In Contention

Tag: Frost/Nixon

  • Anderson’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ to open London Film Festival

    Fantastic Mr. FoxAs the London Film Festival grows in scale and stature by the year, its opening film becomes an ever bigger deal. Last year, they scored a massive coup by kicking off with the world premiere of “Frost/Nixon,” and I’m pleased to report that they’ve maintained that standard by landing Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” to open this year’s fest.

    The eagerly awaited animated pic will have its world premiere on 14 October, just over a week ahead of its UK release (and a full month before its Stateside bow). Its selection continues a happy friendship between Anderson and the LFF — just two years ago, “The Darjeeling Limited” closed the festival. (Here’s hoping this is a slightly more well-received selection.)

    In the press release, Anderson explains why this is the appropriate place to unveil what is, after all, a decidedly British production:

    Fantastic Mr. Fox is a British film – based on a Roald Dahl book, set in the UK, produced in the UK – and so I am especially pleased to have been invited to be the opening night movie of this year’s London Film Festival. We had a wonderful experience at the LFF with my previous film, and I am eagerly looking forward to introducing Fantastic Mr. Fox to the world in this wonderful venue.

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  • ‘Let the Right One In’ director Alfredson goes British

    Tomas AlfredsonIs a John Le Carré adaptation now some kind of rite of passage for lauded foreign directors crossing over to English-speaking audiences?

    Okay, I’m stretching. Still, it’s interesting that a few years after Fernando Meirelles made the switch with his take on Le Carré’s “The Constant Gardener,” we now have “Let the Right One In” helmer Tomas Alfredson taking on the British author’s defining work “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”

    ScreenDaily reports that UK stalwart Working Title is shepherding the first big-screen version of Le Carré’s classic espionage novel — which was very successfully adapted for TV in the 1970s, with Alec Guinness famously taking on the role of George Smiley, an elderly spy brought out of retirement to hunt an MI6 mole in the Cold War era.

    No cast has yet been announced for the film, which begins shooting next year. In something of a “Frost/Nixon” reunion, the film is being produced by Working Title heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, while Peter Morgan (also an executive producer) is on script duty.

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  • Start from scratch, Academy

    I do love a good rant about the Academy Awards. And Ryan Gilbey is, for my money, one of the sharpest, most entertaining film writers around these days. So it figures that a Gilbey-written attack on the Oscars, in the lefty political mag the New Statesman, should make for good reading.

    Gilbey cheerfully admits that he “hates” the Oscars, even as they fascinate him by “systematically disparag(ing) the creativity and alchemy of filmmaking.” And as in David Denby’s own recent rant, he dislikes all of this year’s Best Picture contenders save for “Milk,” though he still thinks Gus Van Sant’s film “pales beside” the likes of “WALL-E.” (I particularly like the accuracy with which he skewers “Frost/Nixon,” arguing that it is “built like a sitcom — every joke has its payoff in the following shot.” Bingo.)

    But he also offers some ideas for how to fix the supposedly broken machine that is the Oscars. And while some of them are typically playful and even perverse (ban Ron Howard and Meryl Streep from future nominations, he pleads), some of them (to me, at least) really make a lot of sense. I particularly like his two-birds-with-one-stone approach to rectifying the embarrassing foreign-language situation, starting by abolishing the Foreign Film category altogether:

    Scrap the only award specially designed to allow a sliver of glory to fall on cinema from other cultures. Why? Well, it’s patronising, for a start. Not quite as bad as the Best British Film Bafta, I’ll grant you, but still only a hair away from being termed The Special Needs Award For Hopeless Cases. It’s nothing short of insulting to see Laurent Cantet’s The Class and Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir consigned to this subsidiary category when there is more accomplishment in one frame of those films than in the entirety of most of this year’s Best Picture contenders. An awards system that does not consider The Class good enough to compete with Frost/Nixon or Slumdog Millionaire deserves to be a laughing stock.

    So how will foreign-language films get a look-in? Call it positive discrimination or affirmative action, but from now on, the total number of Best Picture nominees should be raised to six, of which two must come from non-English-speaking countries. There is simply no other way to redress the balance than to force Academy voters to consider films that are not being screened at the local mall. Let’s put The Reader up against Waltz With Bashir and then we’ll see some real tears from Kate Winslet.

    Good stuff. The rest here.

  • Best Actor race — shades of ’74 and ’02

    Richard Jenkins in The VisitorThe 1974 Academy Award nominees for Best Actor were Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown,” Al Pacino in “The Godfather, Part II,” Albert Finney in “Murder on the Orient Express,” Art Carney in “Harry and Tonto” and Dustin Hoffman in “Lenny.”  There had been some mild surprise that Gene Hackman had been passed over for his work in “The Conversation” and Richard Dreyfuss in”The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” but other than those minor quibbles, it was a strong field of contenders.

    Essentially it was a two-man race.  The frontrunners were clearly Nicholson and Pacino, both nominated the previous year for their work in “The Last Detail” and “Serpico,” respectively.  For his sly, slick portrayal of Los Angeles private detective JJ Gittes, Nicholson had again displayed his extraordinary range and ability to slip easily inside a character to the delight of audiences.  Pacino, meanwhle, again portrayed Michael Corleone in the sequel to “The Godfather,” moving farther down the path of power, corrupting himself totally, eventually ordering the execution of his own brother.

    Of the two actors, Nicholson had the inside track, having won the Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle award, but there was a lot of Pacino love, too.

    On Oscar night, many jaws hit the ground when the winner was television veteran Art Carney for his performance in “Harry and Tonto,” a nice little film about an old man and his cat traveling across America looking for a home. Carney was terrific in the role, no argument, but it was hardly a performance for the ages. The likely scenario, some thought, was that Nicholson and Pacino split the vote.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Come together, right now

    Dev Patel in Slumdog MillionaireAnyone ready for it to all be over?

    For me, it hasn’t been a painful Oscar season, despite what I may have let on throughout the last five months. After all, my favorite film is and has been primed for the big win since November (well, since we said it was in November…everyone soon followed suit). And for that, I can’t be agitated, can I?

    Obviously I can’t speak for the troops over on Melrose. “Slumdog Millionaire” has to be the worst thing to happen to a lot of those hard-working folks. Blood must be boiling.

    And who can blame them?  It really just sucks when the perfect storm conspires against you. Old timey Hollywood mixed with state of the art digital artistry just hasn’t been enough for industry filmgoers this season. The economy, the new president, the zeitgeist, it was all too much. Fox Searchlight finally moved out of its perennial role as underdog and became the schoolyard bully.

    Of course, it would be nothing more than an upset if “Slumdog” failed to take the prize at this point. And really, besides a scattered few, who’s predicting that with any confidence?

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  • 2/9 Oscarweb Round-up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Denby nails it

    If you saw his TV chat with Charlie Rose and A.O. Scott, you won’t be surprised to read that critic David Denby doesn’t think much of this year’s Oscar crop. (And if you didn’t, you could probably guess.) Anyway, in this very lucid New Yorker piece, he expands on the points he raised on the show, tearing apart every Best Picture nominee but “Milk,” and lamenting the exclusion of “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Rachel Getting Married.” I don’t agree with everything he says (and I do think he’s unnecessarily cynical about “Slumdog Millionaire”), but he’s bang on-target here:

    In the well-acted “Frost / Nixon,” a nice journalistic coup—David Frost’s pushing Richard Nixon into semi-confessional mode, in 1977—has been elevated to a great transformative moment in history, which, alas, it was not. These two films (“Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader”) may have been controlled more by their directors and their writers than by their studios, but they’re still the kind of middlebrow pictures that the Academy used to nominate in the bad old studio-dominated days—the contemporary equivalents of “Judgment at Nuremburg” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” They are “important” pictures that “say” something about public issues. They’re good for the industry’s image.

    Note the quotation marks. The rest here.

  • Double feature

    I believe this is what graphic designers term the “Washington-movie grid format.” Either that, or the creative well at the Universal/Working Title marketing department is running dry. It wasn’t that great the first time, guys. (EDIT: I see our friend Glenn has joined the dots too. Great minds, and all that.)

  • The Bagger finds the meaning

    There are few journalists with as sharp an understanding of the tunnel vision that affects award-season coverage as David Carr.  So it’s with a guard of irony that, in yesterday’s ruminative NYT piece, he describes this year’s race as “somehow less frivolous than it has (been) in recent years.”

    While he acknowledges the comparative slightness of the Oscars against such events as Obama’s inauguration and the global financial crisis, he feels that the awards, and more particularly, the films being awarded, have a clearer collective sense of purpose — and resonance — this year:

    Consumers who are motivated by the laurels heaped on these films to plunk down increasingly scarce disposable income will leave the movie house with the message that circumstance is just that, and no match for the indomitability of human will. The films are built on individual successes — kids from the slums who better themselves, a television celebrity who finds his inner newsman, a newborn who overcomes old age and the midlife closeted man who steps into the light — that accrue to the greater good. That message, that darkness can be overcome by individuals working for the common good, is not so distant from the current collective impulse.

    I think it’s an intelligent point, but a flawed one. Carr may refer to this year’s nominees as “the filmed stories that have captured the public’s attention,” but the fact is that, in at least two cases, they haven’t. Carr already marks “The Reader,” the gloomiest and lowest-grossing of the Best Picture nominees, as an exception to his argument, but “Frost/Nixon” hasn’t fared much better commercially. In his recent chat with Charlie Rose, David Denby astutely pointed out that Ron Howard’s film rather overstates the relevance of an event that amounts to little more than an interesting historical footnote — and its $12 million gross so far suggests the public agrees.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Welcome to phase two

    Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThe nominations and all their ghastly reality are behind us.  The first two major guilds have spoken.  “Slumdog Millionaire” continues a long, slow (too slow for Searchlight) march toward Oscar, and ironically enough, the only film to win two awards at last night’s SAG ceremony was the one a lot of people were pissed got the shaft on Thursday.

    Such is the season.

    Phase two is a different game altogether.  Everyone has renewed life.  “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader” are going to be happy to be there, while Focus and Paramount really think “Slumdog”‘s perch isn’t as water-tight as it could be.  Then again, that SAG ensemble victory had to burst one or two of thsoe balloons keeping their spirits afloat.

    The races of interest to me are lead actor, where a truly deserving Mickey Rourke goes toe-to-toe with an inarguable Sean Penn (maybe a fight to both their deaths as Frank Langella tip-toes past them and nabs the big prize?) and Best Supporting Actress, suddenly there for the taking as Kate Winslet has vacated the field in favor of dashing the hopes of the leading ladies who were all set to duke it out.

    Could Penelope Cruz (so dashing and sweet here in Santa Barbara last night) suddenly be the favorite once more?  Or is this just the moment Viola Davis has been waiting for?  Better yet, could Taraji P. Henson, probably the biggest charmer of the bunch, switch ont he after-burners and leave everyone in the dust?

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  • Guessing the weekend’s guilds

    Screen Actors Guild awardI’ve been giving my picks out to various aggregators this weekend but haven’t bothered with a post of my own.  Go figure.

    I feel like the only sure thing at the SAG is Heath Ledger’s victory in the Best Supporting Actor category, but while everyone else is banking on Sean Penn and Kate Winslet in the leading categories, I’m inclined to say Mickey Rourke and Meryl Streep will throw their respective wrenches in the works.

    Winslet is probably sitting pretty for a supporting actress victory, while I can’t think of a valid reason to be against “The Dark Knight” in the new stunt ensemble category.  So…

    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
    Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
    Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
    Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Milk”
    Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in Motion Pictures: “The Dark Knight”

    I won’t be around when the awards actually go down, but I’m sure Guy will be covering.

    (PGA thoughts after the jump.)

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  • What will win the PGA?

    Tonight, we will receive our biggest precursor pointer to date, as the Producers Guild of America becomes the first of the guilds to make its final pronouncement.

    In case you’ve forgotten, the five films vying for the PGA’s top honour are “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk,” “Slumdog Millionaire” — and the one nominee to fall foul of Oscar voters, “The Dark Knight.”

    “Slumdog Millionaire” appears to be the safest bet, even if its producer, relative newcomer Christian Colson, is less of an industry insider than his fellow nominees. (After all, the field includes such popular figures as Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, and previous winners Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks.)

    But with “Slumdog” hurtling towards all-but-inevitable victory on Oscar night, not having missed a single stop on the awards trail so far, that shouldn’t matter. It’s by far the most well-liked film in contention, as well as being a profitable indie with a scrappy-fighter backstory. I doubt the PGA will resist.

    Back when the nominees were announced at the start of the month — doesn’t that seem a long time ago? — Kris suggested that “The Dark Knight” was the “likely winner.” It made perfect sense at the time: these are producers, after all, so they value financial prowess as much as artistic achievement. (Previous PGA nominees include “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”)

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  • It’s not just the fanboys

    I had planned to write a full-blown rant about the numerous blind spots and errors of judgment in this morning’s Academy Award nominations, but at this point I’m too tired and resigned to summon up the necessary fire.

    It also occurred to me that I should take some inspiration from the character at the heart of the snub that personally pained me the most: Poppy, the eternal optimist embodied by the luminescent Sally Hawkins in arguably the year’s finest performance. When she loses her bicycle at the start of “Happy-Go-Lucky,” she laughs it off and moves onward. I suspect her reaction to this morning’s disappointing news would be much the same — as ours should be as well. It’s not life or death. It’s the Oscars.

    Nonetheless, given that I’m nowhere near as well-adjusted as Poppy is, I can’t quite let this morning’s proceedings go by without commenting on the major opportunity that the Academy sadly and short-sightedly let slip through its fingers. And yes, I am talking about “The Dark Knight.”

    As I have stated before on these pages, I’m not one of the “Dark Knight” die-hards. While a stunning feat in many areas, I thought it had some critical flaws in its narrative construction and (occasionally) its technical execution that kept it at a comfortable distance from my own list of the year’s ten best. In short, I’m not a fanboy.

    And yet, I’m dismayed that “The Dark Knight” has been denied a berth in the races for Best Picture and, even more surprisingly, Best Director.

    Why? Because I recognise that Christopher Nolan’s film represents a rare confluence — alchemy, even — of achievements that only comes along once in the bluest of moons. Here we had a populist-leaning entertainment that was formally and thematically ambitious, grandly entertaining and strikingly beautiful, a showcase for both inspired performing and the finest craftsmanship the industry had to offer.

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  • Last minute thoughts

    Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting MarriedLike I said, I’m on the record.  I’ve given some left-field choices (as have you).  But here are some lingering thoughts bouncing around inside my tired old head this evening:

    1) I think we’re going to see tomorrow, finally, that “Rachel Getting Married” is nothing more than a critical fave.  Personally, I liked it enough, but all the “one of the year’s best” talk was dubious to say the least.  A SAG ensemble nod would have kept me quiet.  Talk about a place it could have made a stand.  And that WGA snub was just one more smack by the industry, in my view.  Maybe it’s just like one voter told me: “I couldn’t stand these people.”  Anne Hathaway, step up for the film’s consolation nod.

    2) “Gran Torino,” “Gran Torino,” “Gran Torino.”  I can’t say it enough…this film is creeping up.  It’s possible it came on too late and Clint missed the timing this time out, but, like I’ve said…watch it.  Personally I think it’s a bigger threat than “The Reader.”  A bad-ass white guy kicking kids off his lawn or a porno about a sympathetic Nazi.  Which film is going to resonate more with the Academy?  You tell me.

    3) Everyone says, in varying degrees, that everything from “The Dark Knight” to “Frost/Nixon” to “Milk” are on the bubble.  But here’s a radical idea: what if the weak link is the film many have called cold and removed?  “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” sure does have a lot of guild support…but so did “Dreamgirls.”

    4) Could one of the biggest stories tomorrow be the snubbing of Brangelina?  Some think he’s out, some think she’s out…but what if they’re both out?  Eesh.

    5) Better yet, might the biggest shock of the day be a “Man on Wire” snub in the documentary feature category?  All I’m saying is films dominated by preexisting footage can struggle here sometimes.

    Then again…maybe I’m off my rocker.  But there you have it.

    I’ve only made one prediction alteration, FYI, and that’s swapping “Slumdog Millionaire” for “Quantum of Solace” in the sound editing field.  The latter was just an arbitrary choice to reflect the mixers’ feelings, but I’m thinking of a sweeper possibility there and I like the advenurous choice of “Slumdog” more than “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”  But really, that category lately?  Flip a coin.

    Enjoy the morning.

  • It’s the second movie

    When Sid Ganis and Forest Whitaker step up to the podium tomorrow morning to read the list of this year’s Best Picture nominees, I think we’re all going to be listening hard to the second movie announced.  Assuming “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is locked in (which some might argue that point believe it or not), the next film announced will be either “The Dark Knight,” “Doubt” or “Frost/Nixon.”  And if the latter happens to slide out of contention, the second movie called will be “Gran Torino.”

  • TECH SUPPORT: Final preview special, part one

    Tech Support at In ContentionFive months of Tech Support reach their climax on Thursday morning.

    This Canuck is, like the rest of the world, celebrating a new American President today. The fact remains, however, that a new set of Oscar nominees will greet us tomorrow and I can’t help but share my final thoughts on the categories.

    This is the first part of my review, including the categories of best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing and best Makeup.  We’ll chart the final five fields later today, so be sure to check back.

    Best Art Direction
    Starting with the most difficult category, there is only one film I would give the title “lock,” and it’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I’d be stunned if Donald Graham Burt’s exquisite sets failed to make the cut.

    I suspect that Michael Corenblith is a solid bet for his detailed and realistic sets for “Frost/Nixon.” If “American Gangster” could get in last year, I would surprised if Corenblith did not score, especially considering his past success when working with Howard. James Murakami also seems a solid bet for “Changeling” for what were detailed and memorable designs of 1920s Los Angeles. His guild and BAFTA nominations suggest people remember the work.

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  • Are you different?

    Okay, by now, most Oscarwatchers and prognozticators are expecting the same five titles to pop up in the Best Picture category: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    But not everyone.

    My questiont o you is, if you are predicting a DIFFERENT lineup, what is it?  I figure there are only so many combinations that can come out of the sane awards-watching universe, but I’m prepared to be surprised.  Tell us your different angle on the season.  I’m curious…

  • After finishing off the Joker, Batman may have to fend off a Nazi and a biggot on the way to Oscar

    Kate Winslet in The ReaderA week ago with the announcement of the Directors Guild Awards (DGA), it seemed Christopher Nolan and “The Dark Knight” were headed for Oscar night, with nominations for Best Picture and Best Director highly likely. But like a full balloon with a slow leak, the air is slowly hissing out as “Gran Torino” and “The Reader” seem to be gaining momentum.

    I loved “The Dark Knight.” It was, for me, the best film of the year and highly deserving of top tier nominations. Regardless of its comic roots, Nolan’s accomplishment in giving the film a heart and soul on a grand scale is even greater, and I hope the Academy sees it that way.

    “Gran Torino” has gained enormous momentum since being released wide, racking up more than $30 million at the domestic box office.  Audiences are coming in droves to see Clint back on screen.  He surrounded himself with largely or complete unknowns, amplifying is screen presence.  Very shrewd.  Audiences are going to see him, possibly for the last time, as he portrays the sort of character they love to see.

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