In Contention

Tag: Frost/Nixon

  • International ‘Frost’ trailer lands

    The site filmtrailer.dk (link via Awards Daily) has posted what appears to be the international trailer for Ron Howard’s upcoming “Frost/Nixon.”  No comment really.  Looks “safe,” I guess.  The meat of the thing will be the interview sequences, of course.  And we’ll see if Peter Morgan has opened the story up from the stage in a way that appeals.  I think it’s a bit dramatic to be using Clint Mansell’s “Fountain” score toward the end, though…

  • “A duel between two powerful lone wolves”

    Yeah, Opie actually called it that.  A bit much, but anyway…

    Guy already passed along the news this morning that Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” will open the 52nd annual London Film Festival on October 15.  But I also stumbled onto this preview/interview with Howard at The Times of London that offers a little more insight than the Screen International story.

    Here’s more from the director:

    Peter Morgan calls it a thinking person’s Rocky and I agree with him…I loved the audacity of the story, this famous British guy being turned down by the US networks and then cobbling together his own network to clobber the Americans with their own stick. It’s just this tremendous act of entrepreneurial courage.

    And some key lines from Ben Hoyle’s copy:

    The stage play of Frost/Nixon opened at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, London, in August 2006 before transferring to the West End and later Broadway. Howard said that he read the script early on in the initial run. When he discovered that a frantic bidding war for the film rights was already under way, “I jumped on a plane to London with my wife and went to see it.” What he found was “one of the best theatre experiences of my life”…

    Critics adored the performances but some complained that Morgan had oversimplified the story, playing fast and loose with the interview transcripts and suggesting that the interviews sealed Nixon’s ignominy in the minds of the American people…Both Morgan and Howard empha-sise that Frost/Nixon is an impression of what happened in and around the interviews, not a docudrama.

    Check out the rest here.

  • ‘Frost/Nixon’ to bow at London fest

    Good news for me and my fellow Brits: for once, we’re going to get something first. Although Ron Howard’s baity “Frost/Nixon” hasn’t been kept that tightly under wraps, confirmation has arrived that the film will have its world premiere at the 52nd London Film Festival, where it will open proceedings on October 15.

    It’s an auspicious slot, as LFF artistic director Sandra Hebron has a habit of picking successful films to kick off the fest. Previous openers include “Almost Famous,” “Gosford Park,” “Vera Drake,” “The Constant Gardener,” “The Last King of Scotland” and last year’s very London-centric “Eastern Promises.”

    As you can see, prestige films with a UK element are favoured, so the selection of Howard’s film, an adaptation of a very British stage hit, comes as no surprise. There have been a couple of misfires in the opening slot over the years (Ang Lee’s strangely forgotten “Ride With the Devil,” Jane Campion’s underrated “In the Cut”), but for now, the odds are against “Frost/Nixon” going the same way.

    Either way, it’s a nice feather in the cap for a lovely, very public-friendly festival that gets stronger with each year: last year’s dynamite lineup included “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” “Lust, Caution,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” and, in the surprise-screening slot that I was lucky enough to attend, “No Country for Old Men.” Hebron has done a brilliant job thus far; I expect her streak to continue in 2008.

  • Hammond on ‘Frost/Nixon’

    Apologies for digging up a nearly three-week old article – somehow this escaped my notice until now. Buried in Pete Hammond’s typically thorough Cannes review is this very positive aside about Ron Howard’s much-anticipated “Frost/Nixon:”

    Howard could, and probably will, find himself in competition with Eastwood in the directing category. His funny, complicated and fascinating film (we’ve seen it – it’s completed but so far avoiding the fest circuit and bypassing election season) is brilliant, even matching his Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind.”

    Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as David Frost, the man who conducts a series of TV interviews with the former president, are equally superb re-creating their Broadway and West End triumphs. Both are best actor candidates unless the studio decides to try to squeeze one or the other into supporting, which really seems unlikely. 

    I wasn’t aware that cat had been let out of the bag on that prospect, but there you go. I admit I’ve been sceptical that Howard was the right man to realize Peter Morgan’s play, but if Hammond’s views are indicative of the critical reception to come, this could be a watershed film for him.

    Hammond also echoes Kris’ prediction chart on the issue of category placement for the two leads – though if I were Michael Sheen, I’d find a way to wriggle into supporting, fast. 

  • Early predix: Nat Rogers pipes in

    So the ever-worthwhile Nathaniel Rogers at The Film Experience has joined in the predictions game – check out his thoughts here. Like many others, his list has “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” ruling the roost with eight nominations, with “Defiance,” “Doubt,” “Milk” and “Miracle at St Anna” rounding out the Best Picture list.

    The latter is a particularly interesting choice – one wonders whether the controversy-shy Academy voters will be put off by Spike Lee’s increasingly ridiculous quarrel with Clint Eastwood. Of course, January is a long way off, and if “Miracle at St Anna” turns out to be great, chances are this whole debacle will be forgotten by then. I fear it will not – but with “Changeling” not making his Best Picture list, Nat clearly sees Spike having the last laugh here.

    Elsewhere in Nat’s list, most of the usual suspects are present. I’m particularly pleased to see that he shares my faith in a Best Actress nomination for Sally Hawkins (“Happy-Go-Lucky”) – I’m going to be banging this drum all year, so get used to it. Nat, meanwhile, is evidently beginning the campaigning early for Michelle Pfeiffer in “Cheri,” going so far as to call her a “legendary actress.” I admit there won’t be any complaining from me if she finally cops a statuette.

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  • ‘Synecdoche, New York’ — another makeup contender?

    Rope of Silicon recently posted a series of stills from upcoming releases, including Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” films and Fernando Meirelles’s “Blindness.” But this image from Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” has me wondering if we don’t have another major contender for Best Makeup, a category shaping up to be more competitive than in years past.

    Here’s the pic:

    In addition to this new hopeful, I’d say there are solid bets to be placed on “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” and “Tropic Thunder.” Not a shabby start.

  • Woah…I think we have a real makeup contender

    Putting together a list of makeup contenders was a little difficult for the year-in-advance column this year. I ultimately settled on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (a film that will be integrating plenty of effects, makeup key among them), “The Other Boleyn Girl” (eh…I know) and “The Dark Knight” (maybe voters will be impressed by the effects used on Heath Ledger’s Joker and, late in the film, Aaron Eckhart’s Two-Face).

    Frankly, I didn’t see much else worth considering…until I came across this shot of Frank Langella in Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon.”

    Sure, I figured some makeup would be used on this film to bridge the gap in appearance between Langella and Richard Nixon. Certainly more than the stage production, which didn’t get too crazy, even for a theatrical performance. But I didn’t expect to find Langella completely lost under the effects. He’s unrecognizable in this, the closest shot of the actor in the film I think we’ve seen yet.

    If the film turns into a sweeper, we’ll certainly need to watch out for it here.

  • Variety sizes up the competition…again

    It looks like they’re spinning their Oscar wheels again over at that other film awards haven of mine.

    I say “again” because Justin Chang put together a very thorough year-in-advance rundown not two months ago, which was already wading further out into the waters than you’d expect from the Hollywood trade.

    This week — actually flying under my radar because I haven’t expected Oscar stuff out of Award Central in a while — it’s Pamela McClintock, eying the release date plays of various fall contenders as an angle on which to hang yet another look ahead. I came across the link via Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere.

    The usual suspects are rounded up: “Frost/Nixon,” “Revolutionary Road,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” etc. But there are a couple of new pics of note.

    For instance, I didn’t include John Hillcoat’s “The Road” (based on the Cormac McCarthy novel) on my own year-in-advance take because there was still some questiona s to whether it would be a 2008 release at the time. The Weinstein Company has it set for a Nov. 26 bow. And I also didn’t spotlight the Greg Kinnear starrer “Flash of Genius,” because quite frankly, it didn’t come up in discussions with Universal publicity brass, so I figured why bring it up? Both films are featured by McClintock.

    Anyway, the story isn’t much beyond a taking stock sort of thing, but it’s Oscarweb news nonetheless. Check it out.

  • OFF THE CARPET: 2008, a year in advance

    Another year, another set of wins…and another look ahead at what’s in store NEXT year.

    It’s never too late to take a long gander at what we might see dominating the film awards landscape in 365 days, and with that in mind, I’ve been doing my usual mulling over the possibilities for a few weeks to put together the sadly thorough examination of the 2008-09 award season that follows. Let’s get into it. There are some major considerations to take into account. right off the top.

    Like Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, who is set to be the entertainer of the year. With performances in “Body of Lies” (Ridley Scott) and “Revolutionary Road” (Sam Mendes), DiCaprio is working with a duo of awards-proven talent this year. Perhaps that will work against him, much like it did in 2006, and no major Oscar success will come knocking. But we’ll wait until we see the performances. Each of them could be enticing.

    This year’s Best Picture Oscar victor Scott Rudin is back again, by the way, with “Revolutionary Road,” recently inherited by Paramount Vantage and probably one of the true “frontrunners” this far out that we could put our finger on. The only other film in Vantage’s arsenal is Edward Zwick’s “Defiance,” which could simply be a commercial success, but might find its way to multiple nods like “The Last Samurai” and “Blood Diamond” in recent years.

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