In Contention

Category: Daily

  • POLL: The most influential films of all time, round one, part one

    Earlier in the week we told you about TCM’s list of the 15 most influential classic films of all time.  I decided to use that news item as a spring board for another giant poll, something akin to the “Which Oscarless director deserves it more?” query last summer that saw Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick in a fight to the death.

    Rather than just stick with films from the “classic” time frame, I thought we’d just go all in and collectively decide on the top 10 most influential films of ALL TIME.  I’ve taken all suggestions from our commenters on the TCM thread and tossed my own ideas in for a massive slate of 66 films.  So this will take some time.

    We’ve kicked it off today with the largest poll of the lot, a 16-film query with the titles taken at random.  Your task: pick up to five of the films list in the left sidebar that you think deserve to move on to the next round.  Next week we’ll settle the rest with five more polls, each with 10 titles and allowing no more than three choices per voter.  The idea is, by the end of this first round of voting, we’ll have 20 films that can move on until we narrow it to a definitive list of the 10 most influential films ever, as voted on by the In Contention readership.  So make your vote count!

    (Brendon Connelly at /Film, by the way, has taken a different approach, listing what he feels will one day be viewed as the most influential films of the last 10 years.  Devin Faraci at CHUD takes considerable umbrage.)

  • The reality of the ‘Wolverine’ leak and box office

    Hugh Jackman in X-Men Origins: WolverineYou may have already heard about a certain workprint for Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” leaking onto the Internet two weeks ago since the resulting firestorm and fallout has been covered and re-covered by bloggers, journalists and former journalists alike.  So there’s not much left to say on the issue. I do, however, want to go on record, as In Contention’s resident box office guy, as saying that this leak will have absolutely ZERO effect on the amount of money the film will pull in. Well, almost zero.

    First, let’s take a look at Fox’s logic. Potential customers see the movie on their computer before it comes out.  Customers then do not go see the movie in the theater. It does seem to make sense and this logic most likely comes from the devastating effect that illegal downloading has had on the record business.

    Now, here’s my logic. While the record business is definitely going down the tubes, the music business is doing fine. Concert business is relatively stagnant and vinyl sales are up significantly. Look at Flo Rida.  His album only sold 80,000 units its first week, which is disappointing, but his single “Right Round” has been downloaded over a million times on iTunes alone. In other words, CDs may be dying, and possibly even the album format, but the music industry will be fine.

    Look also at the top 30 Billboard debuts for artists like Animal Collective and Andrew Bird so far in 2009. Not only did both acts post career-high sales totals, but they both cater almost exclusively to the audience that is supposedly getting all their music illegally. Really, though, it’s silly to even compare the two industries, since buying a record was never a group activity or a night on the town to begin with.

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  • Rare bird

    James Gandolfini in In the LoopRegular Guardian readers will know that Peter Bradshaw, the paper’s perma-grouch film critic, doesn’t dole out five-star ratings lightly — in the past half-year or so, only “The Class” has made the grade. So I’m interested to see Bradshaw going all out for “In the Loop,” a modest British political satire that had hitherto only been at the edge of my radar, despite some tasty ingredients.

    The film, which opens Friday in the UK and in July Stateside, carries more built-in appeal for followers of recent British TV comedy, principally cult series “The Thick of It” — of which “In the Loop” is a direct spinoff, sharing some characters and the creative team led by Armando Iannucci — here making his feature helming debut.

    Meanwhile, co-writer Jesse Armstrong also is one of the geniuses behind sitcom “Peep Show,” so I’m in regardless. And throwing James Gandolfini into the very limey-flavoured mix only makes things more interesting. Looks like a political weekend at the movies for me, then.

    Very funny trailer after the cut. Here’s Bradshaw’s take:

    Some movies have the knack of arriving at the most painfully right time. Just as Damian McBride’s blood is being Dysoned off the carpet at No 10 and Derek Draper’s fingerprints removed from the Chequers dining table, here comes Armando Iannucci’s horribly brilliant comedy about this government’s culture of spin and muddle … The acting is superb, and the writing is relentlessly funny — vicious and delicious. And refreshingly, there isn’t a sympathetic character in sight.

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  • Off to The Boss

    I’m catching Bruce Springsteen tonight and tomorrow night over at the Sports Arena here in Los Angeles.  He hasn’t played my favorite tune on the tour yet — “Spirit in the Night” — so here’s hoping for a pleasant surprise.  “The Wrestler” has been a regular feature, however, and I’m sure he’ll play it either tonight or tomorrow.  I’ll try to grab a video of the performance with my still camera if he rocks it out.

    Gone for the rest of the night.  Call this an open thread if you have anything on your mind (though it’s been a pretty sleepy week).

  • Variety.com gets a new design

    Hmm.  I dig the new revamp but it seems reminiscent of…something:

    Variety.com

    HollywoodReporter.com

  • Pot, meet kettle

    American Apparel ad featuring Woody AllenToday’s most hilarious news item concerns an unlikely pair of names: Woody Allen and, uh, American Apparel.

    The root of the story is commonplace enough: Allen sued the clothing company last year for using his image on a series of advertising billboards, without the filmmaker’s authorisation. A fair enough gripe, surely, though I’d question whether it’s worth $10 million. (Is this Woody’s new method of financing pictures? If so, I’m all for it.)

    American Apparel, however, has responded by taking the decidedly low road:

    The company plans to make Allen’s relationships to actress Mia Farrow and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Manhattan on May 18, according to the company’s lawyer, Stuart Slotnick.

    “Woody Allen expects $10 million for use of his image on billboards that were up and down in less than one week. I think Woody Allen overestimates the value of his image,” Slotnick said. “Certainly, our belief is that after the various sex scandals that Woody Allen has been associated with, corporate America’s desire to have Woody Allen endorse their product is not what he may believe it is.”

    It’s a funny tactic, to be sure, but a bit rich coming from a company whose CEO, Dov Charney, famously masturbated in front of a journalist, and has faced numerous sexual harassment lawsuits from his own employees.

    I love Allen, and am wearing an American Apparel T-shirt as we speak, but neither party exactly earned my devotion through ethical excellence — though I think Allen has the upper hand in this instance. More details here, and another of the offending billboards after the cut.

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  • ‘The Hurt Locker’ trailer

    I’ve been dying to see this since Toronto last year.  I’m also a Jeremy Renner fan and love to see him getting high notices for his work here.  Plus, I’ll be on Kathryn Bigelow’s bandwagon until it crashes and burns.

    Here’s the new trailer:

  • ‘The Cooley Zone’

    Those who’ve followed the site long enough are well aware that I’m a football guy.  The kind that watches the NFL network throughout the off-season to find out what the “10 Greatest Quaterback Controversies of All Time” might be, or to get 100% filled in on pre-draft news and notes.  It’s in my blood.

    Anyway, the schedules were announced yesterday, which has me poking around the usual corners of the web to get NFL tid-bits here and there, and of course, anything on my squad: the Washington Redkins.

    Which brings me to this hilarious extended preview of a web series that may or may not be developed in full.  “The Cooley Zone” features Redskins tight end Chris Cooley (who, despite his “what’s up, bra” exterior, genuinely seems to be one of the coolest dudes on the planet).  I got a kick out of this, so I figured I had to share.  (The framed portrait of Cooley and his ex-cheerleader wife is hilarious.)

    Have a look:

  • More on the Twitter apocalypse: Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN

    Ashton KutcherRecently I wrote about the dawn of the journo Twitter apocalypse, the idea that the micro-blogging platform will somehow have a considerable impact on the journalistic form.  I have my doubts.  And even if the possibility is there for Twitter to be a tool of the journalistic trade, I find myself wondering whether it should.

    Case in point: it seems Ashton Kutcher is in a public sprint to 1 million followers with CNN’s Breaking News feed.  The former is sitting at 888,000 followers, according to this AP news story.  The latter: 937,000.  Britney Spears, by the way, is somewhere in between.  But as much as I can’t help a natural irritation to Kutcher’s response to all of this, I also can’t deny what he offers in closing.

    From the AP:

    The 31-year-old actor recently threw down the gauntlet, challenging CNN and its founder, Ted Turner. In a Web video posted earlier this week, Kutcher said he would ding-dong-ditch Turner’s house if he beat CNN to 1 million. (For those unfamiliar with the classic adolescent prank, ding-dong-ditch is when you ring someone’s doorbell and run away.)

    “I find it astonishing that one person can actually have as big of a voice online as what an entire media company can on Twitter,” Kutcher said in a video he posted on qik.com. “I just thought that was kind of an amazing comment on the state of our media.”

    Preach on.  Speaking of all of this, has CNN’s news coverage on the whole become a lot more akin to a big top show over the last year-and-a-half to anyone else?  Not that it wasn’t close to the absurd already but lately I feel like my senses are ambushed every time I turn it on.

    (Ironically, I’m off to share this post on Twitter.)

  • Gorgeous ‘alternative’ poster for ‘Brothers Bloom’

    I may only be lukewarm on the film itself, but I wholeheartedly adore this poster design for “The Brothers Bloom,” which recalls (to me, at least) a 1970’s Robert Altman effort in its intricate, throwback Americana style. Dreamed up by director Rian Johnson’s cousin Zach, it seems it’s only being used for web purposes, though it captures the film’s retro preciousness a lot better than the thoroughly generic official one-sheet (pictured below the cut).

    One quibble with both posters: I realize that Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz are Oscar winners while Mark Ruffalo remains unnominated (where’s the justice in that?), but hasn’t the latter star at least earned the right to be billed above the title?

    The Brothers Bloom

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  • McG talks ‘Terminator’ sequel

    McGI don’t think there’s a site on the net more trigger happy with the word “EXCLUSIVE” (besides maybe Collider) than MTV’s admittedly whip-smart, on it movies blog.  You take the good with the bad, I guess.  Everyone wants to claim morsels of nothingness for their own in this increasingly copycat coverage age of online journalism.

    Anyway, the crew over there recently cornered director McG on the possibility of a “Terminator” franchise beyond next month’s “Terminator Salvation.”  Bottom line, I really want this film to work.  I felt like I breathed a sigh of relief with “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” in 2003, which I quite enjoyed.  It felt like the franchise dodged a bullet.  I’ve already gone on about how much I love the new trailer, but it’s also clear that a PG-13 rating it’s troublesome to say the least, especially in a franchise that has been dominated by the R.

    In a nutshell, Warner Bros. has made it clear that money is a bit more interesting as of late than most anything else, and a PG-13 rating is likely to bring in a bigger audience than an R.  A tent-pole heavy slate of product has dominated the studio’s list of upcoming works while indie divisions have been cut loose and allowed to disintegrate.

    Keep that in mind as you read through McG’s comments to MTV below.  The bold is mine (and indicative of an obvious desire to see this thing reach “Dark Knight” level business):

    “If we have good fortune we have indeed planned out two more ‘Terminator’ pictures,” explained the director, keeping his fingers crossed that “Salvation” opens strongly on May 21st. “There’s an arc of story [in the new sequels].”

    This arc will be left open with the ending of “Salvation,” which will point to a “Terminator 5” film. “The ending is indeed elliptical,” McG told us. “And it challenges the audience. It’s not a happy little bow of an ending at all. The ending is tough and requires reflection, and in some degrees it bifurcates the audience. You walk back to the car and one person thinks it means this, and the other person thinks it means that.”

    As fans know, McG recently signed on to a film version of the Broadway hit “Spring Awakening,” and is also working on an update of another sci-fi classic.

    “I’m working on ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ out of Disney,” he said of the update of the Jules Verne tale. “I’m prepping that.”

    But if “Salvation” is a big enough hit, those other movies might have to wait until McG and Christian Bale reunite for the fifth “Terminator” flick.

    “I would never presume there would be another picture – that is up to the audience,” he explained. “But if the audience jumps up and likes it and wants another one, Christian and I have been talking about it and we’ll see what happens.”

    “You have to see how the film is received,” McG added. “And that’s in the hands of the fans.”

    I know what you’re all thinking: “McG knows what bifurcate means?”

  • Wells stumps for Bateman

    Jason Bateman in State of PlaySo far, the reviews for Kevin Macdonald’s “State of Play” seem uniformly warm — which comes as a relief to me after the rather indifferent vibe I got from the film’s entire marketing strategy.

    Todd McCarthy describes it as an “efficient, admirably coherent thriller” — welcome adjectives considering the level of condensation required from the original six-hour miniseries — and casts praise in multiple directions, from Russell Crowe’s lead turn (“a brilliant character actor hiding inside a leading man’s body”) to Mark Friedberg’s production design (“won’t likely be matched anytime soon”). Screen International’s Fionnula Halligan sings a similar tune, commending the film for its “edgy bristle” and “surgical” adaptation.

    Both critics also take time to single out the supporting contribution of Jason Bateman for praise, but it’s Jeff Wells who is most impressed by the “Arrested Development” star, going so far as to advocate:

    Hollywood Elsewhere hereby submits Jason Bateman’s performance in State of Play — a performance I admittedly didn’t mention in my review posted earlier today — as the first supporting performance of 2009 deserving of award consideration. He plays a sleazy Washington, D.C. publicist named Dominic Foy, and is quite good in a sort-of sweaty and grotesque way.

    Wells, meanwhile, is also a fan of the film as a whole. Good news all round, then — I’m looking forward to the weekend just a little bit more.

  • Romanek begins shooting ‘Never Let Me Go’

    Never Let Me GoLast week, I mentioned how fully in the tank I am for Lynne Ramsay’s upcoming “We Need To Talk About Kevin.” Today, meanwhile, brings updated news of another British-funded adaptation with a mighty literary source, perfect-on-paper cast and exciting filmmaker who has been quiet for too long.

    The film in question is Mark Romanek’s take on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 masterpiece, “Never Let Me Go.” Both Fox Searchlight and Film4 (a pairing that previously brought us “Slumdog Millionaire”) have a hand in the project, which started principal shooting today in the UK. Anyone familiar with Ishiguro’s novel will see why it’s a potentially snug fit for Romanek, the music video auteur extraordinaire who hasn’t settled on a feature-length vehicle for his gifts since the mixed bag that was 2002’s “One Hour Photo.”

    Ishiguro’s supremely elegant science-fiction tale — a romantic dystopian narrative hard to synopsise without entering spoiler territory — should provide the right balance of elegiac emotional texture to complement Romanek’s sometimes distancing visual sheen. With Alex Garland (“The Beach,” “28 Days Later”) handling script duties, the project promises a very exciting merger of three pristine stylists.

    Meanwhile, the cast — a veritable showcase of Britain’s brightest rising talent — isn’t too shabby either: Sally Hawkins has just been added to a roster that already includes Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield (so riveting in “Boy A” and “Red Riding”), with Charlotte Rampling adding veteran class.

    Even if you don’t know the source material, you have to admit this sounds pretty exciting on paper. Of course, Ishiguro’s opalescent, china-fragile prose (okay, I’m a long-time devotee) provides numerous opportunities to trip up less delicate filmmakers — but as the Merchant-Ivory team proved back in 1993, it can be done, and with less intrinsically cinematic source material to boot. I’m sensing something special in the works here.

  • Simon Channing Williams (1945-2009)

    Simon Channing WilliamsThese days, there aren’t many producers in the often too-cosy British film industry who genuinely earn the adjective “fearless,” but Simon Channing Williams, who passed away last Saturday after a long battle with cancer, was one of them.

    As much credit as auteur Mike Leigh deserves for changing the landscape of British cinema with his stinging social comedy and defiantly unorthodox creative process, Channing Williams merits the same appreciation for backing Leigh on every one of his projects since his breakthrough feature “High Hopes” in 1988 — however tenuously defined or commercially unsound they may have appeared to be at the outset.

    The constance of Channing Williams’ collaboration gave Leigh the wherewithal and confidence to push his art into ever more challenging and surprising directions, encompassing the icy philosophising of “Naked,” to the warm domestic melodrama of “Secrets and Lies,” the brittle classicism of “Vera Drake” to the loose-limbed yet black-edged comedy of last year’s “Happy-Go-Lucky.” It truly stands as one of the industry’s greatest producer-director partnerships, and it’s hard to imagine a future Leigh film without Channing Williams’ name attached. As Leigh himself commented:

    He was a natural-born producer, a great leader, always an enabler, a protector; never a dictator or an interferer. Infinitely generous, his life was all about doing things for people, and bringing out the best in everybody. He was the ultimate fixer, and a phenomenal organiser. He relished the impossible challenge, and loved the cut-and-thrust of negotiations, at which he was a genius.

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  • Cameron to showcase making of ‘Avatar’ at upcoming PGA conference

    James Cameron on the set of AvatarI’m not entirely sure, but I think this is a gigantic ruse to get me to shell out at least 250 bucks for “Produced By” registration.  Not gonna happen.  But in all seriousness, “Avatar” is certainly one of the industry’s most anticipated films in a number of years.  It seems any info, any morsel of information, continues to be devoured, analyzed and spit back out as we await the main course in December.

    From the press release, in part:

    If sinking the Titanic was a filmmaking and storytelling marvel that led to the largest grossing film of all time, then Jim Cameron’s Avatar has the industry buzzing about what the maestro of mega-films has up his sleeve with his next hotly-anticipated holiday season blockbuster.  Attendees at the PGA’s inaugural Produced By Conference will get to hear first-hand from Cameron when he makes a rare appearance to discourse on “Seeing the Future in 3D,” June 6 at Sony Pictures Studios.

    Cameron, a pioneer of digital 3D filmmaking, will unveil the craft behind the making of Avatar with its combination of live action 3D and computer-generated, photo-real visual effects.  Avatar, to be released by 20th Century Fox in December of this year, is one of the most highly-anticipated films ever and is Cameron’s first narrative film since Titanic, the biggest box office hit of all time.

    James Cameron noted, “This is the perfect opportunity for me to share what I’ve learned from making AVATAR about the cutting edge 3-D technology that is re-shaping how people make and view movies.”

    (Full press release after the jump.)

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  • Philippe Petit to perform high wire acts in U.S. next fall

    Philippe PetitIt seems the focus of last year’s Oscar-winning documentary feature will be putting on an encore.  From the AP:

    The 59-year-old says they’ll include midtown Manhattan, and will promote literacy. He’s keeping mum about other details.

    Secrecy also preceded Petit’s 1974 walk between the World Trade Center towers. A documentary about it, “Man on Wire,” won an Oscar.

    Petit has been an artist-in-residence at Manhattan’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine since 1982. He keeps a practice wire strung high inside a hall there.

    He’s also braved a wobbly ladder to reach cathedral chandeliers.

    Jokes Petit: “Now you know how many wire walkers it takes to change a light bulb.”

    No matter the issues I have with “Man on Wire,” I can’t deny the act and the awe around the man.  I’d line up for this.

    Here’s Petit goofing off in Washington Square four years ago:

  • “My life”

    Faith in mankind restored. SUGAR doubled this weekend ($125K) what it made last weekend ($60K). And Indiewire reports: “What’s more, its $6,389 average was up near $1,000 from last weekend.” Now if only this continues.

    From family & friends who were at Q&As at 4/3 & 4/4 , 4/10 Boston plus I was at 4/11 SF, all were sold out – but then again all are Fleck/Boden home turf.

    One thing that struck me at SF was a 20 y.o. Chinese immigrant student, a 35 y.o. woman immigrant restaurant worker, and a U.S.-born 40-something Filipino gay man literally saying “That is *my* life!” (An extraordinary statement, especially by the women, if you think about it.)

    From commenter Ligaya on a recent “Sugar” post/plea for business.

  • Startling ‘Antichrist’ trailer

    Put Lars von Trier and Charlotte Gainsbourg together, and you have me at hello, so I don’t need to be sold — but damn it if this fragmentary-nightmare trailer doesn’t sell me on the film anyway.

    I wasn’t quite expecting a full-throttle dive into horror from von Trier, but that’s certainly the vibe given off here. Intriguing. I assume this will crop up at Cannes?

    [Source: First Showing]