In Contention

Tag: A Prophet

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 23 — Divebombing the competition, doc and live action shorts, foreign film, etc.

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk, a weekly kudocast between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.

    Every week inches us closer to the end of the loudest Oscar season of all time. Today Anne and I sit down and discuss the noise of the week, adding our own noise (we went on a bit long this week):

    • Leading off, Anne has a whole new reason to hate “the 10”: members just aren’t bothering with ranking and the preferential ballot, not to mention the rigging and manipulation that goes into making it an impure process.

    • Things are getting “hairy,” as Anne puts it, with a close race bringing out the worst in people. We talk about “The Hurt Locker” and EmailGate and add some much-needed perspective on the matter.

    • We bounce around ideas for dark horse contenders that could benefit from the preferential ballot (assuming it’s taken seriously).

    • We also discuss the documentary shorts at length (now that I’ve seen them all) as well as the live action short films (now that Anne has seen them all).

    • Finally, we discuss a potential upset lurking in documentary feature nominee “Which Way Home” as well as “A Prophet” in the scheme of the Best Documentary Feature race.

    Have a listen below, with a track from James Horner’s “Avatar” score leading the way. And as always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: ‘Cop’ and a laugh

    (from left) Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis in Cop Out*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    It’s the last full weekend before the Oscars. Have you seen all the nominees yet? I sure haven’t. In fact, there isn’t a single category where I’ve seen every film and can have an educated opinion. That’s not likely to change before the big day since I’ve been happy to put the 2009 movie-going year to bed for a while.

    There’s plenty of new joy to be found! Like “Cop Out,” the first big budget studio outing from Kevin Smith. Primarily known as the guy behind a bunch of movies your college roommate likes, he is notably absent from all press materials for the Bruce Willis/Tracy Morgan buddy flick.

    Willis typically can’t open straight-forward action films to very much, unless they have the words “Die” and “Hard” in them. Recent run-of-the-mill efforts include “Surrogates” ($15.2 million), “16 Blocks” ($13.8 million) and “Hostage” ($12.1 million).

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  • Stunning fluid master

    I was reading through this Awards Daily post concerning the foreign language film race (wherein Sasha Stone is quite flattering) and a link in one of the comments caught my attention.

    I love fluid master shots.  “Touch of Evil,” “The Player,” “Boogie Nights,” I love them.  Sometimes they’re thematically relevant, other times they’re just a nice way to get through a lot of information quickly, but I’ve always had a geeky film school soft spot for them.  And this became one of the all-time greats for me (even if it is obviously enhanced by digital trickery in the first portion):

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  • ‘The Hurt Locker’ sweeps BAFTA Awards

    Kathryn Bigelow at the 2009 BAFTA AwardsThe writing, in case you hadn’t already read it, is on the wall.

    In the biggest BAFTA haul for a non-British production since “American Beauty” a decade ago, Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq drama took six awards at the Royal Opera House, including Best Film, Director and Original Screenplay. Next up: Oscars. And plenty of ’em, I’m guessing.

    I did respectably enough in my predictions, nailing 15 out of 21 categories, though I missed the big one, thinking homegrown favorite “An Education” would come out on top. The Brits did, however, vote local in the lead acting categories, with Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan taking well-deserved honors — probably their last of the season.

    “An Education” lost both the top awards it was up for, as the ever-selective Best British Film committee once more looked to the fringes to reward Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank” instead. I’m thrilled to see a major award for my #2 film of last year, after it was blanked entirely in the general categories. Continuing a good night for my pet films, meanwhile, “A Prophet” took foreign-language honors.

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  • ‘A Prophet,’ ‘Fish Tank’ lead London Critics’ awards

    Best British Actor winner Colin Firth at the London Film Critics' Circle awardsThe BAFTA Awards take place on Sunday, but last night the UK’s premier critics’ body had their say at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards. And what we learned is what the London Film Festival, Sight & Sound and even the BAFTA longlists already taught us: the Brits really, really like “A Prophet.”

    Busting out of the foreign-language ghetto, Jacques Audiard’s Oscar-nominated prison gang saga took the night’s top award, Film of the Year. That was its lone award of the night, however — Kathryn Bigelow continued her steamroll through every directing honor in sight, while they democratically handed what would have been a rather superfluous foreign-language prize to “Let the Right One In.”

    The night’s biggest winner, meanwhile, was another of my pet films: “Fish Tank” took four awards in the British categories, including Best British Film and acting honors for Katie Jarvis and Michael Fassbender. Following Bigelow, Andrea Arnold made it an all-female affair in the directing categories.

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Foreign Language Film

    The Milk of SorrowThe foreign Language film category has been marred in controversy for the last few years. When films like “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days” and “Persepolis” were unceremoniously nixed from the field a few years ago, a special new “executive committee” was established to have final say on the fallen, hopefully saving the committee (which has to see all the titles to vote) some embarrassment.

    Still, there is an inherent bias throughout the votership here. Violence rarely plays well, and they are loathe to be accepting of non-traditional filmmaking. One need only look back one year to 2008’s “Departures” upset for evidence. For thee reasons, the category always seems ready to surprise.

    The nominees are:

    “Ajami” (Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani)
    “The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada)” (Claudia Llosa)
    “A Prophet (Un Prophète)” (Jacques Audiard)
    “The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)” (Juan José Campanella)
    “The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band)” (Michael Haneke)

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  • INTERVIEW: Jacques Audiard

    Jacques Audiard at the Cannes premiere of A ProphetAs pundits continue to posit art-versus-genre arguments around the 10 titles vying for Best Picture, the finest film to be nominated in any category at this year’s Academy Awards is to be found a little further down the list – and it’s one that would bridge the discussion rather nicely.

    Nominated last week for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and bedecked with numerous accolades besides, Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet,” is a brazen, brilliant marriage of pulp, prestige and politics.

    A bloody prison drama that phrases intricate social analysis in the language of gangster cinema at its most hardboiled, it’s Audiard’s beefiest excursion yet into the noir territory that he visited in his last two films, lean thrillers “Read My Lips” and “The Beat That My Heart Skipped.”

    Critics have been quick to make comparisons to assorted American genre masters since the film’s Cannes premiere nine months ago , with “GoodFellas” and even “The Godfather” routinely surfacing in discussions around the film. But while Audiard acknowledges his kinship to U.S. cinema – this is a man, after all, whose last feature was a remake of a 1978 James Toback thriller – he takes such talk with a healthy pinch of salt.

    “People keep saying, oh, it’s like Scorsese, or it’s like Coppola, and of course that’s very flattering,” the native Parisian says over the phone, via the translation (and occasional embellishment) of his co-writer Thomas Bidegain.

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  • S&S slams awards “xenophobia”

    Niels Arestrup in A ProphetBeing a fairly highbrow cineastes’ mag, Sight & Sound tends to keep a safe distance from awards season — which is probably just as well, if Nick James’s grim-faced editorial on the subject is anything to go by.

    Like many British journalists, James’s analysis of the Oscar race is a little wobbly: he states that “Avatar” is a certainty to win Best Picture based on its Golden Globe success, but makes no mention of the Guild awards. More vexing, however, is his airy dismissal of this year’s cinematic crop: claiming that 2009 was “the weakest year for American cinema since the 1980s,” and that “in terms of quality US films last year, “The Hurt Locker,” “Up in the Air,” “Precious,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Up” are literally all there is.” (He then goes on to pick holes of most of those films anyway.)

    And I thought I was negative about this year’s race. Sure, I have problems with at least half this year’s Best Picture nominees, but neither am I claiming that the category contains all the standout American films of 2009.

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  • The bright side

    Abbie Cornish in Bright StarWell, I’ll start the good news selfishly, by noting that I didn’t entirely embarrass myself with my predictions: not counting the short categories (which I was too cowardly and uninformed to predict) I nailed 78/106, just two points behind Kris’s round tally of 80.

    But while I was pleased to see at least one of my out-on-a-limb guesses come good — seriously, why didn’t more people call that Art Direction nod for “The Young Victoria?” — I was better at predicting what wouldn’t get nominated.

    So, my season-long hunches that Julianne Moore would be frozen out in the supporting race, that “(500) Days of Summer” would be blanked, that “Up in the Air” would miss that crucial Film Editing nod, and so on, were all on the money. And my increasing sense that nobody really liked “Invictus” enough to put it atop their ballot proved right too.

    Now, if I only I’d known what would land in their place. You can’t have it all, I suppose.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Guild awards, pre-nomination jitters

    A scene from Inglourious Basterds• In the biggest upset of the season so far, “The Hurt Locker” came up trumps at the PGA Awards.

    • “Inglourious Basterds” took the top prize at the SAG Awards, which also gave another boost to Sandra Bullock.

    • With Oscar nominations out next week, we listed some of the greatest nominee fields in Oscar history.

    • Off the Carpet took stock following the weekend’s precursors, and Kris revised his winner predictions.

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  • ‘A Prophet’ tops César nominations

    Kristin Scott Thomas in LeavingWhat a shocker, right? In the nominations for France’s premier film awards, Jacques Audiard’s Oscar contender leads the field with a massive 13 bids. (Look out for my interview with Audiard, coming soon.)

    It’s nice to finally see some love for Niels Arestrup’s astonishing work in the film, but when a contemporary prison drama can nail down a nomination for Best Costume Design, a sweep is afoot.

    That said, the Césars don’t always go to plan: last year saw heavyweights like “The Class” and “I’ve Loved You So Long” upset by “Séraphine,” the film that went on to take Best Actress awards from two of America’s most prestigious critics’ circles. It’s always worth keeping an eye on titles that do well here.

    I’m surprised that Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass” didn’t do better here: the New Wave veteran’s critically beloved new effort scored a Best Film nomination, but little else, with Resnais himself snubbed in the Best Director race.

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  • Foreign notes

    The Milk of SorrowWell, as I suspected, my predictions for the Academy’s foreign film shortlist were mainly off the mark, though I maintained my 4-from-9 strike rate from last year … so, yay for consistency.

    That said, I’m not terribly surprised by the films that did make the cut. As I wrote earlier today, I knew one of the WWII-themed films in the mix would make the cut — but plumped for Norway’s “Max Manus” instead of the Netherlands’ “Winter in Wartime.” And festival hit “Samson and Delilah” was high on my radar, a film I suspected the executive committee might save (as I’m sure was the case).

    I foolishly blanked on Argentina’s “The Secret in Their Eyes,” a romantic thriller that was extremely well received at Toronto in the fall, and may yet be the spoiler in this race. I’d received word that this was one to watch, but it slipped my mind this morning.

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  • Academy’s foreign shortlist unveiled

    Samson and DelilahWell, Guy nailed down four of them.  But you just never know what this controversial branch is going to do.  I’d love to know what the secondary committee had to re-institute (probably “A Prophet”), but nevertheless, we have our nine.

    The only films I was predicting that didn’t make the cut are “Backyard” from Mexico and “Forever Enthralled” from China.  Replace those with “Ajami” from Israel (which I JUST took out of my predictions Monday in favor of “The Milk of Sorrow”) and “The Secret in Their Eyes” from Argentina and that would be my bet.

    I’ll leave it to Guy with further thoughts later on.  I need to catch up on the rest of films now that it’s a more, shall we say, manageable list.  Check out the full list of nine, from an original list of 65 submissions, after the jump.

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  • Waiting on Oscar’s foreign language shortlist

    Niels Arestrup and Tahar Rahim in A ProphetLast Saturday, the Academy concluded four months of screenings of the 65 films in contention for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film award. Today, that tall pile of titles will be culled to a shortlist of just nine contenders, from which the eventual five nominees will be chosen.

    Making predictions here is a pretty thankless task, given the regularity with which this branch of the Academy slights seemingly sure-fire nominees in favour of less visible, and less acclaimed, fare. Indeed, a high-profile snub, with ensuing media outcry, has virtually become an annual Oscar tradition.

    The furore over the omission of Romania’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” two years ago even prompted a change in the voting system – to safeguard against such controversies, a smaller executive committee was appointed to add three titles to the six elected by the branch voters.

    It didn’t work: when last year’s critical darling “Gomorrah” failed to impress even the new committee, the Academy was raked over the coals once more. The bottom line, then, is that even the mightiest title can’t be called a shoo-in in this race.

    (More analysis, and shortlist predictions, after the cut.)

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  • BAFTA Rising Star nominees

    Tahar Rahim in A ProphetBAFTA has just revealed the five young actors in contention for this year’s Rising Star Award, the winner of which will be determined by a public vote. Previous winners include James McAvoy, Eva Green, Shia LaBeouf and Noel Clarke.

    The 12-member jury charged with deciding this year’s nominees was chaired by Oscar-winning producer David Parfitt (“Shakespeare in Love”), and I must say that — blinding snub for Katie Jarvis aside — they’ve chosen quite well.

    I’m surprised, though not unpleasantly so, that “Avatar” fever didn’t secure Sam Worthington a mention. Instead, Kristen Stewart gets the populist nod.

    Given that it’s a publicly voted award, Stewart is the one to beat, too — I highly doubt the fanbases of the other four can compete with the texting “Twilight” hordes, unless “A Single Man” star Nicholas Hoult’s popularity from TV’s “Skins” carries him over.

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  • ‘Education,’ ‘Basterds’ lead BAFTA longlists

    Carey Mulligan an An EducationTwo weeks before revealing its nominations, BAFTA reveals longlists of 15 contenders in each category from which the eventual five nominees will be chosen. (Switch those numbers to five and three in the Animated Feature race.)

    Vague as the lists are, a couple of telling trends stand out. It’s been clear for some time that “An Education” is the film to beat at this years BAFTAs. Like the group’s last three Best Film winners — “The Queen,” “Atonement” and “Slumdog Millionaire” — Lone Scherfig’s film is a mainstream British effort that has U.S. awards traction, allowing them to remain patriotic while fulfilling their recent Oscar-aping remit.

    So it’s no surprise that “An Education” leads the longlists with 17 mentions — seven of them in the acting races. Close behind is “Inglourious Basterds,” with 15 bids, while “The Hurt Locker” manages 12.

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  • BAFTA announces Best Foreign Film nominees

    Audrey Tautou in Coco Before ChanelFor reasons I’ve never been able to determine, BAFTA chooses to reveal its nominees for Best Foreign Language Film two weeks before revealing their full nomination list. Way to make a ghetto category seem even more so, but … anyway. The nominees are:

    “Broken Embraces”
    “Coco Before Chanel”
    “Let the Right One In”
    “A Prophet”
    “The White Ribbon”

    The last three are both inevitable and deserving contenders, but the first two reek of autopilot voting. I bow to no one in my love for the man’s work, but most would agree that “Broken Embraces” is mid-range Almodóvar at best.

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  • Guy’s top 50 of the decade: #31-40

    Matt Damon in The Bourne UltimatumYesterday, I began my countdown of my 50 favorite — do note that last word, I hesitate to say “best” — films of the 2000s. Today, we creep up another ten rungs on the ladder.

    I wrote this in my introduction to the list yesterday, but it bears repeating: don’t read too much into the rankings at this level. I’m not the kind of person who can scientifically determine whether my 37th favorite film of the decade is marginally — but conclusively — superior to my 38th favorite. Just today, I did some mild shuffling with the following titles, only to change my mind a few minutes later.

    Bottom line: I think they’re all pretty darn special. The list continues after the cut.

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