In Contention

Tag: Doubt

  • New Yorker semi-reviews ‘Julie & Julia,’ exalts Streep

    Meryl Streep in Julie & JuliaAs far as I know, Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” is still under a reviewing embargo, but the New Yorker’s Ariel Levy has sneakily buried a brief, incisive critique of the film at the tail of a substantial profile of Ephron. (Thanks to Jeff Wells for pointing it out.) You’ll need a subscription to read the whole thing, but here are the juiciest bits on the film — which will no doubt please the numerous Streepophiles out there:

    The truth is, “Julie & Julia” is not a fair fight. For half he film we are in Paris with Julia Child played by Meryl Streep. It is pretty transcendent. For the other half, we are stuck in Long Island City, Queens, with the ‘lowly cubicle worker’ Julie Powell, a character who is immature, self-pitying, and frazzled (which is to say, an average human being). Powell is played by Amy Adams, who is a talented actress, but she is up against the queen herself.

    When Adams, as Julie, is on the screen, it necessarily means that Streep, as Julia, is not, and you come to resent her for this. It is possible that the film would not have worked if it were simply a biopic of Julia Child — that it derives its narrative thrust and commercial potential from the interplay between a young woman idolizing and relying upon Child in the more-or-less present and the splendid story of Julia Child’s past. Perhaps Child is able to emerge in this film as an almost mythical creature because she is presented in contrast to a mere mortal.

    But there may be another reason the Julia Child portions of “Julie & Julia” are so irresistably vivid and the Julie Powell bits feel a little flat. It is possible that Nora Ephron no longer understands half as well what it’s like to be ordinary as she understands being remarkable.

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  • You were right, I was wrong: Guy’s final predictions

    (Expanded thoughts and reasonings on yesterday’s list of predictions.)

    It’s years like 2008 when I throw my hands up and admit (albeit with great reluctance) that my family and friends have been right for the last two decades. Carla, Tom, Kim, Auntie Mavis: I give up. I am insane to care as much as I do about the Oscars. They are stupid. They don’t matter, and I really should find something more important and rewarding to care about, like, oh, needlepoint classes or professional darts championships.

    But who am I kidding? I will always care about the Oscars, even in years like this when the race is so dry, and its significance so questionable, that I take great care in not caring. In a year when so few of my personal favourites have cracked the contenders list, it has at least been interesting to sit back and watch the furore unfold over the Academy voters’ spectacularly self-sabotaging antics this year.

    I’ve been wrong about a lot of things this year (Kris scoffed at my naive suggestion back in July that “Happy-Go-Lucky” could be a Best Picture nominee, and he was right to), and right about … well … “Milk’s” nomination for Best Costume Design. (Hey, let me salvage some glory from this year’s meagre spoils.) I don’t expect to be a hell of a lot more successful with the following predictions, but you never know. It’s still been a lot of fun riding out the season with you this year – here’s to a better slate of contenders (and a lot less grousing from me) in 12 months’ time.

    BEST PICTURE
    Apart from the fact that it is the most imaginative and entertaining of this year’s feeble clutch of nominees, the reason “Slumdog Millionaire” has a stranglehold on this category is because it’s the only one of the five that has any discernible relationship to contemporary cinema. The other four all feel to varying degrees like the finely-tooled Best Picture winners of decades past, but the younger, more curious Academy members have been moving away from such self-consciously packaged ‘prestige product’ in the past few years – even if they need a lot of pointing towards what to reward in its stead.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 pet peeves of the 2008-2009 Oscar season

    Rachel Getting Married

    The season is winding down this week.  The slow President’s Day holiday yesterday seemed to be more of a harbinger than a lull in the excitement.  This time next week, we’ll probably be over the fallout of the circuit and on to debating the contenders we’re likely to see a year from now.

    It’s a vicious, beautiful, sad, interesting circle.

    But before the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast puts a bow on the festivities Sunday night, it seems a decent enough time to reflect.  And not to be too negative, but this became one of the most irritating seasons I’ve ever covered, both in the lack of excitement to the dichotomy that circumstance presented for me (given that my favorite film of the year has lead the field throughout).

    With that in mind, I fully expect this piece to grate the nerves of more than a few readers.  Then again, I’m sure plenty of these views are shared by a handful as well, but whatever the case, a list of pet peeves began to stack up early on in the season.  I thought it reasonable to collect them here, so feast your eyes (or roll them), this is what got under my skin this year.

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  • Is Amy Adams a threat after all?

    Tariq Khan thinks so. Tom O’Neil reports that the Fox News pundit is predicting a major upset by the “Doubt” star, largely on the basis of what he perceives as “soft support” for frontrunner Penelope Cruz.

    Before you dismiss his ideas completely, it’s worth pointing out that his track record is pretty strong — he foresaw Kate Winslet’s category switch for “The Reader,” and apparently predicted all of last year’s winners correctly. Here, Khan constructs detailed arguments both against Cruz and for Adams, including this fairly astute point:

    (Adams) has the largest role in this category. As I explained above, size does matter. Adams is the only one in this category with a semi-leading role. She has plenty of dialogue and good dramatic scene work, managing to more than hold her own while acting opposite Meryl Streep for much of the film. Don’t think that voters won’t take that into account. And while the much talked about brief performance by Viola Davis might have a greater impact, many will feel that it’s just too brief to deserve an Oscar. Even veteran Ruby Dee lost for her small role in “American Gangster” last year, despite winning the SAG award just a few weeks earlier. If Dee couldn’t win, there’s probably no way that Davis can.

    Other factors listed in Adams’ favour include the possibility that voters may wish to convert one of “Doubt”‘s four acting nods into a win, Adams’ exceptional personal likeability and her significant box-office clout. Against Cruz, he cites her Globe and SAG losses (though I’m not sure I’d count those, given this year’s odd Winslet scenario), her limited screentime (not to mention her delayed appearance) and the Academy’s apparent indifference to “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” itself. (Not on his list, but a factor in my mind, is that Cruz looks set to have a big 2009, and may well be an even stronger contender for next year’s honours.)

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  • 2/11 Oscarweb Round-up

    Hugh Jackman• The first Oscar promo pic of Hugh Jackman. [Just Jared]

    • David Steinberg writes up Johnny Carson’s Oscar hosting legacy. [Los Angeles Times Magazine]

    • David Carr ponders the lead actress race. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Tom O’Neil conveys a case for Amy Adams in “Doubt.” [Gold Derby]

    • Dave Karger needs Oscar campaigns to get out of the way in order to enjoy “The Reader.” [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Mark Olsen chats with “Doubt” star Philip Seymour Hoffman. [The Envelope]

    • Michael Ordoña, meanwhile, gets some face time with Marisa Tomei. [The Envelope]

    • Christopher Campbell goes all in for “Milk”‘s original screenplay. [Spout Blog]

    • Maria Puente reports on the interior design of Oscar’s green room. [USA Today]

    • Anne Thompson spotlights the magazine rack’s Oscar issues. [Thompson on Hollywood]

  • Pretty brave

    Most people seem to be going along with the assumption Kate Winslet has this year’s lead actress Oscar in the bag for “The Reader.” But if anyone is nipping at her heels, it has to be Meryl Streep, whose performance in “Doubt” (however off the rails it went) has been right there, waiting to upset the whole year.

    In my daily Variety visit this afternoon, I came across the following Spartan advertisement for Streep’s performance. No words, no pomp, no circumstance. Just the face. Pretty brave in the face of what so many are chalking up as a sure thing. Maybe this kind of modesty is the right idea, the right level of, “Hey, that’s unique.” Or maybe not.

    Meryl Streep in Doubt

  • SANTA BARBARA: Virtuosos on the march

    Richard JenkinsUnfortunately, “Happy-Go-Lucky” star couldn’t make it to tonight’s presentation of the Virtuoso Awards at the Lobero Theatre due to surgery recovery, but Viola Davis, Richard Jenkins, Rosemarie DeWitt, Melissa Leo and Michael Shannon were on hand to talk their roles in five of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.  James Cromwell did the honor of presentation.

    It’s a shame DeWitt was the only one on stage lacking (criminally) an Oscar nomination, but moderator Roger Durling kept the conversation away from awards as much as he could.

    A considerably amount of the discussion was spent on the nature of these actors’ careers, floating between the big screen, television and theater with a particular ease.  Many of the Virtuosos swept the comment aside with the usual “we go where the work takes us” rhetoric, which is fine, but Davis made a compelling comment regarding the state of the profession.

    “When you think about actors, you think about Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie,” she said.  “But most of them look just like us here on stage.”  The indication, of course, is the middle class actor and how often he or she isn’t given the proper credit, be it on television, on stage or, certainly, on the screen.

    “Please, go to New York,” DeWitt said.  “See a play.  Some of the greatest actors in the world are working on stage,” but their names aren’t well-known.  It’s an interesting topic with the SAG dispute of late, which finds middle class actors at the forefront of a fight for credit.  Durling, of course, didn’t pursue that line of questioning.

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  • Did Harvey Weinstein cost Kate the Oscar?

    Harvey WeinsteinFor all his marketing and campaigning genius, Harvey Weinstein’s tactics have become — well, have been — a bit thuggish. In Peter Biskind’s extraordinary book “Down and Dirty Pictures,” a stunning look at the independent film world in the late 1980s and all through the 1990s, we are made privy to many of Harvey’s tantrums, eyewitness accounts of his bullying behavior, and crazy belief that because he is rich, he can do whatever he wants.  He can always buy his way out.

    Is there anyone left out there who truly believes that “Shakespeare in Love,” a lovely film, was actually better than “Saving Private Ryan?” Somehow Weinstein convinced the Academy it was, so the best directed, best edited, best shot and best sounding film, lost to a beautifully written work that will be forgotten in time, if it has not been forgotten already.

    Weinstein is a genius at getting his films Academy Award nominations, and some have said he will promise the artists as much when he buys the film or agrees to finance the work. He took Billy Bob Thornton from relative obscurity to an Oscar win for writing “Sling Blade.”  Who did Thornton defeat that year?  No less than the great Arthur Miller for “The Crucible!”

    I had hoped that when Disney dismissed Weinstein and brother Bob from Miramax (a company they founded) that perhaps he had learned something. It seems The Weinstein Company will continue the legacy of Miramax during the Oscar season, however.

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  • ‘Slumdog,’ Penn, Streep triumph at SAG Awards

    A list of the winners in the film categories. For more commentary and discussion, check out my live-blog here.

    Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn, “Milk”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
    Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in Motion Pictures: “The Dark Knight”

  • Will SAG continue the ‘Slumdog’ sweep?

    As I anticipated, “Slumdog Millionaire” walked off with the Producers Guild of America Award last night, confirming its status as the unstoppable underdog-turned-juggernaut of this year’s Oscar race.

    It’s highly significant that Danny Boyle’s film managed to claim this gong, in particular; as Kris pointed out yesterday, of all voting bodies, it’s the PGA that might have had the most reservations about the film. A foreign runaway production from a relatively green producer, it’s not the kind of film they tend to reward — particularly against the box-office heft of a film like “The Dark Knight,” or the industry popularity of “Benjamin Button”’s production team.

    The fact that “Slumdog” overcame such potential obstacles is indicative of the across-the-board affection for this film in the industry; it’s a film that voters love as much as they admire.

    So I’m interested to see how it performs at tonight’s Screen Actors Guild Awards – another ceremony where the film has a number of disadvantages going in, given that it has a largely unknown, untested cast, and is less an actors’ piece than a director’s accomplishment. Technically, it has two shots at glory tonight, but since Dev Patel hasn’t a snowball’s chance of beating Heath Ledger in the Best Supporting Actor race, all its hopes rest on SAG’s top honour, the Best Performance by a Cast award.

    Many pundits are predicting “Slumdog” to go home empty-handed tonight, and it’s easy to see why. “Doubt,” which has the most nominations of any contender, has the kind of capital-A Acting from an esteemed group of thesps that could be catnip to voting actors, while “Milk” (Kris’ own bet) has both a powerhouse star turn and the kind of sterling ensemble work they like to reward.

    But I wonder. Though SAG doesn’t always treat its top prize as a Best Picture equivalent — “Gosford Park” and “Sideways” are examples of films that triumphed principally on the strengths of their casts, despite minimal Oscar momentum – the fact remains that this is essentially SAG’s only chance to reward the most beloved film of the season. While it’s arguably the least “actor-y” film in contention, I suspect that, as when the Simon Beaufoy-penned “The Full Monty” upset here in 1997, the voters are going to let their hearts overrule their actorly instincts.

    (More thoughts, and my SAG predictions, after the cut.)

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  • Guessing the weekend’s guilds

    Screen Actors Guild awardI’ve been giving my picks out to various aggregators this weekend but haven’t bothered with a post of my own.  Go figure.

    I feel like the only sure thing at the SAG is Heath Ledger’s victory in the Best Supporting Actor category, but while everyone else is banking on Sean Penn and Kate Winslet in the leading categories, I’m inclined to say Mickey Rourke and Meryl Streep will throw their respective wrenches in the works.

    Winslet is probably sitting pretty for a supporting actress victory, while I can’t think of a valid reason to be against “The Dark Knight” in the new stunt ensemble category.  So…

    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
    Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Milk”
    Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in Motion Pictures: “The Dark Knight”

    I won’t be around when the awards actually go down, but I’m sure Guy will be covering.

    (PGA thoughts after the jump.)

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  • It’s the second movie

    When Sid Ganis and Forest Whitaker step up to the podium tomorrow morning to read the list of this year’s Best Picture nominees, I think we’re all going to be listening hard to the second movie announced.  Assuming “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is locked in (which some might argue that point believe it or not), the next film announced will be either “The Dark Knight,” “Doubt” or “Frost/Nixon.”  And if the latter happens to slide out of contention, the second movie called will be “Gran Torino.”

  • 1/21 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Sasha Stone chimes in with her final predictions. [Awards Daily]

    • As do the guys at Vulture, who are remaining loyal to “WALL-E” to the end. [Vulture]

    • Meanwhile, T.L. Stanley finally gives up on “Doubt.” [Gold Rush]

    • The venerable David Thomson plays the “will be/should be” game, with some curiously disconnected predictions. (Lena Olin? Really?) [The Guardian]

    • Moving away from punditry, James Hansen just doesn’t think much of Canada’s foreign-language entry. [The Film Experience]

    • Still at Sundance, Jeff Wells kinda likes the new film from the insanely prolific Steven Soderbergh. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Tarantino is apparently rushing to finish “Inglourious Basterds” (sic). Take your time, QT. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • David Carr wonders whether Mickey Rourke’s imminent Oscar nomination will be enough to rescue the long-delayed “Killshot.” [The Carpetbagger]

    • Finally, EW continues their “Worst Snubs” countdown, and their picks are uniformly great. (Hell yes to Spacek, Murray and Leaud.) [Entertainment Weekly]

  • POLL: Can a Best Picture nomination for ‘The Dark Knight’ help the Oscar telecast ratings?

    After a healthy one-week run, the majority of the readership seems to think “WALL-E” has the best show at upsetting the agreed-upon five for a Best Picture bid. “The Wrestler” and “Doubt” filled out the top three. But this week, running on the assumption that the caped Crusader will slide in after all, I thought I’d ask whether it will matter for the show’s ratings.

    Of course, a number of things could make a perfect storm in this sceneario, a “Dark Knight” nod being just one of them.  We have two exciting new producing talents at bat and a new host that could bring out the voyeurs.  But specifically as it regards a Best Picture nod for the Bat, can that spike the ratings for a show that has continued to dwindle?  Tell us in the sidebar poll!

  • OFF THE CARPET: Enough foreplay

    WALL-EWhat else is there to say?  Tomorrow we’ll have a new president and the last eight years will, hopefully, start to fade away.  In four days we’ll have a fresh slate of Oscar nominees and the last four months of awards speculation will suddenly be a distant memory.  The big wheel keeps on turning.

    I don’t know what else can be added to the conversation at this point that hasn’t been mulled over a million times already.  I do know, as my final set of Oscar predictions will reflect, that this years seems to be given to the safe bet more than any other in recent memory.  But I also know the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a difficult group of people to corner.  There are always surprises.

    As I look over the landscape of the 2008-2009 season, I find myself seeking out those blind-side possibilities.  No one saw “City of God” coming four times over in 2003.  Hardly anyone expected Tommy Lee Jones to snatch a nomination last year after failing to pop up throughout the precursor season.  And certainly, no one banked on a “Dreamgirls” snub in 2006.

    But these things happen.  I’ll lay out a set of my own left-field possibilities on Wednesday, since this year’s inauguration proceedings have kept the weekly Oscar column somewhat removed from the actual announcement (generally I write this the day before), but today I thought I’d end phase one with a few question marks I feel it necessary to punctuate.

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  • Best Actress: a tough call

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedRarely does the lead actress category provide more suspense than leading gentlemen and rarely is it as packed with fine performances as it is this year.  I can remember years when it was a struggle to come up with five nominees for best actress, 1975 and 1992 springing to mind.  It might have less to do with quality female performances than it does the amount of quality female roles Hollywood provides.

    But the Academy won’t have any trouble this year.  There are going to be excellent performances left off the list of nominees this year due to uncharacteristically heated competition, that is a sad fact, and there is not a thing anyone can do about it except continue to love and support the performances snubbed. In fact it is not even that they will be snubbed, it’s just that there is only room for five ladies, and this year, selecting those final five must be proving an enormously difficult task for the Academy.

    With her two Golden Globe wins, Kate Winslet seems to be a shoo-in for her superb performance in “Revolutionary Road,” a truly heartbreaking piece of acting that is sadly underseen at the moment.  Meryl Streep, meanwhile, will be nominated for the 15th time for her tyrannical nun in “Doubt” and Anne Hathaway will get a welcome to the big show for “Rachel Getting Married,” in which her caustic turn as Kym has altered the course of her career and announces her as a serious actress in the industry.

    And then it becomes tricky — those final two spots.

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  • ‘Slumdog,’ ‘Button’ lead BAFTA pack with 11 nods each

    Each year, the BAFTAs never fail to find new and frustrating ways to surprise me.

    It wasn’t hard to guess that “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Slumdog Millionaire” would come out on top here — though even as a fan of the latter film, I do wonder whether nominations for Best Production Design and Best Supporting Actress are pushing it a little. (Sure, Freida Pinto is gorgeous, but… )

    But look closer and the oddities come thick and fast. Who would have guessed, come nomination morning, that “Changeling” would land 8 nominations (including mentions for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay), while “Happy-Go-Lucky” gets zilch? I was aware that Mike Leigh’s delightful film has played better with critics Stateside than it did over here in the spring, but failing to even nominate Golden Globe winner Sally Hawkins is a blatant — and in my opinion, unforgivable — slap in the face.

    As I predicted, despite the film’s mixed reception, BAFTA voters responded well to “The Reader,” which lands in the Best Film derby alongside four of the Oscar favourites in the category. While I thought “Milk” might miss with the Brits, it was actually “The Dark Knight” that came up short — and while I’m not entirely surprised that it proved too genre-oriented for their top category, their failure to nominate Brit helmer Christopher Nolan is pretty stunning.

    Bar the Hawkins snub, the acting categories name most of the usual suspects, though there’s still room for typically BAFTA-esque eccentricities. Brendan Gleeson is an pleasant surprise in the Best Supporting Actor category, and while I anticipated Brad Pitt’s appearance in that field for “Burn After Reading,” Tilda Swinton’s Supporting Actress nod for the same film is the kind of out-of-nowhere hometown favoritism that only BAFTA can come up with. The real headscratcher in that category, however, is Amy Adams’ inclusion at the expense of Viola Davis — one has to wonder whether voters actually watched “Doubt,” or voted on name recognition alone.

    (More thoughts, and the full list of nominees, below the cut.)

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  • INTERVIEW: Amy Adams

    Amy AdamsAmy Adams has arrived.  No “doubt” about it.

    Sunday she was sitting at a table with Meryl Streep, Viola Davis and John Patrick Shanley at the Hollywood Foriegn Press Association’s Golden Globe Awards where she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, one of five nods the film received. Surrounded by major artists such as Ron Howard, Frank Langella, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Clint Eastwood, Kate Winslet, and so many others, she looked comfortable and right at home.

    But seven years ago she was struggling to find work.  And the actress says she was ultimately stunned to land a plum role in a major film being directed by Steven Spielberg, two time Academy Award winning director and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

    “It’s been fantastic,” she explains by phone, “surreal, but I am loving it.  ‘Catch Me If You Can’ was a huge break for me and Steven was just so generous as a director, so enthusiastic and positive all the time. Going to the set was a constant pleasure.”

    The actress says she is “trying to just experience things right now, to let them happen and see where we go with it — take everything as it comes to me.”  She’s somewhat overwhelmed by the attention she is getting these days. I liked Adams within seconds of speaking with her: soft-spoken yet talkative, forthright, honest, and modest.

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