In Contention

Category: Daily

  • Eastwood finds his ‘Human Factor’

    Does Clint Eastwood ever sleep? With “Changeling” and “Gran Torino” set to keep his profile high in 2008, Variety reports that he’ll begin shooting his next film, “Human Factor,” in South Africa early next year.

    The project, based on John Carlin’s upcoming book “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation,” is a study of South Africa’s landmark 1995 home-turf victory in the Rugby World Cup; an event that symbolically consolidated a new era of hope for the country after its first democratic election in 1994. Key to the proceedings was recently-elected president Nelson Mandela, whose wholehearted endorsement of the Springbok rugby team went a long way towards breaking down racial barriers in the post-apartheid state.

    Morgan Freeman (did you really expect anyone else?) was drafted in to play Mandela some time ago. Now Matt Damon, after a long period of speculation, has finally been confirmed to play Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springbok team. (The none-too-pretty Pienaar should be flattered with that casting – the two look about as alike as… oh, say, Nelson Mandela and Morgan Freeman. But I digress.)

    So far, so Hollywood. But as a South African myself, I must admit to having mixed feelings about the whole enterprise. As someone who remembers exactly where he was on the 24th of June 1995, when the Springboks squeaked past New Zealand 15-12 to claim the trophy, part of me is stunned and a little thrilled that the day that made such an impression on me, as a 12 year-old kid in Johannesburg, would capture the imagination of otherwise disinterested Hollywood execs. And if anyone in Tinseltown can handle the material without letting it slip into gloopy underdog sports-drama treacle, it’s probably latter-day Eastwood.

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  • Battsek in the pink ‘un

    Flipping through the Financial Times earlier today (a British newspaper famous for the pink paper on which it is printed — “Give me a pink ‘un”), I came across a profile of Miramax honcho Daniel Battsek that made for a pleasant read amid all the TPG and Bernanke mumbo-jumbo.

    In a lot of ways the story is rather derivative and even stale. Nothing we’ve not read elsewhere, especially after an Oscar season that saw “No Country for Old Men,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “There Will Be Blood” tear through with the media latching on for the ride.

    But Battsek is one of the good guys. Any ink, really, is good ink, considering what he’s done with the company in the wake of the brothers Weinstein. And hey, he’s a hell of a nice guy.  That’s reason enough for me to pass it along.

    Matthew Garrahan has the byline. Here’s a look:

    Making films that achieve critical and commercial success “is not rocket science…and it’s not as complicated as some people make out”. Still, it is not easy. “You have to be very sure of yourself when you acquire the material. You have to be very conscientious and detailed when you’re working with your filmmakers. And you have to find ways of being able to make [the film] as quickly as possible.”

    The physical process of making a film is not of great personal interest. “I’ve never had the movie-making bug. Sitting on a set watching a scene being filmed doesn’t turn me on at all. But I love being in a cinema watching a film. I love the creative side, working with filmmakers, writers, actors . . . and I love the production process.”

    The rest.

  • Cimino and Oscar

    Lots of talk about deserving (and undeserving) directors in the Oscar chatting this week. Let’s take it to specifics with one race that stood out to a few commenters.

    It seemed in the spring of 1979, following the Oscar ceremony, there was a sense in the industry that if the Academy could have taken back their votes — which saw “The Deer Hunter” and director Michael Cimino winning for Best Picture and Best Director — they would have done so.

    The first screenings of “The Deer Hunter” had begun the summer before, when executives saw the film and were stunned by its raw, visceral power, leading to buzz within the business that a masterwork had been born. Execs at United Artists sought out Cimino and inked him to a contract to make a film before before the release of the Vietnam epic, a move they would live to regret.

    By the time the film was released in December of 1978, word of mouth was so strong Cimino seemed to be defying anyone to dislike the effort or say anything negative about it. Film critics awarded it best picture and director honors, except those in Los Angeles who gave “Coming Home” highest marks, while Cimino won the directing award. Nominated for nine Oscars, “The Deer Hunter” won five, adding Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing to the aforementioned Best Picture and Best Director trophies.

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  • A ‘legendary’ profile

    I need to ring up John Campea, editor of The Movie Blog, and ask if this Legendary Characters feature is going to be an on-going thing. Whatever the case, Doug Nagy’s extended thoughts on Daniel Plainview add up to one of the more profound assessments of the character I’ve read at any outlet.

    Here’s the quote that sold me:

    As the movie begins, so it ends. With no opponents left to test him, and not a friend in the world, Plainview is left alone in a hole of his own creation.

    Check out the rest here.

    And for some humorous context, don’t forget to check out Doug’s expletive-filled review of “Enchanted.” Good for a laugh any day.

  • Great idea

    I was glad to see yesterday that Peter Bart has launched a daily blog at Variety. Hearing all those overblown and uneducated declarations that Bart “hates the internet” has been taxing in my time as an adjunct employee of the trade (and I’m the first to admit I’ve been one of the voices in the crowd in the past). But the truth is, Peter has always had a more progressive view of the Web than people seemed to think. That’s always the impression I got, in any case.

    This decision is a step in the right direction.

  • Four Girls in New York

    Is there anything to say about this film “Sex and the City” that is driving women into movie houses all across the United States?

    According to box office reports this morning, the film made $55.7 million in 3,285 theaters. It generated a reputable $16,968 per screen average according to Nikki Finke. It dominated the Friday box office, but shriveled after that.

    Finke notes, “That’s exactly what Hollywood pros had been warning about: that ‘Sex And The City’ would be a one-day, and one-weekend, wonder with no legs.” Still, it remains the highest grossing R-rated comedy ever to open, and the fifth highest R-rated film ever to open. But as Finke notes, “The only female-driven movie to come close to SATC in box office was the “Hannah Montana” movie, but there’s no comparable R-rated chick flick.”

    There is something to this movie (just as there was with the HBO television program) that has to do with being true to yourself and true to your friends. No, I’m not about to defend “Sex and the City” as a timeless work of art; it’s not. And much to my twenty-three-year-old sister’s dismay, it’s not the finest film of 2008. Not even close.

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  • Big ole’ poll this month

    Inspired by John’s recent post on Oscarless directors, I thought I’d leave it to the masses to decide which helmer deserves it most. I collected 16 names from the discussion for the sidebar poll, so tell us what you think.

  • Universal backlot fire

    By now you’ve read the news about portions of the Universal backlot going up in flames following an apparent propane explosion.

    This isn’t the first time, however. I ran across this at Anne Thompson’s blog:

    …a number of buildings on the Universal lot were destroyed by fire in 1990. Parts of the Universal tour were burned in a 1967 fire. Earlier this year, a March brush fire threatened the studio but was extinguished before it reached the lot.

    Just before I left for London I participated in the studio’s VIP Experience Tour for a Los Angeles Magazine article I was working on, and I have to say, it remains one of the best backlots and superlative tours in town. For education on the filmmaking process especially. I really hope this mess is sorted with minimal losses because that acreage collectively represents a gem of the San Fernando Valley.

  • Great Oscarless directors

    Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Howard Hawks, Stanley Kubrick, Preston Sturges, Ernest Lubitsch, Hal Ashby, Alan J. Pakula, Sidney Lumet, Spike Lee, Paul Thomas Anderson.

    Collectively they represent some of the greatest directors in the history of the cinema, and together they share one rather unbelievable fact…not one of them is a Academy Award winner for Best Director.

    Each has the distinction of nominee, of course.  But to think that filmmakers such as James Cameron (The King of the World, remember?), Richard Attenborough, Ron Howard, Sir Carol Reed (for “Oliver,” man?), John G. Avilden, Michael Cimino, Robert Benton, Robert Redford, Robert Wise (for “The Sound of Music??”) and George Roy Hill, to name a few, have Oscars on their mantles and the giants above do not is simply insane to me.

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  • The June Oscar update

    EDIT: Broken link now functioning. Apologies.

    I’ve done some chart management this month in the wake of the Cannes International Film Festival. Also, we’ve added pages for each of our contributors to offer up his predictions in various races. You’ll find them linked in the bios section.

    I’ll likely keep Oscar updates to a monthly basis until we sink our teeth into the season in September. For now, there isn’t a whole lot to discuss. So…enjoy.

  • 1976: a great year and Oscar blew it

    Continuing the conversation on great years for movies (1974 being my pick for the best), I thought I’d dig into a season rich with material that slipped through Oscar’s fingers.

    The American bicentennial year was loaded with wonderful films — ground-breaking works that stunned both audiences and critics with their mastery. Three of them were nominated for Best Picture, some of the others were not, yet the eventual winner was a low budget love story about a boxer that wanted to prove he wasn’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

    The true greats of 1976:

    “All the President’s Men”

    Alan J. Pakula’s superb adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about their investigation of the Watergate burglary was born out of an astonishing script by William Goldman. Making sense of the politics within a dense book, incredibly detailed, Goldman’s work had the good sense to make the film a detective-like thriller with well-defined characters.

    This could have been a dull, political film made to exploit the happenings in the United States at the time, but Pakula instead made one of the great films about journalism in the days before the Internet and e-mail. Robert Redford bought the rights to the book and produced the film, starring as Woodward, with Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, both giving exceptional performances, but it was Jason Robards who blew them off the screen with his excellent performance as the crusty, wise, and ultimately loyal Washing Post editor Ben Bradlee.

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  • Waiting patiently…

    …for “Sex and the City” to just blow right the hell on over.

  • Why I will miss Sydney Pollack

    It has now been nearly four days since filmmaker Sydney Pollack passed away. The loss was not crippling for me, however, because of equal parts expectancy and, strangely, indifference.

    As fine a filmmaker as Pollack was, he was always something of an afterthought in my cinema-going experience.

    I want to be measured here, because the last thing I mean is disrespect. In fact, I’m aiming more toward appreciation of a sort of confident casualness that has been eradicated in this fresh new world of cock-sure filmmaking youths and the veterans who, at times, struggle to keep up, and at others, tap into their own former risk-taking ways to establish a new vision of the “old school.”

    Pollack was never about that. He seemed to make his way from film to film with grace and a willingness to take stock of the lessons that came. I never knew him — can’t offer any first hand accounts of exchange — but if anything about his May 26 death strikes a profound chord with me, it is to know that an ever agreeable constant has been removed from this business, this art form. Sometimes the disconnect of casual dependency can sting as much as the loss of the closest of comrades.

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  • Sydney Pollack (1934-2008)

    Trained as an actor at Sanford Meisner’s famed Neighborhood Playhouse — the stomping grounds of Robert Duvall — Sydney Pollack connected to actors because he was one of them…and a damned fine one at that.

    In fact, his comedy “Tootsie” is not only the greatest American comedy ever made, it is also the greatest study of the art and craft of acting I’ve ever seen. The director, writers and star explored the depths to which an actor will go to get the role right, to find that all-important and essential truth. Without truth in a performance, there is nothing but failure.

    There is a moment in the film when Michael Dorsey, the actor who has become actress Dorothy Michaels to find work, is no longer Michael at all. Dorothy has become a living, breathing character in his life. Hoffman’s astounding performance is the finest work of his career, a jaw-dropping feat of art that is often overlooked (criminally) when the great film performances of all time are discussed. And of course holding the film together, the glue, the guiding hand, was Mr. Pollack, one of the great directors of the 1970s, 1980s and beyond.

    Though he lacked the box office breakthroughs of Francis Ford Coppola or Steven Spielberg, or the nasty edginess of Martin Scorsese, Pollack nonetheless was an artist, one of the few directors able to walk the line between making succesful mainstream films that worked on levels of commerce and artistry.His death at the age of 73 is one of the film world’s great losses, though he leaves behind a legacy that will be remembered for years after many of us have gone to that great screening room in the sky.

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  • Huh?

    People are fascinating. We have a huge and complex capacity to be all kinds of things. And you look at someone like Condoleezza Rice and you see an example of just how far a person can stretch themselves. And I don’t mean that in a good or bad way, but she is an…oh God, I really want to get this right…she is an incredible example of discipline.

    Oy.  Still the worst casting decision of the film.

  • I want to say something about Sydney Pollack…

    …and I will.  When the time is right.  The irony is, of course, that his passing follows so closely behind that of his friend and colleague Anthony Minghella.  I hope they are at peace together, and however expected yesterday’s news might be, sadness is the overriding emotion at the moment.

    In the meantime, I’m compiling tribute quotes here at The Times.  Let me know if you guys stumble across a memoriam that ought to be represented.

    More to come…

  • Two things I like about ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’

    1) Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko

    If only because it serves to remind us, after her criminally overlooked turn in “Bandits,” what an undervalued comedienne she is. (Don’t believe me about “Bandits?” Watch her first scene, where she’s getting down to Bonnie Tyler in the kitchen as she prepares a casserole, and ask yourself how many other actors could make so much out of so little scripted material.)

    Back to “Indy 4,” she’s the only actor in the whole cast who seems to have judged the right comic tone for her character. It may be bizarre, wigged-out camp, in her case, but that’s what the script tells her to do, and damn it if she doesn’t have fun channelling a thousand hokey “Ry-aw-shun” villainnesses from Hollywood’s B-movie back catalogue. After “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” she seems to have established a nice line in (not quite) saving po-faced, overboiled schlock with stylish, balls-out burlesque. And all this from an actor equally capable of rendering a character’s crucial moral decision with a simple, silent glance. (If you haven’t seen “Heaven,” do so.) Mr Foote recently made a good case for Sean Penn as the greatest actor of this generation; my vote would go to Blanchett.

    2) Um… uh… no, actually there was just one thing

    I side with Kris on this one. The film’s an utter wash.  

  • Could two potentially great film scores get the AMPAS shaft this year?

    It’s a debate that never gets old regarding the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When is it going to clean house regarding shady rules that seem to fly in the face of what the organization sets out to do each and every year: honor the best in cinematic achievement?

    The foreign film committee had a major shakeup last year, and promises of attention were made, but it’s high time the same happened with the musicians. One of the rules seems poised to become a serious talking point later this season, however.

    Within Rule 16B of the Academy’s eligibility guidelines — launched into infamy last year when the caca hit the fan regarding Jonny Greenwood’s “There Will Be Blood” score — you’ll find the key language:

    Only the principal composer(s) or songwriter(s) responsible for the conception and execution of the work as a whole shall be eligible for an award. This expressly excludes from eligibility…scores assembled from the music of more than one composer.

    Specifically, it’s Rule 16B-5f. And it will likely affect two promising works of film music composition this year.

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