In Contention

Tag: Albert Brooks

  • Albert Brooks talks ‘Drive’

    The great Albert Brooks took playful Twitter umbrage with my yanking him from the predicted five supporting actor contenders recently. I assure you (and him) that it’s a lack of faith in the Academy, which would enter uber-cool territory by giving him (or anything) a nod for this film, not a lack of faith in his work. He’s fantastic in the film and, well, nothing’s impossible. I’d be over the moon. Brooks and the rest of the team recently made the press rounds on the film. So, from our new partners at HitFix, via Awards Campaign:

    We’ll have a “tell us what you thought” post on the film later today.

  • COMIC-CON: Refn’s ‘Drive’ is a bullet of vision

    I’ve had to sit on my feelings on Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive,” which had a special screening here Thursday night, because I haven’t found a window to write about it. That’s either good or bad, I don’t know, because the film has just continued to grow in my mind, but I don’t want to over-inflate expectations.

    In so many words, though, I think Refn is the most exciting filmmaker working today. And I haven’t even seen “Valhalla Rising” or his “Pusher” trilogy yet, but just to go by “Bronson” (a personal top 10er in 2009) and his latest, I feel an invigorating injection of originality in the cinema landscape.

    Guy reviewed and enthused about “Drive” at Cannes, so you’ve already digested one thorough assessment here (and one we share completely). So allow me to be a bit more abstract in my thoughts. I’ll just rattle them off as they come to me.

    (more…)

  • REVIEW: “Drive” (****)

    Cannes Film Festival

    It’s not often that opening credits as hideous as the ones in “Drive” — hot-pink cursive squiggles of the kind favored these days only by nail bars in suburban strip malls — are a reassuring omen for the film to come. But Nicolas Winding Refn’s beautiful, bolt-from-the-blue genre trip is a kind of snazzily dressed, testosterone-enhanced bag lady of a movie, one that gathers all manner of tossed-out debris from the Hollywood scrapyard to demonstrate its continued usefulness.

    Accompanied by the irregular heartbeat of Cliff Martinez’s throbbing synth score, those lurid credits are the first clue that we’re in contemporary period piece territory: “Drive” may be set in modern-day Los Angeles, and its measured but grotesque bursts of violence may make use of our Tarantino-elasticated cinematic sensibilities, but in all other respects Winding Refn is partying like it’s 1985.

    Based on American pulp merchant James Sallis’ short, sharp 2005 novel of the same title, the laconic tone and clean structure of “Drive” nonetheless feel adapted more from cinema itself, and not merely from films that share its 80s-pop mood board. The Michael Mann of “Thief” and the William Friedkin of “To Live and Die in LA” may be obvious touchstones here, but so are 70s-era Walter Hall (most obviously the similarly titled and plotted “The Driver”) and even the hard 1960s strut of John Boorman’s “Point Blank.”

    (more…)

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1979 and 1980

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    After I saw “Apocalypse Now,” I thought to myself that it was a much, much better movie than “Kramer vs. Kramer.” A quick glance at the internets revealed that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had already determined that “Kramer vs. Kramer” was in fact, the better film. How could I be so wrong? Oh well, can’t argue with those arts and sciences people.

    That same bunch nominated Edouard Molinaro as Best Director, for a foreign film about a gay couple no less. Who says the Academy isn’t progressive? They also awarded Meryl Streep her first Oscar on her second attempt, clearly worried that there may never be another chance to honor her.

    Family drama continued to dominate as the 1980’s rolled around when “Ordinary People” scooped the top prizes for Robert Redford. Poor old Marty Scorsese sentiment began right around then, but it should be noted that it was kind of his fault that the ceremony was delayed a day, after “Taxi Driver” obsessed John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan for Jodie Foster. Take it away, Johnny Carson!

    Miss Piggy: Jonathan, you saw “The Muppet Movie.” Can you stand there, in your rented tuxedo, and tell me that I am not Oscar material?
    Johnny Carson: Oscar Mayer maybe.

    (more…)