In Contention

Category: Daily

  • 9/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    I\'ve Loved You So Long• Mark Olsen counts down Toronto’s must sees. It’s an indie dominated list (and fest, really) with more than a few surprises. [The Envelope]

    • Pete Hammond talks to Tom O’Neil about the Telluride success of “Slumdog Millionaire” and “I’ve Loved You So Long,” as well as the whole “Button” footage dust-up from yesterday. [Gold Derby]

    • Regarding the dust-up, Jeffrey Wells defends himself. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Then he slams Anne Thompson’s cinematographical skills. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • But Brad Brevet, in nicely rounding up the whole mess for your reading pleasure, wonders whether the damage has already been done. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Which, digging through all of that, is there more to the Paramount/Fincher friction than we might know? [The Playlist]

    • In happier news, Nancy Kriparos introduces herself as Sasha Stone’s Toronto correspondent this year. [Awards Daily]

    • Michael Cieply previews Toronto from the angle of ’70s New York nostalgia dominating a number of films playing the fest. [New York Times]

  • Hollywood Awards get the craft races rolling

    I’ve never quite got a handle on what purpose the Hollywood Awards serve, since they frequently seem to honour achievements in still-unseen films. Their picks can be quite prescient (last year’s honorees included Marion Cotillard and Dante Ferretti), but they can frequently baffle too. (Based on “Charlie Wilson’s War,” did anyone really think that Stephen Goldblatt was the cinematographer of 2007?)

    However, following the announcement of this year’s craft honorees, I am pretty confident that we will see a couple of these names in the awards derby.

    A couple of months ago, I discussed the awards prospects of “Australia” DP Mandy Walker, so it’s nice to see she’s been named Cinematographer of the Year. The one thing that’s not in doubt about “Australia” is that it’s going to be a visual feast, so things are looking good for Walker to become the first female Best Cinematography nominee in Oscar history.

    Also on this site, Kris recently mused on the surprisingly poor Oscar record of Danny Elfman, one of the most distinctive composers in the business. He in turn has been named Composer of the Year. Elfman’s had a busy 2008, scoring “Wanted,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” and Errol Morris doc “Standard Operating Procedure,” but it’s the heavily-buzzed “Milk” that could reverse his Academy fortunes.

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  • ‘Milk’ trailer and poster hit the Internet tomorrow…

    FYI

  • ‘Milk’ poster (NOT REAL), new pics

    UPDATE (5:38 p.m.): It turns out the “Milk” one-sheet we posted earlier is not the final version Focus Features and Groundswell Films had decided upon, but merely one of a few images that were up for consideration.

    I’ve decided to go ahead and take the pic down, looks like ROS did as well.

    EARLIER: Bryan Carter over at Rope of Silicon has stumbled across some new pics from Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” including a spiffy poster image (see update…though I hope they keep the “Join Him” bit).

    There are also new shots of Emile Hirsch and Josh Brolin (who plays Harvey Milk’s assassin, Dan White). Check it all out here.

    I’m lovin’ the hair, Josh:

    Josh Brolin in Milk

  • Let’s hear it for the ladies!

    Meryl Streep in DoubtWow, what a damn fine year for lead actress performances.  When was the last time you heard anyone say that?

    I caught some flack recently when I took Meryl Streep off my predicted five nominees in the category.  “How can the Goddess miss?”  Well, she can, and she has, but regardless, the point is that there is some really stiff competition this year for the leading ladies, and man, that’s exciting (and unique)!

    Sally Hawkins (“Happy-Go-Lucky”), Charlize Theron (“The Burning Plain”), Kristin Scott-Thomas (“I’ve Loved You So Long”), Angelina Jolie (“Changeling”), Penélope Cruz (“Elegy”), Melissa Leo (“Frozen River”) and Michelle Williams (“Wendy and Lucy”) represent the seen and raved performances.  Anne Hathaway’s work has also been viewed, but we’ll get to that at the end of the week.  Rest assured, she’ll have her fans as well.

    On the horizon we’ll have Nicole Kidman (“Australia”) and the aforementioned Streep (“Doubt) in big Oscar hopefuls, not to mention Kate Winslet’s double dip in “The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road” (which ought to make home life interesting for the five-time nominee around campaign time).

    There are still fringe possibilities for Keira Knightley in “The Duchess” or Emily Blunt in “The Young Victoria,” while Laura Linney could add an Oscar nod to her Emmy success if “The Other Man” finds a distributor in Toronto.

    There’s always Julianne Moore lurking with her work in “Blindness” should the mixed reaction from Cannes prove to be a different story in Toronto, and Kate Beckinsale, by the way, is fantastic in Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth,” so who knows?

    So let’s not get our panties in a twist over shifting and sliding in this category over the next few months.  I don’t need consistent emails asking “Why did you take so and so out of your Best Actress chart,” because the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of horses in this particular race.

    Which is what we want, right?

  • Pete Hammond can’t resist sticking it to the blog-o-sphere

    You know, I kind of, sort of let it pass when Anne Thompson decided to take a mini-stab at bloggers (written as a pejorative, no doubt) who didn’t really like the 20 minutes of footage from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” shown at Telluride last week. But I can’t help but be irritated at the gall of Pete Hammond offering:

    Voracious movie bloggers, with a need to be first rather than right, took shots at the film over the weekend on the basis of the modest Telluride peek. They would be advised to hold their reviews a few months until the other 2 hours and 25 minutes can be seen.

    “Right?” What the fuck does that mean? There is a right and wrong opinion to be taken from watching a few clips? One guy’s “They didn’t wow me” is not another guy’s “It could be good?” Give me a break.

    No doubt this is all a result of publicity teams circling their wagons, prodding other writers to get something up that is positive and FAST. But there is no need to shit all over the opinion of a few folks who didn’t react as the suits would have preferred.

    The buzz is the buzz, and if a couple of guys didn’t dig it, their opinion is valid. We linked to the dissenters here. Jeff Wells did too (though Thompson mistakenly thought he was reviewing the clips without having seen them…he was simply passing along an opinion).

    This stuff really gets on my nerves. Writers burned by the quickness of the net (indeed, those who are a valid part of the net) can’t help but douse the flames of opinion that go up before theirs. Sad.

    Personally, if I’ve taken anything from the mixed reaction to the clips it is that this could be a tougher Academy sell than I originally thought. And indeed, I expected as much all along. And with a truly Oscar-bait effort like “The Soloist” in the pipeline at the same studio…

    But that script…man, that script is a work of art.

  • A note on IC’s festival season coverage

    We’re in the midst of the Telluride and Venice film festivals at the moment, and though we don’t have correspondents on the ground, we’ll be bringing you updates as we can suss them out.  But a quick reminder of what we will be offering over the next couple of months.

    John will start his Toronto coverage on Thursday.  He’ll be updating daily with quick thoughts on the goings on.  I’ve been catching some Toronto films here in L.A. so I’ll be reviewing in tandem.

    Guy Lodge, meanwhile, will be covering the London Film Festival for us, which begins October 15.  The full schedule for the fest hasn’t been revealed yet (coming on September 10), but we do know that Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” will have its world debut there.

    Finally, I’ll be overing the AFI Fest here in Los Angeles.  The festivities begin on October 30 and will take us into November.  Again, no schedule yet, though I do know one major Oscar contender expected to bow at the fest…stay tuned.

  • R.I.P. Don LaFontaine

    Huge loss:

  • Can Ron Howard give ‘Frost/Nixon’ the edge it needs?

    Ron HowardIn 2000 I remember reading a post on Ain’t It Cool News by Harry Knowles.  Having seen an unfinished cut of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” the Ron Howard film based on the beloved Dr. Suess story and animated program, Knowles believed that the film would redefine Howard as a filmmkaer, elevate him to a higher level and be the film he would be remembered for.

    Knowles felt it was a greater achievement than “Apollo 13” and pretty much anything else the director had done, that Howard had given us the fantasy film we had been waiting for. Admittedly the effects were incomplete, but Knowles was confident what he saw was a masterpiece.

    Granted it was Harry Knowles, but then, of course, the film was released, critically crucified, reasonably successful before hitting DVD where it is not even regarded as a Christmas classic. You know why? Because it was not very good.

    Whatever Knowles saw, and I am sure he saw something he felt was exciting, did not transfer to the final cut. Instead we had a busy film with a massively over-the-top performance from Jim Carrey and these bizarre little creatures with odd makeup called “Whos.” Christine Baranski was in heat for the green misanthrope, though she had not seen him since he was a wee Grinch, and the town’s mayor was still the pompous windbag he had been in school when he had humiliated our hero and sent him off to the mountain where he now resides.

    They searched the continent of North America to find the right little girl to play Cindy Lou Who, and I suppose Howard thought they had found her.  Wrong.

    One year later Howard won the Academy Award for ” A Beautiful Mind,” one of those wildly over-praised films that somehow win Oscars over better efforts like “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” or “In the Bedroom,” or the un-nominated “A.I. : Artificial Intelligence.”

    For my money, Ron Howard has struck gold just once, with the brilliant “Apollo 13,” a superb piece of filmmaking. The Academy awarded the film with nine nominations, but stunningly, despite having won the Directors Guild Award for Best Director, Howard was not among Oscar’s list of helmers. What a terrible slap in the face that must have been!

    In the years since “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” Howard has matured as a director, giving us a superb western that nobody saw called “The Missing,” with outstanding performances from Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, and the extraordinary “Cinderella Man,” for which he and Russell Crowe should have earned Oscar nominations.

    If this generation of directors has a filmmaker that resembles Frank Capra, I suppose Howard is the closest we have, though I am not suggesting he is in the same league. Howard is a good director, not a great one.

    Which brings me to my point: I wonder if he can bring the edge needed to make a film like “Frost/Nixon” work?

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  • Alone: when you hate a movie everyone else seems to love

    Miramax Films\' The English PatientIn 1996 I remember sitting in a packed screening room watching “The English Patient”; it was close to the end when Ralph Fiennes leaves Kristin Scott-Thomas in the cave, promising to come back, never to return, leaving her (through no fault of his own) to perish.

    I couldn’t help thinking at the time: “For fuck’s sake woman, DIE so we can all go home.”  I hated the film — hated it, hated it, hated it — and yet the reviewes were pretty much raves.  Of course the damned thing won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. I did not believe the love connection between the leads (there was no heat) nor that anyone, quite frankly, could fall for an ice queen like Scott-Thomas, much less risk their life for her.

    And yet all around me was this avalanche of praise.  Even the person I did a TV show with named the film the best of the year.  I went with “Trainspotting.”  “The English Patient” was being hailed as this great historical epic while I championed “The Crucible,” which Fox fumbled in releasing, and as the critic who disliked the film, I looked very silly.

    I admire the craftsmanship with which Anthony Mingehlla made his film, but I think he surpassed it with “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and the wonderful “Cold Mountain.”  And of course “The Englsih Patient” was not the first critically acclaimed film I disliked, nor will it be the last, but it does put one in an odd position. You second guess yourself (sometimes) and wonder if you missed something along the way.

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  • ‘Broken’ beauty

    The news that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired rights to “Broken Embraces,” the latest from Spanish master Pedro Almodovar, isn’t really much of a story. After all, SPC have handled Almodovar’s last nine features, and after the success of “Volver,” why would they stop now?

    However, it does provide a nice excuse to post this gorgeous still from the film, courtesy of Almodovar’s always-interesting blog:

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  • 9/2 Oscarweb Round-up

    Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler• Todd McCarthy does cartwheels for Danny Boyle’s “Sulmdog Millionaire.” [Variety]

    • Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrestler” track chokes Darren Aronofsky up every time he hears it. [darrenaronofsky.blogspot.com]

    • Peter Sciretta gives a quick, somewhat lacking review of Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” seems to be mixed. [/Film]

    • Across the pond, Penélope Cruz talks “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and working with masters. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Not really awards-related (yet), but, wait…they’re turning “The Wave” into a German language film? Cool! News to me… [Empire]

    • Andrew Pulver separates the cheers from the jeers in Venice. [The Guardian]

    • If you’re looking for one hell of a spiffy awards section… [Rope of Silicon]

    • Rupert Friend makes one creepy Nazi in “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.” [The Times]

    • Scott Bowles runs down ten fall flicks bursting with potential. [USA Today]

  • Foreign film watch: Holland and Taiwan pick their horses

    For those of you keeping track of the Best Foreign Language Film race, Screen Daily carries details of submissions from two countries with good previous form in the category.

    After fouling foul of the Academy’s arcane rules last year — their entry “Lust, Caution” was disqualified for not being sufficiently Taiwanese — Taiwan is hoping for better luck this time with “Cape No. 7,” a romantic comedy about a group of coastal townspeople who form a support band for a visiting pop star.

    The Netherlands, meanwhile, has selected “Dunya and Desie,” a youth-oriented road comedy about two best friends travelling through Morocco. I find it a surprising choice — the sweeping period weepie “Bride Flight” seemed more Oscar-friendly to me — but the film’s topical theme of Muslim-Western relations might resonate with voters.

    Variety, reviewing it at the Berlin fest in February, loved the film, saying it “positively sings with upbeat energy and humor,” drawing favourable comparisons to “Bend It Like Beckham,” and finally citing “enormous remake potential.”

    For a country with such a small industry, the Dutch have an enviable track record in this category, having won three times, as well as managing nominations for such minor works as “Zus en Zo” and “Twin Sisters.” They are always ones to watch.

  • ‘Che’ = ‘Havana’s Gate’

    Ouch:

    Call it Havana’s Gate. Steven Soderbergh’s elephantine account of the rise and deification of revolutionary icon Ernesto (Che) Guevara could prove as deadly to the director’s career as Heaven’s Gate was to Michael Cimino’s. Running a bladder-bursting 4 hours and 22 minutes (split over two parts), it reeks of authenticity but also self-indulgence. A potentially great performance by Benicio Del Toro in the title role is buried beneath Soderbergh’s stylistic tics and an almost complete lack of dramatic tension. It feels like every plodding jungle bootstep of Che and his band of rebels is shown, first in Cuba and later in Bolivia, but we never really get to know the man whose face launched a million T-shirts.

    Pete Howell has also given high marks to Ed Harris’s “Appaloosa” and Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married.” Neither was my cup of tea, and the former was an outright disappointment of potential, but I expect there to be plenty of fans to go around for each.  Especially “Rachel,” with a delicious duo on screen in the form of Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie Dewitt. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, eat your hearts out.

  • Another vote of confidence for ‘Button’

    Kris linked earlier to Anne Thompson’s defence of the 20-minute taster of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — a riposte to the underwhelmed response from certain corners of the blogosphere.

    Encouragingly, Thompson’s Variety colleague Todd McCarthy is of the same mind. Saying the footage “pushes all the right buttons,” he elaborates:

    The footage looked artistically and technically impeccable, and quite different in style from Fincher’s previous work. The ambitious aging technique, employed to tell the story of a man who is born with the features of an old man and gradually grows bigger and younger, was seamless in the footage Fincher presented.

    I must say I took the criticism with a pinch of salt when I heard it — I think it’s impossible to draw conclusions on such a structurally and thematically complex work based on so little footage. As far as I’m concerned, until we can see the entirety of David Fincher’s vision, his film is innocent until proven guilty.   

  • POLL: Will the two-film release strategy for ‘Che’ help or hinder its Oscar chances?

    I’ve been rather low on the Oscar prospects for “Che” for a while.  I’m not sure why.  It was, of course, extremely divisive out of Cannes.  The festival’s jury president had to even step in and defend its value amid the turbulence.  But beyond Benicio Del Toro’s Best Actor bid, I haven’t been able to go along with major awards hopes.

    Part of that had to do with distribution.  No takers.  But we always figured on the film being released as two entities (being “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla”).  And with Wild Bunch solidifying the particulars, I can’t help but wonder whether dividing the material will be a hurdle for the film to leap on the way to Oscar.

    The film has been absent from our charts for a while as we awaited clarity on the issue, and not that we have it now, I thought I’d offer it up as a chance for you to sound off.  Will giving the Academy two options to vote for Del Toro and company help or hinder its chances in the derby?  Tell us in the poll.

  • Bruce Springsteen tapped to write original song for ‘The Wrestler’

    Bruce SpringsteenAs if I need one more reason to see this film. The Boss? Seriously? Darren Aronofsky is hitting all the right spots with me lately.

    Apparently the director has recruited Bruce Springsteen (the greatest live show you’ll ever see, FYI) to pen an original track for “The Wrestler,” a film I’m already dying to see.

    Anne Thompson writes:

    The company [Wild Bunch] is debuting Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler late in Venice, concurrent with Toronto, because they’re waiting for Bruce Springsteen to finish his song for the movie’s credits.

    The fact that it is a closing credits number could hurt it’s Oscar hopes, given that the Academy has shied away from such material since the rule change three years ago. But a good song is a good song, dammit, and Springsteen is incapable of writing a bad one.

    Good lord I hope this is picked up in a hurry so I can figure out who to talk to about screenings!

    Springsteen won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1993 for “Streets of Philadelphia,” from Jonathan Demme’s “Philadelphia.” He was also nominated in 1995 for the title track to Tim Robbins’s “Dead Man Walking.

  • 9/1 Oscarweb Round-up

    Dev Patel in Slumdog Millionaire• Anne Thompson points us to a Best Original Song contender from the Boss in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.” But it’s a closing credits tune, which doesn’t bode well given the newest rules implemented by the Academy in 2005. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • She also tries to offset some of the negative press that greeted the 20 minute “Benjamin Button” reel, taking the time to swat at bloggers who didn’t exactly “review” anything, but actually gave their honest opinion. Fancy that…maybe teasing an unfinished product wasn’t the best idea? [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Screen Daily gets the scoop on the “Che” distribution strategy…but didn’t we always know it would be released as two films? [Screen Daily]

    • T.L. Stanley wonders whether this year’s crop of Oscar films will be a box office buzz kill. [Gold Rush]

    • “Disaster Movie” is probably not going to be an Oscar film…FYI. [/Film]

    • Kim Voyner kicks the Oscar tires for Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” a Godsend for Fox Searchlight, which was sitting hollow with a Dakota Fanning vehicle as their only awards hopeful until this week. [Cinematical]

    • Pete Howell chases the buzz in Toronto. Hey, didn’t “For Your Consideration” win this poll last year? [Toronto Star]

    • Jeffrey Wells gets hears some second hand buzz from a friend who thinks Jeff Goldblum gives an Oscar-level performance in Paul Schrader’s “Adam Resurrected.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • And in case you missed it, we’ve launched our weekly Oscar column. [In Contention]