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  • Five reasons to pay attention to ‘Nowhere Boy’

    1. It’s a biopic chronicling the formative years of one of popular music’s most gifted and fascinating icons. (How has it taken this long for a John Lennon project of any significance to come to fruition?)

    2. It’s the feature film debut of Sam Taylor Wood — the British conceptual artist, musician, photographer, Anthony Minghella protegee and all-purpose celebrity. Her media ubiquity could arouse wariness if her award-winning 2008 short, “Love You More,” hadn’t been really rather lovely indeed. As it is, she could just be this year’s Steve McQueen.

    3. It is written by Matt Greenhaigh, who scored a home run with “Control,” another jagged, intimate portrait of a British rock legend. And anything or anyone connected with a film as brilliant as “Control” deserves our full attention. Fact.

    4. It stars Kristin Scott Thomas, inarguably one of the greatest thesps around these days, in the potentially rich role of Lennon’s loving but eternally disapproving aunt and guardian, Mimi Smith. It’s ideal casting, and Thomas carries a major IOU from this last awards season. Which brings me to my final point…

    5. Rights to the film have just been acquired by The Weinstein Company, with a view towards a year-end release.

    Harvey Weinstein reportedly “fell in love” with Greenhaigh’s script, which apparently focuses heavily on the emotionally charged custody battle between the aforementioned Smith and Lennon’s biological mother. It should be a meaty performance piece for Thomas and British TV actress Anne-Marie Duff (otherwise known as Mrs James McAvoy), and something tells me Weinstein might see a glimmer of awards potential there.

    It doesn’t hurt that that it’s being co-produced by Film4, which, between “Slumdog Millionaire,” “In Bruges,” “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Hunger” had perhaps the most impressive slate of any production outfit last year.

    Okay, so it only started shooting on March 8, so there’s no way of knowing which way this one’s headed. Still one to keep an eye on, methinks.

  • The trades really like ‘Duplicity’

    I must say, I liked the look of Tony Gilroy’s “Duplicity” from the get-go. However, being a sucker for jazzy caper thrillers in the “Charade” vein, as well as for most things starring Clive Owen, I wasn’t sure whether to trust my instincts there.

    In any case, given the amiable slightness of the trailer and the indifferent release date (not to mention that awful title), I wasn’t expecting a critical hit — but going on the early trade reviews, it looks like that’s what we may have here. Todd McCarthy’s Variety rave gushes as follows:

    Smart, droll and dazzling to look at and listen to, writer-director Tony Gilroy’s effervescent, intricately plotted puzzler proves in every way superior to his 2007 success “Michael Clayton.” The twisty, time jumping narrative forces viewers to keep on their toes, and it could well be that “Duplicity” is too smart for its own good as far as the popcorn masses are concerned. Still, this is about as good as it gets these days for sharp-minded Hollywood entertainment made for an intelligent audience.

    Topping “Michael Clayton” isn’t the hardest of tasks in my mind, but given the devoted following the film enjoys, that’s no light praise: McCarthy invokes Lubitsch comparisons at one point. Meanwhile, nearly every major cast member and craftsman (a pretty dazzling array, it must be said, including Robert Elswit, Albert Wolsky and James Newton Howard) is singled out for kudos.

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  • Premiering tonight: ‘Dhani Tackles the Globe’

    So I was watching “NFL Total Access” the other night (my fellow pigskin fans know the pre-draft excitement of this time of year), and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Dhani Jones was guest hosting/promoting his new Travel Channel show “Dhani Tackles the Globe.”

    I didn’t think much of it at first.  A football player with his own television series?  Must be some opportunistic guy looking to pull in some extra green.  But the more they discussed the show the more intrigued I became. Talk about a great way to stay in shape during the off-season!  I need to do some digging to find out whose brainchild this is.  There’s not even an IMDb page yet.

    Here’s a quick synopsis from the show’s official site:

    Dhani Jones will need more than shoulder pads where he’s going. This NFL linebacker and Renaissance man is about to embark on a global sports odyssey that will take him anywhere with a scoreboard.

    By trying his hand at beloved national pastimes from around the globe, Dhani explores the way sports help to define culture. As a top athlete, Dhani will be able to demonstrate the thrills and challenges of each game by playing it himself.

    Off the field, Dhani immerses himself fully in each city, getting the locals’ take on the best places to eat, drink, shop and sleep. Throughout his travels, Dhani finds the love of sports to be universal, providing common ground wherever he lands.

    Read all about it here.  “Dhani Tackles the Globe” premieres tonight on The Travel Channel at 9:00pm EST.  I’ll be watching.

  • ‘Zack and Miri’: Smith’s best yet

    Zack and Miri Make a PornoI wouldn’t call myself a huge fan of Kevin Smith’s movies.  I love the man, love his take on this crazy industry, loved “An Evening with Kevin Smith,” etc.  But most of the time, when he gets behind a camera, it doesn’t work for me on some level.

    Of course, there are those who love to hate on Smith’s cinematic output because vitriol is sometimes easier to come by than measured consideration, but I try not to go there with him for some reason.  Maybe it’s the comic book thing.  (Speaking of which, “Batman Cacophony” is a pretty good three-issue arc if you didn’t catch it over the last few months).

    I found some things to admire in “Clerks,” which has some qualities perhaps more endearing in 1994 than in 2009, but I really hated “Mallrats.”  I thought “Chasing Amy” showed his promise and felt “Dogma” to be rather daring in some ways.

    “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” did exactly what it was supposed to do, while “Jersey Girl” and “Clerks II” were extensions of “Chasing Amy”‘s promise with various limitations.  But “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” which I missed last fall and finally caught on DVD over the weekend, might be Smith’s best work to date.

    Of course, I’d say The Weinstein Company mishandled the release on this thing and didn’t drum up the publicity necessary to land it the kind of box office it probably deserved, but beyond the business of it all, there’s a touching piece of work in there.  Smith was smart to associate himself with folks like Seth Rogen and Craig Robinson, quickly becoming figments of the new comedy breed in Hollywood.  He also got a pretty good performance out of Jason Mewes that didn’t have to depend on the usual toilet humor (though you could certainly find that elsewhere in the film).

    Anyway, kind of a rambling post, but I was impressed.  Even with a disgusting poop gag (I laughed), this is a film with heart that resonated more than I thought it would.  Nicely done.  No surprise the stuffy top-tier critical fraternity wasn’t on board, though.

    What did you guys think?

  • Alex Proyas guest blogs for /Film

    Alex ProyasI don’t know if everyone has read up on director Alex Proyas’s sporadic guest blog postings at /Film, but I’ve been getting a kick out of his unfiltered take.  Obviously it’s a nice PR move for his upcoming film “Knowing,” which would look like derivative sci-fi trifle if not for Proyas’s involvement at the helm.

    It also reminds me that I need to pick up the Blu-ray Director’s Cut of “Dark City,” which Proyas gleefully put together a decade after studio pressure forced him to “dumb down” the theatrical cut (which I never fully enjoyed).

    Anyway, here are some highlights from his guest blogging stint…

    On his latest film:

    KNOWING is an original and thought-provoking story, and I believe it has a unique & compelling idea at its heart. It’s about a man looking for meaning in his life, in a universe he believes to be meaningless, as he comes to understand the part he has to play in his own destiny. In many ways the story is about confronting fate and the inevitable, but it offers great hope and maps a path to the hero’s (Nic’s) own spiritual transcendence.

    This story offers some challenging philosophical ideas but it’s a journey with deep emotional resonance. It’s about the cycle of life & death, and the hope we hand down to our children. As well as all that, I think the movie is a great thriller; but it’s the best kind of genre movie because it is about something meaningful.

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  • R.I.P. Ron Silver

    This one crept up on me, even though I knew he’s been fighting cancer.  But Ron Silver has left us.

    David Poland just put up a touching, somewhat personal tribute.  Jeff Wells chimes in here.  I’ve spent the last 10 minutes searching for a good clip of Silver as Angelo Dundee in Michael Mann’s “Ali,” a totally transformative performance that’s a touch underrated, but I can’t find anything.  The politics will cloud the issue but I loved the man’s work and it deserves the spotlight.  And we can forgive “Timecop,” right?

    Anyway, peaceful journey.  He’ll be missed.

  • Did…someone…miss an opportunity at the Oscarcast?

    Will Smith at the 81st annual Acadmey AwardsBy now, the 81st annual Academy Awards telecast is more than three weeks old and many of the interesting tid-bits on the behind-the-scenes production would prefer to die a natural death.  And indeed, none of the stories, hardly important or interesting outside of our little community, mattered on February 23, let alone March 16.  But one detail keeps bouncing around in my head as something I’d love to have seen.

    One of the chief complaints about the show I read, perhaps in the comments section here, regarded Will Smith’s presentation of all the post-production awards (Best Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects).  It seemed Smith was on the stage (after rising dramatically from within it) for nearly 15 minutes.  He even cracked a joke about it at one point: “I’m still here.”

    As it turns out, Smith wasn’t originally slated to appear alone for that segment of the show.  His partner, very much at the last minute, sent producers a note indicating that he was nervous about being upstaged by Smith (the biggest box office draw on the planet, of course, and with that squeaky-clean/magnetic personality to boot).  But I can’t help but think this guy didn’t miss a hell of an opportunity to stand alongside one of the planet’s popular icons and announce both a return to the spotlight and a capacity to be the guy next to him if he wants to be.  And I’d place a bet on his personality versus (and certainly in tandem with) Smith any day.

    I won’t bother dropping a name like this, since it’s old news and kind of bitchy to bring it up (like I said, it’s stuck in my head).  But it should be kind of obvious from the description.  Underneath it all, it boggles my mind the divas you apparently have to contend with when you put this show together.  Many of the disagreements are oddly understandable, but even with that in mind, it’s something of a shock anyone is ever able to get in and out without an absolute calamity.

    Obviously the Academy is stingy with it’s video content, so I can’t post up the full clip.  But here’s Smith’s off-the-cuff “boom goes the dynamite” reference:

  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Witch Mountain’ takes the crown, ‘Watchmen’ falls hard

    Race to Witch MountainEDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the first installment in what will be a weekly column looking at box office here at In Contention.  Chad Hartigan and I attended film school together in another life.  But for the last three years he’s been a box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations.  He’s also tried his hand at making a feature (last year’s “Luke and Brie are on a First Date,” which played the festival circuit) and you may have enjoyed a spat or two with him in our comments section.  Chad will be here every Sunday afternoon wrapping up the weekend and looking ahead to the next one.  We welcome him to the IC family and look forward to his weekly take on the dollars and cents of showbiz.

    Hello all.  Before I dive into the first installment of Sunday Cents, two things to note: Figures discussed here are estimates and actual figures released on Monday could change things slightly, but usually not significantly.

    Also, any figures I draw from the past will be adjusted for inflation. That’s just how I do things. You may argue that adjusting figures doesn’t portray an accurate comparison because of things like DVD and blah, blah, blah, but in the end, comparisons are all arbitrary anyway so it doesn’t matter.

    So, with that out of the way…what happened this weekend?

    Well, “Race to Witch Mountain” came out on top with a cool $25 million. That’s almost exactly the same as “The Game Plan,” which debuted at $24 million and represents the only other time Disney picked The Rock to headline one of their films. Family sci-fi is a tough sell (“The Last Mimzy,” anyone?), so on one hand it’s a good result. On the other, compared to the $41.5 million debut that “Wild Hogs” managed in March of 2007, it seems a little soft.  There’s no family competition for two weeks so “Mountain” will have a chance to stretch its legs and it’ll have to make as much as possible before “Monsters vs. Aliens” comes along and obliterates it.

    The second remake to open this weekend was Universal’s “The Last House on the Left.”  Debuting in third with $14.7 million is pretty standard issue for this kind of film, with “The Hills Have Eyes,” “House of Wax” and “The Fog” all opening in the same ballpark.  They can’t all be “Friday the 13th.”

    Way back in 10th is the final new release of the week, “Miss March.”  Is it too soon to start talking Razzies? Actually, to be honest, if I was forced to choose a film to see out of these three, “Miss March” gets my $10. It could use it, as the $2.4 million the film pulled couldn’t even match “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”‘s ninth week. The Kevin James comedy keeps on plugging and has amassed a ridiculous $138 million so far, by the way.

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  • Keeping score

    By now, “Watchmen” has been assessed and widely shat on from a large array of angles, but one voice I didn’t necessarily expect to pipe in was that of classical music critic Tom Service. Writing for the Guardian, Service praises the film’s “carefully conceived” use of existing music, particularly the heavily intertextual use of Wagner, though he complains:

    A shame, then, that they go for the easy option of Mozart’s Requiem, in a poorly edited version, near the end of Watchmen, after the pseudo-apocalypse that wipes out Manhattan. Surely a bit of 80s electro would have made the point better, and saved Mozart from becoming yet more of a morbid musical cliche?

    Against such familiar themes, however, Service is distinctly unimpressed by Tyler Bates’ original score for the film, and uses this as a springboard for a broader lament on the state of Hollywood scores in general. He claims composers have recently “trodden the path of the generic or the frankly redundant” — with Jonny Greenwood’s extraordinary work on “There Will Be Blood” the last notable exception.

    I tend to agree with him, having found 2008 a particularly weak year for film scores in general. But we part ways when Service chooses to single out for criticism one of the few scores that actually got under my skin (and onto my iTunes) last year:

    Anyone remember “The Dark Knight’s” score? Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s music, I thought, got mired in a single idea, an obsessively repeated minor third, that gloomy interval of impending doom, but could not generate any real tension or dramatic counterpoint with the onscreen action. It’s a pity, given the complexity of drama and ideas in both films (“Knight” and “Watchmen”), that the music didn’t add to the experience.

    To each their own, I guess.

  • Happy Ides of March

    Two days before you get your drink on, raise a cup to dear departed Caesar.  By the way, it’s been 56 years since Joe Mankiewicz’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play and nine years since the facts of Marcus Aurelius’s reign were twisted for drama’s sake (in a film I quite like, regardless).  When are we going to get another great Roman epic, or better yet, THE great Roman epic?  A solid revisiting of the Bard’s material would be good enough, I guess, though I never saw the Jeremy Sisto TV thing.

    Beware the Ides of March

  • Yorkshire confidential

    I didn’t get a chance to mention it during our recent hiatus, but last Wednesday I saw a film that stands, for me, head and shoulders above any other 2009 release so far — one I can easily imagine still coming into play for my own Best of 2009 honours come December. A heady artistic breakthrough from a filmmaker I had never previously rated, with an immaculate cast of rising talent, it’s truly significant, surprising cinema.

    There’s a catch, however. It’s not showing at a theatre near you — or any other, for that matter. For the film I’m talking about is “Nineteen Seventy-Four,” the first part of Channel 4’s ambitious, much-hyped TV endeavour “Red Riding” — a trilogy of self-standing films chronicling the infamous Yorkshire Ripper murders of the 1970s and early 1980s.

    Deftly adapted by Tony Grisoni (“In This World,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”) from a quartet of novels by David Peace (a brilliant writer occasionally labelled, not without justification, as the UK’s answer to James Ellroy — he’s also behind the upcoming “Damned United”), the films examine both the social and official levels of corruption stirred by the crimes over an entire decade, but each has its own distinct thematic and cinematic character.

    I was first alerted to the project when interviewing James Marsh last year — the Oscar-winning “Man on Wire” filmmaker helmed “Nineteen Eighty,” the second instalment of the trilogy. Marsh’s contribution is a sober, intelligent piece of  procedural drama, enlivened by a terrific lead turn from Paddy Considine, but it’s really “Nineteen Seventy-Four,” the more oblique, mood-driven piece, that has stuck with me these past two weeks.

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  • Stewart and Letterman dish the Oscar hosting gig

    Thanks to Gold Derby for pointing us to this YouTube clip of Jon Stewart on The Late Show wondering why the heck they were ever asked to host the Oscars.

    Stewart: “The problem with having us host it, if I may, is that at some level, deep in our hearts, we think it’s stupid.”

    Letterman: “That’s exactly right.”

    Brilliant.  Have a look:

  • “A profession of love for cinema”

    That’s how Pedro Almodovar describes “Broken Embraces,” which is now mere days from opening in Spain. Reviews should arrive soon enough, but for now, this rather thin article offers the following tidbit:

    With hints of thriller-style cinema thrown in, Almodovar’s film alludes to his own earlier movies those of directors he admires, such as Roberto Rossellini.

    “It is a romantic movie, with intertwined stories of love. But underlying them all is my love for cinema,” Almodovar said Friday after a press screening.

    A Reuters piece extends the vague noir comparisons, likening Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography to that of 1940’s Hollywood thrillers — one scene, in particular, apparently evokes “Kiss of Death,” which is good enough for me. (Am I the only one totally psyched about the teaming with Prieto?)

    All well and good, but I’m puzzled by such writers describing this as some kind of major departure for the auteur: what were “Bad Education” and “Live Flesh” (which was, after all, a Ruth Rendell adaptation) if not jet-black thrillers?

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  • Coming in June: Coppola’s ‘Tetro.’ Will it bring him back?

    TetroNo other director in the history of the cinema dominated a 10-year span as Francis Ford Coppola did the 1970s. Beyond directing four of the decade’s greatest films — “The Godfather”, “The Godfather, Part II”, “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now” — his name was on “Patton” and “The Great Gatsby” as screenwriter and “American Graffiti” as producer.

    In addition, Coppola created American Zoetrope in the hopes of building a haven for young directors to make small films free of the studios.  But he also believed what the press were saying: he was a genius who would turn whatever he touched into gold.  His ego got in the way and he alienated friend and comrade George Lucas, eventually making up with the director years later when positions of power had been reversed.

    In the years after “Apocalypse Now,” the Oscar-winning Coppola fell on hard times with one failure after another it seemed, his once golden touch lost in the jungles of the Philippines while making his Vietnam epic. There were glimmers of former greatness from time to time, such as the expressionistic brilliance of “Rumble Fish,” the Cab Calloway sequence in “The Cotton Club,” the haunting scene with Kathleen Turner and her grandparents in “Peggy Sue Got Married” and Jeff Bridges’s wonderful work in “Tucker.”

    But “One from the Heart” was a mess.  “The Outsiders” was a sentimental disaster of a film. And then there was “The Godfather, Part III,” a failure because Paramount failed the director, breaking their word after making the promise he would have complete control, refusing to pay Robert Duvall, integral to the story, half of what Al Pacino was making, forcing a major re-write (that cost…?) and casting his daughter (the poor girl) in a key role when she simply lacked the acting chops to work with that ensemble.  On and on.

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  • Been waiting on this a long time

    Not Oscar or movie related, but if you’d like to see Jon Stewart dismantle Jim Cramer on “The Daily Show,” have a look.  This has been a LONG time coming:

  • Wright returns to Britain

    We have yet to see how Joe Wright’s first foray into contemporary American cinema turned out, though the demotion of “The Soloist” from prime 2008 awards-bait to quiet 2009 spring release has had the sceptics whispering for some time now.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Wright’s next project will find the “Atonement” helmer in the more familiar territory of the British period drama: “Indian Summer” will chronicle the last days of British colonial rule in India in the 1940s, following the handover of power from Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, to new Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru. (Some sources, meanwhile, suggest that the focus of the film will be a rumoured affair between Nehru and Mountbatten’s wife Edwina.)

    Besides Wright, more notable names are falling into place: as the fourth collaboration between Wright and Working Title, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are naturally on board as producers, while William Nicholson (“Shadowland,” “Gladiator”) is taking script duties. The Guardian reports “speculation” that Cate Blanchett and Hugh Grant are in line to star, which I’d take with a pinch of salt — though it’s plausible enough casting.

    As a fan of the widely misrepresented “Atonement” (it was a far smaller, stranger film than the romantic epic it was sold as), I’m on board for this. It’s not going to do much to clear the “next Anthony Minghella” buzz that has been circling around Wright for a few years now (misplaced talk at best, not least because he isn’t a writer), but it seems a good fit for his storytelling abilities. “The Jewel in the Crown” remains the benchmark for screen depictions of this fascinating era — if Wright can conjure similar magic, this could be a real contender.

  • INTERVIEW: Jan Troell

    Jan TroellAfter taking a backseat to younger, scrappier film industries in recent years, 2008 marked a defiant resumption of the throne for a number of traditional world-cinema stalwarts – Italy was the talk of May’s Cannes festival, while France churned out one masterwork after the other. Joining them at the top, meanwhile, was Sweden, with a pair of exquisite, acclaimed titles that otherwise couldn’t be more diametrically opposed.

    While Tomas Alfredsson’s dreamy, disturbing awards-guzzler “Let the Right One In” announced the arrival of a startling new guard in Swedish cinema, the country’s official Oscar submission was the work of a decidedly gentler, more practiced hand.

    “Everlasting Moments,” a lyrical account of the life of Maria Larsson and her journey from abused housewife to accomplished photographer at the turn of the 20th century, is but the latest in a long line of works by esteemed 77 year-old veteran Jan Troell.

    The film, which opened Stateside on Friday, has been a humble yet not inconsiderable presence throughout this past awards season. Greeted enthusiastically at the Telluride and Toronto festivals, it went on to score a Golden Globe nod, and only narrowly missed the cut at the Oscars, having made the 9-strong shortlist in the foreign-language category.

    Troell, however, dismisses the whole awards business with good humor. “I was nowhere near as disappointed as people would like me to be,” he chuckles, speaking on the phone from his family home in Sweden. “They expect you to be depressed when you don’t make it, but that’s not the reason you make films. It would have been nice to go to the Oscars, but I’ve been there before, and I know not to take it all too seriously.”

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  • On ‘Public Enemies’

    Public EnemeisDuring our week away, materials landed for one of my own most anticipated films of the year: Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies.”  I haven’t taken a moment to really dig in to this yet, but here goes…

    The first thought I had when I saw the trailer was that this is the most un-Mann tease I’ve ever seen.  The latter half montage under Otis Taylor’s “Ten Million Slaves,” however, is vintage Mann, wallowing in the rush of narrative flow, images both beautiful and unusual, it’s all signature.  And for a guy like me who puts Mann on a pretty high pedestal, those final moments are exciting for those reasons.

    No one seems to want to admit the poster is just bad, and that’s fine.  Who wants to sour the mood?  But it screams “studio” and has no artistic focus.  It’s a figment of selling the film first and that’s okay, but it’s graphically awkward and visually impotent.  It says nothing.  Maybe we’ll see another one before release, but truth be told, I’ve never been particularly impressed with a poster for a Mann film.

    I’ve heard Marion Cotillard is quite good in the film, and of course, Johnny Depp looks like he’s cranking out a special performance.  Christian Bale will be nice background flavor but I don’t sense the symbiosis of, say, “American Gangster.”  I wonder if Billy Crudup might finally be on the cusp of “arriving” after nearly a decade of solid work without a real breakthrough to show for it.  His work here could mix with his positive notices for “Watchmen” and make a perfect publicity storm.  Or not.

    I’m most excited at the idea of Mann teaming up with lenser Dante Spinotti after a 10-year break.  I don’t think the director was tinkering with digital very much in their last collaboration, “The Insider,” but it’s become his adopted style as of late and it may or may not work in a period piece such as this.  Ultimately, I think it might make the film too slick to be seen as prestigious.  We’ll see.

    On the whole, I don’t get a big awards vibe from this film.  I think it’s perfectly positioned to make good money but it’s also very much on a “Road to Perdition” trajectory.  Maybe I’m just muting expectations, but I see commercial success, design respect, not much else.  But who cares about Oscars?  I’m stoked.