In Contention

Tag: festivals

  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Truth,’ Winslet light up the town

    Kate Winslet receives the Montecito Award at the 24th Annual Santa Barbara International Film FestivalI’ll dig into individual film reviews in due time.  It’s been a slow start up here in Santa Barbara but the first two nights have been charming enough.

    Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth” gets better and better each time I see it, particularly where Lurie’s work as a writer is concerned.  Some beats are on the nose, perhaps too much for some people’s tastes, but I think he’s really developing as a filmmaker.  And the flick went over like gangbusters with the crowd at the packed Arlington Theatre opening night gala yesterday.  All the clever jokes found a home.  The performances caught their stride with the viewers, it seemed, and everyone seemed to be in tune with the film’s tight rhythm.  Most of all, the message seemed to settle (not surprising in a town this left of center), and that’s encouraging.

    Jeff Bridges and James Cromwell were among the A-listers who came out to celebrate the film, which has been all but smothered by an untimely Yari Film Group bankruptcy.  And the after-party at Paseo Nuevo up the street was slammed — too slammed.  But, as always, upstairs in a V.I.P. setting is the place to be, and that’s where Lurie and his sharp college-bound son yukked it up with Bridges and “Truth” star Noah Wyle, among others.

    Here’s my brief one-off on the film from back in September when it was playing Toronto.

    Tonight, Kate Winslet was in town to accept the Montecito award, becoming the first person in the history of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival to be awarded twice.  With that in mind, festival director Roger Durling took playful umbrage on stage with her remarks at the Golden Globe ceremony a week ago when she claimed she never wins anything.

    Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin sat down with Winslet for a two-hour conversation through her career that I frankly expected to be a bore, but it was a lively and candid chat.  Clips from her wide ranging portfolio were peppered in here and there, but the cutest moment came when the actress couldn’t stop chuckling at the “Titanic” clip.  “It’s so funny because I don’t see me and Leo playing Jack and Rose,” she said.  “It’s just me and Leo.  What are we doing there?  It’s so funny to me that we were in ‘Titanic,’ I don’t know how to explain it.”

    (more…)

  • Diss

    I’m sitting here at the Arlington Theatre awaiting the big Kate Winslet/Montecito Award presentation and they played, I believe, a bit from Thomas Newman’s “Revolutionary Road” score a moment ago, and it got my blood up once again.

    Not to harp on how wrong the Academy got it this year, but Thomas’s work deserved a notice. He should have been a double nominee. I’m the first to admit he can be terribly derivative of his own work, but his “Road” scored soared.

    Anyway, show’s about to begin. More later.

  • It seems like everyone’s out of town — then again…

    Sundance Film FestivalYou can still find a number of Sundance prep pieces across the Web.  And it seems more and more, the geek press will be out in force, as they were at Telluride last September, much to the surprise of a number of industry folks.  So I was starting to be quasi bummed that I couldn’t make the fest until that “Sundance is going to be a ghost town” stuff started to get louder and louder.

    Karina Longworth tracked down a few journalists to find out why they’re not going to Park City this year.  The reasons she came up with are the economy (duh), competing film festivals, the notion that New Media outlets getting the Sundance smackdown when applying for credentials, the Prop 8 protest and Sundance boycott and the fact that the trip just isn’t worth “the pain in the ass.”  And there’s always the inauguration to consider, for those making the trek to Washington on Jan. 20.

    Here’s one feisty journo on the supposed harshness of the festival:

    “Let’s be honest,” says Film Threat’s Lewis. “Sundance is an enormous pain in the ass. That’s not a knock against Sundance, it’s a fact. It’s cold, it’s crowded, it’s slippery, it’s hard to find time to eat and sleep, there’s thousands of looky-loos crowding the screenings, the movies are a total crap shoot and everyone ends up sick. As much as I’m sure I’ll be sorry I missed it this year, as of right now, we’re all kind of glad we aren’t going.”

    Read all about it here.

    I’ve never been to Sundance, but I’d love to go.  Typically I rail against the festival circuit because to me, it’s the least ideal environment for viewing a film.  Not to mention the fact that studios have, by and large, seized these events as their own publicity tour stops, drowning out the innocence of competition that might have been.  Still, there are those that seem to shed this stygma.

    With that in mind, I’ll be covering this year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival for 10 days starting Jan. 22.  I’ll make the drive up the coast after we finish processing the Oscar nominations and will set up shop from there all week (with a short trip back Jan. 30 to cover the USC Scripter Awards Gala).  Tune in.

  • Eastwood to receive yet another accolade, this time at Santa Barbara Fest

    Clint EastwoodThe press release, in part:

    Clint Eastwood has been selected to receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s highest honor, The Modern Master Award, it was announced by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling. The Tribute will take place on Thursday, January 29, at the historic Arlington Theatre.

    The Modern Master Award is the highest honor presented by SBIFF. Established in 1995, it was created to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through his/her accomplishments in the motion picture industry. Past Modern Masters recipients include Michael Douglas, Peter Jackson, Jodie Foster, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Diane Keaton, George Clooney, Will Smith, and Cate Blanchett.

    Comments SBIFF Director Roger Durling, “Clint Eastwood is inarguably one of our greatest directors, one of our greatest producers and one of our greatest actors ever – to call him a Modern Master is simply an understatement.”

    We in the press will finally be getting a look at “Gran Torino” in a little over a week, by the way. In fact, Monday screenings of Oscar hopefuls will push the “Off the Carpet” column to Tuesdays for the next two weeks. I’ll post a reminder of that on Monday.

    But with this news in mind, I find myself, more and more, seeing the Best Actor race as Sean Penn vs. Clint Eastwood. Penn’s performance has the power to be his second Oscar, in my view, and Eastwood’s role is going to rip a few hearts to shreds. Mickey Rourke is phenomenal in “The Wrestler,” but I’m beginning to sense that his award will be the nomination. A pat on the back and a “welcome home.”

  • Rourke to be feted by Santa Barbara Fest

    Mickey Rourke at the 2008 Venice Film FestivalThe press release, in part:

    It was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, that Mickey Rourke, star of the upcoming “The Wrestler,” will be honored with the American Riviera Award on Friday, January 30, 2009 at the 24th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

    “America is all about second chances,” commented Durling, “and so it’s appropriate that the American Riviera Award that always goes to a U.S. actor should be given this year to Mickey Rourke – who has shown us with his performance in ‘The Wrestler’ to never underestimate a true artist and his power to reinvent himself.”

    Check out my interview with Rourke here.

  • AFI Fest Jury Awards

    AFI Fest 2008The AFI Fest Jury Awards were dished out yesterday, and I don’t know if it says more about me or the awards that I’m just getting a post up today.  The winners:

    INTERNATIONAL FEATURE COMPETITION
    Grand Jury Prize: “Acne”
    Special Mention:     “Nirvana”

    INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
    Grand Jury Prize: “Kassim the Dream”
    Special Mention:     “The Last Days of Shishmaref”

    INTERNATIONAL SHORTS COMPETITION
    Grand Jury Prize: “The Legless Boy Cannot Dance”
    Special Mention:     “The Apology Line”

    AUDIENCE AWARDS
    Feature: “A Necessary Death”
    Documentary Feature: “Kassim the Dream,” “The World We Want”
    Short: “Busco Personas: The Faces of Columbia’s War”

  • ‘Wrestler’ poster on the red carpet

    Someone was explaining to me today what the one-sheet for Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” looks like, and I thought it sounded pretty cool.  Then I scoped out some red carpet pics of the premiere last night during the AFI Fest at Grauman’s Chinese Theater and there it was, propped up for the world to see.  I think Entertainment Weekly will be getting a print exclusive in due time, but for now, you can check it out for yourself over Rourke’s right shoulder below.  I really dig the Dave Ansen quote: “Witness the resurrection of Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s deeply affecting film.”

    By the way, that piece I was hammering out at the Four Seasons, I’ll have it up over the weekend.  Rourke is a hell of an interview, an odd mixture of intimidation and warmth — much like his character in Aronofsky’s film.

    Mickey Rourke at the Los Angeles premiere of The Wrestler

  • 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…)

  • AFI FEST: ‘Hunger,’ ‘Che’

    Benicio Del Toro in CheFour days and three screenings into the 2008 AFI Fest, I’m one-for-two and looking to add to the “win” column as much as possible in the next week.  It hit me this afternoon, though, that no two films could be better suited to an introductory update from the festival, two exercises in subverting the conventions of the biopic.  One succeeds, one fails, but both maintain a certain spirit that you don’t find in the work of many filmmakers today.  And interestingly, both are set for distribution by the always courageous IFC Films.

    Let’s dive in…

    “HUNGER” (***1/2)
    Who the hell is Steve McQueen anyway?  Talk about bursting onto the scene out of nowhere — with what could have been an unfortunate namesake — and carving a spot for yourself that no one will soon dispute.  “Hunger” is one of the year’s best films, a curiously intimate dissection of the blanket, no wash and hunger protests of IRA prisoners held at HM Maze Prison in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

    Spearheaded by a committed (to say the least) performance from Michael Fassbender, the film may be the most visually dynamic effort to hit cinemas in 2008.  McQueen deservedly won the Caméra d’Or (for best first feature) at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, but a case might have been made for a technical citation for lenser Sean Bobbitt.  He captures the most mundane and intimate moments with an epic craftsman’s touch, guided no doubt by McQueen’s own preoccupation with lingering in this most uncomfortable — and unfortunate — of settings.

    (more…)

  • Awaiting ‘Che’ at the Chinese

    I lucked out with a couple of prime, mid-theater seats here at Grauman’s Chinese for tonight’s heavily anticipated screening of “Che.” Suffice it to say I won’t be posting for another five hours at best. I’ll try to hammer out something on the screening and after party either later tonight or in the A.M. For now, nothing but excitement. A once-in-a-lifetime event.

  • 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]

  • Amen

    Robert Pattinson, star of “Twilight,” which is set to be released on Nov. 21, was just as clueless in his acceptance speech for the new Hollywood award.

    “I’m shocked and astonished that I’ve been given an award before my film’s come out. It’s all hype,” he candidly admitted before thanking festival founder Carlos de Abreu.

    From Pete Hammond’s recap of last night’s Hollywood Film Festival Awards

  • Kristin Scott Thomas to be honored at Santa Barbara fest

    Kristin Scott ThomasThe press release, in part:

    The Cinema Vanguard Award was created in recognition of an actor who has forged his/her own path – taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film. Formerly known as The Independent Award, it was bestowed last year to Ryan Gosling. This year’s well-deserving recipient is Kristin Scott Thomas, and she will be feted on Tuesday, January 27, 2008.

    Comments [SBIFF Executive Director Roger] Durling, “A masterful performance by a British actress in a French film and a triumphant Broadway debut in Chekhov in the same year – Kristin Scott Thomas is in a league by herself and an artistic force to be reckoned with.”

  • 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.