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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 30 — Reporting from Telluride and Venice

    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.

    Today we’re chatting from the Telluride and Venice festivals respectively. The former is just gearing up while the latter has bowed a number of films already (I’m sure you’ve caught Guy’s coverage). So Anne has more to say about the movies today than I do, but this is what’s on the docket…

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  • Lionsgate sets Nov. release for Perry’s ‘For Colored Girls’

    The rumors were swirling around a potential fall release for Tyler Perry’s adaptation of the Ntozake Shange play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the World is Enuf.”  Today, a release dropped announcing a November 5 release.  And, perhaps predictably, the film’s title has been shortened to “For Colored Girls.”

    Guy pondered the awards possibilities of the title a few days back.  Could we have a player on our hands?  It’s the best bet Lionsgate has on its plate, and there are plenty female performances that could have the stuff.  Time will tell.  Check out a new image from the film after the jump.

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  • 9/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Joe Morgenstern writes a love letter to Carey Mulligan.  It’s still all happening. [Wall Street Journal]

    • Jennifer Lawrence’s buzz wave makes its way across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • The foreign film submissions are already off to the races, and now the Netherlands (“Tirza”) declares. [Variety]

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  • REVIEW: “Somewhere” (***1/2)

    Venice Film Festival

    Who’d be Sofia Coppola? (As an artist, I mean – I’m sure plenty of women would gladly trade for her beauty, wardrobe and Parisian rock-star husband.) No sooner had her bijou, highly personal breakthrough picture netted her an Oscar, atop countless critical valentines, than an acidic chorus of detractors began chiding her for aiming too low. When she shot for postmodern history and swirling visual excess in her strong follow-up, “Marie Antoinette,” the same people gleefully decided she was reaching too high this time.

    So when the pitch surfaced for her fourth feature film, it seemed that Coppola may have been cowed into submission by her critics: another story of a disaffected Hollywood actor adrift in hotel world, its apparent similarities to “Lost in Translation” could scarcely pass without comment. Was Coppola playing it safe, or worse, exposing a limited creative arsenal?

    The answer to both questions, happily, is no. With the wry, shimmery and thoroughly beguiling “Somewhere,” Coppola has perhaps made exactly the film she needed to at this point in her career: one that calmly takes stock of her abilities and interests rather than pushing them too severely.

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  • TELLURIDE: Claudia under the stars

    It’s one of the joys of Telluride, the spirit of communal film-going evident in the outdoor screen set up each and every year in the middle of town.  Tonight, I’m heading back to the room, quite drunk and full after a meal with colleagues, and suddenly: the unmistakable wail of a harmonica.

    There is no way I’m going to hear the sounds of Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West,” to me one of the two best films ever made, and not stop to soak it in.  And under the stars?  In the crisp Colorado air?  Sold.

    Unfortunately, it was the end of the film.  I had no idea that was the choice for tonight’s introductory screening (which dovetails with the Claudia Cardinale tribute scheduled during the fest), but I stopped, grabbed a spot on the grass with the rest of the viewers and watched Harmonica exact his revenge with a big smile on my face.

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  • VENICE: ‘Reign of Assassins,’ ‘Happy Few’

    “How many films did you see today?” It’s an innocent-sounding question that you nonetheless feel oddly cautious answering at a festival. Did I see too few? Do they think me a lightweight? Should I squeeze in a midnight screening of that Iranian peasant musical I really have no interest in seeing, just to beef up my score?

    Okay, it’s not as petty and competitive as all that. (And it goes without saying that I’d be totally up for an Iranian peasant musical.) But whereas watching three films at home on a regular day feels like something of an indulgence, at a festival it seems positively neglectful, unappreciative of the spread that has been laid out for you.

    “What am I missing?” you keep asking yourself (and others willing to listen). Then again, a friend of mine who sticks religiously to a six-film-a-day diet at every festival likely asks himself the same thing. It’s best to stop counting.

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  • TELLURIDE: Newmarket picks up ‘Way Back’ for Jan. release

    I have to say, if Newmarket Films isn’t planning an Oscar qualifying run in December for “The Way Back” (and nothing in the release or news stories indicates that it’s in the cards), then it’s quickly off the table as a must-see in the early stages of Telluride.  I’ll see it, mind you (I’ve been very much looking forward to it), but the “Never Let Me Go” world premiere may have just moved to the head of the line for tomorrow morning.

    Anyway, the film is set for release on January 21.  That’s prime launching ground for a film with a qualifying run, so I don’t know, maybe there’s more to it.  Jeff Sneider reports at The Wrap that an individual familiar with the situation says the studio is “still considering” a qualifying run.

    I actually chatted with Weir briefly this afternoon.  Apparently the decision to bow the film at Telluride was somewhat last minute, or at least pretty late in the game (which is why it was probably the biggest surprise inclusion on this morning’s schedule).

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  • TELLURIDE: Settling in with the freshly unveiled line-up

    I’m just settling in here in the Colorado mountainside as the Telluride Film Festival prepares to draw the curtain on its 37th dance tomorrow afternoon.

    As I look over the schedule (I Tweeted the films earlier this morning), I’m seeing plenty to chew on. For starters, the world premiere of Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” is slated for tomorrow night. I was crushed, though, to see it slotted at the exact same time as the world premiere of Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.” But both will screen plenty throughout the fest, as a tribute to Weir is in store to go along with the former, while Romanek and actress Carey Mulligan are in town to promote the latter.  Author Kazuo Ishiguro will also be here to sign copies of his novel.

    Telluride is preempting Toronto on Romanek’s film, as well as the new Errol Morris documentary, “Tabloid.” Meanwhile, Sylvain Chomet’s animated “The Illusionist” has been playing the festival circuit all year and is definitely near the top of my must-see list.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Sound Mixing — Volume I

    Last week, while discussing the sound editing category, I explained the difference between that art form and sound mixing.  The Oscar for the latter is shared between two (or more) persons who construct the soundtrack of a movie.  The re-recording mixers bring together everything – dialogue, sound effects, music – into what we hear in the theater.  The production sound mixer is also awarded for capturing the sounds during shooting, an undoubtedly arduous task.

    Many of the films nominated here are also nominated for Best Sound Editing.  In fact, rarely is there more than one film showcased for only one field.  Both categories like loud films, blockbusters and, as always, being a Best Picture contender certainly helps.

    That said, some trends are noticeable between the two categories.  Firstly, the branch has a love of musicals when it comes to sound mixing.  That makes sense, of course, because a musical is fully made by its mix.  Meanwhile, animated films consistently fare better in the sound editing category, which also makes sense given that so much of the sound scape is created separately from production.

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  • ‘Black Swan’ still the talk of the Lido

    Two days into the Venice Film Festival, and still the only film I consistently hear people talking about is “Black Swan” — even as the film accrues its share of detractors, it seems Venice fest director Marco Müller has broken the traditional curse of festival curtain-raisers, kicking off this year’s Lido activity with a film people actually give a damn about. (As Variety’s Justin Chang rather succinctly put it on Twitter: “In the battle of opening-night films: Venice 1, Cannes 0.”)

    Meanwhile, its kinship with Aronofsky’s previous feature, “The Wrestler,” has grown from an interesting side-note broken a few days ago into the most recurrent point of discussion around the film; Aronofsky addressed the matter directly in the film’s press conference yesterday, from which USA Today offers this quote:

    The more I looked into the world of ballet, I actually started to see all these similarities to the world of wrestling … They both have these performers that use their bodies in sort of extremely, intense physical ways. Their entire performance is based on intense physicality.

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  • Rachel Portman’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ score available

    I’m heading out to catch my flight for Telluride in a bit, but I wanted to turn your attention to this before I take off.  Rachel Portman hasn’t been in Oscar’s good graces for 10 years now, but she has a hell of an opportunity this year with a beautiful score for Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.” The album hits stores September 14, but Portman’s compositions were made available on iTunes Monday.  Beautiful, haunting melodies.  A real home run of emotion.  I imagine she’ll be back in the hunt this year.

  • 9/2 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Michael Cieply chats with comeback kid Ben Affleck, whose film “The Town” is set to play Venice this week. [New York Times]

    • Remember when “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” won the Palme d’Or?  Parisian critics would rather not. [The Guardian]

    • Catching up with Julian Schnabel, re: “Miral,” prior to Venice. [Variety]

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Miral” (**)

    Venice Film Festival

    Coming as it does from a filmmaker whose previous work has bent over backwards to reclothe and perfume the unglamorous body of the prestige biopic, the opening beats of Julian Schnabel’s latest, “Miral,” couldn’t be more prosaic.

    For a good few minutes, the credit sequence offers the eye little more than a dawdling pan over a fuzzy map of the Israel-Palestine region, ennobling music thrumming away. (The blocky purple credits themselves are hideous, by the way, but that’s already the least of our problems.) Surprises aren’t exactly forthcoming when we the credits wrap and our geography lesson is complete: “My name is Miral,” intones Freida Pinto in a helpful introductory voiceover. “I was born in 1973, but my story really begins in 1947.”

    Except it doesn’t; another woman’s does, however, and it’s the first of several admissions of the film’s own uncertainty as to why it’s here in the first place. The first of Schnabel’s biopics to come with a moderate fictional sheen, it’s scripted by Rula Jebreal — an international political journalist who became conscientized during her teenage years at an embattled Jerusalem orphanage — from her openly autobiographical novel, though it loftily purports to be about three generations of Palestinian women working toward independence.

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  • DreamWorks fires off first FYC ad and site of the year

    I don’t remember there being an earlier “For Your Consideration” ad than September 1 before, but nevertheless, DreamWorks Animation has seized an opportunity to surge out in front of the fray on behalf of “How to Train Your Dragon” with the first ad of the season, as well as the first FYC site.  The ad primes the film for not just an animated push, but an all out Best Picture push as well, and it hits at a time when toon competitor “Toy Story 3” is bringing in record-breaking box office.

    And why not?  It was one of the most critically and popular films of the first half of the year, even if its accomplishments have been eclipsed by Pixar’s this summer.  I sometimes go back and forth on which film I like better.  I’ll bet there are Academy members who’ll be doing the same.  And will Disney be as aggressive with its campaign?  Will the studio even feel a need to be?  Time will tell.

    The ad and site also promote upcoming screenings for the film in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and London, all of them happening in the next two months.  So, start your engines.  It looks like we’re already off to the races.  Check out the full ad after the jump (and note the “visual consultant,” who seems to be making the animated rounds lately.)

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  • ‘The Next Three Days’ poster

    I’ve had my eye on Paul Haggis’s “The Next Three Days” for a few months.  It’s probably not much of an awards play for Lionsgate, though the studio doesn’t have a lot to work with (unless Tyler Perry officially joins the party).  I don’t think we featured the trailer when it dropped a few weeks ago, but it certainly looks like a nice star role for Russell Crowe.  The poster hit today.  Check it out in full after the jump.

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  • Go get ’em

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1971 and 1972

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    Kubrick gets robbed again as his visionary, “A Clockwork Orange” loses out to a well-executed genre flick in 1971. The Oscars like nothing more than a slightly better version of the crap that Hollywood continually churns out. It’s almost as if one film doing it really well justifies them lazily attempting to film the same thing over and over. All that said, “The French Connection” is quite good.

    You can directly trace the recent win for “The Departed” back to this precedent, not to mention the debt Eminem and Three 6 Mafia owe to Isaac Hayes, who picked up a Best Song Oscar for “Shaft” this year.

    “The Godfather” won in 1972 and nobody can really complain about that, can they? Apparently, “Cabaret” was the heavy favorite at the time, but thank Christ that didn’t happen (although it did win Best Director and seven other Oscars). The ceremony is best remembered as the one where Marlon Brando sent an Indian to turn down his Oscar.

    It also saw 14-year old Michael Jackson perform the nominated song, “Ben.”

    Oh, and Peter O’Toole lost.

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  • VENICE: ‘Norwegian Wood,’ ‘The Black Sheep’

    Hey, did you get that I kinda liked “Black Swan?”

    I hope you did, because it’s really the only thing to write home (or, indeed, to you) about from my first official day at the Venice Film Festival – a day that looked better on paper than in practice, owing a little each to the films themselves, scheduling overlaps in the programme and my own neglect and/or incompetence. (I willingly sacrificed one screening slot to write my “Black Swan” review, but the next was less sensibly given over to a red-herring panic attack over a missing passport that, as it turned out, was merely out on an errand.)

    Having missed Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” for the less stupid of those reasons, I attempted to catch up with it at its midnight show an hour ago, but after spending 30 minutes standing in a motionless queue for a screening that was already running significantly late, I concluded that while there are some films I’d be willing to go to bed at 3 a.m. for, one directed by Mr. Rodriguez doesn’t really fit that description, however much fun several critics say it is. Hey, I tried. (Here’s Anne Thompson’s enthusiastic take on it.)

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