• John Horn talks to FilmDistrict honcho Bob Berney about the flamboyant advertising of Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.” [24 Frames]
• Dana Harris chats with “Albert Nobbs” stars Glenn Close and Janet McTeer. [indieWIRE]
• Oscilloscope picks up Andrea Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights” in Toronto. [Variety]
Things looked so upbeat for fledgling distribution outfit Apparition when they started out last year. Masterminded by former Picturehouse head Bob Berney, the company was christened with the acquisition of one of 2009’s best films, Jane Campion’s “Bright Star.” A classy roster of titles followed, including “The Young Victoria,” “Fair Game,” “The Runaways” and, most eagerly awaited of all, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.”
They didn’t quite know what to do with everything they had — “Bright Star” was unfortunately buried by ill-thought scheduling and idle marketing — but they did manage to eke out an Oscar win for “Victoria” before their first birthday, and also nabbed one of the starrier titles at this year’s Sundance fest: the Kristen Stewart and James Gandolfini starrer “Welcome to the Rileys.” Not bad going, particularly in the current indie climate.
How quickly things change in Hollywood. Just before Cannes, Berney caught industry watchers off-guard by pulling out of Apparition, and the company has been reeling from the shock ever since. Anne Thompson reports that co-founder Bill Pohlad has taken the drastic measure of shutting down their New York office and nearly halving the staff.
One of the stories I’m tracking most curiously this awards season is the rise of brand-spanking-new distribution company Apparition, whose impressive slate of upcoming titles belies their fledgling status.
“The Tree of Life,” “Bright Star” and, to a lesser extent, “The Young Victoria” are obviously the titles on people’s lips right now, but there are some interesting projects in the pipeline too: Doug Liman’s Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson biopic “Fair Game,” with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, as well as music video director Floria Sigismondi’s “The Runaways” — another biopic, this one about the cult girl band of the title.
Former Picturehouse chief Bob Berney has been the more-discussed name in connection with the outfit, but Variety has a handy little profile of Berney’s Apparition co-pilot Bill Pohlad, whose feature producing career only really started four years ago with “Brokeback Mountain.”
It’s somewhat surprising that our year-in-advance Oscar coverage is only three months old. That now ancient list of predictions seems so long ago, and yet, even with Cannes behind us and this or that indication of a few of the contenders, I have no idea how to offer an educated update beyond general housekeeping. The season, it seems, will remain elusive for just a little while longer.
Here’s what we know: Critics didn’t respond to Universal’s “The Boat That Rocked” across the pond. But the Brits hardly have a soft spot for Richard Curtis. Along similar lines, Stephen Frears’s “Chéri” hasn’t exactly inspired either. But both films, from awards savvy studios, could find a second wind when they eventually open Stateside.
The biggest Oscar hopeful to emerge from this year’s Cannes fest is, in my opinion, Jane Campion’s “Bright Star.” Heralded in some quarters as a return to form for the director, and snatched up by the intrepid Bob Berney (formerly of Picturehouse and now closing in on a name for his distribution company with partner Bill Polhad), the film could be a nominations hog, anywhere from six to 10 possibilities. You’ll note all of my ponderings in that regard in the latest chart update below.
That Jane Campion is one of three female auteurs competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year is seen as a relative step up for the fairer sex compared to years past, though by any logical standards, a 3-to-17 ratio is still an indication of a globally male-biased industry.
Campion, however, has an interesting take on the matter: though she blames studio sexism to an extent, though she thinks women themselves have some responsibility for the situation. Noting that the imbalance begins as early as the film school stage, she wondered at a Cannes press conference whether her female peers are more easily deterred by criticism:
I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world … Without them the rest are not getting to know the whole story. I think women don’t grow up with the kind of criticism that men grow up with. We are more sensitively treated. It is quite harsh when you first experience the world of film-making — you have to have a tough skin. My suspicion is that women are not used to that. We must put on our coats of armour and get going because we need them [female directors].
I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but from a successful auteur who has endured her share of criticism in past years, it’s an interesting perspective. Thankfully, considering the wealth of high-profile female-directed projects in the wings this year — from “Bright Star” to “The Hurt Locker” to “An Education” — things may be looking up.
Meanwhile, strong reviews for Campion’s film continue to pour in; Todd McCarthy calls it an “impressive return” for Jane Campion, and amps up the buzz for star Abbie Cornish. U.S. distribution rights were snapped up a few days ago by ex-Picturehouse chief Bob Berney and Bill Pohlad’s new outfit.
I’ve been wondering what became of “Red Cliff,” John Woo’s lavish historical epic set third century Han Dynasty China. The big-budget project broke Chinese box-office records and was tipped to be a crossover foreign-language hit last year, but never surfaced in the West.
Now news comes from Cannes that U.S. rights to the film have finally been acquired by Magnet Releasing, the genre division of Magnolia Pictures. Magnet are planning a fall release for the visually spectacular Tony Leung starrer, which was shown in two parts in Asia, but will be presented in a combined cut Stateside:
“Colossal in every regard, Red Cliff is undoubtedly one of the most exciting films to come out of China in a long time,” Magnet’s senior vice-president Tom Quinn said. “John Woo has delivered a provocative, jaw-dropping, andmoving epic. Mainstream audiences and die hard Woo fans alike are in for a big treat.”
On a hot summer night last June at the L.A. Film Festival’s opening night party, I ran into Picturehouse President Bob Berney, an independent film whiz and great awards campaigner. We talked about the imminent demise of his company (merged into Warner Bros. and then dumped), but he mentioned the possibility of releasing one more film, an oddball title he really liked that the defunct Warner Independent had produced but now those at (big) Warners admitted they didn’t know what to do with. It was the cinematic equivalent of leftovers and problematic because it was small and partially in the Hindi language.
When I asked him if the movie, which I had never even heard of, “Slumdog Millionaire”, had any awards potential, he said probably not, proving once again that nobody knows nothing, even as savvy a guy as Berney, who brilliantly guided Charlize Theron and Marion Cotillard to Oscars.
From Pete Hammond’s recent “Notes on a Season” column.
The news that Time Warner is phasing out Picturehouse Entertainment and Warner Independent Pictures was a bit upsetting this morning, I have to say.
WIP may not have hit any major strides (though a Best Picture nominee one year after it became a brand wasn’t too shabby), but I believe Bob Berney had built something special at Picturehouse, a company that was beginning to look like a real home for filmmakers and visions you can’t put into little boxes.
Of course, the “dependent” circuit, as it were, has claimed this sort of artists’ haven thing for some time. But long ago many of them began to succumb to the same inflated budgets and profit-obsessed mentalities as their parent companies. I never got that vibe from Picturehouse.
Just look at some of the product: “Fur,” “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Tristam Shandy,” “Mongol” and “La Vie en Rose,” featuring a lead performance whose ultimate Oscar victory caught more than a few people off guard.
Forgive me, but the notion that the now in-house New Line Cinema is somehow going to reach the niches that Berney and WIP did is a stretch. The potential seems all too clear for the brand to go back to the genre-soaked days of old, Dimension Films to Warners’ Miramax. But I’m happy to be proven wrong.
But for me, it’s a sad moment. I liked what Berney had cooking and on the occassions that I spoke to him about this project or that, I thought he had a pretty hip (and, thankfully, realistic) vision of what he could do at the company.
But what do I know?
After a few weeks of frigid, citrus terrorizing temperatures, if you step outside this morning in Los Angeles, it’s a beautiful, cloudless, sunny day. But it’s a little sunnier for those who were greeted with Oscar nominations, whether expected or unexpected. I had the opportunity to talk with a few of the lucky souls who’ve had the pleasure of fielding phone call after phone call this morning. Here’s what they had to say.
Lots of happiness in the Fox Searchlight camp today, as the little film that could, “Little Miss Sunshine” made its way to four Oscar nominations including Best Picture and, not surprisingly, Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt. I called Michael around 7:45 this morning to get his reaction, and he was still the same modest fellow I spoke to face to face over the weekend.
“I knew that there were a lot of people out there who loved the film,” he told me, “but this is the ultimate validation of the idea that the film industry is democratic. A year ago we were hoping to get a distribution deal and now we have four Oscar nominations.”
Michael says he went to sleep pretty easily (and who wouldn’t, in his shoes), but that didn’t stop him from waking up at three o’clock and suffering insomnia throughout the rest of the early morning hours. Suffice it to say, he was wide awake when he heard his name called this morning.
Best Supporting Actor nominee Jackie Earle Haley (“Little Children”) has to be the happiest guy in the business this morning. “I think I’d have to agree with you on that,” he told me, calling from his home in San Antonio. “This is just unbelievably crazy. They need to invent a few more words, because every adjective, this is just a little bit better.”
The most adorable and giddy Oscar nominee you could expect to talk to, Haley was clearly on cloud nine, even hitting bouts of speechlessness during our conversation. Funnily enough, even in the central time zone, Jackie was asleep when the announcement hit. His wife ran into the bedroom screaming and crying, “You got it!” “We just hugged each other and cried for, like, five minutes,” Haley said.
One of today’s nominees was actually surprisingly snubbed for his work on “Good Night, and Good Luck.” last year, film editor Stephen Mirrione. Mirrione and Douglas Crise shared one of “Babel”‘s seven nominations this morning.
“The types of movies I gravitate towards aren’t really mainstream movies,” he told me via telephone shortly after the nominations were announced. “So I’m pleasantly surprised when they become so widely accepted, even if I know the material I’m working with is exceptional. And I owe a lot to wonderful performances.”
Crise has served as Mirrione’s first assistant editors for ten years. This year he got the bump to co-editor because “Babel” started shooting before Mirrione had finished work on “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Now the longtime collaborators get to share in the spoils of an Oscar nomination together.
Another nominee who has felt the sting of Oscar’s avoidance is Patrick Marber, nominated today for his adapted screenplay “Notes on a Scandal,” based on the novel by Zoe Heller. In fact, when Marber failed to score a WGA nomination for his work two weeks ago, he says it felt exactly how the circumstance of “Closer” played out in 2004, for which he received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, but found no such luck with the guild and with the Academy. Suffice it to say, he was pleasantly surprised this morning.
“Being nominated is a lot more fun than not being nominated,” he told me, calling from London. “You suddenly get lots of phone calls from people you haven’t spoken to in years. And it’s huge for us, for the film, to get four nominations. Judi and I texted each other, and I got a one word email from Zoe: ‘Yay.’ She’s always to the point.”
Finally, one of the big stories of the morning was Picturehouse’s six nomination haul for Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Hitting the ground running in its inaugural year, Picturehouse had two critically lauded efforts hit screens in “Pan’s” and director Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” Picturehouse president Bob Berney concedes that it was a shame not to land at least one mention for Altman’s golden-hued, poignant swansong, but it was bittersweet considering the surprising glut of appreciation thrown the way of “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
“We decided to come out at the very end, but to do that, you have to know you’ve got a great film,” he told me earlier this morning. “It’s cool to get these broader nominations outside of the foreign film category, because this really is such a group effort. You get a lot of energy from this film and it just takes you back to the joy of movies.”
Berney conceded that a lesson learned in this introductory year for his studio was the subtlety of positioning your film as an underdog. The strategy paid off in spades this morning, and the president affirms that he and his team are ready to do it all over again next Oscar season.