In Contention

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  • CINEJABBER: The “M” word

    I received an email today from a reader addressing a concern I’ve long had at the back of my mind, but I never really figured out a way to deal with it. In a nutshell, we discuss films early, generally before release around these parts, and when a large majority of you get a chance to have a look, the conversation ship has sailed.

    I don’t want that, obviously, and I imagine it’s difficult to find a place to re-inject the talking points with our day-to-day topics running full speed, so I figured the best way to deal with it would be a general discussion post every weekend for you to cut loose about what you might have seen or what you’d like to discuss amongst yourselves.

    It’s a no-brainer, really, but I just never got around to actually, you know, doing it.

    So we’ll call it “Cinejabber” (I guess) and I’ll kick start the conversation this week, in case no one has any ideas (though I imagine there are those who’d like to discuss any number of films finally in release).

    Reading Sasha Stone’s recent “hold your horses” item about the comparisons to “Citizen Kane” surrounding “The Social Network,” she noted peripherally, “When ‘Inception’ came out and was hailed as ‘masterpiece’ it angered critics, and viewers, that anyone would dare use a word like that to describe a big studio movie out of Warner Bros. Or maybe it was that the word shouldn’t really be applied to a film until a decade or so has gone by.”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Speech’ rises, ‘Town’ hovers, foreign list

    • At Toronto, “The King’s Speech” scooped the Audience Award, recently a harbinger of Oscar success. (Days later, a trailer landed.)

    • This week’s Off the Carpet pondered the film’s rosy awards outlook, but also warned of the fickle nature of frontrunner status.

    • Guy’s seasonal Oscar column, The Long Shot, kicked off with a reminder to put the movies first. (He also tested the waters with some predictions.)

    • Following an unexpected display of box office muscle from “The Town,” we wondered how far it can go in the Oscar race.

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  • Susanne Bier’s latest in foreign Oscar hunt

    One week from the deadline and the Best Foreign Language Film submissions are coming in thick and fast — our updated list currently boasts 44 titles. The number of those titles I’ve actually seen is, regrettably, still in the single digits, but it does include one of today’s arrivals to the race, India’s “Peepli Live” — which coincidentally also opens in the UK today.

    I’d like to say supportive things about Anusha Rizvi’s well-intentioned but controversial media satire, which premiered in competition on Sundance and has been warmly received on the festival circuit, but I’m afraid I found it a pretty listless affair: the film takes on the potentially rich dramatic subject of farmers committing suicide to gain government aid for their families, but veers crudely between action and subtext without balancing them at once.

    Despite a vast film industry, India has accrued a scant three nominations in this category; though respect for “Peepli Live” is widespread, I somehow sense a fourth isn’t on the cards.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 33 — ‘Social Network’ front-running, Gibson persona non grata and why ‘The Fighter?’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, a one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change on route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    There isn’t a whole lot to discuss this week though there are a number of forced stories out there which kind of prove the point. I’m up in Berkeley talking to Anne down in LA so, as the New York fest kicks off tonight, let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • Zuckerberg on Oprah

    Read about his announcement here. Of course, Oprah, ever the soft-lob interviewer, brings up the thought-process that Zuckerberg’s announcement is convenient given the NYFF bow of “The Social Network” today. He calls the film “fun” and says, “Trust me, it’s my life and I know it’s not that dramatic.”

  • Who should be on Christopher Nolan’s ‘Superman’ shortlist?

    My RSS feed was absolutely stuffed to the brim with the clamoring re-reporting of the geek press’s favorite story of the week yesterday: OMG! Christopher Nolan is meeting with a shortlist of potential “Superman” directors!

    Except the list is all wrong. The names: Tony Scott, Matt Reeves, Jonathan Liebsman, Duncan Jones and Zack Snyder.  Now, I love Reeves and Jones (the two getting most people excited) as much as the next guy. But they don’t feel thematically right for this material. And Superman boasts a scope that these directors, however talented on a smaller scale, have yet to prove capable of navigating.

    Liebsman, meanwhile, is the intriguing up-and-comer pick, and though I haven’t seen “Battle: Los Angeles,” I feel like this is just a way to insert some in-house cross-promoting potential (“from the director of ‘Clash of the Titans 2,’” you know?). And Snyder, well, I wouldn’t be entirely against it, but I’d know from the start that it would be a stylistic divergence unsuitable to the character.

    Scott is really the most interesting pick of the bunch, and if this were pre-frenetic filmmaking Scott (i.e. pre-“Enemy of the State”), I’d be all about it. I’d say the guy who copped Scott’s early style would be a better pick…

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  • ‘Megamind’ poster

    DreamWorks Animation’s “Megamind” is set to battle Disney’s “Tangled” for early holiday audiences this November.  The most recent trailer spoiled the movie for a great many but at least the poster is safe and, well standard.  Is there something that’s supposed to be subconsciously attractive about yellow, though?  Because consciously, it’s not doing it for me.  Check out the full image after the jump.
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  • 9/24 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Franco nearly flunks, ‘Rabbit Hole’ sets a date, no one edits Oliver Stone

    • All-time greatest Oliver Stone line: “I like mirror. I wrote Scarface. Go fuck yourself.” [Vulture]

    • Potential Oscar nominee James Franco got a “D” in his NYU acting class. [Showbiz 411]

    • Read Tim Burton’s poem about Johnny Depp, circa 1991. [Cinematical]

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  • James Cameron tops Guardian’s “most powerful” list

    There has been some debate this morning in the British corner of the Twitterverse about the merits of The Guardian’s inaugural Film Power 100 list, which claims to represent the 100 industry figures current wielding the most power over, and influence on, UK filmgoers.

    It’s an ungainly and frequently baffling collection of names, mashing together actors, directors, moguls and journalists, but as readers pick away at the inclusion of this star over that — and non-Brits scratch their heads and wonder who the hell Claudia Winkleman is — few are arguing with the paper’s #1 choice: the long-dormant but mightily resurrected James Cameron. They explain his selection as follows:

    [H]e is almost the entire reason why [3D] is no longer viewed exclusively as a sideshow gimmick … No film-maker has taken a more passionate interest and involvement in cinema technology than this Canadian-born writer-director-producer, who pushed 3D and computer-generated character creation to a point of sophistication that would enable him to make his Pocahontas-goes-science-fiction extravaganza.

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  • ‘Carlos’ trailer

    Olivier Assayas’s five-and-a-half-hour Carlos the Jackal biopic was the film I most regretted missing it Cannes, where its gargantuan running time prevented any repeat screenings. Happily, I have a chance to catch up with it at next month’s London Film Festival, and am enormously looking forward to doing so. (It will have its US premiere next week at the New York fest.) IFC will be releasing the film on October 15 both in its full miniseries-format glory and in a 150-minute theatrical cut; word from those I trust at Cannes is that the film rewards the long haul. Click on the image below to check out the trailer via Apple, or watch the embed after the jump.

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  • Zuckerberg times his generosity well

    The official line may be that beleaguered Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg isn’t really on board with “The Social Network” — even if the Twitterverse yesterday was abuzz with rumors that he attended a screening in his Sunday best — but whatever his attitude to David Fincher’s film about his rise to fortune, the 26 year-old billionaire is certainly helping out in the publicity stakes.

    The New York Times reports that Zuckerberg will appear on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” tomorrow to announce a $100 million donation to the Newark public schools system:

    The $100 million for Newark is the initial gift to start a foundation for education financed by Mr. Zuckerberg. This would be by far the largest publicly known gift by Mr. Zuckerberg, whose fortune Forbes magazine estimated last year at $2 billion … The gift is many times larger than any the system has received, officials said — an extraordinary sum not only for a district with an $800 million annual operating budget, but also for any publicly financed government agency. It is not yet clear how the money would be used, or over what period.

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  • ‘The King’s Speech’ trailer

    What else can we really say about “The King’s Speech” at this point? The bulk of two Off the Carpet columns have already been dedicated to this early frontrunner. It captured audience support at Toronto. And now we wait for it to open and, hopefully, pull in some decent coin. The Weinstein Company has released the first trailer for the film via Yahoo! Movies and it’s a bit awkwardly edited for my tastes, but at least you all finally get a good look at what’s in store. Check it out by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • ‘Love & Other Drugs’ to open AFI Fest

    I’ll be here in LA covering AFI Fest once again this fall.  Typically it’s another chance to play catch-up on this title or that, but the festival does score its fair share of intriguing bows.  This year, it looks like Edward Zwick’s “Love & Other Drugs” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Best Actress hopeful Anne Hathaway will get opening night honors on November 4.  Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” meanwhile, will close out the fest at a November 11 gala.

    The press release, in part:

    “Ed Zwick and Darren Aronofsky honor us by premiering their films at AFI FEST,” said Bob Gazzale, President and CEO of the American Film Institute. ”As alumni of the AFI Conservatory, both men symbolize a perfect fusion of the Institute’s national mandate to educate the next generation of storytellers and to honor the artists and their work.” David Lynch, who serves as the festival’s Guest Artistic Director, is also a graduate of the AFI Conservatory.

    “AFI is where it began for me, and where I return as often as possible, to teach and to learn,” said Edward Zwick. “I’m honored to open the festival, and to join Darren, David, and so many alumni for whom this marks a kind of coming home.”

    “As an alumnus of the AFI Conservatory, it’s always a thrill to partake in the wonderful festival AFI puts on,” said Darren Aronofsky. “The fact that we get to show at my favorite theater in the world, the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, adds to the honor.”

    [Photo: 20th Century Fox]

  • ‘Waiting for Superman’ does Oprah

    I offered up my thoughts on Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” back when the film played the Los Angeles Film Festival in June.  My position is that the film, however emotional, doesn’t necessarily tell us anything we don’t already know and plays loose and fast with facts in order to slightly sensationalize the issue.

    All of that said, if it’s not quite there as a piece of art, it is extremely successful and commendable as a piece of activism.  And who in their right mind would argue with its message?

    The film opens in limited release tomorrow and got a big boost from Oprah Winfrey earlier this week when she brought Guggenheim, D.C. school district chancellor Michelle Rhee (who features prominently in the film) and recent tag-along Bill Gates onto the show to spread the message to an obviously gigantic audience in her farewell season.  (Interestingly enough, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg will announce his intentions to donate $100 million to New Jersey public schools on tomorrow’s show — talk about image spin/control.)

    Check out a clip from the episode after the jump (Oprah at her giveaway best) and do try to see the film when it comes your way.

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  • ‘Fur of Flying’ clip

    If you go see “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” this weekend, you’ll be treated to one of the new stereoscopic 3D Warner Bros. cartoons, “Fur of Flying.” A clip of the short has been lingering on the net for a while and I never got around to posting it, so I figured today was as good a time as any.  I can’t wait to sse it (and the other shorts WB has been cooking up.)  Maybe we’ll be seeing it pop up in the Best Animated Short race.  Take a look at the clip after the jump.

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  • Phoenix “apologizes” as Letterman plays it straight

    Joaquin Phoenix made his return to The Late Show last night following his performance art appearance a year and a half ago which made plenty of headlines.  With the reality of “I’m Still Here” out in the open, it made for a “how could you not know” session.  Letterman was reportedly in on the gag but the interview played out like he didn’t know and only assumed it was all just a put-on.  In any case, it’s kind of the closing chapter in a saga that has irritated and amused many.  Here’s the full appearance:

  • 9/23 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Brolin on Stone and Allen, remembering ‘Goodfellas’ and a ‘Boonmee’ how-to

    • In a joint venture with Interview magazine, Roger Ebert corners Casey Affleck on “I’m Still Here.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Kevin Gray talks “Wall Street” and Woody Allen with Josh Brolin. [Vulture]

    • Steve Pond runs a comb through the contenders so far to gauge strengths and weaknesses. [The Odds]

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  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1977 and 1978

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    Hey, that “Star Wars” thing was nominated for Best Picture in 1977. The blockbuster game-changer was beaten by the romantic comedy game-changer “Annie Hall,” in what has to be one of my favorite Best Picture wins ever. It would be 21 years before another comedy won the top prize in “Shakespeare in Love,” which is another one of my favorite Best Picture wins. More good comedies please!

    Sir Stevie Spielberg earned his first Oscar nomination for directing “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” but saw the film lose out on a Best Picture nod to “The Goodbye Girl.” That film earned Richard Dreyfuss the honor of becoming the youngest Best Actor winner until Adrien Brody, decades later.

    “The Deer Hunter” bummed everyone out enough in 1978 to take home Best Picture and Director statues. The only real competition came from “Coming Home,” as anti-Vietnam films were suddenly back in vogue.

    1977 was also Bob Hope’s last turn as Master of Ceremonies (his eighteenth). No more quips like this one, “Tonight we set aside petty differences, forget old feuds, and start new ones.” Luckily, 1978 was the first of many Johnny Carson hosting gigs with gems like, “I see a lot of new faces. Especially on the old faces.”

    But here’s what had to watch from home.

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