In Contention

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  • ‘Miracle’ trailer — a week late, I know…

    I finally watched this trailer for Spike Lee’s upcoming “Miracle at St. Anna” over the weekend. It’s been out and about for at least a week now, but I decided to wait a bit as I am in the middle of James McBride’s novel at the moment. Sometimes one prefers the imagination. I knew once I laid eyes on the trailer, my ideas of what was happening in the book would be replaced by Lee’s vision of them, at least in part.

    The book is oddly structured to say the least, though I’ll hold off on offering an considerable comment for the moment. But Lee seems perfectly suited to the material; it’s a project I think will make him stretch somewhat (a welcome notion amid the same old behind the scenes antics from the filmmaker).

    That said, the trailer plays a little flat. I can’t put my finger on why. I’m left with an incredible “So what?” feeling.  As if some of the pieces of the puzzle are missing that would make me sit up and say, “Yeah, I want to see that.”  The last line is great, though.

    Anyway, have a look. Touchstone is set to distribute, not the most awards savvy studio. 42 West is also working on the pic (along with, as usual, countless others):

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=YXvxFNIcVX8

  • Tarantino doubles up… again

    It’s difficult to get a grasp on what’s going on with Quentin Tarantino’s long-mooted WWII project, “Inglorious Bastards,” not least because QT seems somewhat hazy on the subject himself. Last month, he made this rather bold claim at Cannes: “If all goes well, I will be here … in 2009 with ‘Inglorious Bastards.’” (I’d question the hubris of his assuming that Cannes will have him, but hell, they accepted “Death Proof” into competition, so I can’t.)

    Now comes word that, in what’s becoming a familiar move for the director, the project will be released as two films, apparently because the story is too big for a single feature. Said story involves a group of war criminals fighting both Allied and Nazi forces on a journey to neutral Switzerland, which sounds do-able in one film to me, but what do I know? Meanwhile, the Vulture at New York Magazine is taking Tarantino’s assertions with a pinch of salt:

    That gives Tarantino about ten months to finish the scripts, find himself some actors — he now says previous mentions of Michael Madsen, Adam Sandler, Christopher Walken, and others were just “conversations” — and shoot and edit two movies. It’s possible, of course, but it’s also possible that this project is but a ball of yarn for Tarantino’s mischievous-kitten tendencies, and in a year, it will be a seven-part cartoon musical.

    (more…)

  • Poor Holland…

    :(

  • Brilliant

    How am I walking the streets of London and missing stuff like this?  Courtesy of The London Paper (via Cinematically Correct and Awards Daily):

    Truth be told, I am REALLY looking forward to “Hancock.”  Despite obvious flaws here and there, I have always found Peter Berg to be a fascinating filmmaker who seems restless, always looking for something new and never corning himself into a market or fitting himself for a label.  There’s a lot to be said for that, and he knows how to put some entertaining stuff on film (I’m big on “The Rundown” and am a longtime friend of “Very Bad Things”).

    Additionally — and sue me — but I continue to buy into Will Smith as the shining box office star/nice guy extraordinaire.  Until someone shows me a YouTube video of him calling some poor kid a mother fucker, I’m in his court.

    “Hancock” (with the “Han”) lands in theaters July 2.  They should just rename that weekend in Smith’s honor.

    (Props also to my man Mars Crain, the muscle-bound doorman of my local bar back home, who landed a role in the film.  And, despite his daunting size, another all around nice guy.)

  • ‘WALL-E’ trailers again

    Courtesy of IGN:

  • AMPAS sort of cleans up music and foreign categories

    Oy.  We’ve got a long way to go.

    According to the hot-off-the-presses release, the two categories that received the most nipping and tucking were these two infamously flawed arenas.

    Here’s what they have to say regarding the composers:

    Three items of note were altered in the Original Song rules.  First, while there continues to be no limit on the number of songs from a given film that can be submitted for consideration, no more than two songs from any one film may be nominated for an Academy Award.

    Good.  No cuts out the possibility of another poor track (*coughhappyworkingsongcough*) pushing out far superior work (*coughsocietycough*).  But there’s more:

    Also, in addition to the annual screening event at which members of the Music Branch view clips featuring the eligible songs as they appear in the films and vote, DVDs of those same clips will be made available to branch members who are unable to attend the screening; ballots will accompany the DVDs and must be returned by mail.

    Also good.  Maybe some informed decisions can be made by a larger majority.  But there’s no accounting for taste, so we’ll see how it goes.

    No alteration of that pesky, subjectively rendered Rule 16B that keeps biting artists in the ass.

    Music Branch members who have one or more songs in contention for nominations do not vote in that phase of the balloting.  They remain eligible to vote on the final ballot to select the winner.

    Got that, Shaiman?

    On to the foreign language film category, where the Academy seems to be putting a band-aid on a broken arm:

    The only other category with a notable change is the Foreign Language Film Award and as was the case in 2006, the alteration is a procedural one rather than one in the rules per se.  For the 81st Academy Awards, the two-phase process by which the nominees are selected will remain intact.  However, the Phase I committee – which is open to any voting member who views a minimum number of the eligible films – will now vote to determine only six of the nine films that will ultimately go to the Phase II committee.  The other three titles will be determined by those members of the 20-member Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee who have qualified to vote in the category.  The executive committee’s selections will be made after the Phase I voting has been tallied.

    Again, there’s no accounting for taste.  We’ll see how it goes.

  • Now that it’s in English…

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=DelAqaM_p1Y

    And in Quicktime here.

  • Another animated title off the list…

    In response to Brian’s item this week about Focus Features’ animated film slate, I’ve received notification from the studio that “Coraline,” the Neil Gaiman adaptation from Henry Selick (which looks extraordinary, I might add) is set for a February 2009 release.  Obviously, this takes it off the line-up for Oscar contention this year, so update your lists.

    Additionally, though Brian notes that he “has heard that ‘Coraline’ [will be rated] PG-13,” Focus would like it known that the film has not yet been rated.  Just so the air is clear on that.

    The studio also insists that no release date has been settled yet for Shane Acker’s “9.”  However, that doesn’t jive with another report I received earlier this month which indicated the film would be pushed to next year.  According to the studio, since the film is still “in production,” they’re not committing to a date.  Brian, meanwhile, was told at the early screening he attended that the flick was “still on for a Christmas 2008”  release.

    It’s all beside the point for now.  Things shift and slide.  Maybe the studio will find an opening in the holiday season for “9”  and prime it for launch, maybe not.  But none of it takes away from Brian’s point, that it is interesting to see the studio trying its hand at being an animation studio, and one dedicated to unconventional fare at that.

  • Fascinating stuff

    Completely off topic, but one of the projects I’ve been working on here at The Times has been the vast archive the paper is collecting online, assembling more than two hundred years of reportage, slowly but surely, for web consumption.

    You can learn first hand information about the Jack the Ripper killings of 1888 on one page, for instance, or read an exclusive column from Albert Einstein published after astronomer Arthur Eddington proved the physicist’s then 14-year-old theory of relativity in 1919 during a solar exclipse.

    It struck me that a publication like Variety, with nearly 100 years of specific entertainment news reporting and analysis, ought to look into something like this.  They’ve got a daunting backlog of issues, hard bound in a room just outside the news room (and believe me, it can be fascinating to go back and look at Best Picture FYC ads for, say, “Predator 2” — seriously).  But a system that puts generations of industry reportage at the click of a button would be fantastic.

    Just a thought.

  • The western keeps on truckin’

    It’s no real secret that yours truly is in the tank for the western genre.  Being brought up on the films of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood tends to make an impact in a young man’s life.  I watch Charles Bronson square off with Henry Fonda on a daily basis.  I’m knee-deep in research on the genre for a grad school thesis.

    I dig it, okay?

    The resurgence of saddles and spurs on the big screen has been moving steadily through the industry.  I don’t think anyone expects a return to the 1950s, with pistol-toting heroes plastered on every television screen and nearly every silver screen across America, but I see these efforts taking on more introspective subject matter, perhaps giving way soon enough to the neo-western.  And it is, after all, time.

    Today I see that screen tests may have been revealed of Thomas Jane in the upcoming DC Comics adaptation “Jonah Hex”  The film is set to be directed by the team behind “Crank,” Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  This might be real, might not, since the duo is filming “Crank 2” in Los Angeles at the moment.  But I can’t say I’m loving it…seems quite amateurish.  Regardless, “Hex” is a hell of a property with some storylines that just sing, and seeing it on the big screen will do this western fanatic a lot of good.

    Meanwhile, of course, Ed Harris is set to release “Appaloosa” later this year, formerly under the New Line Cinema banner and now, presumably, as another in a long tradition of genre entries from Warner Bros. Pictures.  Harris stars along with Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger.

    These efforts are coming on the heels of a tweak in the genre as of late, with the more abstract works of Cormac McCarthy making their way to the screen (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Road” and, soon, “Blood Meridian”) and David Milch showing in the sadly cancelled HBO series “Deadwood” that the genre could be taken to levels almost Shakespearean.  Meanwhile, a revamp of “The Lone Ranger” is looking like a go, with the team behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films hoping to bring an element of sensationalism into the mix.

    (more…)

  • Imitation is flattery…

    No?

  • TIFF 2008 announces opening night gala

    The first press conference of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival was held yesterday for the announcement of the Opening Night film, traditionally given to a Canadian film.

    Canadian filmmaker Paul Gross will kick off the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival with the world premiere of his World War I epic “Passchendaele.”

    Set during the height of the First World War, the film tells the story of Sgt. Michael Dunne (Gross), a soldier who is brutally wounded in France and returns home to Calgary, torn apart by what he saw in combat. While in the military hospital he meets Sarah, a mysterious and beautiful nurse with whom he falls deeply in love. When Michael’s younger brother signs up for duty in the war, Michael re-enlists to protect his younger brother. They are among thousands of Canadians sent to Ypres where a third battle is being waged against impossible odds.

    Co-Director of the Film Festival Cameron Bailey said, “Paul Gross is an inspiring Canadian and a leader in our industry. By paying tribute to our nation’s heroes — including his own grandfather an Alberta veteran of Passcehndaele — Gross uses the viceral charge of movies to contribute a foundation chapter to our national history.”

    There are so few Canadian pictures about our histroy and heritage that I am damned excited about this one Gross has the talents and smarts to make this a truly magnificent epic.

  • Bruno vs. Dan Brown in 2009?

    I just came across this story, which may or may not be old news, indicating the US release of Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming “Bruno” as May 15, 2009.  As the end of the article notes, that will put the film in direct competition with the new Dan Brown adaptation, “Angels & Demons,” with Tom Hanks and Ron Howard back on board.  Interesting.

  • Breaking into the boys’ club

    Quick, how many women have ever been nominated for Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards?

    Let’s just say that if you answered anything more than zero, you weren’t even close. The sad fact is that the cinematography and sound categories at the Oscars have remained gentlemen-only for eighty whole years. True, female cinematographers are vastly outnumbered in the industry, but that should be all the more reason to recognise one when she does outstanding work.

    For my money, Ellen Kuras (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Personal Velocity,” “Summer of Sam”) is one of the most exciting talents in the business. Lisa Rinzler’s work on Tony Bui’s “Three Seasons” made it one of the most painterly films of this decade. Maryse Alberti did extraordinary work on Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Goldmine” and has contributed to some of the most important documentaries of recent years, including this year’s Oscar winner, “Taxi to the Dark Side.” These, and other, female DPs have been recognised by Sundance, the Independent Spirit Awards, and even the American Society of Cinematographers, but never at the awards holy grail that is the Oscars. Yet.

    Next year, the Academy has one of their strongest chances yet to break that hex. That chance comes in the shape of Mandy Walker, the hitherto largely unheralded cinematographer of Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming epic “Australia,” who received the Kodak Vision Award at last night’s Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards.

    (more…)

  • Bullshit

    Sorry:

    But Lee wasn’t interested in going through the motions, and instead of adhering to the usual conventions of the genre, he subverted them. Hulk doesn’t really look or feel like a superhero movie. But that’s what’s great about it.

    The rest.

  • ‘Burn’ poster

    Thanks to Cinematical:

  • Focus gets animated

    I caught an uber-early screening of Focus Feature’s “9” tonight, one of two animated films they have coming out in 2008 – the other being Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline.”

    While it would be a disservice to comment much on the film (at least 10% of it was still storyboards — in fact, I highly doubt I saw a single frame of finished animation) giving that it’s still deep in production, I will say that one thing has become clear: Focus Features are certainly dedicated to making much darker animated films than anyone else in the market. I’ve heard “Coraline” is a PG-13, and I can’t imagine “9” getting a PG.

    It will be interesting to see if Focus can become an animation powerhouse.

    Regarding “9,” I will say this much: we all know what’s going to win Best Animated at the Oscars this year, and it’s not “9.”

  • Teasing it out…

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LirIKbsVCkM

    Tune in 2011, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.