In Contention

Category: Daily

  • ‘Basterds’ art for Haiti

    And you thought there was nothing charitable about “Inglourious Basterds.” Tomorrow, L.A.’s Upper Playground Gallery, in conjuction with The Weinstein Company, will be hosting an exhibition of alternative poster art for the film from a range of contemporary artists. The posters will be sold in aid of Red Cross Haiti drive.

    With the noble stuff out the way, I can also add that some of the artwork is pretty damn cool. This one by Grotesk is my favorite; you can view the rest here.

    Inglourious Basterds poster design by Grotesk

    [Source: Upper Playground]

  • People’s “most beautiful” list to feature Gabourey Sidibe

    When People Magazine’s annual issue dedicated to the “100 Most Beautiful People” hits stands in May, you can expect at least one of the year’s Oscar contenders for Best Actress to make an appearance: Gabourey Sidibe.

    The special issue, which charted a list of 50 up until 2006, is dedicated to spotlighting the most beautiful individuals in the world, and truly, the magazine’s editors couldn’t have made a better choice for inclusion than the infectious, bubbly and delightful Sidibe, Oscar-nominated, of course, for her work in “Precious.” This is a perspective that began way back in October when she made that first vibrant appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

    Congrats to her.

  • ‘Precious’ scribe to pen Attica film for Doug Liman

    AtticaThis announcement will hit via press release in the trades tomorrow (EDIT: Strike that, it looks like the release has now gone out, maybe due to this early report.), but since the news has already appeared in the form of a blog post last month from director Doug Liman, and since I confirmed it with Geoffrey Fletcher during a telephone interview this afternoon, I don’t see the harm in jumping the gun.

    The “Precious” screenwriter will follow up his Oscar nomination with a script based on the Attica prison uprising for Liman.  The project was set up in December and is a personal endeavor for the director.  Liman’s father, Arthur L. Liman, was the young lawyer who ran the investigation during the uprising.

    The ultimate report was “a riveting page-turner,” Liman says in this 30ninjas blog entry.  “But the people whose job it was to prosecute the crimes wanted my father to reveal who had admitted to what. When my father refused, they threatened to hold him in contempt of court and throw him in jail.”

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  • ‘Avatar’ sound panel

    Speaking of sound, I stumbled across this panel of sound engineers from “Avatar” over at SoundWorks Collection, well worth a look:

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Sound Editing

    UpThis year marked the first year in recent memory that the Motion Picture Sound Editors offered up its list of nominees prior to the Oscar nominations announcement rather than after. Generally that batch of tea leaves is therefore elusive for those of us looking for indicators along the way.

    Nevertheless, there wasn’t a huge shift in ideology form the mixing field to the editing field. Four films crossed over while the one that pushed through here certainly isn’t as deserving as the one that was nixed, but c’est la vie. I get the feeling there was some chummy autopilot voting going on there, but it’s a relatively solid batch of competitors anyway.

    The nominees are:

    “Avatar” (Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle)
    “The Hurt Locker” (Paul N.J. Ottosson)
    “Inglourious Basterds” (Wylie Stateman)
    “Star Trek” (Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin)
    “Up” (Michael Silvers and Tom Myers)

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  • Shocker: Best Original Song nominees will not perform

    (from left) T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham at the 2010 Golden Globe AwardsThis is a bit outrageous.  Mike Fleming is reporting at Deadline Hollywood Daily that the original song nominees will not be asked to perform the tracks on the telecast:

    Explanations include that the songs never delivered ratings, and that is what this Oscarcast is all about. That not having the big production numbers will move the show along. That it will save money for distributors, who eat most of the costs (up to 7 figures) of schlepping singers in. That unless a song by Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, Sting or U2 were nominated, most of the worldwide audience is hearing the tune for the first time when it is sung. I mean, can anybody besides Tom Bernard or Michael Barker from Sony Pictures Classics hum a few bars of “Loin de Paname” from Paris 36?

    Dear Academy: I don’t think we can possibly bend over any further.

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  • Nominated screenwriters convene in Hollywood

    Terri TatchellCreative Screenwriting senior editor, Jeff Goldsmith, always bites off a lot when he lines up a massive panel of the year’s screenplay nominees to discuss the evolution of their work each year, which leads to any number of publicists grumbling in the shadows about the time overage.  Last night’s panel was supposed to run until 8:30 but Goldsmith was still hammering away at 8:45.  But he always asks well-considered, engaging questions and writers being writers, they have plenty to say.

    The panelists included Nick Hornby, Alessandro Camon, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Geoffrey Fletcher, Terri Tatchell, Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner.  Quentin Tarantino, Mark Boal and Oren Moverman were scheduled to attend but bailed out at the last minute, while the Coen brothers — no shock here — were never going to be there.  So Goldsmith almost nailed down nine of the 10 nominated films.

    It was a great discussion with plenty of insights.  Goldsmith asked about defying genre, which he judged to be the connective quality of all the work represented by the panel, what the re-writing process was like for all involved, how they made it through the agony of staring at a blank page, etc.

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  • Barbara Walters calls it quits on her annual Oscar special

  • 2/16 Oscarweb Round-up

    Mark Boal• The same old “keep your speech short” story we get every year.  This time mentioning the backstage “thank you” cam.  [Reuters]

    • Pete Hammond chimes in from the ACE Eddie Awards, including some fiery comments from Mark Boal vis a vis Harvey Weinstein’s bold claims as of late. [Notes on a Season]

    • Donna Freydkin catches up with Jeremy Renner. [USA Today]

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  • The making of a surprise

    The Secret of KellsI think it’s fairly inarguable that this year’s most unexpected Oscar nomination was the deserved Best Animated Feature nod for “The Secret of Kells,” the Irish festival creeper that some journos even admitted to not having heard of. If you had your money on that one, you have my respect in addition to your fortune.

    But behind every Oscar surprise that nobody sees coming lies a lot of planning and calculation: this Wall Street Journal piece looks at how fledgling distributor GKIDS stealthily orchestrated the film’s nomination.

    Specializing in high-end family fare, GKIDS was founded a year ago by Eric Backman, with the objective of landing an Oscar nomination within two years. He’s now one year ahead of schedule, thanks to a passive campaign relying on the film itself to generate buzz.

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  • Creepy: Cameron Avatar-ized

    James Cameron

    From this Hero Complex piece on the director.

  • Oscar’s class of 2009

    Bingham in the back right, cheesing. Hilarious. Bridges alongside former co-star (and fellow frontrunner) Sandra Bullock. Quentin Tarantino, arm around Sally Menke, loyal as always. A trio of supporting actress contenders in Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga up front. Ivan Rietman with son Jason, fellow nominees, first time ever for the former.

    A nice shot, as always. Click for a larger version.

    Oscar class of 2010

  • “Chevalier…”

    Jemaine Clement in Gentlemen BroncosThe film is history across the pond, but having just seen Jared Hess’s “Gentlemen Broncos” in the Generation strand of the Berlinale, I feel obliged to briefly counter the thoroughly undeserved critical and commercial kicking the film received back in fall 2009.

    Because I’m astonished to find Hess’s creatively chaotic stew of literature, movies-within-movies and vintage power balladry the most sweet-natured and most consistently hilarious comedy of last year.

    I was never a “Napoleon Dynamite” disciple. And in light of reviews even harsher than those for the dire “Nacho Libre,” it’s fair to say I wasn’t looking forward to Hess’s latest. Indeed, I wasn’t planning on seeing at all; I only ducked in to seek refuge from the embarrassing Competition entry I’d walked out of next door. (More on that later.)

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  • And now a word from President Jackson Evans

    Plenty of Dude talk lately combined with today being President’s Day inspired an idle YouTube search this morning.  So with that:

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Art Direction

    The Imaginarium of Doctor ParnassusOver the weekend the Art Directors Guild handed out their awards in three categories: period, fantasy and contemporary.  And it’s a good thing they have the contemporary field since the Academy recognizing that kind of work is like Haley’s Comet.

    The Best Art Direction category recognizes both the production designer and the set decorator of a given film, while the art director – an actual role on a film, mind you – isn’t recognized at all.  It’s very strange.  At some point they really need to change the name of the category to “Best Production Design,” but when you think of the changes the Academy needs to make — well, get in line.

    The nominees are:

    “Avatar” (Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Kim Sinclair)
    “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Caroline Smith)
    “Nine” (John Myhre; Gordon Sim)
    “Sherlock Holmes” (Sarah Greenwood; Katie Spencer)
    “The Young Victoria” (Patrice Vermette; Maggie Gray)

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  • Rick Baker ‘Wolfman’ featurette

  • 2/15 Oscarweb Round-up

    Mia Wasikowska in Alice in Wonderland• Were some details of the Oscarcast revealed in a recent promotional video? [Gold Derby]

    • Rosanna Greenstreet sits down with “The Last Station” star Christopher Plummer. [The Guardian]

    • “Alice in Wonderland” cinematographer Dariusz Wolski complains about green screen technology. [Hero Complex]

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  • SANTA BARBARA: Send off with Santa Barbara’s own

    Cover of the Santa Barbara IndependentThe final day of activities at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival was an all-day tribute to local Jeff Bridges, screenings of his past work and a packed Lobero Theatre screening of “Crazy Heart” later in the day, as well as a post-screening Q&A moderated by yours truly.  The theater seats roughly 750 people and 300 were turned away at the door.  Suffice it to say, the town was ready for this one.

    The Q&A was a standard, breezy affair.  Bridges makes it easy, frankly.  It was Valentine’s Day, of course, so I couldn’t resist the sure-fire applause query: “How many Valentine’s Days have you and your wife (who was in the audience) celebrated?”  The answer, of course, is 35, and I think that, in many ways, is the greatest of accomplishments for the prolific actor.

    We talked about how Bridges came to the project, how his father instilled a passion for the business in him at an early age, what working with co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal (whose nomination was heartening to Bridges after he sat back and watched her be ignored through the season) was like, etc.  Most of what you might have read in my interview with him back in November, but the crowd ate it up.

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