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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Art Direction — Volume II

    Oh how things have changed since I last wrote in this space. In the past four weeks, Tech Support has taken a break, allowing the dust from the festival circuit to settle, and other titles to open. Over the next 10 weeks, we’ll take a second look at each of the crafts categories, finishing in mid-December – just as awards circuit takes hold.

    Today, we take a second glance at Best Art Direction. As stated last time, this category tends to reward period and fantasy films.The branch  has some favorites, but it’s not overly incestuous. And while being a Best Picture contender certainly helps, nominees can often come from the surrounding fray.

    Perhaps I’ll start with a film that I thought would score here, but came out of Toronto in even greater shape than I expected: Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.” With prestige and period attached, I am virtually certain Eve Stewart, who was nominated in this category 11 years ago for Mike Leigh’s “Topsy-Turvy,” will be heading to the Kodak. Not only am I confident she’ll be nominated again, I think she has excellent potential to win.

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  • 10/7 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: O’Neil relaunches Gold Derby, sticking up for ‘Let Me In,’ remaking ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’

    • Tom O’Neil takes back Gold Derby, prepares re-launch of GoldDerby.com on November 1. [Gold Derby]

    • Grilling a Harvard grad on the accuracy of final club depictions in “The Social Network.” [Vulture]

    • Cole Abaius chats with Armie Hammer about his performance(s) in the film. [Film School Rejects]

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  • Metacritic scrutinizes the ‘Social Network’ critics

    Confession: since their utterly senseless redesign, Metacritic has gone from a daily (many times daily, often) stop on my web rounds to a place I barely visit. “It’s like walking through my old high school,” wrote my friend Nick, echoing my thoughts precisely. “I used to live here, now I can’t even find the bathroom.”

    It’s all for the best, probably: the less brain space I devote to the numerical quantification of critical opinion that, for some folks, now seems to stand in the place of critical opinion itself, the better for my sanity. I know which critics I like and/or which ones matter, and I can just as easily visit them in their own online living rooms.

    That said, I remain fascinated by how the advent of review-scoring has made the media (the new media, in particular) unprecedentedly obsessed with the role of critics — at a time when their opinion seemingly couldn’t have less influence on the paying public. This year alone, we’ve already seen flare-ups on the blogosphere over the critics who dared to sully the Rotten Tomatoes scores for “Toy Story 3” or “Inception”; the notoriously hard-to-please Armond White has become the critic that everyone claims not to care about, yet the arrival of one of his against-consensus pans is now greeted with mass re-Tweeting.

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  • THE LONG SHOT: When you wish upon a star

    “Mila Kunis is so winning Best Supporting Actress this year,” remarked an independent filmmaker to me over drinks today, referring, of course, to the 27 year-old’s sly breakout turn in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” This was no idle fan statement. The man knew his Oscar onions – his theory was built upon established Academy affection for hot ingénues in sashaying support roles, as well as the current absence of any obvious frontrunners in the category.

    Still, even as he explained this, my eyebrows must have shot up somewhere past my hairline. As the writer who caught hell from many readers for daring not to predict Natalie Portman among my Best Actress nominees last month, the prospect of Kunis even getting nominated for subtly smoking work in an outré arthouse thriller hadn’t crossed my mind. I told him as much while emphasizing, as an admirer of the performance, how much I’d like to be wrong.

    “That’s what everyone says to me,” he replied. “‘Oh, she’s a revelation, I’d love to see her nominated, but she won’t be.’ Whenever I start hearing that kind of talk about a person or a film, that’s when I go to the bookies and put money on them. If everyone’s seeing the same thing in them, who’s to say the voters aren’t?”

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  • ‘Blue Valentine’ and ‘Rabbit Hole’ depict tortured souls with authentic ease

    Watching Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine” and John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” in the same 24-hour span is a brutal exercise.  There are plenty of raw, realistic, dreary emotions flying through these narratives, but the experiences were very rewarding.

    Starting with Cianfrance’s film, which has been making the festival rounds since a healthy Sundance reception, I found it to be a delicate and truthful examination of a relationship in crisis.  (Guy was a fan in Cannes.)  Anyone who has been through the kind of near-numbing emotional spiral depicted in the film, the false fronts of hopefulness that spring up and the crushing disintegration of affection will appreciate the authenticity.

    Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star as young lovers pushed into the realities of family too soon and under unfortunate circumstances.  But Cianfrance and his fellow writers don’t focus on those circumstances beyond offering up the information you need to understand the predicament (and, perhaps a bit too tidily, to keep judgment off the table for the viewer).  Mostly the film is a vehicle for Gosling and Williams to take the wheel and go, and boy do they ever.

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  • Taking questions for Oscar Talk

    Someone suggested this a few weeks back and I forgot to implement it in the last podcast, but we’d like to open it up for questions.  Maybe have a Q&A segment at the end of the show Friday, so if you have a query or something to throw out there for Anne and I to chew on, have at it here and we’ll try to address as many as we can.  It should be a great way to keep you guys involved rather than just listening to us talk out into the great open void of the Oscarweb.  I’ll try to have a post up each Wednesday for this.

  • ‘Welcome to the Rileys’ poster

    I haven’t seen “Welcome to the Rileys,” which opened at Sundance earlier this year and was a part of the downward spiraling Apparition stable before being shifted over to Samuel Goldwyn Films.  Starring James Gandolfini and Kristen Stewart, as well as Melissa Leo (quite busy this year), the film may or may not have an impact this season.  How’s that for insight?  It hits theaters October 29.  Have a look at the new poster, courtesy of Movieline, after the jump.

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  • 10/6 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Making the case for dual ‘Kids’ nods, FX nabs ‘Social’ rights, Stone up for Stacey

    • On the hunt for “Catfish”‘s Angela Wesselman-Pierce. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes write up the beginnings of the season (with a little quotage from yours truly). [New York Times]

    • Scott Feinberg makes the case for both Annette Bening and Julianne Moore getting nominated for “The Kids Are All Right.” [ScottFeinberg.com]

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  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1981 and 1982

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    Can I just take a moment here to publicize that the 1980’s are by far, my least favorite decade in cinema. Despite the great titles that I’ll be spotlighting here and my feelings that it was the best time for blockbuster filmmaking, it’s just a generally depressing era. Genuine artistic voices were in short supply so if anyone has recommendations for these years, definitely throw them my way.

    Perhaps I should start with “Chariots of Fire,” one of only a handful of Best Picture winners I have yet to see. The unheralded British production was a surprise winner over Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” which I have also not seen.

    I was, however, conceived in 1981 so cut me some slack on these titles. I’ll get to them. As I was preparing to enter the world, all four acting winners were on their way out, averaging 71 years old, including Henry Fonda’s first ever win.

    Another British production about a true story, “Gandhi,” took top honors in 1982. This was also the year “Tron” was disqualified from the Best Visual Effects category because the Academy thought using a computer was cheating.

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  • Leigh and Manville on their 30-year collaboration

    As you probably know, I’m rooting hard for seasoned character actress Lesley Manville to get her first Oscar nod this year for Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” — and the quality of her piercing tragicomic performance isn’t the only reason.

    For a director renowned for his close relationship with a regular, rotating crew of actors, the Academy’s response to his films thus far hasn’t really reflected that loyalty. Only three thesps (all women) have been Oscar-nominated for their work in a Leigh film — a number far smaller than it should be — and all of them, oddly enough, were tapped for their first collaboration with the director. (Moreover, only one of them has since returned to Leigh: that’d be “Vera Drake” lead Imelda Staunton, who has a striking cameo in his latest.)

    Should Lesley Manville manage a nomination, then, she’ll be the first of Leigh’s regular posse to be thus rewarded. Indeed, Manville is Leigh’s longest-serving ally. She first collaborated with the director on a 1979 radio play before going on to star in six of his feature films, climaxing with a stunning lead turn in 2002’s “All or Nothing” that was shamefully ignored by awards bodies on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s sweet to see the middle-aged actress  finally having her moment in the sun with “Another Year” — she’s earned it.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” (**)

    BFI London Film Festival

    (LFF coverage will begin in earnest when the fest itself kicks off next Wednesday. However, given that this film is opening Stateside on Friday, it made sense to yank the review forward.)

    Hitherto a pair of the brightest lights on the American indie-film scene, writing-directing duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck share an apparent interest in rerouting classic Hollywood story patterns to a sharper, sadder place. Their first two superb features both took on genres largely characterized by inspirational narratives, only to find compromised hope in irregular resolutions: “Half Nelson” is an idealistic-teacher movie where the educator in question needs as much repair as his students, while “Sugar” is a sports drama whose gifted baseballer hero winds up pursuing the American Dream off the pitch.

    If anyone, then, could breathe new life into the well-fed subgenre of the mental-asylum drama, you’d think it would be these two. Alas, Boden and Fleck have come a cropper with “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” a terminally precious and timing-deficient youth comedy that sees the filmmakers trading in their quiet, observational character shooting style for an artificial attempt to emulate the tricked-out, capital-Q Quirkiness of early Wes Anderson.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 below-the-line elements of Fincher films

    With “The Social Network” hitting theaters this weekend, audiences are reminded once again of director David Fincher’s skill and vision as a craftsman. The eight films he has assembled throughout an 18-year career in feature filmmaking have been dazzling showcases for below-the-line talent.

    As you know, we make an effort to keep the spotlight on these elements of the filmmaking process. Art direction, cinematography, costume design, film editing, makeup, music, sound and visual effects are all key ingredients, and Fincher has always been a director consumed by their implementation in his work.

    The seeds of this, of course, were planted early on in his commercial and music video career. They seemed to reach a full apex two years ago with the period and effects detail of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (racking up eight of the 11 total nominations Fincher’s films have amassed in these arenas), but each film in his portfolio sports below-the-line creativity and artistry worth singling out.

    So it seemed to me a great opportunity to dedicate an installment of The Lists to the best craft elements of Fincher’s filmography to date. Let’s dive in…

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  • ‘The Tempest’ trailer

    Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest” has been getting knocked around ever since it hit the festival circuit last month. You’ll recall Guy was no fan at Venice (to put it lightly). But now a trailer for the film has hit, and indeed, while it looks like a crafts showcase, it has more than its share of red flags. Check it out for yourself via Apple by clicking the image below or watch the embed after the jump.

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  • Peter Weir and ‘The Way Back’ set to enter the race

    Good news for Peter Weir fans.  I’m hearing a press release announcing that the Aussie director’s first film in seven years will be given a fighting chance in this year’s film awards season is imminent.

    The film, of course, is “The Way Back.” Newmarket Films was announced as the distributor on opening day of this year’s Telluride Film Festival (where Weir was in attendance for a tribute and the film saw its world premiere). It was immediately slated for a January 21, 2011 wide release date, but there was no indication that it would have a presence in the Oscar season.

    Just last week, Newmarket president and co-founder Chris Ball pulled back from the company to form a new shingle, Wrekin Hill Entertainment, and “The Way Back” was announced as one of the company’s first releases (jointly with Newmarket). And today it looks like the film will be slated for a one-week Oscar qualifying run in December.

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  • ‘All Good Things’ poster

    Andrew Jarecki’s “All Good Things” has been patiently waiting a release for quite a while now.  I heard some great things about Kirsten Dunst last year but all eyes may be on Ryan Gosling (who is also pitch-perfect in “Blue Valentine,” which I finally saw last night — more later).  I’ll be seeing Jarecki’s film next week, but today we get a look at the poster courtesy of Vulture.  Check out the full image after the jump.

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  • 10/5 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Moving the show to January, CGI gaffes, toasting Mirren

    • The Academy considers moving the Oscars up to late January or early February.  Same old song and dance.  It would begin in 2012 and is dependent on the NFL’s plans. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Tom Shone talks to “Nowhere Boy” director Sam Taylor-Wood. [New York Magazine]

    • Monika Bartyzel toasts Helen Mirren’s rise from sexpot to Oscar winner. [Cinematical]

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  • Cholodenko: Hollywood “lopsided” against female directors

    In Oscar-watching, causes can be seasonal things: there’s no guarantee that what the industry and the media jointly declare a crucial issue one year will last to the next. In 1991, “Beauty and the Beast” earned applause for breaking the animation ceiling in Best Picture, but it took 18 years (and a format change) for the Academy to go there again. The year after voters redressed the balance by handing both their lead acting Oscars to African-American actors in 2001, not a single black face featured in either category. Every year has its own story.

    We might well be learning that again this year. In many quarters, 2009 was dubbed “the year of the woman” as a string of successes for female filmmakers culminated in Kathryn Bigelow’s history-making Oscar win.

    This year, however, that level of cheerleading has been largely absent, despite another strong year for women in the field: Debra Granik and Sofia Coppola were the toast of Sundance and Venice, respectively, box-office titan Pixar announced its first female-helmed feature and Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right” was the crossover arthouse story of the summer.

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  • Foreign Oscar update

    I neglected to mention this over a busy weekend, but the deadline for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submissions passed on Friday. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have all the contenders set in stone, however — we’re still waiting on the official list from the Academy, which always features a couple of latecomers and a switched selection or two.

    Still, to all intents and purposes, the eventual Oscar shortlist is set to come from the 62 titles entered thus far. (Check out our updated list here.) The most notable submission among the last-minute stragglers is Argentina’s “Carancho,” a romantic legal thriller from director Pablo Trapero — whose previous feature, the strong female proson drama “Lion’s Den,” was the country’s unsuccessful Oscar submission in 2008.

    The film stars Ricardo Darin, a familiar face to that voting branch; the Argentine superstar has headlined five of the country’s last nine entries, including reigning Oscar champ “The Secret in Their Eyes.” The film played in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it was rather well-received. I’ll be catching up with it at the London fest this month.

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