In Contention

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  • Meet me halfway

    (Yes, more “Inception.” I’ll be writing about it once more today. Certain readers have been warned.)

    One day away from “Inception,” and after a fresh spate of reviews hit the web in the past few days, a familiar “you’re either with us or the terrorists” mentality is starting to emerge. We had a taste of it last month, when critics not on board with “Toy Story 3” were taken to task for daring to sully its Rotten Tomatoes rating — and already, even mild detractors of Christopher Nolan’s latest are being branded “bitter,” “haters” or simply “wrong” by the film’s more enthusiastic online champions.

    Predictably, some are labeling the film a “love it or hate it” deal — a statement that necessitates boxing a number of mixed or conflicted reactions into the “hate it” pile to be true. Todd McCarthy’s indieWIRE review, for example, is a respectful piece that nonetheless states some reservations with the film, but has been conveniently described by Jeff Wells as a “slam.” I’ll detail my own thoughts on “Inception” later today, but I’m already being told in some quarters that I’m against the film because I judged it a flawed-but-respectable “B/B-” effort in my initial Twitter take.

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  • ‘Due Date’ trailer

    Hey, two Zach Galifianakis trailers in a row.  This one is for “Due Date,” the new film from “The Hangover” director Todd Phillips.  The southern boy in me LOVES the Waffle House shout-out, but anyway, the film looks like a great tandem comedy for Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr.  Check out the trailer from Yahoo! Movies by clicking the image below, or watch the embed after the jump.

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  • ‘It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ trailer

    After a great debut and follow-up in 2006’s “Half Nelson” and last year’s “Sugar,” Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are back with the Zach Galifianakis-starring “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” The trailer hit Yahoo! Movies yesterday and it shows the sort of performance-piece promise we’ve come to expect of the filmmaking duo.  Click on the image below to have a look or check out the embed after the jump.

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  • In case you missed the Zimmer/Marr performance

    Eek!  Another “Inception” post?  Hopefully that’s okay for certain…types.  But in case you missed the live stream of Hans Zimmer and Johnny Marr’s performance of the “Inception” score after the premiere last night, have a look/listen (with lead-in red carpet interviews to boot):

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1959 and 1960

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    The epics kept rolling at the turn of the decade with “Ben-Hur” taking the 1959 Best Picture prize, picking up a record 11 wins in the process, yet to be eclipsed but matched twice by “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”

    That year also saw “Pillow Talk” walk away with the Best Screenplay award under the nose of Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” and Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries.” Painfully embarrassing, the Academy almost pulled the exact same stunt in 2002 with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” competing against “Talk to Her” and “Y tu Mama Tambien.” Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed that time.

    “The Apartment” started the swinging 60’s off on a winning note, and remains one of the Academy’s most atypical Best Picture winners. The decade’s winners would be almost evenly split amongst epics, musicals and socially conscious drama, making Wilder’s light hearted comedy stick out like a sore thumb.

    As for this column, we’ve hit an unwelcome first. No eligible film I’ve seen from 1959 has really wowed me in a way that usually merits inclusion. It’s especially frustrating since 1960 has no less than seven Oscar ignored masterpieces giving me a veritable Sophie’s choice on that front.

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  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “London Boulevard” by Ken Bruen

    When Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan (“The Departed”) brings Irish crime writer Ken Bruen’s 2001 novel “London Boulevard” to screen in his directorial debut, he won’t be adapting the text so much as returning it to its natural source.

    A short, sharp, deliciously black-hearted thriller that reads not unlike a readymade screenplay in its brisk, dialogue-dominated prose, Bruen’s novel makes its debt to Hollywood clear not only in its construction (brief, propulsive chapters of only a couple pages’ length resemble individual cinematic scenes) and its assorted winking namechecks of bygone films and stars, but in its very conception.

    The title – not a location (locals will know that there is no London Boulevard in the British capital) but a metaphor of sorts – is our first clue to what Bruen is up to: the novel is itself an adaptation, and Billy Wilder’s gothic Hollywood noir “Sunset Boulevard” is the source material.

    The novel’s allusions to the 1950 classic aren’t exactly subtle. Where Wilder’s film gave us Joseph C. Gillis, a destitute L.A. screenwriter who seeks shelter in the mansion of faded movie goddess Norma Desmond to escape the repo man, “London Boulevard” crosses the Channel, jumps a half-century forward, and replaces Gillis with Mitchell, a middle-aged ex-con who dodges the ghosts of his past (and his own compulsive criminal urges) by shacking up in the plush Holland Park pad of Lillian Palmer, a washed-up theater diva plotting her triumphant West End return.

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  • ‘Inception’ prologue comic online

    I was just wondering the other day why Warner Bros. had not taken advantage of a very real opportunity to cross-promote Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” directly to the comic book crowd.  Every other blockbuster film these days seems to have a dubious tie-in book, be it “Transformers” or “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” or “Terminator Salvation,” etc.  Even television frequently embraces it.

    Meanwhile, “Inception” is the kind of thing that would be most interestingly supplemented by a graphic work.  This is a world of high-end caper-type imagery that can go far on the page with smart storytelling behind it.  But I figured it wouldn’t happen.  We didn’t even get a tie-in comic for “The Dark Knight,” the first time that’s happened with a Batman film.

    Well, it looks like a similar plan was in the cards all along.  The studio has released the digital comic “Incetion: The Cobol Job” exclusively at LeonardoDicaprio.com, but it’s also on Yahoo! Movies, so that’s not really “exclusive,” I guess.  It’s not bad, though writer Jordan Greenberg has drastically simplified what is a bit more sophisticated in the film.  But that’s probably a necessity.

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  • Now what?

    With “Inception” very nearly upon us, those of you who have been salivating over Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster for months on end will need to find something else to look forward to. Call it waiting withdrawal, if you will.

    Happily, the good folks of In Review Online have compiled a handy list of their 25 most anticipated films due in the latter half of 2010 (or later, depending on the US distribution situation). Thanks mostly to my festival exploits of the past year, I’ve already seen nine of them, most of them well worth waiting for — and the InRO editors were kind enough to invite me to write up my favorite film of the year thus far, Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist,” for the list:

    If seven years seems like a long time to have waited for a feature-length follow-up to French animator Sylvain Chomet’s cheerfully batty “The Triplets of Belleville,” the intricacy of the hand-drawn imagery on display in “The Illusionist” should put you in a forgiving mood. (Beauty shouldn’t be rushed, as Heidi Montag could well tell you.) It’s been some time since we’ve heard from Jacques Tati, too, though his entirely reasonable excuse is that he’s been dead for 27 years.

    Read the rest, and their thoughts on 24 other films, here. No prizes for guessing their (and everyone else’s) #1.

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 performances in Christopher Nolan films

    The word of the day Friday will most certainly be “Inception,” as casually interested movie-goers and anxious fanboys alike line up to take in Christopher Nolan’s latest effort.

    Now, I have suggested in this space that the film’s ensemble is an organic one, alive and driven.  And that the performances are separately less than their sum impact. It nevertheless seemed a good time to look back over Nolan’s septet of offerings thus far and cherry pick the best portrayals for a return to this semi-regular feature at In Contention.

    Nolan always puts together a great cast. His carefully selected leads tend to ably balance themes of identity, control and psychosis, while highlighted supporting parts always prove to be charming outside-the-box considerations.

    With the latter in mind, I’d have loved to make room for the Steven Tobolowskys, Rutger Hauers, David Bowies, Ritchie Costers and Tom Berengers, but I naturally kept settling on the larger roles when push came to shove.

    So, without further ado…

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  • Keep an eye on it

    Writing from Cannes in May, I broke form to issue my only concrete Oscar prediction of the year: that Oliver Schmitz’s South African AIDS-crisis drama “Life, Above All” (then competing in the Un Certain Regard strand) will be nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar next year, and could even win.

    “Is it that bad?” quipped some of my colleagues after I wrote this. On the contrary: Schmitz’s film, impressively shouldered by 12 year-old actress Khomotoso Manyaka, takes a measured, moving approach to subject matter that could lend itself to didacticism. It’s a richer, more searching film than Darrell James Roodts’s similarly themed “Yesterday,” which, you might recall, earned South Africa its first Oscar nod in the category five years ago.

    Human-interest themes and child-led narratives often score with voters in the foreign-language race, and between last year’s surfeit of cinematic interest and this year’s World Cup exposure, it’s fair to say that South Africa is having a bit of a moment right now. That was my reasoning behind the prediction in May — and that was before a very valuable player entered the scene in the shape of Sony Pictures Classics.

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  • Hey, want David Lynch on your wall?

    I mean, what self-respecting teenaged girl doesn’t? Well, good news. A new documentary is being made about the maverick/ingenious/enigmatic/barking auteur, and its makers are funding it entirely with online fan donations. Before you reach for your small change purse, however, it should be said that they’re after contributions of $50 per person.

    What do you get in return, other than the warm, self-satisfied glow that comes with being a patron of the arts? Well, for one thing, you get some David Lynch art (after a fashion) yourself. The director has drawn the lovely, wholly anatomically accurate self-portrait that you see to your right — and all donors will receive a limited edition collectible print, to frame on your bedroom wall and have your dreams haunted by for years to come.

    You can also receive it printed on a T-shirt or tote bag — make multiple donations and your Christmas shopping will be sorted before the summer is out.

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  • Comic-Con 2010 on the way

    Well, the inbox is getting stuffed with this and that regarding breakfasts and panels and viral marketing and yada, yada, yada.  That can mean only one thing: Comic-Con is around the corner.  And as I poured over the recently released schedule over the weekend, I found myself excited for…very little.

    DreamWorks Animation will make its first appearance with the Will Ferrell-starrer “Megamind.” Disney will pretty much take over the place as “TRON Legacy” makes its third trip in as many years to San Diego.  Sony will be in Hall H two days, first offering up action fare with “Salt” (which opens the Friday of the convention) and “Battle: Los Angeles,” then coming back with comedies “The Other Guys” and “The Green Hornet.”

    Warner Bros. will tease “Green Lantern,” “Sucker Punch” and the new “Harry Potter” while Overture will have “Let Me In.”  Lionsgate will break out “The Expendables” and Universal is planning some hijinks for “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” to go along with Hall H presentations for the new Greg Mottola film “Paul” and the more appropriately positioned “Cowboys & Aliens.”

    Oh, and fresh off of giving Edward Norton the heave-ho for, I imagine, deigning to try and make “The Avengers” a better movie than it’s likely to be, Marvel Studios will strut its stuff with “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.”

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  • Yes, but what did you think?

    Speaking of “Inception,” might New York Magazine want to demand a little more out of its chief film critic than cheap shots at early opinions of the film? To wit:

    …out here, in this even more perplexing dream we call “life,” it’s being hailed as a masterpiece on the order of 2001: A Space Odyssey…

    …and:

    …I truly have no idea what so many people are raving about. It’s as if someone went into their heads while they were sleeping and planted the idea that Inception is a visionary masterpiece and—hold on … Whoa! I think I get it. The movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype—a metaphor for itself.

    Not to mention stuff like this, which I’d expect to turn up on a two-month-old blogspot before a national outlet with some level of sincerity:

    A team of colorful specialists! Cool! So it’s, like, Mission: Impossible in the Dreamscape-Matrix!

    The obvious lesson: traditional media gets cranky when the whipper-snappers get dibs.

  • Zimmer and Marr to perform ‘Inception’ concert

    The publicity machine is oiled and clicking around Hans Zimmer lately, as well it should be.  The composer seems to be enjoying a hot streak of celebrated creativity as of late, thanks largely to his recent collaborations with director Christopher Nolan.

    Nolan’s much-anticipated film “Inception” will hold its Los Angeles premiere tomorrow night at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.  Following the screening, Zimmer and guitarist Johnny Marr (who contributes guitar accompaniment on the film’s score) will be performing a special concert at a private after-party across the street at the Disney-owned El Capitan Theatre.  They’ll be backed by a 20-piece orchestra.

    But don’t fret.  The party might be private, but them press release notes that the performance will be streamed live on the internet at http://www.ustream.tv/inceptionpremiere.

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  • R.I.P. Harvey Pekar

    It’s a sad morning to wake up to the news that comics author Harvey Pekar is no longer with us.  If I was a guy like Pekar, I’d be ecstatic that a definitive work like Shari Berman and Robert Pulcini’s “American Splendor” is out there, telling my story on film as I mosey off into the great beyond.  To say nothing of a life’s work in print.  (A pair of classic Letterman appearances after the jump.)

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: WTF?

    *All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Forget everything I said about it being ballsy marketing your movie with a bunch of unknown, potentially scene-stealing creatures. I forget that if the creatures are at all adorable, then you automatically debut with $60 million at the box office.

    Seriously. What happened with “Despicable Me?” I’m not afraid to admit that three weeks ago I thought this would debut with $15 million. Instead, it’s the number one movie in America with $60.1 million in the bank. That already makes it the biggest computer animated film Universal has ever put out and rivals some of the better openings for non-franchise DreamWorks pictures. It should now have no problem becoming the fourth animated film of 2010 to pass $200 million. No words.

    Speaking of that threshold, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” raced past it with some conviction, dropping 49% to $33.4 million. It’s about $7 million the running total of “New Moon” by this point and will have a hard time reaching the same peak. Still, it’s more than enough to have provided more work for Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Has that not been deemed a war crime yet?

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  • Seems appropriate

    Well, not really. But it’s a better song than The Beautiful South’s “Rotterdam Or Anywhere.”

    Hup Holland Hup, and all that. I’m off to my friendly local beer garden. How are you celebrating World Cup Final Day?

  • ‘Kids’ rewind

    With a raft of glowing reviews — for those who place stock in such things, its Metacritic score is currently an enviable 86 — and reportedly robust box office returns, it’s fair to call “The Kids Are All Right” the first all-purpose Oscar contender of 2010. So it is with a measure of indignation that some of you have emailed me to ask why we haven’t reviewed it yet.

    I forgive you, folks: February was a long time ago. For those of you who missed it, or weren’t with us back in the winter months, my full-length review of the film from the Berlinale can be found here. And yes, I like it:

    A spry, sun-bleached and often rather sexy study of what makes a family in modern America, “The Kids Are All Right” breezes by so pleasurably it’s easy to forget what a daring and very necessary film it is. Gift-wrapping its smart sexual politics with kicky dialogue, bright visuals and a pleasingly messy tangle of relationships, Los Angeles-born auteur Lisa Cholodenko’s fourth (and finest) feature is her most mainstream to date, but makes a virtue of those concessions.

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