In Contention

Category: Daily

  • 1/28 Oscarweb Round-up

    Kate Winslet at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards• Trying to get in on more of that tech action, Elizabeth Snead talks to “Benjamin Button” costumer Jacqueline West. [The Envelope]

    • “Push” and “Cove” top the critics’ picks for the best of Sundance. [indieWIRE]

    • Despite a nation-wide ban on Israeli products, two brave souls screen “Waltz with Bashir” in Beirut. [The Guardian]

    • The Stanley Kubrick Holocaust film (and shining new ingenue) that almost was. [The Independent]

    • Giving Kate Winslet shit across the pond for forgetting Angelina Jolie’s name at the Globes. [Daily Telegraph]

    • The top 10 most bewildering Best Picture nominees. [Rope of Silicon]

  • John Updike (1932-2009)

    This may be a film site, but I cannot let the passing of John Updike go without comment. While he contributed little directly to the artform — and the two feature-length attempts at bringing his work to the screen were, to say the least, regrettable — but it’s impossible to underestimate his level of influence across media.

    He may not have been the very first writer to appreciate suburban America for the seethingly dramatic storytelling space that it is, to investigate its paradoxical balance of suffocating community spirit and equally oppressive loneliness, but he became indisputably its most precise and prolific chronicler — while in his “Rabbit” quartet, he created arguably the most complete, searching study of shifting American social mores in the last half-century. Contemporary writers such as Tom Perrotta and Jonathan Franzen are as indebted to his legacy as filmmakers like Todd Solondz or Alexander Payne.

    We all have our heroes, and Updike is mine. In a way, it’s pointless writing obituaries for figures like him — though the Guardian takes an excellent stab — because his own work speaks more eloquently for itself than anyone else can. Indeed, it was Updike himself who, in the foreword to his essential 2003 “Early Stories” compilation (buy it if you don’t yet have it), best described his achievement as a writer:

    After I gave up cigarettes, I smoked nickel cigarillos to allay my nervousness at the majesty of my calling and the intricacy of my craft; the empty boxes, with their comforting image of another writer, Robert Burns, piled up. Not only were the boxes useful for storing little things like foreign coins and cufflinks, but the caustic aura of cigars discouraged visitors. I felt that I was packaging something as delicately pervasive as smoke, one box after another, in that room, where my only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me — to give the mundane its beautiful due.

  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Fallujah’ soars, Thomas Vanguarded

    The Road to FallujahSomething of a slow day today at the festival — well, I purposely put the breaks on in favor of some quality time with you guys throughout the day and to put my feet up for a spell at the ole’ homestead.

    Anyway, I was really taken with Mark Manning’s “The Road to Fallujah,” an Iraq war documentary that played at Sundance last week and had its California debut this evening at the Arlington Theatre.  There was a nice turn-out, largely because Manning is a local (the first Santa Barbaran, in fact, to bring a film to Park City and then back the hometown fest).  But what I expected to be a derivative analysis of “what we did wrong” slowly revaled itself as perhaps one of the very best docs on the conflict we’ve seen yet.

    A former oil platform worker who up and decided one day to take a documentary course and shoot over to the middle of hell and find out what was going on, Manning only commits one sin that tends to irk me in non-fiction filmmaking: he put himself in the film.  If this is done to dramatically impacting effect (like in, say, “Dear Zachary”), it’s generally forgiveable at the start.  But it actually didn’t get to me as the film went on because the portrait Manning paints is immediate, penetrating and emotional.

    In essence, the film is a “what do the Iraqi people do now?” think-piece, littered with depictions of collateral damage and, of course, an extended look at the build-up to the Battle for Fallujah, the horrors of war during it, and the repercussions both Iraq and the U.S. are left with as a result.  Manning makes great use of his string of talking head experts, grabbing the key lines at the right times.  It’s amazing all this came from a night class education.

    (more…)

  • POLL: Who deserves it? — BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

    First off, I was rather surprised that the inclusion of “In Bruges” in the original screenplay category was the readership’s pick for happiest surprise, just edging out Michael Shannon.  Very interesting.

    Anyway, I’m going to be running the next few polls a couple at a time throughout the next month.  So here’s your chance to pick which contender of the nominees in each category deserves to win.

    We’ll start with Best Visual Effects.  So have at it in the sidebar poll!

  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Three Monkeys,’ ‘C’est pas moi, je le jure!,’ ‘War Against the Weak’

    Antoine L\'Écuyer in C\'est pas moi, je le jure!And a few more…

    “THREE MONKEYS” (**1/2)

    I was left scratching my head yesterday afternoon after a screening of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Three Monkeys.”  I can’t for the life of me comprehend what all of the Cannes fuss was about.  It’s a solid exploration of mood and atmosphere, to say the least.  And there are some penetrating performances.  But…?

    The bleakness of the narrative likely appealed to festival jury members looking to reward a filmmaker for “going there,” but there’s a big “So what?” residue to the film and its themes.  The story, in a nutshell, revolves around a family playing blind, deaf and dumb (hence the title) to a time of hardship, and for that, I give it some respect.  There aren’t many films willing to pull back the veil of complacency that settles into families in crisis.

    The cinematography is subdued, and striking as a result.  And like I said, the performances — particularly from Yavuz Bingol and Rifat Sungar — are superlative.  But the whole comes up short of the sum of the film’s parts.  I’ve been impressed by Ceylan’s work so far, but I’m sure he’s got something better, more akin to “Distant” inside him somewhere, so I’ll wait for it.

    (more…)

  • 1/27 Oscarweb Round-up

    Stephen DaldryA late installment today.  Relaxing.

    • Kvetching over the “Dark Knight” slight, with stats to assist.  “The Reader” is officially the worst reviewed Best Picture nominee since 2000 and the lowest grossing as well. [Film.com]

    • The ‘Slumdog’ smear sure is relentless.  It’s just sad to see smart reporters like Dennis Lim taking the bait from publicists and an all-too-convenient backlash. [Slate]

    • Peter Bart dug the SAG Awards. [Peter Bart]

    • Dave Karger runs down some 2008 Oscar trivia, including the Stephen Daldry hat-trick of Best Director nods that, I believe, one of our commenters was all over on Thursday. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Mickey Rourke is gonna lace up the boots for real at WrestleMania. [MSNBC]

    • David Carr and the value of an Oscar, monetarily speaking. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Patrick Goldstein checks out David Denby and A.O. Scott going at it on Charlie Rose. [The Big Picture]

    • The Weinstein Company brings on Lionsgate honcho Tom Ortenberg.  Hey, that might actually work. [Los Angeles Times]

  • It shouldn’t be a “rule” in the first place

    (from left) Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella at the premiere of Breaking and EnteringI’m sure the Academy will pat itself on the back for having the courage to ignore its own specifications that only three producers be credited for the Best Picture nominations, but the fact remains, this is and has been a stupid, troublesome rule, far too conservative for its own good.  We all remember the unfortunate case of “Little Miss Sunshine” two years ago, but if I were Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, I’d be calling foul.

    Here’s indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt on the “Reader” news of the day:

    Producer credits for Academy Award Best Picture nominee “The Reader” have been determined by the Producers Branch Executive Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The official nominees for the film are Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti and Redmond Morris.

    Because four producers were listed on the credits form submitted for Oscar consideration and Academy rules allow for only three producers – except in “a rare and extraordinary circumstance” – to be nominated and potentially receive Oscar statuettes, a meeting of the executive committee was necessary.

    “Rare and extraordinary.”  Just another example of AMPAS allowing for random subjectivity to enter the picture, as we’ve seen in the music branch over and over, for instance.

    The point, however, is that it’s great to see Pollack and Minghella get the notice they deserve.  When I first saw the film back in November, I mentioned that there were “echoes of [Minghella’s] work” throughout the film and that Daldry was perhaps “the only filmmaker with the right doses of prestige and dramatic flavor to take up Minghella’s mantle.”  Looking back, I should have mentioned Pollack’s influence as well.

    I just hope Harvey Weinstein doesn’t milk these credits for all their worth.  We all know the stories about that supposed death-bed visit, pleading with Pollack to give his blessing on a 2008 release for the film…

  • Unlucky thirteen?

    Stu Van Airsdale is cheekily posing a scenario whereby “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” converts precisely zero of its 13 nominations into victory on Oscar night.

    It’s not really worth picking holes in his argument — though we could start with the fact that “Button” is nominated for Sound Mixing rather than Sound Editing, or that he doesn’t seem to consider “Slumdog” the frontrunner for Film Editing — because the article is less interesting for its specifics than for how it taps into the general indifference that “Button” seems to be facing. Has a film with such an impressive Oscar tally ever looked a less formidable competitor going into the race?

    On nomination day, AwardsDaily posted a handy list of the ten previous films that have received 13 or 14 nods. Seven of them won Best Picture. Two of them (“Mary Poppins” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) each took a healthy haul of five awards apiece, major acting trophies among them. The last, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” was limited to technical victories, though in an odd year, with splintered support for “Moulin Rouge!” and eventual champ “A Beautiful Mind,” it wasn’t a complete non-starter — and in any case, everyone knew there was more to come.

    Right now, I side with Kris in predicting a scant three trophies for “Button,” in the Art Direction, Makeup and Visual Effects field. (Unpredictably scattered as the tech categories have been in recent years, I’d be very surprised if it missed in the latter two categories, at the very least.) So, is the film set to reap an all-time low from its nomination tally? Or are we underestimating it?

    As it stands, I’m starting to wonder if Taraji P. Henson may have more of a shot in the comparatively open Best Supporting Actress field than I thought earlier. Last year, Tilda Swinton eked out a victory in the same category after “Michael Clayton” fans realized she represented the film’s only shot at a major award. If voters don’t want to humiliate the season’s biggest, most-nominated film, could Henson be a similar beneficiary? Just a thought.

  • SANTA BARBARA: Danny Boyle reflects on his career

    Cliff Curtis in SunshineThere are a number of ambitious films that fascinate me despite their level of failure.  “Syriana” and “Hancock” are recent examples, but the quintessential exhibit has to be Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine,” which I caught once more today in the middle of career retrospective for the filmmaker.

    I still stand by every word I wrote about the film nearly two years ago.  It flakes apart swiftly in a final act that may have been doomed on the page, but damn if it isn’t a magnificent, near-masterpiece for about an hour and 15 minutes.  We’re talking true magisterial work from Boyle that has me chomping at the bit, anxious to see him tackle a deep space saga once more.  When I interviewed the director back in November, he said the process of making “Sunshine” made him understand why filmmakers only ever seem to make one space film.  “It’s merciless, the demands on you,” he said at the time.  “The precision you have to bring is migraine-inducing.”

    But this thing came close to top-of-the-genre material, and I hope and pray he has another one in him.  Something less boiled in genre like this one eventually is, perhaps.  Something ethereal, reaching for philosophical heights he and screenwriter Alex Garland clearly had in mind.  I’d be front row center.

    Anyway, Boyle was in town this evening to talk about his career once more, an eight-film stretch that seems, by all accounts, to be headed for an Oscar next month for his work on “Slumdog Millionaire.”  He sat down with festival director Roger Durling after the film screened at the Lobero Theatre tonight to discuss the fairytale story of the film, both on screen and off, and he was met with a massive standing ovation from the packed theater.

    (more…)

  • Welcome back — massive apologies

    So, it came to my attention over the weekend that a number of Internet Explorer users were having trouble accessing the site.  It’s been difficult to dig into the matter since I’ve been knee deep in the Santa Barbara fest, but after a back and forth with the folks at my server company, I think I’ve tracked it down to a plugin we activated Thursday to help with traffic issues — which I’ve obliterated from the face of the earth with extreme prejudice.

    But I have to say, I’m really sorry to those who haven’t been able to read the updates the last four days, perhaps the most important time frame of the season.  The bright side is, there are tons of updates here at your disposal, so kill a few hours reading Guy’s SAG live-blogging or my Santa Barbara Film Festival coverage.  And please accept my apologies.  A regrettable bummer.

  • Fallen

    I’m iphoning this in between festival screenings and catching up with the day’s layoffs (which some of us saw coming) as I can, but it’s a shame to see some of these names go. A few of them are friends, so it’s sad to see some writers proving to be so craven in the face of all of this, but I’m sure some of us saw that coming too. In any case, a dark day for a number of comrades. In hope you land on your feet soon.

  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Sugar,’ ‘Mile High,’ ‘Ink’

    InkAnother day, another series of capsule reviews…

    “SUGAR” (***1/2)

    Even though I never fully understood what it was trying to say, I fell in love with Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson” follow-up “Sugar.”  I missed the film at last year’s AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and it received a world premiere over a year ago at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, but a day after catching it at the Lobero Theatre here in Santa Barbara, I still find myself turning it over in my mind.  It’s the lingering sort of cinema that I’m tempted to say will mean something different to you every time you watch it.

    Algenis Perez Soto is the film’s revelation, a tender first-time performer who excels under the direction of Boden and Fleck, two filmmakers who have cornered the market on intimate indie filmmaking that actually resonates.  The duo isn’t afraid of the natural awkwardness of relationships, but not in the pretentious sort of way that leaves you reaching for a barf bag at every step of the way.  They trust their characters to be honest first, dramatic second.

    That can also be a hindrance for obvious reasons.  The narrative rarely escapes a sense of safety.  Nothing is ever threatened along the way.  Nothing ever seems truly at stake.  But, in a sense, such is life.  But “Sugar” is as much a departure from the themes of “Half Nelson” as it is an extension of them, and to be such drastically different films, that is fascinating.

    (more…)

  • Mickey Rourke has never seen ‘The Wrestler?’

    Mickey Rourke at the 66th Annual Golden Globe AwardsWell this is an interesting bit of news, from London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.  Here’s Matthew Moore’s scoopy lede:

    Rourke’s performance in the critically-acclaimed film may have earned him the much-coveted best actor nomination but he still hasn’t watched the final cut.

    “I don’t watch anything until three, four, five years go by,” he said in an interview.

    “I see myself every day in the mirror when I’m shaving. I don’t get anything from it.”

    All these ads asking us to “witness the resurrection of Mickey Rourke” and Rourke himself hasn’t even witnessed it.  I guess he lived it after all.

    I have to say, as happy as I am with Sean Penn being in the mix for his finest work to date, I am four-square behind Rourke this year.  The SAG had never recognized Penn’s work, so maybe last night was indicative of that, but I still hold out hope the Academy at large will recognize this as the earth-shattering work of performance art that it is.

    Rourke will be up here in Santa Barbara Saturday night to accept the Riviera Award, following a Q&A with Envelope contributor Pete Hammond.  I’m looking forward to talking with him once more, because as it stands, he’s still my favorite interview from 2008.

  • 1/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    Jim Carrey in I Love You Philip Morris• Mark Magnier quotes a few Indians and feels it okay to say a nation disapproves of “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Jeffrey Wells wonders if category confusion could keep Kate Winslet form a lead actress win, especially in the wake of Meryl Streep’s victory last night. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Tom O’Neil gives poor Anil Kapoor shit for forgetting Simon Beaufoy’s name in his list of appreciations last night.  Give the guy a break, Tom O. [Gold Derby]

    • Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, meanwhile, talk about their film across the pond. [The Times]

    • It looks like there’s just one contender worth banking on. [USA Today]

    • Brad Brevet finally catches up with the Academy’s preferential balloting system.  Knowledge is power, Brad. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Peter Bart writes up Jim Carrey’s recent string of press for risk-taking role choices.  Finally the pendulum is swinging back, ever so slowly. [Peter Bart]

    • Anne Thompson talks this weekend’s screenwriter’s panel from Santa Barbara. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Tiffany Hsu on the box office boost for this year’s Oscar contenders still in the marketplace. [Los Angeles Times]

  • Anyone over this story yet?

  • God bless TNT’s lack of original late-night content

    I’ve been tied up in screenings all night, but it looks like they’re on their second re-run of the SAG Awards. Maybe I can check out Gary Oldman’s speech after all.

  • ‘Slumdog,’ Penn, Streep triumph at SAG Awards

    A list of the winners in the film categories. For more commentary and discussion, check out my live-blog here.

    Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn, “Milk”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
    Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in Motion Pictures: “The Dark Knight”

  • Wow…it really IS written

    I’m sitting here awaiting the premiere of the Laird Hamilton doc “The Water Man,” reading Guy’s SAG blow-by-blow like the rest of you, and I have to say, I wasn’t expecting that. We all know “Slumdog Millionaire” will likely take the DGA and WGA prizes in the coming days, completing one hell of an impressive streak that will almost assuredly lead to a Best Picture Oscar next month. But really…wow.

    Danny Boyle will be in town tomorrow night for a post-“Slumdog” screening career retrospective discussion. He’s already been similarly feted by the AFI Fest. This train just keeps on truckin’.

    I might take in ” Shallow Grave” and “Sunshine” for a second time. It’s been a while for both. But all of his films are showing throuout the day Monday. But it’s a great time to be celebrating a genius such as his. Perhaps the sting of the Academy’s nomination shame will be soothed by the fact that the year’s best film will actually win the big prize for a change.