In Contention

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  • VENICE: ‘Post Mortem,’ ‘Essential Killing,’ ‘Promises Written in Water’

    One week into the Venice Film Festival, and I don’t mind admitting that I’m feeling a little worse for wear. (Okay, and more than a little hung over on free Prosecco.) Yesterday didn’t exactly soothe matters, serving up as it did two of the festival’s most mortifying Competition films – one of which, Alex de la Iglesia’s abominable psycho-clown melodrama “A Sad Trumpet Ballad,” I haven’t the fortitude to write about right now – and yet more wi-fi trouble in the press room, which explains yesterday’s meagre showing on my end.

    With two-thirds of the festival’s Competition lineup now unwrapped – including the surprise film, which rather anti-climactically turned out to be Wang Bing’s reportedly very nutritious “The Ditch” – some clear critical favorites have emerged.

    It is, of course, anyone’s guess what jury president Quentin Tarantino might take a shine to, but it’d be a surprise if Russian entry “Silent Souls” came away from the Lido empty-handed. Meanwhile, lingering high regard for “Black Swan” and “Meek’s Cutoff,” whether they win awards or not, points to something of a recovery for the stars and stripes after the embarrassment that was this year’s Cannes showing.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Commence au festival (season)!

    Without question, the film launching full speed ahead and into the Oscar season this week is Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.” I truly haven’t heard an unkind word about the film all weekend here in Telluride, and I imagine that goodwill will continue into the Toronto fest this week as well.

    I can easily see nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction.  Nods for the cinematography and costumes wouldn’t be all that shocking, either, so I’d say nine is the ceiling.  And I imagine we may see a win or two, as well.

    Let’s face it.  As overdue as Jeff Bridges was last year, there are many who think Colin Firth was robbed for his work in “A Single Man.” It could conceivably be makeup time when the Oscars roll around in February.  My interview with Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Tom Hooper was interrupted Friday by a woman who wanted to let Firth know she thought he was robbed.  How deep does that sentiment go with voters?

    I imagine The Weinstein Company is breathing a sigh of relief with the favorable reaction, as “Miral” was met with blanket disapproval in Venice (here is Guy’s review).  The studio has a few other tricks up its sleeve, but none so critical as Hooper’s film.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘The Illusionist,’ ‘Another Year’

    The final trio of films I caught at this year’s Telluride fest, which is slowly winding down this holiday, were a bit of Cannes catch-up.  The first, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful,” I responded to yesterday.  The other two come from Sony Pictures Classics, which has a whopping five films in play here, and will have nine at Toronto later in the week.

    Before getting to those reactions, though, I have to say that this year’s program has been absolutely wonderful.  I’m only on my second year, but long-timers seem to concur that festival directors Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger really outdid themselves this time.

    I’ll talk more in the way of wrapping things up sometime later tonight or tomorrow.  For now, I have just enough time to offer up these capsules, update the predictions sidebar and contenders section, hopefully make it to an interview with Darren Aronofsky (which may have to wait until post-fest) and prepare for a 3:30 departure.  The latest Off the Carpet column will come later.

    Let’s get on with it…

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  • Godard tells AMPAS what it can do with that Honorary Oscar

    You might recall that, in the wake of auteur Jean-Luc Godard being tapped as on of the year’s Honorary Oscar recipients, the French New Wave pioneer turned up missing.  Well it seems he may have been actively avoiding that phone call from AMPAS brass.

    Godard’s girlfriend, Anne-Marie Mieville, spoke for him in an interview with The Australian, and she didn’t mince words:

    He just told me, ‘It’s not the Oscars’…At first he thought it was going to be part of the same ceremony, then he realised it was a separate thing in November…Jean-Luc won’t go to America, he’s getting old for that kind of thing. Would you go all that way just for a bit of metal?

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  • SHORT TAKE: “I’m Still Here” (**1/2)

    Venice Film Festival

    “This is the moment where the fucking good guy wins,” yells an evidently kite-high Joaquin Phoenix at a hapless member of his entourage, midway through his brother-in-law Casey Affleck’s debatable documentary portrait of the star’s much-publicized career meltdown.

    It’s a little difficult to spot the victory – or, indeed, the good guy – in this and many other such tantrums that pepper “I’m Still Here”: the film can be interpreted in a number of ways, and Phoenix comes off pretty awfully in most of them. Is it all a hoax? More specifically, could Phoenix’s actions – his abrupt 2008 “retirement” from the screen, his intended hip-hop career, his bizarre new American-Apparel-rabbi look – all be an elaborate stunt, and the film somehow not?

    Affleck was predictably unforthcoming in this morning’s press conference: “Elliptical” was his one-word answer when asked how he felt about the allegations of fakery, supported by certain scenes in the film that have obviously been (re)staged. (The closing credits feature a cast list in which not every player is billed as themselves.)

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  • 9/6 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Jeffrey Wells attempts to sum up the season’s beginnings with his own nuggets of insight regarding Venice and Telluride. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Kelly Reichardt compares “Meek’s Cutoff” to the Iraq War. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Reports of paramedics assisting folks stricken by the intensity of “127 Hours.” (Though I’ve heard it was just altitude sickness.) [Thompson on Hollywood]

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  • INTERVIEW: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Tom Hooper

    Telluride Film Festival

    For actor Geoffrey Rush and director Tom Hooper, David Seidler’s script “The King’s Speech” came to them by serendipity. Still in stage play format, it arrived at Rush’s Melbourne residence with a note apologizing for a cold call avoiding the traditional agency pipeline. For Hooper, it came to him because his mother happened to be Australian.

    “My mom was invited by some Australian friends to a fringe theater play reading of this unproduced play, having never been to a play reading in her life,” the director says, tucked into a booth with Firth and Rush at Telluride’s Rustico restaurant. “They were like, ‘We need some Aussies in the audience, would you come along?’ She called me up and said, ‘I think I may have just seen your next film.’ She sent it to me and it sat on my desk. Two or three months went by and I read it in one sitting. I rang her up and said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’”

    Rush politely declined the offer to star in a play that was “trying to be ‘Henry V,’” but noted that the central idea of Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue assisting King George V with his stammer could make for quite the film. His copy of the script, by the way, was accompanied by a DVD of the very reading Hooper’s mother attended.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘Black Swan,’ ‘Biutiful’

    Today was a long one here at Telluride.  Three screenings (which has been my consistency throughout the fest), an interview, transcribing, etc., etc.  The night mercifully brought little that interested me, so I’ve finally found some time to work.

    This afternoon started with a screening of one of Guy’s favorite films of the year, “The Illusionist.” I wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was, but I kind of want to hold off on putting my thoughts down while I let it marinate a bit.  It’s not a difficult film or anything, it’s just a visual feast that should be turned over a few times before settling on a view point, I think.

    After that it was off to the Venice hit, Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” Hundreds of people were turned away at the door and this, without a doubt, has been the festival’s hottest ticket.  The Lido can take a bow on that one.  Actually, Aronofsky’s twisted thriller seems the best place to start, so…

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  • Don’t be afraid of ‘The Way Back’

    As I write this, I can hear Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” playing at the Abel Gance outdoor cinema screen a block away.  As I passed the massive crowd that turned out for tonight’s screening, it got me thinking about Eugene Novikov’s Cinematical review of the film, which was unfortunately picked up at many outlets following Friday night’s debut.  Unfortunate because it completely misrepresents the film.

    Starting with the first line, Novikov says Weir’s film is “sadistically intent on making you feel as much of its subjects’ physical agony as possible” It’s a struggle, to be sure. This isn’t a happy time in these people’s lives. But there’s nothing here defying convention when it comes to a survival film, so why the hyperbole? And “sadistic” is an unfortunate adjective because it assumes a twisted sort of intention, which isn’t true at all. If Weir is being “sadistic,” then I’d love to hear what Novikov thinks Danny Boyle is doing in “127 Hours.”

    He goes on to say the film is “too straight up harrowing” to get awards traction. Novikov might think the film could have a tough road ahead Oscar wise, but it certainly won’t be because the film is “too harrowing.” There’s nothing here that we haven’t seen a thousand times in a thousand Oscar contenders, and that’s not to say it’s derivative (it isn’t). It simply doesn’t depict the gruesome journey Novikov projects.

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  • The Telluride sprint

    Today is the busiest day for me so forgive the drought on coverage so far.  I saw “The Illusionist” and “Black Swan” this afternoon, sat down with Peter Weir shortly after and I’m now shuffling off to catch “Biutiful.”  But check back later this evening for reactions to all of that and more.

  • VENICE: ‘Potiche,’ ‘A Letter to Elia,’ ‘Robinson in Ruins’

    Hey, did you miss me yesterday? Don’t answer that. Sorry for the radio silence, but Saturday proved to be both my busiest and most rewarding day at Venice, serving up five films — none of them stinkers, and one of them perhaps my favourite of the fest so far.

    After capping the day’s viewing with a delightful pasta dinner in the company of two of Variety’s finest, I took the water-bus back to my San Marco hotel room in a pleasant fog of good feeling and red wine, only to find the wi-fi in my hotel room had taken the night off.

    As it turned out, it was just as well: today’s festival schedule being a lean and mostly unappetizing one, I rewarded myself with my first lie-in of the week (sorry, Tsui Hark) and began afresh in the morning. Late-night reviewing is fraught with hazard, anyway, as I’d learned the night before when I nodded off in the middle of writing up “The Sleeping Beauty.” (Before you say, “How apt,” let me remind you that there is no beauty in waking up at 5 a.m. with keyboard-face.)

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Meek’s Cutoff” (****)

    Venice Film Festival

    “But nothing happens,” complained several friends to whom I had (perhaps a little too zealously) recommended Kelly Reichardt’s previous feature “Wendy and Lucy,” her pocket masterpiece about the mental unravelling of a stalled drifter in the great American nowhere.

    It’s hard to say whether such viewers will be appeased or even further dismayed by Reichardt’s subtly muscular and altogether staggering follow-up, “Meek’s Cutoff,” which sees the director taking on a propulsively linear narrative – an ox-wagon road movie driven by the most fundamental of human needs – that nonetheless still finds its greatest dramatic significance in minute human exchanges. This is a film whose story turns on one character’s offer to repair another’s shoe, the implications of this small act weighted so as to hold you in hushed fascination through every stitch.

    If, then, Reichardt remains an astute chronicler of what happens when nothing happens, “Meek’s Cutoff” affords the director her largest canvas yet on which to ruminate. A 19th century-set Western covering the most severe and spectacular stretches of the Oregon Trail to transfixingly beautiful effect, the film expands its focus from the selective character studies of “Old Joy” and “Wendy and Lucy” to ponder the fates of three families and two bookended individuals, miles from a home that does not yet exist.

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  • TELLURIDE: Boyle returns with ‘127 Hours’ in tow

    Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” made for a fascinating companion piece tonight with Peter Weir’s “The Way Back,” which I caught (and loved) this afternoon.  Both films, at their heart, are obviously about surviving at all costs, but they come from drastically different filmmakers with drastically different sensibilities when it comes to visual storytelling.

    Where Weir chooses the majesty of epic scope and films his true story with a lingering sort of patience, Boyle sets about filming his true story with the energy and vibrant spirit we’ve come to expect of his work.  Both films, however, find their groove in the naturalistic, mundane moments that inhabit tales as harrowing as these.

    I understand Boyle’s film was very well-received this afternoon when it debuted.  My audience in the evening was slightly more muted but clearly loved the film.  It helps when you have Aron Ralston in the crowd, of course.  His is an unbelievable tale and one with a rather beautiful message about the necessity of community and society to carry us through the day-to-day.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘The Way Back,’ ‘The King’s Speech’

    The second day of Telluride has brought treat after treat. I decided early this morning to skip the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” in favor of Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” because I could slide two films in rather than the one. Peter Weir’s latest, “The Way Back” (which didn’t generate many reviews at all from last night’s premiere — most must have been at “Never Let Me Go”) was playing shortly after.

    It couldn’t have been a better decision. I was treated to both the film of the festival so far and a profoundly moving work of art from a modern master.

    Let’s dive in…

    “The Way Back” (****)

    Peter Weir has made a career out of visual feasts with thematic resilience. Some might consider him the David Lean of our time, and with good reason. But the key difference is that Weir has slowly developed an art house niche out of epic scale filmmaking.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘Tabloid’

    On the first day of this year’s fest, things are off to an interesting, up and down start. I would bore you with an intro, but it’s late and I’m fading. Let’s get to the reactions…

    “Never Let Me Go” (**)

    I went back and read Guy’s summation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go” after seeing the film tonight (I’ve never read it and knew nothing of the story’s plot going in). He wrote of a “discussion of mortality and the human condition” in an emotional context that, for a filmmaker like Mark Romanek (who knows from visual emotional storytelling — just look at the video for Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”), seemed a perfect marriage of material and artist.

    Shockingly, however, Romanek’s adaptation kept me at arm’s length from frame one. There is a distance here, a cold sense of removal from what would otherwise be an extremely moving narrative. I wanted desperately to feel for the characters and their plight (I won’t hazard particulars for fear of spoilers). But I felt nothing…at all. I wanted them to rage against their circumstances and show an ounce of the spirit they in one instance even set out to prove they have, but there was, again, nothing.

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  • VENICE: ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Silent Souls’

    Blame Sofia Coppola. Or at least blame Los Angeles. For immediately after the former’s summery, sun-bleached “Somewhere” kicked off this morning’s activity, the Lido clearly decided to rebel against Coppola’s aesthetic and started gathering its clouds. Shortly before noon, the beachfront was a mere blur under a torrential downpour of rain, robust sponsors’ umbrellas blown heedlessly across the red carpet.

    The storm ended as abruptly as it began, though I couldn’t help wondering if it was an instruction of sorts from the festival gods. “Okay, dilettantes, you’ve had the three name American auteurs,” they seemed to be saying. “Now feel free to hop on over to Telluride or Toronto; you won’t even be missing out on the weather.”

    I was indoors when the gusts began whipping against the windows of the press room, but was affected by the storm nonetheless: largely because a leak in the ceiling necessitated the shutdown of the room’s wi-fi network for over two hours, handily erasing half the “Somewhere” review I’d already written and throwing my day’s screening schedule out of whack. Venice’s slightly bumpy administration can be endearing sometimes; this was not one of those times.

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  • Weir on modern indie sector, potential ‘Way Back’ campaign

    Pete Hammond, newly of Deadline, is one of only a handful of people who has seen Peter Weir’s “The Way Back,” premiering here at Telluride in a matter of hours.  He sat down with the director this afternoon and in his piece, he notes how curious it was that the film is slated for a January 21 bow without a one-week Oscar qualifying run.

    Weir told Hammond the film was ready for Cannes but that there was skepticism about whether a market exists for films of this sort.  And an Oscar campaign comes down to money, obviously, which is something Anne and I discussed in this morning’s Oscar Talk.

    The whole interview, though, reads like an unfortunate requiem to the kinds of classic films Weir has built his career upon.  The independent market and business is in considerable flux these days.  The idea that a Weir film was a hair away from going straight-to-DVD is just…depressing.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘Inside Job,’ ‘Chico & Rita’

    It’s a bit of a scorcher in Telluride this year.  Relatively speaking, of course.  I’ve got all these long pants in the suitcase but can’t seem to shake the shorts as of late.

    Anyway, tonight brings “Never Let Me Go” and “The Way Back.” I’ll likely hit up the former and catch the latter sometime later in the weekend.  Errol Morris’s “Tabloid” also screens late tonight, and I can’t wait to catch that one.  I’m debating “Tamara Drewe” this early evening.  Guy’s Cannes review doesn’t instill confidence, but I’ve heard from others that it’s quite entertaining.  What to do?

    By the way, there are a bunch of rumors concerning Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” suddenly popping up at Telluride because Brad Pitt is in town. Same as the rumor that “The Descendants” would show up because Alexander Payne is here. Sometimes, people just want to go see movies in a laid-back environment — even celebrities.  That’s all I’m saying.

    Anyway, on to the first set of capsule thoughts…

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