In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Inception’ soundtrack contest winners!

    I’ve touched down in San Diego for all the Comic-Con shenanigans of the next four days, but a little business to tend to.

    Thanks to the 60-plus participants in our “Inception” soundtrack giveaway haiku contest. There were lots of great entries, but the two I settled on came from KYLE and GEORGIE. Respectively (and I guess I should say SPOILER warning):

    Falling off the bridge
    The sound of brass blaring bright
    They wake with a kick

    Non, je ne regrette
    The kick hits, the dream falls down
    But does the totem?

    Kyle and Georgie, I’ll try to hunt down your email on the backend, but send me a line just in case. You win!

  • Pre-Con Batman “news” to fend off the cravings

    Via FirstShowing:

    We’ve gotten word from a reliable inside source with a studio casting grid that The Riddler is listed as a character for Chris Nolan’s highly anticipated to the sequel to The Dark Knight, which is still called Batman 3 at Warner Bros. Even more interesting, the actor currently listed in the same grid to play the assumed villain is none other than Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whose status is just listed as “interested.” Let’s all say it together now: Hell. Yes!

    Truth? I’d rather not see Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this role. And I doubt that we will, actually. (I say spring for Michael C. Hall.)  But it’s nice to have quasi-confirmation on the villain. It wasn’t likely to be anyone else, but at the same time, you’re talking about a Rogues Gallery a mile long and you go back to the well?  And I mean, really, they brought elements of the Riddler into the Joker, so it could be slightly stale.

    Anyway just for fun, Method Man:

    [audio:http://www.incontention.com/audio/theriddler.mp3]

    [Photo: Entertainment Weekly]

  • Wahlberg talks up ‘The Fighter’

    When I remarked in a post yesterday that the upcoming awards season looks a little short on the high-profile biopic contenders so beloved of Academy voters, I had a feeling I was forgetting something obvious. And so I was: “The Fighter,” David O. Russell’s biopic of against-the-odds boxing champ “Irish” Micky Ward, starring Mark Wahlberg in the title role.

    In Friday’s episode of Oscar Talk, Kris expressed his high hopes for the film, singling out Christian Bale (as Ward’s half-brother and trainer Dicky Eklund) as a rumored standout. His faith is reflected in the updated predictions to your right, including potential bids in the two top races, as well as three acting categories. (Melissa Leo is currently tapped for Best Supporting Actress, but Amy Adams could be in the mix too.)

    Anne Thompson responded somewhat skeptically to Kris’s enthusiasm, suggesting that Russell’s film (should it turn out well, of course) is in a position to take some in the industry by surprise — always a good place to be from an awards-campaign standpoint. Meanwhile, it would appear that the film’s minders are opting not to build up buzz via the fall festival track: in this Collider interview, Wahlberg explains that they’ll likely skip Toronto and the rest, choosing instead to “go out and go big” with a December release.

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  • Tell us what you’re anticipating at Comic-Con

    Just curious.  I’ve already mentioned that nothing stands out as a “must-see” type of thing.  There will be some things that aren’t on the schedule that will surely be of interest, and I’ll report back, but maybe there’s something I have a blindspot to that you’d all like to hear about?  Let me know if that’s the case.  I’m southbound at roughly noon tomorrow.

  • Christopher Nolan’s ‘Doodlebug’

    I was looking at Brad Brevet’s take on ranking the films of Christopher Nolan over at Rope of Silicon and stumbled across an embed for the director’s 1997 short “Doodlebug.” I hadn’t seen it yet, honestly, and I imagine others haven’t either.  So I figured I’d post it for some discussion.

    What are we seeing here that would find its way into Nolan’s feature work?  You could pull out themes of identity, or reality vs. perception, maybe.  There’s certainly an undercurrent of paranoia in his films that has roots here, too.  Anyway, passing it along for your viewing pleasure on an EXTREMELY slow pre-Comic-Con Tuesday.  Check out the short after the jump.

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  • On the sound of ‘Inception’

    I totally meant to post this over the weekend as it’s been live since Saturday. Alas, I forgot.

    I’ve been high on the guys at SoundWorks Collection since I stumbled across their work last year. As you know, we’ve always been concerned with shining a proper spotlight on below-the-line efforts in filmmaking. SoundWorks Collection focuses on sound mixing and sound editing in major releases with brief aurally-focused featurettes.

    Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is unquestionably a beast of immersive sound design, so I’ve been waiting on for this one for a while. It features interviews with Gary Rizzo, Lora Hirschberg and Richard King. Head on over to SoundWorks Collection to watch the featurette, or click through to watch an embed.  I imagine we’ll be digging further into the craft aspects of the film later in the season when we launch our annual Tech Support interview series.

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  • ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’ trailer

    Here we go again. I think I gave up on high hopes for Woody Allen efforts back around “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” or thereabouts. Yeah, I loved “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” but, well…few and far between. The trailer for Allen’s latest, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” has hit via Yahoo! Movies, and I frankly nodded off a couple of times during its scant 1:37 running time.  Guy, meanwhile, was none too impressed by the film at Cannes.  Alas, no one can argue with Allen’s endurance. He’s like the energizer bunny. Anyway, check out the new trailer by clicking the link below, or watch the embed on the jump.

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  • Calling all original song contenders

    As we get closer and closer to the film awards season, I thought maybe it was a good time to round up all the potential original song contenders.  It’s generally a good idea to keep track of these things, so let’s see what we have so far.

    One of the best bets is probably Randy Newman’s “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3.” As usual for Newman, it’s not the kind of song that dives too far beneath the surface, but it’s a delightful jingle that helped sum up one of the year’s biggest critical and popular hits, so it should be considered formidable.

    Speaking of animated films,“How to Train Your Dragon” has an original song, “Sticks & Stones,” from Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson.  It’s a fast-paced bit of happiness that probably doesn’t have what it takes to push through to a nomination, but it’s in the field nevertheless.

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  • Oren Moverman, Kurt Cobain and the biopic

    One of my favorite current film writers, Ryan Gilbey, has an excellent piece in today’s Guardian on the subject of biopics — in particular, on the rise of the postmodern biopic in the face of Hollywood’s increasingly tepid stabs at the form. It’s a good read, but far better is the unabridged version of the article at Gilbey’s own blog, which contains some fascinating nuggets cut by the Guardian subs.

    Among them is this intriguing tidbit on an upcoming Kurt Cobain biopic from writer Oren Moverman. Moverman was, of course, a semi-surprise Oscar nominee earlier this year for his screenplay of “The Messenger,” but more pertinently to the subject at hand, he also co-wrote Todd Haynes’s oblique Bob Dylan study “I’m Not There.”

    Talking to Gilbey after the cut, Moverman explains that his next stab at the life of a rock icon won’t be quite as avant-garde as Haynes’s film (or Gus van Sant’s “Last Days,” for that matter), but he has no intention of ceding to the ‘greatest hits’ biopic structure so favored by Hollywood screenwriters.

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  • Degrees of devotion

    The best thing that came out of last week’s online fracas over assorted critics’ response to “Inception” was a brief swell in useful conversation about critical nuance and responsibility. On Thursday, I touched on the Rotten Tomatoes-trained tendency of many readers to box film criticism into distinct ‘love’ and ‘hate’ camps, and as far as I’m concerned, US-based British writer Tom Shone has pretty much the last word on the matter. Responding to a Sasha Stone post about the blogger/critic divide, Shone writes:

    The blogger/critic dust-up over Inception illustrates the divide between those who for whom love of a film means nothing less than full-throated devotion, coupled with a blindness to all its flaws — a kind of creeping politesse that insists on nary a bad word be said of the great and the good. The kind of writer for whom the words “genius” and “masterpiece” silence all internal debate. And those whose admiration for a film or filmmaker comes striated with a sense of its imperfections, who see no contradiction between loving a film and finding fault with it — the faults peg their admiration higher. The blogosphere seems sometimes to forget this. They mistake reverence for respect. They’re strangely pious. Again: where are the outlaws?

    I have nothing further. (P.S. He likes “Inception” just fine.)

  • CONTEST: Win a copy of the ‘Inception’ soundtrack

    Following yesterday’s interview with “Inception” composer Hans Zimmer, I thought it would be fun to run a contest and give a few of these bad boys away.  (Confession: Yes, I ended up with more than one.)

    I figure we’ll go with an oldie but a goodie from Sasha Stone: A haiku contest!

    Cut loose with your best “Inception”-related haiku and the two best entries win a copy of the soundtrack, courtesy of Warner Bros. and Reprise Records.  Bonus considerations go to those who find a way to work thoughts or perspective on the score into their haiku.  We’ll pick a winner in, oh, let’s say mid-week.  Wednesday, depending on when things trail off here.

    Have at it in the comments section below!

  • A geek among geeks

    I’m glad Legendary Pictures honcho Thomas Tull received a nice puff piece in Variety this weekend. After all, the projects his company has been partnering up on have kept the money flowing.

    But I was also struck by the fact that Marc Graser’s story rifled off adaptation after adaptation, across a number of platforms, be it “Godzilla,” “Akira,” “World of Warcraft” or the Superman reboot. While Christopher Nolan’s Legendary-backed “Inception” is wowing audiences in theaters with a wholly original concept derivative of nothing, Tull and Legendary are still sticking to built-in fanbases and titles that can provide ancillary dollars as a result of that audience.

    It’s a necessary evil. We all get it. But shouldn’t a company like Legendary be in a position to support other filmmakers who might have earned the risk on their own original (high) concepts? Zack Snyder’s getting a Legendary boost for “Sucker Punch” (which will have a presence at Comic-Con), but that’s about it.  When I reviewed “Inception,” I wrote that the film is “an entertainment with vivid, profound ideas, precisely the kind of daring that ought to be backed by big money.” When is “big money” going to step up once again?

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  • Al Gore says go see ‘Inception’

    Did I miss something?  Are former political types getting into the film review racket?  First Ed Koch, now Al Gore.

    At his official website, the former Vice-President took a moment to endorse Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” the first time, he says, that he’s gone out of his way to do so.  He refers to and quotes reviews from The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday and the Los Angeles Times’ Ken Turan and generally gives it a big ole’ thumbs up.

    But it’s not that out-of-the-blue, really.  Gore is close friends with fellow environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio.  And proceeds from the film’s Los Angeles premiere went to the Alliance for Climate Protection.  As Gore admits, he’s a bit biased.

    But hey, nice to get the ink (as if the film needed it).  Check out what Gore had to say after the jump.

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  • Ed Koch…yes, that one…reviews ‘The Kids Are All Right’

    Okay, I haven’t been keeping up with this, but it’s brilliant.  Apparently former New York City mayor Ed Koch is getting his film criticism toes wet via The Huffington Post and his Twitter feed.  Most recently he took a look at Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right”, which reminded him of “The Crying Game.” Make of that what you will:

  • Captain Phil’s curtain call

    I don’t know if anyone here is a “Deadliest Catch” fan. I picked the series up sometime around Season 3, I think, and was hooked. It’s always been a great touchstone for my father and I, something we could kind of share our delights in when I call home, even if mom didn’t fully get it.

    So of coursethe last two episodes have been particularly affecting for obvious reasons. But as I caught up with the final episode to feature Captain Phil Harris, I was struck not just by the emotion of the assemblage, but the masterful storytelling on display.

    Truly, I would say this season, with its various dramatic strings forming a brilliant sort of structure, has quickly evolved as one of the most precise and graceful examples of documentary filmmaking I’ve ever seen. Unfortunate circumstances are largely responsible, but I couldn’t be more happy with the delicacy and vision the crew has brought to this series, right now, in this moment.

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  • Tell us what you thought of ‘Inception’

    Had enough yet? Well, we hope not. We want to know what you think! I’ve had my say (and again, and again), as has Guy. But enough about us. Midnight screenings are flickering to life on the east coast right now so “Inception” has hit. If you get a chance to see it over the weekend, rifle off your thoughts here.

  • ‘The Town’ trailer

    After Ben Affleck’s directorial debut “Gone Baby Gone,” his latest, “The Town,” doesn’t seem like much of a stretch creatively.  But nevertheless, this looks like it could be a nice late-summer pulse-pounder (along with Anton Corbijn’s “The American”) to clear the palette before the sincere awards fare hits in the fall.  Or maybe Warner Bros. has some Oscar hopes lurking with a performance or two?  Probably not, but Affleck will also be visible in the Weinsteins’ “The Company Men,” so he’s doubling down.  Check out the trailer for “The Town” at iTunes by clicking the image below, or watch the embed after the jump.  (Jeez, lots of trailers lately.)

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  • ‘Miral’ French trailer

    “Miral,” Julian Schnabel’s follow-up to his 2007 award-winning “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” has a number of readers excited, so thanks to Matt for trackking down the French trailer to the film.  For some time the perception has been that Hiam Abbas would be someone to watch in the film, but it turns out Freida Pinto in the title role was our best bet all along.  She looks great here, but I’m unsure if this will play out as an Academy thing.  The Weinstein Company secured domestic distribution last month.  Click the image below to have a look or watch the embed after the jump.

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