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  • UPDATED: Want to hear Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Wrestler’ song?

    Bruce SpringsteenThe closing credits track from Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” a modest little ditty cooked up by the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, is one of the elements of this buzz-hogging flick that has fans foaming at the mouth in anticipation.

    Well, it seems some industrious soul turned on a recorder at a recent screening of the flick.  That’s my best guess judging by the rough audio quality and the burst of applause at the beginning…

    BUT IT PAINS ME TO SAY that Fox Searchlight has asked us to take the song down.

    Sorry.  Not entirely unexpected, of course, but if you had a chance to listen, consider yourself lucky.  Personally, I think it’s vintage Boss, a solid number that seems a perfect fit for what this film appears to be.  Someone has also taken a stab at transcribing the lyrics, which are, as expected, sublime.

    And by the way, if you didn’t notice in today’s Oscarweb Round-up, excerpts from Clint Mansell’s score for the film have popped up on the composer’s MySpace page.  Typical Mansell, ambient, atmospheric, etc.  When is this guy going to get some Oscar love?

  • REVIEW: “The Duchess” (**1/2)

    Paramount Vantage\'s The DuchessThere’s a startling scene near the beginning of “The Duchess,” in which the teenaged Georgiana Spencer (Keira Knightley) has intercourse for the first time with her new husband, the much older Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes). Ordered, with dispassionate reserve, to strip naked and lie on the bed, Georgiana trembles with positive terror as her husband enters her with all the wordless efficiency of a man fulfilling a prescribed brief; Knightley’s exquisite face gradually crumbles as it dawns on her that this is how it shall always be.

    It’s a brilliantly unsettling bit of visual storytelling — and it’s all the more memorable in retrospect because nothing else in this lavishly appointed historical biopic comes close to matching its emotional honesty or alluring strangeness.

    I was never bored watching “The Duchess,” but I was never exactly engaged either. The film has the slick, diverting pull of a glossy magazine article, and goes about that deep. Knightley’s Georgiana is sufficiently sympathetic to carry you with her through the various storytelling hoops, but as the credits rolled, I didn’t feel I knew her at all.

    The story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, is simple enough. Forced at 17 into a loveless marriage to a frigid aristocrat, she has but one duty to fulfill: provide the Duke with a male heir. As she repeatedly fails to deliver on this “promise,” bearing only daughters, her increasingly cruel husband engages in a series of barely-concealed affairs, the last of which culminates in an awkward ménage à trois with Georgiana’s former confidante, the disgraced Bess Foster (Hayley Atwell). Georgiana, meanwhile, falls in ill-fated love with handsome future Prime Minister Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper).

    Even if you don’t know the history, it’s a familiar narrative with a number of clear reference points, both cinematic and historical, from the story of Marie-Antoinette (especially as told in Sofia Coppola’s impressionistic re-imagining) to that of Georgiana’s own great-great-great-great-niece, Princess Diana (the connection to which has been so crassly emphasized in the film’s marketing here in the UK).

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  • Top 10 F-bombs of all time

    Andre Rivas has posted a great new top 10 list over at Rope of Silicon: The top 10 F-Bomb movie moments.  It’s impossible to argue with the #1 position, of course, but with all the Spike Lee talk lately due to “Miracle at St. Anna,” I took a minute to play the “25th Hour” sequence.

    It probably stands as one of the director’s most impassioned moments.  It might even be his most fully realized work to date, a five minute diatribe against all the people and neighborhoods of New York City before Edward Norton’s Monty Brogan actually looks into the mirror he’s been shouting at the whole time and finds the clarity of perspective.

    If only Spike could find his way back to this place of zen.  Because when he’s firing on all cylinders, he’s one of the masters:

  • Fox Searchlight picks up ‘The Wrestler’

    This morning’s poll wasn’t even an hour old before Anne Thompson reported that Fox Searchlight won a bidding war for Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.”  Hell, I didn’t even get a chance to vote in it myself.

    Here’s what she has to say:

    In the first major buy of the Toronto International Film Festival, Fox Searchlight won an intense all-night bidding war for Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, which days before had won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Fest. Searchlight acquired U.S. rights for about $4 million.

    After the packed screening of The Wrestler at Toronto’s Elgin last night, buyers huddled on the street and eventually, made their way to the Four Seasons Hotel to make their bids and pitch their release plans. An Oscar-campaign for Mickey Rourke’s rough-and-tumble, vulnerable performance as a wrestler on the ropes was an essential component of the deal. Most distribs were offering a Monster-style Oscar-qualifying late-year platform with a wider release in January.

    Frankly, I’m somewhat surprised.  “The Wrestler” isn’t in the Searchlight wheelhouse, exactly.  Not that versatility is the issue, but I honestly expected Sony Classics or Miramax to dive in deeper.  But this adds to a new narrative coming out of Toronto: Fox Searchlight is walking out of the fest with a hell of a one-two punch in this and Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire.”  And the studio has proven time and again that it knows how to usher films to Oscar pastures.

    Boy did this race change in the course of a week.  We’ve got a new poll up now, so tell us how you feel about this acquisition.

    Here’s some footage from the film with Aronofsky and Rourke talking their process. I love that Aronofsky told it like it was to Rourke, RE: the actor’s washed-up career:

  • Sweet ‘Wrestler’ promo poster

    I love this old-school event poster for Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.”  Smart:

    The Wrestler

  • OFF THE CARPET: Indies on the march

    (from left) Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerMaybe mid-way through the Toronto Film Festival, two things are strikingly clear: Darren Aronofsky has the goods with “The Wrestler” and Danny Boyle’s streak of successful versatility at the helm continues with “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    Both films, which enjoy pre-Toronto success at Venice and Telluride respectfully, are also evidence that surprises will happen this time of year.  And with an uncharacteriztically level playing field in Toronto this year, we should be thankful they are getting a fair shake.

    One of them is set for distribution, however, while the other is waiting out a buyer.  But will “The Wrestler” find a home and see a release in 2008 or will an awards-heavy distributor pick it up and save it for a rainy day in 2009’s awards season?

    Both options are on the table, it’s just a matter of who bites first, and what they bring to the table.

    On the horizon, everyone is awaiting their post-Toronto peeks at films like “Australia,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Milk” (landing a trailer this week) and “The Soloist.”  David Fincher’s 20 minutes of footage from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” may have been caught off guard by over-zealous bloggers in Telluride, but the damage may not have been as considerable as some may have thought.

    Speaking of “The Soloist,” chatter is making its way out of the Paramount camp that Robert Downey Jr. is outstanding as LA Times columnist Steve Lopez and hopes are high for a Best Actor nomination.  And as far as “Milk” is concerned, prognosticators may have the wrong idea going in as to which supporting performance has the awards-worthy chops.  More on that at a later date.

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  • POLL: Which studio will pick up ‘The Wrestler?’

    Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerUPDATE 9:24 a.m.: Boy, I expected this to have a short shelf-life, but not an hour or two!  Anyway, check here for the latest and check out the new poll in the sidebar.

    EARLIER: This poll might have a short shelf life, since studios are chomping at the bit in Toronto right now and a deal could be made as early as today, but I thought I’d put it out to the readership.

    Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” is one of the hottest Toronto tickets this year, but which studio seems most likely to pick it up for domestic distribution?  Keep in mind, a purchase doesn’t necessarily mean a 2008 release.  As one industry friend mentioned earlier this week, it’s just as likely that a studio with a lead actor heavy could pick up the film and save it for next year’s season.

    Bit with that in mind, let’s look through the possibilities:

    Sony Pictures Classics tends to nurture work like this.  One of the most tried and true dependents in the game, the studio doesn’t have a major actor horse in the derby and could be just the thing for Mickey Rourke’s campaign.

    Magnolia Films, meanwhile, is apparently in talks to distribute Steven Soderbergh’s “Che,” which shares a production company with “The Wrestler” in the form of Wild Bunch.  Maybe.  (The majority of IC readers seem to think a two-film release plan for “Che” could hurt its Oscar chances, by the way, judging from last week’s poll.)

    What about Miramax Films?  Lots of ladies on the studio’s docket, but nothing much for the men.  A Philip Seymour Hoffman here and a Mark Ruffalo there could easily take a backseat to an all-engines-go shove for Rourke.

    Focus Features?  “Milk” is going to be the clear focus (no pun intended) for James Schamus and company.  Fox Searchlight?  Peter Price and his team of savy campaigners already picked up an awards heavy in “Slumdog Millionaire” recently.  Are they ready to throw another log on the fire?

    I don’t expect Paramount Vantage to make any purchases at the fest, and most of the majors seem to be satisfied with their still unseen fall product, so I’d say these three are the best bets.  So let’s hear it from the readers…

    Which studio will pick up “The Wrestler?”

  • 9/8 Oscarweb Round-up

    Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks in Zack and Miri Make a Porno• Jen Yamato wonders what the hell happened to Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr. [Rotten Tomatoes]

    • Jeffrey Wells puts up a positive review of Kevin Smith’s “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” philosophizes on the photographical approach to actually shooting a porno. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Logan Hill profiles “The Brothers Bloom” star Rachel Weisz back East. [New York Magazine]

    • Scott Macaulay goes party-hopping in Toronto. [Filmmaker Magazine]

    • Dave Karger and Missy Schwartz put together a video mid-term report for Toronto. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Focus Features honcho James Schamus is honored with the Trailblazer Award at the Woodstock Film Festival.  WELL deserved. [MovieMaker Magazine]

    • Lou Lumenick considers Dakota Fanning a “formidable actress” in “The Secret Life of Bees,” but doesn’t see Oscar on the horizon. [Lumenick on Film]

    • A preview of Clint Mansell’s “Wrestler” score pops up online…I’m loving it. [MySpace]

    • Tommy Lee Jones sues Paramount over “No Country for Old Men” profits.  Show me the money. [Associated Press]

    • Anne Thompson’s heart goes out to Charlie Kaufman. [Thompson on Hollywood]

  • Strike two for Viggo?

    A few weeks ago, Viggo Mortensen was riding high going into awards season, with no fewer than three baity-looking prospects on his slate: Ed Harris’ western “Appaloosa,” Holocaust drama “Good” and the eagerly-awaited “The Road.”

    At Toronto, however, the picture has cleared, and the options have narrowed. First off the bat, “Appaloosa” was greeted with a shrug, both here and elsewhere. And now, if Variety’s damning review is anything to go by, “Good” faces an even more indifferent reception:

    This tepid adaptation has an international-pudding feel unlikely to spark much critical or aud enthusiasm … Considering its theme and setting, there’s something very wrong with a “Good” that seems merely competent, uninspired and a bit old-hat. But the milieu, characters and emotions just don’t come alive. (Director) Amorim brings little personality or passion to the material … the often impressive Mortensen can’t make Halder much more than a stereotypical academic milquetoast.

    I must say that’s pretty much what I expected. Sure, the Academy often responds well to Holocaust stories, but the director couldn’t have a lower profile, and that trailer always looked rather stodgy to me.

    So another one bites the dust, it seems. Mortensen will be disappointed — according to Anne Thompson, he had pinned his personal Oscar hopes on “Good.” Now it looks like “The Road” is the right horse after all — but we knew that all along, right?

  • “Ms. Huston, we have a problem.”

    I love Anjelica Huston. Always have — ever since she scared the shit out my 7 year-old self in “The Witches.” We don’t see her enough on screen, so it’s nice to see her indulging in a little bit of self-parody.

    The Orange Film Funding Board ads, featuring an ongoing parade of slightly past-their-peak thesps, are one of the pleasures of going to the movies in the UK. (Kris was similarly tickled by the Rob Lowe one a few months back.) This latest one isn’t their best, but Huston cracks me up:

  • TORONTO: ‘Lovely, Still,’ ‘Blindness’

    Miramax Films\' BlindnessFinally, a great little film…

    I love it when a film comes out of nowhere, from an unlikely source, a new talent, old talents re-discovering their gifts, or something that just plains shocks the hell out of the audience with its audacity and brilliance.

    That happened to me today with the wonderful, heartbreaking love story “Lovely, Still,” boasting Oscar-caliber performances from Ellen Burstyn and Martin Landau. More on that later.

    I also finally saw the new cut of “Blindness,” as well as “Good,” the second Viggo Mortensen starrer to hit the festival this year. At this writing I still have to go see “The Burning Plain” later tonight.

    Part of the day was spent chatting it up with Ellen Burstyn (a lovely lady), Martin Landau (great guy) and fresh-faced Nik Fackler.  The interview ran behind but was thoroughly enjoyable for old anti-social me.

    Atom Egoyan, Mischa Barton and Scott Speedman made appearances at this event, but I did not get a chance to chat with my fellow Canadians…simply too busy.

    (Reviews after the jump.)

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  • I might need to revise my predictions…

    These predictions, that is.  Not that anyone could have expected Tom Brady to go down for a considerable chunk of, if not the entire season.  But I just finished watching the Colts play like dogs against a Bears team that couldn’t have surprised me more, while the Panthers took it right to the Chargers earlier in the day and the Titans brought the pain against Jacksonville.

    We could have a much more diverse playoff situation than I might have expected, though it’s only week one.

    Still feeling good about the NFC, but things might open up in the AFC.  Hopefully it’s an exciting season (and the Redskins can pull down at least a few wins).

  • Thandie on Condi

    Of all the bizarre calls that have been made in the process of creating “W,” the one that possibly threw me the most was the casting of Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice.

    I’ve admittedly always been lukewarm on Newton as actress, but nonetheless, nothing about her onscreen or off-screen personae suggested that she had it in her to channel the world’s most powerful woman.

    So it’s refreshing to read, in this lengthy Sunday Times interview with Newton, that she felt pretty much the same way:

    “Oliver woke me up,” she says. Stone had an “absolute belief that I could play this character who was absolutely nothing like me. She didn’t look like me; she’s a couple of decades older than me. And I’m English, for goodness’ sake”.

    In her favour, Newton appears to have a healthily objective stance on the character she’s playing (more so, I suspect, than her director):

    Then she began working on her mannerisms, the quirks and ticks that an impressionist might exaggerate to tell you as much about a person as the “inner truth”. She won’t tell me what they are. “Look, I do have a kind of reverence for who I am playing. This is a human being, and whatever you think, as an example of discipline, she’s unbelievable … (But) seeing her in more undone situations, there was this difference in her. You can see her posture change at certain times. It’s almost imperceptible, but it’s there. I got a sense of the human being behind the construct. And I did feel compassion for her.”

    She’s clearly an open and articulate interviewee — read the rest here. (Note to the interviewer, however: I know it’s customary to flatter your subject, but calling Newton’s turn in “Crash” the “definitive performance” of that film is a blatant lie. And I don’t even like “Crash.”)

  • Brilliant

    New York Magazine

    (Courtesy: New York Magazine)

  • The rush of TIFF

    I had to link to this Hot Blog post from David Poland, obviously iPhoning it from a crowded theater about to screen Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.”  Here is the best portion:

    It’s exciting. Exciting in a different way than many other great fest experiences. It’s a real-time event. It’s real-time excitement that makes grown men giddy, fearful, ready for a fight, ready to miss out (all eyes on Rice and Battsek if they get up during the film).

    This is one part of TIFF. A rush. Not the heart of it all. But a piece we all crave.

    And then… the movie.

    This film is quickly becoming my most anticipated effort in a LONG time, but besides that, I love the feel of the room Poland paints here, a true example of what we can do with new media beyond Twittering and Facebooking.

  • Handicapping the race so far at The Film Experience

    Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightIn the middle of Toronto’s tiny buzz wave, Nathaniel Rogers has come back with a new “Naked Gold Man” Oscar column at The Film Experience.

    I particularly love this aside when charting the acting races:

    Only 19 actors and actress need apply for the 20 spots.  Heath Ledger’s Joker performance in The Dark Knight is still monumentally creepy to think about or be reminded of, isn’t it? Eight weeks of ubiquity, often a great inoculation for hysterically praised work, haven’t managed to dilute its feverish pull. That’s an impressive feat and a performance that once seemed like a worthy “likely contender” is now a “lock”. But we still don’t know what this means for the larger Oscar picture. And it’s all about the larger picture. “Supporting” is where Ledger’s buzz first happened. But many voices are starting to shout for “Lead” status. The Joker’s ghostly presence and penchant for chaos will affect future candidates and the Oscar race… but which one.

    Read the rest here.

  • Reading ‘Gran’

    I’m about half-way through Nick Schenk’s script “Gran Torino,” the Clint Eastwood surprise of 2008 waiting to jump up and bite us all in the ass this December.  So far it’s a really casual, satisfying read.  Some bumps in the first act as Schenk has some trouble settling into the style of the narrative, the consistent racial slurs and the hard-ass Walt Kowalski character (to be played by Eastwood), but it settles in soon enough.

    Kowalski is an interesting mix of Paul Newman’s Sully from “Nobody’s Fool” and Eastwood’s own portrayal of Frankie Dunn in “Million Dollar Baby.”  Maybe even a dash of Walter Matthau’s Max Goldman thrown in.  In fact, I’d place “Torino” right in “Baby”‘s wheelhouse so far, lots of that young-people-shedding-light-on-an-old-codger’s-life stuff going on.

    More on Tuesday, when we review “Gran Torino” in our Page to Screen column.

  • TORONTO: Ed Harris on ‘Appaloosa,’ acting and film crticism

    Ed HarrisWalking into to interview with any actor/director can be a tad intimidating, even after 20 years of doing it.  They have a tendency to be…difficult.  But 30 minutes into my interview with Ed Harris, he pays me a compliment that could keep wind in my sails for the duration of the fest: “Thank you for your integrity, intelligence and dedication to your job.  This has been a pleasure.”  He smiled as we shook hands and he walked me to the door

    Harris has been an actor I have admired since first seeing him as squeaky clean John Glenn in “The Right Stuff” back in 1983, which he followed with a chilling turn as a mercenary in “Under Fire,” his bright blue eyes windows into hell’s furnace. His career has moved along an interesting trajectory, shifting between supporting roles and leads with ease, often dominating whatever film he takes on with powerhouse acting.

    Oddly enough, he did not receive his first Oscar nomination until 1995 when he gave a sterling performance as Gene Kranz in “Apollo 13,” followed by another brilliant turn in “The Truman Show” as a God-like TV producer. He nurtured his dream project, “Pollock,” through its funding, before taking up the reins as director and grabbing another Oscar nod in front of the camera. And in 2002 he was nominated for a fourth time for his AIDS-afflicted writer in “The Hours,” a critically acclaimed ensemble piece from director Stephen Daldry.

    It is doubtful that “Appaloosa” will see any Oscar attention.  Though it is beautifully shot and the art direction is sublime, the film was something of a letdown, despite strong work from Harris and co-stars Viggo Mortensen and Jeremy Irons.

    “I gave the book to Viggo here at this festival in 2005,” Harris said, “when we were here for ‘A History of Violence.’ There was no one else I really wanted to do the film with, and I certainly never considered anyone else. I just thought he and I would make a strong partnership on screen. We don’t hang out, I mean we’re friends, but we don’t see much of each other. He agreed to do it, and Viggo’s the sort of guy where his word is his bond, so that gave me the start to keep moving on the film. It didn’t really occur to me that the film was a western, what struck me was the relationship between these two men in 1882, that’s what really grabbed me about the film. That it happened to be a western was incidental.”

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