In Contention

Tag: Doubt

  • 11/9 Oscarweb Round-up

    Warner Bros. Pictures' Watchmen• Steve Weintraub has a sweet four-video series on Ben Burtt’s process for creating the sounds of “WALL-E” and the “Star Wars” films.  Worth a look if you’re into the tech arena like we are. [Collider]

    • Bad news for Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia.”  A forced happy ending. [News.com.au]

    • Cherry Jones gives her approval of Meryl Streep’s turn in “Doubt.” [Gold Derby]

    • But elsewhere, the odds are being stacked against the film. [Vulture]

    • Dave Karger and Missy Schwartz discuss the season’s most unknown commodities: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Revolutionary Road.” [Oscar Watch]

    • Brad Brevet finds some striking similarities between the new “Watchmen” poster and an old “Dark Knight” international one-sheet. [Rope of Silicon]

    • In the midst of AFI Fest, John Horn gets some quality time with “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Meanwhile, Anne Thompson responds to a second “Slumdog” screening. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • The new gadgetry of Bond. [New York Daily News]

    • Amy Raphael profiles Kelly Macdonald as “Choke” lands across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • Also in the U.K., Toby Jones continues to stir the waters with below-the-radar portrayals. [The Times]

    • Deborah Solomon cranks out a Q&A with “Frost/Nixon” director Ron Howard. [New York Times]

    • Jeffrey Wells defends the violence of Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” against the potential ignorance of the foreign film committee. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Doubt,’ Danny Boyle and a bit of politics

    In a week in which there were more important things going on than the movies (an outlandish notion, I know), these were nevertheless some of the highlights:

    • Several takes from the AFI Fest, including disappointment in “Doubt” …

    • … but hearty cheers for “The Wrestler.”

    • We caught up (twice) with the thoroughly delightful Danny Boyle, both in London and in L.A.

    • Meanwhile, Dennis Hopper was also feeling chatty.

    • In the wake of the reprehensible passing of Proposition 8, we wondered if “Milk” could have made a difference.

    • We bade farewell to Mr. Michael Crichton. Rest in peace.

    • “Australia” got a new trailer and a new poster. Smashing. Can we see it now, pretty please?

    • Listing the greatest English-language directors at work today. Debate, as ever, was heated.

    • Tech Support surveyed the horses in the Best Film Editing race.

    • Oh, you might have heard that the United States has a new president. The right one, at that.

  • AFI FEST: ‘Doubt,’ ‘The Good, the Bad, the Weird,’ ‘Gomorrah’

    Song Kang-ho in The Good, the Bad, the WeirdAFI Fest is moving along rather quietly this season.  Most eyes have been turned toward the opening gala “Doubt” and centerpiece screenings like “Che” and “The Wrestler,” while most are probably just waiting for the next big reveal on Sunday as “Defiance” closes us out.  Tonight’s Danny Boyle tribute is sure to draw a crowd, while Michelle Williams and Jeff Goldblum will be here to peddle their Oscar hopes over the weekend.

    The movies are really just last gasps of the festival season at this point, though.  Not a lot of new terrain, but plenty to chew on for a cinephile.  I try to keep up, but I don’t pretend to be as dogged as John and Guy have proved to be.  It takes a special kind of torture.  But AFI is really coming off as a distraction more than anything, what with a number of Oscar hopefuls yet to be unveiled at a time when, generally, all cards are on the table.

    But we’ll push through.  A couple more looks this week:

    (more…)

  • 11/7 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Ron Howard and Brian Grazer• Jeffrey Wells is basically cool with “Doubt.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Anne Thompson chimes in, too. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Steven Zeitchik draws parallels from this year’s political figures to the films in the Oscar hunt. [Risky Biz Blog]

    • Patrick Goldstein goes after the Oscar bloggers! [The Big Picture]

    • David Poland responds! [The Hot Blog]

    • …now that that’s over…

    • Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are set to receive the PGA’s Milestone Award. [Variety]

    • Anthony Breznican chats it up with James Bond himself, Daniel Craig. [USA Today]

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Film Editing — Volume One

    Tech Support at In ContentionNo matter how good the storyline, plot, acting, photography and other elements of a film may be, any poorly edited film will be difficult to watch, understand and enjoy.  An editor has the task of not only finding the appropriate length of a film but also putting together scenes so they flow coherently, both visually and story-wise.

    This is a category where I often feel “most” editing is confused with “best.”  I wholeheartedly agree that it is challenging to coherently put together a film with lots of action, musical scenes or a non-linear narrative – the sorts of films typically nominated in this category. Though I personally feel that often the most accomplished editing can be seen in the relaxed creation of appropriate pace and tone, stealth editing that goes unnoticed.

    This is also, happily, not a field that tends to bring back past nominees at the expense of newbies.  Few working editors have more than four career nominations and at least two to three newcomers seem to be nominated every year.

    Historically, this category has had an incredible crossover with Best Picture.  Though in recent years, that has changed, the last three years having had only a 2/5 crossover with the big category. Last year’s winner, “The Bourne Ultimatum,” is a very rare example of a winner that was not even nominated for Best Picture.

    (more…)

  • “I have doubts!”

    Meryl Streep in DoubtTo bring it back to Oscar talk for a moment, the first curiosity is that people are still talking about the film when asked to refrain from doing so until an actual print is shown, but that aside, Dave Karger presents the case again (to back up his top 3 assertion in the recent issue of Entertainment Weekly) that John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” is heading for a Best Picture nomination.  He remarks:

    It’s looking fairly likely that four of the film’s actors—Streep, Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis—will earn acting nominations for their work in the movie. Since the Academy Awards began, 22 films have received four or more acting nominations. All 22 of them also made it into the Best Picture race. So for now, Doubt‘s got Oscar history on its side. But if one member of its acting quartet begins to lose momentum (Adams is probably the shakiest of the four, since her role is the least showy), then I could very easily end up being dead wrong.

    I won’t go into my thoughts on the film yet, no matter how much the chatter makes me want to (especially since I’m beginning to suspect I have a minority opinion — at least among those who’ve seen it so far).  But suffice it to say, I think all this rationalizing might be a touch off base.  One, probably two of the actors are secure.  Of the others, one needs publicity to keep an eye on the ball (brief but powerful, as expected), while one needs the coattails of major awards attention.  We’ll see.

  • I’m SO ‘off the carpet’ this week

    After the online drama of the last couple of weeks, it’s been nice to settle in and get to the actual movies for a change.  The media at large has gotten a look at “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk” and “Doubt,” while features and long lead writers have had their peeks at “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Revolutionary Road.”  A elect few have seen “Defiance.”  The only outstanding variables of the season remain “Australia” (tick-tock) and “The Reader” (with a grand trailer debut late last week).

    We’re getting there.

    An array of interviews and AFI Fest commitments have kept me from really digging into a column this week, but I have adjusted the charts for the time being.  There’s still a lot of guessing going on, even if a number of categories are coming into focus.  But tomorrow’s results really could have an effect on this thing.  We’ll see how it plays out…

    Main Category Charts
    Technical Category Charts
    The Contenders
    Oscar Prediction Archives

  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Milk’ unveiled, London winds down, Halloween horror

    It’s been a quieter seven days after the upheaval we’ve seen in the race lately, but here’s how things went down:

    • “Milk” and “Frost/Nixon” finally unspooled for the LA crowd…

    • … and boy, some people don’t take kindly to criticism of either flick.

    • Meanwhile, “Doubt” kicked off the AFI Fest…

    • … while the London Film Festival drew to a close, showcasing “Che” and “The Wrestler” along the way. Check out our assorted reviews and “best in show” wrap-up.

    • ‘Tis the season to be scared shitless… the 20 all-time best horror films, as assembled by our team.

    • Christopher Nolan offers pretty much the final word on “The Dark Knight,” while some wonder if he can complete a Batman hat-trick.

    • The British Independent Film Awards revealed their nominees… “Hunger” and “In Bruges” are sitting pretty.

    • Best Sound Editing gets its week in the sun at Tech Support.

    • Looking at some new blood in this year’s tepid Best Original Song race.

  • Glad he said it

    In his opening remarks Thursday night AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzale said even though his fest takes place in the heart of Hollywood, it wasn’t about who’s wearing what, or how much money a movie makes or who might get nominated for awards, it’s all about the films and the work. That’s what the AFI Fest is dedicated to highlighting in the next week.

    That’s certainly true, but there was a strategic reason the American Film Institute moved their film festival from spring to November several years ago, landing it smack into the heart of awards season  —   and it wasn’t quite all about purity.

    Like everyone else, AFI Fest  wants to be a part of the Oscar season dialogue.

    No “Doubt” about it.

    From Pete Hammond’s just-up column regarding last night’s opening “Doubt” Gala at the ArcLight.  Personally, I thought Gazzale’s comment reeked of self-aggrandizement, but Pete is too nice to say anything like that.

    By the way, Happy Halloween.

  • ‘Doubt’ lands at AFI

    Meryl Streep in DoubtMiramax 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…

  • AFI is here

    AFI Fest launches tonight with an opening gala of John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt,” which as you’ve probably heard, we can’t write about for a week or so.  It’s understandable that producer Scott Rudin would prefer critical opinion flow out of the best case exhibiting scenario, so it’s all good.

    Nothing more from me for now as the fest (and festivities) will have me predisposed.  I’ll be stopping by the studio to fill in with John Campea at The Movie Blog: Uncut again in a few hours, so check that out around 5:00 PST.  Until tomorrow…

  • 10/29 Oscarweb Round-up

    Frost/Nixon• Jeffrey Wells responds to yesterday’s “Frost/Nixon”/”Milk” double feature. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • David Poland gives high marks to the former… [The Hot Blog]

    • …well, and the latter as well. [The Hot Blog]

    • Mark Olsen previews the AFI Fest. [The Envelope]

    • Patrick Goldstein pokes and prods Bill Maher about a “Religulous” hater. [The Big Picture]

    • Anthony Breznican writes up “Doubt” with quotes from the director and an exclusive clip. [USA Today]

    • Recall the gold: Best Director race of 1988. [Entertainment Weekly]

  • 10/28 Oscarweb Round-up

    Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt• Michael Cieply says “Welcome to the pop Oscars” regarding the big budget Oscar pushes this year. [New York Times]

    • Tom O’Neil reports that the two biggest stars in “Doubt” won’t be at the AFI world premiere on Thursday. [Gold Derby]

    • Patrick Goldstein wonders why Oscar consistently shies away from the funny bone. [The Big Picture]

    • A chat with “Dear Zachary” director Kurt Kuenne. [indieWIRE]

    • Nicholas Lezard comments on Gus Van Sant’s potential adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” [The Guardian]

    • Anthony Breznican profiles Elizabeth Banks and her star-making year. [USA Today]

  • Philip Seymour Hoffman to go supporting in ‘Doubt’

    Though I find it hilarious that Dave Karger wrote “exclusive” before the headline.  But anyway, it’s official now.

  • No Oscar update this week

    Screenings of “Milk,” “Frost/Nixon” and “Doubt” are happening this week.  Rather than take a final blind stab at placing those contenders in the landscape of awards season, I thought I’d hold off a week and take my own counsel after I see the highly anticipated trio.

    Feel free to use this space to give us your own prognosticative thoughts.

  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Button’ rises, ‘Torino’ surfaces, ‘Doubt’ swoops

    Apologies for the slightly delayed wrap. Much to discuss this week — here are the highlights:

    • With some formerly hot prospects now off the radar, this week’s Off the Carpet column surveys the landscape, and concludes that things look good for “Benjamin Button.”

    • “The Soloist” withdrew as the AFI fest opener; their loss is “Doubt”‘s gain.

    • With a trailer for “Gran Torino” finally emerging, we wonder if Clint Eastwood is the real frontrunner for Best Actor.

    • The Gotham Independent Film Awards unveiled the season’s first set of nominees — good news for titles like “Ballast” and “The Visitor.”

    • More impressions from the London Film Festival, including hot foreign-language contender “The Class.”

    • Still in London, we caught up with “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s superb Best Supporting Actor contender, Eddie Marsan.

    • This week’s edition of Tech Support put Art Direction in the spotlight.

    • We were in a listmaking mood this week, rounding up some of the most scandalously unnominated actors of this era …

    • … while John Foote reminisced over his personal favourite movie moments.

    • And finally, who should host the Oscars? Our answer may surprise you.

  • Tom O gets the goods on the ‘Doubt’ AFI move from the horse’s mouth

    Tom O’Neil wants you to understand and be clear that he was in attendance at the uber-private “Doubt” screening in New York this evening, but he was able to get some choice quotes from the film’s producer, Scott Rudin, on the decision to bow the film at the AFI Fest one week from today.

    Here’s the meat:

    “It was a big gamble…It was hard enough to pull everything together in such a short time,” Rudin said, “but to do it before we even had the first industry reaction to the film — that was the hardest part. But we did it and I’m glad we did.”

  • ‘Doubt’ replaces ‘Soloist’ as AFI Fest’s opening night gala

    Meryl Streep in DoubtThe press release, in part:

    The festival will screen an unfinished version of DOUBT when it opens AFI FEST on Thursday, October 30, 2008, at ArcLight Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome Theatre. The Opening Night Gala is the film’s World Premiere and is presented by Audi of America…

    “The movie is still being finished, but we were so excited to show DOUBT and help our friends at AFI FEST and the American Film Institute at the same time. We couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity,” said Miramax president Daniel Battsek.

    “We are grateful to Miramax Films and producers Scott Rudin and Mark Roybal for providing AFI the honor of premiering this highly anticipated, unfinished version of DOUBT.  There is no doubt that bringing together Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams in concert with the extraordinary talents of writer/director John Patrick Shanley promises an evening that will celebrate the finest in American film,” said Rose Kuo, AFI FEST Artistic Director.

    Truthfully, we should have seen this coming.  Of the major films that are basically completed and ready to go, it was the only possibility (though the “unfinished version” bit is made clear at throughout — hedging their bets).  “Milk” has its fancy San Francisco debut on Tuesday, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is too comfortable in its position as the year’s last minute wower.  “Revolutionary Road” is completed, but only just, while “Australia” is still in the editing lab.

    The New York screening of “Doubt” tonight is for friends and family with the original cast of the play in attendance and the film will be screening for trade press on Wednesday, just before AFI’s opening night the next day.  Perfect timing.