstein thinks a Best picture nomination for “The Hangover” would be “fantastic.” [The Big Picture]

    • John Hiscock talks “Public Enemies” with star Johnny Depp. [Daily Telegraph]

    • A considerably more in-depth discussion of the film with Micahel Mann. [Roger Ebert]

    • Looking back over Tim Burton’s stylistic career, for no real reason. [Empire]

  • EDINBURGH: ‘Humpday,’ ‘Adam’

    HumpdayMy last full day at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (which wraps up on Sunday) served up a pair of comparatively conspicuous U.S. titles. Both are comic ventures of a sort that made a splash (one via widespread critical and audience enthusiasm, the other via a high-profile pickup by Fox Searchlight) at the Sundance Film Festival, but otherwise represent opposite tonal ends of the spectrum of American independent comedy.

    Before I get into those, however, a quick shout-out for another marvelous French title, Sylvie Verheyde’s “Stella,” which merits further discussion down the line. A loose-limbed, autobiographical picaresque of sorts following the misadventures of a neglected working-class 11 year-old girl in a posh Parisian school, the film transcends standard coming-of-age territory via the protagonist’s mordant wit and an astonishingly assured lead turn from young Leora Barbara. This one’s also playing at the L.A. fest — catch it if you can.

    HUMPDAY (***)

    Since its attention-grabbing debut at Sundance in January, “Humpday” has become one of those odd items whose premise far precedes it: even those with only a scant working knowledge of American independent cinema can tell you that it’s a comedy about two straight dudes who get it into their heads to make a gay porno, even if they couldn’t supply a single other detail about the film.

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  • Michael Jackson made the video star

    (from left) Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson in ScreamJames Montgomery of MTV News was just on the network talking Michael Jackson’s legacy and it struck me as particularly applicable for a film site, so I thought I’d pass along his sentiments:

    The interesting thing is MTV started at the same time Michael Jackson starting going supernova…If you look at him then becoming huge, “Thriller,” Michael Jackson stopped making videos, started making movies at that point.  These were big budget, big special effects, dance sequences, 10, 12, 13 minute things.  “Bad” is 18 minutes long, Martin Scorsese directs it, Wesley Snipes is in it.  “Black or White,” stuff with the morphing technology he used, he always appreciated the showmanship of like P.T. Barnum and the silver screen era of Hollywood.  That’s what all his videos were.  When Michael Jackson premiered a video, that was an event.  You stayed home to watch that.

    “Scream,” as far as I understand, is still, to this day, the most expensive music video ever made.  I think it was budgeted at something like $7 million which today is unheard of and back then was doubly unheard of.  The special effects he laid in, huge event with his sister.  He really got it.  He knew that videos were a way to promote himself and make this brand and make him this international superstar.  We were just lucky to be along for the ride.  It’s pretty amazing.

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  • R.I.P. Michael Jackson

    Michael JacksonTwo of these in one day is always difficult.  But the passing of pop icon Michael Jackson is huge.  Earth-shattering.  I don’t know what to say, how to say it, or how to deflect the inevitable sniping at Jackson’s tabloid-filling escapades that will blur the fact that this is, truly, a tragic event.

    TMZ.com first reported the news of Jackson’s being rushed to the hospital earlier this afternoon due to cardiac arrest.  The staff is now reporting that the singer has, in fact, passed away.  NBC News,  The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times all confirm.  He was 50 years old.

    What do you say to this?  This is my childhood.  This is one of the biggest, most legendary entertainers to grace a stage, a screen, anything.  This hits hard.

    Like any number of people, I haven’t given Jackson a second thought in a number of years.  His celebrity morphed into farce and yet I was still excited to hear about his recently planned London concert series.  He was working on a film project in Culver City earlier this month, a “Thriller” tribute or remake, from what little I’ve heard.  But mostly, it’s the memories.  It’s the Jackson Five.  It’s “Thriller.”  It’s “Bad.”  It’s “Black or White.”  It’s the hits, man.  And they were considerable.

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  • ‘Amelia’ trailer

    Judging from this recently posted trailer for Mira Nair’s “Amelia,” the Amelia Earhart biopic that will certainly be the centerpiece of this year’s Fox Searchlight Oscar campaign, I’d say Richard Gere, rather than Ewan McGregor, has a shot at the supporting race for a role that looks to sport some considerable screen time.  He even gets above-the-title placement.

    As for the trailer itself, it’s a pretty standard glimpse.  Everything is as you’d expect from a period, some might say “Oscar bait” production such as this.  As usual, Swank haters will gag at the “2 time Academy Award Winner” intro, of course.

    Here is the embed, but Yahoo! Movies had the exclusive, FYI:

  • CONTEST: Win a ‘Public Enemies’ poster!

    It’s been a while since we offered up a contest here at In Contention, so in honor of the forthcoming release of Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” I thought we’d remedy that.  We’ve got two posters from the film to give away, so two separate competitions.

    First, I figure a caption contest is the quickest, easiest way to go about things to start, so in the wake of recent classy drooling on my part over actress Marion Cotillard, give us your best caption for the image below and you could nab this character poster from the film.

    Marion Cotillard in Public Enemies

    Now let’s get a little trickier. The official domestic one-sheet is up for grabs to the first person who answers the following Mann-centric trivia question. (UPDATE: Strike the trivia question, as Mr. Gittes was way too quick to the punch on a query I actually thought would stump some folks.  Oh well, here’s the question, in any case):

    When Michael Mann first heard about the ongoing struggle between journalist Lowell Bergman and CBS regarding a whistle-blowing former tobacco scientist — which would become fodder for his 1999 film “The Insider” — the director was busy building projects around a number of the other stories Bergman was covering at the time.  One of these came close to development and even had a title for a while.  What was the title and what was the prospective project about?

    Have at it in the comments section below!  And yes, you can take a stab at both if you think you’ve got the chops.

  • The alleged racism of ‘Transformers’

    Skids and Mudflap from Transformers: Revenge of the FallenThis AP story has been popping up at various aggregators for the past two days, though its particulars have been a focus of debate for many who saw the film over the last week: are the twin robots in Paramount’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” elements of racism, insensitive stereotypes, an evil combination of both or — here’s a radical thought — merely of a piece with the built-in lore of the franchise?

    The grievance:

    Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They’re forced to acknowledge that they can’t read. One has a gold tooth…

    Todd Herrold, who watched the movie in New York City, called the characters “outrageous.”

    “It’s one thing when robot cars are racial stereotypes,” he said, “but the movie also had a bucktoothed black guy who is briefly in one scene who’s also a stereotype.”

    “They’re like the fools,” said 18-year-old Nicholas Govede, also of New York City. “The comic relief in a degrading way.”

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  • Sage words

    …longtime Oscar maven Tony Angellotti, who now consults for Universal and Disney Animation, thinks the move could well dilute “both the quality and the impact of the award. I would imagine the studios are grieving over this. They’ll have to spend more money and not likely see a return — just what they don’t need in a recession.”

    From this Hollywood Reporter story in the wake of yesterday’s AMPAS announcement.

  • ‘Dr. Strangelove’ editor talks the film’s lost ending

    George C. Scott in unused footage from Dr. StrangeloveI only yesterday picked up the new Bluray of Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove,” one of those canonical classics that becomes almost a cliched entry in any number of all-time-best-films lists.  I haven’t had a chance to dive in yet, though the recent mini-controversy (wholly on the web) concerning the grain levels doesn’t worry me all that much.

    In a real coup over at The Auteurs’ Notebook, Glenn Kenny has managed a detailed exchange with the film’s editor (and later a director himself) Anthony Harvey.  There is some intriguing discussion regarding Kubrick’s post-production process, his philosophy on editing performances, etc.  But the most engaging bit is obviously the paragraph devoted to the film’s notorious unused denouement that featured a pie fight preceding the end of the world rather than the title character’s painfully ironic miracle moment.

    The original ending was meant to be much more in line with Terry Southern’s brand of absurdist stylings.  As the iconic “war room” of the film descends further into madness in the light of oncoming nuclear holocaust, an epic pie fight erupts as the final act of bedlam from some of the world’s foremost political figures.  But tragic history ultimately stood in the sequence’s way.

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  • R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett

    Farrah FawcettAn AP news brief flashed across my cell phone via text message a little: actress Farrah Fawcett has died in Los Angeles.  She was 62.  What an awful truth to stagger out of bed and face first thing in the morning.

    The sad news follows the recent, heart-warming announcement that actor Ryan O’Neal was set to re-marry Fawcett, sticking with her through the painful final stages of cancer that ultimately spread to her liver and claimed her life.  It also folllows a troubling time in the tabloids for Fawcett, when it seemed her very privacy wasn’t valuable enough to vultures eyeing her end of days.  I hope the jackals circling Patrick Swayze take note.

    Such a sad moment.  My heart goes out to Mr. O’Neal and Fawcett’s family and friends.