In Contention

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  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1999 and 2000

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    We’ve all heard that 1999 is the best year in movies since 1939 or possibly ever, but it’s hard to defend that statement if you actually believe “American Beauty” is the cream of the crop like the Academy did. Yet another “you had to be there” award that the Academy seems so prone to, while Cannes can pick timeless classics more often than not.

    At least the Academy saw fit to reward true ingenuity in the form of three nominations apiece for “Being John Malkovich” and “Magnolia.” They even stuck a toe in the water of bravery by nominating a song from “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” even if it was the worst and least offensive one in the film.

    The first year of the new millennium was conquered by “Gladiator,” but will perhaps be better remembered for Steven Soderbergh’s near-unprecedented double Best Director nomination and the record-breaking 10 nods nabbed by “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” the most ever for a foreign film.

    Academy members also seemed to have popped in their “Dancer in the Dark” soundtrack CDs but couldn’t be bothered to do the same with the actual movie, which is the only way to explain Björk landing a nomination for Best Song and not Best Actress.

    This year marked Steve Martin’s first time at the helm and he remains my favorite Oscar host ever thanks to deadpan gems like, “You know, I saw the movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ and I didn’t see any tigers or dragons. Then I realized, it’s because they’re crouching and hidden.”

    Here’s what I recommend you spend your time watching.

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  • Phoenix and African-American critics nominate, ‘Bone’ wins San Diego

    Phoenix here, AAFCA here. Additionally, “Winter’s Bone” won the top honor with the San Diego critics.  Check out that intriguing list of winners here.  Still waiting to hear what won Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Film, though.  Moving right along…

  • Sports Illustrated celebrates ‘The Fighter’

    Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly covers may occasionally factor into the Oscar conversation, but here’s a rag we don’t normally discuss much during the season. In a neat bit of cross-media hype, Sports Illustrated has declared “The Fighter” the “sports movie of the decade” (rather a young decade, really, but they mean the last 10 years), and has granted it the cover of their “Year in Sports Media” issue. Also featured, apparently: “Secretariat” and “127 Hours.”

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  • FIRST HALF FYC: Best Screenplay (Original and Adapted)

    For the third episode in our new Oscar-season feature, we take a recess from the acting races and look instead to the screenplays that roped the actors in to begin with. If you’re new to the feature (or even if you aren’t), the game is simple: railing against awards voters’ usual bias towards late-year releases, we’re highlighting a ballot’s worth of notable contenders in each major category, from films released in the first half of the year.

    I’ve been doing the categories on a one-by-one basis, but today I’m doubling down and covering both the Original and Adapted Screenplay races. This is partly in order to squeeze in everything I want to cover before Oscar nomination morning, but also partly because one of the categories proved less than rewarding on its own: starting with the adaptations and finding the pickings so slim, I decided that a beefier post was to be created from twinning the categories.

    That’s not to dismiss the films and screenplays I’ve selected, even the least of which offer substantial points of interest — and for which I still have more affection than some of the bigger names being  tossed into the Oscar ring. Indeed, the films in this list that don’t entirely click for me are no less (and often more) intriguing than those that do.

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  • Filmography 2010

  • On the sound of ‘Black Swan’

    One of the most under-appreciated (I think) aspects of Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” this year is the sound design. It’s a film that evokes not just an atmosphere but an overall experience, and a lot of that has to do with booming Tchaikovsky as well as suggestive aural effects.

    So, leave it to the wonderful folks at SoundWorks Collection to illuminate these aspects of the film for us all. Sound designer and supervising sound editor Craig Henighan is interviewed in the clip, explaining the process of developing the overall sonic identity of the film.

    I really hope the film can get some respect for these elements because I think a lot of that has plenty to do with what is effective in the film and what you take away once left entirely breathless by it. Have a look at SC’s profile on the film (perhaps my favorite one yet) after the jump.

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  • San Francisco and Toronto critics chime in

    At The Circuit.  San Francisco here, Toronto here. And the Globe nominees have been relocated there as well.  Anyone heard anything about the NYFCC runners-up?

  • 12/14 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: critics’ awards scoop and outrage, the year in posters, Steinfeld’s ‘Grit’

    • Tim Appelo gets the inside scoop of yesterday’s NYFCC vote. [The Race]

    • David Poland, meanwhile, is outraged that critics so far, in their dwindling numbers, have failed to resonate by missing the fertile ground between obscure and obvious. [The Hot Blog]

    • Jenelle Riley sits down with “True Grit” young’un Hailee Steinfeld. [Backstage]

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  • ‘King’s Speech’ leads Globe nods, ‘True Grit’ shut out

    True to form, the Golden Globe nominations are a buffet of the good, the bad and the unconscionably hideous — with perhaps a touch more emphasis than usual on the third of those this year. I refer, of course, to those largely mortifying Comedy/Musical races, where HFPA voters solved the lack of obvious contenders this year by giving in to their randiest star-shagging urges.

    Welcome to the Best Picture race, “Red,” “The Tourist” and (pauses to cross himself and say three Hail Marys) “Alice in Wonderland.” Or, you know, not. Congratulations on your double-shot of well-deserved Best Actor nominations, Mr. Depp. Or, you know, not. Sorry, Sally Hawkins, we liked you just fine in “Made in Dagenham,” but Angelina Jolie was obviously working harder in her movie. Or, you know, not.

    Still, even as we strike down upon the HFPA with great vengeance and furious anger, I’m feeling pretty chipper about some things: reviled as it is by many, “Burlesque” is the kind of grandly gaudy goof-off that I’m happy to see livening up the category, while my biggest air-punch of the morning came when my actress of the year Emma Stone’s name was read out for “Easy A.”

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  • The rehabilitation of David O. Russell

    As “The Social Network” continues to steamroll its way through the season’s first act, and antsy analysts begin to look elsewhere for a bit of conflict in the race, I find myself wondering what kind of sneak attack David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” might yet launch in the Best Picture field.

    The film, which goes into wide release on Sunday, is perhaps the most rousing title in the Oscar mix, and if audiences take to it as an unexpected amount of critics have, it could supplant “The King’s Speech” as the warmer, scrappier alternative to the chilly precision of David Fincher’s precursor-guzzler.

    Earlier in the year, “The Fighter” seemed to face one sizable obstacle to Oscar glory — the thorny reputation of Russell himself, whose ugly meltdown on the set of “I Heart Huckabees” has unfortunately became the stuff of YouTube legend, despite being the kind of private professional lapse that only his collaborators should have been party to. Between that and the addled (and finally aborted) production of his his political satire “Nailed,” Russell didn’t really seem a viable contender for much industry backpatting.

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  • San Diego critics show how it’s done

    For those keeping score at home, this is what an inspired and thoughtful set of nominations looks like. Sure, it’s as subjective as anything, so I’ll qualify it with “in my opinion.” And I’m not sure how many voting members there are (smaller groups yield more interesting collectives — usually). But I’m happy to see SOMEONE finding a unique voice in all this precursor fray.

  • First Oscar presenters announced

    With the big night still over two months away, it’s rather early for us to be thinking of Oscar telecast details, but you can bet the show’s frantic producers aren’t feeling quite so calm about it all. As we speak, Rolodexes and little black books are being frantically rifled through as the list of presenters is drawn up, and today, we were given our first taste of what manner of star power will be joining hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco (still doesn’t sound right, does it?) on stage.

    No surprise that reigning Oscar champs Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges will be on hand, presumably to present the lead acting awards — the question is whether the producers will stick to the awkward “Logan’s Run”-style five-way presenting scheme they’ve used, to sharply diminishing effect, the last two years running. In the 2008 ceremony, they had the previous winners present their own category: Bridges’ likely repeat nomination this year should prevent that, though it’d be fun to watch him eulogize himself.

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  • Guessing the Globes

    [UPDATE: Musical/Comedy predictions amended following tip from readers that “Nowhere Boy” has correctly been entered as a drama.]

    A fundamentally silly exercise it may be, but predicting the Golden Globe nominees is more fun than most such rituals. This is largely because, year in and year out, we’re guaranteed at least a couple of heroically nutso jawdroppers (Tom Cruise for “Tropic Thunder,” anyone?), and trying to anticipate these means the increasingly tight circle of contenders is fleetingly broken.

    (MCN’s Gurus o’ Gold, including Kris, took a stab last week.)

    Of course, we mostly have the Comedy/Musical categories to thank for that, given how they’re equally liable to show up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s shameless stargazing (hey, remember their scarily unbreakable crush on Renee Zellweger?) tendencies and their occasional flashes of inspiration (hey, remember that awesomely unexpected showing for “In Bruges” two years ago?).

    More musings, and a full list of predictions, after the jump.

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  • The assassination of Yogi Bear by the coward Boo Boo

  • Likability: the best films of 2010

    I don’t quite know how to peg 2010.

    On one hand it has felt like a weak year. On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed quite a few films. Maybe the story lies in that sentence: “enjoyed.” There were precious few films that really rocked me, but plenty that were a nice enough experience.

    If you listened to Friday’s Oscar Talk, then you know my top 10. But before publishing it in this space, allow me to walk through the many films that fell short, starting at the top with Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine.” Here is an honest depiction of a relationship in crisis with performances that hit the mark. It wears its soul on its sleeve.

    The Coen brothers’ dip into the western genre, “True Grit,” was a straight-forward piece of flavorful filmmaking much appreciated for its restraint, while similarly, Ben Affleck’s “The Town” didn’t attempt reinvention of the wheel while forging a resonant character study in a genre film’s clothing.

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  • ‘Social Network’ adds NYFCC to its tally

    Well, the (rather predictable) steamroller keeps on going today as “The Social Network” adds the New York Film Critics Circle to its tally of early kudos.  The question now and through the next few weeks will be, is it “L.A. Confidential?” That was the question for “The Hurt Locker” last year, though, and we know how that turned out.

    More notable, I think, is the resurgence of “The Kids Are All Right” after a small speed bump in this morning’s BFCA announcement.  The film won Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay.  Colin Firth, meanwhile, followed yesterday’s LAFCA win for Best Actor with a tip of the hat from the New York crowd, all prelude to an inevitable Oscar win come February.

    Melissa Leo also continues to have a great showing in the precursor season, as she took home the award for Best Supporting Actress.  And…wait, I’m getting bored already just writing this up.  Just have a look for yourself at The Circuit.

    [Photo: Focus Features]

  • NYFCC on the way…

    Holding pattern.  And maybe it’s time to revamp the ole’ website?  Every time I go there I expect to find that Julian Fellowes has won Best Screenplay for “Gosford Park.” Anyway, the announcement should drop within the hour.

    In the meantime, here are the Southeastern Film Critics Association’s picks.

  • DiCaprio contest winner!

    Thanks to everyone who submited a graph detailing a favorite Leonardo DiCaprio performance.  After poring through 60-plus entries, I settled on this one as, for me, the most convincing argument, courtesy of Peter Labuza:

    For me, DiCaprio was best in Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed.” In a film that is constantly moving and full of energy, DiCaprio brings everything in his body to the internal. While many of the actors in the film rush their words to give the film a jolt, DiCaprio anchors the drama by slowing things down, processing each layer of his character and the façade he has to create. Like “Shutter Island,” DiCaprio’s character loses his mind, but we don’t need Scorsese’s swinging camera and haunted atmosphere to see it—it’s all there in DiCaprio’s face.

    I also happen to agree with the choice.  So, drop me a line, Peter, and let’s get you your prize.