In Contention

Tag: David Bowie

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1975 and 1976

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    These two years offer two of the best slates of Best Picture nominees ever in my opinion. ’75 of course belonging to the second ever winner of the top five awards, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” I’ve got no qualms with that particular film, but for my money, “Barry Lyndon” is inch perfect, every frame.

    1976 is viewed as one of the biggest Oscar travesties of all time. “Rocky” beating out films like “Network,” “Taxi Driver,” and “All the President’s Men” doesn’t sit well with most cinephiles. Guess what though, “Rocky” is in my top five films of all time and totally deserved it. Don’t listen to the haters, Sly!

    Stallone would join Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles as the only people nominated for acting and writing the same film at that time. Lina Wertmuller would also make history as the first female ever nominated for Best Director, possibly taking Marty Scorsese’s spot.

    The underdog box office champion winning top honors didn’t help the broadcast from becoming the lowest rated ever, and the first to last longer than three and a half hours.

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  • Press conference revelation of the day

    Brace yourselves, folks … here’s something you never saw coming. In this afternoon’s press conference for her new film “I Am Love” (reviewed here), Tilda Swinton stated that one of the films that most inspires her is Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” I mean, who saw that one coming?

    David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to EarthTilda Swinton

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  • Space oddity

    MoonIt’s hardly the only intriguing thing about “Moon” — the oddball sci-fi effort that Kris greatly admired earlier this week — that director Duncan Jones is in fact the rather more infamously named Zowie Bowie. Still, you must admit that an intimate space epic directed by the son of Ziggy Stardust has a certain symbolic cache to it; clearly, if the reviews are to be believed, visionary eccentricity (not to mention otherworldly interests) runs in the family.

    I must admit I wasn’t aware of this fact until I read this profile of Jones and his leading man, Sam Rockwell, in the New York Observer. It’s a fun piece, in which the two kindred spirits essentially try to outperform each other in the quirky loner stakes — loneliness being, they agree, the core theme of the film. It also offers some insight into the process behind Rockwell’s reportedly extraordinary dual performance:

    “It became part of this ingredients list of how do I make a film that Sam wants to be in? I know, I’ll make him play all the roles … and write the theme music, too,” Mr. Duncan joked.  It was indeed a challenge for Mr. Rockwell, who had to shoot each scene multiple times, either with a body double or using a Motion Control camera that can replicate body movements identically. Mr. Rockwell would act out the scene, go to hair and makeup to differentiate between the two characters, and then come back to set and do it all over again. It became what the two men described as a kind of dance, having to stick to precise moments to make the scene work—action scenes when the two Sams fight or play Ping-Pong were particularly difficult.

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  • Gaiman: Cast David Bowie as the Joker in ‘The Dark Knight Returns’

    I forgot to mention this in the item below regarding that Wired piece featuring Neil Gaiman and the current goings-on in the comic world.  The subject of “unfilmable” comics came up, with “Watchmen” having landed in March and Gaiman’s own “Sandman” at the top of such a list for some fans.

    Regarding Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” — which has, as always, been bandied about as a potential film project in the wake of “The Dark Knight,” some have speculated for “Watchmen” helmer Sack Snyder — Gaiman notes, in passing, a fascinating casting proposition that would frankly be kind of awesome:

    I was reading photostats of Watchmen that Alan would hand me months before they hit the stands, and I would puzzle over everything, putting it all together in my head. That’s a different thing than Dark Knight Returns, where the details of the story are more malleable and simple. Batman comes out of retirement. Cute Robin arrives on the scene. Joker kills himself. Is Batman dead or not? He’s not. There’s not much to unpack. If someone cast David Bowie, as he is now, as the Joker, I think The Dark Knight Returns is doable.

    Alright, someone, somewhere.  Let’s make this happen.  (Although Tim Curry would probably be better.)

    (from left) David Bowie and the Joker from The Dark Knight Returns