In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Miral’ French poster

    Thanks to commenter Ziyad for alerting us to this pared-down French one-sheet for Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” which will premiere next month at the Venice Film Festival. The film still has me (said in Tim Gunn tones) worried, but I rather like this — the expression on the face of Freida Pinto (essentially confirmed here as the film’s star, despite what her billing may imply) is ambiguous enough to counter an otherwise staid composition. Meanwhile, the naïve hand-painted lettering asserts artist-filmmaker Schnabel’s auteur identity, scarcely detectable in the film’s recent trailer.

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  • Get him to the geek

    Aging enfant terrible that he is, out-there auteur Gregg Araki has long fostered a reputation for being prickly — the diplomat’s translation for “self-regarding asshole of the first rank” — but the genial good humor of his last two features suggested he might be thawing a little. Certainly, his new film “Kaboom,” a froot-loopy but frequently delightful stoner fantasy that premiered at Cannes in May, appeared to be work of an artist whose tongue had settled pretty much irretractably in cheek. (I reviewed the film in capsule form here.)

    Alas, appearances have proved deceptive, and Araki is still taking himself as seriously as ever. For evidence, look no further than the unpleasant little flap caused when the director, in a singular display of sourness, withdrew his film from the UK’s much-loved genre film festival FrightFest, where it had been afforded a prominent gala screening. His reason? He didn’t want the film seen by a “bunch of geeks.”

    Even allowing for the stretchiest of “words taken out of context” excuses, Araki’s response is not only unnecessarily hostile but bafflingly self-defeating.

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  • ‘Enter the Void’ poster

    Gaspar Noé’s “Enter the Void,” a three-hour melange of bad-trip imagery, medium-core sex and approximately 1,736 swooping crane shots, has hovered in distribution limbo since last year’s Cannes festival, and no wonder: these days, it’s hard enough for perfectly innocuous foreign festival fare to find American friends, let alone a film that chucks a graphic abortion sequence in the final act just to check that you’re still awake. Nonetheless, IFC has been brave enough to adopt this jolly romp; it hits U.S. arthouse screens on September 24.

    I was less than whelmed by the film at last year’s London fest, writing that Noé’s “fatuous follow-up [to “Irréversible”]  deploys an arsenal of tricked-out technique and a colossal running time of 163 minutes to make the make the startling revelations that death is, like, sad, and that drug-dealing is generally not a good idea.” (And I was pro–“Irréversible.”) Others differ considerably: Manohla Dargis, for one, all but credits the film with rewriting cinematic language. Expect the disagreement to continue this autumn; for now, check out the suitably lurid poster (courtesy of Vulture) after the cut.

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  • I’ll give you 10 guesses

    Oh, okay then. I’ve held out longer than most, but with the summer mostly played out, and newly unveiled schedules for Venice and Toronto signifying that the fall film season is already breathing down our necks, now is as good a time as any to go on the record with some Oscar predictions.

    In years past, I’ve had readers tell me that my predictions are tricky to access on the site — not a problem for me, since the fewer who found them, the more contained the embarrassment when they were proved hopelessly wrong. Nevertheless, we have heard you, and we have acted: at the bottom of Kris’s predictions on the sidebar, you will find a shiny new link to mine. You can’t beat progress.

    As usual, if you like your predictions rational, grounded in inside information and frequently accurate, Kris is your man. (He’ll be updating his on August 23, by the way.) At these early stages, I go on a mixture of gut feeling, sudden hunches and a broken Ouija board I picked up for a fiver in a garage sale. I tend to get stronger inklings about what won’t get nominated than what will, which is why some of my picks have a placeholder feel to them.

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  • A home for Miramax

    Okay, for “home,” read “resting place.” Scrap those sweet-but-always-unlikely reports that the high-end company would be returning to the warm embrace of its parents, the finally outbiddenBrothers Weinstein. The story has a less sentimental ending, but an ending nonetheless — Disney has sold Miramax to one Filmyard Holdings Llc, run by non-film businessmen Ronald Tutor and Tom Barrack.

    The price? A cool $660 million.

    Though details are few, The Hollywood Reporter states that Filmyard plans to launch a new production company that will both cover the Miramax library (consisting of 700+ titles) and make the occasional new feature. The Miramax you know, in other words, is history, reduced to a name-only warehouse of sorts. But you saw that coming. You can read the business-y nuts and bolts of the deal here, if you so wish; I’ll leave you with Disney chief Robert Iger’s parting shot…

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  • ‘Tamara Drewe’ trailer

    This trailer has been hanging around for a few days, but since Stephen Frears’s countryside romp was recently tapped for the Toronto Film Festival, it seems appropriate to feature it now. I reviewed the film out of Cannes and found it singularly strained and irritating — the kind of thing described as “quintessentially English” by those who think “That’s Amore” quintessentially Italian. Nonetheless, it found a number of credible admirers on the Croisette, and will likely continue to do so in Toronto. See what you think. Click on the image below to check it out at Momentum Pictures, or watch the embed after the cut.

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  • Coppola, Schnabel, Reichardt in Venice competition lineup

    UPDATE: The festival website has a list of out-of-competition selections, which include two directorial efforts from the Brothers Affleck: Ben’s “The Town” and Casey’s Joaquin Phoenix doc “I’m Still Here.”

    EARLIER: Before you ask: no, “The Tree of Life” is nowhere to be seen. Not that that’s a surprise by this point. There is a “but,” however — Venice festival organisers announced that there will be one surprise competition entry added at the festival’s halfway mark. I wouldn’t bet the house (or even the garden shed, frankly) on it being the Malick film, but hope is being kept alive nonetheless. (Last year, the fest had two surprise films: one from Werner Herzog and one from Brillante Mendoza.)

    Shifting the focus to what did make it, the 22-title lineup looks much as we expected — we’d effectively been promised Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” and Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” since they failed to show up at Cannes, while Tuesday’s Toronto announcement tipped us off to the presence of Francois Ozon’s “Potiche,” the Paul Giamatti-Dustin Hoffman starrer “Barney’s Version” and the Haruki Murakami adaptation “Norwegian Wood.”

    (More commentary, and the full competition lineup, after the cut.)

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  • Del Toro, Cameron to take on Lovecraft’s ‘Madness’

    At Comic-Con, director Guillermo Del Toro announced that one of his next projects would be a remake of Disney’s “The Haunted Mansion.” Del Toro would be co-writing and producing, though, not directing (and boy did that news get a split reaction from movie-goers).  He said his next directorial gig would be announced shortly, and today, we get the answer.

    Mike Fleming reports at Deadline.com that the “Pan’s Labyrinth” helmer will be a 3D adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness,” a project he’s been circling since he set it up at DreamWorks in 2004.  Now Universal has stepped in to breathe life into the film once more.  But that ain’t the half of it.

    As mentioned, it’ll be a 3D film.  With that in mind, James Cameron has come aboard as producer, making this instantly an event film to anticipate, given the scope of Cameron’s 2009 3D ground-breaker “Avatar.” I still think one or two event films along these lines every year would have more impact than blindly converting various 2D titles and muddying the waters of potential for 3D filmed entertainment.

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  • ‘Certified Copy’ trailer

    Those who followed my Cannes coverage will know that “Certified Copy,” Abbas Kiarostami’s first film shot outside his native Iran, was comfortably my favorite film of the festival — and one of my favorites of the year, period. The Guardian posted the British trailer yesterday; they’re claiming an “exclusive,” though it’s actually been in UK cinemas since last week. I hesitated before posting this, and not only because a crisp embed has yet to emerge: the trailer doesn’t serve the film terribly well, though it’s admittedly a talky piece that’s tricky to market. It should, however, give you an inkling of why Juliette Binoche took well-deserved gold at Cannes — in a fair world, she’d be right in the thick of the Best Actress discussion. Click on the image to check it out at The Guardian, or watch the (slightly fuzzy) embed after the cut.

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  • Venice to host midnight premiere of ‘Machete’

    The full lineup  for the Venice Film Festival is due shortly, but several pieces are already falling into place. We know that “Black Swan” and “The Tempest” will be bookending the proceedings, while yesterday’s Toronto festival list indirectly gave away several of the titles we’ll be seeing on the Lido.

    Now comes a slightly less highbrow inclusion, as Venice organisers have announced that Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” will have its world premiere as a midnight screening on September 1, the opening night of the festival — right after Darren Aronofsky’s latest, in other words. Clearly, I’m not going to be allowed much sleep on my first day. Same as it ever was.

    Of course, the film opens Stateside only two days later, but it’s a nice little launchpad all the same. Good for the festival, too, which appears to be balancing populist and arthouse concerns quite ably. Full press release after the cut. Kris, meanwhile, reported on the film’s Comic-Con presence (and its red-band trailer) here.

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  • ‘Inception’ infographic helps you understand the film

    Kind of.  Click for a larger image (courtesy Last Exit to Nowhere, via Collider):

  • ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘Rabbit Hole’ among Toronto premieres

    Toronto International Film Festival organisers unveiled a typically cluttered lineup of galas and premieres for this year’s edition — including, as usual, a number of films pencilled in as 2010 awards contenders.

    Of the 50 titles announced thus far, half will be world premieres: those include such highly anticipated works as Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go,” John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator,” Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” and Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock.” The remaining half have either appeared at previous festivals — with a hefty contingent from Cannes, including Mike Leigh’s “Another Year,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful” and Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” — or look set to make their debut at Venice the week before.

    With Venice due to reveal its own lineup tomorrow, the fact that such still-unseen titles as Ben Affleck’s “The Town,” Francois Ozon’s “Potiche,” Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” John Madden’s “The Debt” and Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” are all marked only as North American premieres would appear to confirm that they are all Lido-bound. (I’m surprised, however, that Guillaume Canet’s “Little White Lies” will be making its first appearance at Toronto rather than at a European festival.)

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  • ‘Sucker Punch’ trailer

    Warner Bros. turned quite a few heads with its presentation of “Sucker Punch” at Comic-Con.  The crowd was treated to an extended trailer featuring Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks,” which, of course, won’t likely ever be seen outside those walls given the rights issues with such a track.  But the new trailer has been released and it kind of gives you a vibe, but I still don’t get what the hell’s going on.  Intrigued, but confused. Click on the image below to check it out via Appple, or watch the embed on the jump.

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  • The kid and the Lantern

    I’m yanking this from Devin Faraci’s Comic-Con wrap-up column because, as I mentioned Friday, it was one of those so-cute-I-could-kill-myself moments.  Had to share:

  • ‘Never Let Me Go’ poster

    One of the year’s most mysterious projects for me is Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.” I haven’t read the book (though I’m wondering whether I should), the trailer left me bewildered, I didn’t read Guy’s Page to Screen column on the source material and I’ve basically just kept my nose out of it for some reason.  It’s not that I’m not intrigued.  I just haven’t gotten around to investigating.  But I know it’s a hotly anticipated film for the readership so the new poster will surely be welcome, so check it out after the jump.

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  • On the sound of ‘Salt’

    The most recent predictions update substituted “The Last Airbender” (which failed miserably with critics) with “Salt” in the sound categories, and it wasn’t blind speculation. After all, the sound crew consists of such multi-lauded talents as Scott Millan and Greg P. Russell. Russell, as you know, has racked up some 13 nominations without a win.

    The trusty folks at SoundWorks Collection have once again produced a stellar featurette that really puts you into the world of the sound mixers and editors on the project. There’s plenty of discussion about blending the various elements together as well as discussion of James Newton Howard’s score, which is another great pulse-pounding effort form the composer.

    At the end of the day, this could be a surprise pair of nods akin to the “Wanted” one-two punch in 2008.  So watch out.  Head on over to SoundWorks Collection to see the 6-minute video, or click on through to watch an embed after the jump.

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  • Taymor’s ‘Tempest’ to bookend Venice fest

    Days after naming Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” as the festival’s curtain-raiser, the Venice Film Festival’s have picked another not-entirely-expected title to close the fest on September 11: Julie Taymor’s long-delayed Shakespeare adaptation, “The Tempest.”

    The decision to bookend proceedings with highly anticipated U.S. productions suggests the Venice brass are aiming for higher star wattage on the Lido than at last year’s low-key edition, which opened with Giuseppe Tornatore’s misfire “Baaria” and closed with the little-seen Chinese portmanteau pic “Chengdu, I Love You.” More strategically, this choice of closer seems calculated to compel journalists to stay for the full duration of the fest — something of a challenge when Toronto begins but a few days earlier.

    I admit I hadn’t counted on seeing Taymor’s film, which stars Helen Mirren as a gender-switched Prospero in the director’s typically loose interpretation of the Shakespeare standard, in the fall festival pack — though distributor Disney (picking up where Miramax left off) had already confirmed a December release date.

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  • ‘Margaret’ will see light of day, says Searchlight

    Last year, I dedicated a couple of posts to the mysterious case of “Margaret,” Kenneth Lonergan’s seemingly terminally delayed follow-up to his 2000 directorial debut “You Can Count on Me.” The film, a character drama starring Anna Paquin as a traumatised witness to a bus accident, with Mark Ruffalo and Matt Damon in support, was shot in 2005 — but has been stuck in the editing suite ever since.

    Working from a vast, ambitious 168-page script, Lonergan has reportedly been unable in four years to complete a cut of the film that pleases him. (This extensive LA Times report details the financial and legal consequences of his creative blockage.) However, just as the issue had slipped from memory — with many assuming the film would never be released at all — Anne Thompson dropped this brief but encouraging update from distributor Fox Searchlight a few days ago:

    Searchlight states: “we do have a finished cut by Lonergan and we plan to release the film sometime in 2011.”

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