In Contention

Tag: festivals

  • Harrison Ford to receive Santa Barbara’s Kirk Douglas Award

    The press release, in part:

    In recognition of his contributions to the world of film, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is honored to present the fifth annual KIRK DOUGLAS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN FILM to the legendary Academy Award-nominated actor/producer Harrison Ford…

    “I’m delighted to give this award to Harrison Ford,” commented Kirk Douglas. “It’s always a pleasure to honor these young actors who do so well.”

    Ford’s impressive body of work contains 43 feature films, 12 of which have each grossed over $100 million, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

    Ford’s upcoming film Morning Glory is slated to be released November 12, 2010. Set in the hilarious and dysfunctional world of morning television, Ford plays legendary TV anchor Mike Pomeroy, who is brought on to save a failing news show where he comes into conflict with his co-anchor Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton). Ford will also star alongside Daniel Craig in the upcoming film Cowboys and Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau.

    [Photo: Top News]

  • THE LONG SHOT: I’m just here for the movies

    “You’re the Oscar guys, aren’t you?” asked the spike-heeled PR officer upon eyeing the press badge dangling from my neck, her voice exuding the steely sweetness they teach you on the first day of public relations boot camp. It was midway through the Venice Film Festival and I was too beat — or my mouth just too full of complimentary cheese — to rephrase her blunt description. I nodded in reply: yes, I am indeed “the Oscar guys.” One of them, at any rate.

    “Thought so,” she said, eyes darting across the room, perhaps in search of my chart-brandishing entourage. “Not much for you here, is there?”

    On the one hand, I could hardly argue, not least since we’d both just emerged from a film — Chilean auteur Pablo Larrain’s brilliant nightmare of a black comedy “Post Mortem” — that stands as much chance of securing an invitation to the Kodak Theater as Kim Kardashian does to the Kennedy Center Honors.

    Five days into the festival, and the only film screened that belonged in the Oscar conversation (following the critical belly-flop of Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” at least) was high-gloss opener “Black Swan,” and even that was generating “too cool for the Academy” conclusions. Oscar-watching at European festivals, even blogger-inundated Cannes, is a pretty spotty sport compared to the FYC frenzy of Telluride and Toronto.

    (more…)

  • TIFF: ‘The King’s Speech’ takes Toronto audience award

    Well, in case you weren’t already convinced, you can pretty much write a Best Picture nod for “The King’s Speech” in ink now. Following in the footsteps of such titles as “American Beauty,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Precious,” The Weinstein Company’s period drama just took the People’s Choice Award on the last day of the Toronto Film Festival — confirming that the film plays across the board.

    Of course, it oversimplifying matters to say that Toronto’s audience award equals a Best Picture play; indeed, only three winners in the last decade have gone on to secure a nomination for Oscar’s top prize. But when a film enters the festival with that much advance buzz and then makes good on it, it’s fair to say that the script is being followed.

    The runner-up prize, meanwhile, went to the British-South African co-production, “The First Grader,” an inspirational true-life drama about an 84 year-old Kenyan man starting school — seemingly the kind of  sentimental human-interest crowdpleaser that is catnip to festival audiences, even if critics have been more divided.

    (more…)

  • TIFF: Lionsgate picks up ‘Rabbit Hole’ for 2010 Oscar season

    Man, Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions are getting ON IT this year.  First Roadside rolled out the early buzz on “Winter’s Bone,” then it picked up Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful.” Soon after, Lionsgate announced a fall release for Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” and grabbed Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” through Roadside for a 2011 release.

    Well, now it looks like Lionsgate is wrapping up its acquisition of John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” which drew praise for Nicole Kidman (a potential nominee now), Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest (welcome to the supporting actress line-up) at the fest.

    Talk about having a full plate all of a sudden.  Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports that “the plan is to jump right into this year’s Oscar race by releasing  the picture  before year’s end. They will take advantage of a career performance by Nicole Kidman as a mother who loses her child.”  So add one more to “the year of the woman.”

    What more is there to add to that?  Congrats on a healthy slate of contenders and let the games begin.

    [Photo: Buzznet]

  • TIFF: Invasion of The Boss

    How do you follow up a massively successful, iconic, generation-defining album like “Born to Run?”  How to even attempt to approach that level of stratospheric impact?  Well, Thom Zimny’s documentary “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” made its way to Toronto last night to help answer those questions, and I knew I could count on The Wrap’s Steve Pond to be there, front and center, with a hell of a breakdown of the event (which probably had the biggest draw of the fest), the screening and Springsteen’s onstage “Mavericks” discussion with Edward Norton.

    Most fascinating is the fact that the conversation (naturally) dealt with the impact of cinema on Springsteen’s work.  “Martin Scorsese once said that the artist’s job is to get the audience to care about your obsessions,” he said.  He called the small-town America of the 1960s and the rumbling underneath which Bob Dylan bubbled to the surface “Lynchian.”  He counted the “dark, bloody” pictures of the 1970s as an influence, as well as the work of John Ford, and he outright called his albums “cinematic,” which is difficult to argue against.

    (more…)

  • 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,’ ‘Rabbit,’ ‘Debt,’ ‘Whistleblower,’ ‘Boating’ reactions

    A quick round-up this morning.  First, we already offered some reactions to Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock,” which is still looking for a distributor.  But things aren’t looking great for awards prospects should it land a buyer, as Movieline’s Michelle Orange says the film “extends the Graham Green adaptation curse.”

    Meanwhile, John Madden’s “The Debt” could still be in play.  Rope of Silicon’s Brad Brevet calls it “a satisfying thriller that is almost so subtle it feels like it’s based on a true story.”  He later singles out Helen Mirren’s performance as “striking,” noting that she “brings a commanding and competent presence to her character.”

    One hotly anticipated title is John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” also still seeking distribution.  Showbiz 411’s Roger Friedman Tweets that star Nicole Kidman is “back in Oscar form,” while Deadline’s Pete Hammond gets a bit more substantial, adding Dianne Wiest to the mix.  “Should it find a distributor this week and get an end-of-year berth,” he writes, “past winners Kidman and Wiest both become bonafide Oscar contenders again.”  He does warn that it could be perceived as too much of a “downer,” though.  Nathaniel Rogers does a much better job of rounding up responses at The Film Experience, though.

    (more…)

  • TIFF: ‘Hereafter’ reviews reflect split opinions but indicate a potential Oscar player

    Yesterday’s knee-jerk reactions to Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” fell in the overwhelming negative following an afternoon press screening.  At the time, I noted that festival quick takes should be taken in context and that perhaps more measured responses could tell another tale.

    Well, the embargo lifted roughly 45 minutes ago.  Variety’s Justin Chang has fired off a mostly positive assessment that admits the film’s triptych of stories comes together “creakily” and that the film is “uneven,” but he seems to be willing to cut the filmmaker a little slack by appreciating the lax approach conveying the narrative.  The film is “a beguiling blend of the audacious and the familiar,” he writes, “but is armored against risibility by its deep pockets of emotion, sly humor and matter-of-fact approach to the fantastical.”

    Screen Daily’s Mark Adams, meanwhile, calls the film “a bold change of pace” for Eastwood, praising him for not “resort[ing] to any clever editing to tell the three parallel stories…those interested in a shrewdly made and well-scripted drama about loss and compassion will be intrigued and impressed.”

    (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…)

  • VENICE: Arrivederci, and notes on the winners

    (Updated list of Venice award winners here.)

    If you were on the Lido to the bitter end of the festival — and closing with “The Tempest” made it a very bitter end indeed — last night’s Golden Lion win for Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” didn’t come as the shock it did to everyone else. In the closing days of the festival, a Chinese-whispers style rumor started circulating that Quentin Tarantino and many of his fellow jurors were besotted with the film from the get-go; at Friday night’s party for Tom Tykwer’s “Drei,” word that Coppola had been asked to stay in town for the awards ceremony spread fast. (I tweeted as much — don’t say I left you out of the loop.)

    But even if some of us got wind of it earlier than others, the news was still surprising when it landed. On the one hand, Venice has long been more receptive to more mainstream arthouse names than Cannes or Berlin — recent winners of the top prize include Darren Aronofsky, Ang Lee (twice) and Mike Leigh. On the other, “Somewhere,” which screened on the festival’s third day, didn’t seem to have much staying power in the critical mindset: I appreciated the film more than most, but the general consensus was that it was a likeable marking-time effort that seemed more likely to be recognized for Stephen Dorff’s breakout performance than the filmmaking itself.

    (more…)

  • TIFF: ‘Conspirator,’ ‘Everything Must Go’ bow, praise for ‘Dagenham’

    More from Toronto tonight, so let’s dive in…

    Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” bowed this evening at a packed gala screening.  At Hollywood News, Sean O’Connell brings up the already-getting-tired 9/11 parallels (which started with Patrick Goldstein earlier).  He calls Redford’s casting decisions “questionable” but considers the film “a solid effort, a compelling legal drama and a determined character study that will please students of American history, modern and otherwise.”

    The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt says it “feels like a television film” but that Redford “does a good job in developing the drama” and “the film largely rests on a character played with considerable emotional energy by James McAvoy.”  It’s a measured approval, in any case.  The film is still seeking domestic distribution.

    (more…)

  • TIFF: ‘Passion Play’ inspires vitriol, ‘127 Hours’ keeps it steady, Estevez/Sheen back again, ‘Dagenham’ screens

    Moving along at Toronto, it seems Mitch Glazer’s “Passion Play,” which was as much for the director since he spent 20 years trying to get it made, was hung right out to dry and that Mickey Rourke can be knocked off of anyone’s list of awards hopefuls.

    David Poland calls the film “epically bad” and even suggests that the potential for a Megan Fox nude scene was probably the only thing keeping people from walking out.  Cinematical and eFilmCritic’s Erik Childress did just that, however.  He couldn’t take it.  Meanwhile, at Voice Film, Karina Longworth says “it’s hard to imagine that anyone will take [the film] nearly as seriously as it takes itself.”  What can you say?  It’s never a happy moment when someone works so hard at something so quickly and summarily dismissed.

    On the other end of the spectrum, Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours, continues to be welcomed with open arms.  Filmmaker Magazine called it “typically bravura filmmaking from Boyle. Both a celebration and a critique of solitude.”  MTV’s Josh Horowitz says it’s “an emotional wallop,” the LA Times’ Steven Zeitchik thinks it “elevated far above [a] typical rescue story by Boyle’s eye for detail and strategically deployed flash” and The Playlist’s Kevin Jagernath calls it “one of the best films of the year.”

    (more…)

  • TIFF: ‘Hereafter’ underwhelms, ‘Let Me In’ bests original?

    I’ve been hearing for a couple of months now that Matt Reeves’s “Let Me In” is as good if not better than Tomas Alfredson’s original film (and a top 10 effort in my book), “Let the Right One In.” I won’t see it for another week or so, but early word out of Toronto dovetails with what I’ve been hearing.

    Jeffrey Wells says the film is “at least as good” as the original and that it is “carefully copied with a meticulous, unhurried, highly absorbing style.”  In fact, he eventually admits he liked it better this time around, largely because he was more impressed with Chloe Moretz than with Lina Leandersson.  MTV’s Josh Horowitz, meanwhile, Tweets, “It’s breathtaking and yes I think it’s better than the original.”  Variety’s Peter Debruge concurs, offering that the film “commands respect for not dumbing things down, offering classy, ‘Sixth Sense’-style crossover potential as it lures both genre suckers and fresh blood.”  And by the way, I’ve also been hearing that Michael Giacchino’s score could be something to watch for this season.

    Elsewhere, Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” had a press screening at the festival this afternoon in what I imagine was a claustrophobic 139-seat setting.  Official reviews are embargoed until tomorrow’s public screening, but I’ve got some disheartening reactions after the jump.

    (more…)

  • VENICE: Sofia Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’ wins Golden Lion

    Festival jury president Quentin Tarantino announced that Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” was the unanimous choice for Venice’s top honor.

    The full list of festival winners (with commentary to follow later):

    Golden Lion (Best Film): “Somewhere” (review)
    Silver Lion (Best Director): Alex de la Iglesia, “A Sad Trumpet Ballad” (review)
    Special Jury Prize: “Essential Killing” (review)
    Coppa Volpi (Best Actor): Vincent Gallo, “Essential Killing” (review)
    Coppa Volpi (Best Actress): Ariane Labed, “Attenberg” (review)
    Osella (Best Screenplay): “A Sad Trumpet Ballad” (review)

    (more…)

  • TIFF: Not so ‘Funny,’ ‘Super’ buyer interest, Redford still looking

    Things are slow moving at the start of this year’s fest.  People are catching up with press screenings of this and that, some of them Venice or Telluride or Cannes, with a few Toronto first-timers thrown in.

    Firstly, Scott Weinberg joins the dogpile on Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” by calling the film “outrageously bad” and noting that its ilk is “best left for the festival circuit — which is where we suffer through the indie-style artifice so you don’t have to.”

    The market is in full swing, particularly around James Gunn’s “Super,” which screened late last night and stirred a lot of interest.  Movieline called the Rainn Wilson starrer an “instant cult classic.”  Buyers are also reportedly showing interest in Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock” (as I imagined they would), so maybe we’ll see Andrea Riseborough popped up once again in that vacant supporting actress category shortly.

    (more…)

  • REVIEW: “The Tempest” (*)

    Venice Film Festival

    If any one title in the Shakespeare library has been sufficiently fiddled about with on screen, it’s “The Tempest,” among the most tonally malleable of his comedies, and a fantasy that gifts filmmakers with obvious opportunities for spectacle.

    “Forbidden Planet,” a terrific 1956 sci-fi riff on the play, perhaps took this adaptability furthest, but it only set the ball rolling for assorted free interpretations: Derek Jarman gave it a homoerotic spin in 1979, Paul Mazursky rewrote it as a neurotic modern-day sex comedy in 1982 and Peter Greenaway played all manner of metatextual games in 1991’s “Prospero’s Books.” At this point, about the most radical thing a filmmaker could do with “The Tempest” on screen is play it straight.

    That is evidently not a view shared by one Julie Taymor, whose murky, lunk-headed and signally boring new film tricks out Shakespeare’s text with gaudy CGI saturation, a wardrobe from “Zoolander”‘s Derelicte collection and a key sex change in the lead, as sorcerer and doting father Prospero here morphs into Helen Mirren’s Prospera, a highbrow voodoo priestess of sorts with a permanent Patty Hewes-style scowl.

    (more…)

  • TIFF: Boden/Fleck’s latest dividing audiences

    This hurts my heart.  Sure the trailer for Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” looked a bit twee, but after “Half Nelson” and “Sugar,” it’s okay to give a little slack and offer the benefit of the doubt.

    But some are walking away in outright disgust.  Tweets James Rocchi, “It’s a lazy, cliche-ridden artistic and emotional fraud that loves itself to death.”  Drew McWeeny, meanwhile, pulls no punches in his HitFix review, calling it “an agonizingly phony piece of work that struggles to be a sort of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ for teenagers, but which ends up regurgitating platitudes in place of any genuine insight or emotion.”

    Elsewhere, the AV Club’s Scott Tobias straight up calls it a “let down” while The Playlist quips, “it’s kind of a disappointment.”  And this guy lands a devastating blow: “What’s worse than a calculated sell-out? A failed attempt at same.”

    (more…)

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 31 – Searchlight’s busy season, ‘The Way Back’ and a not so brave new world for similar filmmaking, Toronto anticipations

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, a one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change on route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    Today Anne is calling from Toronto after a long journey from the Venice film festival, while I’m back home in LA following a great Telluride fest last weekend. We’re both able to talk from a more informed perspective on a number of the season’s hotly anticipated films, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

    (more…)