In Contention

Tag: festivals

  • AFI FEST: ‘Black Swan’ LA premiere wraps things up

    Last night was closing night of the 2010 AFI Fest, and they put a bow on things by offering up the Los Angeles premiere of AFI alum Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” I decided to head over to the Chinese Theatre to give it another look.  At this stage in the season, Telluride feel like ages ago and it’s nice to saddle up back to a film like this after you’ve seen and therefore know what you’re getting into.

    Aronofsky offered his usual self-deprecating patter before hand, introducing stars Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder and Natalie Portman, as well as producer Scott Franklin.  He noted that the Chinese is his “favorite theater in the world” and that he can recall visiting Los Angeles as a kid and catching a film with his parents.  When he attended the AFI, he would always head over to the theater (which isn’t far from campus) to see new releases every weekend.

    He was pumped for Sylvester Stallone to be in the house and went through the expected thank yous before unleashing the film on yet another unsuspecting crowd, and from my vantage, it seemed to go over well.  One person outside the theater afterward was heard saying, “I don’t even know what emotion to feel right now.”

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  • AFI FEST: Audience and Jury Awards announced

    I haven’t been able to do much at AFI Fest this year, but a last-minute decision to see “Eraserhead” and a secret bow for “The Fighter” have been rewarding experiences. And I believe I’ll take in the LA premiere of “Black Swan” tonight as well.

    I’m heading out the door or else I’d do more than simply cut and paste this release, but alas, the news should be conveyed:

    LOS ANGELES, CA, November 11, 2010 — AFI FEST 2010 presented by Audi announced today the four feature and two short films that are the recipients of this year’s Audience and Jury Awards. The films will screen again today at Mann Chinese 6 Theatres. Admission is available to AFI FEST 2010 passholders and the general public via the Rush Line, which begins forming one hour before each film’s scheduled screening start time. For showtimes, visit AFI.com/AFIFEST.

    The rest of the release after the jump.

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  • AFI FEST: ‘The Fighter’ crashes the party

    I decided to come home and give “The Fighter,” which saw its world premiere at a “secret screening” at AFI Fest tonight, some real thought rather than rushing back to review.  How novel.

    Given the amount of press on hand, one imagines Paramount publicity was besieged with ticket requests following the last minute announcement of the screening yesterday morning, but the film played well to a largely public audience. And by “well” I mean they were kind of swinging from the rafters, as David O. Russell’s film is a mainstream crowd-pleaser through and through.

    There is much to admire about the film. For starters, there’s a unique energy that’s palpable throughout, owed largely to the camera work of DP Hoyte Van Hoytema and, especially, film editing from Pamela Martin. The fights were filmed in a retro early-90s video vein, duplicating the original HBO telecasts of “Irish” Micky Ward’s matches, and they have an energy that crackles. There is the sense of sterile choreography here and there, but for the most part, these scenes are quite uplifting and stand out against the usual boxing sequences we’ve seen over the years.

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  • AFI FEST: ‘The Fighter’ sneak attack

    Paramount is showing David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” to press tomorrow night on the lot, but this morning brings a curious announcement that the film will have a “secret” AFI Fest screening tonight.  I may give it a shot.  The press release, in part:

    AFI FEST 2010 presented by Audi announced today that it will screen THE FIGHTER, from director David O. Russell, and starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo, for festival attendees tonight at 9:30 p.m. at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

    Admission to the screening is available to AFI FEST 2010 passholders and the general public through online ticket reservations at AFI.com/AFIFEST and the AFI FEST box office at Hollywood & Highland from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., on a first-come, first served basis. The Rush Line will begin forming at 8:30 p.m. All attendees are invited to walk the red carpet for the screening.

    [Photo: Paramount Pictures]

  • AFI FEST: ‘Eraserhead’ ready for its close-up

    This year’s AFI Fest (“presented by AUDI,” as the literature keeps reminding us to call it) has felt something like a non-event so far this year.  I can’t put my finger on why, other than the usual sense of been there, done that as it pertains to films seeing their North American premieres.

    I’ve skipped a number of Galas and parties already.  What can possibly be gleaned over a few hors d’oeuvres and some white wine?  I’d like to attend Friday’s premiere of “Black Swan” and give it another look, but I expect to be in a car on the way to some seclusion with my fiancee this weekend as we quietly celebrate our birthdays (hers Friday, mine Monday) away from our separate frays in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

    But when I picked up my credentials Saturday over at the Roosevelt Hotel, I offered a quick glance at the schedule and decided to watch something for me (which, clearly by these words, has become “for work,” but it didn’t feel that way at the time, and that’s a welcome departure this time of year).

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  • Finally, the 10 best of the 2010 LFF

    For those of you who were loyally following my London Film Festival coverage this year, I must apologize for leaving it somewhat in limbo. Though I did eventually find time for a lengthy discussion of fest closer “127 Hours,” a snowballing workload put paid to my hopes of squeezing in a few more review roundups. And frankly, since the festival wrapped on Thursday after four weeks of press screenings, I so relished having ownership of my days again that I let things lie longer than I intended.

    But by way of a belated send-off, here’s a gathering of the films that made the LFF for me this year. I saw precisely 60 films at the festival, in addition to 27 I’d already seen at previous fests, so I was naïve to hope I might get round to discussing most of them.

    Some of the  clunkers (glum German childbirth drama “Blessed Events,” Ferzan Ozpetek’s lead-footed gay comedy “Loose Cannons”) barely merit appraisal; other, more interesting, disappointments (Xavier Dolan’s meticulous but terminally precious love triangle “Heartbeats,” Benedik Flieugauf’s visually startling but sketchily conceived sci-fi “Womb”) at least deserved a few paragraphs. Ah, well.

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  • ‘How I Ended This Summer’ takes top prize at London fest

    “We chose our winner last night,” London Film Festival jury president Patricia Clarkson told me yesterday, an evasive  smile on our face, as we eased into our lunchtime interview. (More on that in a few days.) “I’m very pleased with it — it’s a wonderful film.”

    Naturally, my fellow lunch guest, Daily Telegraph critic Tim Robey, and I tried to tease some clues out of the estimable character actress, but she wasn’t budging. She was, however, keen to know which of the shortlisted films we had seen. When Tim declared Alexei Popogrebsky’s two-hander character drama “How I Ended This Summer” his favourite film of the festival,  Clarkson’s eyes glazed over ever so slightly. “Oh, the Russian film?” she said unenthusiastically.

    Well, Clarkson really is quite the actress. For as it turns out, “the Russian film” she so slyly shrugged off at lunch is the very one that she — together with jurors Sandy Powell, John Hillcoat, Shekhar Kapur and Gabriel Byrne — had already voted the winner of the fest’s Best Film trophy, following in the footsteps of last year’s champ “A Prophet,” and beating such heavyweight competition as “Black Swan,” “Another Year,” “The King’s Speech” and “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.” The choice was unveiled at tonight’s festival closing ceremony.

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  • LONDON: French femmes on form

    “I think the French have always enjoyed older women, and they’re right to do so,” Kristin Scott Thomas told me in an interview nearly two years ago, when asked about the range of opportunities for actresses over 40 in the French film industry. “A life has been lived. There’s so much more at stake. The French get that, and as an actor, I’m glad for it.”

    She’s right, of course. Whereas every Hollywood victory for a middle-aged actress — be it Sandra Bullock’s Oscar win, Meryl Streep’s box-office clout or the year-long buzz for the two-pronged attack of “The Kids Are All Right” — is accompanied by assorted talking heads and op-eds proclaiming the significance of the achievement, the French see nothing especially remarkable about a fiftysomething woman headlining a major production.

    Leading ladies in that country tend to remain so for their whole careers — and remain busy at that, dipping into character and ensemble roles while being regularly rewarded with generous individual showcases. This year alone, we’ve seen Juliette Binoche take Best Actress at Cannes for the elaborate thespian gymnastics of “Certified Copy,” while Catherine Deneuve earned plaudits at Venice for “Potiche,” a frothy crowdpleaser that is essentially one huge valentine to the actress.

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  • Lynch picks Bergman, Kubrick, Tati, Hitchcock and Wilder for AFI Fest sidebar

    In case you didn’t know, director David Lynch was tapped as this year’s Guest Artistic Director at AFI Fest.  Part of his duties: to choose a special sidebar program at the festival.  Here’s the news, from the press release:

    AFI FEST 2010 presented by Audi announced today the five feature films selected by its first-ever Guest Artistic Director, David Lynch, for his special sidebar program at the festival. As part of the program, the festival will screen Lynch’s first feature film, ERASERHEAD, which was made while Lynch was a Fellow at AFI’s Center For Advanced Film Studies, now known as the AFI Conservatory. Lynch graduated from AFI in 1970.

    Lynch’s selections are: HOUR OF THE WOLF (DIR Ingmar Bergman), LOLITA (DIR Stanley Kubrick), MON ONCLE (DIR Jacques Tati), REAR WINDOW (DIR Alfred Hitchcock) and SUNSET BLVD (DIR Billy Wilder).

    “I picked these particular films because they are the ones that have inspired me most. I think each is a masterpiece,” said Lynch. “If people have already seen them, they are certainly worth being seen again. And if people haven’t seen them, here is an opportunity to see what I consider cinema at its best.”

    [Photo: Nerve]

  • LONDON: ‘Brighton’ hits the rocks

    The success of the London Film Festival’s annual Surprise Film screening isn’t exactly dependent on the surprise element: more often than not, the film’s identity can be pinpointed in advance simply by asking yourself which title you most expected to find in the festival lineup, and then didn’t.

    But even if pretty much everyone sitting in the Leicester Square theater three years ago knew they were about to see “No Country for Old Men,” that didn’t stop the keen applause, peppered with whoops of approval, when the title finally flashed on screen. Ditto the equally predictable-but-welcome selection of “The Wrestler” the following year. It’s a bit like actually getting what you asked for on Christmas morning: the unwrapping is a mere formality, but the result satisfies nonetheless.

    Festival director Sandra Hebron did pull a genuine surprise last year, when the consensus expectation of “Where the Wild Things Are” was dashed by the PSA-style opening of Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Still, by last night, Twitter-abetted speculation had narrowed so conclusively around Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock” — it being the most conspicuously absent Britfilm at a British festival, after all — that anything else would have been a jaw-dropper. (To Hebron’s evident vexation, it was the first title shouted out when she played her annual “guess-the-movie” game with the audience.)

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  • LONDON: ‘The King’s Speech, ‘Neds’ and the Brit pack

    Unlike, say, the Venice fest – where the jury’s failure to reward any of the (lousy) Italian films in competition is cause for a media strop — the London Film Festival has often seemed somewhat embarrassed by the homegrown portion of its programme, perhaps granting a big red-carpet date to the odd bit of tony Oscar bait while shoving newer and/or independent British filmmakers into shadowy side slots.

    This year, however, the festival appears to be wearing its flag quite contentedly. This week’s lavish gala screenings have included such big-draw Britpics as “Another Year” and “The King’s Speech” – but rather less predictably, Peter Mullan’s hard bit of Scottish urban realism “Neds” was afforded similar treatment, while tonight’s hot ticket is local TV comedian Richard Ayoade’s Toronto-acclaimed (and Weinstein-acquired) debut “Submarine.” With Joanna Hogg’s bare-bones sophomore feature “Archipelago” also premiering tonight – and unexpectedly shortlisted for the fest’s Best Film award – programmers seem bent on drawing attention to the multitude of approaches in contemporary UK cinema.

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  • LONDON: ‘Tabloid,’ ‘Waste Land,’ ‘The Peddler’

    Amid a fairly robust non-fiction slate in this year’s London Film Festival programme, there appears to be an informal sidebar of documentaries about the process of, well, documenting — whether via media avenues of art, film or journalism.

    That’s not to say the films in question are particularly meta. The ones grouped here are all pretty straightforward studies of complicated (or even downright hinky) creative processes, none more so than “Smash His Camera” (***), Leon Gast’s slight but enjoyable snapshot of famed US paparazzo Ron Galella, which pokes gentle fun at its gnomish subject while pointedly mourning the gradual draining of artistry from the sport of celebrity shutterbugging.

    “Smash His Camera” has already been released in the States, so I won’t dwell too long on it here, other than to say it made me even more aware than intended of my status as a viewer – largely I couldn’t block out the running commentary from the seat behind me, a ceaseless Noo Joisey-accented stream of observations like, “Now she was the real deal,” and “Whatever happened to that guy?” Only my half-British reserve prevented me turning round and politely telling him to cram it, so I was glad of my restraint when the house lights came up to reveal that the offender was… Ron Galella himself. Now that was meta.

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  • James Franco tapped for Santa Barbara’s Outstanding Performance of the Year Award

    Odd, I was just having a Twitter discussion about who might receive this honor from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and my honest guess was James Franco.  Lo and behold, he’s been tapped for the honor.

    The press release, in part:

    The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is proud to present James Franco with the Outstanding Performance of the Year Award on Saturday, January 29, 2011.  He will be honored for his compelling performance in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours at the 26th edition of the Fest which runs January 27-February 6, 2011…

    “A truly exceptional actor who embraces the character and lives the story to tell it,” comments [festival executive director Roger] Durling, “James Franco eases onto the screen, seducing the audience no matter if he is the hero, the villain or the victim.”…

    Franco will join an illustrious group of previous Outstanding Performance Award recipients, including Colin Firth (2010), Penelope Cruz (2009), Angelina Jolie (2008), Helen Mirren (2007), Heath Ledger (2006), Kate Winslet (2005) and Charlize Theron (2004).

    More SBIFF awards announcements as they come.

  • LONDON: ‘Cold Weather,’ ‘Carlos,’ ‘Little White Lies’

    Okay, so my weekend plans to catch up on my LFF review backlog didn’t entirely pan out — though the schedulers have, at least, kindly slowed the snowball effect by screening a number of films today that I had already seen. Strange as it sounds, given that it’s been on the festival track for five months now, Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” (reviewed in Cannes) finally premiered in its home country this evening, while Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” continued to dismay critics at this morning’s press screening — as I treated myself to a smug lie-in.

    The weekend, however, was one of multiple festival treats for me, including my first dip into this year’s particularly enticing Treasures From the Archives sidebar, featuring a broad array of immaculately restored classics and curios.

    Joshua Logan’s “Picnic,” a widely forgotten Best Picture nominee from 1955, was an unexpected candidate for this treatment, but the gleaming new print of this creaky but affecting slice of small-town Americana repaid the archivists’ gamble — the film’s ambitious narrative-hopscotch structure remains fresh, the scattergun ensemble acting less so, but the real purpose of the outing was seeing master DP James Wong Howe’s luscious color lensing primped, polished and projected on London’s classiest cinema screen.

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  • LONDON: Five foreign Oscar contenders

    (Please note that one of the films reviewed here, “Aftershock,” was not screened as part of the London Film Festival programme — but since I saw it this week, it made sense to include it in this discussion.)

    Admittedly, 11 out of 65 is a figure that is only impressive if you’re counting the listenable tracks on most latter-day hip-hop albums, but as a measure of the number of Best Foreign Language Film contenders I’ve seen, it’s more than I’ve ever managed by this early point in the race. For that, I have my growing trail of film festivals to thank (even if I also have Venice schedulers to blame for ensuring that I missed Canada’s hot prospect “Incendies” in favour of — of all things — “Miral”), and this year’s London Film Festival has served me particularly well in this regard.

    I’ll be seeing Belgium and Spain’s entries toward the back end of the festival, but having attended screenings of five contenders in the past week (four of them at the fest), it seemed a neat number for a cluster-review. (I’ve already discussed the hopefuls from Algeria, Czech Republic, Greece, Mexico, South Africa and Thailand on these pages, as well as in Friday’s episode of Oscar Talk. Meanwhile, I thought it less curmudgeonly to limit myself to a 140-character review of India’s entry a few weeks back.)

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  • LONDON: ‘Conviction,’ ‘Amigo,’ ‘Everything Must Go’

    “To get the challenge to play someone like this makes me a better person,” said a rather intense-looking Hilary Swank at yesterday’s London Film Festival press conference — the someone in question, single mom turned crusading lawyer Betty Ann Waters, sitting to her immediate left.

    Not being personally acquainted with Ms. Swank, I can’t verify the before-and-after truth of this claim, but I can say that this endearingly earnest tone is entirely shared by Tony Goldwyn’s film “Conviction” (**1/2).

    A rote courtroom drama that is but one “The Betty Ann Waters Story” subtitle — and Jaclyn Smith casting switch — away from being Thursday night TV fodder circa 1988, “Conviction” (which opened in the US yesterday) is one of those so-implausible-it-has-to-be-true stories that blandly and single-mindedly champion blanket virtues like hope, loyalty and tenacity over finer, more fractious social and personal details, but keeps you dorkily invested in its principals’ plight despite your better instincts.

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  • Nolan tapped for Modern Master Award in Santa Barbara

    Pete Hammond originally reported this news yesterday and the press release dropped shortly thereafter, but “Inception” director Christopher Nolan will receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s highest honor — the Modern Master Award — in January.  Here’s the release, in part:

    Established in 1995, [The Modern Master Award] was created to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through his/her multi-faceted accomplishments in the motion picture industry. Nolan joins an illustrious group of past recipients including Michael Douglas, Jodie Foster, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Diane Keaton, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Peter Jackson, George Clooney, Will Smith, Cate Blanchett, Clint Eastwood, and James Cameron.

    “Every one of Nolan’s films has set a new standard for the film community, with Inception being the latest example,” comments [SBIFF Executive Director Roger] Durling. “Nolan was the natural choice for this year’s SBIFF’s Modern Master Award.”

    Standing out as one of the greatest minds in cinema, Nolan consistently pushes the boundaries of both filmmaking and storytelling. Demonstrating great versatility throughout his career, he has masterfully taken on the challenges of film as a director, writer, producer, editor, and cinematographer. His films have achieved immense success at the box office, drawing some of the largest profits in history, while at the same time they are recognized and renowned for being intellectually sophisticated and a challenge for all audiences alike.

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  • AFI Fest announces centerpiece galas, ‘King’s Speech’ tribute

    Already announced, this year’s AFI Fest will be bookended by “Love & Other Drugs” and “Black Swan.” Today, more news.  The press release, in part:

    AFI FEST 2010 presented by Audi today announced its Centerpiece Galas, featuring ABEL (DIR Diego Luna), BARNEY’S VERSION (DIR Richard J. Lewis), BLUE VALENTINE (DIR Derek Cianfrance), CASINO JACK (DIR George Hickenlooper), THE COMPANY MEN (DIR John Wells) and an ensemble Tribute to THE KING’S SPEECH with director Tom Hooper and actors Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

    Also announced today are the films that will be presented as Special Screenings: The U.S. premiere of AMIGO (DIR John Sayles), CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (DIR Werner Herzog) in 3-D, MADE IN DAGENHAM (DIR Nigel Cole) and RABBIT HOLE (DIR John Cameron Mitchell).

    The festival will take place at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Mann Chinese 6 theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel from November 4-11. The fest will also once again offer free tickets to all films, including Galas and Special Screenings  Learn more here.

    [Photo: The Weinstein Company]