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  • ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’ UK trailer

    Sorry for the run of lazy posts, but I know a lot of you have been champing at the bit for this one. Make of it what you will … there appears to be more than enough quirk and baroque visual clutter here to keep the Gilliamites in thrall. (Oddly enough, I just passed through one of the key locations here on my morning run. “They should use this in more movies,” I thought to myself. Et voilà.)

    I’m reserving judgment. But I will say that it’s both disorienting and weirdly comforting to see Heath Ledger in a trailer for something fresh. That’s never happening again.

  • Keeping score with ‘Up in the Air’

    Jason Reitman is proving very forthcoming when it comes to sharing details of his progress on “Up in the Air” via Twitter. Earlier today, he divulged the film’s running time as 108 minutes — surely music to the ears of those of us weary of Hollywood’s increasingly bloated productions.

    And speaking of music, he just posted this cute pic of composer Rolfe Kent barefoot at work. “The score is coming to life,” apparently. Apropos of nothing, really, but it’s a slowish day and I’m really starting to look forward to this film. Are you?

  • ‘A Serious Man’ gets a serious poster

    And, in its deliberately, obtusely mundane glory, it’s as starkly unsettling as the terrific trailer we saw last week. I absolutely love the marketing approach Focus have taken with this one, giving away as little as humanly possible.

    In fact, the film seems to get more tauntingly unreadable the closer we get to it. Is it a tortured “Barton Fink” jump down the rabbit-hole? A simple “Burn After Reading” goof-off? A terse “No Country” exercise in economy? All three? I have no idea. I love that, in this age of 8-minute online snippets and trailers that play like complete CliffsNotes for the time-strapped viewer, I know next to nothing about a major release for a change.

    A Serious Man

    [Source: IMP Awards]

  • ‘Fish Tank’ trailer

    It’s been six weeks since I saw (and loved) Andrea Arnold’s Cannes Jury Prize winner “Fish Tank” at the Edinburgh fest, and the film simply will not leave me alone. Scenes and images from Arnold’s simultaneously exhilarating and devastating portrait of an Essex adolescence keep popping vividly into my head at random intervals — and I’m more and more convinced that young Katie Jarvis has given the single best performance of 2009 to date.

    I’m afraid this trailer doesn’t do a great job of selling what distinguishes the film from its kitchen-sink peers: Arnold’s impressionistic use of music and sound, its ambiguous sexual currency, the zest and rhythm of its dialogue. Just take my word for it that this is a very special piece of work. It’s out on 11 September in the UK; Americans must wait indefinitely. (It will, of course, play at Toronto next month.)

  • 8/7 Web Round-up

    Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar on the set of Broken Embraces• Patrick Goldstein revisits a collection of filmmakers’ tributes to John Hughes, “the Tolstoy of American teenagers.” [The Big Picture]

    • The irrepressible Pedro Almodovar talks aging, Cruz and “Broken Embraces.”  On a side note, how sweet is the photo to the right? [Daily Telegraph]

    • Meryl Streep has a problem with male bloggers. Love you anyway, Meryl. [Salon]

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘Flame & Citron’ director Ole Christian Madsen

    Ole Christian MadsenSince opening in its home country of Denmark over 18 months ago, and embarking on a lengthy festival tour that included well-received stops in Toronto, Telluride and London last year, Ole Christian Madsen’s “Flame & Citron” has taken its sweet time arriving in American theaters. (It opened in limited release last Friday.)

    But then patience has been evidently a watchword throughout the conception and execution of this handsome WWII biopic-cum-thriller, a long-gestating pet project for 43 year-old Dogme 95 alumnus Madsen.

    For starters, the story of the titular duo has been nagging away at him since the age of 12 – ever since his father, a former army colonel, gave him a book on heroes of the Nazi Resistance.

    The story of Flame and Citron (aliases for Bent Faurschou-Hviid and Jorgen Haagen Schmith), a pair of native freedom fighters working against the German occupation in 1940s Copenhagen, fired the young Madsen’s imagination, as he sensed a greater moral ambiguity behind it than the history written on the page.

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  • ‘It’s Complicated’ trailer

    Looks frothy. Of course. But the way Alec Baldwin delivers the line “I like it” at the beginning kind of cracks me up.  Added ammunition for Meryl’s forthcoming lead actress nomination for “Julie & Julia”:

  • New ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ trailer

    I should say something. I really should. But I’m speechless. In a very good way.

    Let the wild rumpus start, indeed.

  • Is it wrong that I’m totally looking forward to this?

    Jennifer AnistonCall it summer silliness or the fact that I truly am a moron after all, but for all the intriguing projects announced in the last month — Cronenberg taking on DeLillo should be a treat, while I’d be lying if I said my curiosity isn’t perversely piqued by Joe Eszterhas telling the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe — but this is the one my heart really wants to see. One sentence, via Variety:

    “Grey Gardens” helmer Michael Sucsy will make his feature directorial debut on “Goree Girls,” with Jennifer Aniston headlining the true story of an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s.

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  • The economics of 3D … and why I don’t care

    CoralineI’m going to sound about three times my actual age for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: I could not care less about 3D.

    I know it’s important, I know it’s fun, I know it’s the future. I know all this largely because almost 20 years ago, a group of cheery traveling 3D promoters visited my elementary school in New Jersey, and told the packed assembly exactly the same thing.

    “Hey, 3D! Yay, 3D! Everybody see in 3D!” they sang, before showing us some jazzed-up motocross footage in the third dimension. Does anybody else remember sitting through the same demonstration?

    I wasn’t thrilled then, and while I’m aware of the massive leap and bounds the technology has made since I was 7 years old, I’m not particularly thrilled now. I like a gosh-wow gimmick as much as the next man — a stupid part of me wishes I’d lived through Smell-O-Rama — but once the novelty of items popping off the screen settles in, I find 3D a dispensable accessory: an extra “D” doesn’t amount to a lot of beans in the cinematic departments I really care about — writing, storytelling, performance.

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  • Berney/Pohlad’s Apparition to release Malick’s ‘Tree of Life’

    (from left) Bob Berney and Bill PohladWe can all stop using “Unnamed Bob Berney/Bill Pohlad Company” to classify the domestic distribution of Jane Campion’s forthcoming “Bright Star.”  Apparition, as the new indie distributor is calling itself, had something of a coming out party today announcing the new moniker and, the real newsy item, that Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” will be one of the films domestically released under its banner.

    Bob Berney is one of the good guys, so I was pretty bummed when Picturehouse closed up shop last year, not least of all because it was one more death knell for indie cinema but because a smart guy didn’t have a ship to steer.  The news of a new company, with partner Bill Pohlad, was good enough for me, but only Campion’s film (acquired at Cannes) was in the mix.

    No release date has been set for Malick’s film yet, but the film is surprisingly expected to receive a 2009 bow.  There was confusion for a while in some quarters that Summit Entertainment would be releasing the film in the US, but that company was only ever involved with the international release, I believe.

    Full press release after the jump.

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  • Regrettable: ‘Ice Age 3’ becomes highest grossing animated film overseas

    Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursThose who follow the site know I’m a “Finding Nemo” devotee.  The film has grown on me more and more over the years, and despite landing at #3 on my 2003 top 10, I’ve been toying with the idea of including it in my top 10 films of the decade list (which will be unveiled later in the year).  I’ve always felt a certain security knowing that, not only is it Pixar’s highest grossing film to date, but it is also the second-highest grossing toon worldwide and the top box office dog internationally.

    Or at least it was.  In a Variety piece gloomily (to me) titled “Nemo slips on ‘Ice,’” Pamela McClintock gives us this:

    Over the weekend, 20th Century Fox’s three-quel “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” became the highest-grossing animated title ever overseas, posting a cume of $551.4 million through Sunday.

    It took six years for a toon to overtake Pixar and Disney’s “Finding Nemo,” which grossed $524.9 million internationally in its 2003 release.

    Depressing.  Chad’s Sunday Cents column on the film’s opening weekend here.  Of course, with Chad’s preference of adjusted figures, this doesn’t move the needle.  But still.

  • R.I.P. John Hughes

    Stolen from us, a true staple of the 1980s cinema, “Mr. Mom,” “Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Weird Science,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Home Alone,” the great “Christmas Vacation” and, of course, a personal favorite I’ll defend to the ends of the earth,” “The Breakfast Club.”  Dead at 59 from a sudden heart attack.

    Saturday, March 24,1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.

    Hughes got an entire generation.  That’s an artistic commodity, no matter how you slice it.  He will be missed.

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Visual Effects — Volume I

    Avatar“How did they do that?”  Movie-goers often ask this in response to spectacular visual effects, one of few elements of a film, apart from acting, directing or story, that a studio might choose to sell a film directly on.

    Not surprisingly, the Academy’s award for Best Visual Effects is definitely the most mainstream-friendly of all of all.  $100 million grosses and higher are the norm.

    This branch also has a somewhat unusual process for choosing the nominees.  A shortlist of seven films will be announced in December or January and members of the branch will screen effects presentation reels of the films from that collective to nominate three contenders announced alongside the rest of the Oscar nominees.

    Probably leading the field this year, sight unseen, is James Cameron’s “Avatar.”  Cameron’s last five films have all been nominated in this category…with four of them winning!  Moreover, “Avatar” seems certain to be, like most Cameron efforts, a showcase for the visual effects.  Of course, the film could also be an unmitigated disaster, but barring that I would be quite surprised if it did not find itself among the nominees.

    On the other hand, we have already seen several films likely to end up in the running.   Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” was absolutely wretched in this viewer’s opinion.  But considering its massive box office take, not to mention the nature of the effects and the success of Bay’s films in this category in the past, I feel a nomination is quite likely.

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  • ‘District 9’ on the way

    Sharlto Copley on the cover of Entertainment WeeklyNeill Blomkamp’s “District 9” is primed to explode on the cinema landscape next week.  At least I hope it is.  I’m never good at reading the populist pulse, especially as it pertains to predicting box office and things like that, but on a $30 million budget, and being an exceptional piece of work that should become a word-of-mouth success on home video if not theatrically, I can’t imagine the film won’t pull a profit.

    Entertainment Weekly’s cover story this month features actor Sharlto Copley, praised on high in this space during last month’s San Diego Comic-Con International, with the fetching headline: “Why ‘District 9’ will blow you away.”  That’s a good start.  I know plenty of people who ask me daily, “What’s the deal with ‘District 9?’”  Breeding intense curiosity is always a win.

    Scott Bowles sat down with the film’s producer, Peter Jackson (who made his first ever trip to Comic-Con to promote the film), in San Diego and got some great stuff, particularly Jackson’s revelation that working on the film reminded him of his guerrilla filmmaking roots.

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  • Is ‘Hurt Locker’ locked in?

    The Hurt LockerA few months ago, before the Academy completely altered the playing field for this year’s Oscars, “The Hurt Locker” looked like the longest of long shots for Best Picture consideration.

    Its unpopular subject matter, absence of stars, a respected but genre-based director, and the languishing delay between its 2008 Venice debut and its summer 2009 release — none of these factors inspired much confidence in its chances.

    But then a weird thing happened. Just after the Academy effectively doubled its chances of a Best Picture nod in June, an ecstatic wave of reviews for the film started rolling in, the ardently passionate consensus of which took many off-guard following its warm but hardly explosive reception on the fest circuit last year.

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  • ‘Burning Plain’ is Arriaga at his best

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainLast night I caught Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” and like Guy, I’m having trouble settling my thoughts on the piece.  I suppose our combined ponderings will have to serve as the film’s review here at In Contention, but unlike Guy’s relatively reserved recommendation, I have to say I wholeheartedly endorse it as perhaps Arriaga’s most focused and, therefore, effective work yet.

    As a screenwriter in tandem with filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu (a partnership which crumbled around the production of 2006’s “Babel”), Arriaga has proved adept at twisting his narratives with potent themes and powerful, evocative structures.  But “The Burning Plain” represents a brave move inward rather than forward.

    I agree with Guy’s notion that the debuting director may have been “looking to safely downshift gears by making a tasteful, intelligent mainstream melodrama,” but more than that, I believe the film to be Arriaga’s most successful character study to date.

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  • ‘Coco Before Chanel’ poster

    Zzzzzzz…

    Coco Before Chanel

    (Courtesy: Cinematical)