In Contention

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  • Some suggestions for Special Edition DVDs

    United Artists' Heaven's GateEvery week, much to the delight of my children, several packages arrive at my door containing DVDs, movies that are not yet released in the home market that I am expected to review. Tough work, ain’t it? Seriously, I would do what I do just for the free movies.

    That said, I have followed the history of DVD very closely and the manner in which several studios double dip with their releases. Most recently we have “The Godfather Restoration,” which is superb, but represents the third such DVD release for these films. The first came in 2001, The Godfather Trilogy, and then each film was released on its own so folks not wanting Part III could pass (sorry Kris).

    Another film that went through many incarnations before the Ultimate Collector’s Edition was “Blade Runner,” though last year’s final release should be the final release. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” went through several variations before coming to us in the ultimate edition, minus, of course, “Hearts of Darkness,” the splendid doc about the film’s making. What might have been cool is to see some footage of Harvey Keitel as Willard (if it exists).

    But it all leads me to wonder which films out there deserve a double disc/special edition release.

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  • ‘O’ Horten’ among further Foreign Film entries

    Leading a quick roundup of some recent entries in the Best Foreign Language Film race, Norway has unsuprisingly selected Bent Hamer’s absurdist comedy “O’ Horten” as their pony. The film garnered a number of followers at Cannes and Telluride, with Variety declaring it a “warm and gently humorous divertissement.”

    I was a big fan of Hamer’s previous films “Kitchen Stories” and “Factotum,” the latter a sadly underexposed Charles Bukowski adaptation that featured a career-best performance from Matt Dillon. I’m looking forward to “O’ Horten”; I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the final shortlist, at least.

    Other titles joining the mix (that we haven’t already reported) include:

    “Taare Zameen Par,” from India, starring and directed by Aamir Khan, a 2001 nominee for “Lagaan”;

    “Last Stop 174,” from Brazil, a Toronto entry from Bruno Barreto, a 1997 nominee for the brilliant “Four Days in September”;

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  • 9/23 Oscarweb Round-up

    I'm not talentless!• Does the Governor really deserve to top a list of the 10 most talentless people in Hollywood? [The Movie Blog]

    • Richard Rushfield hangs out at the Emmys’ Governor’s Ball. [The Envelope]

    • Fans ask Daniel Craig the questions. [The Guardian]

    • Logan Hill’s four “must see” films at this year’s New York Film Festival. [New York Magazine]

    • Chuck Palahniuk’s five favorite films. [Rotten Tomatoes]

    …and that’s about it…lots of Emmy talk out there, though (not personally interested).

  • POLL: How do you feel about Bond’s missing catch phrases in ‘Quantum of Solace?’

    In this morning’s Oscarweb round-up, we linked to a story in London’s Independent newspaper about the upcoming 22nd installment of the James Bond franchise, “Quantum of Solace.”  It appears director Marc Forster and company have opted to exclude the infamous catch phrase, “Bond. James Bond.” from the film’s script.  Also getting the cut is the “shaken, not stirred” aside that we all know and love.  It’s an unexpected departure that could have a few fans up-in-arms…or not.

    So in this week’s poll, I thought I’d ask the readership: is this a travesty or no big deal at all?  Tell us in the sidebar poll!

  • No Oscar column this week

    There is really nothing to say or add, so rather than scraping together some thoughts (which I can certainly do, but it would be a lot of disjointed…stuff…at this point), I thought it better to wait and see what the week brings us.

  • 9/22 Oscarweb Round-up

    Quantum of Solace• “Real” men of the screen are a dying breed, according to Peter Bart. [Peter Bart]

    • Journos keep beating a dead horse about the new “At the Movies” failure. [eFilmCritic]

    • And again. [The Hot Blog]

    • Anne Thompson salutes Telluride and New York for steering clear of high profile American cinema, but as she notes, was there really a choice this year? [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Erik Davis talks Bond with Daniel Craig and Marc Forster. [Cinematical]

    • Speaking of Bond, apparently the character won’t be uttering a few of his infamous lines in the latest installment. [The Independent]

    • John Horn sits down with Diablo Cody on the set of “Jennifer’s Body.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Dennis Lim, meanwhile, chats it up with “Class” director Laurent Canet in the wake of his film landing the official French foreign film selection for this year’s Academy Awards. [New York Times]

    • Giles Hattersly gets some quality time with “I’ve Loved You So Long” star Kristin Scott Thomas. [The Times]

    • Kevin Kelly talks to “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” director Kevin Smith at Fantastic Fest. [Spout Blog]

  • At last, ‘Revolutionary Road’ trailer

    Minus the banal yammering of Mary Hart smothering it all.

    Still pretty, still powerful, still promising. DiCaprio looks particularly good here, I think.

  • Adding galleries

    Just an FYI, we’re adding photo galleries to the individual film/buzz pages linked in the predictions sidebar and the Contenders sections.  Just a way of expanding these areas and provide the most information possible on the year’s awards hopefuls.  A few are already up and running.  Maybe making some headway on that forum/messahe board too, but more on that later.

  • Doh!

    While doing some “Slumdog Millionaire” research, I stumbled across this YoUTube clip of some poor bastard missing the first question on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” I know I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did:

  • “To a place where we know we are loved”

    This may be a movie awards site, but it would be remiss of us not to acknowledge that the Emmy awards take place tonight. I find it difficult to get invested in the Emmys when they so brazenly ignore landmark television on a yearly basis — this is the group that waited until “The Sopranos”‘ fifth season to give it the gold, and never even got around to rewarding such shows as “Six Feet Under” or “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

    Suffice to say that if they snub “Mad Men” tonight — as I suspect they will — I’ll care about the Emmys even less than I already do. Still, my fingers are crossed for Matthew Weiner’s magnificent series, not because it needs any kind of validation, but because anything that might raise its viewing figures is to be welcomed.

    As a tribute to the show, here is a fascinating scene from the first season’s finale that neatly summates the show’s numerous virtues: the rigorous intelligence and economy of the writing (there is so much going on subtextually in these three minutes), the refreshingly languid pacing, the impeccable production values and the galvanizing star presence of Jon Hamm. (Could he be the next George Clooney?) Watch and savour:

  • If you’re not doing anything else…

    I’ve just found out that, any minute now, a two-hour interview with Philip Glass will begin on BBC Radio 6. Glass is inarguably one of the most fascinating composers of our era, and he doesn’t grant interviews all that often, so this is quite special.

    He’ll be discussing “Glass Box,” the new 10-disc boxset of his work which is out soon, and I’m sure his film work will come up in the interview. Listen here.

  • The under-appreciated

    (from left) John Wayne and James Stewart in The ShootistWe all know that there are brilliant films that sometimes never find an audience, slipping out of theatres long before they should and often disappearing into the void of the home market.

    In fairness, the advent of VHS and now DVD has allowed for such films to be re-discovered by future generations, and VHS was easily responsible for saving “Blade Runner” in the 1980s.  But these types of films deserved beter in their initial runs. Perhaps the studios were not clear on how to release them (often the case).  Perhaps critics did not get the film.  Or perhaps audiences just stayed away despite strong reviews.  Whatever the reason, there are often times that a great film just doesn’t catch on.

    I am currently contracted to write a study of the films Steven Spielberg has directed, and following that, I will be writing a study of under-appreciated films from the 1970s and 1980s. This has now been expanded into a decade-by-decade series, beginning with the 1980s (to be released in 2010), then the 1970s, the 1990s and the current decade, each one a year apart.  For obvious reasons, I am quite excited about them.

    For me, some of the more under-appreciated gems from the 1970s and 1980s for me have been films like “Black Sunday,” featuring an Osca-caliber performance from Bruce Dern, and still the best film ever made about international terrorism; John Wayne’s last film, “The Shootist,” in which The Duke portrays an aging gunslinger dying of cancer when he himself was being ravaged by the disease; the odd little western “The Missouri Breaks,” with Brando and Nicholson going toe-to-toe; the sensational musical “Hair,” directed by Oscar winner Milos Forman, who really does recreate the summer of love.

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  • MySpace is now a Spike Lee joint

    Filmmaker Spike Lee is hoofing it online to get his new film “Miracle at St. Anna” out to the masses, “by any means necessary.”  He’s launched a brand new MySpace page that has the trailer for the film and a few clips as well.  Ah well, despite the movie, I gotta add him as a friend, right?  He’s Spike!

    Here’s his intro video:

    My review of the film. And John’s.

  • Best Original Screenplay: beyond the obvious

    Everyone has a favourite Oscar category, and Best Original Screenplay is mine. It’s partly because I’m a screenwriter myself, so I feel a little more invested in the outcome. My evaluation of the category often comes down to the question: “Which screenplay do I most wish I’d written first?”

    More importantly, however, it’s the category where the Academy takes its greatest artistic risks. With the Best Picture category generally weighted towards adaptations, they often use Best Original Screenplay as a way to acknowledge the edgier, more adventurous work that voters can see the greatness of, but don’t yet have the guts to honour with their biggest prize. Hell, once in a blue moon they even give it to (gasp) a foreign-language film.

    It’s this convenient ghettoising mentality that ensures the likes of “Citizen Kane,” “The Red Balloon,” “Chinatown,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Talk to Her” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” don’t go empty-handed. Sure, it sucks that they couldn’t win more. And, being the Academy, they make more than their share of screw-ups. (Let’s try and forget that, in 1960, “Pillow Talk” beat — wait for it — “Wild Strawberries,” “North by Northwest” and “The 400 Blows,” shall we?) But they occasionally hit on an otherwise-snubbed masterpiece, and for that we should be grateful.

    This year’s Best Picture slate appears to be heavy on prestige adaptations, allowing for a more idiosyncratic ragbag of contenders on the Original Screenplay front, mixing familiar Academy-anointed favourites with some exciting new voices.

    There is, of course, a chance this could be a year when the paths of the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay races converge, principally in the shape of “Milk” scribe Dustin Lance Black. Already high hopes for “Milk” were amplified by an excellent trailer, and a number of Oscar clairvoyants are labelling it the front-runner in the top race. If this turns out to be the case, Black will likely benefit.

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  • 9/21 Oscarweb Round-up

    NOTHING.  Seriously, everyone seems to be taking the week off.  Except the industrious Nathaniel Rogers, who has revamped his Oscar predictions over at The Film Experience, of course.  Other than that, it’s all quite on the Oscar front.

    Happy Sunday.  And as always, go Skins!

  • Message board?

    I’ve been receiving more and more requests for/queries about a message board/forum here at In Contention.  I’m certainly pleased with the community that’s developing in the comments section (since the site was never really geared toward such a thing until recently), but I wanted to toss it out to the readership.  Would you be interested in a message board here or would it be a waste of space?

    I know sometimes there are topics you’d like to get into that aren’t necessarily addressed in the day-to-day posting, but then a sense of distance is always healthy, too (given the drama that can ensue with such an additive).

    Anyway, let us know.  Forum or no forum?

  • ‘Brothers Bloom’ trailer

    Just getting around to posting this…

  • What does early (and excessive) Oscar hype do to a film’s chances?

    Cover of Entertainment Weekly featuring The CrucibleIn 1996, a fall movie preview of Entertainment Weekly arrived in my mailbox, the cast of “The Crucible” staring back at me on the cover, making clear to me this was going to be THE film of the fall. There were rumors floating within the industry that the film, based on the Arthur Miller play, could conceivably be nominated for 12 or 13 Academy Awards, and it seemed a cinch for at least a Best Picture nod.

    Having directed the play twice, studied it at length in university and being a huge Arthur Miller fan, I was thrilled that the film was finally going to get the intense big screen version it deserve. The 1959 French adaptation was okay, but not enough people had actually seen it. Here was a chance for one of the greatest dramas of the 20th century to make the transition to film with a superb cast, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Joan Allen, Paul Schofield and Winona Ryder.

    Somewhere along the way Fox panicked and released the film late in December, and though Day-Lewis finished second in balloting for the New York Film Critics Awards, the picture never caught fire as it had been predicted to do. Instead it was a dismal box office failure, nabbing only a supporting actress nomination for Joan Allen and an adapted screenplay nod for Miller.

    “The Crucible” is a great film, with powerhouse performances from Day-Lewis, Allen and Ryder, though many critics attacked the latter. But was the film a victim of over hype, or were audiences simply too familiar with the story? What happened?

    The same sort of thing almost happened to Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” which at this time in 2005 was being touted as not just an Oscar nominee, but the likely winner for Best Picture and Best Director, sight unseen. It opened and was very good, but it wasn’t the searing masterpiece everyone had been hoping for.  And somehow “Crash” won the Best Picture prize.

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