In Contention

Tag: Dustin Lance Black

  • TIFF: Lionsgate/Roadside grabs ‘Conspirator,’ Hawkins belle of the ball, Black’s melodramatic upbringing

    It seems Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” has become the first significant sell of Toronto (a few things have been picked up here and there already).  Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions (which is really stepping it up this year) have nailed down the domestic rights, but go ahead and strike the film from your longlists.  It won’t be released until the spring, Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports.

    Meanwhile, Patrick Goldstein sat down with Sally Hawkins, who has three films at the festival in “Never Let Me Go,” “Submarine” and “Made in Dagenham.” Andrea Riseborough is in two of those films (as well as “Brighton Rock”) and has been getting similar notices, but it’s Hawkins who could really make a dent on the season.

    In his piece, Goldstein offers that for him, “what makes [‘Made in Dagenham’] work so well is that it doesn’t treat its story as a weighty political screed.”

    (more…)

  • TIFF: ‘Brighton,’ ‘Virginia’ bow, ‘Super’ picked up

    At Toronto today, a hand handful of distribution-seeking films hit and one potential cult favorite found a home.  Let’s dig in…

    One film looking for a distributor that we’ve had an eye on as a potential awards play for supporting actress Andrea Riseborough is Rowan Joffe’s Graham Green’s  “Brighton Rock.” But The Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett largely criticizes a “bloated score” that he says “overwhelms” the narrative.  But he had nice things to say about Riseborough by noting that she “adds to the film’s appeal.”  (See a new clip from the film after the jump.)

    The Jennifer Connelly-starrer “What’s Wrong with Virginia,” from “Milk” writer (and Oscar-winner) Dustin Lance Black, also screened.  Jeffrey Wells “didn’t give a damn about the angry rurals in Black’s world” and walked out of the screening.  The Film Stage’s Jordan Raup, meanwhile, called it “Solondz-lite,” and despite good things to say about Connelly’s performance, said the film “didn’t really come together.”  And Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir found it to be an unstable mix of “American Beauty” and “Blue Velvet.”

    And in the acquisitions department, James Gunn’s “Super” (which was well received at a midnight screening Friday night) has been picked up by IFC Films for its IFC Midnight banner.

    (more…)

  • DiCaprio and Eastwood team for Hoover biopic

    After three consecutive duds (in my book, anyway), Clint Eastwood will have to work hard to earn my anticipation again — harder, certainly, than dipping into the biopic well once more — but he sure gets full marks for persistence. Undeterred by his recent strike-outs with the Academy, he continues to assemble the most on-paper baity projects around — this time, a J. Edgar Hoover biopic written by Oscar-winning “Milk” scribe Dustin Lance Black and starring the Oscar-primed Leonardo DiCaprio. The only way this can miss is if it’s even half as dull as, well, “Invictus.”

    The project, of course, has been in the ether for some time; Deadline Hollywood offers the following précis of its development:

    The project began at Universal, where Imagine is based, but came together at Warners, which Eastwood’s Malpaso has long called home. Imagine had been developing the Dustin Lance Black script for over a year before showing it to Universal, where the reaction was negative. But then Grazer got the screenplay to pal Clint (they did The Changeling and have had a personal relationship ever since), the two men met about it in mid-February, and the film has been on the fast track at Warner Bros.

    (more…)

  • Fletcher rides Oscar momentum to directorial debut

    In retrospect, Geoffrey Fletcher’s Best Adapted Screenplay win for “Precious” at last month’s Academy Awards shouldn’t have come as quite the shock it did. In the last few years, Oscar voters have been especially kind to newcomers in the writing races, with this year’s pair of freshman winners, Fletcher and Mark Boal, coming on the heels of three others who struck gold for their first feature credit: Michael Arndt, Diablo Cody and Dustin Lance Black.

    How do you follow that kind of debut success? In the case of many of those names, we’re on the verge on finding out. Arndt has lain low since striking gold with “Little Miss Sunshine” in 2006, but will be back on the radar this summer with “Toy Story 3” — for which, unusually for a Pixar production, he has sole script credit.

    Cody may have struck out with “Jennifer’s Body” last year, but is having more luck on the small screen with “The United States of Tara.” Boal, meanwhile, is continuing his happy partnership with Kathryn Bigelow, as the two are readying the South American-set thriller “Triple Frontier” for shooting.

    (more…)

  • Neeson, Connelly headline Dustin Lance Black’s directing debut

    Liam NeesonThe Liam Neeson career revival continues apace. Variety reports that the 56 year-old thesp will star opposite Jennifer Connelly in “What’s Wrong With Virginia,” the first directorial effort from “Milk” scribe Dustin Lance Black. The film, which has Gus Van Sant involved as an executive producer, which begins shooting this summer. The pitch goes as follows:

    Connelly will play the charming but psychologically disturbed mother of a 16-year-old son. Her 20-year clandestine love with a sheriff (Neeson), who is running for the state senate, is tested when her son begins a relationship with his daughter.

    Sounds to me like a return for Black to the quirky domestic territory of “Big Love.” Is this a comedy of sorts? Certain details (that title, for starters) imply that to me, though it isn’t made clear in the report. Either way, Neeson and Connelly aren’t exactly the first pairing I’d think of for an onscreen romance — so, well, interesting.

    We’re also reminded that Black and Van Sant are collaborating once more on an adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” which is an ambitious undertaking to say the least. You may remember that I wasn’t exactly sold on Black’s Oscar-winning efforts on “Milk,” but good on him for using his post-win momentum to get as many irons in the fire as possible.

  • Olbermann on the freedom of Oscar speeches

    Thanks to Ryan Adams at Awards Daily for pointing us to this clip. “Of the 40 hours of TV Oscar analysis I’ve seen in the past 48, the depth of this 6-minute segment make the rest look like the cover of US magazine,” Ryan says.

    Have a look:

  • 2/9 Oscarweb Round-up

    Mickey Rourke in Diner• Thom Yorke and Gustavo Santaolalla to join forces on “Terminator Salvation” tunes?? [The Playlist]

    • Tom O’Neil spotlights the BAFTA voting process. [Gold Derby]

    • T.L. Stanley on the politics of Dustin Lance Black’s WGA acceptance speech. [Gold Rush]

    • David Poland says Universal dropped the ball on “Frost/Nixon,” as represented by its incredibly weak box office showing. [The Hot Blog]

    • Along a similar line of thought, and in an increasingly popular column idea the past week or so, Peter Sciretta comments on three of this year’s Best Picture nominees being among the lowest grossers in Academy history. [/Film]

    • Presumably out of ideas for the time being, Jeff Wells goes seeking advanced word on “The Road” at…IMDb. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Barry Levinson writes a love letter to Mickey Rourke.  Did they kick the tires and light the fires in the nick of time for this campaign to push on ahead? [New York Times]

    • Bolt and the other characters who transformed cinema. [The Independent]

    • Roger Ebert predicts a handful of the categories, steps out on a limb for Viola Davis. [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Across the pond, newly minted BAFTA winner Penelope Cruz explains why she can’t stop crying. [The Sunday Times]

    • Richard Brody spots a mole on the set of Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island.”  Well, not really — it’s actually a Cahiers du Cinema-sponsored Argentinian filmmaker/mentee. [The New Yorker]

  • Thank you

    Since I was talking about original screenplays earlier today, I was interested to see that Jeff Wells is also on the topic. He offers a brief rundown of the nominees for Saturday’s WGA Awards, and offers this theory on why Jenny Lumet missed out on both Guild and Oscar nods for “Rachel Getting Married”:

    Lumet’s screenplay didn’t render enough bombast and sword thrusts in the big-money confrontation scene between Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger. They start to get into the “why did you leave me with him?” issue, Winger freaks and slaps and then Hathaway runs out — not satisfying!

    I’m not sure ‘bombast’ is the word I’d use (I rather think more subtlety was called for), but I’m glad to see that scene singled out — for me, it was a lazy, artificial bit of dramatic shortcutting that caused the film’s whole emotional construction to fall apart somewhat. Anyway, old news and apropos of nothing really, but I’m glad someone else said it.

    As for the WGA, we all know Simon Beaufoy is taking the adapted category. Does Dustin Lance Black win original by default, since he’s the only Oscar nominee of the bunch? I guess so — barring a surge of peer affection for four-time winner Woody Allen. But if Black does lose — not likely, of course — I wouldn’t fancy his Oscar chances much. Just an idle thought.

  • Best Original Screenplay: The case for ‘WALL-E’

    I think it was some smart person on Nat Rogers’ most recent podcast who remarked that if you really want to get a picture of what was going on cinematically in any given year, you’d be better off bypassing Oscar’s Best Picture category and heading straight for the Best Original Screenplay nominees – a category that has a far higher tolerance for eccentricity, controversy and the occasional foreign tongue than any other.

    Case in point: 2002. When the top categories were splintered between the respectable but less-than-relevant likes of “Chicago” and “The Pianist,” Original Screenplay afforded voters the luxury of choosing between Pedro Almodovar, Todd Haynes and Alfonso Cuaron. Two years later, the category gave recognition to the otherwise shamefully sidelined “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” just as, a decade earlier, “Pulp Fiction” fans sought refuge there from a merciless shower of Gump. As I’ve said before, from “Citizen Kane” to “The Crying Game,” Best Original Screenplay tends to be the connoisseur’s favourite Oscar category.

    And so it is this year, when the writers’ branch really demonstrated admirable ingenuity and adventurousness in their selections, in the face of some otherwise uninspired voting. For me, it’s by far the most exciting of this year’s major Oscar categories, both for the calibre its competition and the unpredictability of its outcome. It’s one category where the Guild award is of little to no use to prognosticators, as only one title (“Milk”) features on both the Oscar and WGA lists.

    Like Kris, I’m placing my money on Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and “WALL-E” emerging triumphant here, and thus becoming the first animated film in Oscar history to win a major category. This morning, meanwhile, I was interested to see that the majority of the Gurus of Gold are thinking the same way. It’s a healthy vote of confidence for a prediction that, let’s face it, would represent a significant leap for Academy voters. Just last year, the Reel Geezers (AMPAS members both) immediately discounted “Ratatouille” from consideration in the category because it was a “cartoon.” How do we know that most of the notoriously conservative Academy voters won’t feel the same way?

    (more…)

  • SANTA BARBARA: Writers talk writing, Cruz walks the red carpet

    Penelope Cruz talks to festival director Roger Durling at the Santa Barbara International Film FestivalYesterday was another busy event day for the Santa Barbara fest.  It was a shame the Director’s Panel was canceled, but participant Andrew Stanton switched gears to join Robert Knott (“Appaloosa”), Tom McCarthy (“The Visitor”) and Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”) for an Anne Thompson-moderated discussion on their work at the keyboard this year.

    It was a good discussion, though I couldn’t help a double take at Black’s prepubescent appearance as he waltzed casually on stage.  I mean it as a compliment.  I was also intrigued by his noting one of the things that really interested him when working on the spec “Milk” script was the famed politician’s not-so-heroic side.  “Sometimes he’d be in the bath house when he should have been home with his boyfriend,” Black said.  I say intrigued because one of the key criticisms of the film has been its overly haloed depiction of the man, a criticism that, frankly, hasn’t been properly defended by even the film’s legion of supporters (and I count myself in their ranks).

    Stanton, meanwhile, was perhaps the most thought-provoking member of the panel, finding a nice place amid Black’s low-key veneer, McCarthy’s wit and Knoll’s hilarious interjections.  And thankfully, Jeffrey Wells martyred himself by asking why Stanton continued to be “oblique” when addressing the overweight “teletubbies” of “WALL-E.”  This has been a bone of contention for me on the film for some time, not so much because I feel it undermines the film, but because I believed it to be an easy opportunity for mean-spirited “fat” jokes, so to speak.

    (more…)

  • Santa Barbara heats up

    The Arlington Theatre in Santa BarbaraThe air smells cleaner.  The sound of waves crashing outside the hotel room is soothing.  The hippies are dancing in the streets.

    It’s nice to get away from the mess of this morning and the frustration of Oscar season in general for eight days.  But the awards circuit isn’t out of sight by any means.  Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, all of them set to be feted over the course of the week.  Panels will include Andrew Stanton, Dustin Lance Black and Eric Roth, among others, are set for panels, while festival guest director David Fincher will be the toast of the town throughout, leading to his big to-do on Friday, Jan. 30.

    And yet, it doesn’t feel as stifling as it might.  Sometimes a couple hours drive out of the heart of the beast does a body good.

    With that, one of the season’s casualties drops this evening, Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth,” which was all but buried when Yari Film Group went under last month.  As festival director Roger Durling has said, the film deserves to be seen and it’s a hell of a gesture on Durling’s part to give the pic some limelight.

    So with that, I’m throwing on the suit and heading out for the evening.  I’ll be here all week catching a number of films I’ve missed over the last couple of months and even a few I’d like to enjoy once more.

    What Oscar nominations?

  • In the round

    I don’t know why exactly, but the “roundtable” format of interviews that crops up a lot during awards season often strikes me as rather less fascinating than it’s meant to be. Unless the panel is very smartly chosen, I find the discussion tends to veer towards back-patting and faintly smug in-jokery, rather than stimulating argument between widely differing creative forces.

    Maybe I’m just blasé. But on reading the Hollywood Reporter’s two recent “Oscar Roundtables” with six screenwriters and six producers that THR thinks are likely to figure in the Oscar race, I couldn’t help being disappointed that, despite the level of talent involved, they didn’t have that many interesting things to say between them. (I’d go so far as to say that the best soundbite is quoted from the not-present Charlie Kaufman.)

    The selected writers are Jenny Lumet (“Rachel Getting Married”), Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”), Thomas McCarthy (“The Visitor”), John Patrick Shanley (“Doubt”), Andrew Stanton (“WALL-E”) and J. Michael Straczynski (“Changeling”). I have a hard time imagining the latter two will score writing nominations, but the race is young, I suppose.

    Writers can be pretty insufferable when talking about their “process” — I know, I am one. So there’s the usual semi-serious comparing of hours spent at the computer, feverish notebook scribbling and messy first drafts, but there isn’t much discussion of the specific screenplays and films at hand. McCarthy seems to be the most reticent of the group, only entering the discussion halfway through. A shame, really, as I’d venture that he’s possibly the best writer of the lot.

    (more…)

  • Best Original Screenplay: beyond the obvious

    Everyone has a favourite Oscar category, and Best Original Screenplay is mine. It’s partly because I’m a screenwriter myself, so I feel a little more invested in the outcome. My evaluation of the category often comes down to the question: “Which screenplay do I most wish I’d written first?”

    More importantly, however, it’s the category where the Academy takes its greatest artistic risks. With the Best Picture category generally weighted towards adaptations, they often use Best Original Screenplay as a way to acknowledge the edgier, more adventurous work that voters can see the greatness of, but don’t yet have the guts to honour with their biggest prize. Hell, once in a blue moon they even give it to (gasp) a foreign-language film.

    It’s this convenient ghettoising mentality that ensures the likes of “Citizen Kane,” “The Red Balloon,” “Chinatown,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Talk to Her” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” don’t go empty-handed. Sure, it sucks that they couldn’t win more. And, being the Academy, they make more than their share of screw-ups. (Let’s try and forget that, in 1960, “Pillow Talk” beat — wait for it — “Wild Strawberries,” “North by Northwest” and “The 400 Blows,” shall we?) But they occasionally hit on an otherwise-snubbed masterpiece, and for that we should be grateful.

    This year’s Best Picture slate appears to be heavy on prestige adaptations, allowing for a more idiosyncratic ragbag of contenders on the Original Screenplay front, mixing familiar Academy-anointed favourites with some exciting new voices.

    There is, of course, a chance this could be a year when the paths of the Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay races converge, principally in the shape of “Milk” scribe Dustin Lance Black. Already high hopes for “Milk” were amplified by an excellent trailer, and a number of Oscar clairvoyants are labelling it the front-runner in the top race. If this turns out to be the case, Black will likely benefit.

    (more…)

  • Breakthrough for Hawkins and Franco

    As regular readers may know, I’ve been yammering on about a Best Actress nomination for “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s delightful Sally Hawkins since I reviewed the film back in April. So I’m pleased to see that Hawkins will receive the Breakthrough Actress award at next month’s Hollywood Film Awards.

    As I said when they named their crafts honorees earlier this month, I’m a bit mystified by these awards, which appear to honour as-yet-unseen films rather frequently. Still, it’s difficult to argue with this selection: in a crowded field of Best Actress contenders, Hawkins is the freshest face out there. It’s a good omen for her Oscar chances — last year’s honoree was Ellen Page.

    “Happy-Go-Lucky” didn’t emerge from the festival circuit with quite the amount of heat I hoped it might, but Hawkins remains a solid contender for awards consideration. As we know now, the performance has a major Marmite factor — people either love or hate Hawkins’ character — but it’s sure to stick in people’s minds.

    Elsewhere, the Breakthrough Actor award went to James Franco — another obvious choice, and a move that gives credence to the Best Supporting Actor buzz for his performance in “Milk,” something Kris just discussed.

    “Milk” scored twice with the awards, with newbie (not that you’d know it from the marketing) scripter Dustin Lance Black named Breakthrough Screenwriter. Meanwhile, “Doubt” helmer John Patrick Shanley picked up Breakthrough Director. The latter strikes me as something of a safe choice in a year that has given us stellar debuts from such talents as Martin McDonagh and Philippe Claudel, but we only have the trailer to go on.

    Finally, pointing to two Oscar inevitabilities, the Animation award will go to Andrew Stanton for “WALL-E” (well, duh), while “Iron Man” will be recognised for its visual effects.