In Contention

Tag: Departures

  • Roger Ebert’s top 10 list(s)

    Crazy HeartRoger Ebert has been alive like never before in his work as of late.  So I’ve been greatly anticipating his views on the year’s best.

    Unfortunately, he’s divided his list into mainstream and independent films, so it’s a top 20, and neither in any order.

    Maybe keeping things simple like that and not so authoritative with painstaking rankings is the way to go.  I’ve been considering it for a long time.

    Anyway, the most interesting inclusions on his mainstream list are “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “Crazy Heart” and “Knowing.” On the indie side, “Departures,” “Goodbye Solo” and “Trucker.”

    Check out the rest at the Chicago Sun-Times.

  • THE LONG SHOT: The more you know

    Abbie Cornish in Bright StarHere’s something I’ll bet a lot of you wouldn’t have guessed: once upon a time, when my pants were short and my South African accent heavy, I was a very good Oscar pundit. I won every pool going. I beat the lame TV critics’ guesses and laughed in their televised faces. When that got old, I entered a radio “predict the Oscars” contest and won ZAR200 in mall vouchers. (Okay, that’s $26 – it was worth more in the 90s.)

    Since those heady days of glory, however, things have changed. The internet came along, for starters, and proved to be a hell of a lot smarter than me. But my own predictions – particularly at the nomination stage – got more wayward by the year; gone were the days of going five-for-five in one category after another.

    When it comes to picking the winners, meanwhile, I’ve begun losing Oscar pools to my brother, a mostly disinterested architect with an uncanny knack for calling the Academy’s most gauchely sentimental instincts. (He nailed the Best Foreign Language Film upset by “Departures,” for example, simply by reading a one-line plot synopsis of each nominee. I can learn much from him.)

    Why the lapse in form lately? It’s simple, really: I’ve started seeing the movies.

    That is to say, I’ve started seeing the movies in time. Back in the days when I had no access to press screenings or festivals, I was wholly at the mercy of South African release schedules, which usually meant I was lucky if one of the Best Picture nominees landed before Easter.

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  • THE LONG SHOT: Mind your language

    (from left) Niels Arestrup and Tahar Rahim in A ProphetYou might not be aware of it, but the competition is already formally under way in Oscar’s most perennially problematic category, Best Foreign Language Film.

    For almost two weeks now, official Academy screenings of the longlisted contenders in the race have been in progress, and will continue through January, until all 65 titles have been subjected to the foreign-language committee’s scrutiny.

    Pete Hammond has details of the screening schedule and voting rules, as well as some gossip on audience reaction to the screenings thus far: Mexico’s “Backyard” and Switzerland’s “Home,” starring Jimmy Smits and Isabelle Huppert respectively, have apparently gone down well; Croatia’s “Donkey,” thanks to incomprehensible subtitles, not so much. Add a pinch of salt to taste.

    Coincidentally enough, courtesy of the London Film Festival, I’ve been simultaneously working my own way down the contenders list, though my personal tally has stalled at eight titles. (It could have been 11, if scheduling and admin obstacles hadn’t kept me away from the Australian, Colombian and Serbian entries. I am but one man.) Only 57 to go, then.

    I will offer a more detailed assessment of the films in another post, but by and large it’s been a pleasure making their acquaintance. Of course, my own selection has been filtered through that of the fest’s generally thoughtful programmers, safeguarding against any real horrors – but I don’t mind saying that an unembarrassing list of nominees could theoretically be assembled from just my scant sampling of the longlist.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Invictus,’ ‘Bones’ and a billion remakes

    Matt Damon in InvictusSlipped my mind to do this on Friday, but better late…

    • We broke the news that Clint Eastwood’s upcoming Mandela film finally has a title: “Invictus.” (And if you’re wondering what it means, we explain that too.)

    • And with that, much “Invictus” talk ensued, as we learned that Eastwood directed the film at Morgan Freeman’s request, and that it’s going up against “The Lovely Bones” in December.

    • Speaking of “The Lovely Bones,” this week’s edition of Page to Screen put Alice Sebold’s bestselling novel under scrutiny.

    • Our slightly disappointing (to some, at least) poll of cinema’s most influential films entered its final stage.

    • With the news of a “Total Recall” remake the final straw, we got on Hollywood’s case for being so apparently allergic to original material.

    • This week’s list counted down the all-time greatest champs in the Best Foreign Language Film category. (Hint: The just-released “Departures” ain’t on it.)

    • We considered the wealth of female filmmakers in the mix for awards consideration this year.

    • A bit of respect for the great Elia Kazan.

    • “Up” stormed the box office, as we all knew it would.

    • Finally, in sadder, and much less expected, news, we said goodbye to actor David Carradine.

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 Best Foreign Language Film winners

    John RatzenbergerIt is with a notable silence that Yojiro Takita’s “Departures” – best known to many of you as that film that beat “Waltz With Bashir” to the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar – slipped onto U.S. screens last week. Of course, there are various reasons for the lack of hoop-la surrounding its release.

    The film itself is a decidedly unassuming, low-key effort. The critical reception has been, if hardly hostile, slightly soft. (Sure, Ebert gave it four stars, but what does that mean these days?) Meanwhile, more than three months after Oscar night, it’s likely most people barely remember the film’s victory at all. (Probably a good release strategy, given the dismay with which the win was greeted in many quarters.)

    The less charitable explanation, of course, is that the film isn’t terribly good. Pleasant, certainly, and executed with commendable sincerity, but swaddled in the kind of safe, maudlin cinematic cotton-wool that never threatens any real danger, despite the potentially macabre directions the material could go in. It’s a cozy piece of work that doesn’t dare approach “Waltz With Bashir” for formal invention or “The Class” for storytelling verve.

    As such, it’s a textbook illustration of the Academy’s voting tendencies in this category, which repeatedly favor the safe ahead of the searing: the movie you’d take home to meet Mom rather than the one you’d run away to Paris with. This decade alone, we’ve seen such competent, amiable and relentlessly middlebrow fare as “Nowhere in Africa,” “Tsotsi” and “The Counterfeiters” triumph over infinitely more innovative competition – -or, all too often, films that didn’t even make the nominee list. It’s a situation that inspires annual grumbling, on these pages and innumerable others.

    But it’s not all bad. The running-joke status of the foreign-language award tends to obscure the fact that the Academy has rewarded a number of stone-cold classics in their time too –- never more so than in the earliest days of the award, when titans of film history like Kurosawa, De Sica and Fellini made it to the winners’ podium. And even these days, a gem like “The Lives of Others” can still manages to fight its way to the surface.

    Today’s list seeks to at least partially rehabilitate the reputation of this beleaguered (albeit deservedly so) award, reflecting on the most adventurous –- or simply most resonant -– selections in the 62-year history (including the days when it was merely an honorary citation) of the Best Foreign Language Film award.

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  • ‘Departures’ trailer debuts

    Remember “Departures,” that little Japanese film that everyone (almost everyone) expected to be an also-ran for the foreign language film Oscar last year?  Well the film is finally going to see a domestic limited release on May 29.  The new trailer has premiered over at Apple.  Here’s an embed:

    “[‘Departures’] deals with death in a really affecting way, at once eerie, humorous and, ultimately, moving,” I wrote of the film back in February.  “When it threatens to pass into trite territory, it finds a way to stay fresh and alive, very human and absolutely satisfying.”

    “Departures” is also set to play the Tribeca Film Festival later this month and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May.

  • More than one ‘right’ choice

    Waltz with BashirIn the largely good-natured responses to a largely good-natured Oscar ceremony, only one result has been greeted with any real rancour from critics or pundits –- the “upset” (anticipated by some clever folks at the eleventh hour) in the Best Foreign Language Film category. But as much sympathy as one feels for the disappointed team behind the upended frontrunner, “Waltz With Bashir,” I can’t help feeling a little bad for the ultimate victor, “Departures,” whose moment in the sun is being somewhat tainted by the amount of resentment being cast its way.

    David Carr describes “Bashir’s” loss as “the biggest miss of the year,” adding that the Japanese film’s victory signals a triumph of convention over innovation. Meanwhile, Sasha Stone, who is usually at pains to be the most disinterested of Oscar bloggers, suggests that the win is “the worst of this year.” But these are mild jabs compared to Scott Foundas’ furious rant over the affair, in which he dismisses “Departures” as a “relentlessly mediocre tearjerker” and rages that “Bashir” was simply too sophisticated for the voters:

    Folman’s film was simply too innovative for the Academy’s notoriously calcified tastes … While Waltz builds to a conclusion that many (including this critic) counted among the most emotionally devastating in movies last year, it is a moment that is earned by the film rather than cheaply calculated, and which raises more questions than it answers. That’s something that many viewers of Folman’s film have found thrilling to behold, but which may well have inspired paroxysms of rage in Academy voters who stand by the belief that a movie should have a clear beginning, middle and end and send people out of the theater feeling better about “humanity.”

    I must admit to having mixed feelings about the whole business. I must emphasise that I have yet to see “Departures,” so I can make no statement about whether or not it’s an undeserving winner –- though I confess I’d be surprised if it’s as striking or provocative a piece of work as “Bashir.” And while I’m not as ardent a devotee of Folman’s film as many critics, I can’t deny that I was excited by the possibility of an animated documentary breaking new ground in a frequently conservative category. (On another tack, as I’ve said before, I agree with Foundas that the film’s omission from the ceremony’s ‘Animation 2008’ montage was inexplicable.)

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  • A private function

    When all is said and done, it wasn’t an awards season that deserved a fireworks finish, so perhaps last night’s muted, largely tasteful, faintly insular ceremony was an appropriate summation. It ran smoothly enough, with a handful of novel distractions and a uniformly generous, empathetic spirit running through the night’s speeches –- but I’d be hard pressed to remember many notable ‘moments’ from last night’s proceedings a week from now, let alone years hence.

    Part of that stems from the fact that, as has been discussed ad nauseum on these and other pages, we had a less-than-stellar field of contenders to work with. But I’m afraid I must slide into the apparently tiny glass-half-empty minority on the show itself –- as efficiently and enthusiastically as the show unfolded, I simply didn’t find all that much to love about it. As Danny Boyle suggested in the midst of yet another boundless, winning acceptance speech (can we find something for him to win every year, please?), it looked like a blast for those present, but I’m not sure the clubby, “we’re all in this together” vibe really translated to the distance of a TV screen.

    After the cloak-and-dagger secrecy shrouding Bill Condon and Laurence Mark’s revised take on the Oscars, I must say I was expecting a slicker, more dramatic reworking of the format –- and on that front, I must say I was a little disappointed. Hugh Jackman was certainly a game, likeable emcee, but I wasn’t certain who the target audience for his big set pieces was. Equal parts Crystal-esque shtick and endearingly naff “let’s put on a show” razzle-dazzle, both elements seemed to me too dated to court the broader, younger, hipper viewership the Academy wanted. The Baz Luhrmann-staged musical number at the centre was fun in itself, but existed in a similar cultural vacuum, despite the presence of current pop phenomena like Beyonce or Zac Efron. For all the hype, this was familiar content.

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  • More on ‘Departures’ and a potential foreign upset

    DeparturesUPDATE: Well, it seems Tom has pulled the post down.  Perhaps, as commenter Josh notes, he got his info a bit twisted.  I’ll leave this here for now but check Josh’s explanation of the process.  The waters were muddied there for a bit.

    EARLIER: Tom O’Neil writes the following over at Gold Derby:

    A few days ago Gold Derby reported exclusively that “The Class” got nominated thanks to the new procedure that permits the academy’s internal foreign-film committee to overrule voters and add as many as three titles to the five in the category. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This seems to be the misinterpreted information.) The new rule was instituted to dispel the kind of outcry that followed last year’s omission of previous Cannes winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days” (Romania).

    Now Gold Derby can tattle a bit more. An excellent source tells us that the committee used its prerogative fully, bumping three films nominated by normal procedure in order to add their own choices. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This, too.  It seems the added films came during the first shortlisting process.) What were the other two? We don’t know for sure, but it seems logical to assume that they were other art-house darlings beloved by film critics who’d probably raise a ruckus if they were overlooked…

    How utterly screwed up this element of the Oscar process is.  It’s already pathetic that a special committee has to be there for oversight in the event that a film is snubbed that might cause some outcry, but hey, if there’s outcry over your choices, don’t bend to the will of the people and/or the critical fraternity.  Have the balls to stand by your own shitty taste.

    Anyway, it’s more and more obvious that, as I’ve been saying, the members that tend to vote in this category simply have it out for non-traditional filmmaking, end of story.  This band-aiding of the situation is just folly and, truthfully, there needs to be an entire re-working of the category’s process from the ground up.

  • Going with ‘Departures’

    Waltz with BashirI said yesterday that if I got cold feet on any of my predictions I would let you know, and less than 24 hours later, I’ve decided to take the dive on “Departures.”

    A lot of foreign film committee members really responded to this film, and it’s easy to see why.  It is “the kind of soft, safe, solid work that tends to take out the frontrunner in this category time and again,” I wrote yesterday.  “It deals with death in a really affecting way, at once eerie, humorous and, ultimately, moving.  When it threatens to pass into trite territory, it finds a way to stay fresh and alive, very human and absolutely satisfying…When you look back over the history of this category, you see a certain bias against non-traditional filmmaking,” i.e. an animated/documentary hybrid, however powerful.

    Today Pete Hammond has offered his thoughts on the matter, noting that “no animated film, no documentary and no film from Israel has ever won here so it would be three firsts. If not ‘Bashir,’ most pundits then move to the Palme d’Or winner from France, ‘The Class,’” Hammond continues, “but some voters I talked to thought it was dull. One even left after the first half. The committee at large likely did not vote this in on the first round and the academy’s executive committee put in it in the mix (they won’t confirm this but sources indicate that was the case). If you are looking for a pool winner go with Japan for the upset. That country’s film,’Departures’ is one the original foreign language committee LOVED.”  (UPDATE: Pete has now gone ahead and predicted “Departures” for the win as well.)

    Then there was that interesting bit of information from commenter Josh yesterday, who said, “‘Departures’ is also the least-screened nominee–if you didn’t see it at an AMPAS members screening, you probably didn’t see it. That’s an old strategy, restricting the pool of voters to the people who’ve gone out of their way to see your movie…The kind of voters who didn’t even nominate ‘Gomorrah’ or ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ might well find the other nominees a bit cold, and go for a gentler movie that’s lovely, lyrical and a touch melodramatic.”

    Despite the precursor record “Waltz with Bashir” has tallied up, if you look at Academy history, it faces an uphill climb.  And beyond stylistic bias, it could be as simple as one guy at Hollywood Elsewhere put it (rather bluntly): “It’s a cartoon and it makes Israel look bad.”  There might be some painful truth there, however misinformed the opinion might be.

    In any case, there’s something in the winds here.  Maybe it’s folly, maybe it’s an attempt at injecting the race with some sort of excitement, maybe I’m falling on my sword, but I’m going to step out onto a limb and predict “Departures” to upset “Waltz with Bashir” tomorrow night.  You only live once, I guess.

    The adjustments have been made in the usual places, here, here and, of course, here.  Ditto the sidebar.

  • Could ‘Departures’ upset ‘Waltz with Bashir’ in the foreign language film category?

    DeparturesNow that I’ve finally seen Japanese foreign film contender “Departures,” the last of the year’s nominees that had yet to cross my path, I thought it a good idea to go ahead and toss up a final look at the foreign language film category.  Over the last few weeks I’ve dived into the short film nominees, the doc shorts and the doc features.  This is the last of those categories, which require voters to see all of the nominees before being permitted to vote.

    I spent the last two days with all of the foreign contenders, re-watching “The Baader Meinhof Complex,” “The Class” and presumed frontrunner “Waltz with Bashir” and finally taking in the bleak “Revanche,” as well as “Departures.”  The question I’m left with, much as I was in the documentary feature category a few days back (in a piece that was largely taken out of context across the net) is this: have we succumbed to the group think yet again?  Because I have a feeling “Departures” is waiting to spoil.

    It’s a beautiful film in a lot of ways, certainly not a more artistic achievement than “Waltz” but the kind of soft, safe, solid work that tends to take out the frontrunner in this category time and again.  It deals with death in a really affecting way, at once eerie, humorous and, ultimately, moving.  When it threatens to pass into trite territory, it finds a way to stay fresh and alive, very human and absolutely satisfying.

    When you look back over the history of this category, you see a certain bias against non-traditional filmmaking.  The fantasy of frontrunner “Pan’s Labyrinth” fell to the straight-forward “The Lives of Others,” a moment relatively few of us saw coming but seemed totally rational for many in hindsight.  The epic “Hero” and the artfully renderd “The Man Without a Past” both lost out to the classic stylings of “Nowhere in Africa” while the whimsy of “Amélie” fell to “No Man’s Land.”  It happens.

    So why, exactly, is it a foregone conclusion that an animated documentary hybrid film will walk away with the Oscar?  Certainly the excuse isn’t: “Because it’s the best of the nominees,” right?  It’s a sentiment I happen to agree with, but that argument never holds water.  What’s more, the film is a mere 90 minutes, while every other nominee stretches past the two hour mark.  You might think a shorter entry would be a respite to voters, but only three times in the last 10 years has the shortest film won.  And each of those was more than 90 minutes long.

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  • Is ‘The Class’ in a position to upset ‘Bashir?’

    (UPDATE: I see Dave Karger is placing his money on “The Class” too. Interesting.)

    Yesterday, Kris took a look at the Best Documentary Feature category, and wondered whether the winner there is quite the foregone conclusion that most people think. Supporting his argument was the category’s unusual rule that voters have to have seen all five contenders before casting their ballots –- a rule which can make the category less susceptible to consensus thinking than elsewhere, as voters are forced to make aesthetic decisions for themselves rather than letting the campaigns decide for them.

    It’s a situation that can either consolidate a frontrunner’s appeal, or throw up a surprise as voters lose their hearts to a less-publicised gem. And while I agree with Kris that the latter is a possibility in the doc race, I’ve been wondering lately whether a similar upset could be brewing in the Best Foreign Language Film race –- which also requires voters to view all the nominees.

    For some time, “Waltz With Bashir” has been installed as the de facto frontrunner in this race –- and with good reason. It’s vastly acclaimed (remember the National Society of Film Critics named it the year’s best film, period), wildly inventive, won a number of significant precursors (though it recently stumbled at the BAFTAs) and, crucially, has a cache of political currency that could seal the deal for the frequently high-minded voters in this category.

    But it has a number of strikes against it too. It’s the first animated film ever to be nominated in this category, as well as the first documentary –- and the Academy isn’t exactly known for embracing the new. Given that voters in this field tend to be older Academy members, are we sure that they will take an animated effort seriously here? And are we sure that they won’t be put off by the film’s challenging, oblique structure? I’m not.

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  • Foreign film shortlist revealed, ‘Gomorrah’ snubbed

    This is the most vile of all Academy committees.  They prove their disdain for truly great cinema year in and year out (let’s not forget last year’s snubs of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “Persepolis” early on), and they’ve done it again this year, skewering Matteo Garrone’s blistering “Gomorrah,” leaving it for the dogs, cast aside, abandoned.

    The almighty foreign language film committee has chosen the following to proceed to the next stage of the season:

    “3 Monkeys” (Nuri Bilge Ceylan — Turkey)
    “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Uli Edel — Germany)
    “The Class” (Laurent Cantet — France)
    “Departures” (Yojiro Takita — Japan)
    “Everlasting Moments” (Jan Troell — Sweden)
    “The Necessities of Life” (Benoit Pilon — Canada)
    “Revanche” (Gotz Spielmann — Austria)
    “Tear This Heart Out” (Roberto Sneider — Mexico)
    “Waltz with Bashir” (Ari Folman — Israel)

    Turns out Guy correctly foresaw only four of these in his post this morning.  From these, I’d anticipate “3 Monkeys,” “The Baader Meinhof Complex,” “The Class,” “Everlasting Moments” and, the likely winner, “Waltz with Bashir” to make the final five.

    (Thanks to Blake for passing along the list, and kudos to him for anticipating the “Gomorrah” shaft.  I just wanted to disregard all that talk about the committee having an issue with the film’s violence, but you can’t give these bozos the benefit of the doubt, I guess.)

  • Still nobody knows anything

    At least, that’s the message I get from Pete Hammond’s latest column, in which he somewhat half-heartedly claims that the Best Picture frontrunners at this stage are “WALL-E,” “The Dark Knight” and “Changeling.” In that order, apparently — with “Slumdog Millionaire” creeping up behind.

    I realize Hammond has access to more Academy members than I do (not hard, since I know none), but I find that hard to swallow. Of the summer blockbusters, “The Dark Knight” looks to me to have more campaigning momentum than “WALL-E,” though I’m still not predicting it as a nominee. And I can’t see “Changeling” making much headway in the race with such a mixed critical reception. Surely, of the seen contenders, “Slumdog Millionaire” is ahead of all three. What I really learn from this is that Academy members clearly need to see more movies.

    More helpful to me is this tidbit Hammond offers on the Best Foreign Language Film race:

    From what we’ve been told only Germany, Japan and Russia have made any significant impact, with Italy’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, “Gomorra,” getting predictions that it will be one of the final five, despite mixed response from some who frowned on its generous amount of violence. And the Portuguese film “Our Beloved Month of August” was apparently so poorly received that some members were trying to leave before they could “officially” exit and still receive credit for seeing it.

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  • Sweden and Germany loom large in Oscar race

    As anyone who follows the arcane workings of the Best Foreign Language Film award knows, there is no such thing as a sure thing in the category. However, it’s fair to say that Sweden and Germany have emerged as strong contenders in the race after both countries selected high-profile films as their official entries.

    Unsurprisingly, Sweden has chosen “Everlasting Moments,” a highly personal biopic from veteran filmmaker Jan Troell — a Best Director nominee back in 1973 for “The Emigrants.” The film is a portrait of Maria Larsson, Sweden’s first female photographer, who also happens to be the grandmother of Troell’s wife (and co-scripter) Agnes. The film bowed at Toronto last week to warm reviews, including this rave from Screen International:

    Discreet, old fashioned, traditional and altogether admirable, this is Jan Troell in what he does best … Paying minute attention to the smallest details, taking its time but never appearing to drag its feet, immensely sympathetic to its heroes and villains alike, this is an intimate family portrait and at the same time a rich canvas of working class life … This picture has quality stamped all over it, awards are likely to come its way whether for direction, photography or the performances of Maria Heiskanen and Mikael Persbrandt.

    By all accounts, it’s a stately, beautifully crafted period piece with a degree of social gravitas — difficult to see the Academy resisting that one.

    On a very different note, Germany has gone with Uli Edel’s terrorism thriller “The Baader Meinhof Complex” as its entry. The film, a chronicle of the infamous left-wing Red Army Faction group that terrorised the country through the late 60s and early 70s, has yet to open in its home country, but advance word is promising. (Jeff Wells gives some useful insight here.)

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