In Contention

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  • CONTEST: Win a beautiful ‘Benjamin Button’ coffee table book with your best haiku poem!

    Alright, here’s the first in a string of contests this week, kicking things off with an opportunity to win a copy of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: The Making of the Motion Picture,” a beautiful coffee table book with lovely images throughout in the vein of Taschen collectibles.  Have a look at the Amazon page here.  We’ve got two to give away.

    I wracked my brain over the best way to go here.  I didn’t want another boring caption contest, so I figured I’d get abstract.  HAIKU CONTEST!  Give us your best haiku poem on the perils of aging backwards in the comments section below.  The two best haikus take the prizes.  (And yes, multiple entries are acceptable.)  Make sure you’re singed in with a valid email address so we can notify the winners swiftly, and stay tuned later this week for more contests and giveaways.

    (FYI, haiku contest idea stolen outright from Sasha Stone and Awards Daily.)

    Cover of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: The Making of the Motion Picture

  • PGA nominations announced

    Well, it seems I was off by one.  Could this be the first year ever that the PGA matches with Oscar 5/5?  We’ll soon find out.  DGA on Thursday (the real precursor to watch), as well as the BFCA Awards.

    And the nominees are:

    Motion Picture
    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    “The Dark Knight”
    “Frost/Nixon”
    “Milk”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”

    Animated
    “Bolt”
    “Kung Fu Panda”
    “WALL-E”

    Documentary
    “Man on Wire”
    “Trouble the Water”
    “Standard Operating Procedure”

  • Broadway helmer Diane Paulus on ‘The Wrestler’

    Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerI stumbled across this interesting bit of praise for “The Wrestler” amid Variety’s typically dense Award Central section.  The high marks come from Broadway director Diane Paulus, who is set to open a revival of “Hair” on March 5.  I love her equation of professional wrestling to “one of the most powerful expressions of theater of our time.”

    Too often I think those who would rather bash wrestling for not being a “sport” per se miss the point that it is a brand of entertainment, a level of performance and worth plenty more than the uneducated, back-handed swipe it so often receives.  Thankfully, Darren Aronofsky and Robert D. Siegel understood that.  It’s refreshing to see someone like Paulus does as well:

    I have been fascinated by the world of professional wrestling for years. I believe that when theater in the 20th century is studied from the vantage point of 500 years from now, professional wrestling — and in particular, the heyday of 1980s wrestling — will emerge as one of the most powerful expressions of theater of our time. So, to watch Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” is to experience a long overdue homage to the power of professional wrestling. The film gets at the guts of what drives the allure of the ring for Randy “the Ram” Robinson — and through the charisma of Randy “the Ram” what draws in the bloodlust-driven spectators.

  • ‘Milk,’ ‘Slumdog,’ ‘WALL-E’ nominated by Vancouver critics

    Josh Brolin in MilkThe Vancouver Film Critics Circle have dished out their list of nominees, three per category, and “Milk,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “WALL-E” filled out the group’s Best Film ballot.  “Milk” and Philippe Falardeau’s “C’est pas moi, je le jure!” led the nominations tally with four mentions each.

    David Fincher showed up in the Best Director category for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” while Fernando Meirelles’s all but forgotten “Blindness” managed three performance nominations, all in the “in a Canadian film” fields.

    The nominees:

    Best Film
    “Milk”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”
    “WALL-E”

    Best Canadian Film
    “C’est pas moi, je le jure!”
    “Heaven on Earth”
    “The Necessities of Life”

    (More after the jump.)

    (more…)

  • ‘Wrestler’ leads with five OFCS nominations

    (from left) Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerA little late coming around to the Online Film Critics Society nominations, but eh, nothing terribly unique about them, beyond mentions for Benicio Del Toro in lead actor and “The Wrestler” in Best Pic (which led the field with five nominations).  I also like the novel choice of “Let the Right One In” as an adapted screenplay nominee (well, not THAT novel).

    It’s interesting to note a total lack of acting nominations for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

    Best Picture
    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    “The Dark Knight”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”
    “WALL-E”
    “The Wrestler”

    Best Director
    Darren Aronofsky, “The Wrestler”
    Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    David Fincher, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Christopher Nolan, “The Dark Knight”
    Andrew Stanton, “WALL-E”

    (More after the jump.)

    (more…)

  • R.I.P. Pat Hingle

    I love how much Commissioner Gordon detail Hingle offers up in this clip, which I believe is from the 2005 special edition DVD release of “Batman.” Especially considering none of that background was really utilized in Tim Burton’s film. Anyway, he will be missed. It’s a shame most one-off obits have paid strict attention to his “Batman” roles, ignoring wonderful work in films like “Hang ‘Em High,” but I suppose Gordon will be the most memorable role for most.

  • I’ve had it with this stuff

    Cover of Mad MagazineIf Jeffrey Wells’s consistent misplaced head-slapping over Heath Ledger’s death wasn’t enough, along comes this moron Jerry Portwood stirring more disrespect with the following:

    We don’t usually pay much attention to Mad Magazine, but when we saw their cover for their “20 Dumbest People, Events and Things” featured a version of Heath Ledger’s Joker, we had to laugh. Although Ledger himself doesn’t make the list (the complete 20 can be seen after the jump), accidentally killing yourself when you are about to star in one of the biggest movies in history should certainly get you ranked as one of the dumbest people. But in a year with so many other dumb dumb details, I guess he didn’t make the cut.

    I’ve seriously had it with this mean-spirited, willful segment of the journalistic community that thinks it’s okay to be so dreadfully judgemental of this scenario, now nearly a year old if you can believe it.  It’s easy to be up on the white tower with your laptop slinging subjectivity and another thing altogether to be in the trenches as a driven, hard-working actor who dedicates himself and might just need a little help getting to sleep at night.

    It was a tragedy, plain and simple.  Nothing “stupid” about it.  Walk in his shoes, then you have the right to say something so vile.  Until then, you’re just another douche bag with an opinion no one wants to hear.

    We’ve all been there.

  • 1/5 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Bill Condon and Laurence Mark• “Che” tops David Poland’s top 10 list, which also includes…”Mamma Mia!”  That’s originality for ya. [The Hot Blog]

    • David Carr does some number crunching on a few Best Picture contenders. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Michael Cieply spends some time with the producers of this year’s Oscar telecast. [New York Times]

    • Lewis Beale on the Jewish image in Hollywood. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Brad Brevet draws a connection between Walt Kowalski and Ethan Edwards. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Christopher Rosen spotlights performances from “Ghost Town,” “Che” and “The Visitor” as the year’s most overlooked. [New York Observer]

    • Karina Longworth responds to negativity over her dubious review of “Dear Zachary.” [Spout Blog]

    • A week old, but yours truly walks through the acting critics awards landscape at year’s end with a few organization members. [Variety]

  • Fitzgerald biopic gets an upgrade

    I must admit my heart sank last year when it was announced that Nick Cassavetes was slated to direct “The Beautiful and the Damned.”

    The story of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unhappy, alcohol-fuelled marriage to the Zelda Sayre, the schizophrenic socialite who became the embodiment of Flapper glamour, it should, by rights, make for pretty powerful cinema. With “Benjamin Button” on everyone’s minds at the moment, and the intriguing possibility of Baz Luhrmann filming “The Great Gatsby,” the moment is ripe for a Fitzgerald study on film.

    Cassevetes, however, was hardly a safe pair of hands for the project: his first two features were patchily promising enough, but “John Q,” “The Notebook” and “Alpha Dog” inspired little confidence in his abilities. So I’m thrilled to hear that he is out, and that John Curran, a far more interesting (and suitable) filmmaker, is now on board.

    Curran’s last two films, 2004’s searing “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” and his exquisite 2006 follow-up, the Maugham adaptation “The Painted Veil,” were both among the most undervalued films of their respective years. The latter, in particular, demonstrated a fine grasp of the period, and literary sensibility, that is necessary to take on Fitzgerald as a subject.

    Keira Knightley is still attached to play Sayre; there may be grumbles about the young Brit beauty doing yet another period piece, but it strikes me as smart casting, and a formidable challenge for the actress. If she pulls it off, it could bear more fruit than her recent attempts at Oscar-chasing. No word yet on who’s playing Fitzgerald, but if anyone’s listening, might I suggest Ryan Gosling?

  • Pre-PGA housekeeping

    I hadn’t realized I’d let my predictions linger, unattended, since November — I revised them in my head and guess I thought that would somehow magically appear on the site. Anyway, I thought it best to do some cobweb-clearing before the PGA announcement later today (for the record, I’m going with “Button,” “Knight” “Milk,” “Slumdog” and “WALL-E”) sends the guessing game into a new dimension. You can find my revised nomination predictions here.

    I’m still playing with some quirky, no doubt foolhardy, notions, but I like to keep things fun before the Guilds force us to get serious. Many categories still look like a complete crap-shoot to me: in the confounding Best Actress race, for example, I’m experimenting with a Kate Winslet snub, while dipping (reluctantly) into the Angelina Jolie pool for the first time. It doesn’t feel good.

    In the top race, I’m still banking on “WALL-E” leapfrogging “The Dark Knight” as the populist choice, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see both in there. I’m happy with four of my Best Picture runners, but couldn’t settle on a fifth: “Revolutionary Road” is freezing over, “Frost/Nixon” has ticked all the boxes but doesn’t seem to be anyone’s favourite, and the other most-mentioned contenders are a pretty passionless bunch too. Instead of flipping a coin between them, I decided to go a little crazy and try “Happy-Go-Lucky” on for size.

    Below the cut, for the hell of it, some winner picks to accompany Kris’s last week. In the top race, I’ve moved on from my earlier prediction of a “Milk” victory (seeing the film helps sometimes), but something still doesn’t feel right about “Slumdog Millionaire” to me — it seems like the kind of film that would benefit from going into the Oscar race as an underdog rather than the favourite. I honestly have no idea, so I’ll take that as an excuse to go mental again until I get a clearer sign.

    (more…)

  • Coming up: contest week!

    Now that I’m back from the holidays and getting some things back in order, I’ve decided I’ve got more swag for my own good.  So in the interest of making some space at casa de Tapley, we’re having a week full of giveaways.  So all you “Benjamin Button,” “Dark Knight” and “WALL-E” fans, get your thinking caps on.

    More tomorrow.

  • For the completists

    Over at Gold Derby, Tom O’Neil lists all the runners-up (with points tallies) from yesterday’s National Society of Film Critics awards, along with other gossipy tidbits from the days proceedings. (Most stupid/amusing nugget: Eve, the eerily Applesque female robot from “WALL-E,” garnered a lone Best Actress vote.)

    The full list is below the cut, but here are a couple of bits and bobs that jumped out at me. It’s interesting to see that Sally Hawkins and Sean Penn won their respective categories by a landslide, in a single round of voting. (Seriously, what does distant runner-up Mickey Rourke have to do to gain some traction?)

    Meanwhile, “Waltz With Bashir” pulled off its stunning Best Picture victory in the second round of voting, after its animated cohort “WALL-E” led in the first round. Talk about a good day for the animated medium. What a second Best Picture citation from one of the ‘big three’ critics groups could have done for “WALL-E”s chances is a matter for contemplation, but it’s still very much on the radar — I’m still betting (naively, perhaps) it’ll make the Academy’s top five.

    Elsewhere it’s nice to see Michelle Williams’ extraordinary work in “Wendy and Lucy” at least appearing in the mix, while “Synecdoche, New York” and “A Christmas Tale” (narrowly behind “Happy-Go-Lucky”) make the NSFC’s Best Screenplay table a very classy one indeed. An interesting oddity in the Best Supporting Actress category is that Viola Davis actually tied on points with winner Hanna Schygulla (a truly inspired choice, for my money), but was placed second as she appeared on fewer ballots.

    Finally, can I just say how much I love these guys for giving Eddie Marsan some props? Finally.

    (more…)

  • An unfortunate precedent

    With Sally Hawkins and Sean Penn each picking up a gong from the National Society of Film Critics yesterday, the two actors thus complete the trifecta of major critics’ awards, having already taken the New York and Los Angeles critics’ respective honors. (I know some refer to the ‘big four,’ but we all know the National Board of Review isn’t really a critics’ group.)

    Ordinarily, such a sweep would make both shoo-ins for an Oscar nomination, which is certainly true in Penn’s case. Hawkins, however, continues an unusual awards trajectory — the unequivocal critical favorite who has been unaccountably overlooked by SAG and the Broadcast Film Critics. I remain confident Hawkins will find her way into the Oscar circle, but those peculiar snubs prevent her from being the slam-dunk she should be.

    With that in mind, I did some historical digging to find out if there’s a precedent for an actor taking the ‘big three’ critics’ prizes, and yet missing out on an Oscar nomination. As it turns out, there is one, and his name is Bill Murray.

    His hilarious supporting turn in 1998’s “Rushmore” (which remains, for me, the only element of a Wes Anderson film I’ve ever wholly liked) essentially instigated the revival of Murray’s cool, and was duly rewarded by the NYFCC, LAFCA and NSFC, but neither SAG, nor the Academy, were amused. Chances are the film was too eccentric for their tastes, or Murray was still too prickly a figure for them to embrace as they did (sort of, at least) five years later.

    (more…)

  • Sean Penn wins critical trio, seems poised for Oscar

    Sean Penn at the 76th Annual Academy AwardsThe Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics Circle have agreed nine times on their choice for best actor of the year, including Sean Penn this year for his riveting work in “Milk.”  On five of those occasions, the gentleman has gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

    Robert De Niro was first for “Taxi Driver,” one of the great film performances which lost the Oscar to Peter Finch in “Network,” a posthumous award for the British actor.  Dustin Hoffman would win across the board three years later for “Kramer vs. Kramer.”  In 1981, Burt Lancaster won across the critical board for “Atlantic City,” but he lost the Oscar to sentimental favorite Henry Fonda in “On Golden Pond.”

    British actor Bob Hoskins would nab all three critical awards for his decent mobster in “Mona Lisa” but had no chance against Paul Newman in “The Color of Money” come Oscar time.  Daniel Day-Lewis has twice won the critical hat trick with “My Left Foot” and last year for “There Will Be Blood,” making him the only double winner of the honors.

    Nicolas Cage won all three critics prizes for his doomed drunkard in “Leaving Las Vegas,” no doubt edging out Sean Penn in “Dead Man Walking.”  And for his seething work as Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland,” acting great Forest Whitaker won with the critics and with Oscar.

    Sean Penn seems poised to take the golden guy one more time…

  • ‘9’ vs. ‘Nine’ in…2009

    NineUPDATE (8:41pm): Glenn from Stale Popcorn wants it known he was lord of this observation a long time ago.  With the animated film “$9.99” thrown in to boot.  Got it?

    EARLIER: Gregory Ellwood has made a shrewd observation about next year’s Oscar race that could prove to be an interesting source of confusion for some voting bodies.  Here’s the crux of his argument:

    Now, it’s rare that Hollywood studios don’t work out movie titles before production begins.  In fact, that’s one of the unknown benefits of being a member of the MPAA, they make sure everyone plays fair in such matters (or they make you play fair).  However, two movies with the same title, but spelled differently, are heading for release later this year: Focus Feature’s CG animated flick “9” and the Weinstein Company’s expected last gasp, “Nine.”

    Normally, this wouldn’t matter much except for one thing: “Nine” is a total Oscar bait flick.  Meaning?  Although it’s filled with big names like Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench and Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson, the musical’s box office performance is highly dependent on Awards Season love and, just about a year from now, Oscar nominations to drive its second wave of revenue.  And yet, when the list of possible Oscar nominees appear on voter’s doorsteps (known as the Reminder List of Eligible Releases), do you know what title will be at the top of the list?  “9.”  No, not Harvey’s hope for “Chicago Deux,” but the post-apocalyptic animated flick that has online geeks buzzing.  See, the nominee list members receive is alphabetical, but numbered titles appear first and there is little doubt that “9” will be a part of that list as well.

    Can’t believe I didn’t think of this already.  Anyway, check out the rest at HitFix.

  • NSFC goes with ‘Bashir’ and ‘Happy’ in a big way

    Waltz with BashirThis is just like the National Society of Film Critics.  Sorry, just coming around to this (football has taken some precedence this afternoon as I unwind post-vacation).  “Waltz with Bashir” may have taken the top prize, but “Happy-Go-Lucky” was the clear favorite.  Perhaps added fuel to the film’s Oscar fire.  Lone director nomination?  Hmmm…

    Best Picture
    “Waltz with Bashir”

    Best Director
    Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Actor
    Sean Penn, “Milk”

    Best Actress
    Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Supporting Actor
    Eddie Marsan, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Supporting Actress
    Hanna Schygulla, “The Edge of Heaven”

    Best Screenplay
    “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Cinematography
    “Slumdog Millionaire”

    Best Non-Fiction Film
    “Man on Wire”

    Best Experimental Film
    “Razzle Dazzle”

  • ‘Dark Knight’ dude?

    Okay, every time this Wendy’s “3conomics” commercial runs, I get distracted for a minute because I SWEAR the guy on the left is the lunatic Harvey Dent abducts after the mayor’s funeral service in “The Dark Knight.”  You know, “His name is Shiff.  Thomas.  A paranoid schizophrenic admitted to Arkham. The kind of mind The Joker attracts.”  That guy.  Am I crazy?

  • Back

    Now that that’s out of my system, Oscar season continues…