No column today, as mentioned previously. We’ll pick it up weekly on 9/21, but I thought I’d run a comb through the sidebar today. Some weak spots, no doubt, but we’re still knocking the dust off things as the season prepares its post-Toronto launch.
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TORONTO: ‘The Road,’ ‘Bad Lieutenant,’ ‘Chloe’
(Please note, as opposed to Kris and Guy, I tend to grade films on a 5-star scale.)Loads to catch up on today and some interviews still to write up. First off, I have to confess that I disagree with Kris’s review of “The Road,” respectfully of course, and I think I have a reason why I might have viewed and appreciated the film in a very different light than he. I also saw Werner Herzog’s “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which features a hugely entertaining performance from Nicolas Cage, and the latest from Atom Egoyan, “Chloe,” which features a splendid performance from Amanda Seyfreid.
Let’s dig in…
“The Road” (****)
This was a dark and unsettling film based on the brilliant book by Cormac McCarthy about a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) journeying to the south after the world has essentially seen its end of days. We are never really given a clear explanation as to what happened, but the vague description we do get sounds like nuclear war finally came, and the planet is dying a slow death. Trees are dead, there is nothing alive or growing anymore, the world is a gray and dreary place, as though hell had suddenly burst forth from the bowels of the earth. The south brings warmer weather, which is what the man and his son need, he believes, to survive, and survivial is what the film is about.
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‘Amelia’ threads and ‘Wild Things’ designs
It looks like the LA Times is boning up on its coverage of the craft fields this Oscar season, as a pair of pieces landed over the weekend spotlighting below-the-line players on a pair of the year’s awards hopefuls.The first, a look at the fashion sense of Amelia Earhart as conveyed in the costumes of Mira Nair’s “Amelia,” includes perspective from Nair on costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone’s work and the legendary pilot’s uniform innovations:
She created whatever suited her…And sold it as well. But more than anything, it came from comfort into style versus style for its own sake. She had this thing about scarves and color — rather than complete color, dashes of color. When she got the president’s medal, she wore a teal velvet skirt and ivory satin blouse with real orchids on the lapel.
The next piece is a look at the unlikely assumption of creature design duties for artist Sonny Gerasimowicz in Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”
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Cha-ching
So, Christoph Waltz taking the money and running as the villain in Michel Gondry’s “The Green Hornet.” Thoughts?
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9/14 Web Round-up
• Overture angles for the domestic rights to Antoine Fuqua’s “Brooklyn’s Finest,” perhaps giving a leg up to Ethan Hawke in the Best Actor race. [Variety]• Is Charles Darwin too controversial for American multiplexes? [CHUD]
• Christopher Plummer at 80, busy as ever. [The Toronto Star]
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Justice for ‘Lourdes’
As I wrote in my reflection on the Venice festival awards yesterday, the biggest surprise (and by no means a pleasant one) of the jury’s winners list was the complete lack of recognition for Jessica Hausner’s excellent, quietly subversive religious drama “Lourdes,” a favorite of critics and pundits alike.Happily, FIPRESCI is there to set things right. The international critics’ organization, which hands out its own awards at every major festival (and many minor ones, too), has honored “Lourdes” as the best film at Venice this year.
It’s a prestigious citation, often given to films with broader arthouse appeal than those the jury might select: recent Venice FIPRESCI honorees include “The Queen,” “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “The Secret of the Grain” (or “Couscous,” to my fellow Brits). They’re not always contrarian, either: they matched the Cannes jury this year by picking “The White Ribbon.”
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Chile joins foreign-language fray
Chile is the latest country to formally join the Best Foreign Language Film race, having selected true-life political drama “Dawson, Island 10” as their official submission.To go by the trailer, the film, which tells the story of a group of political prisoners held captive on the titular island after a 1973 military coup in the country, looks suitably large and ennobling. At the very least, that should make it more to the Academy’s taste than last year’s ballsy Chilean selection, the superb black comedy “Tony Manero.”
Catching up on older news, we should also add a trio of Eastern European titles to the mix: Slovenia’s “Landscape No. 2,” Hungary’s “Chameleon” and Bulgaria’s imposingly titled “The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner.” (I bet Tyler Perry’s mad he didn’t think that one up first.)
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TORONTO: Duvall the talk of the fest — shades of 1997
You know a film is hot when it is the subject of conversation in the screening, in the press room, and in the hallways of the hotels where the press junkets and meetings are being held. In 1997, “The Apostle,” the exquisite film directed, written by and starring Robert Duvall, was the talk of the Toronto film fest after its world premiere the night before, but in fact, the buzz started partway through the film when October Films and Miramax began a bidding battle that has become the stuff of legend.Duvall left the festival with his career reborn, the film, which he financed, was sold (to October), and the multi-hyphenate began winning critics awards for the film at year’s end. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association named him Best Actor that year and a few weeks later the National Society of Film Critics did the same. Though snubbed for a Golden Globe nomination, he was nominated by both the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy, but he eventually lost to Jack Nicholson in “As Good as It Get.”
The film eventually nailed down a solid $24 million at the box office and Duvall’s performance is considered by and large one of his best. He came back to a couple of years later with his new film “Assassination Tango,” a failure, and he is here again with two films — John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” which I will write about later today, and “Get Low,” a film recalling shades of the 1997 fest as it has captured the conversation here.
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SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Do Bad’ does good!
*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.Another day, another dollar for Tyler Perry. The man has released two films a year since 2006 and can’t seem to be unsuccessful if he tried. “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” is an easy candidate for worst title of the year, but it opened to the tune of $24 million and first place by a mile.
That ranks as Perry’s third-biggest debut as director and his best outside of February. If you are looking for one of the most unique and successful box office stories of the decade, look no further than the rise of the Perry Empire. He is the Pixar of religious cable-TV drama meets fat suit comedy.
Second place goes to “9,” which earned $10.9 milion over the weekend and $15.3 million since opening on Wednesday. For a PG-13 rated animated flick with seemingly very little appeal outside of young males, that’s a great result. The best thing about this success is that all you need is a potato sack and a highlighter and you’ve got a recognizable Halloween costume. You’re welcome.
“Inglourious Basterds” holds firm in the top three and passes the $100 million mark in the process. Tarantino was in very real danger of making a series of films that diminished his audience rather than expanded it, but he has turned it around here. Now all you need is a Clark Gable mustache and some prop scalps and you’ve got a recognizable Halloween costume.
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Much better…
Would have been, anyway. Doesn’t help the film any, but it represents the best moment in the piece with the right amount of psychedelia. Dumb tagline, though:
(Courtesy: Ain’t It Cool News)
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Robert Duvall leaps onto the Oscar radar with ‘Get Low?’
I hate doing this from afar, but hey, we do what we can. And I imagine John will chime in with his thoughts on Aaron Schneider’s “Get Low” in due time, but apparently the film received a standing ovation in Toronto tonight. And word is, Robert Duvall might be on course for some Oscar attention.Duvall stars in the film as a Tennessee hermit, derived from a mixture of truth and folk tale, who famously threw his own funeral while still alive. I think in tandem with good graces for his cameo in “The Road,” Duvall could be in the mix. But the film needs a distributor first.
Funnily enough I was in the middle of an email exchange with a colleague regarding the lead actor Oscar race when I began putting this post together. As much as I loved “Up in the Air,” I don’t feel like this is a win for George Clooney. Plus, he already has a (recent) statue. Matt Damon is wonderful in “The Informant!,” but the film may be too slight. Of course, Morgan Freeman is still lurking. But maybe we have a potential winner here? Duvall hasn’t won in 25 years, and damn if he isn’t consistent (which can’t be said of a number of his contemporaries). There’s also Michael Caine flying under the radar in the still distributor-less “Harry Brown” to consider.
Check out a clip from “Get Low” after the jump.
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Thoughts on the Venice winners
Okay, so I was mainly off the mark. When it comes to guessing festival awards, I usually am. But at the same time, few of the selections revealed tonight by Ang Lee’s jury at the closing ceremony of the Venice Film Festival really surprise me.It was clear that Samuel Maoz’s “Lebanon” would walk away with something (I had it pencilled in for Best Director), given its combination of political currency and personal investment on the part of the director. (The film is an autobiographical reflection on his own experience in the First Lebanon War.) Personally, I think giving it the Golden Lion is a tad generous for a debut that, while very accomplished, never quite hits home emotionally, but it’s a reasonable winner.
I have more of a problem with the runner-up Grand Jury Prize going to Fatih Akin’s “Soul Kitchen,” though I saw it coming. The film is a sweet but slipshod effort that hardly represents the director’s strongest work; with several more deserving films in competition going unawarded, its selection feels like a nod to the more mainstream contingent of the competition. (The absence of critics’ favorite “Lourdes” from the winners list, meanwhile, is the biggest shock here.)
