• 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]
I 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.
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.
Louie Psihoyos is a vegetarian. Go figure. On the sunny afternoon of the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, we meet at a West Hollywood vegetarian cafe to discuss “The Cove,” the former National Geographic photographer’s first foray into the world of feature filmmaking, and a stand-out piece of activism that seems to galvanize most anyone who’s seen it.
“A year ago this week we were just hoping people would like it in Sundance,” he says. “We had eight public screenings there and eight standing ovations. I certainly wanted the movie to create a wave of activism, because to me, film is the most powerful weapon by far. You make a bomb, you kill people, you make a movie, you get allies, and that’s what I wanted to do.”
The film, if you haven’t heard by now, exposes the brutal annual slaughter of dolphins in the small harbor village of Taiji, Japan. Local fisherman claim it is a tradition when it doesn’t even date back a century, which really gets under Psihoyos’s skin.
“They’ve been doing it with drive boats since 1933,” Psihoyos says. “My mother was born in 1925. She’s older than their ‘tradition.’ Besides, when you know that your tradition is poisoning people — and they were force-feeding poisoned meat to school children — your tradition argument, I’m sorry, it falls apart.”
The 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.)
Plenty of Dude talk lately combined with today being President’s Day inspired an idle YouTube search this morning. So with that:
Over 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)
• 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]
Yesterday’s viewing roster just about had me double-checking whether I was at the right festival, as I was treated to a pair of Sundance hits, in addition to a brand-new Amerindie feature from a Sundance alumnus. The copious snow still smothering the sidewalks of Berlin only aided the comparison.
Perhaps it was Valentine’s Day spirit making me more benign – apparently against the current of critical opinion, in the case of Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” – but all three films, moreover, afforded me pleasures of varying degrees. (And definitions: “pleasure” is not the most appropriate term for a film as severe as “Winter’s Bone.”)
“WINTER’S BONE” (***1/2)
In 2004, NYU film grad Debra Granik spun a student short into a ragged but confident debut feature, “Down to the Bone,” that landed her a Sundance award and kick-started the career of a sensational actress named Vera Farmiga. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.
The 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.
Friday we spotlighted the film editing category in our daily Oscar Guide feature. Tonight at the Beverly Hilton, the editors themselves had their say at the 60th annual ACE Eddies ceremony.
Bob Murawski and Chris Innis were the big winners in the drama category for “The Hurt Locker” (my prediction for the Oscar win), while in something of a surprise, Debra Neil-Fisher won in the comedy category for “The Hangover,” toppling the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man.” It makes you wonder just how close the Warner Bros. romp was to a Best Picture nomination with all of this industry love.
Pixar and Kevin Nolting predictably won in the animated category for “Up,” while Geoffrey Richardson won in the documentary field for “The Cove,” a film that frankly deserved Oscar recognition in the category.
As always, keep track of the season’s goings on at The Circuit.
• This week’s installments of the Oscar Guide covered the animated feature, sound mixing, lead actor, live action short and film editing categories.
• Kris toasted the career of Jeff bridges with his list of the actor’s top 10 performances (off-site).
• We caught up with “Red Riding: 1974” director Julian Jarrold as well as “A Prophet” helmer Jacques Audiard.
• Elsewhere, we spotlighted the crafts of “Bright Star” in our weekly Tech Support Interview series.
Things are winding down in Santa Barbara. Today is the last day of the fest, an all-day celebration of Jeff Bridges’s work. Screenings of “Thunderbolt & Lightfoot,” “Starman,” “The Contender” and “Crazy Heart” are lined up. I’ll be moderating a Q&A with the actor following the “Crazy Heart” screening at the Lobero Theatre.
Yesterday it was the producers panel early in the afternoon, Patrick Goldstein moderating an enlightening discussion with Lawrence Bender, Mark Boal, Jon Landau, Lori McCreary, Ivan Reitman and Jonas Rivera. It was a good cross-section of perspectives on the work of a film producer, and certain a diverse mixture of budgets, economics and creative philosophy.
There was a moment when Landau proposed that it was a filmmaker’s responsibility to tackle gravitas and Bender took umbrage with that, positing that the real responsibility is to entertain. Obviously it depends on the circumstance and no filmmaker should be beholden to either ideology (as Boal, always the diplomat, shrewdly noted). But it was still funny watching Bender once again defending the frivolity of “Inglourious Basterds” in the face of loftier examinations from Landau, McCreary, etc.
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.
The overwhelming demand to see an eclectic array of celebrities fall in love with as little character development as possible has led to “Valentine’s Day” both winning the weekend and posting the biggest President’s Day debut of all time, narrowly eclipsing “Ghost Rider.” $52.4 million is the gross, which should balloon to around $60 million including tomorrow, and you have your first $100 million earner of 2010 on the way. The timing couldn’t have worked out better, with Warner Bros. estimating today’s gross to be bigger than Friday or Saturday.
It was a fierce battle for second place between “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” and “The Wolfman.” The former took the edge with $31.1 million, while the hairier option earned $30.6 million. That’s a win for Chris Columbus, who was in desperate need of one after “I Love You Beth Cooper” and “Rent,” and the fantasy flick should have enough juice to flirt with the $100 million barrier.
“The Wolfman,” however, will likely have to settle for around $75 million and some solid overseas grosses. For a project as troubled as this was, Universal can’t complain. Believe it or not, that will make it the third biggest film Del Toro has ever been a part of after “Traffic” and “Sin City.”
Happy to see my pick for the year’s best in the category get its due. Check out The Circuit for the winners.
Berlin International Film Festival
(EDIT: Star rating adjusted upon consideration.)
To filch an aphorism from Mike Skinner, “Shutter Island” represents of continuation of Martin Scorsese’s decade-long quest to find the hardest way to make an easy living.
If that sounds like a jab, it’s not. Since the self-amusing personal statements of “Kundun” and “Bringing Out the Dead” perplexed far more than they pleased, Scorsese has weaved over to the middle of the road, flirting with broad Oscar-bait and crowdpleasers (successfully marrying the two in “The Departed”) while playfully maintaining an auteur’s consistency of theme and aesthetic.
It’s a tricky game to play, and when the elements align, it can work to smashing effect — as in “The Departed,” a nifty pop movie-movie winkingly intended as the prototypical “Scorsese film” that casual cinemagoers attributed to him, but that he’d never actually made.
When they don’t, however, you get “Shutter Island,” a film awash with beauty and trademark stylistic flourishes, attached to a narrative that he never seems all that into. A near letter-faithful adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s pulpy source novel, itself something of a genre lark for the author, it surprises principally by offering more intrigue as a Scorsese picture than as an entertainment. As an artistic investigation of B-movie construction, it has all the impeccable craft, and a measure of the cinephile intelligence, of “The Departed” or “Cape Fear”; but a lot of the fun is missing.
