In Contention

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  • REVIEW: “One Day” (***)

    “I love you, Dexter, I just don’t like you anymore,” a radiantly moist-eyed Anne Hathaway tells a radiantly plastered Jim Sturgess at a crucial emotional juncture in “One Day,” Lone Scherfig’s attractive, involving and curiously unmoving attempt to replicate the cosy, literate-but-not-too-literary British comforts of her 2009 “An Education.”

    Cribbed by screenwriter David Nicholls from his own mega-selling novel — the kind of fast-digesting doorstop that’s been a ubiquitous presence on London public transport for the past two years — the line is one of those reductively heart-on-sleeve sentiments that Richard Curtis sharpened to a blunt point in his 1990s heyday; when Hathaway drops it, you can hear the film straining for its own place in the pop culture quote bank, somewhere between “Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed” and “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her” in the swoon-cringe stakes.

    If the film surrounding that moment seems unlikely to carry it to such relative heights, that’s because it’s at once less appealing and more adventurous than the bulk of the calculated Working Title charmers on which it is modelled. For starters, it’s one of the more neurotically male-minded films ever to be marketed as a lavender-scented chick flick.

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  • Gordon-Levitt, Rogen and Reiser on tragicomedy and ‘50/50’

    Yesterday I sang the praises of Jonathan Levine’s “50/50,” particularly the writing from real-life cancer survivor Will Reiser and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. Today, Summit has pointed us to a sit-down chat between the three regarding the film as part of Gordon-Levitt’s hitRECord call for submissions of personal stories of tragedy blended with comedy. He writes:

    Contribute your tragic/comic story here.  Tell us about something terribly unfortunate in your life, but do it with a sense of humor.  You could write your story in text, you could RECord yourself telling the story into your camera or microphone, draw a picture, write a song, whatever’s comfortable.

    And can I say this? I really didn’t know Rogen was essentially playing himself in the film and that the story is both his and Reiser’s. Had no idea at all. The things that fly under one’s radar. Anyway, check out the chat after the jump. And feel free to offer up your tragicomedy selections at hitRECord.

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  • ‘Carnage’ trailer

    I’ve been somewhat reserved on Roman Polanski’s “Carnage” for a while now, mainly because the cast doesn’t really seem all that right to me. I caught the play on Broadway a few years back, and it’s an amazing piece of work. You might recall I was particularly impressed with (and totally crushing on) Hope Davis back in 2009, and I’d have loved to see at least someone from the original ensemble carried over. Alas. But Polanski is a great fit for the material in an odd way and judging by the trailer, which I believe hit via Twitch, it looks like Kate Winslet is the stand-out in Davis’s role. Check out the trailer by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • FIPRESCI names ‘The Tree of Life’ film of the year

    Well, did anyone expect otherwise? FIPRESCI, the international association of film critics that routinely hands out its own award at film festivals, has named Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” the winner of its annual Grand Prix award — for the film voted the year’s finest in a poll of their 200-plus membership.

    (Before anyone protests that it’s a little early to be dishing out Film of the Year honors, the eligibility bracket is an autumn-to-autumn deal, scheduled to fit with a presentation at the San Sebastian Film Festival. A 2010 critics’ favorite like “The Social Network,” for example, would have been up for consideration this year.)

    A slight irony is that Malick’s film didn’t actually win FIPRESCI’s own award at May’s Cannes Film Festival — it was pipped to the post by Aki Kaurismäki’s still-unreleased “Le Havre.” The discrepancy, of course, can be explained by the difference between jury and mass voting patterns: the Cannes prize is determined by a select handful of members, while a collective membership vote is more likely to favor big-league critics’ darlings.

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  • Darkness falls

    Just a programming note: Next week we begin weekly coverage of the 2011-2012 Oscar season. The latest Off the Carpet column hits Monday with updated predictions and proceeds weekly. Ditto Oscar Talk, which Anne and I will launch on Friday. The following week, both features will be off to the races as we move into the festival spread. Guy will launch The Long Shot post-Toronto on September 21 and Gerard will be close behind with the launch of Tech Support on September 29. By then, we’ll be very much in the midst of Oscar madness, so strap in.

  • ‘Machine Gun Preacher’ trailer

    Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher” is all set for a Toronto bow next month. It could be an awards play for actor Gerard Butler, or for Chris Cornell’s original song “The Keeper,” or maybe it’ll just be some September fun. We’ll see. But it has the “inspiring true story” thing going for it out of the gate. The trailer just hit via Apple, so check it out by clicking the image below, or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • ‘50/50’ draws laughs and tears, but Gordon-Levitt owns it

    It’s probably a bit ridiculous that I haven’t seen Jonathan Levine’s “The Wackness” yet. I have the screener somewhere around here and it’s just one of those films I keep forgetting to watch, despite constant encouragement to do so. Therefore, “50/50,” a dramedy from writer Will Reiser based on his own experience being diagnosed with cancer, is the extent of my knowledge of the director’s work. And it’s fantastic.

    Coming off “The Help,” I’m getting a little tired of crying like a baby in movies, but “50/50” earns those tears in more complex and special ways. It also finds the right pulse of comedy to balance the experience out and boasts a tight little ensemble with a natural vibe.

    Joseph Gordon-Levitt is front and center as Adam, a 27-year-old Seattleite smacked in the face with a cancer diagnosis. He has a girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), who isn’t totally up to the task of dealing with all this. He has a life-long friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), who keeps pushing the illness as a chick-magnet (and follows an arc that is ultimately touching and surprising, yet believable and organic). And he has a mother (Anjelica Huston) who worries herself sick, naturally, and longs for connection that she can’t get from her own Alzheimer’s-afflicted husband.

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  • Hey Academy, why not Brendan Gleeson?

    For a series of not-entirely-connected reasons, a little Irish indie called “The Guard” has been on my mind today. For starters, a reader named Stephen asked me on Twitter when it would reach US theaters — only for me to discover that it’s been in limited release there for several weeks already. (UK audiences can see it on Friday.) Then, coincidentally enough, my brief review of the film for Heat magazine hit shelves today; it was already on my mind, however, thanks to a tweet this morning by Telegraph critic Tim Robey:

    A proper Brendan Gleeson awards push needs to happen for The Guard. He’s so often the bridesmaid, disturbing image though that may be.

    I’m not one to ignore a hat-trick of signs, however tenuous, pointing to a particular film — particularly one I saw over six months ago and could otherwise have stored on the dusty top shelves of my memory. Someone, somewhere, on high clearly wants me to blog about “The Guard” today; more to the point, I do, because I couldn’t agree more with Tim’s order.

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  • ‘Coriolanus’ poster

    Another day, another poster. Interesting that they’re selling this one less as The Ralph Fiennes Show (he is Coriolanus, after all) and more as a two-hander. It’s worth playing up Gerard Butler’s contribution — his performance here is a career highlight — but I maintain my broken-record position that Vanessa Redgrave is the real story here. Meanwhile, I’m slightly surprised at what a slick marketing push this one is getting: the film is more of a curio than you might think. Interested to see how this pans out. Full poster after the jump.

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  • Glenn Close’s “lifetime achievement” wagon gets rolling

    In the grand scheme of the awards season, an honour from the high-end but small-scale San Sebastian Film Festival doesn’t mean much on its own. But seen potentially as the first stop on a tour of similar recognition, the festival’s announcement of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Glenn Close — conveniently attached to the European premiere of her film “Albert Nobbs” — suggests the shape Close’s 2011 Oscar campaign could take. From the press release:

    Glenn Close, one of Hollywood’s most feted actresses, will be the film personality to receive this year’s Donostia lifetime achievement award at a ceremony on September 18th at 21:30 in the Kursaal Auditorium.

    In San Sebastian, the actress will introduce the European premiere (out-of-competition) of her latest film, Albert Nobbs. Helmed by Rodrigo García, the movie is set in 19th Century Ireland, a society dominated by men where women have no opportunities and are condemned to a life of servitude. The star of the film (Close) is a woman who disguises herself as a man to get a job in a hotel and earn the money she needs to fulfill her dream.

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  • New ‘Drive’ posters

    Or, as a “Top Chef” contestant might title this post, “Drive” Four Ways. The US teaser poster for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cannes winner unveiled a couple of weeks ago — the one that handily doubles as the cover for Ryan Gosling’s upcoming workout DVD — met a mixed reception. Some liked the kitsch, star-centered romanticism of it (though I can’t top Nick Davis’s “Aaron Carter inspirational cassette single” analogy), while many others thought it did an inadequate job of selling the film’s genre components. The film’s a fast-car thriller — where were the cars? And the thrills?

    Those objectors should be appeased by the film’s new US and UK one-sheets, both of which retain The Gosling Factor while shading in a little more of the action-film context. (A faint hint of camp is still present in the film’s trademark hot-pink cursive.) The US poster wins on the design front — and props for including a glimpse of the film’s key fetish object, Gosling’s leather driving gloves — but loses major points for recycling a tagline indelibly attached to “No Country for Old Men.” What were they thinking? Check ’em out after the cut.

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  • Tweet of the day

    Not the beginning of a regular feature, I should explain. But sometimes an RT doesn’t feel like enough.

  • BOX OFFICE: Our ‘Help’ in ‘Apes’ Past

    Okay, so now you know why I’m not usually charged with box-office pun duties. Come back to the five and dime, Chad Hartigan, Chad Hartigan, and so on. Still, it doesn’t take a prodigious number-cruncher — lucky, since I’m not one — to tell that this is quite a result for “The Help.” Even accounting for bestselling source material, for a female-driven, racially-themed drama in which the biggest star is the still-green Emma Stone to come this close to toppling a summer popcorner as robust as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is pretty spectacular: expect a strong hold as word of mouth for Disney’s cuddly civil-rights film builds, buttressing the eventual Oscar campaign. (For the sake of comparison, the far more star-powered “The Blind Side” debuted with $34 million in 2009.)

    Surely the week’s unhappiest new release, meanwhile, falls outside the Top 10: “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” pulled in a miserable $5.7 million, suggesting that the show’s many fans can still tell the difference between a film and an iTunes playlist in three dimensions. I’d worry that we’ve collectively lost our sense of wonder, but people are still going to see “Final Destination 5,” so let’s not panic.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • On the “danger” of Andy Serkis

    I suppose some might put it down to the fact that I didn’t find the film as spirit-lifting as many critics did, but I have a hard time signing the blogosphere’s imaginary petition for Andy Serkis to get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

    It’s not that I don’t admire Serkis’s expertise, or accept motion-capture performance as a valid and exciting discipline. Nor am I a physical purist in terms of what constitutes award-level acting. Not two years ago, I happily included James Gandolfini on my hypothetical Oscar ballot for “Where the Wild Things Are,” and I have no beef with the 2001 BAFTA nomination handed to Eddie Murphy in “Shrek.” An actor’s face may be his foremost tool, but if he can affect audiences without it, then more power to him.

    I will admit, however, to some uncertainty as to the border between Serkis’s contribution and that of the FX team; whereas I can locate and identify the limitations of Gandolfini’s work, much of the critical praise for Serkis’s Caesar hinges on a undeniable expressiveness that has nonetheless been enhanced beyond the actor’s own means.

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  • Tell us what you thought of ‘The Help’

    I haven’t yet had a chance to see the bestseller-based civil rights drama “The Help,” but I gather a lot of you have. The film — and more specifically, its first-class female ensemble — clearly hit the right note for Kris, though other reports I’m hearing suggest there’s far more to like about the film’s performances than its honey-dipped politics. (Are you, like some, bothered by a narrative in which a white character’s actions propel social change for the black ones? Or do you agree with the more sanguine view of one of my Twitter friends: in film, liberal guilt is preferable to liberal non-guilt?)

    Interested to hear views on the film that dig a little deeper, or at least a little more personal, than the blogosphere’s current fascination over what Oscar category Viola Davis should campaign in. Meanwhile, was Davis the film’s MVP for you, or did another cast member — perhaps Kris’s favorite, Jessica Chastain — steal your affections? Go.

  • ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ UK trailer

    Okay, so we featured the decent French trailer for Lynne Ramsay’s blinding comeback feature only a few days ago, but this excellent one from UK distributor Artificial Eye does a better job of distilling the film’s complicated essence: it captures a measure of the film’s cruel wit, as well as Ramsay’s typically off-kilter sensory details. Those sprinklers heard at the trailer’s outset, by the way, will not leave your mind for days after seeing the film. It premiered yesterday at The Guardian — click on the image to watch it there, or check out the embed after the cut.

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  • A note on ‘Senna’ and the Oscars

    Longtime Oscar-watchers know that the Academy’s documentary branch is a law unto itself: no amount of glowing reviews, previous awards, robust box office and/or pop-culture prominence is enough to secure a film a guaranteed nomination in the Best Documentary Feature race. Indeed, anticipating the “surprise” snub in the branch’s series of shortlists is something of an annual pundits’ parlor game: last year, Davis Guggenheim’s popular “Waiting for Superman” was the winning/losing horse, depending on your perspective.

    Still, inasmuch as one can predict these things, Asif Kapadia’s marvelous “Senna,” which I reviewed earlier this week, ticks all the boxes of an Oscar frontrunner in the category.

    A rousing, emotionally rich biopic with a strong dramatic arc that makes it accessible even to those with no interest in motor sport — the latter audience representing its biggest obstacle in the States — it arrives on US screens today boasting sensational reviews (for the number obsessives, its Metacritic score currently sits 84), record-breaking UK box office and a Sundance audience award. When it comes to BAFTA night, at least, the other four documentary nominees may as well not bother turning up. (It’ll likely be a hot contender for the Best British Film prize too.)

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  • Yours truly at Empire Big Screen

    Here’s some exciting news for my London-based fans — all six of you, give or take members of my immediate family. If your long-cherished dream has been to see me in the flesh, offering my own limited insight into the whys and hows of film journalism, that can become a reality today.

    I am flattered — not to mention a little bewildered — to have been invited to take part in a couple of panel discussions at this weekend’s Empire Big Screen event at the O2 Dome, an exciting three-day summit of sorts for movie fans featuring a range of screenings, exhibits, talks and other swell distractions. The panel I’m taking part in is called ‘How to Become a Film Journalist’ (alternative title: ‘How to Try in Business Without Really Succeeding’) and I, for one, look forward to learning the answer.

    I’ll be on this afternoon at 3pm, as well as twice on Sunday, with an impressive array of panellists including Anna Smith, David Edwards, Charlie Lyne and Tim Robey, the bylines of whom are familiar to far more UK film buffs than my own. If you happen to be at Big Screen — check out the full lineup here — do come along and watch me bluff.