Asked twice by The Times to respond to Lee’s criticism, Eastwood stared out into the audience as the compere refused to accept a question that did not relate to L’Échange.
Category: Daily
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Heavy
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More than just an icon
Though best known as the fedora-wearing, bull whip-cracking hero of the Indiana Jones films, Harrison Ford has forged a strong career as an actor, with an impressive filmography that has, in many quarters, gone sadly unnoticed.One of the downsides to being a movie star — or an actor best known for work in blockbusters, even — is that your skill as an actor is often unappreciated or ignored. In some cases with Ford, that is precisely what has happened. I remember the great Burt Lancaster stating what a great challenge the role of Indiana Jones was, and that it took a great actor to make it work. Lancaster, like Ford, had grown into a fine actor by then, but lest we forget he began his career in swashbuckling B-movies before evolving into the Oscar winner of “Elmer Gantry,” and his finest work, “Atlantic City.”
I first took note of Ford as a true actor in a scary little role he had in the otherwise terrible film “Heroes.” The actor portrayed a Vietnam vet who loved his time over there, and like buddy Henry Winkler, wanted to go back. Though he had just a few minutes of screen time, he was quietly terrifying, bringing to the part all that was frightening about that war. While the rest of the film was devoted to the mugging of Winkler, it was Ford who left the audience unsettled.
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Cannes update: Eastwood scores…again
Well, I’m pleased to report that my initial doubts about Clint Eastwood’s latest, “Changeling,” were obviously unfounded.His Angelina Jolie-starrer, based on a true story about a child’s kidnapping in 1920s Los Angeles, premiered this morning at Cannes, and, judging from the reviews so far, the man’s impeccable recent run of form hasn’t hit a snag yet. (Incidentally, both Jeff Wells and Screen Daily report that the film has been retitled “The Exchange,” a far less intriguing title, in my opinion. However, some trade papers are still going by the original title in the reviews, so I’m sticking with that for now.)
Clearly, however, the film’s a stunner by any name. Todd McCarthy’s rave for Variety puts it thus:
A thematic companion piece to “Mystic River,” but more complex and far-reaching, “Changeling” impressively continues Clint Eastwood’s great run of ambitious late-career pictures … Graced by a top-notch performance from Angelina Jolie, the Universal release looks poised to do some serious business upon tentatively scheduled opening late in the year.
McCarthy also puts to rest the rumours that film was a foray into hysterical genre territory, which I admit had me concerned for its awards prospects:
Fears that the story is now destined to veer off into “The Snake Pit” or, given Jolie’s presence, “Girl, Interrupted” looney-bin horrors prove largely unfounded, despite a couple of brief electroshock scenes. Rather, this is where the picture really spreads its wings, as ramifications of this tragic but unexceptional case seep through the police department, the legal system, the medical establishment and City Hall in entirely unexpected ways.
The word on the other side of the Atlantic is just as hot. In his Screen Daily review, Mike Goodridge minces no words abouts the film’s quality or its prospects:
Beautifully produced and guided by Eastwood’s elegant, unostentatious hand, it also boasts a career-best performance by Angelina Jolie who has never been this compelling. Like “Mystic River” in 2003, it should go all the way from the Palais to the Academy Awards next March.
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Cannes update: Italy’s ‘Gomorra’ wows ’em
(EDITOR’S NOTE: New Cannes poll in the sidebar as of this morning, FYI.)
We’re at the halfway point now, and this year’s Cannes Festival seems to have been a pretty staid affair so far. With the dust settled, “Blindness” appears to have been labelled an honourable disappointment. Meanwhile, some of the big arthouse names in the competition are widely agreed to be treading water.
Walter Salles’ “Linha de Passe” appears to be worthwhile, but hasn’t generated the critical heat of “Central Station” or “The Motorcycle Diaries.” “Lorna’s Silence,” the latest from Belgium’s hitherto unimpeachable Dardenne brothers, here aiming for a record third Palme d’Or, has garnered respectable notices (and an outright pan from Jeff Wells), but doesn’t seem to be up to the standard of “Rosetta” or “The Son.”
There have been some international successes. “Three Monkeys,” the latest from Turkey’s great Nuri Bilge Ceylan, has gathered predictably excellent reviews, of which The Hollywood Reporter’s take (a “brilliant, gorgeously visual film”) is typical. If I were to bet on a Palme d’Or winner (always a silly thing to do), this would be it – though I fear this will have as much trouble crossing over to the US and UK markets as Ceylan’s previous work.
One of the real breakout films of the festival so far, however, appears to be Italian director Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorra,” an intricate documentary-style look at the Camorra crime empire of Naples, based on a bestselling expose by Roberto Saviano. Amid generally enthusiastic reviews, The Hollywood Reporter states:
Powerful, stripped to its very essence and featuring a spectacular cast (of mostly non-professionals), Matteo Garrone’s sixth feature film “Gomorra” goes beyond Tarantino’s gratuitous violence and even Scorsese’s Hollywood sensibility in depicting the everyday reality of organized crime’s foot soldiers.
In his always-worthwhile Cannes roundup, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw concurs:
The competition films have been more than a little upstaged by Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra, a gut-wrenchingly brutal film about notorious Naples gangsters, the Camorra. The title’s twist implies the whole area is sunk in a kind of self-created hell, almost literally, since the mobsters are responsible for unsafe nuclear dumping. Perhaps it tells us nothing we don’t already know about gangsters, but there’s no denying the film’s power.
I confess I am not very familiar with Garrone’s work, but I, for one, am intrigued by this. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. From the sounds of things, if the film finds the right buyer, there could be “City of God”-style crossover potential here. Or nothing. You never can tell at Cannes.
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Not that you haven’t seen it yet…
…but the “Tropic Thunder” red band trailer has arrived:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VdDoy3LC_4
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Is ‘Silhouette City’ this year’s ‘Jesus Camp?’
Clive James, in his review of “American Movie Critics” for the New York Times Book Review in 2006 wrote, “…it’s the movie itself that tells you it means business. It does that by telling a story. No story, no movie.” “Silhouette City,” a new film by Michael Wilson, is a documentary about the rapid rise of religious extremism in America. It’s a haunting account of where the Christian evangelical movement has been and where it’s going, and it is impeccably researched.
The film begins by covering an obscure Christian survivalist group called The Covent, The Sword and the Arm of the Lord. The CSA created a survival camp near Bull Shoals, Arkansas where they trained, stockpiled weapons and preached an apocalyptic end to the world. “We’re storing food,” one of the young girls in the film says. “We can’t tell you where or how much. We’re preparing.”
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More Indy reviews hit
First, this item from Jeff Wells is a long, drawn out way of saying the film is just, well — okay. I wonder if this is going to be the norm, a lot of passable opinions but nothing really in the way of a rave.
Next up, Todd McCarthy offers insight, I’d say a little too quickly after the screening for a publication of Variety’s stature. And Eric Kohn (Corrected — Apologies to Eugene Hernandez.) of indieWIRE actually live blogged the screening, which is quite silly and unfortunate, I’d say.
By the way, having not seen one frame and likely irritated by that fact, David Poland takes a piss out of both publications, in addition to badgering the Times of London for its uber-early review. Just so I’m covering all the bases here.
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First review of ‘Crystal Skull’ lands in the Sunday Times
It seems John Harlow of the Times of London has managed a screening of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” at some point in the last week, sure to rub a number of self-perceived entitled journalists the wrong way. What’s more, he’s gone ahead with a full review, a totally positive assessment of the flick.Here’s a look:
The good news for Ford fans is that Indy may be older and greyer, but there’s still a spark to his repartee, and he still gets the girl in the end (the girl in question being Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, who was the love interest in the first Indiana movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark).
Whether Ford’s charm will be enough to earn the film the $400m it is estimated to need to recoup Paramount Pictures’ investment remains to be seen. However, a preview attended by The Sunday Times last week suggested that the internet gossips who have doubted the film’s drawing power may be proved wrong.
And about “it” boy Shia LaBeouf:
Much has been made in internet chatrooms about LaBeouf’s potential impact on the film, and fears that he is merely a sop to lure teen viewers. Yet LaBeouf, who made a striking impact against computerised villains in Transformers, matches Ford quip for quip and leather jacket for leather jacket.
Rounding it out:
The real pleasure for series fans may lie not so much in the madcap action, the carnivorous bugs and the familiar perils of quicksand, but the restored romance between Ford and Allen, and the fatherly relationship that develops between Ford and LaBeouf, who is clearly the new pretender to his whip.
Indy treats Mutt with the same sarcastic disdain that his own father, played by Sean Connery, lavished on him during the Last Crusade. You can probably guess how it all works out.
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Whew…
I’m sure I’m not the only one who heaved a sigh of relief after reading some of the reviews of Woody Allen’s latest, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” which recently premiered out of competition at Cannes. The consensus appears to be that the film, while unlikely to enter the canon of his greatest, is an attractive, frothy entertainment.In his Variety review, Todd McCarthy puts it thus:
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a sexy, funny divertissement that passes as enjoyably as an idle summer’s afternoon in the titular Spanish city … pic offers potent romantic fantasy elements for men and women and a cast that should produce the best commercial returns for a Woody Allen film since “Match Point.”
McCarthy is particularly enamoured of Penelope Cruz’s performance, deeming her to be “dynamite” in the film, and extending the Anna Magnani comparisons that we first started hearing when “Volver” emerged two years ago.
Happily, The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt is equally enthusiastic about the film, and is most impressed by its Spanish stars:
The film belongs to Bardem and Cruz. This is a Spanish version of “Private Lives,” a couple that cannot live apart or together, whose love will always burst into fiery combat. Their scenes are some of the funniest Allen has ever put on film, and the culmination of this love/hate tango is not to be missed.
I had a good feeling about this project from the get-go, but then I admit I’m one of those die-hard Allen supporters who maintains that “Melinda and Melinda” is a misunderstood almost-great, and tried his damnedest to find something – anything – to like about “Hollywood Ending.” So I’m thrilled to learn that this is likely to be one of those Allen treats I can enjoy guilt-free, without having to construct a defence case for it afterwards.
As for awards prospects, after those notices, I’m going to go ahead and put Cruz on the lower rungs of my ladder of Best Supporting Actress contenders. Woody’s films have long been good to women in this category, and while the competition looks crowded this year, a slight but appealing performance from a well-liked star is often the one left standing when the bigger guns misfire. As for Allen himself, any film of his that is generally given at least a B+ by the critics is a contender for a Best Original Screenplay nomination, so I’m going to plunge in and put him on my list. What can I say? The sun’s out (at last) in London, one of my favourite auteurs appears to be back on track, and I’m in a generous mood.
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Stone’s ‘W’ could be his ticket back to Oscar
I like the films of Oliver Stone, though I am acutely aware he tends to pound us over the head to get his message across, is known to bully his actors and audiences, and from time to time has bent history to suit himself and the film he is making.That said, it cannot be denied Stone creates powerful, visceral films, beginning with the vastly under appreciated “Salvador” back in 1986 that was somewhat overshadowed by his Vietnam drama “Platoon” which won the Oscar for best film and director making Stone a household name. Aside from being the most realistic film about the war in Vietnam, “Platoon” obliterated those terrible comic book style films like “Rambo: First Blood Part II” and “Missing in Action” in which the war had been reduced to a comic book and a single American could go back and win it!!
Three years later he won his second Academy Award and Directors Guild Award for “Born on the Fourth of July” a film he had wanted to make for years, at one point in the 70s with Al Pacino as Ron Kovic. Both Vietnam films were powerful and deeply moving, populated with strong performances that drew the viewer into the story. In between those pictures he made “Wall Street,” now horribly dated, and “Talk Radio,” an underrated little film based on the hit play.
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Oscarweb Round-up (Week of 5/12)
Reintroducing the Oscarweb Round-ups you probably caught at Red Carpet District last season, I thought it might be worth it to try it on a weekly basis here at In Contention — until the daily onslaught hits us again in a few months.–Peter Debruge writes up the Student Academy Award winners. [Thompson on Hollywood]
–BAFTA/LA spotlights British comedy with new awards ceremony. [Variety]
–Sasha Stone wonders about the apparently randy nature of Woody Allen’s upcoming “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” [Awards Daily]
–Pete Hammond writes up an Oscar preview via this year’s Cannes International Film Festival. [The Envelope]
–Guy Lodge responds. [In Contention]
–Blake Rutherford previews the Little Rock Film Festival and takes the opportunity to ponder what the festival circuit means to films looking for traction. [In Contention]
–Noah Forrest thinks Oliver Stone’s upcoming “W” is a “bad idea.” Meeee tooooo. [Movie City News]
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Fresh face
Snapped in the Bank Street tube station on the Central Line. I like the Region 2 cover art.
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Day-Lewis in line for ‘Nine?’
OK, so the dream cast potentially just got dreamier.Nothing has been confirmed yet, but Variety reports that none other than Daniel Day-Lewis (one almost feels that should be preceded with a Sir, no?) is in talks to play the lead in Rob Marshall’s film version of “Nine” — the Broadway show that is in turn based on Fellini’s “8½,” and is arguably one of the artiest musicals out there.
If he boards, Day-Lewis will be joining a cast already sagging under the weight of its riches: Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and (wow) Sophia Loren.
It is a fascinating casting prospect for a number of reasons, and not just because we know so little of Day-Lewis’ abilities as a song-and-dance man. (And for those unfamiliar with the show, it’s a full-on, virtuoso musical role — no getting away here with shuffling and speak-crooning, a la Rex Harrison.) Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that a great voice and great moves are merely two other weapons in the man’s well-stocked arsenal of actorly gifts; given how selective Day-Lewis is with his projects, I sense he wouldn’t take the part if he wasn’t sure he could pull it off.
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What do we learn from film festivals?
Mr. Lodge was quick to cover the opening film of the Cannes Film Festival, perhaps the most elite in all of cinema, and one that was a springboard for several 2007 Oscar films, “No Country for Old Men,” certainly (“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” was shamelessly excluded from Oscar consideration, although it won the top prize at Cannes). The Tribeca Film Festival, a result of Robert De Niro’s vision, recently wrapped in lower Manhattan. Sundance, the hot spot for indy cinema, concluded months ago. And while these marquee festivals dominate the news (the chic New York Film Festival takes place in autumn) it’s the wealth of smaller festivals, from Nashville to Connecticut to Tupelo, that allow for muchof the years best independent cinema to find an audience (and in many cases a distributor).
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a fine independent film made in Arkansas. “Shotgun Stories” found its audience on the film festival circuit, traveling the world screening, practically, in front of anyone that would see it. It was buried in the wealth of offerings at Tribeca, although New York magazine managed to note it (this was almost a year before the film was reviewed favorably by critic David Edelstein). In 2007 it was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.
Tomorrow, the Little Rock Film Festival begins its second season. It was founded by documentary filmmakers Craig and Brent Renaud (along with their good friends Owen Brainard and Jamie Moses) who were recently nominated for Director’s Guild Award for their elaborate and compelling documentary “Off to War.” They recently completed a film for HBO on Little Rock Central High School. It was released in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the desegregation crisis last September.
By virtue of their background, the festival brings a wealth of documentaries to town. Last year, “War/Dance,” a festival entry, was nominated for an Academy Award. This year, several documentaries may be worthy of Academy acclaim, including one in particular, “Silhouette City.” It is a film about the rise of religious extremism in the United States. Several notable religious figures appear, including former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, James Dobson and Rick Scarborough. The film is directed by Michael Wilson.
On the feature film front, it’s hard to overlook “War Eagle, Arkansas,” a film written by Graham Gordy (the upcoming “The Love Guru”). It stars Brian Dennehy, Mare Winningham and Dan McCabe who recently appeared in “The Namesake.” You’ll hear more about him. Like “Shotgun Stories,” this film could find its way up the independent awards chain, maybe all the way to California on the eve of the Oscars.
In 2000, an up-and-coming director named Jason Reitman directed a short film called “In God We Trust.” It won an award at the Austin Film Festival. Last year, he was nominated for an Oscar for his stunning and hilarious film “Juno.” Filmmakers, actors and writers benefit greatly from these festivals. And so do moviegoers along the communities that support them. Fortunately, we’ve got a gem of a festival right here in Little Rock.
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‘Blindness’ misses the bullseye, say critics
Well, in my last post, I said that “Blindness,” with its immaculate credentials, could hardly miss – which of course was issuing an invitation for it to do just that. The latest from red-hot director Fernando Meirelles opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival a few hours ago, to frustratingly mixed reviews.In his review, Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter calls the film both “provocative” and “predictable cinema,” and while he does admire Meirelles’ craft, he ultimately finds the film emotionally lacking:
This philosophical coolness is what most undermines the emotional response to Meirelles’ film. His fictional calculations are all so precise and a tone of deadly seriousness swamps the grim action … Removing a fable from the comfort of the printed page to the photo-reality of film can sometimes lead to its own kind of blindness.
Variety’s Justin Chang is similarly lukewarm on the film, bemoaning its “diminished impact and excess of stylish tics,” and is less impressed than Honeycutt is by the film’s technical qualities:
Meirelles adopts a cooler but, in its own way, no less fussy aesthetic. He often floods the screen in luminous white to mimic the sensation of blindness, at other times bathing his characters in the stuff so they appear to be, in one’s words, “swimming in milk.” This deliberately artificial effect gives the film a stagy, self-conscious air.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom by any means. On the other side of the Atlantic, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian offers an unqualified rave of the film:
Blindness is a drum-tight drama, with superb, hallucinatory images of urban collapse. It has a real coil of horror at its centre, yet lightened with finely judged touches of gentleness and even humour. It reminded me of George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids and Peter Shaffer’s absurdist stage-play Black Comedy, showing humanity groping in the darkness. This is bold and masterly film-making from Meirelles: popular entertainment with challenging ideas.
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Cannes arrivals: ‘Blindness’ set to bow
Wow, that seemed to sneak up on us quickly. The 61st annual Cannes Film Festival kicks off today, with Fernando Meirelles’ hotly anticipated “Blindness” opening the proceedings tonight.Pete Hammond at The Envelope has a neat round-up of the Cannes arrivals, with an emphasis on the Oscar prospects of the American films in competition. (Although, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the world cinema lineup this year is equally, if not more, mouthwatering.)
Hammond does take care to point out to the awards-watchers out there that Cannes glory and Oscar victory don’t often go hand in hand, however:
This year, particularly with the talent involved, there is lots of speculation about Oscar potential for new Cannes entries from past academy nominees and winners like Fernando Meirelles, Atom Egoyan, Charlie Kaufman, Walter Salles, Steven Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, Woody Allen and others, although the sad fact remains that since it won, no film other than “Marty” has gone on to win the best picture Oscar after also nabbing the Palme d’Or — and that was in 1955!
Several Palme D’Or victors over the years, like “Friendly Persuasion,” “MASH,” “The Conversation,” “Taxi Driver,” “Apocalypse Now,” “All That Jazz,” “The Piano” and “Pulp Fiction” did go on to best picture nominations.
Roman Polanski’s 2002 Cannes winner “The Pianist” probably came closest, taking the academy’s director, actor and screenplay awards before what we imagine had to be the narrowest of losses to “Chicago” in the big category.
All true, of course, but still – it’s been a while since the Cannes slate featured this many Oscar darlings in the official competition. And they don’t come any more Academy-beloved than the venerable Clint Eastwood, whose “Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie, is one of the Cannes titles generating the most buzz from the awards-geek set. I remain less excited about the film than others, but one cannot overestimate the amount of industry goodwill out there towards Eastwood (and indeed Jolie, whom many feel was unfairly snubbed by the Academy for “A Mighty Heart” – though I thought that was one of their smarter calls, personally.)
