• Geoff Boucher sits down with “Crazy Heart” star Jeff Bridges (with an awkward accompanying photo to boot). [Los Angeles Times]
• Speaking of Boucher, congrats to him, Anthony Breznican, Susan King, Scott Mantz and Sharon Waxman on their ICG nominations. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Some desperately needed practical perspective on the “Moon” screener matter. [The Hot Blog]
This seemed to be in the offing for a while, but it’s always disconcerting to hear of major upheaval at a Hollywood institution like Miramax. The studio is folding its New York office, while Daniel Battsek, who has headed the Weinstein brothers’ former empire since 2005, will leave the company in January.
Battsek announced the news in this rather terse email:
After further reflection and discussion about the change in direction for Miramax, Rich Ross and I have agreed that I will step down as President of Miramax, effective the end of January, 2010.
With this decision, we have also agreed that the best chance of success for Miramax is for the company to be located in Los Angeles, and I will work with the group on a transition plan.
I’m very proud of all the great work we have accomplished here at Miramax and equally proud of my overall career at Disney.
• With “Luke and Brie are on a First Date” finding its way to an Amazon release, our own Chad Hartigan gets his film re-reviewed. [Spout Blog]
• Stephen Zeitchik wants to know why Ang Lee can’t catch a break. [Risky Biz Blog]
• Gregory Ellwood sees (er, hears) awards prospects in Alexandre Desplat’s “Coco Before Chanel” score. [Awards Campaign]
Miramax honcho Daniel Battsek and actresses Meryl Streep and Amy Adams joined director John Patrick Shanley tonight in introducing the world premiere of “Doubt” as the AFI Fest’s opening gala presentation. The film, adapted from Shanley’s stage play, has quickly become the lead Oscar pony for a studio that dominated the awards circuit last season.
The film was projected digitally, as prints haven’t yet been made, and it was deemed “wet behind the ears” at the top by Battsek; Shanley hadn’t even seen the cut in full himself yet. We’re talking right off the AVID, but it was complete and seemed to capture the respect of the crowd in attendance.
Watching the film, I was suddenly reminded of one of the year’s developing themes for American cinema: accountability. It’s front and center in “Frost/Nixon,” a journalist-as-hero yarn about Richard Nixon’s overdue apology to the American people. It’s certainly lurking beneath the surface of “W,” a character study first but an attempt at explanation on other levels. “WALL-E” warns of a lack of accounting for our actions, while “The Dark Knight” presents a hero who understands the accountability he owes to himself. “Gran Torino” will be working on similar levels.
Anyway, I’ve gone into all of that before, but it stuck out to me again tonight. Meryl Streep steps in for Cherry Jones as a nun hunting a troubling confession for much of the film’s two hour running time. The zeitgeist can’t help but insinuate itself into the symbolism and it just reminds, yet again, that 2008 is an amazingly internal year for filmmaking in this country. Nothing stands out as groundbreaking. Nothing approaches classic status. But everything lurks on a sustained, subdued level of reflexivity. It’s kind of fascinating.
But the AFI Fest has taken flight. There are a lot of films showing over the next week that I’m going to try my best to cover. It seems I’m pulled 10 different ways these days, and I have to tip my hat to Guy for the gusto to really dive into London for us this year.
I’m eager to finally check out entries like Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” and Ji-woon Kim’s “The Good, the Bad and the Weird.” I’m really looking forward to the Heath Ledger tribute screening of “Ned Kelly” on Tuesday, as well as the Danny Boyle event at the end of the week. And, of course, the full monty: “Che” at the Chinese tomorrow night.
It should be a whirlwind, all roads leading to Edward Zwick’s “Defiance” in the closing night gala. Tis the season…
I’ve been meaning to write about Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” ever since I saw it some three weeks ago, but I haven’t found a window until now. I’m off to Berlin on the weekend and I’d really like to get this off my plate before I leave, so amid all the packing, I thought I’d hammer out some brief thoughts.
I’m never really let down by a Leigh film. Even his lesser efforts seem to exist on some simple but probing level that makes argument a fool’s errand. More often than not, his work sparks appreciation during the awards season, and he even managed a second Best Director nomination for “Vera Drake” in 2004, which surprised more than a few people.
“All or Nothing” was one of my absolute favorite gems of 2002, yet it was ignored completely, while going back to the epic year in cinema that was 1999, we find perhaps Leigh’s most ambitious effort in “Topsy-Turvy.” Then, of course, there was “Secrets & Lies,” which captured the hearts of many in an Oscar year dominated by independent film.
Leigh’s pre-“Secrets & Lies” work is a slightly different breed, but still fundamentally the work of the same artist and, at times, the same vision of the world. And he has come back to it with “Happy-Go-Lucky,” the shrewd observation of which Guy made in his April review of the film.
Something feels even more off-the-cuff about “Happy” than Leigh’s recent films. There is an even greater sense of spontaneity and improvisation lurking between the frames that can be both exciting and off-putting, but the purpose is served throughout: bringing the audience into the devil may care world of a woman hell-bent on saving the drama for your mama.
Flipping through the Financial Times earlier today (a British newspaper famous for the pink paper on which it is printed — “Give me a pink ‘un”), I came across a profile of Miramax honcho Daniel Battsek that made for a pleasant read amid all the TPG and Bernanke mumbo-jumbo.
In a lot of ways the story is rather derivative and even stale. Nothing we’ve not read elsewhere, especially after an Oscar season that saw “No Country for Old Men,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “There Will Be Blood” tear through with the media latching on for the ride.
But Battsek is one of the good guys. Any ink, really, is good ink, considering what he’s done with the company in the wake of the brothers Weinstein. And hey, he’s a hell of a nice guy. That’s reason enough for me to pass it along.
Matthew Garrahan has the byline. Here’s a look:
Making films that achieve critical and commercial success “is not rocket science…and it’s not as complicated as some people make out”. Still, it is not easy. “You have to be very sure of yourself when you acquire the material. You have to be very conscientious and detailed when you’re working with your filmmakers. And you have to find ways of being able to make [the film] as quickly as possible.”
The physical process of making a film is not of great personal interest. “I’ve never had the movie-making bug. Sitting on a set watching a scene being filmed doesn’t turn me on at all. But I love being in a cinema watching a film. I love the creative side, working with filmmakers, writers, actors . . . and I love the production process.”