In Contention

Tag: Aaron Eckhart

  • OFF THE CARPET: Leading men in the spotlight

    About a year ago I took to examining the 2009 Best Actor race.  The frontrunners for five slots seemed to be, in order, George Clooney, Colin Firth, Jeremy Renner, Morgan Freeman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Viggo Mortensen and Robert De Niro.

    A day later press members received their first invites to “Crazy Heart” screenings and were notified that the film would be released in 2009.  Jeff Bridges hit the ground running and never let off the gas until he was past the finish line.

    A year earlier we were looking at a pair of politico-biopic portrayals, either one of which would make a handsome winner: Frank Langella and Sean Penn.  But we were fairly sure the latter would be on his way to the podium one more time.

    But soon after, Mickey Rourke’s festival buzz caught serious fire and forged an atmosphere of doubt.  The season’s narrative seemed to be changing, and yet the early buzz carried through and brought Penn his Oscar.

    So that’s two drastically different directions – in as many years – that a lead actor race can take.  Given the mid-October fulcrum shared here, let’s consider our perspective on the Best Actor category right now.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 35 — ‘Secretariat’ hopes, ‘The Way Back’ enters the race, ‘Nowhere Boy,’ ‘Hereafter’ and listener questions

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your 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 en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    Can you believe it’s already October? Next month every film will have screened and before long we’ll be reporting National Board of Review winners. Contenders are beginning to hit theaters as we move into the fall, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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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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  • 9/17 Oscarweb Round-up

    • The Chateau Marmont, setting of Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere,” is ready for its close-up across the pond. [The Independent]

    • Jay Fernandez reports from the Washington premiere of “Waiting for Superman,” which received a “monumental stamp” when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called it a “Rosa Parks moment.” [Hollywood Reporter]

    • Trent Reznor releases five tracks from his and Atticus Ross’s wonderful score for “The Social Network.” [Nullco]

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  • TIFF: Lionsgate picks up ‘Rabbit Hole’ for 2010 Oscar season

    Man, Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions are getting ON IT this year.  First Roadside rolled out the early buzz on “Winter’s Bone,” then it picked up Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful.” Soon after, Lionsgate announced a fall release for Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” and grabbed Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” through Roadside for a 2011 release.

    Well, now it looks like Lionsgate is wrapping up its acquisition of John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” which drew praise for Nicole Kidman (a potential nominee now), Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest (welcome to the supporting actress line-up) at the fest.

    Talk about having a full plate all of a sudden.  Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports that “the plan is to jump right into this year’s Oscar race by releasing  the picture  before year’s end. They will take advantage of a career performance by Nicole Kidman as a mother who loses her child.”  So add one more to “the year of the woman.”

    What more is there to add to that?  Congrats on a healthy slate of contenders and let the games begin.

    [Photo: Buzznet]

  • 9/16 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Jacki Weaver talks “Animal Kingdom” downunder. [New Zealand Herald]

    • Rowan Joffe on how he conceived “The American” as “an almost parodic contemporary Western.” [Movieline]

    • Mark Romanek on music videos vs. movies. [Wall Street Journal]

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  • The Great Performances: 2000

    Tom Hanks in Cast AwayMichael Douglas was robbed.

    The already Oscar-christened actor gave a career-best performance in 2000 in Curtis Hanson’s “Wonder Boys,” but he got no love from the Academy. Worse, his performance was easily among the five best of the year and won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Actor prize.

    That having been said, I don’t think Douglas actually deserved the Oscar in 2000.  That honor belonged to Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” for a performance that was nothing less than astounding. For two and a half hours Hanks commands the screeen, moving into silent film territory for a stretch, the actor using strictly his body and face for the performance. Anyone who has ever, and I mean ever, doubted his range needs to take a hard look at this film.

    The five nominees for Best Actor in 2000 were Hanks, Russell Crowe for “Gladiator,” Ed Harris in “Pollock,” Geoffrey Rush in “Quills” and Javier Bardem in “Before Night Falls.” For me, Douglas was the most glaring omission, followed by George Clooney’s Gable-esque work in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” which I think remains one of the actor’s very best pieces of work.

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  • 8/31 Web Round-up

    Ang Lee• With “Luke and Brie are on a First Date” finding its way to an Amazon release, our own Chad Hartigan gets his film re-reviewed. [Spout Blog]

    • Stephen Zeitchik wants to know why Ang Lee can’t catch a break. [Risky Biz Blog]

    • Gregory Ellwood sees (er, hears) awards prospects in Alexandre Desplat’s “Coco Before Chanel” score. [Awards Campaign]

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  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “Up in the Air” by Walter Kirn

    Cover of Up in the Air by Walter Kirn“Airworld” is novelist Walter Kirn’s term for the impermanent realm of regional American air travel, a sleek network of bland local airports and adjacent beige hotel rooms, linked by the plush grey trails of business-class flights. It forms the scattered but otherwise constant home to thousands of American corporate drones, and is the simultaneously alien and mundane setting for “Up in the Air” – soon reaching your screens courtesy of writer-director Jason Reitman and star George Clooney.

    Droll, dry and ultimately rather heartless, it’s clear that Kirn (“Thumbsucker”) positioned his novel as a kind of “Bonfire of the Vanities” for post-millennial readers, a work that diagnoses the ills of corporate America and chimes in with a wider sense of social malaise.

    The novel, however, had the misfortune of hitting the shelves shortly before the events of 9/11 forever shifted the rules of his own Airworld. By the time it appeared in paperback, not only had Kirn’s milieu rapidly dated, but few readers were keen to enter that territory, and “Up in the Air” never took off as was perhaps intended.

    Whether by accident or design, Reitman’s adaptation of the novel also comes along at a time when the material couldn’t be more touchily topical, albeit for different reasons. Its anti-hero of sorts is Ryan Bingham, a 35 year-old human resources exec and first-class Airworld citizen, whose field of expertise is “Career Transition Counseling” – in other words, someone brought in by companies to tactfully fire employees, a self-proclaimed Grim Reaper to white-collar America.

    It’s a nervy subject for a feature film in the midst of a global economic recession that is providing plenty of business for men like Bingham, if few others; but whether audiences will be any more willing to embrace this than they were Kirn’s novel remains to be seen, and will largely depend on the warmth and lightness of touch Reitman and his universally liked leading man can bring to the material.

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  • John Cameron Mitchell on ‘Rabbit Hole’

    John Cameron MitchellThanks to Nathaniel Rogers for pointing out a Screen Daily video interview (embedded below the cut) in which John Cameron Mitchell talks in some depth about his next film, “Rabbit Hole,” which goes into production next month.

    We mentioned the project last month, when Aaron Eckhart was cast opposite Nicole Kidman in the screen adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about bereaved parents. The cast has grown since then, with Dianne Wiest, Sandra Oh and Giancarlo Esposito all also on board now.

    The setup in the video is slightly odd — Mitchell seems to have been held at gunpoint against a wall and forced to give a monologue — but the director has a number of interesting things to say, particularly on the contrast between working with stars like Kidman and the less seasoned players of his last film, “Shortbus.”

    He also talks up Lindsay-Abaire’s screen adaptation in a big way, describing it as one of the best screenplays he has ever read, and “head and shoulders” ahead of the original play. Unlike the cut-and-paste script jobs of recent Broadway-to-screen transfers like, say, “Doubt” or “Frost/Nixon,” Mitchell promises a complete cinematic reimagining of the material, citing the way his previous films incorporated animation and art into their film language as a point of reference.

    As I said before, he’s a bold choice of director, and it’s clear he’s deeply invested in the material. It’s not often one gets such detailed insight into a director’s plan for a project before shooting begins — here’s hoping he pulls it off. Check out the video below the cut.

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  • Eckhart to join Kidman in ‘Rabbit Hole’

    Aaron EckhartNow this, to my mind, is a star pairing that really makes sense. Nicole Kidman has been attached for some time to star in the screen adaptation of “Rabbit Hole,” David Lindsay-Abaire’s stage play that was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Aaron Eckhart is now reportedly in talks to play opposite her.

    The project represents a major dramatic opportunity for both stars: the play, which is said to be funnier than the thematic material suggests, revolves around a happily married couple forced to re-evaluate their relationship when their young son is killed in car accident. Cynthia Nixon (who won a Tony for her efforts) and John Slattery originated the roles on Broadway — I guess it’s fair to say the casting has been prettied up for film, but what’s new?

    Personally, I’m excited at the prospect of Eckhart getting a role with some significant emotional range to tackle, and for some reason, I imagine his everyman quality and Kidman’s nervous reserve complementing each other nicely. Kidman, meanwhile, continues to choose the most interesting projects but it’s been a while since she had a really meaty dramatic lead in this vein — I’d love to see her pull something sufficiently riveting out the bag to stem the (unwarranted, in my opinion) backlash against her.

    Meanwhile, the project may be an even more intriguing proposal for its director than for its stars. John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus” have won him a legion of admirers, but this promises to be a very different kettle of fish from those gleefully in-your-face efforts. I’m intrigued to see what he does with more muted material that he hasn’t originated himself. (Lindsay-Abaire will be adaptating his own work.) One to watch, for sure.

  • 2/22 Oscarweb Round-up (OSCAR DAY EDITION)

    Graham King at the 79th annual Academy Awards• David Carr tugs the heart strings with a nice write-up on “Smile Pinki” subject Pinki Kumari Sonkar. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Tom O’Neil warns of the kiss of death that the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor has become. [Gold Derby]

    • Another tired Oscar bitch-slap piece from traditional media. [New York Times]

    • Gideon Levy tears “Waltz with Bashir” a new one. [Haaretz]

    • Kate Winslet and the “Fakebooking” craze. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Elizabeth Snead catches up with Aaron Eckhart at the Indie Spirits to get his thoughts on a potential Oscar win for “Dark Knight” co-star Heath Ledger. [The Dish Rag]

    • Speaking of the Spirits, Roger Ebert responds to the swift show, goes out of his way to praise Rourke’s “show-stopping” speech. [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Producer Graham King re-visits his Oscar win for “The Departed” two years ago. [The Independent]

    • Anne Hathaway shows a little humility.  Probably a good thing after that cringe-worthy BFCA acceptance speech. [USA Today]

  • An evening with the cast and crew of ‘The Dark Knight’

    Warner Bros. Pictures\' The Dark KnightA boatload of people turned out last night for the Beverly Hills reception in honor of “The Dark Knight.”  I hesitate to say “star-studded,” since the principle cast and crew were the most recognizable parties.  But suffice it to say the premises was packed with little breathing room and plenty of adoring press.

    Producer Charles Roven and screenwriter Jonathan Nolan were the first to show, side-by-side and quick to engage with some of us ready to pounce.  Roven, who I interviewed recently for a Variety profile on Heath Ledger (publishing this weekend), was trying to take it all in stride.  The only film he’s ever produced that landed Oscar’s attention was “Twelve Monkeys” in 1995 (nominations for Best Costume Design and Brad Pitt for Best Supporting Actor).  He’s welcome to the idea that “The Dark Knight” could be his first trip to the party as a nominee but he’s almost more interested in discussing what’s on the horizon, namely Tom Tykwer’s “The International,” which has been with Roven for 16 years of development and will finally find its way to screens in February.

    Jonathan Nolan, meanwhile, proved to be a welcome five-minute diversion.  A real guy’s guy with a swift Chicago accent, he clearly delights in a deep discussion about the Caped Crusader.  His brother Christopher gave him a copy of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” when he was 13 years old and the Bat has been with him ever since.  “I’ve been into Spider-Man and Wolverine, but for me, it’s always been Batman,” he said of the character that has brought him into the limelight of sought-after screenwriters.  I asked the obligatory “will there be a third one” question, and taking on the role of fan first, he offered, “I hope so.  Given what happened to Heath [Ledger], it’s hard to say, ‘Yeah, let’s do another one!’  But I hope so.”

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  • My stance: ‘The Dark Knight’ will be nominated for Best Picture

    Heath Ledger in The Dark KnightSo much speculation has surrounded the possible inclusion of this tremendous film in the year’s final five.  And though there are those who believe it has no chance of happening, the majority has gradually seen otherwise.

    Where is written that entertaining films cannot be art? Where does it say that a box office smash cannot be a genuinely great film? May I remind everyone that “The Godfather” was a major hit at the box office before it won the Oscar for Best Picture, basking in some of the finest reviews ever written. That said, success can sometimes be the enemy of both the film and the director (ask Steven Spielberg).

    While no one is calling “The Dark Knight” a film on the level of “The Godfather,” it certainly has its own particular brand of appeal and excellence. Made with breathtaking confidence, technical brilliance and spectacular command of the language of the cinema, the film moves constantly, yet director Nolan never allows the spectacle to overwhelm the very intimate story he is telling here.

    His actors are sublime, beginning with the extraordinary performance from Heath Ledger as the Joker, a performance that takes madness to a new level, one that is terrifying in its realism and authenticity. Yet Ledger is surrounded by a strong ensemble, Christian Bale very good as Batman/Bruce Wayne, a troubled, contradictory man at war with himself, knowing the only way he can remain a hero is to appear to be the enemy.

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  • 9/17 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Josh Brolin and Noah Wyle in W.• One night only…ABC wants to bump the Oscars to March. [Variety]

    • David Poland finally reviews some Toronto films. [The Hot Button]

    • Breaking down a Wired cover story, starring Charlie Kaufman. [Wired]

    • Aaron Eckhart is four-square against the idea of recasting the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise.  James Franco and Michael C. Hall can stop holding their breaths. [MTV]

    • More parsing of the “Burn After Reading” numbers.  Why isn’t it obvious?  Brad Pitt + George Clooney = $$$. [Risky Biz Blog]

    • Patrick Goldstein mines this month’s issue of Esquire for clues about Paul Thomas Anderson’s childhood. [The Big Picture]

    • Ten movies to watch when feeling the financial crunch. [Spout Blog]

    • From the rumor mill: Rome’s mayor wants to ban “W.” from showing at the city’s upcoming film festival?  Forced denial and all. [The Guardian]

  • Missing the point on the Harvey thing

    Cover of Batman #397Much as I love Brad Brevet and the work he does at Rope of Silicon, the point of the Harvey Dent stuff has never been about what’s in the screenplay.

    We’ve talked about this before, but the script shows what an audience sees, not what is. What the audience was meant to see was that the character was toast, but it was a vague send-off.  Which is what has allowed for all the speculation, for Eckhart to say that he’d love to come back for a third film, for Emma Thomas to outright claim that the filmmakers left it open for interpretation, for Eckhart to even have to ASK CHRIS NOLAN THE CHARACTER’S STATUS (which of course led to yesterday’s item).

    So enough of the “How could you not know??” stuff. It’s always been up-in-the-air, if you ask me.

  • Musings on a third ‘Dark Knight’ viewing…masterpiece?

    Christian Bale in The Dark KnightSo once with the press, a second on my own, and a third time last week with my 16-year-old daughter, and still the film enthralled me from beginning to end. In fact, I probably liked it more this time than I did the previous two, realizing as the film’s mighty power rolled over me that I was watching something truly spectacular, the likes of which we have not seen for quite some time, and are not likely to see again.

    Here is a film, a work of art that is also a movie, a great ride for the mainstream audiences seeking nothing more and a reward for those who are.  For we film maniacs who like our films to have substance, “The Dark Knight” is loaded with it: Christian Bale’s tortured hero, Heath Ledger’s deeply troubled Joker, Aaron Eckhart’s truly decent man corrupted by loss and the Joker’s twisted games, Michael Caine’s wise and warm Alfred, and the heart of the film, Gary Oldman as James Gordon, who alone understands the Dark Knight’s sacrifice for the good of his city.

    The action sequences are stunningly choreographed, but Nolan is aware that his film must have much more. He gives the picture a mood and tone that is perfect for the screenplay, he guides his actors with a delicate hand, allowing them to inhabit the characters, and he understands not only his subject, but his audience’s expectations.

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  • It’s WENN, I know…

    But…

    Aaron Eckhart would reprise his role from The Dark Knight – because working with Christian Bale is “phenomenal”.

    Eckhart, who plays District Attorney Harvey Dent in the sequel, confesses he “absolutely” would star in a third Batman film.

    He tells WENN, “To work with Christian (Bale) all over again, and the cast, would be phenomenal. I think this movie is a movie of a lifetime.”

    Link (Props to Casey)