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  • Roger Ebert’s top 10 list(s)

    Crazy HeartRoger Ebert has been alive like never before in his work as of late.  So I’ve been greatly anticipating his views on the year’s best.

    Unfortunately, he’s divided his list into mainstream and independent films, so it’s a top 20, and neither in any order.

    Maybe keeping things simple like that and not so authoritative with painstaking rankings is the way to go.  I’ve been considering it for a long time.

    Anyway, the most interesting inclusions on his mainstream list are “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “Crazy Heart” and “Knowing.” On the indie side, “Departures,” “Goodbye Solo” and “Trucker.”

    Check out the rest at the Chicago Sun-Times.

  • 2009: the year in film

    (via Thompson on Hollywood)

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Precursor avalanche, best of 2009

    Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker• Kris wrapped up 2009 with his take on the year’s best films, also offering his own preferred nominees and winners in a range of categories. (I’ll chime in next week.)

    • “Up in the Air” led this year’s pack of Golden Globe nominees.

    • It also joined “Precious” and “Inglourious Basterds” at the head of the pack in the SAG nominations — while missing out in their top race.

    • “The Hurt Locker” emerged as this year’s critics’ favorite, earning top honors from a host of groups, including the two biggest: the NYFCC and the LAFCA.

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  • The Great Performances: 2005

    Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain2005 was the year of Heath Ledger’s beautiful, moving performance in “Brokeback Mountain,” which I saw for the first time in Toronto.  It instantly became the talk of the festival, and the film became the one to beat for the Academy Award.

    Ledger was astonishing as the taciturn cowboy who is more surprised than anybody when his soulmate turns out to be another cowboy, portrayed superbly by Jake Gyllenhall. If there is a more deeply felt moment in film history than Ledger gently adjusting Gyllenhall’s shirt at the end of the film, his eyes filled with tears, I don’t know what it is. That’s loss, that is absolute heartbreak, that is one of the greatest acting performances of the decade.

    Phillip Seymour Hoffman would win the Oscar for his transformation into “Capote” and he’s very good, but just not in the same league as Ledger. I wondered from time to time if “Infamous” had been released earlier if Toby Jones might have won the Oscar instead of Hoffman. Each becomes Capote in a very different manner, and side by side it is difficult to choose the stronger portrayal. Certainly I prefer Hoffman’s as it is darker, and for me more realistic, but there can be no denying Jones.

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  • Best in show: the year in superlatives

    Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock HolmesWrapping up my perspective on the year today, a personal list of superlatives, Oscar categories and other silly nonsense.

    Swing back around on Monday for the ultimate wrap-up, my list of the best films of the decade.

    Best Picture
    “A Serious Man” (Focus Features)

    Best Director
    Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, “A Serious Man”

    Best Actor
    Sharlto Copley, “District 9”

    Best Actress
    Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: Blue boon

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

    It’s “Avatar” day people! The day some of us have been waiting for! The movie has been hyped for years and if you listen to the critics, James Cameron has delivered. The man has a pretty impeccable box office history and is belatedly coming off the highest grossing film of a generation.

    That would be the $921.5 million-grossing, 11 Academy Award-winning “Titanic” for anyone wondering. No matter what he made next, anticipation was going to be huge, but the non-stop chatter about “game-changing” and “brand new viewing experience” has made things reach a fever pitch.

    After the trailer debuted, I thought we were looking at an epic fail. I thought the effects looked crappy and the story looked stiff as a brick. I thought no one over the age of 40 would possibly be interested. Now that some people have actually laid eyes on it, it seems I’m in the extreme minority. This sucker is poised to make a lot of money.

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  • Maggie Gyllenhaal’s campaign shifts gears to supporting

    Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy HeartSpeaking of “Crazy Heart,” I’ve been told that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s campaign for the film has been (smartly) shifted from lead actress to supporting actress.  One can only expect that the original (in my opinion, false) perspective that the lead actress field was “weak” had something to do with the original placement.  But I’ve always been of the mind that the film is about Bad Blake and that a co-lead argument doesn’t gel here.

    The performance was submitted to the Screen Actors Guild as a lead, while the HFPA designated it a lead for their purposes as well.  The Academy, of course, can vote how they choose, but I think this part naturally pops out as a supporting one and that any votes will likely go there anyway.

    It’s also a bit encouraging that Gyllenhaal had some modest support in the early stages of the NYFCC’s voting last week.  But the question is, can she make the cut?  And I actually think there is a shot here, to be honest.

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  • Listen to Jeff Bridges’s ‘Somebody Else’ from ‘Crazy Heart’

    Jeff Bridges in Crazy HeartToday we’re wrapping up the “listen to” series of featured tracks in this year’s Best Original Song race.  We spotlighted 17 contenders in total, not all of which made the eventual eligibility cut, of course.  But it’s been a nice way of giving the field it’s proper due.

    Surprisingly enough, only one other song from “Crazy Heart” joined “The Weary Kind” on this year’s list of eligible contenders.  That song was “Somebody Else,” which is in fact the first tune we hear Jeff Bridges’s Bad Blake character sing in the film.  The opening lyric was a particular favorite of songwriter T Bone Burnett’s: “I used to be somebody.  Now I am somebody else.”

    It’s a great moment because it introduces you to the killer soundtrack that will unfold for the next two hours and because it sheds a compelling light on the film’s central character, a man clinging to his past when he has long outgrown it.

    Have a listen below and tell us what you think.

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  • Tell us what you thought of ‘Avatar’

    (from left0 Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington in Avatar

    It’s heeeeerrreee. Arguably the most anticipated film of the year hit theaters at midnight and by now, it’s probably worth tossing up one of these posts to gauge reaction. I’ve offered my thoughts, but I must say, I’m dying to know what everyone else thinks. Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below once you’ve had a chance to see the flick this weekend.

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 15 — Precursors, holiday movies and ‘Avatar’ bows

    Oscar TalkWelcome to your pre-holiday installment of Oscar Talk, a weekly kudocast between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.

    This will be the last Oscar Talk broadcast of 2009!

    On the docket today as we round out the year:

    • Anne and I discuss quite the busy week in precursor announcements.  What does it mean?  What did we learn?  Where are we at going into the new year?

    • Is the 10 really locked in six weeks away from  the nominations announcement?  We discuss potential on-the-bubble spoilers and which films might ultimately miss the cut.

    • With the holidays right around the corner, we spend some frivolous discussion on our favorite holiday movies.

    • And finally, with “Avatar” opening today, we talk briefly about the box office implications and, again, the film’s place in movie history, as confirmed by a critical swell as of late.

    Have a listen to this week’s podcast below, with a musical intro from the lovely Darlene Love.  As always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

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    Subscribe to Oscar Talk

  • Precursor additions

    We’ve added the Screen Actors Guild, Las Vegas and Utah film critics, as well as Detroit’s winners, to our precursor collective, FYI. Have a look here.

  • 12/18 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper in The Hangover• Anne Thompson reports that there is no “official” costume designer on “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” so anyone holding out longshot hope for its Oscar chances in that field can go ahead and focus elsewhere. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Melena Ryzik gets Ivan Reitman to admit “The Hangover” would be on his top 10 list. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Dave Karger chats with “Nine” star Penelope Cruz, who could be on her way to back-to-back supporting actress nominations. [Oscar Watch]

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: The crafts of ‘Up in the Air’

    Up in the AirBecause some of director Jason Reitman’s work tends to be stylistically traditional and classic, he says there might be the assumption that he’s not a visual filmmaker. But seven years as a commercial director tends to make you as visual as the next guy. And make no mistake.  He is absolutely specific when it comes to below-the-line elements on his features, and “Up in the Air” was no exception.

    Early on the director established a department-wide below-the-line arc on the film that everyone on the crew worked toward. The idea was that at the beginning of the film, the audience is meant to see the world through the main character, Ryan Bingham’s eyes and by the end of the movie, they would see what the world looks like for real.

    For instance, “at the beginning of the movie, camerawork is wide angle, lots of moving shots,” Reitman says. “Color-wise, everything is muted tones. Production design-wise, everything is giant open atriums, walls of glass, everything is gleaming and spotless. Extras-wise, people are attractive, trim, their clothes are tailored, they’re told to walk in straight lines and not bump into each other. There’s a functionality to everything.”

    By the end of the film, things are being shot with longer lenses, hand-held, with warmer tones.  The costumes are sloppier, extras are sloppier, production design is more lived-in. Even the idea of the film’s general setting — airport terminals — reflects this in some way.

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  • Check the figures

    Russell Crowe in A Beautiful MindA few things puzzled me about this Variety piece in which Iain Blair takes on a familiar chestnut of a topic: the box-office divide between public favorites and Oscar contenders.

    The first is that he considers the “disparity between art and commerce” to be “accelerating” — a curious argument to make at a time when “Avatar,” “Up” and “Inglourious Basterds” (none of which Blair mentions) look likely to feature on the Best Picture list. Blair’s argument is well-tailored to last year’s Oscar race, but reads somewhat stale now.

    The second is, well, this entire paragraph:

    Sure, “Titanic” grabbed a ton of Oscars and racked up the biggest box office in history. But more recent critically acclaimed best picture winners such as “Shakespeare in Love,” “A Beautiful Mind” and “Chicago” did middling to poor business. And “Crash” and “The English Patient” simply crashed and, well, burned at the box office.

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  • Sell it, Sig

    Now a UK cinema-going institution, this series of Orange cellphone ads consistently pokes fun at the career doldrums of Hollywood has-beens — so it’s ironic that their newest features a star of the season’s biggest film. Anyway, Sigourney Weaver is the latest name to the long line of good sports, from Anjelica Huston to Rob Lowe.

  • INTERVIEW: Jane Campion

    Jane CampionJane Campion’s laugh comes as a rather lovely surprise: full, throaty and often directed at herself, it betrays a personality more robust, mischievous even, than one might surmise from her fragile, often solemn films. It’s a disconnect she cheerfully acknowledges, and credits in part to her collaborators.

    “As a filmmaker, it helps me to be around young people,” she says, referring to the unusually youthful cast and crew of “Bright Star,” her exquisite meditation on first love, nature and poetry – via the star-crossed affair of John Keats and his teenaged lover Fanny Brawne.

    “People in their twenties can be quite moody and quiet, and not in a bad way – they know how to be alone with their thoughts. People my age tend to blab on a bit without thinking, like I’m doing now.”

    She laughs again. If that’s a frequent occurrence over the course of our phone conversation, it could be because Campion is as relaxed and content as she has ever been in her career. Her first feature since 2003’s harshly-received erotic thriller “In the Cut,” “Bright Star” has placed the New Zealander back in critics’ good graces, even if it looks increasingly unlikely to emulate the Oscar success of her 1993 breakthrough “The Piano.”

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  • De Niro, DiCaprio, De Mille, De Scorsese

    The pres release, in part:

    Golden Globe winners Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio will present the Cecil B. DeMille Award to Martin Scorsese at “The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards” on Sunday, January 17. The show, hosted by Ricky Gervais, will be broadcast live coast to coast on NBC (5 to 8 pm PT, 8 to 11 pm ET) from The Beverly Hilton.

    “The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards” will be seen in more than 160 countries worldwide and is one of the few awards ceremonies that span both television and motion picture achievements.

  • Santa Barbara fest to toast Kathryn Bigelow’s career

    Kathryn BigelowThe press release, in part:

    The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is pleased to announce Kathryn Bigelow as the Outstanding Director of the Year for the 2010 Silver Anniversary edition. In what has become an annual tradition in featuring a Guest Director, SBIFF will program a retrospective of Bigelow’s films.

    On Monday, February 8, SBIFF will present “A Celebration of Kathryn Bigelow.” A director not afraid to push the envelope in the cinematic world, Kathryn Bigelow has the eye for the picture she wants to present and then does so, with an expertise that is both gracious and bold. Having studied art, she takes her vision and presents it to her audience all the while telling a tale that evokes various and intense emotions. Bigelow graduated from Columbia’s Film School and started a career, gaining experience in numerous genres – such as music videos, television and film, showing us once again the depth of her creativity and talent.

    Commented SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, “Kathryn’s custom of the first person perspective throughout her films, as seen in Point Break and Strange Days, had always made her films visceral and favorites of mine, but the culmination of this is The Hurt Locker – her crowning achievement. The fact that I’m able to honor a fellow alumnus of the Columbia Grad School is icing on the cake.”