I have to say, Josh Brolin isn’t nearly as convincing in this CNN exclusive clip of Oliver Stone’s upcoming “W.” as he has been in the other stuff we’ve seen:
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‘Button’ footage raises concerns at Telluride
Well I was willing to let the first murmurs go by without commentary, but the more I poke around, the more I’m hearing that the footage from David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” shown last night at the director’s tribute is underwhelming to say the least.This is disconcerting. As much as I loved Eric Roth’s screenplay, I also made it a point of mentioning that it had a lot of room to be interpreted peculiarly on screen. It’s the sort of narrative that could fly off the rails in the transition and it seems that perhaps — just perhaps — this could be the case.
I’m keeping my hopes up for the moment, but it seems Jeffrey Wells conveyed these sentiments from one attendee:
It just wasn’t particularly exciting or engrossing, one explained. Excellent visual effects (old Pitt as a baby, etc.) and fine cinematography but with a kind of enervated, waiting-for-something-to-happen quality. The footage showed portions of the entire film, the other friend said, but in a way that kept you from getting into it with cuts coming too abruptly. And so people were kind of…whatever, grunting and muttering on the way out.
And now Peter Sciretta of /Film has unloaded this first hand reaction:
I’m all for conserving the director’s artistic vision, and I’ve enjoyed most of Fincher’s work, even if Zodiac could have been 30 minutes shorter on the back end. So when I first heard rumors of the studio pushing Fincher to cut back, my first response was to write it off as another movie studio exec that just didn’t get it. But as it turns out, they might be right.
The footage I screened tonight was met with disappointment and concern. There are moments of magic and wonder, but interrupted and surrounded by moments which had me questioning, “Is this really the best footage he has?”
Sciretta has some nice words to say about Brad Pitt and the cinematography, but regardless of the brief high marks, I don’t think I’m alone in saying: “Gulp…”
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Changing servers
Okay, after some false starts we’re doing this for real over the weekend. So if things get dicey you know why. We’ll make sure it’s all cleared up by Monday’s Oscar column and chart update. FYI.
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REVIEW: “RocknRolla” (*1/2)
Short of seeking or citing any legitimate critical opinion, the marketing team behind “RocknRolla,” the fifth feature from Guy Ritchie, have gone to much effort to portray it as a creative comeback for the much-maligned filmmaker.Here in the UK, the words “return to form” are splashed prominently across billboards for the film (set to make its North American bow at the Toronto fest): a frank admission that Ritchie’s last two efforts, “Revolver” and “Swept Away,” were across-the-board disasters. They appear to be working the angle that this is something of a back-to-basics effort, a happy reunion between Ritchie and knockabout gangland comedy.
And indeed, for the first few minutes of “RocknRolla,” hopes are high that Ritchie has rediscovered the fleet-footed timing and lightness of touch that made his trend-setting 1998 debut “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” such a delight, and its lesser follow-up, “Snatch,” such a guilty pleasure. The animated credit sequence, as you may have heard, is a thing of considerable beauty. More importantly, the opening scene, which employs swift, sexy cuts between multiple actors and locations to maintain a multi-voiced monologue on the fortunes of present-day London (Ritchie presumably wrote this before the recession), is something to behold.
But then the pace settles, the actual narrative reveals itself — and the whole enterprise, shorn of these initial stylistic tics, steadily falls apart. Ritchie has dialed down his style of story construction since the incomprehensibly convoluted “Revolver,” but he may have overcompensated — the size of the ensemble notwithstanding, there is really very little storytelling motor here.
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Most anticipated films of Toronto
Armed with the fat program book, detailing every single film to be screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, I have gone through it several times to find the films I am interested in seeing. The press schedule is announced online today, at which time I will begin the nightmarish process of creating a calendar that details screening times, interview times, and leave room for the unexpected, a last minute call from a frantic publicist to do an interview I had requested and been declined, but now they want me.I love TIFF.
Aside from Christmas (for my kids) this is my favorite event of the year. Admittedly this one is a tad lower key than in other years as there were some last minute disappointments, films we thought were coming, rumored to be coming, and are not. The hottest whisper on the wind saw “Body of Lies” here with Leo, Russel and Sir Ridley, as well as “The Road,” a film I cannot wait to see, having read the amazing book in three scant days.
I had hoped Eastwood’s “Changeling” would be here, but for some goofy reason Angelina Jolie could not make it and the festival folks felt Clint Eastwood was not enough star power on his own…(ouch!).
Those minor complaints aside, I am now officially pumped for the festival to begin. Following are the ten most anticipated films of the fest for me and me alone. I will see more than 40 films over the 10 days, conduct 20 interviews or so, and maybe get four hours of sleep a night. I will ingest more coffee than is healthy, drink far too much water, and eat poorly, but hey…it’s festival.
Check out the list after the jump…
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‘Body of Lies’ poster
Cinematical is calling this poster image of Ridley Scott’s upcoming “Body of Lies” an exclusive, but I guess I could’ve gone down to the Warner lot any time last week and snapped a shot of the giant banner that’s hanging out on Olive and called it the same thing. It’s been there for a few days now.
Anyway, here it is in all it’s slick glory:
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SHORT TAKE: “Waltz with Bashir” (***)
I didn’t exactly love Ari Folman’s “Waltz with Bashir,” which was received quite favorably at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival and will play Toronto in a week’s time.However, I do have a loads of respect for the director’s cathartic process. And any animated endeavor that successfully creates this sort of introspective atmosphere deserves laurels above and beyond the typical animated product we see in cinemas year in and year out.
I find myself recalling similar sentiments for Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier’s “The Five Obstructions” five years ago. (Five years? Wow.) “Bashir” doesn’t entirely connect with me, doesn’t fend off the tendency toward repetition despite a tight running time (though that is certainly a point), but the sheer creativity of its approach makes it difficult to deny on numerous levels.
Using something resembling a documentary format, Folman places himself in the unfolding events of his narrative as a man who can’t recall the circumstances of his military involvement as an Israeli soldier in the first Lebanon War. When one night a friend recounts a chilling recurring dream that seems to have its roots in the conflict, Folman sets out to interview comrades that might shed some light on the black hole in his memory
The final sequence, of course, is when the fantasy of animation fades into the numbing sting of live action reality. The Sabra and Shatila Massacre would send a shock wave throughout the world, and certainly throughout Israel. A Defense Minister would be found guilty of neglegence, only to rise to power as Prime Minister of the region 20 years later.
How soon we forget. And perhaps that is the ultimate point of “Bashir”: Memory can be a mysterious thing, yes, but remembering is the active component in any healing process.
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Robert Parker’s ‘Appaloosa’
Before I head out today on a whirlwind of pre-Toronto screenings that will take me away from the work at hand, I wanted to follow up last week’s brief comments on Robert Parker’s novel “Appaloosa,” which is being adapted for the screen by director Ed Harris this year (and will play at the festival next week).I’ll reiterate here that the most interesting dynamic of the entire narrative is the relationship between Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Two gun hands that swagger from town to town to clean up messes, make up “laws” that must be followed and represent order for a small time before moving on, they’ve got a 15-year partnership that goes to the bone marrow. The Hitch character relays the story in the first person, which makes the wordless conversations between the two men, the subtle nuances of knowledge, the all around ability to intuit each other’s disposition — especially where Hitch is concerned — all the more intriguing.
Consider a scene that depicts Cole flying off the rails and beating a giant bar patron to a pulp, furious at some outside irritant more than the patron’s loud antics. Only Hitch can pull him off the man, and he does so with a calm, inevitable touch, lifting Cole off the ground and pulling him back until Cole tells him, twice, and equally calm: “You can let me go.” It’s an awesome dynamic these two have.
Cole and Hitch will be played by Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen respectively in the upcoming film, and I really hope they can pull off this chemistry (I’ll know soon). The narrative itself might be a touch trite and Renee Zellweger’s Allie character is certainly it’s most irritating aspect, but the peculiarities of character that Parker writes into the two leads more than make up for that.
So if you’re a fan of the genre, I’d recommend it. Don’t expect a miracle of substance, but you’ll get some nice grit and hard-nosed simplicity to sink your teeth into.
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‘Australia’ steps aside for Bond
Jeff Wells reports that the release date for Baz Luhrmann’s vast period romance “Australia” has been pushed back from November 14 to November 26.
Fair enough – I wouldn’t want to go up against “Quantum of Solace” either. Given that it seems to have become fashionable to beat up on “Australia,” sight unseen, there will no doubt be a lot of snarky speculation about what state the film is currently in – though seriously, there’s only so much that can be done in twelve days.
As perhaps the only person on earth who loved that trailer, I remain resolutely optimistic. Luhrmann is quite possibly insane, but the world needs more of that.
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Docs scramble for the deadline
Today’s New York Times carries an interesting piece about the crunch of documentaries currently being screened in Manhattan to empty houses – all in the name of Oscar eligibility. A simplified rule change now requires that, in order to qualify for the awards, feature docs must be screened for a week – on both coasts – before August 31.
However, in a rather surreal bit of logic, the filmmakers involved are doing their utmost not to attract audiences, presumably so as to avoid peaking too early in terms of media coverage:
“I didn’t advertise, I didn’t seek reviews,” said Roberta Grossman, producer of “Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh,” the story of a Jewish-Hungarian resistance fighter during World War II. “My goal for this run was to qualify for the Academy Awards, period.”
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The Brits feeling ‘Burn’
You’ve surely heard by now that the US trade papers aren’t exactly crazy for the Coen Brothers’ latest, “Burn After Reading,” which bowed in Venice last night. “Arch and ungainly” was one of the less damning descriptions in Todd McCarthy’s review, while Kirk Honeycutt was moderately kinder in calling the film “a minor piece of silliness.”Which makes the reaction of the frequently grouchy Limey press all the more surprising. They like it, they really like it. The film has gone four-for-four with the major British papers, all of them seemingly welcoming the brothers’ fleet-footed change of pace. The Independent’s venerable Geoffrey Macnab calls it “dark, convoluted, chaotic – and extremely funny,” arguing that the film goes deeper than has been advertised:
The Coens suggest this is simply a story about knuckleheads. But the film offers a damning portrait of a society in which the knuckleheads continue to hold the levers of power. The Coens introduce plenty of familiar, noirish elements. On one level, this is a dark thriller in which paranoia, avarice and sexual jealousy rule. But thanks to the increasingly absurd behaviour of the protagonists,it is also very funny.
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Shameless
Sitting at a bus stop in London’s Shoreditch at 2am, waiting for the ever-elusive night bus home, I had rather a long time to contemplate the new UK poster for “The Duchess,” Paramount Vantage’s Keira Knightley costume flick…
… and my initial reaction was that, to my surprise, I rather liked it. Clean, stark, beautifully lit (the colours are richer in print), it also squarely emphasises the basic drawcard of what looks (to me) like a rather uninteresting film: a gorgeous woman in nice frocks.
But then I came to that tagline – “There are three people in her marriage” – and, well, ick.
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Lovin’ the Boss
Can I just say the use of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” as Joe Biden’s theme of sorts on this campaign (the same song accompanied his entrance on Saturday) is adding to that tingly feeling?
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‘No End’ on YouTube
One of the best films of last year (and a certifiable toss-up with “Taxi to the Dark Side” for Best Doc if you ask me), Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight” has landed it’s own YouTube channel this week.
According to the press release, it will become “the first widely released feature film to screen in its entirety on YouTube starting on September 1 and continuing through the 2008 presidential election on Tuesday, November 4.”
Check out the channel here, where you can currently view the trailer and a few other related videos.
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On the week ahead…
Next week In Contention will be launching into our extensive Oscar coverage for the season. That means the usual weekly columns from Gerard and myself, in addition to the daily musings on what might be in the Oscarweb news.
Speaking of the Oscarweb, we’ll be doing the round-ups again that you might remember from Red Carpet District (no comment on this at the moment, FYI). The idea (not that it’s a particularly groundbreaking one) has recently been lifted in a couple of areas, but you know where the comprehensive stuff is at. I have no life so that I may convey to you every…single…thing…being…discussed.
Anyway, some key dates to remember for the week ahead:
Monday, September 1: First weekly “Off the Carpet” Oscar column drops with updated charts.
Tuesday, September 2: Brian’s “Page to Screen” review of “The Road” (this column will wrap up on 9/30)
Thursday, September 4: Gerard’s first “Tech Support” column of the season
Thursday, September 4: John’s Toroto Film Festival coverage beginsAlso, we’ll be changing servers Friday night, so if there are any weird glitches on the weekend, you’ll know why. All should be good to go by the 1st.
