In Contention

Tag: Ben Stiller

  • Beatty, Bonham Carter among 2011 BAFTA LA honorees

    I’ve never been precisely sure what BAFTA Los Angeles is, or what it is that they do — I do know that I’m wary of any group that is chaired by “So You Think You Can Dance” overlord Nigel Lythgoe, but that could be irrational on my part.

    I do know, however, that have their own annual awards, which have very little to do with the actual BAFTAs over in my part of the world — though that won’t stop many members of the “Harry Potter” cult from flipping out over the news that latter-day franchise helmer David Yates is to receive their John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing. Pop the champagne corks, if you’re so inclined, while Lynne Ramsay weeps quietly in a corner. Or not, probably.

    In a semi-related win, Helena Bonham Carter will receive the British Artist of the Year award, which seems a tad random even if you include her Oscar-nominated work in last year’s “The King’s Speech.” (What have Tom Hardy and Michael Fassbender done this year, anyway?)

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  • BERLIN: ‘Winter’s Bone,’ ‘Greenberg,’ ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’

    Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's BoneYesterday’s viewing roster just about had me double-checking whether I was at the right festival, as I was treated to a pair of Sundance hits, in addition to a brand-new Amerindie feature from a Sundance alumnus. The copious snow still smothering the sidewalks of Berlin only aided the comparison.

    Perhaps it was Valentine’s Day spirit making me more benign – apparently against the current of critical opinion, in the case of Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” – but all three films, moreover, afforded me pleasures of varying degrees. (And definitions: “pleasure” is not the most appropriate term for a film as severe as “Winter’s Bone.”)

    “WINTER’S BONE” (***1/2)

    In 2004, NYU film grad Debra Granik spun a student short into a ragged but confident debut feature, “Down to the Bone,” that landed her a Sundance award and kick-started the career of a sensational actress named Vera Farmiga. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.

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  • Stiller/Downey turn down tandem Oscar hosting gig

    Or at least that’s what Nikki Finke is reporting.  Roger Ebert quips, “They have Lakers tickets.”  The search continues on.  Steve Martin and Tina Fey are not available.  Hugh Jackman has graciously declined being pigeonholed.

    Who’s gonna step up?  Out-of-the-box pick of the day: Richard Kind.

    EDITED TO ADD: This just hit me, but it makes sense that Downey would decline this offer.  After all, he turned down the chance to present the post-production awards alongside Will Smith last year out of fear of being upstaged.

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festival pick-ups, the season’s fetes and the PGA’s 10

    Robert Duvall in Get Low• We wrapped up Toronto as Lee Daniels’s “Precious” took the festival’s audience award, putting it on a solid track for Oscar.

    • We got a look at the first trailer for “Harry Brown,” which may or may not be an awards film for actor Michael Caine.  John, you’ll recall, isn’t feeling it.

    • We saw ‘Meatball’ dominance at the box office in this weekend’s Sunday Cents column.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column kicked off our weekly Oscar coverage with a call for perspective on the perceived Best Picture frontrunners, while a new weekly column from across the pond — The Long Shot — introduces a different perspective mid-week.

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  • Ben Stiller instrumental in getting ‘The Cove’ in at Tokyo?

    Ben Stiller at the premiere of The CoveBen Stiller has been vocal about his support for the dolphin slaughter documentary “The Cove.” This I knew, but until I actually read through the Ric O’Barry interview we linked in this morning’s round-up, I didn’t realize he played a key role in getting the film a screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival, but that’s just what happened.  According to O’Barry:

    The Tokyo Film Festival has a green theme this year, but they weren’t showing “The Cove.” Ben Stiller and his friends, who have been supportive of the film, called up and complained about how unfair this was. The Japanese people have a right to know. Now there are four to five Japanese distributors fighting over the film.

    Did I miss this nugget?  I knew festival brass had given in and allowed the film to screen (offering the limp excuse that the line-up hadn’t been finalized and that the decision was never final — remember, the fest has a “green” theme this year).  But I didn’t realize Stiller got involved.  Good on you, guy.

  • Ben Stiller vocal about ‘Cove’ support

    Ben StillerCoincidentally, an AMPAS member.  From The Daily Beast’s Buzz Board, dated July 16:

    I just saw The Cove at the Nantucket film festival and was deeply affected by it. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s important, entertaining, suspenseful, moving, funny—everything a movie should be, but happens to be a documentary about the ongoing dolphin slaughter in Japan, a very important subject. But it’s not just about dolphins, it’s about people doing incredible things: Rick [sic] O’Barry, the focus of the movie, has become an instant hero for me: He’s been taking chances and standing up for what he believes in for a long time. After I saw the film, it made me want to literally jump out of my seat and go to Japan to become an activist alongside Rick and his team. I didn’t, because we had a rental in Nantucket for the rest of the month—but still, they managed to do some pretty amazing things over there.

  • That ‘Tropic Thunder’ ad

    A few of you guys have expressed some general enthusiasm for the “Tropic Thunder” FYC ad for Robert Downey Jr. at the top of the site here.  I agree, I think it’s a stroke of genius.  Well, FYI, I was at a party in honor of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” tonight (at the drop-dead-stunning home of producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall), and director Ben Stiller clued me into the fact that the scheme was his idea.  Paramount marketing kept coming back and trying to get something creative out of Stiller and finally he said, “Let’s just make it a campaign for the character he plays.”  Voila.  I love it.

  • 11/12 Oscarweb Round-up

    Ben Stiller• David Chen junkets Danny Boyle on the director’s inspirations. [/Film]

    • David Poland is being pissy about when Paramount wants to screen their Oscar contender this year. [The Hot Blog]

    • Lou Lumenick rounds up the infinitely boring denials and foreplay coming from the “Australia” camp.  Can we just get to the movie already and stop with the lame “news” bytes? [Lumeick on Film]

    • Noah Forrest is kind of over James Bond. [Movie City News]

    • Steven Zeitchik gives “Slumdog Millionaire” another look and still loves what he sees. [Risky Biz Blog]

    • Logan Hill, meanwhile, talks to the film’s standout Dev Patel. [Vulture]

    • Sasha Stone pegs the season as the year of the showcase perf. [Awards Daily]

    • Chris Lee corners “Changeling” star Angelina Jolie about life and stuff. [The Envelope]

    • As the Buzzmeter rumbles to life, slowly, a few more pundits chime in with Tom O’Neil. [Gold Derby]

    • “Gomorrah” producer Domenico Procacci and IFC Films won’t be content with a mere Best Foreign Language Film mention. [Variety]

    • Museum of the Moving Image honoree Ben Stiller talks his feting to Daniel Frankel. [Variety]

    • Dave Karger puts Frank Langella’s likely Oscar clip out there for all to see. [Entertainment Weekly]

  • 10/23 Oscarweb Round-up

    Philip Seymour Hoffman and Hope Davis in Synecdoche, New York• Tom Tapp rallies behind Kristin Scott Thomas’s work in “I’ve Loved You So Long.” [The Daily Beast]

    • Anne Thompson, meanwhile, thinks the actress leads the field.  (Sorry — the film just didn’t speak to me.) [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • After Spielberg and Greengrass bowed out, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” might end up in the hands of…Ben Stiller?  WTF? [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Michael Ordoñachats it up with Hope Davis, probably the least interesting female component of Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • John Horn, meanwhile, writes a love letter to Clint Eastwood with “Changeling” set to bow nationwide. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Anthony Breznican gets some quality “Gran Torino” time with Clint Eastwood, plus some exclusive looks at the film’s first materials. [USA Today]

    • Missing the boat on so much of the subtle brilliance to be found in “W,” Christopher Rosen thinks Oliver Stone has simply gotten old. [New York Observer]

    • The director, meanwhile, takes part in an esteemed panel discussing the marks to be left by the current administration. [Slate]

    • Peter Bart makes the completely wrong-headed decision to chalk slumping ad sales revenue up to studios displaying a lack of talent support. [Peter Bart]

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Sound Mixing — Volume One

    Tech Support at In Contention“Wait a minute, wait a minute.  You ain’t heard nothing yet!”

    Those words from Al Jolson forever changed filmmaking in 1927, ushering in “talkies” and bringing about the beginning of the end of the silent film era.

    The Academy Award for sound mixing recognizes the artists who fashion a film’s audio side.  It must be distinguished from Best Sound Editing, which is the integration of artificially created sound effects into the mix.  Mixing is the blending of those effects, along with dialogue, music and any other noise captured during filming.  The Oscar awards the sound re-recording mixers in this category, who do the blending, as well as the production sound mixer, who captures the sounds on the set.

    Blockbusters, action flicks, war films and musicals usually do particularly well in this category, given the extent to which the sound tends to draw attention to itself in these sorts of films.  It’s somewhat difficult to project the category this far in advance, however, as the sound mixers for many of the films are difficult to pinpoint; mixing is one of the last tasks done on a film.  But that’s not going to stop me from trying to handicap potential contenders!

    Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man” is the sort of film that has virtually everything this branch normally goes for.  The film is filled with action and high-profile sound work.  Plus, it kicked off the summer blockbuster season with not only lots of dough for producers, but also lots of raves from critics.  Veteran Oscar winner Christopher Boyes is in charge of this crew.  I’d say a nomination is quite likely.

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  • A mark against Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Thunder’

    Paramount Pictures' Tropic ThunderI missed David Poland’s review of “Tropic Thunder,” which was published on Monday. Predictably, it’s a negative assessment. Poland hasn’t liked anything this summer beyond “Speed Racer” and “hancock” (which might say it all right there), but as usual, he goes to great lengths to make his point.

    The only real awards possibilities for the film have seemingly been for Robert Downey Jr., who gets the most laughs out of the trailers we’ve seen and has even earned some “O” word whispers in some quarters. But Poland seems to think the opportunity was wasted:

    Even Downey, who is so game and always looking for subtle touches, is stuck playing one note for much of the film. You know the note… it’s in every ad. He’s a white guy in black face. Okay… funny idea. But is it really funny for more than two acts of a movie? Isn’t the idea of writing such an inherently flawed character to push that character’s buttons in different and interesting ways through the entire film? Isn’t having an actor of Downey’s quality an opportunity to do something really interesting? Or are you, as an audience, satisfied by that same joke told 10 different ways?

    This, of course, flies in the face of Jeffrey Wells’s recent praise for the film and the performance, declaring Downey “amazing” and the performance an “Oscar-level thing.”

    I’ll make up my own mind when I see the film tomorrow night. I think it could go either way and has plenty to do with Ben Stiller’s handling of the material. I’ve found myself a fan of his work behind the camera more often than his work in front of it, but anything with Robert Downey Jr. in it seems to be gold this year, so we’ll see.

    Read the rest of Poland’s “Tropic Thunder” review here.

    In a separate take, John Campea of The Movie Blog had this to say on Downey’s portrayal out of Comic-Con:

    We all expected Robert Downey Jr. would knock it out of the park, and he doesn’t disappoint. He’s always working the character so much that even the most mundane lines that come out of his mouth make you smile. When he switches from “black” to Australian it’s pure gold.

    Perhaps Poland will be in the minority on this.

  • Jeff Wells says it’s Downey Jr. vs. Ledger

    Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic ThunderIn a review of Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” this afternoon, Jeffrey Wells has brought the “O” word into the conversation, specifically for Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as an actor who undergoes a pigmentation makeover to play an African American in the Vietnam film-within-the-film.

    Here’s what he has to say:

    It also feels to me like an Oscar-level thing for Downey. I know — who gives a hoot about Oscar nominations when a film is this funny? But Downey is amazing in this. This plus Iron Man — what a year for the guy. The Best Supporting Actor race is already down to Downey vs. Ledger.

    Obviously he forgets that Downey still has a role as Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez in Joe Wright’s “The Soloist,” due out later this year, which, judging by the subject matter and the fact that you’ve got the same studio pushing that film for awards fodder, may turn out to be his best shot at Academy recognition.

    Of course, we’ve been calling it the year of Downey Jr. around these parts for a few months now.  Not that it isn’t the most obvious aspect of the season.  And indeed, it is the story of the year.  Such a rise from the depths and into the spotlight as a star with impact yet again.

    I’m really looking forward to “Tropic Thunder,” as well as “The Soloist,” for that matter.  And I’d be lying if I didn’t say it had a lot to do with Downey Jr.

  • Cameron Crowe returns!

    After the disaster that was “Elizabethtown” — a script that was so much stronger than what wound up on screen — Cameron Crowe is finally coming back with a Ben Stiller-Reese Witherspoon adventure comedy for Sony.

    Even after “Elizabethtown,” Crowe is still a filmmaker who I will be first in line opening day for. 2009 just got a whole lot more exciting for me.

  • Not that you haven’t seen it yet…

    …but the “Tropic Thunder” red band trailer has arrived:

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VdDoy3LC_4

  • Could Robert Downey Jr. own this year?

    I remember when Robert Downey Jr. was cast in the role of Tony Stark for Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man,” my colleague David Poland made the shrewd observation that the former drug-addled wash-up was once again insurable.

    Not that I like putting such language to an actor I love so much, but the truth is, he hit one of the deepest downward spirals a star of his caliber could imagine, all of it following nearly 10 years of Brat Pack fame and a heralded Oscar nominated performance in 1992.

    But how about the turnaround? After the bad days of the mid-to-late 90s, and some major relapses in the first part of the new millennium, Downey finally turned the corner. A new role on one of television’s hottest shows wasn’t enough to get him bonded for Woody Allen’s “Melinda and Melinda” (which waited another four years to hit screens, with Will Ferrell ultimately taking the role), and there were pitfalls ahead still, but the upward curve seemed on the horizon somewhere, lurking.

    And here, eight years later, Downey is one day away from the release of one of the year’s most anticipated, likely highest-grossing films. Insured doesn’t say the half of it. Robert Downey Jr. is vindicated.

    But it doesn’t end with Tony Stark. The actor has two other very high profile performances landing in 2008, one of them set to be a laugh riot as he sports black face opposite Ben Stiller in “Tropic Thunder,” releasing in August. To cap off the year, Downey will star in Joe Wright’s “Atonement” follow-up, “The Soloist,” an awards season hopeful for DreamWorks SKG and perhaps a ride to a second Oscar nomination for the actor.

    I bring all this up because it is the story people should be writing, however much publicity would likely prefer to shine the light elsewhere. David Carr wrote a superlative piece that touched the finer points for The New York Times a few weeks ago, and my colleague Blake Rutherford offered his own thoughts in that light as well. But there isn’t enough patting on the back going around for my taste — sue me. An actor taking this big a stumble, looking like straight-to-DVD material if ever a career could be salvaged, and then pushing back with a creative and hard-working fury such as this — it is cause for celebration.

    When all is said and done, I have a feeling Robert Downey Jr. will be the toast of Hollywood in 2008. Entertainer of the year? Maybe. But it’s certainly the story of the year.

    Bravo. And here, here.