In Contention

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  • Marketa Irglova: More than ‘Once’

    Good news for fans of the winsome 20 year-old singer/songwriter/actress — the one who, not content with showing up every other Best Song nominee in her live performance with Glen Hansard, went on to deliver the best damn acceptance speech of the night too. (Fan? Me?)

    Anyway, after stating in multiple interviews that it was unlikely she would ever act again, seems like Irglova has had a change of heart. Screen International reports that she’s in talks to play the female lead in Czech production “Darkness,” a psychological thriller from veteran Slovak director Juraj Herz. The film, which begins shooting in the fall, centres on a man returning to his childhood home and being haunted by visions of his past.

    OK, so far so familiar, and chances are it won’t see the light of day in the US. Still, nice to see that someone noticed there was more substance to her performance in “Once” than a couple of (very) pretty songs. I’m sure I’m not the only one crossing my fingers for her.

    (Meanwhile, those seeking to recapture the magic of Marketa and Glen’s Oscar night performance would be well advised to check out their equally awesome appearance on last week’s episode of “Later… with Jools Holland” on BBC Two, where even the terrific Goldfrapp paled by comparison. Bound to be on YouTube soon, folks.)

  • ‘The Soloist’ based on the new book?

    We all know Joe Wright’s upcoming film “The Soloist,” written by Susannah Grant, was taken from the articles of Steve Lopez a few years ago. In the film, Robert Downey Jr. will play the LA Times columnist while Jamie Foxx will star as Nathaniel Ayers, the homeless Julliard-trained musician who became the subject of Lopez’s writings.

    In most cases, as we learned twice over last year, screenplays based upon magazine or newspaper articles have a tough road to adapted screenplay consideration, given the general lack of narrative structure and the tendency to stray from the material presented in the actual articles. With that in mind, I figured “The Soloist” would be headed for original screenplay consideration in the fall. BUT…

    I came across this today. It seems Steve Lopez will be reading from his new book “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music” in Pasadena on Friday. The book actually releases tomorrow in bookstores nationwide.

    So…now I wonder. The screenplay was obviously registered before the book was published, which puts it in the realm of original work, but these things can be tricky. And perhaps the book is simply a conglomeration of Lopez’s articles, in which case, nothing to see here. But we’ll have to keep our eye on it for now.

  • STV: Bringing pretention to the tabloids

    Don’t stop the presses or anything, but Stu Van Airsdale seems to be at it again, injecting those blow-hard, hoity-toity sentiments into the discussion at Defamer, of all places — completely ignorant, it seems, of the irony

    Anyway, this week his aimless blathering crosses the film awards beat, so we have to comment, I guess. Stu seems to be all bent out of shape because poor Tom O’Neil, who still can’t catch a break with those who refuse to see his work for what it is, doesn’t like 1927’s “Sunrise” and is okay with “Wings” taking that year’s Best Picture trophy over a flick he deems a “soap opera.”

    First, Tom’s comments. Foolish? Sure, if you agree that “Sunrise” is a masterpiece of the cinematic medium (I do). But worthy of this?:

    So why even mention him? Because people actually read this guy — casual fans wind up browsing him and voting in his goddamned polls outlining the “best” of 80 years ago. They don’t discuss; they avoid. They don’t watch; they ignore. And while we can endure it with our industrial-size grain of salt every Oscar season, Sunrise and you deserve better. So write a letter, start a petition — anything to make him stop. At least until this fall, when it’s not about cinema anyway.

    Not really. But wait, by “this fall,” does STV mean those few months when he gets paid to write about all this silliness for Vanity Fair?

    Give me a passionate (if at times tasteless) guy over a self-important sell-out who poses otherwise any…day…of…the…week.

    By the way, why is Stu hiding under that “STV” moniker anyway? I seeeee yooouuu.

  • Springsteen backs the Bamer

    Not that I needed a nudge toward Obama or anything. My days of indecision on which candidate to deem “my own” within the Democratic party are months behind me. But it’s nice on any day to see that The Boss is batting for your team.

    It’s kind of like when you know you’ve got that clutch slugger in the clean-up spot. With Pennsylvania on deck, having Jersey’s son step up to the plate couldn’t have come at a better time. Let’s hope he brings the Crazy Janys and Killer Joes of the Keystone State with him.

  • Los Angeles is on fire…

    Well, not really. But damn if I didn’t read 99 degrees on my car thermometer this afternoon.

    This town. I swear to God. It’s either one extreme or the next — in all scenarios. Never a happy medium.

  • Downey = 2008

    I’m working on a piece about how much Robert Downey Jr. seems set to dominate the film landscape of 2008, but in the meantime (thanks to The Movie Blog):

  • Jeez…UNCLE already!

    Do we really need another George Clooney profile?

    I feel as though I can’t turn a corner in this town without finding his still handsome but clearly aging mug plastered on this magazine or that (while simultaneously popping up in the same typical tabloid outlets to boot — but that’s not his, or his publicist’s, fault).

    First it was a Time Magazine worship session from political writer Joel Stein that made some sense in the midst of an Oscar derby that clearly held Clooney and his film, “Michael Clayton,” in the thick of things. Then, in the run-up to the release of “Leatherheads” (a film that I still haven’t seen and, despite the poor critical reception, kind of want to check out), he got one of those uber-cool Esquire covers that you might expect. But the PR overhaul was starting to reach an apex, I felt.

    And hitting my doorstep today? A solid week after “Leatherheads” has already landed and underwhelmed? Clooney gets what might be close to a 10,000-word profile in the pages of The New Yorker.

    We get it! He’s our movie star. As some outlets have proclaimed (searching for the narrative, as always), he might be “the last movie star.” I know the media want to keep the fellatio going as long as possible on this cat, but can’t they at least come up for air form time to time??

    Who am I kidding? Everyone loves this guy. I love this guy. I just need some space, George. I need to find myself. I need to know myself…without you.

  • Peter Gabriel: Best Original Song contender?

    Reading through David Poland’s mid-Disney presentation…thing…I was reminded of a potential Best Original Song contender that slipped my mind in recent months.

    Peter Gabriel is working on a song for Disney’s “Wall-E,” and it could be a contender to watch as the season unfolds. Of course, Poland reports that it is a closing track (I wasn’t aware of this), and since the rule shift a few years back, closing tracks don’t find much head-way unless they’re used in some way elsewhere in the film to creative purpose.

    In any case, it’d be great to have Gabriel back in the fold. He hasn’t been too prevalent in the cinema world since his superb score for Rabbit-Proof Fence” in 2002. And who can forget his unexpected work in “The Last Temptation of Christ” two decades ago? I don’t know why, but he seems like a perfect fit for “Wall-E.”

    Chalk him up as a possibility.

  • Want to read up on some Fitzgerald?

    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

  • What’s the f***ing point?

    It’s one thing for a report to land by a Hollywood trade that an upcoming release is getting another bump to the next quarter for unverified reasons. But come on.

    I don’t know if it’s just me, but Slate’s Kim Masters always seems to be fishing for a story.

    I don’t take issue often because her pieces tend to have such a brief shelf life when they aim so low. The shit storm is stirred, publicity, however bad, does its job. But to poke Tom Cruise, United Artists and Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie” with two anonymous sources and no apparent angle beyond “something thinks?” Give me a break.

    Of course, there are those who eat this stuff up. Jeffrey Wells keeps linking to and pontificating on every new point, but that’s what he does. Others spin their wheels in other, equally pointless directions. But at least they spin and then walk away. This is a full-blown report, and it amounts to nothing.

    The bottom line is this: who cares? What’s the story? And are you really prepared to justify “It must suck” as the story? Or is your aim just to take a stab at the Gray Lady seven graphs in?

    This is mean-spirited gossip-mongering posing as informative journalism. And sometimes, it just pisses me off.

    Here’s how Masters begins her “story”:

    So, the release of Valkyrie, the Tom Cruise film about the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, has been pushed back—again—from October to February 2009. The studio says that the Presidents’ Day weekend represented an opportunity to cash in. But many see the move as a very bad sign, and, indeed, the buzz on the film is not good.

    And the wrap up:

    Certainly, Stiller has a hit coming next May in Night at the Museum 2. We hear there may be another Cruise cameo in that film (imagine—Cruise, part of Stiller’s comic gang!), though Fox denies that. Meanwhile, our Valkyrie source tells us about a bit of humor on the set. It seems some folks displayed posters of old Cruise movies—Cocktail and so on—and decorated the star’s face with eye patches. Apparently that bit of lightening up was not appreciated.

    More unsubstantiated gossip. Read the rest.

  • Most anticipated films of the summer

    The release of “Iron Man” is breathing down our necks, if you can believe it. And with it comes the 2008 summer movie season, which looks to be an overall kick-ass time at the cineplex.

    Usually I end up peppering in a few unexpected flicks in a summer list such as this, but beyond maybe David Mamet’s “Redbelt” and — I don’t know — “Son of Rambow,” there really just isn’t a lot of peripheral stuff that’s catching my eye. It’s all about the popcorn, baby!

    Additionally, I’ll be in London from the middle of May to the middle of July, so my summer movie perspective will be a little different this year.

    Anyway, I haven’t been this excited for the hot months since…well, last year. But we know how that turned out. 2008 goes above and beyond in the anticipation arena, however, so here’s a list of the films I find myself thinking about…constantly:

    1. “The Dark Knight” (July 18)
    2. “Iron Man” (May 2)
    3. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (May 22)
    4. “The Incredible Hulk” (June 12)
    5. “Pineapple Express” (August 8)
    6. “WALL•E” (June 27)
    7. “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (May 16)
    8. “Hancock” (June 2)
    9. “Tropic Thunder” (August 15)
    10. “The Happening” (June 13)

  • ‘Valkyrie’ scoots out of the season

    According to Variety, Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie,” starring Tom Cruise, has been bounced out of Oct. 2008 and into Feb. 2009.  That pretty much spells it out, but I haven’t been expecting much from this film from the start, to be quite honest.  The script is solid, if unremarkable, and Cruise seems to be missing the beat more often than not lately.

  • Heston

    Nothing can be said that hasn’t been said. Despite his political missteps (however objective such a thing might be), Heston was a God of the screen. And he has left us.

    In the way of tribute, a glimpse of his Oscar-winning performance in “Ben-Hur”:

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=c1iDvYMd8_U

  • Call it 170

    Reading through Jeffrey Wells’s Hollywood Elsewhere this afternoon, I see he’s spitballing about the length of the script for David Fincher’s upcoming “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” written by Eric Roth.

    I made a call and got a different figure: 170 pages — with some considerable narration to boot.

    Wells’s point seems to be, “uh-oh, it’s gonna be long.” But as far as I’m concerned, a good movie can’t be long enough. So, you know, so be it if “Button” clocks in close to three hours long.

    A commenter at Hollywood Elsewhere, meanwhile, had this to say:

    I know somebody who’s seen a rouch (sic) cut (possibly just the assembly) and says it came in at 3 and a half hours.

    They also said it was a REALLY good 3 and a half hours, so there you go.

    Well, indeed. There you go. We’ll know more soon enough, but this is one of my most anticipated efforts of the season.

    Additionally, Roth is taking off from a 64-page short story, so we can bet on a lot of original material that, hopefully, adds to the emotional context of the original work. And the cover of the recently re-released short story, by the way, showcases the words “The inspiration for the upcoming motion picture,” so I wonder if, at the end of the day, the script might be deemed an original work because of what will likely be a profound, if necessary, departure from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words.

  • Bryony…again?

    I was doing some quick research today into a few titles I neglected to mention in February’s year in advance Oscar column and came across a weird little instance.

    It seems Romola Garai is set to portray a character by the name of Bryony in Richard Eyre’s upcoming “The Other Man,” opposite Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Antonio Banderas. An i-for-a-y away from the character she conveyed so well (and absence of her due kudos) in last year’s “Atonement.”

    Odd how those things happen.

  • Woah…I think we have a real makeup contender

    Putting together a list of makeup contenders was a little difficult for the year-in-advance column this year. I ultimately settled on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (a film that will be integrating plenty of effects, makeup key among them), “The Other Boleyn Girl” (eh…I know) and “The Dark Knight” (maybe voters will be impressed by the effects used on Heath Ledger’s Joker and, late in the film, Aaron Eckhart’s Two-Face).

    Frankly, I didn’t see much else worth considering…until I came across this shot of Frank Langella in Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon.”

    Sure, I figured some makeup would be used on this film to bridge the gap in appearance between Langella and Richard Nixon. Certainly more than the stage production, which didn’t get too crazy, even for a theatrical performance. But I didn’t expect to find Langella completely lost under the effects. He’s unrecognizable in this, the closest shot of the actor in the film I think we’ve seen yet.

    If the film turns into a sweeper, we’ll certainly need to watch out for it here.

  • I can already see it becoming a problem

    Regarding “Guerrilla.” Take note of the second “r.” I’ve made the mistake already myself. A few times. FYI.

  • Variety sizes up the competition…again

    It looks like they’re spinning their Oscar wheels again over at that other film awards haven of mine.

    I say “again” because Justin Chang put together a very thorough year-in-advance rundown not two months ago, which was already wading further out into the waters than you’d expect from the Hollywood trade.

    This week — actually flying under my radar because I haven’t expected Oscar stuff out of Award Central in a while — it’s Pamela McClintock, eying the release date plays of various fall contenders as an angle on which to hang yet another look ahead. I came across the link via Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere.

    The usual suspects are rounded up: “Frost/Nixon,” “Revolutionary Road,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” etc. But there are a couple of new pics of note.

    For instance, I didn’t include John Hillcoat’s “The Road” (based on the Cormac McCarthy novel) on my own year-in-advance take because there was still some questiona s to whether it would be a 2008 release at the time. The Weinstein Company has it set for a Nov. 26 bow. And I also didn’t spotlight the Greg Kinnear starrer “Flash of Genius,” because quite frankly, it didn’t come up in discussions with Universal publicity brass, so I figured why bring it up? Both films are featured by McClintock.

    Anyway, the story isn’t much beyond a taking stock sort of thing, but it’s Oscarweb news nonetheless. Check it out.