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  • TORONTO: ‘Precious’ — a work of art

    PreciousThe problem with film festivals is that sometimes we critics speak too soon. Earlier today I stated that after seeing “Up in the Air,” it might be the best American film of the year, and until seeing “Precious” this morning, I meant it.

    Two hours later, walking out of the theater, exhausted, beaten up, stunned by the images I had just seen, yet with a kernel of hope, I realized I had just witnessed a work of art. The press, us hardened critics who can be so cynical and negative, applauded this film for several minutes as the credits rolled, but it was more than that.

    Most of us grew up in stable homes with loving parents, never knowing the meaning of hunger, never having to worry about being beaten or abused either physically or verbally.  Most of us, but not all of us.

    Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) does not know this world because she lives in hell. In her world, her father rapes her; she bears two children by this monster by the time she is 16 and refers to her her daughter, a Downs Syndrome baby, as Mongo, not out of cruellty, but out of ignorance. Precious is obese and illiterate, yet escapes from time to time into a fantasy world of her own where she is desirable and beloved by all who know her.

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  • The Coens abide

    (from left) Ethan Coen and Joel CoenI’ve been chewing on the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man” like a thick piece of spiritual jerky ever since I walked out of the Clariety screening room in Beverly Hills yesterday evening.  I’ve retweeted other perspectives, exchanged emails with industry types equally leveled by it and, in my own way, started banging the drum for a film I think everyone should see.

    It’s sticking with me in the best of ways, I guess you could say.  It’s illuminating unexpected corners.  It really is settling in and staying there.

    So I was quick to devour this piece in The Toronto Star by Chicago Sun-Times religion columnist Cathleen Falsani.  Falsani is also the author of the book “The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers,” which explores the spiritual messages found in the Coens’ films.  So she was more than qualified to write up the siblings’ most personal and, certainly, most spiritual film to date.

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  • TORONTO: ‘The Informant!,’ ‘Jennifer’s Body,’ ‘Up in the Air,’ ‘Hugh Hefner’

    Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body(Please note, as opposed to Kris and Guy, I tend to grade films on a 5-star scale.)

    Day two of the festival is always among the busiest because the major studios are here and they want you to see their films. Movies with buzz coming out of Toronto quite often end up in the Oscar race.

    “Slumdog Millionaire” exploded out of this festival last year and went all the way to eight Academy Awards.  Who would have thought coming in to Toronto that Danny Boyle’s film would rock the fest? So which film will it be this year?

    If Venice and Telluride can tell us anything it is that Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” is winning critics over and should land George Clooney in the Oscar race once again for Best Actor.  Kris certainly loved the film when he saw it, and frankly, so did I.

    But Clooney will not be alone here in the race for Best Actor.  One of his good friends will be right there with him: Matt Damon for his amazing work in “The Informant!.” Today was one of those good days when I bounced from good film to great film back to good film, to great documentary. I may have seen the best of the fest on Friday.

    Let’s get into some reactions…

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  • Soderbergh’s shoes talk ‘The Informant!’

    (Courtesy: The Hot Blog)

  • ‘Lebanon’ wins Venice’s Golden Lion

    Venice Film FestivalGuy will comment further on these winners later, but for now, just the facts:

    INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY

    Golden Lion: “Lebanon” (Samuel Maoz)
    Silver Lion (Best Director): “Women Without Men” (Shirin Neshat)
    Grand Jury Prize: “Soul Kitchen” (Fatih Akin)
    Best Actor: Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
    Best Actress: Ksenia Rappoport, “The Double Hour”
    Marcello Mastroianni Prize for Young Performer: Jasmine Trinca, “The Big Dream”
    Best Screenplay: Todd Solondz, “Life During Wartime”
    Technical Contribution for Set Design: Sylvie Olive, “Mr. Nobody”

    OTHER JURIES

    Luigi De Laurentiss Lion of the Future: “Engkwentro”
    Venice Horizons Documentary: “1428” (Du Haibin)
    Venice Horizons Special Mention: “The Man’s Woman and Other Stories” (Amt Dutta)

  • TORONTO: Penelope Cruz and ‘Broken Embraces’

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesWhen did Penelope Cruz become such a great actress? This was a woman  I could barely stand looking at on screen not more than five years ago, yet now she is an absolute delight, with depth, emotion, and the ability to find the truth in her characters, an innate ability that is downright uncanny. God, her work in “Vanilla Sky” was painful and her performance in “Blow” was so shrill and terrible it was the sort of acting I’d label obscene.

    Then saw “Volver” and was stunned by her work, blown away, knocked out and forever silenced about her talent. It is not the first time this has happened to me. I regularly attacked Julia Roberts until “Erin Brockovich” and “Closer” and was Joel Schumacher’s biggest detractor until “Tigerland.”  If my love of cinema has given me anything it’s the ability to admit when I am wrong, or when an artist has done something that surprised me enough to admit they possess an unexpected talent.

    Cruz was lovely in “Volver” and richly deserving of the Oscar nomination she received, just as she deserved to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress last year for her hell cat in “Vicky Christina Barcelona.”  There was something dark in her work last year for Woody Allen, something dangerous, something terribly sexy. And then to see her in “Elegy?”   It was an entirely different piece of work, equally good, but each of her 2008 performances displayed extraordinary range not seen before. Was the talent always there and the roles just weak? Or is it that Cruz simply grew as an actress?

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  • VENICE: Who will take the gold … and who should

    The Golden Lion at the Venice Film FestivalAnd so it comes to this. Ten days of blazing sunshine, free-flowing Prosecco, occasionally “Brazil”-style administration and – oh, right – a few films too, will come to a head tonight as Ang Lee and his merry band of jurors will name the supposed best of the fest.

    I’ve written before about the near-futility of predicting festival awards. Unlike the Oscars, the voting body is different every time, so you’re never quite sure what they’re looking for. We persist because it’s fun, thought it actually becomes more difficult when you’ve seen most of the films in question, as personal reservations (or fondnesses) keep getting in the way.

    If I were back in London, for example, I’d be more open to the whispers that Fatih Akin’s cheery but slight crowdpleaser “Soul Kitchen” is a serious contender for the Golden Lion, effectively serving Marco Müller’s more populist programming direction; having actually seen the film, my gut reaction is more in the “you’ve got to be kidding me” vein.

    If no clear-cut frontrunner has emerged from this year’s lineup, it’s because no film has united critical opinion and mainstream media interest the way “Brokeback” or last year’s champ “The Wrestler” did. Some are plumping for Michael Moore, though that would seem a bit old-hat five years after Cannes laurelled “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

    (More thoughts, and my will win/should win picks, after the cut.)

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  • ‘A Single Man’ trailer

    The more I think about Tom Ford’s debut feature “A Single Man” (not to be confused with “A Serious Man” — keep up!), which unspooled yesterday to a very warm Venice reception, the more I like it. I wrote my review on the fly, so I’m not sure if my full admiration for the film’s extraordinary craft and marvelous Colin Firth performance came through, but this is a special piece of work.

    Thanks to diligent reader Tim for digging up the trailer, which captures the film’s woozy, moody beauty perfectly.

  • Joe Dante’s ‘The Hole’ wins Venice 3-D award

    The HoleI missed yesterday’s screening of Joe Dante’s kiddie horror film “The Hole” — and hardly regret it, having caught Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” instead — so I can offer little commentary to the news that the film has won the festival’s inaugural Persol 3-D Award.

    The prize, determined by judges Scott Foundas, Dave Kehr and Nadia Ranocchi, is given to the film that “best explores (the) new cinematic frontier” of 3-D.

    It’s a fairly obvious winner, given that it was the only official Venice selection on the nominee list, which included such formidable challengers as “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D.”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals, festivals and festivals

    George Clooney in Up in the Air• After weeks of hype, “Up in the Air” landed in Telluride, and delivered. (And finally got a trailer too.)

    • Meanwhile, as some compare director Jason Reitman to Billy Wilder, we interviewed him at the festival.

    • We also got chatty with possible awards contenders Paul Schneider and Venice prize-winner Mark Boal.

    • On the other side of the Atlantic, our Venice coverage continued, including a first look at Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

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  • The Coens’ ‘A Serious Man’ is a miracle movie

    Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious ManI wanted to sit down and write a full review of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “A Serious Man,” but structuring my thoughts around a paradigm such as that seems folly at this stage.  I need to see it again — and will certainly do so many more times — before any sort of authoritative personal take will begin to surface.  But a few things stand out that are worth conveying.

    In my view, it is the finest Coen film since “Fargo” and, perhaps, since “Barton Fink.”  It is without question the siblings’ most personal film to date, an exploration of the “What does it all mean?” thoughts that plague each of us on a daily basis.  (The repetition of the line, “What’s going on?,” is by no means incidental.)

    However, despite the film’s heavy dosage of the particulars of the Jewish faith, it is also curiously universal.  After all, I don’t know from Hashem, but the film affected me deeply, it’s themes and ideas resonating from start to finish.

    The film is beautifully abstract, making the impact of its thought-provoking ideas all the more profound.  It features a central performance that could seem merely capbale at first notice, but has a certain refined quality the more one considers it.  And there is a remarkable rhythm to the film, a reminder of the Coens’ brilliance at orchestration and craft.

    That’s all I’ll say for now.  “A Serious Man” is a work of art, plain and simple.  I’m smitten.

  • ‘Antichrist’ trailer

  • ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’

    Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

    That’s the official title of the fourth “Pirates” film, releasing the summer of 2011, according to word emanating from D23 in Anaheim.  Thoughts?

  • ‘Up in the Air’ wowing press in Toronto

    Up in the AirI’ve been keeping a steady eye on the reactions to a press screening of Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” this morning via Twitter.  The film will play to the masses tomorrow night, but so far, it seems to be landing just right across the board.

    ComingSoon’s Ed Douglas noted swiftly, “Believe the Hype. This is a very special film. Loved it!”  MSN’s James Rocchi, meanwhile, chimed in with, “Up in the Air: Don’t believe the anti-hype. Funny, tough, real; a big step up from all involved, and a touch of The Music Man, too.”

    Finally HitFix’s Drew McWeeny seemed almost speechless, offering, “Just out of ‘Up In The Air.’ Devastated. Didn’t expect that emotional response at all” and “I walked ten blocks to the hotel, unable to look a single person in the eye. I am shredded.”

    All of that was fine and good and, to a large extent, expected.  But who would have anticipated a crotchety soul like Jeff Wells to call it the year’s best film and fawn over it like so…

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  • INTERVIEW: Jason Reitman

    Jason ReitmanTelluride Film Festival

    Four days ago, Jason Reitman finalized his latest film, “Up in the Air,” by making one final song change. Two days ago he unveiled it to its first-ever first audience, his nerves shot. Today, somewhat more relaxed in the wake of a warm reception to the film, he’s sitting outside at a cafe on a sunny day, the famous gondolas of Telluride swinging around and up the hillside to Mountain Village behind him as he thinks back on the experience.

    “It felt really good,” he says. “I’ve never had that short a period of time between finishing a film and it showing for the first time. I’m used to having a few weeks to get nervous, but I was really making creative choices up until the last second. It was almost surreal, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m watching it with an audience.’ And there’s this moment when you give up the movie. It stops being yours and starts being everyone else’s. It’s unusual. People laugh at a certain point or they’ll find something moving that you didn’t expect. They start telling you what the movie was. I didn’t expect that emotional experience for myself. A lot came together Saturday.”

    Reitman began conceiving the story of “Up in the Air” — which strays considerably from the film’s source material, a 2002 Walter Kirn novel — six years ago. (Sheldon Turner, who shares screen credit on the adaptation, penned a draft early on, but Reitman came from his own place on things.)  He began turning over its themes in his head, considering them in their barest form.. “They started coalescing further a few years ago,” he says, “and then, really in the year leading up to the movie, right after ‘Juno,’ it suddenly felt like, you know, this was a question I really needed to ask. I go through the same questions that the main character does.”

    In the film, George Clooney stars as career transition specialist Ryan Bingham, a hired gun terminator. It’s an element of the film that skims the zeitgeist but its the personal journey of the character that Reitman wanted to dig at, notions of one’s responsibility to engage with the world around you, with one’s family, and the idea that no man is — or at least no man should be — an island unto himself.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 2 — ‘Up in the Air,’ disagreeing on ‘The Road’ and Toronto looms

    Oscar TalkWelcome to the second installment of Oscar Talk with yours truly and indieWIRE‘s Anne Thompson.  We tried to set aside some time in Telluride to do one of these, but time never seemed to permit.

    Anne is in Toronto this week, and, at the time of this recording (yesterday, so all “todays” and “tomorrows” should be re-purposed accordingly), was gearing up for a screening of Jon Amiel’s “Creation.”

    We tightened things up slightly this time, clocking in at just over 25 minutes.  Here are a few of the topics we discussed:

    • Which films are going to be tested by their exposure in Toronto (John’s coverage begins this weekend)?

    • The story out of Telluride, “Up in the Air,” and the awards prospects for the film across the board.

    • The dueling Best Supporting Actress hopefuls from the film, Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga.

    • The cool reception Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” is receiving in some quarters and how that could work against its major Oscar potential, despite exquisite craftwork.

    • By popular demand, Anne and I disagree on something: John Hillcoat’s “The Road.”

    • The “schizophrenic” marketing of the film, moving from genre/suspense to the love/warmth at its center.

    Have a listen below.  And by the way, these should be filtering in through iTunes now, so you can subscribe to the podcast here.

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  • TORONTO: Settling in, ‘Antichrist’

    (from left) Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in AntichristI left home at 6:30am yesterday to make an early check-in to my hotel at 8:30.  One bummer, my youngest daughter, Ariana, has a flu bug and I hate leaving Sherri with her on her own. She assured me it was cool, so I managed to get out the door without being overwhelmed with guilt. Kissed the girls goodbye, loaded the van with my luggage and laptop and was Toronto-bound.

    Just over 90 minutes later (good traffic day) I pulled into the parking garage of the Delta, checked in and set my room up. I am very fussy about what the room looks like, where my stuff goes, my laptop, books and such, though within 10 minutes of the girls arriving Saturday, it all goes to hell.

    From here I head to the press office to get my pass.  Navigating the Sutton Place is hellish, as it is crawling with television crews already preparing for the day’s press conferences. Luckily the press office is away from the nightmare on the second floor.

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  • Best Original Song and the tunes of Disney’s ‘Princess’

    The Princess and the FrogIn just a few weeks here the Best Original Song picture has become clearer and clearer.  We’ve told you about contenders from films like “2012,” “Precious,” “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Up in the Air,” but there’s more coming.  Today: the songs of Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog.”

    You might recall that for two years in a row, three songs from one film were nominated in this category: “Listen,” “Love You I Do” and “Patience” from “Dreamgirls” in 2006 and “Happy Working Song,” “So Close” and “That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted” in 2007.  The Academy took action in June 0f 2008, putting a new rule into effect that limits the number of eligible songs per film to two.

    This is worth keeping in mind in the case of “The Princess and the Frog,” which, to the best of my knowledge, has seven songs in play.  But I’m told only two (naturally) look to get the awards campaign treatment.

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