In Contention

Tag: Eddie Marsan

  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “London Boulevard” by Ken Bruen

    When Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan (“The Departed”) brings Irish crime writer Ken Bruen’s 2001 novel “London Boulevard” to screen in his directorial debut, he won’t be adapting the text so much as returning it to its natural source.

    A short, sharp, deliciously black-hearted thriller that reads not unlike a readymade screenplay in its brisk, dialogue-dominated prose, Bruen’s novel makes its debt to Hollywood clear not only in its construction (brief, propulsive chapters of only a couple pages’ length resemble individual cinematic scenes) and its assorted winking namechecks of bygone films and stars, but in its very conception.

    The title – not a location (locals will know that there is no London Boulevard in the British capital) but a metaphor of sorts – is our first clue to what Bruen is up to: the novel is itself an adaptation, and Billy Wilder’s gothic Hollywood noir “Sunset Boulevard” is the source material.

    The novel’s allusions to the 1950 classic aren’t exactly subtle. Where Wilder’s film gave us Joseph C. Gillis, a destitute L.A. screenwriter who seeks shelter in the mansion of faded movie goddess Norma Desmond to escape the repo man, “London Boulevard” crosses the Channel, jumps a half-century forward, and replaces Gillis with Mitchell, a middle-aged ex-con who dodges the ghosts of his past (and his own compulsive criminal urges) by shacking up in the plush Holland Park pad of Lillian Palmer, a washed-up theater diva plotting her triumphant West End return.

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  • ‘Wrestler’ rules London crix awards

    The London Film Critics’ Circle have just announced their winners, and I have to say they’ve done a pretty terrific job. (I discussed the nominations here.) The really heartening news is that “The Wrestler” finally has another Best Picture award to its credit, five months after taking the Golden Lion at Venice — who would have thought that it’d be left to the Europeans to give this quintessential piece of Americana its due?

    Naturally, Mickey Rourke took the Best Actor award too, while Kate Winslet added yet another trophy (awarded jointly for both her 2008 films) to her crowded mantlepiece. David Fincher was a somewhat surprising winner of the Best Director award, and “Waltz With Bashir” took yet another foreign-language gong.

    If you’re wondering where “Slumdog Millionaire” features in all of this, it ruled the roost in the British Film categories, taking Best British Film and Director, and also landing Screenwriter of the Year for Simon Beaufoy. In the British races, the Londoners like to have their cake and eat it — for example, Kristin Scott Thomas took a richly deserved award for Best British Actress, but beat Best Actress winner Winslet in the process.

    Meanwhile, I’m thrilled to see Michael Fassbender getting some hardware for his staggering work in “Hunger” (which also took the Breakthrough Filmmaker prize), while in the supporting race, Eddie Marsan is another thoroughly deserving victor. Good work all round, London critics.

    Full list of winners below the cut.

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  • A word of advice

    To any actors who might find themselves in the hunt for an Oscar nod next year: don’t let me interview you.

    Seriously. It appears that the mere act of shaking my hand, or even greeting me over the phone, placed an immediate hex on the Oscar chances of several deserving thesps this season. If your publicist informs you that you’re due to speak to one Mr. Guy Lodge, proceed at your peril. (Directors, however, are apparently safe.)

    To Sally Hawkins, Kristin Scott Thomas, Eddie Marsan, Rosemarie DeWitt, Michelle Williams and Elsa Zylberstein, I’m sorry you had to learn this the hard way. It doesn’t make me love your performances any less.

  • 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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  • Suspicion of optimism

    As you know, one of the many things that aggravated me about this year’s BAFTA nominations was the pointed shut-out of Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky.” The snub extended to lead actress Sally Hawkins, who has torn through the critics’ awards on the other side of the Atlantic and stands a sizeable chance of landing an Oscar nod on Monday morning — as does Leigh himself, for that matter.

    The Independent recently did some digging into the snub, and has found that a number of Leigh’s peers and contemporaries are similarly shocked by the omission. Venerable critic Barry Norman (something of a British institution) is particularly outraged, hailing “Happy-Go-Lucky” as the equal of BAFTA-garlanded “Slumdog Millionaire,” and going so far to label Leigh “a prophet without honour,” less appreciated in his homeland than he is elsewhere.

    Of course, Leigh has won three BAFTAs in his career, so perhaps that’s getting a little dramatic. Nonetheless, the article wonders whether this year’s snub could be put down to a BAFTA grudge against the famously candid filmmaker, who has criticised the organisation’s voting methods in the past.

    Hmmm. Ultimately, interestingly enough, it is “Slumdog Millionaire” scribe Simon Beaufoy who might have hit the nail closest to the head when he says the film was a victim of “traditional British suspicion of optimism” — something which I think accounts for the film’s polite but less-than-ecstatic critical reception here. It’s also a precise echo of a sentiment Eddie Marsan voiced in my October interview with the actor:

    “I thought the film might go down well in America — better, even, than at home — because they’re not quite as cynical as the British. I think they’re more willing to buy into an optimistic character.”

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  • For the completists

    Over at Gold Derby, Tom O’Neil lists all the runners-up (with points tallies) from yesterday’s National Society of Film Critics awards, along with other gossipy tidbits from the days proceedings. (Most stupid/amusing nugget: Eve, the eerily Applesque female robot from “WALL-E,” garnered a lone Best Actress vote.)

    The full list is below the cut, but here are a couple of bits and bobs that jumped out at me. It’s interesting to see that Sally Hawkins and Sean Penn won their respective categories by a landslide, in a single round of voting. (Seriously, what does distant runner-up Mickey Rourke have to do to gain some traction?)

    Meanwhile, “Waltz With Bashir” pulled off its stunning Best Picture victory in the second round of voting, after its animated cohort “WALL-E” led in the first round. Talk about a good day for the animated medium. What a second Best Picture citation from one of the ‘big three’ critics groups could have done for “WALL-E”s chances is a matter for contemplation, but it’s still very much on the radar — I’m still betting (naively, perhaps) it’ll make the Academy’s top five.

    Elsewhere it’s nice to see Michelle Williams’ extraordinary work in “Wendy and Lucy” at least appearing in the mix, while “Synecdoche, New York” and “A Christmas Tale” (narrowly behind “Happy-Go-Lucky”) make the NSFC’s Best Screenplay table a very classy one indeed. An interesting oddity in the Best Supporting Actress category is that Viola Davis actually tied on points with winner Hanna Schygulla (a truly inspired choice, for my money), but was placed second as she appeared on fewer ballots.

    Finally, can I just say how much I love these guys for giving Eddie Marsan some props? Finally.

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  • NSFC goes with ‘Bashir’ and ‘Happy’ in a big way

    Waltz with BashirThis is just like the National Society of Film Critics.  Sorry, just coming around to this (football has taken some precedence this afternoon as I unwind post-vacation).  “Waltz with Bashir” may have taken the top prize, but “Happy-Go-Lucky” was the clear favorite.  Perhaps added fuel to the film’s Oscar fire.  Lone director nomination?  Hmmm…

    Best Picture
    “Waltz with Bashir”

    Best Director
    Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Actor
    Sean Penn, “Milk”

    Best Actress
    Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Supporting Actor
    Eddie Marsan, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Supporting Actress
    Hanna Schygulla, “The Edge of Heaven”

    Best Screenplay
    “Happy-Go-Lucky”

    Best Cinematography
    “Slumdog Millionaire”

    Best Non-Fiction Film
    “Man on Wire”

    Best Experimental Film
    “Razzle Dazzle”

  • Don’t forget the Motor City

    Ha. Allow me to bask in the glory of that headline for a moment. No? Okay.

    Anyway, a concerned reader emailed to point out that the Detroit Film Critics Society announced their own nominees (that’s right, not just awards, but nominees) a few days ago. Even considering the bewildering array of critics’ awards that I was just talking about, I must admit I was not aware that Detroit had its own gongs. Good for them, but still — nominees? What’s the point?

    Anyway, the list is after the cut. Their best call? Eddie Marsan. Their worst? Nominating Amy Adams in place of Viola Davis. Their weirdest? The “Best Newcomer” category, which pits writer-director Martin McDonagh against five actors. Not so much a case of apples and oranges as, say, bananas and puppies. Winners to be announced Friday.

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  • INTERVIEW: Sally Hawkins

    Sally Hawkins“We didn’t necessarily set out to create someone as perpetually sunny as Poppy,” says Sally Hawkins of her radiant performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is currently making waves in the awards race. “But Mike was very dismissive of doing anything maudlin or moody with this project. So the optimism came early on for her. It’s like trying on different skins. And this skin just fit.”

    Spoken in a breezy, unassuming tone, it strikes me as a statement — equal parts pragmatic and eccentric — that could as easily have some from the mouth of Poppy herself, the cheery North London schoolteacher who forms the delightful center of Leigh’s latest perceptive study of British social mores.

    Indeed, when I first encounter Hawkins in the top-floor café of a West End bookshop, dressed in a somewhat Poppy-esque ensemble of emerald-green cardigan and flowing tie-dye skirt, it’s difficult not to be reminded at least a little of her character. Hawkins is certainly calmer and a little softer in person, but her easy-flowing conversation, accompanied by increasingly wild hand gestures, reveals something akin to Poppy’s humor and generosity of spirit.

    “I’m nothing like as extroverted as she is,” she says, smiling broadly.  “But how many people are?  If anyone says they see even a little of me in Poppy, or vice versa, I take that as the hugest compliment, because she just has life worked out. It’s not as if she’s negating that it’s hard. She just finds a way to deal with it, and finds a way to flow with people. She’s an extraordinary person. I think I learned a lot from her.”

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  • LAFCA gives Best Picture to ‘WALL-E’

    WALL-EShocking.  “WALL-E” is officially the most overrated film of the year, but that having been said, this is one hell of a ballsy move on the part of the L.A. film critics (whose vote came down a lot earlier than I expected).

    I correctly anticipated a Sally Hawkins victory in the lead actress category, which will do wonders for her Oscar hopes.  The group also went with Mike Leigh for his “screenplay.”  It makes sense as “Happy-Go-Lucky” was a film dwindling on the Oscar landscape and this group, no matter how much a couple of blowhards within their ranks claim otherwise, like to shine their light in the direction of films they want to find the right traction this time of year.  Eddie Marsan also came in as a runner-up for Best Supporting Actor.

    I’m very excited to see Steve McQueen grab the group’s New Generation award.  I’m happy to see some outlets already calling “Hunger” the best of the year.  When I saw the film at this year’s AFI Fest, I knew I was in the hands of a new talent.  I’m glad the LAFCA agrees.

    I also have to tip my hate to the group for recognizing Mark Friedman’s brilliant design work in “Synecdoche, New York,” my personal choice for the year’s best in the category.  And I’m glad to see that lenser Anthony Dod Mantle was so close to a win for his wonderfully inventive work in “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    But back to “WALL-E.”  I just cannot understand the love-fest for this film, a position I’m sure plenty of movie-goers find themselves in regarding “The Dark Knight” (which came in as a runner-up for Best Picture, beating out contenders like “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”).  But regardless of my taste, it’s worth pointing out that the only three films to win the LAFCA award for best Picture and fail to secure an Oscar nomination for same were “Leaving Las Vegas” in 1995, “About Schmidt” in 2002 and “American Splendor” in 2003.  You have to go all back to “Do the Right Thing” in 1989 for the last example and it’s only happened a total of six times in 32 years.

    Crazy.

    The winners (via Variety) after the jump.

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  • ‘Slumdog’ scores at BIFA Awards

    Thanks to bright-eyed, bushy-tailed commenter Silrone for pointing out that the winners of the British Independent Film Awards were announced while I was mired in technical problems.

    “Slumdog Millionaire” emerged as the evening’s big winner, taking Best British Film, Best Director and Best Newcomer for Dev Patel, though “Hunger” ran it close, also taking three prizes, including Best Actor for Michael Fassbender. I’m simultaneously surprised and unsurprised: “Slumdog” was certainly the obvious frontrunner, but the BIFAs have a history of not following the script.

    Such was the case in the Best Actress category, where “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s seemingly unbeatable Sally Hawkins lost out to Vera Farmiga for “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.” I’m disappointed for Hawkins, though she will have other opportunities this season. In any case, I’m quite pleased to see some credit for Farmiga, my admiration for whom I recently expressed on these pages.

    Meanwhile, “Happy-Go-Lucky” was rewarded with well-deserved victories for supporting stars Eddie Marsan and Alexis Zegerman, while my fellow “In Bruges” fans will be pleased to see Martin McDonagh took home some hardware for his writing.

    Incidentally, I scored 7/13 in my predictions. Poor form — hopefully it’s all up from here. Full list of winners below the cut.

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  • Ebert hearts Hawkins

    I happened upon this a week late, so apologies for that, but I still think it bears mentioning. It’s no secret that Roger Ebert is probably one of the few critics who means anything to Academy voters. Whether it’s true or not that his backing of such underdog contenders as “Crash” played into their victories, people thinking you wield that kind of influence is an influence in itself.

    What I’m saying, in a long-winded fashion, is that when Ebert gets truly excited about a film or a performer, the sun often shines a little brighter on their Oscar campaign. And someone whose publicist must be smiling is Sally Hawkins, a well-liked but comparatively low-profile contender who needs passionate support to come through in a crowded Best Actress race. And, in his glowing four-star review of “Happy-Go-Lucky,” passionate support is precisely what Ebert offers:

    Poppy is one of the most difficult roles any actress could be assigned. She must smile and be peppy and optimistic at (almost) all times, and do it naturally and convincingly, as if the sunshine comes from inside. That’s harder than playing Lady Macbeth. Sally Hawkins been in movies before, including Leigh’s “Vera Drake” and Woody Allen’s “Cassandra’s Dream,” but this is her star-making role. She was named best actress at Berlin 2008. I will deliberately employ a cliche: She is a joy to behold.

    (It’s) a role very few women could play. Maybe Meryl Streep could sustain that level of merriness, but then what can’t she do? And now I must ask, what can’t Hawkins do? There are countless ways she might have stepped wrong. But she breezes in on her bicycle and engages our deepest sympathy.

    That’s heady praise there. He is also deeply impressed by Hawkins’s co-star Eddie Marsan, describing his performance as “spellbinding.” I’m not saying Ebert strikes gold every time, but should he continue to champion Hawkins and the film to such an extent, some voters might just be listening.

  • ‘Hunger,’ ‘Bruges’ lead British Independent nominees

    The British Independent Film Awards are an odd, under-the-radar institution that frequently like to avoid the obvious and champion the underdog. Last year, for example, they bypassed the starrier likes of “Eastern Promises” and “Notes on a Scandal” to award their top prize to Anton Corbijn’s magnificent, under-rewarded “Control.” The previous year, they were even more daring: Best Film justly went to “This Is England” over “The Queen,” while Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker — gasp — lost to the unknown leads of Andrea Arnold’s “Red Road.”

    So it is this year that the nominations feature one doozy of a snub: while the top prize, Best British Independent Film, features such obvious contenders as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Hunger,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” is nowhere to be found. Ditto Best Director and Best Screenplay — the omission particularly galling when the likes of (gack) “Son of Rambow” made the cut. Did Leigh run over the voters’ dogs or something? Sanity at least prevailed in the acting categories, where Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan and the wonderful Alexis Zegerman all made the cut.

    Zegerman’s category, Best Supporting Actress, is an indication of how slim the pickings were this year: nods for the mediocre likes of Hayley Atwell in “The Duchess” and Sienna Miller in “The Edge of Love” don’t suggest a very deep pool of nominees. Meanwhile, Kristin Scott Thomas’ mention for the fun but flimsy trifle “Easy Virtue,” which I saw this morning at the Festival, is clearly an indirect nomination for her ineligible awards-bound work in “I’ve Loved You So Long.”

    Still, there’s plenty to cheer about here, not least the impressive showing for Martin McDonagh’s superb “In Bruges,” which jointly leads the field with “Hunger,” both films receiving seven nominations. The inevitability of the nominations for “Hunger” and “Slumdog Millionaire” doesn’t make them any less deserving, and “Man on Wire” is a pleasingly left-field choice in the top category.

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  • 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.

  • INTERVIEW: Eddie Marsan

    Eddie MarsanIt is somehow fitting that I meet Eddie Marsan not in the lounge of some swanky West End hotel or members’ club, but amid the worn wooden chairs and scuffed 1970s wallpaper of his local pub in the villagey West London suburb of Chiswick. For Marsan is not a movie star, but an actor — and that’s the way he likes it.

    “I have friends who are leading men, and they’re only ever allowed to play leading men of a certain type,” he says over a lunchtime drink once we’re settled into a corner booth. “But as a character actor, there’s a wider variety of projects available. On the big Hollywood films, all they care about is having their lead in place, so it’s actually easier for someone like me to slip in. And I’m happy to do so.”

    “Slipping in” is precisely what the 39-year-old London native has been doing to impressive effect over the last couple of years. After a long apprenticeship in British television, he can now boast having worked with such A-list auteurs as Martin Scorsese (2002’s “Gangs of New York”), Terrence Malick (2005’s “The New World”), Michael Mann (2006’s “Miami Vice”) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu (2003’s “21 Grams”).

    2008, however, has been Marsan’s breakthrough year, with two major credits on opposite ends of the creative scale: an appearance opposite Will Smith in summer blockbuster “Hancock,” and now, a career-best performance in Mike Leigh’s serio-comedy “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which is garnering well-deserved awards buzz for the actor in the supporting race.

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  • 10/17 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. in The Soloist• Dave Karger responds to the “Soloist” slide. [Oscar Watch]

    • Seven favorite screen Presidents.  In total agreement on #1. [Cinematical]

    • A welcome respite from the vitriol you might have come across elsewhere, New York Magazine runs an intern’s review of the “Road” screening that happened in the Big Apple this week.  Does that qualify as “AICN-style” as well? [Vulture]

    • A brief history of the Bond villain. [The Independent]

    • “Once”: a broadway musical. [Culture Monster]

    • Spike Lee carries his loud and off-base message overseas. [The Guardian]

    • Charting the true crime history of “Changeling”‘s Collins kidnapping. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Setting out to define what “best” picture means. [Awards Daily]

    • A sweet profile of Paul Thomas Anderson approximately 10 months after it would have really done him some good. [Esquire]

    • David Hinckley recycles the same old “it’s too early” argument regarding “W.” [New York Daily News]

    • But has Hollywood gone too easy on our Commander-in-Chief? [Slate]

    • Joe Morgenstern conveys the joy of ensemble films. [Wall Street Journal]

    • Why Eddie Marsan deserves an Oscar nomination. [The Playlist]

    • Cast your revote for the Best Actress contenders of 1983 in the much bally-hooed Oscar Revote. [Pop Watch]

  • U.S. critics wild for ‘Happy’

    Wow. I was expecting a warm Stateside reception for Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” but even so, this is exceptional. For those who place stock in such things, the film’s Metacritic score is sitting at 82, but more importantly, some top critics have fallen hard for this one.

    If the film’s awards hopes seemed to be slipping oh-so-slightly following a respectable but somewhat muted festival showing last month, these reviews should give it a second wind. Sally Hawkins, in particular, should gain traction in a crowded Best Actress field with amazing notices like this one from Stephanie Zacharek:

    Poppy’s cheerfulness isn’t a shield against reality … And that’s where both the boldness and the delicacy of Sally Hawkins’ performance come in. This is the finest performance of the year — though it’s only October, I can’t believe I’ll see anything better … Here, Leigh has given her the challenge of a lifetime — the kind of role an actress can play at just one point in her life — and she more than meets it.

    Zacharek is no less ecstatic on the film itself:

    It takes more than ambition, and more than money, to make an intimate masterpiece like Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a picture so seemingly light that it might be hours (or even days) before you realize how deep and rich it really is … Leigh and his actors work mysterious magic in “Happy-Go-Lucky.” This is a movie about hitting the groove of everyday life and, nearly miraculously, getting music out of it.

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  • Jeff Wells finds ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ to be “oppressive”

    Eddie Marsan in Happy-Go-LuckyUh-oh.

    I’ve expressed my sentiments for this film. So has Guy. I think there’s something to the “oppressive” comment because Poppy will no doubt be a character that grates on the nerves of plenty of viewers. But I found charms here and there and, with a second viewing, I think I might settle into it more.

    Here’s Wells:

    Just got back from Mike Leigh’s Happy Go Lucky, a movie about a quirky, plucky lady (Sally Hawkins) given to laying spirited, feel-good emotional fascism upon others, including the audience. If this sort of thing lights you up, you may do cartwheels. (As Patrick Goldstein did.) If you find it oppressive, as I did, you’ll be in hell. And yet this is a very assured, self-aware film. Respect must be paid to Leigh, who knows his characters and their world and precisely how to make it all unfold in just the right way.

    I think the real story of “Happy-Go-Lucky” will be Eddie Marsan, who is creepy but diabolically human, if you’ll forgive an odd adverb choice.

    The question still remains, though. How will Miramax position this? Can it be a Best Picture contender (I don’t think so). Is the studio really willing to put all its eggs into “Doubt?” It’s an interesting scenario this year for them, to say the least. Lots of “small,” it seems.

    Anyway, I don’t personally think Wells was ever going to be a lover of this one, for what it’s worth. Not his thing. Too big a target for him to take aim and shoot it down, etc. But it will have its followers and I think they will be avid.

    UPDATE (10:45 a.m.): Well’s goes a bit deeper here.