In Contention

Tag: Hugo

  • OFF THE CARPET: Strong year for double-dippers

    We find ourselves right in the middle of the big Toronto press junket, er, film festival, where 200-plus films are landing, many of them as world premieres, and the landscape of this year’s Oscar race is really beginning to take shape.

    As I looked out at the various films in play this year, it suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps more than ever, there are a lot of double-dipping actors and actresses in the hunt. Not all of these performances are or will be awards bait necessarily, but there could still be cases for more than a few saddling up to dual nominations this year.

    At the top of that list would have to be Brad Pitt. After already giving what many believed to be his best performance to date in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” the paparazzi-hounded star found himself the recipient of a lot of great ink for his work in “Moneyball” when it screened in Toronto at the end of the week. Wisely, Fox Searchlight will be planning a supporting actor push for the actor in Malick’s film, which is both practical (given his clear lead in the other film), and organic (given that, at least in my opinion, he is supporting to Hunter McCracken’s lead in “The Tree of Life”).

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  • ‘Hugo’ trailer

    Annnnddd…another trailer. This one for the hotly anticipated “Hugo,” from Martin Scorsese. And a film that really should have had some sort of presence at Comic-Con, I think, especially with folks like Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg making the trip. It just would’ve been a treat. In any case, some have awards doubts on this one due to the children’s movie aspect, but I’m not sure that’s real cause to doubt just yet. One thing we can certainly tell by the trailer, which just hit Apple, is that the design elements are off the chain. I can’t wait to see this one in 3D, and I don’t say that often (if ever). Check out the trailer by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: The year of The Beard?

    It felt really good to duck out of the looking-ahead business after last year’s fairly contentious (both amongst the films and their supporters) Oscar season. I didn’t saddle up to the upcoming season until a few weeks ago, hammering out preparations for this column, and even this, most would tell you, is too early.

    But at the start of July, in the midst of an interesting (critically speaking) summer movie season, and with half the year behind us, it seems a decent time to take stock of 2011’s Oscar business. And Disney may have gotten the conversation going just in time with last week’s debut of the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse.”

    With the influx of film awards coverage this last decade, Oscar strategists have switched gears in how they campaign for the gold. With a cycle that chews and chews and chews on whatever is available to digest, being the early frontrunner has become the kiss of death. Films like “The Aviator,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Dreamgirls,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Up in the Air” failed to reach the winner’s circle in recent years after being hailed as tough cookies early on. Some of them put up better fights than others, some of them didn’t even manage to rise up to a nomination, but all of them looked formidable at one point or another before having their legs knocked out from underneath them.

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