In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Blue Valentine’ wins ratings appeal, ‘King’s Speech’ loses

    It’s justice for “Blue Valentine” today as Harvey Weinstein’s appeal of the MPAA’s NC-17 rating has gone through, allowing for the film to receive an R and continue to reap the benefits of this publicity in the industry.  Weinstein showed up personally (a first) to argue the decision and the board overturned its original rating.

    But he was one-and-one, as “The King’s Speech,” which had been rated R for language (specifically a scene in which Colin Firth spouts of the f-word continuously as part of his character’s speech impediment therapy), will not be getting the preferred PG-13.

    I’m really stoked this went through for Derek Cianfrance and company, though.  It came on the heels of a number of stories concerning double standards with perceptions of oral sex in films like “Blue Valentine” and “Black Swan,” and actor Ryan Gosling has certainly been vocal about his feelings on the matter.  The pressure was on, and rightly so.  All is well.

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  • Listen to Tim McGraw and Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘Me and Tennessee’ from ‘Country Strong’

    Continuing this week with a last push to feature a few more Best Original Song contenders we have the featured track from “Country Strong,” namely the Tim McGraw/Gwyneth Paltrow duet “Me and Tennessee.”

    If you ask me, this is an absolutely killer tune.  So no surprise it was written by Paltrow’s husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.  Even being a country track, one can hear Martin’s influence in the fabric of the song and it just rolls.  I love it.  (And you’ll recall Paltrow’s big country coming out party on the CMAs last month.)

    The film being a musical, one would have expected it to be performed on screen.  The Cher/Diane Warren ballad “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” from “Burlesque” is in that kind of position to capitalize on the voting procedure, whereby all contenders are viewed in the context of the given films.  But it’s actually the closing credits cue.  Bummer.

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  • Jovial Bale on ‘The Fighter’

    There have been plenty of Christian Bale interviews hitting the web these days on the heels of “The Fighter” junket recently.  I happened to click on this one at Awards Campaign this morning and was totally charmed so I figured I’d post it up for you:

  • 30 years

  • 12/8 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Karger ranks, Kubrickian directors and Arndy on the genius of the Pixar system

    • Dave Karger takes a stab at ranking the major categories. (Rush above Bale?) [Inside Movies]

    • Anne Thompson talks “Toy Story 3” and the genius of the Pixar system with Michael Arndt. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Which Kubrick-compared director is the most Kubrickian? [Vulture]

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  • Christopher Nolan’s interview with brother Jonathan in the ‘Inception’ shooting script

    If you’ve been itching for more “Inception,” this week will likely be a good one for you.  The DVD/Blu-ray hits shelves today, packed with plenty of features that’ll keep you geek-gasming all the way into the holiday and through awards season.

    One item that’s been on the market for a few months now is “Inception: The Shooting Script.” I received the book in the mail this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to find a longish 10-page interview with Christopher Nolan as conducted by his brother (and “The Dark Knight” co-writer) Jonathan.

    Okay, it’s not THAT insightful.  And it has a lot of the usual talking points (Christopher) Nolan exhausted on the press tour for the film.  But there are nuggets here and there and it’s pretty cool to have Jonathan conduct the thing seeing as he’s been hearing about the idea from his brother for the last 10 years.

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  • Listen to Carrie Underwood’s ‘There’s a Place for Us’ from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’

    We’re trickling closer to Thursday’s Tech Support column on the original song race with what’s available to us.  Today it’s a tune I didn’t even know was in the race until a PR blast hit the ole inbox this afternoon.

    It looks like country star Carrie Underwood is the race with “There’s a Place for Us” from “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” putting her in the “Oscar contender” club with fellow American Idol alums Jennifer Hudson (“Love You I Do” from “Dreamgirls”) and Adam Lambert (“Time for Miracles” from “2012”).

    I haven’t seen the film yet.  In fact, I never did get around to the second installment of the franchise after being a pretty big fan of the first one.  But I’m told the song is used over the closing credits rather than in the context of the film itself.

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  • On the sound of ‘TRON Legacy’

    For me, “TRON Legacy” is all about what you hear, and how you hear it.  The team at Skywalker Sound did a hell of a job creating a dynamic and unique aural environment.  In my opinion, it’s tops in both sound categories for the year.

    So, naturally, I delighted in the SoundWorks Collection’s recent piece built around the principals on the crew, led by the likes of 13-time Oscar nominated sound re-recording mixer Christopher Boyes and supervising sound editor Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, herself a nominee last year for “Avatar.”

    I’m holding out hope that the Academy at large can recognize this achievement over “Inception,” because it’s frankly a more involved and distinctive piece of work.  Check out the SoundWorks Collection’s focus on the work, featuring interviews with Whittle, sound designer Steve Boeddeker and re-recording mixer Gary Rizzo, after the jump.  (And yeah, there’s some Daft Punk talk.)

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  • 12/7 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Bridges’s terms for ‘Legacy,’ Coppola on ‘Somewhere,’ Gurus take another stab

    • Jeff Bridges to “TRON Legacy” producers early on: “Tell me the things you are going to do that no one’s ever done before.” [The Wrap]

    • Sofia Coppola talks “Somewhere” across the pond. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Jesse Eisenberg on awards season, narcissism and his feelings about an Oscar nomination. [Movieline]

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  • ‘King’s Speech’ rules BIFAs, ‘Ghost Writer’ sweeps EFAs

    Apologies for getting to both these announcement so late: my laptop is currently (perhaps terminally) hospitalized, so posting is rather spotty on my end. The timing is particularly bad, since this past weekend’s awards activity included two major European ceremonies that I should have been all over.

    That said, if you paid even vague attention to the nominee lists for the British Independent Film Awards and the European Film Awards when they were announced, you probably could have guessed how they panned out without much help from me.

    In both ceremonies, the nomination leader emerged easily as top dog. With the BIFA voters throwing fewer curveballs than usual for them, “The King’s Speech” won five of its eight bids, including Best British Independent Film and three of the four acting races. It was left to scrappy sci-fi sleeper “Monsters” to disrupt the yawnfest, as debut helmer Gareth Edwards pipped Tom Hooper to the Best Director prize. (He lost Best Debut Director the same night, incidentally — such is the spread-the-wealth logic of juried awards.)

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  • Well put

    Misconceptions about Daft Punk’s musical score: Fans became excited when it was announced that Grammy winning electronica duo Daft Punk would be scoring the film. They received their first taste of the music when the track “End of Line” was played in the hidden room that displayed the new lightcycle at the Flynn’s arcade set-up for San Diego Comic-Con 2009. Immediately fan produced mixes of the track were created and music released by other electronica artists was falsely labeled as new tracks from the Tron Legacy score. A few weeks back another up tempo track Derezzed was released in anticipation of the score’s December 6 release. Yet many fans fail to realize that most of the music Daft Punk has composed for the film is not dance music, but an actual score. It works fine on it’s own, but it’s meant to support and enhance the theatrical film. Daft Punk even incorporated a 90 piece orchestra making for some exciting and truly emotional music cues. If you expect to be dancing along to the Tron Legacy soundtrack you’re gonna be sorely disappointed.

    From Ron Henrique’s Latino Review piece entitled “10 things surrounding ‘TRON Legacy’ that bug me.”

  • AMPAS counts down to 83rd Oscarcast

    Via press release:

    On December 7 (tomorrow!), we will be 83 days away from the 83rd Academy Awards. Beginning tomorrow, we will be counting down to the February 27 ceremony by revisiting all of the Academy Awards ceremonies that have come before. You’re invited to visit Oscars.org on December 7 – and every day thereafter – to experience highlights from throughout the history of one of the world’s most anticipated annual events. We’ll be showcasing photos, audio clips, video segments and interesting facts (from the year’s awards winners and ceremony, as well as around the world in general) and all of the content featured will be shareable.

    We hope you’ll spend a few minutes each day venturing back in time as we continue on our journey forward to the 83rd Oscars. You can sign up for our RSS feed of the Countdown, follow us on Facebook (Facebook.com/The Academy) or Twitter (twitter.com/TheAcademy), or just check oscars.org each day.

  • Geoffrey Rush to receive Santa Barbara’s Montecito Award

    The press release, in part:

    The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Academy Award® winning actor Geoffrey Rush with the Montecito Award at the 26th edition of the Festival, which runs January 27– February 6, 2011…The Tribute will take place Monday, January 31, 2011, at the historic Arlington Theatre.

    The Montecito Award was created in recognition of a performer who has given a series of classic and standout performances in his/her career, and has previously been presented to Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Javier Bardem, Naomi Watts and Annette Bening, who was the very first recipient in 2005. Geoffrey Rush stands tall within a rare and genuine class of actors, able to command the screen in each and every one of his roles. Ranging from the comedic to the dramatic, Rush’s vast and eclectic body of work illustrates him as one of Hollywood’s most versatile actors.

    “I feel like Royalty’s coming to SBIFF,” remarked [festival executive director Roger) Durling. “Having been an admirer of everything Geoffrey Rush has done (including his Tony-winning performance in Exit The King), we’re truly blessed to get to celebrate him this year where he once again reminds us in The King’s Speech that he’s one of our greatest actors.”

    [Photo: The Weinstein Company]

  • ‘TRON Legacy’ reeks and rocks with equal measure

    Disney has probably been wise to discontinue the original “TRON” on DVD in advance of the release of “TRON Legacy,” lest people be reminded of how truly bad it was.  Beyond being conceptually ahead of its time, it never seemed to be more than a pop culture blip in cinema history, if we’re being perfectly honest.

    Bottom line: the film had unrefined if progressive narrative ideas and got points for pushing boundaries if nothing else.  Naturally, then, it developed a cult following that heaped appreciation for what wasn’t really on the screen, but rather what existed in the conceptual ether of the thing.  This puts “TRON Legacy” in decent enough position to capitalize on throwback mania.

    Here’s the thing.  The new film has plenty of issues, but I doubt I’ve had a better time in a movie theater all year.  Expectations couldn’t have been lower, which played to the film’s advantage I imagine, but I was strapped in and game from the opening text.

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  • ‘Inception’ in real time

    To say the least, beware of spoilers here.  And I imagine Warner Bros,. might have this yanked at some point, but it’s intriguing hype for the film, so maybe not.  Courtesy of Buzz Feed:

  • ‘Dragon’ dominates Annie Award nominations

    It was cute of the Annies to throw “Tangled” and “Toy Story 3” a bone in the Best Animated Feature, directing and screenplay categories this year, but the absence of Disney product in virtually every other field is clearly evidence of a reaction to the studio withdrawing from the organization earlier this summer. Credibility: out the window.

    As best as I can tell, “How to Train Your Dragon” led the way considerably with 15 nominations.  And I think we can pretty well expect the film to triumph in quite a few of them, including Best Animated Feature, when the awards are handed out February 5.

    A distant second with seven total bids was Universal’s “Despicable Me,” but fret not, DreamWorks was right back in there at third with six nods for “Shrek Forever After.”

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  • Making Christian Bale “all happy and shiny”

    I’m tellin’ ya, Christian Bale is taking from the Mo’Nique school of Oscar campaigning more and more.  Okay, not really, though that’ll make a nice narrative for the press to wrap around his usual prickliness as the season unfolds, just you watch.

    Of course, I’m sure Paramount would rather he go through the usual tame but hype-driving motions.  Witness “The Fighter” co-star Mark Wahlberg, who has already exhausted the same talking points on what a feat and a challenge his work on the film and behind the scenes was (and not to take anything away from a guy who really wants a nomination, because I do have a lot of respect for what he did with this film on camera and off).

    But for Bale, the standoffishness will be the story, and I’ll submit this: at least it’s unique, in the scheme of this particular season, anyway.  And the latest example, after a humorous Esquire Q&A, is this Dennis Lim interview in the pages of The New York Times.

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  • Listen to Cee Lo Green’s ‘What Part of Forever’ from ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse’

    Can you tell I’m grasping at straws with this category yet?  I’m planning on writing up this year’s Best Original Song category in Thursday’s Tech Support column and I thought I’d squeeze a few more contenders in this week, but there’s not a lot to choose from.

    Cee-Lo Green’s “What Part of Forever” from “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” was nominated for a Satellite Award by the International Press Academy last week so I guess giving it some space here makes (a little) sense.  I haven’t seen the film so I can’t speak to its usage therein.  I watched the first two films of the series back-to-back last year and was stunned.  I never want to feel that way again so I avoid them like the plague.

    Also included on the soundtrack were tunes from Muse, Beck and Bat For Lashes and Muse (whose “Eclipse (All Yours)” was also nominated for a Satellite), all eligible (I think).

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