The Hollywood Reporter sure kicked up some controversy with that writers round table last month. This one featuring directors of the season has been making the rounds so I thought I’d post it up:
Tag: Derek Cianfrance
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12/13 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: HFPA’s “unsavory business practices,” Elswit talks ‘Town,’ the Zen of ‘TRON’
• Golden Globes PR chief slams HFPA for “unsavory business practices.” [The Wrap]• David Heuring chats with “The Town” cinematographer Robert Elswit. [Variety]
• Oscar marketing smackdown: “127 Hours” and “Buried.” [The Hollywood Reporter]
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12/7 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Bridges’s terms for ‘Legacy,’ Coppola on ‘Somewhere,’ Gurus take another stab
• Jeff Bridges to “TRON Legacy” producers early on: “Tell me the things you are going to do that no one’s ever done before.” [The Wrap]• Sofia Coppola talks “Somewhere” across the pond. [Daily Telegraph]
• Jesse Eisenberg on awards season, narcissism and his feelings about an Oscar nomination. [Movieline]
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‘Blue Valentine’ and ‘Rabbit Hole’ depict tortured souls with authentic ease
Watching Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine” and John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” in the same 24-hour span is a brutal exercise. There are plenty of raw, realistic, dreary emotions flying through these narratives, but the experiences were very rewarding.Starting with Cianfrance’s film, which has been making the festival rounds since a healthy Sundance reception, I found it to be a delicate and truthful examination of a relationship in crisis. (Guy was a fan in Cannes.) Anyone who has been through the kind of near-numbing emotional spiral depicted in the film, the false fronts of hopefulness that spring up and the crushing disintegration of affection will appreciate the authenticity.
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star as young lovers pushed into the realities of family too soon and under unfortunate circumstances. But Cianfrance and his fellow writers don’t focus on those circumstances beyond offering up the information you need to understand the predicament (and, perhaps a bit too tidily, to keep judgment off the table for the viewer). Mostly the film is a vehicle for Gosling and Williams to take the wheel and go, and boy do they ever.
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9/21 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Gosling and Williams’s “real love,” Bardem blushes, defending Affleck
• According to director Derek Cianfrance, committed actors Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams had “some real things happening” while portraying lovers in “Blue Valentine.” [Hollywood Reporter]• Nicole LaPorte on Toronto’s Oscar-launching ground and the films that made a splash. [Daily Beast]
• Javier Bardem can’t believe he’s a heartthrob. [Daily Telegraph]
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CANNES: ‘Blue Valentine,’ ‘Tamara Drewe,’ ‘Film Socialisme’
Sadly, this is looking like a second consecutive day of minimal film viewing — thanks to the scheduling of my morning roundtable interview with the “Blue Valentine” team of Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams and director Derek Cianfrance, I had to forgo this morning’s screening of Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry,” of which I have rather high expectations — I hope to catch the repeat tomorrow.Meanwhile, the interviews ran late enough to ensure I missed today’s hottest ticket: Olivier Assayas’s five-and-a-half hour “Carlos.” On the one hand, I’m obviously disappointed. On the other, 330 minutes is a pretty lavish gift of time, and it’s thanks to that that I’m able to write this very piece.
So, to every cloud a silver lining and all that — and there are a lot of clouds doing the rounds on this uncharacteristically damp and chilly day in Cannes. Perhaps the sun saw that monk-massacre movie everyone’s raving about, and couldn’t see the point in continuing.
On with the review catch-up.