In Contention

Blog

  • “Nothing that’s shitty is going to make $100 million.”

    Jennifer LopezJennifer Lopez, in an Elle interview, on why “Maid in Manhattan” and “Monster-in-Law” are actually “very layered movies.” Oh, Jennifer.

    I’m rather enjoying Lopez’s recent rewriting of her career history. Perhaps you caught her statement last week on her supposedly scandalous Oscar snub for “El Cantante”:

    I feel like I had that [Oscar worthy role] in ‘El Cantante,’ but I don’t think the Academy members saw it … It is a little bit frustrating. When the Oscars were on, I had just given birth on the 22nd, and the Oscars I think were a day or two later. I was sitting there with my twins — and I couldn’t have been happier — but I was like ‘How dope would it have been if I would’ve won the Oscar and been here in my hospital bed accepting the award?

    Just like those neglectful Academy members, I never saw the film, so I’m not judging. But the days of her really rather excellent work in “Out of Sight” feel very distant, don’t they?

  • Narrow their options

    Well, this is one way of getting around public indifference to a film. Snapped in London’s West End by Ultra Culture:

  • 1/11 Oscarweb Round-up

    The Hurt Locker• Dave McNary catches up with the thin WGA field story.  (Nominees will be announced later this morning.) [Variety]

    • The local rag continues to step up its crafts coverage, spotlights “The Hurt Locker” sound mixer (and sound editor) Paul Ottosson. [Los Angeles Times]

    • On the non-actor terminated from Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air.” [The Guardian]

    (more…)

  • For the completists

    Better late than never. A reader emailed me to remind us that we never mentioned the winners of the Satellite Awards, which got lost in our holiday hiatus last month. Just in case you’ve been on tenterhooks, they’re after the cut — with “The Hurt Locker” again dominating, and a unique choice for Best Actress.

    (more…)

  • Mea culpa, ‘1974’

    Andrew Garfield in Red Riding: 1974With a resurgence of talk about the “Red Riding” trilogy of films ahead of their U.S. release next month, I’ve been reminded of a critical omission I made in my Best of 2009 list a few weeks back.

    As I wrote when the films premiered on British TV around 10 months ago, they are wholly cinematic works and deserve to be considered (and distributed) as such — but because they were introduced to me as television, my mind keeps skipping over them when I think back on the year in film.

    All of which is terribly unfair on Julian Jarrold’s “1974,” the first of the three tonally and structurally separate films, which I described as follows in the spring:

    Following Andrew (”Boy A”) Garfield’s swaggering rookie journalist as he investigates the link between three missing girls and rapidly finds himself in over his head, it’s an astonishingly textured, sensory film, awash in dusk-coloured light and a gorgeous Northern soul soundtrack, that recalls “Zodiac” in its measured narrative approach and even shades of “Twin Peaks” in the alluring strangeness cast over its very ordinary locale.

    (more…)

  • African-American critics’ group splits after voting scandal

    Gabourey Sidibe in PreciousYou may well disagree, but I’ve never really understood the point of awards bodies that define themselves along racial lines.

    Perhaps I’m missing the point, but when an African-American critic like Armond White is head of the NYFCC, or a film like “Precious” is receiving mainstream awards attention, the existence of a group like the African-American Film Critics’ Association seems a little self-marginalizing to me.

    In any case, The Carpetbagger’s Melena Ryzik reports that the stature of the group has taken a knock after a number of AAFCA members left its ranks to form a rival group, the Black Film Critics’ Circle. This follows dissent within the group after AAFCA president Gil Robertson IV allegedly rigged the Best Actress vote to deny top vote-getter Gabourey Sidibe, in favor of “American Violet” star Nicole Beharie.

    (more…)

  • SUNDAY CENTS: That ‘Avatar’ thing is doing well, eh?

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

    Have you guys heard of this movie “Avatar?” Apparently, seeing as it’s the number one movie for the fourth week in a row and dropped a ridiculous 29% to $48.5 million. First off, it’s the biggest fourth weekend for a film ever, narrowly eclipsing the $45 million of “Titanic.” Its running total of $429 makes it the 24th biggest film of the last 30 years and it’s only been out for 24 days.

    Remember how big “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” was? Well, “Avatar” will pass it tomorrow on the all time chart. Remember how ludicrous the grosses for “The Passion of the Christ” were? That’ll get passed on Tuesday.

    There’s no overstating the size of this film’s performance, and it’s time to start talking about a $600 million+ finish domestically. Since I was born in 1982, there have only been five films that have made that kind of money: “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Titanic,” “Return of the Jedi,” “Jurassic Park” and “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.” Somewhere right now, James Cameron is shitting a gold brick.

    (more…)

  • Oscars in The Times

    Stephen Lang in AvatarFresh on the heels of a page one Mo’Nique story, The New York Times has unleashed its annual Oscar package, great stuff as always.

    Manohla Dargis leads the girl-power charge with an appreciation of Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker.” It’s a solid piece of analysis that spends a few graphs discussing the art of the zoom and is accompanied by a novel “anatomy of a scene” interactive feature.

    Next up, A.O. Scott stumps for Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” once again (also with interactive accompaniment), while Stephen Holden waves the flag for Oren Moverman’s “The Messenger” (following a Woody Harrelson appreciation in the pages of the LA Times yesterday).

    Going broader, Michael Cieply addresses the 10 once again and gets one anonymous Academy governor to admit what we all know, that the expanded Best Picture field is likely an experiment that might not last more than one or two years.  And Douglas McGrath (rather out of the blue) calls for Doris Day to receive an honorary statuette.

    (more…)

  • Cahiers, Sight & Sound offer decade lists

    Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning in The War of the WorldsThe recent barrage of end-of-decade collectives has probably been enough to sate the appetite of even the keenest listoholic — but having consciously avoided most such lists while I worked on my own, I’m still wallowing in them.

    So I can’t resist mentioning out the lists of two of the world’s leading film magazines — the eccentric, über-cinephilic Cahiers du Cinéma, and my own favorite, Sight & Sound. The Cahiers list is exactly what you’d expect from them, with a cineaste’s twisted valentine to Hollywood atop the pile, while its one concession to populist commercial cinema is a typically perverse choice:

    1. “Mulholland Drive” (David Lynch)
    2. “Elephant” (Gus van Sant)
    3. “Tropical Malady” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
    4. “The Host” (Bong Joon-ho)
    5. “A History of Violence” (David Cronenberg)
    6. “The Secret of the Grain” (Abdelatif Kechiche)
    7. “West of the Tracks” (Wang Bing)
    8. “War of the Worlds” (Steven Spielberg)
    9. “The New World” (Terrence Malick)
    10. “Ten” (Abbas Kiarostami)

    (more…)

  • Woody Harrelson gets some quality ink

    Woody HarrelsonOf course I’ve been singing Woody Harrelson’s praises in “The Messenger” since day one, and thankfully, after a shove into the race with National Board of Review recognition, he’s been on a relatively solid track as of late.  And as I mentioned in Friday’s Oscar Talk, there is some chatter around his potential for a win in the Best Supporting Actor race.

    The best thing about that scenario?  Few would argue with it.  He is one of our most under-valued actors, on a trajectory similar to the career of Jeff Bridges, lurking with solid work, both as a character player and in a leading capacity if need be.  Wouldn’t it be quite the breath of fresh air if they both walked away with Oscars this year?

    In this today’s LA Times, Harrelson gets the flattery treatment from critic Betsy Sharkey, quite the commodity in the thick of an awards race, with ballots in hand and a Screen Actors Guild ceremony a couple of weeks away.  This is how it happens, especially in a race that is a bit more up in the air than many seem to think.

    (more…)

  • Ebert on ‘Avatar’ logic

    Sam Worthington in AvatarRoger Ebert is on fire in Slate’s vastly entertaining The Movie Club feature — it’s all good stuff (as are the contributions from other critics), but his discussion of his plot issues with “Avatar” had me nodding in relieved agreement. I thought I was the only one wondering this:

    Assuming that an avatar can live with no connection to the mother ship, what does it think with? When its human master dies, who is upstairs? Does the mind of Jake Sully transfer? I have an eerie feeling I may once again have missed a crucial plot detail, but if Jake Sully’s mind can be inside his avatar, then that really is Michael Keaton inside the snow man in Jack Frost.

    His statement on the potential “Avatar” vs. “The Hurt Locker” Oscar battle after the cut.

    (more…)

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Guilds, lists and disqualifications

    Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker• In a big week for precursor announcements, the DGA nominations were the biggest — and least surprising.

    • The PGA, meanwhile, found room for all three of the year’s hot sci-fi titles in its nominee slate.

    • “The Hurt Locker” triumphed at the National Society of Film Critics Awards, the first film in 12 years to sweep the three top critics’ prizes.

    • Over five days, I counted down my personal Top 50 films of the decade that was.

    • And we’re not done listing: Chad also gathered his 20 favorites of 2009.

    (more…)

  • Can ‘Avatar’ do for the Oscars what ‘Dark Knight’ couldn’t?

    Sam Worthington in AvatarPeter Bart decides to call a spade a spade as it pertains to the Oscar race.  James Cameron’s “Avatar” is “the betting favorite to win best picture,” he writes.  But more importantly, he brings up the solid point that the film’s potential AMPAS success could be the ratings shot in the arm the show has been looking for.  (And guess what?  They didn’t need to go to 10 nominees to get it.)

    Writes Bart:

    Since it takes a populist movie to pump life into the Oscar ratings, “Avatar’s” box office largesse will likely translate into another “Titanic”-like bonanza. Back in 1998 some 55 million viewers tuned in, while last year’s “Slumdog” siesta totaled a mere 36.3 million…

    We realize that the Oscar show’s new producing team of Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic is hard at work on plans to enliven the broadcast, but they are also keenly aware of the ratings realities. A movie like “There Will Be Blood” does not mean there will be audiences. The awards process is energized when folks out there have actually seen at least one or two of the movies being honored.

    (more…)

  • Buried treasures: Chad’s best of 2009 (list and ballot)

    Robin Williams in World's Greatest DadUnlike Kris, I can’t quite come to the conclusion that 2009 was the best year of the decade. Nor can I call it the “year of the woman,” the “best year for animation” or “the year James Cameron brought a sense of wonder back to the cinema.” The only thing I can personally label 2009 is “The Year I Put in the Work.”

    In other words, as my taste drifts further and further away from the mainstream options, it becomes harder and harder to see the films that excite me. We’re talking about a list where the top 9 films earned a combined $2.3 mil at the box office, which “Avatar” will make in the time it takes you to read this article.

    Now, I am well prepared to field some comments on this thread labeling me a “snob” or an “elitist.” I am also willing to bet that these comments will come from people who have not seen many of the films I will single out.

    And who can blame them? Many of them played for exactly one week in a small, L.A. theater and then vanished into ancillary market oblivion. If I wasn’t diligent about seeing them that week then it was tough luck, and it took serious motivation to keep that going 52 weeks a year. But, my goodness, the rewards!

    In the end, I didn’t see everything I wanted to. “Lorna’s Silence,” “The Beaches of Agnes,” “Beeswax,” “Collapse,” “Tony Manero” and “The White Ribbon” all passed me by and could easily be included on this list in the future. On the flipside, interesting films I did see like “Wah Do Dem,” “Modern Love is Automatic” and “Alexander the Last” will never see the light of day in theaters and had to be disqualified from this list.

    I know Guy and Kris went with honorable mentions and a top 10, but I’m pushing forward with a straight top 20. Check back tomorrow for my dream ballot.

    (more…)

  • FRIDAY FORECAST: January blues

    Sam Worthington in Avatar*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Barring a catastrophe, “Avatar” should spend a comfortable fourth weekend at the top and cross $400 million in the process. That would make 2009 the first year since 2004 to have two films cross that milestone. It would also make “Avatar” the second-fastest film to hit that mark, after “The Dark Knight.”

    It took “Titanic” 36 days to reach $400 million and it only had $265.1 million at this point in its epic run. Still, there’s no way in hell “Avatar” can repeat the four month run at the top that James Cameron’s last film managed, or it’s $943.3 million final gross.

    Competition, if you can call it that, comes from three new releases with the stench of January seeping off their posters and trailers. Lionsgate hops on the vampire gravy train with “Daybreakers” featuring a cast that should know better. “Hostel” and “Rambo” have done well for the studio in Januaries of the past but I don’t see much more than $14 million heading this way.

    Amy Adams is doing her typecast image no favors by appearing in “Leap Year,” with Matthew Goode taking second billing. I follow movies for a living and I barely know who Matthew Goode is, so she shouldn’t expect much help from him in drawing the crowds.

    (more…)

  • ASC on the way

    Daniel Day-Lewis in NineAlong with the WGA, the American Society of Cinematographers will also be announcing nominees Monday.  Guesses as to which way they’ll go?

    I’d say the safest bet is Robert Richardson and his work on “Inglourious Basterds.” He often gets his due from the guild (eight nominations) even when he doesn’t from the Academy (five nominations).

    After that, it’s likely Barry Ackroyd, the most lauded of the season’s lensers in the critics awards circuit, will be chalked up for “The Hurt Locker.” But I think I have to come clean on something here.

    Due respect to Mr. Ackroyd, who is a considerable talent, his work on the film totally took me out of the narrative.  The slavish devotion to dizzying handheld work lacked the focus of the characters being depicted while attempting to somehow simulate the tension of their profession, and that, I think, was a misstep.

    (more…)

  • Small victories

    Veeeeery small. And silver medals rather than victories. But hey, kudos to the Central Ohio Film Critics Association for (almost) going where no one else will go:

    Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
    Runner-up: Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Antichrist”

    Best Cinematography: Robert Richardson, “Inglourious Basterds”
    Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, “Antichrist”

  • ‘Red Riding’ trilogy gets a poster

    These films, which I caught in their entirety at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, were not all they were cracked up to be.  (Guy had a different perspective in the spring.)

    The first installment, 1974, was undeniably the best of the lot.  And had the film received a domestic release in 2009, Rebecca Hall would have definitely made my shortlist for Best Supporting Actress.  There are some interesting performances in 1980 and 1983 just fails to bring the thing around in a satisfying manner, in my opinion.

    All of that having been said, the poster rocks:

    Red Riding

    (Source: Vulture)