In Contention

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  • Best Actress: a tough call

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedRarely does the lead actress category provide more suspense than leading gentlemen and rarely is it as packed with fine performances as it is this year.  I can remember years when it was a struggle to come up with five nominees for best actress, 1975 and 1992 springing to mind.  It might have less to do with quality female performances than it does the amount of quality female roles Hollywood provides.

    But the Academy won’t have any trouble this year.  There are going to be excellent performances left off the list of nominees this year due to uncharacteristically heated competition, that is a sad fact, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it except continue to love and support the performances snubbed. In fact it is not even that they will be snubbed, it’s just that there is only room for five ladies, and this year, selecting those final five must be proving an enormously difficult task for the Academy.

    With her two Golden Globe wins, Kate Winslet seems to be a shoo-in for her superb performance in “Revolutionary Road,” a truly heartbreaking piece of acting that is sadly underseen at the moment.  Meryl Streep, meanwhile, will be nominated for the 15th time for her tyrannical nun in “Doubt” and Anne Hathaway will get a welcome to the big show for “Rachel Getting Married,” in which her caustic turn as Kym has altered the course of her career and announces her as a serious actress in the industry.

    And then it becomes tricky — those final two spots.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Globe surprises, best shots, BAFTA nods

    Sorry the Weekly Wrap feature has been M.I.A. these past few weeks — between the holidays and various disasters, they got a bit forgotten. Anyway, it’s back this week, and what a busy week it was:

    • In a new annual institution at IC, Kris reviewed the top 10 shots of the year here … and here.

    • The Golden Globes threw up several surprises, but the biggest one was what a deeply satisfying evening it was.

    • Following that ceremony, this week’s Off the Carpet column wondered whether the Oscars can measure up.

    • While the Globes gained credibility, BAFTA threw theirs to the wind with a curious slate of nominations … though “Slumdog Millionaire” once more sits pretty.

    • But for omitting “Gomorrah” from their 9-film shortlist, AMPAS’ foreign-language committee earns this week’s biggest dunce cap.

    • The American Cinema Editors revealed their nominees. Everyone yawned in unison.

    • Meanwhile, the costume designers completed this year’s guild citations.

    • Taking a breather from the precursor beat, we got chatting to the delightful Amy Adams.

    • The Sundance Festival started this week … but is anyone watching?

    • In other film festival news, Berlin has announced some intriguing premieres.

    • Finally, with whispers circulating that “Gran Torino” could spoil in the Best Picture race, how much of a Best Actor threat is Clint Eastwood?

  • Coming Monday

    There’s a reason I decided, three years ago, to post my weekly Oscar columns on Monday: the Oscar nominations are always announced on a Tuesday.  It was a preemptive strike on my part — get the last set of predictions up the day before the nods are announced to keep those last-minute jitters from eating away at my view of the race.

    Well, this year all that changed as the Academy pushed the announcement to Thursday in order to steer clear of the inauguration.  And who can blame them?  But Tuesday and Wednesday are gonna be nail-biters for me because I’m keeping the final column on Monday.  You gotta hold strong.

    So with that, my final set of Oscar nomination prediction charts will land in Monday’s Off the Carpet column.  I’ll also be linking to our contributors’ final sets of predictions and, as always, give the readership a space to make their final gutsy (or not-so-gutsy) calls.

    Stay tuned.

  • Attention ROB…going once…

    Still need your address for winning in the “Button” contest. Shipment goes out tomorrow. Sorry to bring it to the main page, guys, but the email I don’t have an email response yet.

  • Say it with me

    “Four…more…days.”

  • “Did you like the work? Buy the ticket!”

    This isn’t exactly new, but I just stumbled across this video, one of a series from the Hollywood Reporter’s actress Oscar roundtable last month. THR has had several such sessions this season, but I really liked the chemistry and empathy between these five wonderful women — Michelle Williams, Taraji P. Henson, Emma Thompson, Amy Adams and Sally Hawkins.

    Henson is especially garrulous and charming; I particularly love her matter-of-fact approach to the frequent silliness of awards season, which is what they discuss in the video below.

    Meanwhile, after the cut, check out Henson and fellow ingenue Hawkins chatting about their respective experiences on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Happy-Go-Lucky.” Could there be two sweeter people on the awards circuit this year?

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  • ‘Wrestler’ tie-in

    “Frustrated. Outdated. All I want to be is overrated.” Eerie how on the nose that is.

  • “Notice anything unusual about Santa Carla yet?”

  • Jenny Lumet could continue an Oscar tradition

    Jenny LumetIn the 1970s there simply wasn’t a greater director of actors than Sidney Lumet.  Roles in his films came with Academy Award nominations virtually attached.  From 1973 to 1988, Lumet directed actors to 16 Oscar nominations, three of those eventually winning an Oscar.  He himself was nominated for Best Director for “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network” and “The Verdict” and most certainly should have been nominated for “Prince of the City,” which earned him a New York Film Critics Circle award.

    A former actor himself, Lumet understood inherently how to work with his on-screen talent, how to allow them the space they needed to create without seeing them run away with his film.  Most importantly, he understood how to direct them to best serve the piece.  Incredibly he never won an Oscar for his work at the helm, but the Academy did give him an Honorary Award a couple of years ago, which he followed with his best work in years: “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.”  In his 80s now, he is as fresh and alive as he has ever been, and still one of the great living directors.

    And now his daughter Jenny could become a first-time Oscar nominee for her screenplay “Rachel Getting Married.”  Lumet must be pleased — Sidney, I mean.  I had the pleasure of interviewing him last year and he was an utter delight, frank, unafraid to speak his mind.  He mentioned his daughter was working on a film I might see within the year. With a smile and a twinkle in his eye he said, “It’s very good.”  Ever the proud father.

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  • Wowsers

    Kate Winslet

    From a fairly old Vanity Fair feature that you’ve all probably read by now.  I’m just now stumbling across it.

  • 1/16 Oscarweb Round-up

    Roddy Piper in They Live• A brilliant roundtable: wrestlers discussing “The Wrestler.”  It’s just nice that Luger has his faculties about him now. [Fox Searchlight]

    • While we’re on the subject, the top 10 wrestlers in movies.  I’m big on #10 and #3.  Not so much on #1. [The Times]

    • Making the SAG award statuette. [The Envelope]

    • Kate Dailey reports from a SoHo Q&A with “Gran Torino” director and star Clint Eastwood. [Vulture]

    • A nice Leonardo DiCaprio appreciation. [The Guardian]

    • Feel-good films for a global recession. [The Independent]

    • Patrick Goldstein picks up on TV producer Chuck Lorre’s recent post-“Big Bang Theory” vanity card, bemoaning the negativity of this year’s Oscar contenders. [The Big Picture]

  • Frears’ ‘Chéri’ to premiere at Berlin

    New works from Costa-Gavras, Bertrand Tavernier and Andrzej Wajda are among the 14 titles that have just been added to the Competition programme at next month’s Berlinale, meaning 25 of the 26 slots have been confirmed.

    The most high-profile inclusion, however, is Stephen Frears’ period romance “Chéri,” which was at one point mooted as a 2008 release with an eye on awards season, before getting bumped. It’s a film I’ve been excited about for some time, not least because it’s something of a “Dangerous Liaisons” redux, reuniting the director, writer (Christopher Hampton) and star (Michelle Pfeiffer) of that 1988 Oscar-winner, again within the context of a French-set costume drama.

    An adaptation of Colette’s novella about an affair between a young man and a decades-older woman in 1920’s Paris, it strikes me as an ideal proposition for both director and star. A new Frears film is always worth noting, but I find his work rather more interesting  when he’s visiting themes of taboo and desire (the aforementioned “Liaisons,” “Prick Up Your Ears,” “The Grifters”).

    Meanwhile, Pfeiffer — still, I think, arguably the greatest of her generation — hasn’t had a project equal to her gifts in over 15 years. Could this be one to keep an eye on for next year’s awards derby? It’s ridiculously early to be thinking about such things, but don’t forget that one of the big winners at last year’s Berlinale was a certain Ms. Sally Hawkins. However oddly positioned, it’s always a festival worth paying attention to.

    Among the other intriguing titles set to bow at the fest, which will be opened by Tom Tykwer’s “The International,” is “Rage,” the latest from avant-garde UK auteur Sally Potter, with an eclectic cast including Jude Law, Judi Dench and Steve Buscemi. Another impressive ensemble (Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin and Julianne Moore, to name but three) features in Rebecca Miller’s “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” while Lukas Moodysson’s “Mammoth,” starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, has long been one of my most eagerly anticipated films of 2009.

    For a complete list of the Competition entries so far, check out the press releases here and here.

  • A film that sticks — why ‘Revolutionary Road’ is a masterwork

    Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary RoadGENTLE SPOILERS WITHIN — READ WITH CAUTION

    Fear of change, fear of risk.

    “If you don’t try anything, you can’t fail,” she tells him, striking at the heart of what has him so afraid of uprooting their family to Paris in the hopes of a better way of life.  Frank Wheeler is terrified of change, but his wife April longs for it.  She needs change to survive as a person, as a wife, believing, wrongly perhaps (perhaps not), that change will help her marriage and better define her place in it.

    The characters in “Revolutionary Road” are in agonizing pain as they go about their daily lives, each trying to keep their marriage intact while also trying to live out their dreams.  Deep down, they must know their dreams have to be sacrificed to a degree.  Way down in their gut, they must know their dreams may never come true, and it is quietly destroying them.

    Is “Revolutionary Road” a classic American film destined to be remembered for decades to come?  Or is it merely an over-praised, depressing work that will be forgotten once it hits DVD, a bizarre blip on the careers of the creators?  I tend to believe the former.  It is a sublime work of art and a demanding piece of cinema that takes audiences on a difficult journey through a rocky relationship that, for me, resembles the young years of George and Martha in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

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  • The top 10 shots of 2008: part two

    The Dark KnightToday we wrap up my list of the year’s best shots.  In case you missed it, have a look at part one here.

    Before digging into the top five today, I thought I would give a shout out to the images that almost made the cut, and there were a few.  For instance, who can forget the fateful shot of Harvey Milk ascending the stairs of San Francisco’s City Hall as Dan White stalks the corridors in the distance?  Similarly, how about the image of White from behind as he psyches himself into assassinating his fellow politician?

    Meanwhile, there was an array of images to choose from in “The Dark Knight,” certainly too many to name here.  As beloved as the image of Heath Ledger’s Joker is, breathing in his freedom and tearing off into the night in a Gotham patrol car, I chalk that up to performance as much as if not more than Wally Pfister’s work behind the camera.  But the iconography of James Gordon standing, arms crossed in front of the Bat signal was a difficult one for me to snub (for reasons you’ll find out after the jump).

    “Let the Right One In” will show up on today’s list, but one other image that came very close to making the cut for me was that of Eli’s victim bursting into flames on a hospital bed once exposed to sunlight streaming in through the window.  And though Maryse Alberti’s work on “The Wrestler” has already been represented, I was always tickled by the creativity of The Ram’s walk through the bowels of a supermarket deli, mirroring his walk to the ring.

    Finally, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” is loaded with wonderful cinematography.  The image I chose yesterday had personal value, but I also loved the long shot of young Jamal and young Salim on the roof of a train to start the film’s exciting montage, as well as the three-shot overhead view of the Mumbai slums during the film’s opening sequence.

    This is to say nothing of the work from fine lensers on films that just didn’t make the cut for whatever reason, but were nonetheless wonderful examples of cinematography this year.  “The Fall” (Colin Watkinson), “Gomorrah” (Marco Onorato), “The Reader” (Roger Deakins and Chris Menges) and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (Javier Aguirresarobe) are just a few examples.

    But enough of the also-rans, right?  Let’s get on with the real show: the five best shots of 2008…

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  • On the Sally Hawkins BAFTA snub

    Sally HawkinsOne of the biggest surprises from yesterday’s BAFTA nominations announcement was the exclusion of “Happy-Go-Lucky” across the board.  But at the very least, awards watchers might have expected a nod for Sally Hawkins, who has been tearing up the precursor circuit stateside and has a clear shot at nabbing an Oscar nomination one week from today.

    Daily Telegraph reporter Anita Singh cornered BAFTA chairman David Parfitt on the issue, and here’s what he had to say:

    It is always difficult. What’s most interesting is what came sixth? We have 200-300 films under consideration each year and there are probably 100 serious contenders, and we can only have five nominees. I’m sure that Sally got close, just as I’m sure Mike Leigh got close. But we can’t have everybody. Who would you drop out of the five? It’s hard, really hard.

    We might be saying the same thing about a certain Caped Crusader in a week if this last minute surge for “Gran Torino” and/or “The Reader” proves to be a major spoiler.

    An Oscar colleague is always telling me, “One day someone is going to write one of the greatest industry books of all time, listing the Oscar nomination and winner voting tallies throughout the years.”  That would make for fascinating reading indeed.  But do we really want to discover that “Chocolat” came in second to “Gladiator”‘s Best Picture win?

  • It seems like everyone’s out of town — then again…

    Sundance Film FestivalYou can still find a number of Sundance prep pieces across the Web.  And it seems more and more, the geek press will be out in force, as they were at Telluride last September, much to the surprise of a number of industry folks.  So I was starting to be quasi bummed that I couldn’t make the fest until that “Sundance is going to be a ghost town” stuff started to get louder and louder.

    Karina Longworth tracked down a few journalists to find out why they’re not going to Park City this year.  The reasons she came up with are the economy (duh), competing film festivals, the notion that New Media outlets getting the Sundance smackdown when applying for credentials, the Prop 8 protest and Sundance boycott and the fact that the trip just isn’t worth “the pain in the ass.”  And there’s always the inauguration to consider, for those making the trek to Washington on Jan. 20.

    Here’s one feisty journo on the supposed harshness of the festival:

    “Let’s be honest,” says Film Threat’s Lewis. “Sundance is an enormous pain in the ass. That’s not a knock against Sundance, it’s a fact. It’s cold, it’s crowded, it’s slippery, it’s hard to find time to eat and sleep, there’s thousands of looky-loos crowding the screenings, the movies are a total crap shoot and everyone ends up sick. As much as I’m sure I’ll be sorry I missed it this year, as of right now, we’re all kind of glad we aren’t going.”

    Read all about it here.

    I’ve never been to Sundance, but I’d love to go.  Typically I rail against the festival circuit because to me, it’s the least ideal environment for viewing a film.  Not to mention the fact that studios have, by and large, seized these events as their own publicity tour stops, drowning out the innocence of competition that might have been.  Still, there are those that seem to shed this stygma.

    With that in mind, I’ll be covering this year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival for 10 days starting Jan. 22.  I’ll make the drive up the coast after we finish processing the Oscar nominations and will set up shop from there all week (with a short trip back Jan. 30 to cover the USC Scripter Awards Gala).  Tune in.

  • After finishing off the Joker, Batman may have to fend off a Nazi and a biggot on the way to Oscar

    Kate Winslet in The ReaderA week ago with the announcement of the Directors Guild Awards (DGA), it seemed Christopher Nolan and “The Dark Knight” were headed for Oscar night, with nominations for Best Picture and Best Director highly likely. But like a full balloon with a slow leak, the air is slowly hissing out as “Gran Torino” and “The Reader” seem to be gaining momentum.

    I loved “The Dark Knight.” It was, for me, the best film of the year and highly deserving of top tier nominations. Regardless of its comic roots, Nolan’s accomplishment in giving the film a heart and soul on a grand scale is even greater, and I hope the Academy sees it that way.

    “Gran Torino” has gained enormous momentum since being released wide, racking up more than $30 million at the domestic box office.  Audiences are coming in droves to see Clint back on screen.  He surrounded himself with largely or complete unknowns, amplifying is screen presence.  Very shrewd.  Audiences are going to see him, possibly for the last time, as he portrays the sort of character they love to see.

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  • 1/15 Oscarweb Round-up

    Will Smith• Kim Voynar responds to the foreign shortlist. [Movie City News]

    • Pete Hammond wonders if “The Dark Knight” in dicey waters with the “Reader” surge coming on strong. [Notes on a Season]

    • Tom O’Neil thinks keeping the Oscar presenters a secret until the big night is a mistake.  Eh, I dig it. [Gold Derby]

    • Paula Schwartz catches up with Clint Eastwood at the National Board of Review awards. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Nirpal Dahliwal on why “Slumdog Millionaire” could have only been made by a westerner. [The Guardian]

    • The Press Association gets some Obama inauguration comments from Will Smith at the “Seven Pounds” red carpet across the pond. [The Independent]

    • The only nomination “The Dark Knight” will share with “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” all year long: the Publicist Awards. [Variety]