In Contention

Tag: Broken Embraces

  • TORONTO: Penelope Cruz and ‘Broken Embraces’

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesWhen did Penelope Cruz become such a great actress? This was a woman  I could barely stand looking at on screen not more than five years ago, yet now she is an absolute delight, with depth, emotion, and the ability to find the truth in her characters, an innate ability that is downright uncanny. God, her work in “Vanilla Sky” was painful and her performance in “Blow” was so shrill and terrible it was the sort of acting I’d label obscene.

    Then saw “Volver” and was stunned by her work, blown away, knocked out and forever silenced about her talent. It is not the first time this has happened to me. I regularly attacked Julia Roberts until “Erin Brockovich” and “Closer” and was Joel Schumacher’s biggest detractor until “Tigerland.”  If my love of cinema has given me anything it’s the ability to admit when I am wrong, or when an artist has done something that surprised me enough to admit they possess an unexpected talent.

    Cruz was lovely in “Volver” and richly deserving of the Oscar nomination she received, just as she deserved to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress last year for her hell cat in “Vicky Christina Barcelona.”  There was something dark in her work last year for Woody Allen, something dangerous, something terribly sexy. And then to see her in “Elegy?”   It was an entirely different piece of work, equally good, but each of her 2008 performances displayed extraordinary range not seen before. Was the talent always there and the roles just weak? Or is it that Cruz simply grew as an actress?

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  • Previewing the 34th annual Toronto fest

    TorontoIn less than a week I will kiss my wife and kids goodbye and head into Toronto, about 50 miles away, for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Twelve years ago my wife and I found it makes no sense for me to attend the festival for 16 to 18 hours and then try to drive home; beyond the danger of driving exhausted, arriving home at three in the morning tends to wake them up because our stupid, stupid dog begins barking the moment anyone pulls into the driveway. So for 10 days I live in the Delta Chelsea Hotel on Gerrard Street.

    This year I am finding leaving for the festival easier. Last year my wife Sherri was diagnosed with brain cancer and dealt with the removal of part of a considerable brain tumor. We went through radiation last summer, the loss of her beautiful, lush red hair, and the constant exhaustion she had to deal with. Cancer, sadly, is a family affair, and not something anyone should go through alone.  But this year we are in a good place.  The monster seems to be at bay, for now.

    So what I am looking forward to seeing?  Well first let me state that I’m shocked “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Amelia” and a handful of other films are not here. They seemed like good fits for the festival, their filmmakers have been here before, etc.  That said, it looks like one of the best festivals in recent memory, though I am not sure anything will ever beat out 2007, which presented a bounty of great pictures.  I was leaving screening room after screening room giddy.

    This year looks like a challenge for even the toughest film fester. Choosing the films to see is the toughest part because there is no chance you’ll see everything you want to see. There are generally three of four press/industry screenings at the Varsity, Cumberland or new AMC Theatres, as well as the public screenings which the press have limited access to. Our press pass allows us access to six (I think) Gala performances in the evening, but they sell out quickly. There is also a DVD library where you can watch the films in the rooms provided on your own, but films are meant to be seen on the big screen.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Original Score — Volume I

    The Princess and the FrogAs long as humanity has been recording history, music has been immensely important in society. Not only can it be joyous and entertaining, but it can capture the mood and feel of a time and a place. Cinema has been no exception in this regard.

    The creation of original music for a film is awarded by the Academy in the Best Original Score category. The composer has one of the most difficult and lonely jobs in filmmaking. Almost always arriving at the end of the editing stage, he or she has to fashion music appropriate to the mood of a film.  But when a composer does a magnificent job, the result can be iconic.

    This category tends to awards its favorites. It is notoriously one of AMPAS’s most insular branches (though it has warmed up to newbies slightly in recent years). It also tends to award music that features prominently in the films.  From this vantage point, however, it is always hard to guess which films will find themselves in contention, largely because we have not heard the scores.

    An exception in this regard is Michael Giacchino’s work on Pixar’s “Up.” Giacchino, who was nominated two years ago for “Ratatouille,” has once again composed a soundtrack which can be sad, joyous and suspenseful. The film is likely headed towards a Best Picture nomination, and I suspect a citation here will follow.

    Another animated film which may very well end up in contention is “The Princess and the Frog.” The music is being handled by Randy Newman, clearly beloved by the music branch. I remain skeptical of how this film will be received and, in any event, think that Best Original Song may be the more likely spot to consider for this film. However, Newman’s name means a lot and there are few other favorites in the running this year.

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  • Brits fall for ‘Hurt Locker,’ ‘Broken Embraces’

    Lluis Homar and Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesIn what is surely the richest weekend of the year for discerning British cinemagoers since the glut of Oscar contenders in January, both Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” and Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” hit UK screens today.

    You could be forgiven for not knowing that, though. While Almodovar’s film has enjoyed a prominent marketing campaign here in London, that Warholesque poster shot of Penelope Cruz ubiquitous on buses, tube tunnels and phone boxes (I can see one right now from my living-room window), “The Hurt Locker” has, sadly, been an all-but-invisible presence.

    The local broadsheets are doing their best to raise the film’s fortunes, however, as Bigelow’s film continues to slay the critical community on either side of the pond. In a fairly rare trifecta, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, The Independent’s Anthony Quinn and The Times’s Kevin Maher all afford the film 5-star reviews.

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  • It’s not so dire, Mr. Friedman

    Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Stoning of Soraya MObviously Hollywood Reporter gossip hound Roger Friedman hasn’t been reading our Contenders section, or else he’d know there are plenty of lead actress hopefuls out there, not the dearth he apparently perceives.

    Friedman rattles off 12 contenders in a recent piece titled Shortage of “Best Actresses in the Coming Oscar Season,” but he misses some key possibilities.  Abbie Cornish in “Bright Star,” for one, who didn’t necessarily impress me much, but could certainly be in the hunt.  “Precious,” meanwhile, is considered a ripe opportunity for supporting contender Mo’Nique, but lead Gabourey Sidibe could certainly find her share of notices.

    Gwyneth Paltrow in “Two Lovers” and Zooey Deschanel in “(500) Days of Summer” are two extreme longshot contenders whose films have already been released, but Penelope Cruz deserves to be in the discussion for “Broken Embraces,” surely, as does Tilda Swinton in “Julia.”

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  • Cruz looking to slow down?

    Penelope CruzI’ve always been aware that actress Penélope Cruz was somewhat ubiquitous and certainly a hard worker.  She’s also intensely focused on her craft, more so than you might naturally expect.  When I interviewed her for a Variety profile last year (she was in London shooting “Nine” at the time), she was incredibly centered, almost somberly so.  She did, however, seem to unwind a bit at a Santa Barbara Film Festival tribute back in January, though.

    Anyway, all that aside, I was nevertheless stunned to glance at her IMDb page and see that the woman has been in at least one film since 1993.  That’s 16 years without a break, ladies and gentlemen.  And this year, following an impressive one-two punch in 2008, she will be featured in no less than four films: “G-Force,” “The Cannibalistic Councilor” and Oscar hopefuls “Nine” and “Broken Embraces.”  She doesn’t have much on deck, however.

    What spurred the sudden interest in her busy career was this Times article, covering the imminent release of “Broken Embraces” in the UK next weekend.  Cruz addresses a burn-out factor that had to come sooner or later and, amid rumors of pregnancy with boyfriend Javier Bardem’s child (she’s guarded about her personal life), indicates a desire to wind things down a bit.  Pregnancy will do that, of course, but I imagine she’s earned a few years off after that streak.

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  • One-eyed jacks

    Raoul Walsh“A film must always be finished, even if it is in the dark.”

    This line may come froma brand new film, Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” but it’s an apt pointer to a vintage film retrospective in New York that surely forms the oddest news item of the day. In “Broken Embraces,” the line is spoken by a blind film director determine to salvage the work of his once-sighted career; in this retrospective, directors with half that disability are being duly celebrated.

    The New York Post reports that the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village is screening a series of classics from five Hollywood masters, all of whom share the unusual fate of having gone blind in one eye: John Ford, Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang, Raoul Walsh and  Andre de Toth.

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  • Resnais and Almodóvar bookend world-flavored NYFF lineup

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesindieWIRE has the full lineup for this year’s New York Film Festival, which runs from 25 September to 11 October, and at a glance, it looks remarkably like a greatest-hits lineup from May’s Cannes festival.

    This year, both the NYFF’s opening and closing films have been plucked from the Croisette. Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass,” for which the 87 year-old New Wave master received a special career-achievement award at Cannes, will kick off proceedings, marking the second year in a row that a French title has taken this high-profile slot.

    Palme d’Or winner “The Class” opened NYFF last year en route to an Oscar nod. Whether a similar path awaits Resnais’s film, a high-flown romantic melodrama which was very warmly reviewed in Cannes, of course depends on what the French choose as their entry from a bumper crop of possibilities.

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  • 8/7 Web Round-up

    Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar on the set of Broken Embraces• Patrick Goldstein revisits a collection of filmmakers’ tributes to John Hughes, “the Tolstoy of American teenagers.” [The Big Picture]

    • The irrepressible Pedro Almodovar talks aging, Cruz and “Broken Embraces.”  On a side note, how sweet is the photo to the right? [Daily Telegraph]

    • Meryl Streep has a problem with male bloggers. Love you anyway, Meryl. [Salon]

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  • 8/3 Web Round-up

    Steven Miessner• Steven Miessner, the Academy’s white-gloved “keeper of the Oscars,” dead at 48. [USA Today]

    • Steve Weintraub talks “The Princess and the Frog” with directors Ron Clements and John Musker (at Comic-Con). [Collider]

    • The unmade films of Stanley Kubrick, including “Foucault’s Pendulum,” “Napoleon” and “Perfume.” [Empire]

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Toronto looming, ‘Education’ rising

    Carey Mulligan in An Education• Lots of buzz over “An Education” this week, with a new trailer and poster unveiled … and the talk isn’t only about Carey Mulligan.

    • We kicked off a new season of Tech Support with a look at the runners and riders for Best Cinematography.

    • Darwin biopic “Creation” will open this year’s Toronto fest, while “Bright Star” and “Precious” are also in the lineup.

    • Speaking of “Precious,” this week’s edition of Page to Screen examined the novel behind the Sundance sensation.

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  • REVIEW: “Broken Embraces” (***)

    Broken EmbracesMateo Blanco, the fictitious, sightless filmmaker who is both the ostensible hero of Pedro Almodóvar’s 17th feature film, “Broken Embraces,” and a highly refracted alter ego of Almodóvar himself, runs his career by one golden principle: “no sequels, remakes or biopics.”

    This statement, hammered home to Blanco (Lluis Homar) by his long-serving agent Judit (Blanca Portillo), could be read as a cheeky allusion to Almodóvar’s own directorial philosophy. Arguably the most defiantly trademarked of all contemporary arthouse auteurs – even the casual cinephile can identify un film de Almodóvar by its palette alone – he is nonetheless surprisingly resistant to repetition.

    As tempting as it may be for some to color his oeuvre with the same brush, there’s less common aesthetic ground between the jagged raunch of a “Kika,” the elegant humanism of a “Talk to Her,” or the icy genre play of a “Live Flesh,” than meets the eye, skewed black humor and extravagant visuals notwithstanding.

    It’s not a case of phasal development either: the remarkable creative hot streak of his last five films saw him trying on a range of tonal and structural guises, unexpectedly becoming this generation’s crossover arthouse teddy-bear in the process.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Cinematography – Volume I

    Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely BonesLIGHTS…CAMERA…you were probably waiting for the word “action,” no? Action is, after all, what many individuals go to a film to see. But the “lights” and the “camera” in this classic phrase bring a film beyond a book or a radio show…and capture the “action.”

    The individuals who paint the images of cinema with light and composition are rewarded in the Oscar category of Best Cinematography. Cinematographers are pivotal in the making of any film and it is thus unsurprising that directors often continuously work with the similar camera heads.

    Like many cinephiles, I must say this is my favorite of the so-called “technical” categories and I eagerly anticipate the race every year.  This year is no exception.

    Australian D.P. Dion Beebe might seem to be leading this year’s lenser race with his third collaboration with Rob Marshall, the musical adaptation “Nine.” Despite not being cited by the Academy for some of his more innovative work (see Michael Mann’s “Collateral”), Beebe has been previously nominated for 2002’s “Chicago” and won the Oscar in 2005 for “Memoirs of a Geisha.” “Nine” will give him the opportunity to pay homage to Federico Fellini while also capturing sprawling musical numbers, a feat this category tends to reward.

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  • Stunning new ‘Broken Embraces’ trailer

    The Guardian has exclusively debuted the brand new trailer for Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” and it’s a thing of considerable beauty.

    Mixed reviews be damned — the oil-painting saturated color of Rodrigo Prieto’s lensing (which weirdly reminds me of Vittorio Storaro’s work on Bertolucci’s “The Spider’s Stratagem”), the cannily cool choice of Cat Power on the soundtrack, not to mention the stylistics of Penelope Cruz’s headlong dive into fetishized femme fatale territory, all have my mouth positively watering. I’ll be seeing the film later this month, and that day can’t come too soon.

    The Guardian selfishly won’t let us embed the trailer, so watch it here. Now. We’ll post it here as soon as it becomes available.

  • OFF THE CARPET: Taking the temperature

    Jeremy Renner in The Hurt LockerIt’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.

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  • ‘Broken Embraces,’ ‘Vincere’ bow at Cannes

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesPedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” has just had its Cannes debut, and the notices emerging so far largely supplement the good-but-not-ecstatic slate of reviews the film garnered upon its Spanish release back in March.

    Kirk Honeycutt, in one of THR’s slightly pointless video reviews, labels it “Almodovar lite” and discusses the film’s allusions to “Peeping Tom” (not “an old 50s movie,” by the way). Wendy Ide at the Times coolly calls it a “mixed bag of smart ideas … rather than a coherent, distinct work of art,” while the Telegraph’s David Gritten loves Penelope Cruz’s performance, saying it excels her recent Oscar-winning work, but thinks the film “treads water rather than breaks new ground.”

    The case for the defence comes from Jeffrey Wells, who deems it by far the festival’s standout film at this stage:

    A romantic noir about writing, directing, damage and healing, it’s easily the most fully realized, thematically satisfying, self-assured and purely entertaining film of the festival so far. Not as fully emotional as Almodovar’s best films, but on a very high station in the second tier. Way in front of anything I’ve seen so far. The only thing that could knock it off is the Tarantino.

    Not sure why or how he’s dismissing the other titles he hasn’t seen yet, but anyway. I have a feeling this is one film whose critical consensus could see-saw between now and its eventual U.S. release in November.

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  • Cannes: sizing up the Competition, part one

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesWith the Cannes Film Festival only two days away, it’s time to take a long hard look (or just a look, if you prefer) at the 20 films in contention for the Palme d’Or, a typically eclectic bunch married by only one factor: all but one are from directors who have been in the race before. (And people accuse the Oscars of playing favorites.)

    Cannes is a notoriously tricky (and often well-nigh impossible) contest to predict: partly because the voting body is an ever-changing template, but largely because there’s been no time ahead of the festival for any kind of critical or popular consensus to build around the mostly unseen films on the shortlist.

    This may mean that in some cases the jury is susceptible to a film’s auteur cache — think “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” in 2006 — but it also allows for surprise attacks by less heralded titles on the basis of quality alone. Though it may seem an obvious winner in retrspect, few were talking about “The Class” last year before it snuck up on the last day and slayed the competition.

    With those caveats on the table, here’s a film-by-film (10 today, 10 tomorrow) rundown of this year’s lineup, detailing the Cannes credentials of each director, and offering some thoughts as to where they may sit in the competition. I make no promises — except that at least half my speculation will likely be proved wildly wrong in a fortnight’s time.

    “BROKEN EMBRACES” (Pedro Almodovar)

    The pitch: Already widely seen and reviewed, the film marks a return to film noir territory for the Spanish master, a complex melodrama headed by Penelope Cruz as an actress trying to rid herself of an aging lover. (Spanish dialogue)

    The history: On his two previous Competition appearances, for “All About My Mother” in 1999 and “Volver” in 2006, Almodovar entered the race as the bookies’ favourite, only to land the consolation prizes of Best Director and Best Screenplay, respectively.

    The outlook: Reviews so far have been kind, if reserved; several critics appear to delight in Almodovar’s trademark color-saturated visuals and off-kilter humor, but few have suggested that this ranks among his finest works. Almodovar is surely overdue for the festival’s top honor, but if a more unanimously lauded work like “Volver” couldn’t do the trick, my guess is that “Broken Embraces” won’t either. I think the jury may pass altogether.

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  • Almodovar, Campion, Lee in Cannes lineup

    Abbie Cornish in Jane Campion's Bright StarThe official list of films competiting for the Palme d’Or at next month’s Cannes Film Festival is out, and while it’s not a very surprising list — it’s been a given for some time that “Inglourious Basterds,” “Broken Embraces” and “Antichrist,” among others, would be in the mix — it still an exciting one, packed to the gills with auteur works from both regular visitors (Michael Haneke, Ken Loach) and long-absent ones (Jane Campion, Alain Resnais).

    I’ll dig into the selection in more depth later, but for now, here’s the list:

    “Broken Embraces” (Pedro Almodovar)
    “Fish Tank” (Andrea Arnold)
    “Un Prophete” (Jacques Audiard)
    “Vicenre” (Marco Bellocchio)
    “Bright Star” (Jane Campion)
    “A L’Origine” (Xavier Giannoli)
    “Map of the Sounds of Tokyo” (Isabel Coixet)
    “The White Ribbon” (Michael Haneke)
    “Taking Woodstock” (Ang Lee)
    “Looking for Eric” (Ken Loach)
    “Spring Fever” (Lou Ye)
    “Kinatay” (Brillante Mendoza)
    “Enter The Void” (Gaspar Noe)
    “Thirst” (Park Chan-Wook)
    “Les Herbes Folles” (Alain Resnais)
    “The Time That Remains” (Elia Suleiman)
    “Inglourious Basterds” (Quentin Tarantino)
    “Vengeance” (Johnnie To)
    “Face” (Tsai Ming-liang)
    “Antichrist” (Lars Von Trier)