In Contention

Blog

  • 2/13 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Dave Karger posts his final predictions, is still on the Sean Penn express. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • The other David, in his non-Bagger persona, sings the praises of this year’s Oscar long shots. [New York Times]

    • T.L. Stanley peeks at the entertainment on offer at next week’s Spirit Awards. (Teri Hatcher spoofing “Wendy and Lucy?” Interesting.) [Gold Rush]

    • Gold Derby serves up their own award nominations, shaming the Academy in the process. (“TDK” and Sally Hawkins fans, rejoice.) [Gold Derby]

    • The adorable Taraji P. Henson talks “Button,” dresses and her secret yearning to play Diana Ross. (Great idea. Make it happen.) [Vanity Fair]

    • David Thomson ponders the puzzle that is Steven Soderbergh. [The Guardian]

    • The Art Directors Guild offers an unusual list: from “Intolerance” to “LA Confidential,” the Top 100 Designed Films of all time. [Variety]

    • Peter Bart reports that Danny Boyle is interested in filming a woman’s story for a change. [Variety]

    • Gaynor Flynn talks to Sundance sensation and star-in-the-making Carey Mulligan. [The Independent]

    • Kim Voynar pretends that it’s even worth considering the chances of four other Best Picture nominees. [Movie City News]

  • Awwww…

    Mickey goes all soft and mushy on us, if this soundbite from the BAFTA after-party is anything to go by:

    “Sean Penn is a good friend of mine. When I was down and out he got hold of me and told me exactly what to do and what not to do. I owe him so much that I hope he wins the award.

    “I wanted to be as big as Al Pacino. I thought my acting ability was enough so I didn’t play by the rules, I ignored all the politics, I upset people and in the end I lost everything. Now I am back and I am going to stay with this work ethic until I die.”

    The thing is, I actually believe him when he says he’s backing Penn. I still think Rourke’s going to sneak the win, though.

  • Is ‘The Class’ in a position to upset ‘Bashir?’

    (UPDATE: I see Dave Karger is placing his money on “The Class” too. Interesting.)

    Yesterday, Kris took a look at the Best Documentary Feature category, and wondered whether the winner there is quite the foregone conclusion that most people think. Supporting his argument was the category’s unusual rule that voters have to have seen all five contenders before casting their ballots –- a rule which can make the category less susceptible to consensus thinking than elsewhere, as voters are forced to make aesthetic decisions for themselves rather than letting the campaigns decide for them.

    It’s a situation that can either consolidate a frontrunner’s appeal, or throw up a surprise as voters lose their hearts to a less-publicised gem. And while I agree with Kris that the latter is a possibility in the doc race, I’ve been wondering lately whether a similar upset could be brewing in the Best Foreign Language Film race –- which also requires voters to view all the nominees.

    For some time, “Waltz With Bashir” has been installed as the de facto frontrunner in this race –- and with good reason. It’s vastly acclaimed (remember the National Society of Film Critics named it the year’s best film, period), wildly inventive, won a number of significant precursors (though it recently stumbled at the BAFTAs) and, crucially, has a cache of political currency that could seal the deal for the frequently high-minded voters in this category.

    But it has a number of strikes against it too. It’s the first animated film ever to be nominated in this category, as well as the first documentary –- and the Academy isn’t exactly known for embracing the new. Given that voters in this field tend to be older Academy members, are we sure that they will take an animated effort seriously here? And are we sure that they won’t be put off by the film’s challenging, oblique structure? I’m not.

    (more…)

  • Join the In Contention Oscar pool!

    The diligent folks at AwardsPicks.com have come up with a slick Oscar pool system that was just too good to pass up, so I went ahead and started a group for the IC readership and staff.  Go register now (which is seriously a painless process) and join our little group, then start making your picks.  The pool is called “In Contention Oscar Pool — 2009 Academy Awards Game.”

    There is a nifty interface to alter the point values for each category, so based on how predictable a category seems to be at this stage, a value between 1 and 10 has been allotted.  All the points add up to 100.  No idea what I was doing, but whatever, it should work out.  Most points for correctly guessing Best Documentary Short.  Least for Best Animated Feature and Best Supporting Actor — duh.

    Join up and see how you fare with the rest of us!

  • Peter Gabriel pulls out of performing at the Oscars

    Peter GabrielHmm, I totally agree with him on principle but at the same time, it’ll be a shame for him to not grace Oscar’s stage.  Especially since he’s likely to win the award:

    I was delighted when Down to Earth was nominated for an Oscar. I was also pleased to have been asked to perform the song in the Oscar ceremony. However, in recent discussions with the Producers, it became clear that despite there being only three nominees, only 60-65 seconds was being offered, and that was also in a medley of the three songs. I don’t feel that is sufficient time to do the song justice, and have decided to withdraw from performing.

    I fully respect and look forward to the Producers’ right to revamp the show. Even though song writers are small players in the film making process, they are just as committed and work just as hard as the rest of the team and I regret that this new version of the ceremony is being created, in part, at their expense.

    I still very much look forward to attending the ceremony.

    The news first dropped at Peter Gabriel’s official website via video message, though Nikki Finke apparently thinks she had it as an exclusive.

    Somebody call up Phil Collins…

  • POLL: Who deserves it? — BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

    Moving into the major categories, tell us in the siebar poll who deserves the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

  • Checking in with Joaquin’s performance art

  • Pixar’s latest a “tearjerker” and a “gamble?”

    That’s what this Anthony Breznican USA Today story suggests of Pete Docter’s upcoming “Up.”  Just reading through the brief recap of a footage screening, it seems to me “WALL-E” might not be the Pixar high-mark after all (not that it is for me to begin with, mind you, but it certainly is for the great majority of film fans).  I have to say, it seems to be a story that could have a lot of resonance within the zeitgeist.  After all, who doesn’t want to get the hell away from everything after the last eight years?

    Here’s a taste:

    Instead of Clint Eastwood clashing with street gangs, the old-timer in this story (voiced by Ed Asner) decides to get off his own lawn, tying thousands of balloons to his little wooden house to float away from his troubles.

    Up opens May 29, and early footage reveals a gamble from the makers of Cars and Toy Story: a plunge into tearjerker territory. The first third of the movie establishes the main character, Carl, as a lost and angry soul after a happy, mostly quiet life with his childhood sweetheart, Ellie.

    The montage of their marriage touches on themes rarely seen in bedtime storybooks: romance, financial hardship, a lost pregnancy, loneliness and the blink-of-an-eye passage from childhood to wrinkles.

  • Worldly wise

    “I was intimidated by how worldly wise he seemed to be and how much he understood himself,” said Jason Isaacs, who played the sadistic Col. Tavington in “Patriot.” “He took a house in the forest while we all lived together in a condo. Like many in my profession, I seem to need company and to fill the silence with noise; he didn’t need that, and he was very happy in his house in the forest. I know 21-year-olds; I’d never met a 21-year-old like him.”

    One of my favorite insights from Michael Ordoña’s LA Times appreciation of Heath Ledger, with quotes from friends and colleagues through.  Entertainment Weekly published a similar story last month.

  • 2/12 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Afa the Wild Samoan and Mickey Rourke on the set of The Wrestler(Kind of quiet out there…)

    • David Carr addresses the “some stars won’t walk the red carpet” talk, slams fashionistas as being “pilot fish on a big whale.”  Ooooooohhhhh. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Rebecca Ascher-Walsh talks to double nominee Kate Winslet. [The Envelope]

    • Dave Karger says it’s Harvey vs. Miramax in the ladies’ acting fields. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Sasha Stone goes deep with “WALL-E” helmer Andrew Stanton. [Awards Daily]

    • David S. Cohen writes up “The Wrestler”‘s unsung hero: trainer Afa “the Wild Samoan.” [Variety]

    • Patrick Goldstein responds to the week’s “Reader” slams. [The Big Picture]

  • Start from scratch, Academy

    I do love a good rant about the Academy Awards. And Ryan Gilbey is, for my money, one of the sharpest, most entertaining film writers around these days. So it figures that a Gilbey-written attack on the Oscars, in the lefty political mag the New Statesman, should make for good reading.

    Gilbey cheerfully admits that he “hates” the Oscars, even as they fascinate him by “systematically disparag(ing) the creativity and alchemy of filmmaking.” And as in David Denby’s own recent rant, he dislikes all of this year’s Best Picture contenders save for “Milk,” though he still thinks Gus Van Sant’s film “pales beside” the likes of “WALL-E.” (I particularly like the accuracy with which he skewers “Frost/Nixon,” arguing that it is “built like a sitcom — every joke has its payoff in the following shot.” Bingo.)

    But he also offers some ideas for how to fix the supposedly broken machine that is the Oscars. And while some of them are typically playful and even perverse (ban Ron Howard and Meryl Streep from future nominations, he pleads), some of them (to me, at least) really make a lot of sense. I particularly like his two-birds-with-one-stone approach to rectifying the embarrassing foreign-language situation, starting by abolishing the Foreign Film category altogether:

    Scrap the only award specially designed to allow a sliver of glory to fall on cinema from other cultures. Why? Well, it’s patronising, for a start. Not quite as bad as the Best British Film Bafta, I’ll grant you, but still only a hair away from being termed The Special Needs Award For Hopeless Cases. It’s nothing short of insulting to see Laurent Cantet’s The Class and Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir consigned to this subsidiary category when there is more accomplishment in one frame of those films than in the entirety of most of this year’s Best Picture contenders. An awards system that does not consider The Class good enough to compete with Frost/Nixon or Slumdog Millionaire deserves to be a laughing stock.

    So how will foreign-language films get a look-in? Call it positive discrimination or affirmative action, but from now on, the total number of Best Picture nominees should be raised to six, of which two must come from non-English-speaking countries. There is simply no other way to redress the balance than to force Academy voters to consider films that are not being screened at the local mall. Let’s put The Reader up against Waltz With Bashir and then we’ll see some real tears from Kate Winslet.

    Good stuff. The rest here.

  • Is this a new strategy?

    I’ve been flipping back and forth between Leno and Letterman and so far I’ve seen four Oscar TV spots: two for “The Reader,” one for “Slumdog Millionaire” and one for “The Wrestler.”  Instead of the usual 30 second trailers, there is interview footage edited in.  Rourke from “The Wrestler,” Boyle from “Slumdog” and besting the lot, Daldry, Winslet AND Hare (dropping the names of Pollack and Minghella) for “The Reader.”

    Is this a new strategy?  I can’t seem to recall late night television buys in recent Oscar past, but I certainly don’t recall commercials such as this, bringing the talent out in the open so formally.  It’s kind of brilliant, really.  Now instead of watching Amy Adams giggle about how unprepared she is for her wedding, you’ll be treated to other interviews during the advertising break that you weren’t expecting at all.

    Adams is a good call for this moment, especially being in a race some perceive as wide open and others say is ripe for her taking.  But all things considered, Rourke could have brought it all home with an appearance here instead of in late December for the film’s release.

    Or does it all…really not matter?

  • What the techies think

    There’s an interesting article in Popular Mechanics, in which several industry experts offer their own predictions in a number of technical categories. Like Kris’ earlier post about the DPs’ thumbs-up to “Slumdog Millionaire,” it offers a perspective on the race that can widely differ from that of critics, audiences and even the Academy itself.

    I’ve often wondered just how differently the tech winners would turn out if they were voted on by the individual branches rather than the entire Academy membership. I think it’s likely that Emmanuel Lubezki would have a cinematography Oscar for “Children of Men,” for example, or perhaps the costume design gong wouldn’t always go to the film with the most opulent threads.

    Here, sound mixer Richard Van Dyke and sound editor Brian Riordan both name “WALL-E” the clear winner in their respective fields, with the latter simply remarking, “If you mute ‘WALL-E,’ you don’t have a movie … if you mute ‘Slumdog’ for five minutes, it’s still amazing.” Both men approve of the work in “Slumdog,” while Van Dyke has some qualms with the mixing in “The Dark Knight.”

    There’s an interesting conclusion in the makeup category, where artist Barney Burman’s personal standout is “Hellboy II,” though he rather surprisingly predicts that the general membership will lean towards “The Dark Knight,” given how powerfully the makeup job supported Heath Ledger’s performance.

    (more…)

  • Christopher Nolan’s next film: ‘Inception’

    Christopher NolanAs expected, Christopher Nolan’s next film will not be a sequel to “The Dark Knight.”  He will instead go into production on “Inception,” described in the breaking Hollywood Reporter story as “a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.”  Here are the usual kisses from the studio:

    “Chris Nolan is a visionary filmmaker who continually raises the bar with each movie he makes,” Warner Bros. Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov said. “We are thrilled to be collaborating again with him and Emma on this exciting new motion picture.”

    Sadly we don’t have any information at the moment, but hey, I’m excited.  Nolan took a break from the Caped Crusader after “Batman Begins” to focus on the Christopher Priest adaptation “The Prestige,” a film that took a while to grow on me.  But it certainly gave the director a chance to take a deep breath before diving back into Batman, and really, if that’s what it takes to get a film like “The Dark Knight” out of him, I welcome “Inception” with open arms.

  • Does ‘Frozen River’ have one more trick up its sleeve?

    (from left) Misty Upham and Melissa Leo in Frozen RiverOn Monday’s edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reporter Nate DiMeo spotlights the “Cinderella story” of Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River,” which turned up a rather surprising original screenplay nomination two-and-a-half weeks ago.

    Originating out of Sundance in early 2008, the film is one of a handful that can be “very high quality, but not very obvious to sell or to market,” says Sony Pictures Classics honcho Michael Barker in the piece.  But, as DiMeo points out, “Frozen River” is “the type of film that Barker and his team have honed awards season after awards season.”

    Interestingly enough, I’ve begun to hear a lot of chatter in favor of Hunt’s film turning up one more surprise: on Oscar night.  While most of us are debating whether Best Picture nominee “Milk” or animated critics favorite “WALL-E” will win in the original screenplay category, there are those who think Hunt could eek out a victory, a show of support for independent filmmaking to be sure.  There is also talk of Kate Winslet’s “assured” victory in the lead actress category not being all that assured at all, and that Melissa Leo has become a difficult choice to argue against.

    Barker “had a plan and an instinct on this,” Hunt says in the DiMeo piece.  “I thought once I got into Sundance and sold the movie, I was a big shot.  Well, it turns out I wasn’t as much of a big shot as I thought I was.”

    Barker notes that “for the longest time, we were the only film that the Academy members had in their hands to watch.”  Screeners of the film went out at the beginning of September, DiMeo reminds, “before it could be buried under a pile of ‘Benjamin Button’ and ‘Dark Knight’ screeners.  Sony Pictures Classics had scheduled the DVD release for right around now to take advantage of a potential nomination.  And now orders are up.”

    The studio’s goal is “for the film to have the longest life possible,” Barker says, “and ‘Frozen River’ is probably a textbook example.”

    Might it also be a textbook example of catching the Oscar frontrunners off guard?  It’s quite possible.

    Also check out Sasha Stone’s interview with Hunt from earlier in the week if you missed it, as well as Liane Hansen’s chat with Leo from November, right around the time of the film’s release.

  • If it ain’t broke…

    A change is as good as a feast. I’m the last person to deny that. And for the most part, I’ve been down with the changes to this year’s Oscarcast promised by producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark.

    I’m on the record as saying I think Hugh Jackman is an inspired gamble as a choice of host. And while I’m concerned that Queen Latifah singing along to the “In Memoriam” montage has the makings of an all-out kitschfest, I’m nonetheless interested to see how it plays out.

    But there’s one change, one that a number of people still don’t seem to be aware of, that I’m not happy with at all. And that’s dispensing with the tradition (of the past couple of decades) of having last year’s winners present this year’s acting awards. As Susan Wloszczyna wrote in her interview with the pair a few weeks back:

    Instead of lining up last year’s winners and stars with upcoming movies to tout, Condon and Mark are reaching out to those names associated with a 2008 movie. And there will be a few blasts from Hollywood’s past, too.

    (more…)

  • Top lensers praise ‘Slumdog’ cinematography

    Slumdog MillionaireOver at Variety, Robert Koehler has put together a survey of sorts of some of the industry’s top DPs to gauge their reaction to the year’s work behind the camera.  It could be a nice hint toward what the ASC will chose as the year’s best lensing, and judging by Koehler’s results, Anthony Dod Mantle’s “cherry on top of a career” efforts on “Slumdog Millionaire” gets the gold star.

    It’s really quite an achievement.  Even though I’ve long been on the record in favor of Wally Pfister’s innovations on “The Dark Knight,” I have to say Dogme 95 veteran Mantle broke unexpected new ground in Danny Boyle’s film.  In lieu of an Oscar win for the highly deserving Pfister, I would be very content to hear Mantle’s name called.

    Here’s a taste from Koehler’s survey:

    Mantle’s “Slumdog” was “the biggest technical achievement of the year,” says [Roger] Deakins, “because even though part of the film was shot on a 2K digital camera and part on 35mm, my eye could never detect the difference…it was quite a feat to maintain a consistent quality of image throughout.”

    Adds [Janusz] Kaminski: “I like cinematography that feels alive, and Anthony’s work felt that way for me. The shooting got the sense of the Mumbai streets, the reality of the gameshow, the nostalgia of the romance.”

    Goldblatt agrees, noting that “Slumdog” was “a very adventurous mix of media, fun and beautiful and very courageous. I’ve worked in India as a photographer and know how tough it is there, so I was quite impressed with the results.”

    McGarvey “loved how Anthony thought about how the various formats he shot in would serve each milieu in the story, so that the images never patronized the characters. It was such a ride.”

    Koehler then goes on to say Claudio Miranda’s gorgeous work on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was close behind in his unscientific poll, followed by Pfister, who McGarvey says “can work on the grandest of scales but can also be terrestrial, and is able to provide an anchor to fantastical situations — a talent he shares with (director) Chris Nolan.”

    I was happy to see Maryse Alberti (“The Wrestler”) and Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Let the Right One In”) also mentioned, but hey, you’ve heard that kind of stuff out of me in this space over and over again. It’s nice to see the trades pumping up their crafts coverage, since no one seems to be willing to give them the proper attention this time of year beyond the expected outlets (American Cinematographer, Below the Line, etc.).

    For a crash course in the year’s best cinematography, have a look at our Top 10 Shots of 2008 column from last month, laced with insights from an esteemed crop of lensers.

  • Brolin, Hopkins to star in Woody Allen’s latest

    This one just landed in the ole’ inbox.  Might as well pass it on:

    Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin and Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins are the first to be cast in Woody Allen’s latest untitled film. A return to Europe for Allen, the new film shoots in London this summer and reteams the director with financer, Mediapro, the Spain-based company which also funded “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Letty Aronson, Steve Tenenbaum and Jaume Roures are producers on the film. Additional cast members will be announced shortly.

    Sony Pictures Classics recently acquired Allen’s next completed film, “Whatever Works,” which will have a June 23rd theatrical release this summer.

    Oddly vague, as usual.  Is Allen ever going to slow down?