In Contention

Tag: Brad Grey

  • Beatty got back

    Usually, the news that someone is about to write, direct, produce and star in some film of no clear description for Paramount wouldn’t seem particularly worthy of notice until the parties involved release a few more details.

    But when the “someone” in question is 74 year-old Warren Beatty, the one-time Hollywood monarch whose name hasn’t appeared on screen since 2001 (as an ensemble member of all-star embarrassment “Town and Country”), it’s hard not to get curious.

    With Beatty not having steered a film of his own since 1998’s “Bulworth” — the fascinating but frustratingly scattershot political satire that never found a place in the popular imagination, despite netting him a writing Oscar nod and arguably featuring Halle Berry’s strongest performance — there’s likely a generation or two with little concept of what an industry force the man was across four decades. (Perhaps more enduring, on the pop-culture scale, is his reputation as Hollywood’s most storied lothario, though Annette Bening put a stop that 20 years ago.)

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  • Stop the presses: random, anonymous people say it’s ‘Button’ vs. ‘Nixon’

    The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonIn this otherwise solid piece from the New York Times’s Michael Cieply, I was taken aback by the following aside, taken anonymously from a publicist (or publicists) that obviously has a stake in this year’s Oscar race:

    Some publicists who specialize in Oscar campaigns are privately predicting a year-end shootout between “Button” and “Frost/Nixon,” a planned December release from Universal Pictures, directed by Ron Howard and with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in the title roles. The films have been seen by few, but the campaign machinery is already lining up behind them.

    Huh?  What?  Says who?  Well, let it be so, as far as those associated with the true frontrunner are concerned, but this is a foundtationless aside to be just tossed out there in a major Times piece if you ask me.  Three graphs later, “Quantum of Solace” is slid into a list of expected Oscar heavies like it’s one of the boys.  What’s that all about?

    Anyway, Cieply’s story goes on to discuss Paramount honcho Brad Grey’s Oscar successes, drops Oscar consultant Lisa Taback’s name and details the bumpy road for “Button” to the screen.  Check it all out here.