In Contention

Category: Daily

  • Duvall on Foote, Brando, Oscars and getting better with age

    I haven’t gotten around to writing up my interview with “Get Low” star Robert Duvall yet, but seeing as Steve Pond’s piece at The Odds is pretty much quote-for-quote, it would probably feel redundant. But I had to cut and paste this exchange, because it’s awesome:

    When you did your one take [of the emotional speech at the end of the film], did you feel as if you’d nailed it?

    Yes, sir, I did. Yes sir.

    Tell ’em, Bobby.  That short (if charmingly confidant) answer aside, Duvall is a great conversationalist; despite a reputation for being a bit prickly for journalists, I generally get on well with him.  I thought a couple of bytes worth passing along from our chat, in lieu of a proper interview piece.

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  • Listen to Cher’s ‘You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me’ from ‘Burlesque’

    Cher and the Academy Awards made for an interesting mix over 20 years ago when she took home a Best Actress Oscar for “Moonstruck.” Though it was probably her threads that grabbed more headlines the next day.

    This year, the singer is back in the awards mix, though for her vocal talents (which have never been recognized by the Academy, interestingly enough — though I’m not sure there have been many opportunities).  Cher is part of the ensemble of Steven Antin’s musical “Burlesque” and belts out the power ballad “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” at a key moment in the context of the film.  Cha-ching.

    Not only that, the song was also written by Dianne Warren, who has been nominated for six Academy Awards (going all the way back to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from “Mannequin”).  And she has yet to win.

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  • 11/10 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Biutiful’ crew on the circuit, Hooper’s Hollywood education, Weinstein v. Rudin II

    • Anne Thompson ponders how the year’s mainstream studio pics might fare with Oscar. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Patrick Goldstein catches up with Tom Hooper and the director’s Hollywood education. [The Big Picture]

    • Steve Pond dutifully reports from a “Biutiful” post-screening Q&A with members of the crew. [The Odds]

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  • ‘Dagenham’ producer protests ‘R’ rating

    The delicate folks at the MPAA have come in for a right old bollocking in the past few weeks, and deservedly so. First came the furore over the baffling ‘NC-17’ rating they awarded “Blue Valentine” — a lemon of a situation that Harvey Weinstein, to judge from the steamy poster unveiled yesterday, has decided to make into lemonade.

    Another of Weinstein’s babies, “The King’s Speech,” also got the brunt of the ratings board’s conservatism when it was slapped with an ‘R’ for a brief torrent of narratively contextualized four-letter words — despite having a fair claim to being the most mild-mannered prestige drama of the year.

    We all know that bad things, like Kardashian sisters, come in threes, so we didn’t have long to wait before the next eruption over MPAA idiocy, and once more, the film at the center of it is a calculatedly inoffensive true-life Britpic. Despite having the kind of cheery inspirational message that young girls and their grandmothers alike can appreciate, feminist dramedy “Made in Dagenham” has received an ‘R’ rating for “language and brief sexuality,” referring respectively to a scattering of f-words and some gentle, clothed innuendo.

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  • ‘Jane Eyre’ trailer

    Hot on the heels of the lovely poster unveiled yesterday, we now have a trailer for Focus Features’ spring release “Jane Eyre.” The assembly of the trailer is a touch overegged, though I’m reserving judgment — at the very least, cinematographer Adriano Goldman seems to be having the same fun with light and weather that he did in the sunnier climes of Cary Fukunaga’s debut “Sin Nombre.” Meanwhile, I get the feeling that we can pencil in Michael O’Connor (a recent Oscar winner for “The Duchess”) as a repeat Best Costume Design nominee over 14 months from now. Click on the image to check out the trailer at Yahoo! Movies, or watch the embed after the cut.

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  • ‘Blue Valentine’ poster

    Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine” has been very much in the conversation as of late due to an unfortunate NC-17 rating.  The film saw it’s Los Angeles premiere this week as part of AFI Fest and still has well over a month before it opens.  A trailer recently hit, conjuring a lovely and unique atmosphere, and today, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies, we get a peek at the poster.  Check out the full image after the jump.

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  • Ford does Letterman

    I’m not all that high on Roger Michell’s “Morning Glory” or Harrison Ford’s gravelly-voiced portrayal of a curmudgeonly news man, but I enjoyed his sit-down with David Letterman last night.  Part two after the jump.  (Mike Ryan, meanwhile, charts the actor’s response to “Star Wars” questions throughout the years at Movieline.)

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  • Robert De Niro to receive HFPA’s Cecil B. DeMille Award

    The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced the recipient of this year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award.  Via Twitter, no less!

  • ‘The Promise’ reveals art in the trenches

    After sitting there, waiting patiently on my DVR for the past month, I finally got around to “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” last night. The film, which tells the in-studio story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s follow-up to the gargantuan success of “Born to Run,” debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and bowed on HBO last month.

    It’s difficult to separate yourself from something that is tailor made for your sensibilities. I’m a massive Springsteen fan. My earliest memory has something to do with “Born in the USA” and playing in the backyard of my babysitter’s house in rural North Carolina sometime in 1984. I came around to really appreciating his work in high school and I’ve seen him live six times in the last decade (three times in NC, twice in LA and once in London). Suffice it to say, I was bound to be interested in this film.

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  • AFI FEST: ‘The Fighter’ sneak attack

    Paramount is showing David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” to press tomorrow night on the lot, but this morning brings a curious announcement that the film will have a “secret” AFI Fest screening tonight.  I may give it a shot.  The press release, in part:

    AFI FEST 2010 presented by Audi announced today that it will screen THE FIGHTER, from director David O. Russell, and starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo, for festival attendees tonight at 9:30 p.m. at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

    Admission to the screening is available to AFI FEST 2010 passholders and the general public through online ticket reservations at AFI.com/AFIFEST and the AFI FEST box office at Hollywood & Highland from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., on a first-come, first served basis. The Rush Line will begin forming at 8:30 p.m. All attendees are invited to walk the red carpet for the screening.

    [Photo: Paramount Pictures]

  • 11/9 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Screenwriting hopefuls, Hooper on fugly ‘King’s Speech’ poster, MPAA shamed

    • Sasha Stone on the season’s screenwriting contenders. [Awards Daily]

    • “The King’s Speech” director Tom Hooper also hates the poster everyone has been knocking. [Movieline]

    • David Poland split screens “The Social Network” star Armie Hammer. [The Hot Blog]

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  • ‘Conan’ comes into his own

    Conan O’Brien’s foray into basic cable (airing on TBS) settled on an applicable show title two months ago. Because “Conan” is just that, the host, personality — and perhaps for the first time ever — person (rather than caricature) unfiltered and freely spirited.

    On tonight’s premiere episode — following a humorous pre-taped open featuring an homage to “The Godfather” — O’Brien paced in front of a camera panning to catch up with his energy as he delivered an opening monologue full of crisp, precise jokes and uncharacteristically authentic energy. But there was an unmistakable ease.

    O’Brien has always been associated with unusual, sometimes esoteric humor. But once self-awareness became a part of the act early on, it quickly cannibalized his material. But while he carried David Letterman’s “Late Night” baton well, the audience for his next gig — an ill-fated nine-month stint as host of “The Tonight Show” — clearly did not take to his brand quick enough for NBC suits.

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  • ‘Jane Eyre’ poster

    Memo to the folks handling “The King’s Speech” at TWC: this is how you rustle up a poster for a period prestige pic. Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” — the first since Franco Zeffirelli’s Charlotte Gainsbourg-starring attempt in 1996 — is one of my most curiously awaited films of 2011. The novel, a personal favorite, has been filmed multiple times, with no screen version quite hitting the jackpot: I’m intrigued, then, to see what fresh insight the young director of “Sin Nombre” will bring to the material. (Here’s hoping the corsets don’t constrict his personality the way they did the similarly indie-based Jean-Marc Vallée’s in “The Young Victoria.”)

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  • ‘Illusionist’ free to go

    Almost two weeks ago, I mentioned an unfortunate charge of “trademark infringement” being levelled against Sylvain Chomet’s animated wonder “The Illusionist” by the purported rights-holders to the 2006 Edward Norton film of the same title, who somehow felt that sharing a title and a magician protagonist amounted to a “Single White Female”-style violation.

    I called the claims ludicrous (or less delicately, “bullshit”) then, and happily, it looks like one Judge Dolly M. Gee agrees. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Judge Gee has thrown the case out of court, citing the First Amendment to defend the newer film’s right to its title, and dismissing the rest as “weak”:

    According to Judge Gee, the trademark enjoyed by Illusionist Distribution is “weak,” describing a movie about an illusionist rather than its particular film. She agrees with Sony that a wide variety of consumer products employ the term “illusionist,” including another 1983 film, 14 books published since 1952, and thousands of magicians who perform under that description.

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  • Listen to Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi’s ‘I See the Light’ from ‘Tangled’

    Disney always does well in the Best Original Song category and this year should be no different.  We’ve already covered Randy Newman’s latest entry from the “Toy Story” franchise but today we showcase one of the many tracks from the upcoming film “Tangled.”

    When I wrote up the film last month I noted that the strongest play at a nomination would have to be “I See the Light,” and I still feel the same.  In classic Disney form, the film fits a certain parameter, coming toward the end of the second act just as our heroes (voiced by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, who also sing the song) begin to connect romantically.

    It’s a lovely tune, well-used.  But it’s obviously worth noting the presence of Alan Menken on this film.  The 18-time nominee (and eight-time winner) was last recognized in 2007 for three songs from “Enchanted” and he’ll get at least one nod, maybe a couple, for “Tangled.”

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  • Zadie Smith on ‘The Social Network’

    It’s fair to say that there aren’t many movies in 2010 — much less in the awards race — that have earned the distinguished attention of The New York Review of Books, let alone a 5000-word essay by a superstar of contemporary literature. But such is the curious magnetism of “The Social Network,” whose queasy social currency has now been nailed, better than any film critic has managed thus far, by New York-based British writer Zadie Smith.

    I’ve always thought Smith a better essayist than a novelist, and her quasi-review of David Fincher’s film is a tour-de-force, using Aaron Sorkin’s script (the verbality of which she likens to “His Girl Friday”-era comedy) as the starting point for a stinging but compassionate address to ‘Generation Facebook,’ its communicative lapses and its identity insecurities. She likes the film quite a bit, but that’s almost beside the point: it’s more of a compliment that she felt it merited this level of scrutiny in a publication dedicated to another medium entirely.

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  • 11/8 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Oscar’s misogyny, Gurus back on the case, classifying the 10’s “slots”

    • Rachel Shields on the misogyny of Oscar. [The Independent]

    • Gregory Ellwood reports from Friday’s Britannia Awards. [Awards Campaign]

    • “The King’s Speech,” Colin Firth and Annette Bening top the new weekly Gurus o’ Gold survey. [Movie City News]

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  • “The ennui of just sleeping for a living and looking cute.”

    On the heels of the first installment of Lex “Just a Guy” G’s Oscar Chat, a preview of “Somewhere”: