In Contention

Blog

  • Kudos season starts here: Cannes lineup is out

    So Cannes Film Festival president Gilles Jacob has revealed the lineup for this year’s competition… and it’s a doozy.

    Suffice to say that next month we’ll have some clarity on at least three of the titles being talked up for next year’s derby, all from formidable Oscar champs – Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” and Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevara double-whammy, “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla.”

    Interestingly, Soderbergh’s films will screen (and compete) as one four-hour entry, titled simply “Che”; I can’t help wondering whether this is a road-test for an alternative distribution strategy. Seems to me that having only one release to deal with would heighten the project’s awards prospects… not that Soderbergh is any stranger to competing against himself, mind you.

    For Eastwood, meanwhile, this marks his fifth directorial appearance in the Cannes competition, after “Pale Rider,” “Bird,” “White Hunter, Black Heart” and “Mystic River.” As the mixed fortunes of those titles attest, a place in the lineup is no guarantee of future awards glory. Nevertheless, the unexpected inclusion of “Changeling” on the list (a last-minute addition, like the Soderbergh films), combined with Eastwood’s impeccable recent form, certainly boosts the cache of a film that, with its supernatural story elements and the maddeningly inconsistent Angelina Jolie in the lead, has me guarded about its awards potential.

    (more…)

  • Fonda talks Leone

    Regarding last night’s David Mamet post and that Henry Fonda/Sergio Leone story, I was poking around YouTube and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a clip of the actor recounting the whole story. And he does it much better than me.

    Check it out:

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=cHI6Hl7FUqA

  • Milking that ‘Valkyrie’ teet

    I don’t disagree with a lot of what Michael Cieply has to say about the counted-out “Valkyrie” in this recent New York Times piece. Indeed, the Web is the greatest offender when it comes to instant declarations. It’s a tough balance that plenty of webmasters, myself included, struggle with on a daily basis.

    Indeed, there is much from every side on this story in Cieply’s filing, if certain parties are grossly under-quoted or under-attributed for my tastes. (A closing note from Bryan Singer just isn’t enough.) But the bottom line is, hey — maybe there’s nothing to see here?

    However, when you quote executives in a context such as this:

    In the interim Mr. Cruise, his partners at United Artists and the “Valkyrie” filmmakers are bracing for what will likely be a nine-month fight to prove their critics wrong. “We will not be daunted,” Paula Wagner, chief executive of United Artists, said last week.

    During a 90-minute interview at the company’s headquarters in a Century City office tower, Ms. Wagner said she and her fellow executives were intent on overcoming negative reactions that she saw as rooted in ignorance of the process of building movie production companies.

    “Anybody trying to dismiss us or write us off doesn’t understand the business,” Ms. Wagner said. She added: “Nothing is going to stop us. We are determined to make this work.”

    How can one not smell blood in the water? Granted, Cieply might have bumped two or three of Wagner’s clearly adamant exclamations that perhaps came at varying times in that 90minute interview, but it still comes across somewhat desperate on her part.

    David Poland is busy washing his hands of all of this, making sure everyone understands that he wasn’t aiming for negativity on “Valkyrie” from the outset. Of course, he’s got that usual balancing act of bashing old media, digging up an old, probably unarchived Oscar call and running through the box office numbers again. But at least he sticks it to Roger Friedman, who Cieply should never have called for such a piece. It takes the story down exponential levels.

    Anyway, I personally could care less about all of this and wish the press would ease off of it. And I’ve said it before, but what good is it doing pulling back the layers on this one?

  • Dun-dun!

    (Props to John at The Movie Blog)

  • David Mamet on the greatest actor ever

    David Mamet’s “Redbelt” is releasing soon, though I just realized I haven’t made it to any of the film’s screenings this past month. I love Mamet, even when he fails. But I’m not hearing good things on that film.

    Anyway, I came across an interesting piece at Film Stew this evening that cornered the esteemed playwright and filmmaker with that most difficult of queries: Who is the greatest actor ever?

    This is the sort of thing that could change with the wind, of course, and any given person is sure to bounce a number of names around his or her head when it comes down to it. In most cases, you might expect some rote answer. Who can’t steer clear of the Pacinos, the De Niros, the Brandos and the Nicholsons?

    I was happy, and not the least it surprised, to see Mamet hang it out there for a unique choice. His pick: Henry Fonda.

    I have to say, I can run with that. I sometimes forget that two Henry Fonda films rest easy in my top five films of all time (“12 Angry Men” and “Once Upon a Time in the West”). I’d buy a “Vote for Juror #8” shirt if they made one. His career spanned decades and genres with ease as he tackled portrayals of villains and heroes with equal aplomb.

    I’m always reminded of the classic Sergio Leone story when it comes to Fonda. Leone, of course, cast Fonda in “Once Upon a Time in the West” as the lawless Frank, a character (and film, in fat) from which Martin Scorsese would borrow greatly when conceiving “Gangs of New York.” Here was America’s golden god of the screen, Henry Fonda, the quintessential good guy — and he was about to portray a guy who’d shoot a child without blinking…and in the first reel!

    Fonda shows up to set looking like, well, a haggard, ruthless villain. Hadn’t shaved, de-glammed to the max, ready to tackle the antagonist for once. Leone was beside himself. “I didn’t hire you to hide behind a beard,” the director said (and of course, I’m paraphrasing). “I hired Henry Fonda and that’s what I want.” Leone was well aware of the impact a sculpted, shaved, blue-eyed angel like Fonda would make as he tore through the narrative in such a despicable role.

    And boy was he right:

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

    Quite an inspired choice by Mr. Mamet. It’s a shame Fonda only walked away with a solitary competitive Oscar for one of his lesser (if still wonderful) portrayals. But ain’t it always the case?

    By the way, if you’ve never flipped through Mamet’s guide for actors, “True and False,” I encourage you to do so.

  • The LA Times points and laughs at poor bastards

    It looks like LA Times is still beating that Oscar drum for the old media sect. This week, Susan King writes up the lackluster career choices that followed a number of Academy wins throughout the years.

    Here’s a look:

    Just because you win an Oscar doesn’t mean that every subsequent film you make will be Academy Award-caliber stuff. In fact, Oscar winners inevitably make incongruous missteps in their career after they pick up an Academy Award.

    Just look at Kevin Costner. After being on top of the world when he won the best director Oscar for the 1990 best film, “Dances With Wolves,” he made the gargantuan turkey “Waterworld” and then directed a three-hour celluloid nightmare called “The Postman,” which was DOA with critics and audiences alike. No sooner did Julia Roberts earn an Oscar for “Erin Brockovich” than critics soured on her talents in the ill-fated comedy “America’s Sweethearts.” And what was Oscar-winner Tommy Lee Jones thinking when he signed up for the yawn-inducing comedy “Man of the House,” a film so tepid that it wasn’t even screened for critics?

    She goes on to pour salt on the wounds of Al Pacino, Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Nicole Kidman, among others. But I’m left wondering what good a piece like this serves.

    Now I’m no elitist. I understand we all have to stretch for awards content and perspective from time to time. And typically, the LA Times and its awards site, The Envelope, nail down interesting subject matter in that regard. But this piece is like one of those throwaway photo galleries that land on a weekly basis over there on a weekly basis.

    Obviously this was a buttress piece for Patrick Goldstein’s latest think piece (regarding the downward spiral of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino), but I don’t know. It seems a little cheap and unnecessary to me.

    Check out the rest of King’s piece here.

  • It’s go time…

    EDITED (6:09 p.m.): Well…that was fast. The power of negativity lives on as the old school triumphs one more day.

    EARLIER: Polls closed in Pennsylvania one second ago. Now we wait. Let’s hope the media doesn’t drop the ball here with exit polls like they did in New Hampshire.

  • A 3-hour ‘Dark Knight’

    I, like virtually everyone else in the world, can’t wait to see Chris Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” this summer. In addition to being the following up to “Batman Begins,” everything about it so far looks riveting, Nolan has continued to prove himself and I fully expect Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger to hit their roles out of the park.

    But Dark Horizons is today reporting that the film is going to come in and around the three hour mark. While I have the utmost faith in Nolan to entertain and make an all around great movie, this running time nevertheless gives me some concern. I like my superhero movies at the 110-120 minute mark.

    Again, I’m not worried – I’m just hoping this is not a misstep.

  • The independent film not to be missed

    Every year the best of independent cinema convenes at a series of festivals and awards programs, most notably the Independent Spirit Awards.

    In February, Jeff Nichols, a first-time filmmaker, won an ISA for his first feature length film “Shotgun Stories.” The effort chronicles a deadly family feud between two sets of brothers that ensues upon the death of the father they share.

    The film produced by fellow Arkansan David Gordon Green, has finally made it’s way to major film markets (it screened in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mr. Nichols’ hometown, although he now lives in Austin, Texas, late last year), including Los Angeles. Susan King of the Los Angeles Times described the film as a “stark, Eugene O’Neill-esque tale.”

    There was a rousing welcome in Mr. Nichols’ home state for “Shotgun Stories.” In addition to critical accolades, It managed to win multiple awards on the festival circuit too, including Grand Jury prizes at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival. It opened in New York a few weeks ago, and while the film is considered a 2007 release, I didn’t want my friends on the west coast to miss it.

    Last month, New York Magazine’s David Edelstein wrote of the film’s lead actor, Michael Shannon:

    His deliberateness can be lovable, even romantic, but can also signal desperation, as if his head were too cavernous for him to snatch and string together all his thoughts. He’s a fascinating actor—the perfect hero for movies suffused with rage against the Creator.

    The same might be said of Mr. Nichols. He’s a young director to watch.

  • On the posterity of history

    I forgot to mention below that there were two specific moments in last night’s closing installment of “John Adams” that struck a definite chord with me. Both regarded the perception of history when it is given to interpretation and glorification, as Adams accosted a painter at his artistic license and as Giamatti read his warning in the closing monologue of the mini-series.

    I was reminded of a book I’m flipping through lately, one that I recommend whole-hearted: “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James Loewen. Pick it up some time.

  • Harvey Dent’s coming out party in NYC

    It looks like Warner Bros. unveiled the new trailer for “The Dark Knight” at the New York Comic-Con over the weekend (I still feel burned they never turned anything up in San Diego last summer). As expected, the PR focus has shifted off of the Joker character in the wake of Heath Ledger’s death and over to Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent.

    The new trailer comes amid a flurry of recent viral PR for the film aimed at the district attorney character, both on the net and in the “real world.”

    Did I mention how much my head is about to explode with anticipation over this film? And if it’s nearly three hours long — God help me, I’ll be in batty heaven.

    But back to Dent, I think this series has the makings of putting Eckhart in a very exciting position in 2011, much like the anticipation over Ledger’s Joker portrayal. Eckhart as Two-Face could be just as explosive, just as creepy and, perhaps, twice as ruthless. We have to get there first, and “The Dark Knight” will be our road there…

    …that’s all I’m sayin’.

  • Streep seems a lock for ‘Doubt’

    Meryl Streep is without equal as the greatest screen actress in the history of the cinema, able to slip effortlessly into character and create magic before our eyes. Meeting her makes clear her genius because the woman you will speak with bears no connection to the many characters she has portrayed over her now 30-plus years in movies; her eyes dance with mischief, but crackle with intelligence.

    Revered by many as the greatest actress, some state greatest actor (period), is it not odd that Streep has just one Academy Award for Best Actress for her astounding and searing performance as the death camp survivor in “Sophie’s Choice,” (easily the single greatest performance ever given by a woman on film)? Yes she won in the supporting category before that, for “Kramer vs. Kramer,” but consider this…Hilary Swank, a fine actress, has won the Oscar for Best Actress twice, as has Jodie Foster, yet Streep has just one, and more than 25 years ago at that. In that time she has given an array of performances that have collected prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle, and despite racking up more Oscar nominations than anyone else in history, she has remained a bridesmaid for some time now.

    There are complaints each year when she is nominated, the nasty ones stating that all she has to do is appear in a film to get nominated, but you know, even at half-speed, she is so much stronger than everyone else, is she not? So yes, she should have won other Oscars as a leading lady.

    (more…)

  • Pitt finally going to get some Oscar love?

    Over the course of his impressive career, Brad Pitt has not always been appreciated for the fine actor he is. This is an actor who could easily take the cheap way out and do one goofy romantic comedy or silly film after another, but who instead takes bold risks with his career, always challenging himself, and though sometimes falling flat on his face, growing as an actor.

    Pitt is not the first actor to grow in maturity through the years; look at John Wayne, badly under appreciated for much of his career, though his work in “The Quiet Man”, “Rio Bravo” and especially “The Searchers” was astounding. His last performance, as the gunfighter dying of cancer in “The Shootist,” richly deserved Oscar attention which sadly never came.

    Actors, the great ones, live to challenge themselves, never content to continue doing what they have done before, they need change, they live for challenge.

    (more…)

  • To the 007s

    The new beta site is leaking out here and there, mostly because of blog pings and such. No worry, but to those peeking, the kinks will be worked out around here within the next week or so, and we should be good to go at 100% for the relaunch at that time.

    Enjoy the new digs as they come together.

  • John Adams rides off into the sunset

    Well I held back on talking about HBO’s “John Adams” after viewing the second episode last month, but now that it’s over, allow me to speak up on what has become a very popular mini-series event.

    I was happy to see that the Alien and Sedition Acts finally made an appearance last week, albeit a sweeping one designed to show Adams’s supposedly intense personal anguish at the bills. Of course. But before I dig into the issues I took with this 7-part event, let me point out the obvious praise-worthy elements.

    Laura Linney is at the tip of any such list. Her removal from the story in tonight’s denouement was felt deeply. She carried this project through some of the rougher points and brought quite a vibrant characterization to the screen. Not so much Paul Giamatti, who gets his due praise over at Awards Daily. Personally I felt his entire portrayal a stretch throughout.

    When the Emmys roll around, I think we’re guaranteed an appearance by both, though I wish Tom Wilkinson’s brilliant turn as Benjamin Franklin had more meat on its bones for some potential notices. Maybe he’ll still show up in some quarters.

    HOWEVER…the final moments of tonight’s installment were dead on for the actor. Despite a stilted, choppy and over-long (like much of this mini-series) structure of the sequence, Giamatti’s portrayal of Adams’s final moments was a massive high mark in his repertoire so far, the clip they should save from “John Adams” for posterity, if any.

    Mainly, I took issue with this series from the start because a 7-part fold-out didn’t make much sense to me. The structure milks certain elements for all they are worth, and for the better, in a precious few instances. Some scenes do feel like short films unto themselves with currents of subtext and meaning…but they are few and far between. For the most part, each sequence needed substantial trimming that might have brought the series all the way down to maybe three films, but that clearly wasn’t the intention of director Tom Hooper in company.

    Even at this robust level of play, it is quite the accomplishment to maintain such thematic complexity, even if the script does hit the nail a bit too firmly on the head from time to time.

    But enough of 18th century presidential shenanigans. Bring on “Recount!” And “Generation Kill,” I must say, has a lot of promise.

  • On Robert Downey Jr.

    It was only a few years ago that the inimitable Robert Downey Jr. was in our living rooms as a result of repeated drug arrests. I recall several instances where I felt as if he’d never recover. Fortunately, he did, and on May 2 Mr. Downey will appear as a comic book hero in “Iron Man.” Advance buzz for the film has been strong, and David Carr of The New York Times filed this profile in today’s paper of the actor once labeled “the best of his generation.”

    “Iron Man,” I suspect, will be an enjoyable film. Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard also star. Based on what I’ve seen thus far, it has some technical appeal that may catch voters come awards season. It’s this film – and the remaining work on Mr. Downey’s schedule in 2008 – that should finally complete his remarkable comeback.

    Later this summer, he stars as Kirk Lazarus in the film “Tropic Thunder” from Ben Stiller. Downey’s character, a method actor who undergoes a pigment alteration, has many people curious. And this fall he appears in Joe Wright’s latest film “The Soloist” opposite Jamie Foxx.

    Mr. Downey has only been nominated once for an Academy Award, in 1993, for his role as Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough’s film “Chaplin.” He did not win. Since then, he’s appeared in more than thirty five films — some quite memorable (“Wonder Boys,” “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Zodiac,” especially). But none of these roles caught the attention of the awards community.

    Seven years ago this month, Mr. Downey was fired from his recurring guest role on “Ally McBeal.” This year, he’ll release three films, one of which, “The Soloist,” may earn him a second Oscar nomination. And his past seems to be well behind him. As he remarked to Mr. Carr, “I’m not in that sphere of activity anymore, and I don’t understand it any more than I understood 10 or 20 years ago that somehow everything was going to turn out O.K. from this lousy, exotic and dark triple chapter of my life. I swear to God I don’t even really understand that planet anymore.”

    I’m certainly grateful for that.

  • Steve Lopez and ‘The Soloist’

    I stopped by Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena yesterday evening to hear Steve Lopez read from his new book “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music,” fully expecting a run-of-the-mill book release PR thing. As it turns out, Lopez is a quick-on-his-heels delight of a public speaker, engaging, never tedious and insightful when it really counts.

    And actually, there was no book reading, since Lopez had “lost his glasses for the third day in a row.” Instead, the LA Times columnist simply recounted, in maybe an hour’s time, his relationship with Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless resident of downtown Los Angeles and Skid Row — and a Juliard-trained musician all the same, whose story might be hard to believe, but can be captivating to the most cynical.

    L.A. residents are quite familiar with Lopez’s “Points West” column that runs daily in the Times. One of the few living, breathing journalistic spirits of considerable heft at the paper, it seems, Lopez turns a phrase and transforms the mundane into the captivating with a truly gifted sense of the English language. He has introduced readers to members of an entire scale of notoriety, always with equal aplomb, and his articles about Ayers lit a spark for many Angelenos.

    The articles, of course, have been adapted by screenwriter Susannah Grant into a film to be released later in the fall by DreamWorks. And Lopez’s book release this week is the beginning of a long road for Ayers’ story, one that will bubble to the surface on a much larger scale when the film lands in November. But what I learned listening to Lopez speak yesterday was how much of a concerted effort the book was for forwarding the issue of mental disorder in the United States, ailments that leave the public stigmatized, a dirty secret, of sorts, that the country seems unwilling to deal with in any up-front manner.

    There are those, I’m sure of it, who feel this project seems a grating experience on the horizon of the film awards season. I, too, had my doubts as to something this potentially schmaltz-laden hitting the screens. But my view has shifted somewhat after hearing Lopez tell it. However opportunistic it might seem to the jaded for the film industry to seize upon a story like this, I have to say, I believe a lot of good could come of it in the end. I look forward to Joe Wright’s work even more so with this added context.

    In the film, Lopez will be portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., while Jamie Foxx will portray Ayers. Oscar nominee Catherine Keener also stars.

    I recorded Lopez’s talk, which runs right at an hour. I thought it would be a great way to initiate a new multimedia aspect of In Contention, and so, I offer it to you now. It’s a funny and insightful 60 minutes from one of the industry’s best columnists.

    Have a listen:

    [display_podcast]

  • The Indy scuttlebutt goes into high gear

    Leave it to Anne Thompson to diligently amass the rampant Indy IV speculation that has suddenly ejaculated all over the Web this week.

    And what a hairy bunch of links it is, everything from her and Todd McCarthy’s original break that the film would debut at Cannes, to McCarthy’s round-up of Cannes films in play, Jeffrey Wells’ scoop that the film would run over 140 minutes (WHY?!) to Vulture’s latest blast, which rounds up all the rumors circulating what might be a below-par effort.

    I remain, as I have been on this film from day one, completely and utterly terrified. I honestly, truly, 100% think that “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is going to be a turd, a stinker…an afterthought. Like the aftershocks of a bad dream where you’re kind of awake, kind of not, but praying the worst is behind you.

    There…I’ve said it. Do I base this on anything other than sheer gut feeling? Nope. Although I don’t think it needs to be said…again…that David Koepp is public enemy#1. My friend John Campea over at The Movie Blog continues to have hope. He tells me every time we broach the subject that, no matter the endgame, Indy IV is his #1 most anticipated film of the year and will remain that way. Fine, fair enough.

    But I’ve anticipated a lot of shit storms in my day. At the end of the day, I don’t think I could possibly cross enough fingers. Let’s hope “Iron Man” is phenomenal, and therefore, softens the blow as we wait, patiently, for “The Dark Knight.”