In Contention

Tag: Kevin Bacon

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 40 — ‘The Fighter’ and ‘Black Swan’ hit AFI Fest, a riskless Hollywood and previewing the Governors Awards

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your 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 en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    AFI Fest has concluded, the first Academy Award ceremony of the year hits this weekend and we find ourselves in the thick of things. Between Galas, premieres, parties and the usual, there’s plenty to chew on, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • Kevin Bacon to receive BFCA’s Joel Siegel Award

    Kevin BaconThe press release, in part:

    The Broadcast Film Critics Associa tion (BFCA) announced today that renowned actor and philanthropist Kevin Bacon will be presented with the third annual Joel Siegel Award by Meryl Streep at the 15th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. The ceremony, hosted by Kristin Chenoweth, will air live on VH1 Friday, January 15, 2010 at 9:00 PM ET/PT

    Given annually, this special award pays homage to beloved “Good Morning America” film critic and BFCA member Joel Siegel, who lost his long struggle with cancer in June, 2007.

    Kevin Bacon is one of the foremost actors of his generation and has starred in over 50 films. His talent for balancing starring roles with powerful supporting characters on both film and stage has allowed him to build a varied and critically acclaimed body of work. Kevin has proven his talents in a wide range of film genres from action thrillers to romantic comedies to heavy dramas, and even the occasional musical. Kevin most recently starred in “Taking Chance” for which he received Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations.

  • The Great Performances: 2004

    Paul Giamatti in SidewaysIn Alexander Payne’s “Sideways,” Paul Giamatti gave the best performance by an actor in 2004, so said the New York Film Critics Circle, and how right they were.  So why, why, why was the actor denied an Oscar nomination?  Granted, it was a strong year, but his work was at the top of that heap and that snub was one of the biggest shocks of the year.

    Here was a man giving perhaps the finest performance in a comedic film since Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie.” His co-stars go were recognized, save for the equally deserving Sandra Oh, but the leading man, around whose performance the film stands, is snubbed.  All I can remember saying is: “Wow.”

    Certainly Jamie Foxx deserved the attention he received for “Ray” and Leonardo DiCaprio was astonishing in “The Aviator,” even though he drew some criticism for before too youthful in the role. Rubbish, I thought.  He was superb, inhabiting Howard Hughes as he must have been in those days, brash, cocky, wealthy and willing to do anything that interested him.

    Clint Eastwood was terrific in “Million Dollar Baby,” while Jim Carrey gave a wonderful performance in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” — a marvelous piece of acting, in fact.  Equally fine, and dark, was Kevin Bacon as a pedophile struggling to start anew in “The Woodsman,” which was one of the most daring American films in a long time.

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  • The Great Performances: 1995

    (from left) Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison CountyBased on some of the comments I received last week regarding my article on great acting, I took the suggestion of a young lady and am kicking off a series of articles, one per week, that will explore the best performances ofeach year, beginning today with 1995.  So let’s go back and work our way towards 2008 and discover the great film performances we know about, and maybe a few we do not.

    The Academy did a pretty fine job in 1995 when it came to the acting nominees.  Sure there was some shock when John Travolta was snubbed for his superb work in “Get Shorty,” and those hoping for a three-peat with Tom Hanks missed it when the actor was not nominated for his solid work in “Apollo 13.” I personally would like to have seen Clint Eastwood nominated for his wonderful work in “The Bridges of Madison County,” but there are just five slots open, and so many fine pieces of acting.

    One could also argue for Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, both excellent in David Fincher’s “Seven,” or Bruce Willis, who was nobly brilliant in “Twelve Monkeys,” and perhaps even Jack Nicholson in “The Crossing Guard.”

    Nobody could argue with Nicolas Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas,” Sean Penn in “Dead Man Walking” or Anthony Hopkins for “Nixon” as Best Actor nominees.  And frankly I believe Penn gave the best performance of the year, one for the ages in fact. However, Richard Dreyfuss in “Mr. Holland’s Opus?” Seriously?  I love Dreyfuss and I think he’s even been short-changed in the past, but come one.  He does fine work and it’s not his fault the script asks him to be mushy and sentimental, but I have struggled with his nomination over Hanks, Travolta and Eastwood for many years.

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  • On acting

    Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black PearlWhat constitutes a great performance?  What makes it something that puts it head and shoulders above the rest?  What does an artist do to go to that level of art and achieve something that is both extraordinary and rare?

    Does the Academy, or rather the branch that nominates the actors, look as closely at performance as critics do?  Is a performance considered great because it is an Oscar-winning piece of acting or nominated for one of the acting prizes?

    An actor reads a script and likes both the character he or she is being offered and the story on the page. The actor accepts, and begins (we hope) work on the character.  A year or so later, after shooting and cutting the film, on the screen in front of us the actor’s work will be seen and judged, commented on, praised, perhaps showered with accolades or negative comments, perhaps winning an Oscar or a Razzie, maybe becoming discussed for years to come, or forgotten moments after seeing it.

    I doubt, seriously, that an actor accepts a role with any of that in mind. Perhaps I am overly idealistic, but I hope actors accept roles because they are trying (always) to evolve as an artist, to discover something different in their acting and themselves, and to do something they have never done before. Of the many actors I have interviewed over the years, most of them take a role based on something that speaks to them in the screenplay.

    Meryl Streep once told that me she seeks something that “touches my soul” while Robert Duvall looks for a character that is “real, something that will challenge me, but he has to be real.” Tom Cruise said he “likes to try different things each time out, and hopes he does the part justice”, while Hilary Swank looks “for something that speaks to me, as though the character were whispering to me.”

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  • An unkind cut

    Scarlett JohanssonPoor Scarlett Johansson can’t seem to catch a break these days. With her acting talents currently experiencing a bit of a fallow period (I’m being gentle, I’m a fan), the snark patrol have now seized on her burgeoning directorial ambitions too.

    The source of their glee is the news (a few days old, but I only saw it now) that the short film Johansson directed for the upcoming portmanteau movie “New York, I Love You” (a follow-up to 2006’s “Paris, je t’aime”) has been dropped from the thematically linked collection, which features contributions from such oddly matched talents as Fatih Akin, Natalie Portman and, uh, Brett Ratner.

    Unnamed “sources” (yeah, I’ll bet) claims it’s because the film is “unwatchable,” while others say the film — which stars Kevin Bacon as an obsessive-compulsive on a day out in Coney Island — simply doesn’t fit the project’s romantic brief. Producer Emmanuel Benbihy, meanwhile, offers this diplomatic explanation:

    The story did not specifically involve an interpersonal relationship, and it was conceptualised to be filmed in black and white – both of which were extreme departures from the other films. Scarlett presented me with an extremely compelling, albeit unconventional, narrative that appeared as though it would not necessarily conform to the overall approach of the entire collective.

    The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, citing the suffocating preciousness of the Paris instalment, thinks she’s better off out of it. I have no idea, except that I’m more curious to see another facet of Johansson’s creative personality (shoot me, I kinda liked her Tom Waits album) than Brett Ratner doing a love story. Oh well.

  • Kevin Bacon makes the rounds

    Kevin Bacon in Frost/NixonAs “Frost/Nixon” continues to pop up as a formidable guild contender this awards season, I must say, despite my personal appreciation for the effective drama, I’m a little surprised.  It isn’t the expert craftsmanship of “Slumdog Millionaire” or the creative explosion of “Synecdoche, New York,” obviously, but it is a solid, well-constructed piece of work nonetheless.  And it is apparently reaping the benefits of being one of the few films of the year that is simply easy to watch.

    Well, one of the elements from the film that stood out to me more than any other was Kevin Bacon’s subdued performance as Nixon chief-of-staff Col. Jack Brennan.  Bacon is probably the ultimate “Wall of Shame” actor for the Academy, still waiting on his first nomination despite two decades of solid, effective work.  In a sense, his career is an interesting mirror of the film he stars in this year, a fine-tuned machine that isn’t overly miraculous but is inarguable all the same.

    Bacon remains one of my all time favorite interviews.  Probably my favorite interview.  We spoke once nearly five years ago when he was campaigning for “The Woodsman,” a 2004 drama starring Bacon as a pedophile trying to cope in society that should have earned the actor more kudos than it did.  What was supposed to be a 20-minute discourse turned into nearly an hour of discussion, and for me, just a kid in college hammering out a piece for another outlet, it was the bee’s knees.  He couldn’t have been cooler or nicer, offering plenty of advice for a film school grad hoping to poke his way into the business some day.

    With that in mind, I was happy to stumble upon this Daily Telegraph interview with the actor, who hasn’t received a lot of press for his work in “Frost” this year.  Less an example of good writing from journo Nigel Farndale than a case study in letting the subject tell the story, it does a wonderful job of casting the Hollywood particulars to the periphery in favor of concentrating on Bacon the man more than Bacon the actor.

    There are plenty insightful asides regarding Bacon’s family life, his philosophy of raising children, his insistence on living away from the fray in New york, etc.  Farmdale scatters the piece with this nugget or that regarding roles in “Footloose,” “JFK,” “Mystic River” and “A Few Good Men,” but mostly, its a character study of Bacon himself.  There was, however, this interesting remark concerning his adeptness at portraying military types on the screen that I thought I’d spotlight:

    “I don’t think I could cut it in the army but, hey, it was never going to arise. I’m an actor. I play marines. I’ve had them say ‘you could do it’ and I say ‘trust me, I could not’. I don’t think I have the marine mentality.”

    He gesticulates with his fork, conducting the conversation with it. ”But I don’t question my manliness. That’s not something I struggle with. One of the fun things about being an actor is that you can put yourself in situations where you test yourself.”

    As we all do if given the chance, Farndale asks about the infamous “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” a game I should have to explain to anyone reading these words, but in case I do, click here.  Bacon’s response was inspired, I thought:

    Take me out of it and the idea of connectivity is kind of beautiful. A powerful, small world idea that says that whatever you or I are doing will affect other people down the road, for good or ill.

    It’s a great interview.  Check out the rest here.

  • My back, my aching back…thoughts on ‘Milk’ and ‘Frost’

    Sean Penn in MilkThis is why I don’t do the festival thing.  Multiple screenings back-to-back always plagues the faculties.

    Anyway, David Poland was eager to iPhone in his “First!” response on “Milk,” and while I agree with his assessment of Sean Penn’s phenomenal portrayal, I can’t share his overall enthusiasm for the film itself.

    On the whole, it’s a shame Gus Van Sant was working from such a by-the-book, greatest hits screenplay, but his creativity as a director allows the film to steer clear of some anticipated pitfalls.  I was more impressed by Josh Brolin’s work than I expected, stepping into what could have been a flat villain role and really bringing some subtlety and layers.  However brief the performance, I think it might be his best work to date.

    Additionally Emile Hirsch, who generally irritates me to know end, added a spark to the film that was pleasantly surprising.  And Harris Savides’s work on the camera, combined with the expected artistry of the editing, elevates Dustin Lance Black’s work to greater heights than it might have deserved.

    More in the way of a review later on.

    Following “Milk” up with “Frost/Nixon” was interesting to say the least.  It’s liberal rah-rahing of a different sort, and I confess I liked the film more than our own Guy Lodge did.  It lags in the first two and a half acts, struggling to find an element that could bring something more to Peter Morgan’s stage play.  When it finds the respect for Nixon that it needs, the film finally understands its own potential.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 actors who need a nomination, stat!

    Kevin Bacon in Mystic RiverA couple of weeks ago, we invited you to submit ideas for our ‘The Lists’ feature, and, true to form, the suggestions came thick, fast and occasionally puzzling. (The Ten Best Bond Actors, for example, would require a couple of rather inventive entries. But hey, we like challenges.) As I was sifting through the suggestions ahead of this week’s edition, I noticed that a couple of you brought up the ever-popular issue of under-rewarded performers.

    No surprise there. It’s a subject that has endless mileage because our relationship with on-screen actors is so personal and idiosyncratic — everyone has their own list of thesps who we feel that tiny bit closer to than anyone else, who we’ll watch and defend even in their lowest career troughs, and whose lack of formal recognition from the likes of the Academy is something we take very, very personally. With actors, our devotion may not always be rational (as any of my friends who I’ve dragged with me to see the latest Jennifer Aniston disappointment can attest) but it is unwavering.

    So it is that Oscar blogs are littered with impassioned posts about the overdue and the unfairly snubbed, with Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp seemingly the current patron saints of the ‘how have they not won’ brigade. But today I want to celebrate the victims of an even more fundamental oversight: The Un-nominated.

    From Buster Keaton to Dirk Bogarde, from Marilyn Monroe to Katrin Cartlidge, the list of gifted and/or iconic actors whose careers ended without so much as a single Oscar nomination is distinguished, baffling and surprisingly long. The Academy tends to ensure that most great actors get at least one bite at the cherry, even if it’s not always for their best work. (The fact that Tim Roth’s Oscar resume begins and ends with “Rob Roy” is but one embarrassing example.)

    But every now and then, for whatever reason, a worthy name continues to slip through the cracks, despite consistently doing the right work in the right films with the right people. (Just ask Mia Farrow.) For the list below, I’ve gathered 10 men and women for whom it’s not too late. All are fine, actively working actors who should have at least one — usually more — Oscar nomination by now, but thus far, the Academy has turned a blind eye. Wake up, guys.

    Steve Buscemi in Ghost World10. Steve Buscemi
    Indiewood’s go-to guy for neurotic, bug-eyed eccentrics ever since his immortal protest against being Mr Pink in “Reservoir Dogs,” and the comic high point in many an overblown Hollywood product, Buscemi’s Oscar drought is proof how slack Oscar can be in rewarding character actors. Passed over for his hilarious work in Best Picture nominee “Fargo,” he seemed to be on course for his first nod in 2001, when he picked up a slew of awards for his turn as sweet, socially inept record collector Seymour in “Ghost World.” Sadly, the Academy had other ideas.

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  • REVIEW: “Frost/Nixon” (**)

    Universal Pictures\' Frost/NixonLondon Film Festival

    For director Ron Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon” was always going to be a tricky beast to handle. A film adaptation of Morgan’s own stage play that was itself very much about the powers of television, the relationship between text, medium and audience has shifted in ways I’m not sure the film’s makers have fully accounted for.

    It is one thing to portray a momentous televisual event on the stage, where the intimacy and crackle of live human interaction allows for a very different, and rather more immediate, experience of the proceedings. It is quite another to recreate said event for  television’s closer cousin — with the legendary interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon that form the spine of the narrative widely available, the film has to recreate the spontaneous feel of history in progress, and in doing so, reveal something in a 30-year-old document that we haven’t already seen.

    It’s a tall order, and with Morgan’s script hewing closely to its source, Howard responds to it in the manner he knows best: with the most prosaic of visual aesthetics to hand, a doggedly linear approach to storytelling and the spotlight thrust squarely on a reliable pair of actors. The approach only gets him so far.  Howard’s hands-off direction makes for an oddly bloodless viewing experience, with a lot of talk standing in for any fresh perspective (or frankly, much of a perspective at all) on the events.

    To be honest, we could have seen this coming. It’s difficult to think of a director less-suited to take on the intricate, minutiae-obsessed writing of Peter Morgan than Howard — a director who, even in his finest films, has always been interested in the big picture first, with characters serving history rather than the other way round.

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