• The Academy finally named the producers for next year’s Oscar telecast, first-timers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic.
• All of which added weight to the speculation that Hugh Jackman might return as host.
• The Gotham Awards provided the season with its first set of nominees, though it inspired more talk for its omissions.
• Chief among those omissions: “Precious,” prompting talk of a backlash, despite generous media exposure positioning it as the one to beat.
I realize I’ve dropped the ball somewhat with my festival updates — between the to-and-fro of festival business, other writing tasks and the occasional impulse to have a personal life, a backlog longer than I care to count has accumulated of films yet to be discussed. Expect that to be partially rectified over a quieter weekend … even if I resort to “100 words or less” games.
However, once more a pair of films seen in relatively close succession demand to be reviewed together. Atom Egoyan’s “Chloe” and Catherine Corsini’s French-language “Leaving” overlap in a number of ways.
Both are slickly accessible thrillers revolving around marital infidelity, both use that as cover for a less mainstream investigation of middle-aged female sexuality, and both are anchored by formidable actresses — Julianne Moore and Kristin Scott Thomas, respectively — in full possession of their powers.
London Film Festival
With apologies to Pete Townshend, the kids are most certainly not alright.
Such is the message we seem to be gleaning from the cinema of 2009, as a vast range of unrelated titles – “Precious,” “Coraline,” “Dogtooth,” “Antichrist,” “Fish Tank,” even “An Education” – appear united in visiting the physical and/or psychological damage wrought upon children by either obliviously or maliciously neglectful parents, in some cases planting the seeds of trauma for further generations.
No film this year, however, addresses the matter with more thematic exactitude and near-scientific scrutiny than Michael Haneke’s grimly riveting “The White Ribbon,” a film which differs from the ones previously mentioned by taking an entire community, as opposed to a solitary family, as its allegorical subject. More expansive in its focus than any previous Haneke work, it nonetheless surprises with the intimacy of its gaze and the social responsibility of its treatise.
Eternally fascinated by human behaviour, yet never a director much associated with the humane – his trademark chilliness reaching new heights (or depths, if you prefer) with last year’s “Funny Games” remake, which treated its papery characters with even more diagrammatic dispassion than the 1997 original – Haneke finally marries these two approaches here, empathizing with its considerable ensemble of characters even as it dissects them.
I’m always interested to see how the more hyped Hollywood contenders for Oscar glory play in Britain, largely because there are few hard-and-fast rules for determining what will take UK critics’ (and audiences’) fancy.
Last year was a case in point: audiences here shrugged off “Milk,” while “The Wrestler” became a mini-phenomenon — though neither film offers an obvious inroad for a foreign audience. And who could have predicted that “Changeling” would find safe critical haven (not to mention a slew of BAFTA nods) with the Brits, despite receiving a kicking at home?
So I was curious to see how “Up in the Air” fared with the British press following its London premiere on Sunday, given that it’s a film with quite an American outlook. However, the universality of its recession-minded story has evidently carried through, as early reviews are uniformly warm.
• Pete Hammond joins the speculation that yesterday’s Oscarcast producer announcement bodes well for a Jackman repeat. [Notes on a Season]
• Nathaniel Rogers is awed in the presence of Tilda Swinton at the New Yorker Festival. (Where, apparently, “Michael Clayton” was never mentioned. Huh.) [Tribeca Film]
• David Poland brands the Gotham Awards “meaningless” for not trying to predict the Oscars. I despair. [The Hot Blog]
At this morning’s press screening for “An Education,” which has its UK premiere at the London Film Festival tonight, I was impressed afresh by what a layered, deceptively gentle and generally terrific little picture it is.
Some have complained that it’s a little too soft, a little too easy — though only its overly pat denouement, for me, merits any such claims — but this is a film that knows its audience, as well as how to sneak more subversive material by them, and deserves credit for its intelligence in doing so.
I’ll admit that this morning, the thought of it actually winning Best Picture crossed my mind, albeit built on a shaky pile of ifs; either way, it strikes me as a genuine Academy film, and for a change, that isn’t meant as an insult.
I’m about to head into an LFF press screening of what is possibly my most anticipated film of the year, Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.” As if my excitement levels couldn’t be any higher, The Guardian points us to this exquisite new trailer for the film. (They’re claiming it’s a world exclusive, though Trailer Addict offers a near-identical one, embedded below.)
I sense it’s a film that will merit a full review, so I hope to cobble one together by end of play today. “Hope” being the operative word.
I am presently seeing films at the London Film Festival at a greater pace than I can write them up — expect a round-up of curt (by my standards, at least) capsule reviews either later today or tomorrow.
Some films, however, demand to be reviewed in pairs, as is the case with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest, the frothy action caper “Micmacs,” and Elia Suleiman’s rather more subdued Cannes entry “The Time That Remains,” which I saw this afternoon and yesterday respectively — two polar-opposite films that nonetheless both blend naive physical comedy with a political agenda, to very different tonal effect.
“Micmacs” (**)
As a filmgoer, few things are as dispiriting as the sensation that everyone on screen is having more fun than you — and not being able to join in. Such, I regret to inform, was my experience watching the latest eccentricity from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Amélie,” “Delicatessen”), which floods the screen with inventiveness, enthusiasm and his trademark sepia-stylized visuals — special kudos to Aline Bonetto’s production design — but is so claustrophobic, and so convinced of its own charms, that the narrative is lost somewhere in the bustle.
To use the umpteenth bad aviation metaphor in connection with the film, “Up in the Air” landed in London this evening with a gala festival screening — though this time it came unaccompanied by George Clooney, who had skipped off to the Rome fest after doing double-duty at the LFF earlier this week with “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The Men Who Stare at Goats.”
(Given that “Up in the Air” is plainly his prime 2009 work, I’d have shuffled things around to ensure he could make it, but never mind.)
Given the raft of glowing notices from Telluride and Toronto — not least Kris’s own elated take — my expectations for Jason Reitman’s third film couldn’t have been any higher as I settled into the press screening this morning. And as the lights came up 100 minutes later, they’d been satisfyingly met in one sense — and left frustratingly dangling in another.
It’s been a busy weekend at the festival, but aside from “Up in the Air” — which I finally encountered this morning and will offers some thoughts on in due course — it’s also been a rather low-key one. Several films I had seen in pre-screenings made their London debut; I’ll round them up with some brief capsule reviews later.
The best film of the weekend would have been Jessica Hausner’s critical darling “Lourdes,” if I hadn’t already seen it in Venice. Happily, a pair of different French-language titles made for a most enjoyable Saturday, even if I can only make significant claims for one of them.
Viewed in succession, Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Father of My Children” and Claude Chabrol’s “Bellamy” made for a fascinating transition between two guards of French cinema: the former, low in star wattage, is the sophomore effort of 28 year-old director, while the latter marks the first collaboration between two industry titans, 79 year-old Chabrol and 60 year-old Gérard Depardieu. One, I think, has the potential to be a major arthouse hit — it might not be the one you think.
Once more, Friday’s major festival screenings covered ground I’d already trod in Venice — the day’s glossiest gala slot was reserved for “The Road” (which you know did little for me), with a less prominent early evening slot for Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” (which did rather more).
Given the current buzz levels for each film, they perhaps should have swapped places, but festival programmers can be forgiven for not knowing that in advance.
In fact, it was a crammed day for anyone hoping to catch up on the hot Venice titles, including “Life During Wartime,” “The Double Hour” and “White Material,” still my film of 2009 so far. (Friend and critic Tim Robey shares my enthusiasm for the film, claiming the LFF will have a hard time topping it. Truth.)
Hard as it was to resist giving “Material” another whirl, I took advantage of my head-start to catch a stark Swedish mood piece and two provocative Cannes winners that had been intriguing me since May, and not only because of Old Man Ebert’s proclamation that Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay” was the worst film ever screened on the Croisette. See if I agree after the cut.
• The 53rd annual London Film Festival kicked off with Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — we reviewed it here.
• Speaking of festivals, the AFI Fest unveiled its own complete lineup, with “Fox” and “A Single Man” as its bookends.
• This week’s edition of The Long Shot considered the extensive possibilities for black, gay and female filmmakers in this year’s awards race.
• With actors like Meryl Streep and Christopher Plummer straddling lead and supporting territory this year, we addressed the awards category shuffling that may lie ahead.
As if sympathetic to the fact that I’d have a pounding hangover from Wednesday’s swish opening party in Chelsea, festival organizers were kind enough to schedule a film I’d already seen, “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” for the next morning, affording me a much-needed lie-in.
Still, George Clooney’s second go-round on the LFF red carpet in as many days was the day’s major event. I already weighed in on the film at Venice, though from conversations I’ve had with others, I’m not finding many supporters for my view that the film is big, silly fun.
Anyway, missing this stop on the Clooney-London express afforded me the chance to catch up with two artier prospects that had been high on my festival priority list, one big (Gaspar Noé’s latest Cannes-endorsed provocation “Enter the Void”) and one small (Russian playwright Vassily Sigarev’s filmmaking debut “Wolfy”). Guess which one was the keeper.
“Enter the Void” (**)
Back in 2002, more column inches were spent on two isolated scenes — an agonizing rape sequence and that fire-extinguisher bludgeoning — than the whole of Gaspar Noé’s “Irréversible,” but amid the shrill cries of the moral police, the film arguably received insufficient credit for its thoughtfulness (and structural verve) in probing and evaluating the way we respond to onscreen violence. An astonishing technical feat by any measure, it was that rare film that revealed something of the viewer to himself, albeit in an unpleasant fashion.
London Film Festival
Rather like two well-matched friends that one sets up on a failed blind date, Roald Dahl and Hollywood really ought to have got along better over the years. Taken at face value, Dahl’s rightly beloved children’s books should be a cinch to film: the concepts are high, the imagery vivid, the storytelling swift and snappy.
Yet for all these virtues, and for no lack of trying on Hollywood’s part, a stone-cold classic filmization of one of his novels still awaits us. Some stand by Mel Stuart’s irony-deficient “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”; others will put in a word for Henry Selick’s vividly textured but emotionally inert take on “James and the Giant Peach.” No filmmaker has exhibited more understanding of Dahl’s cruel streak than Nicolas Roeg, but his largely dazzling “The Witches” still loses its nerve in the final reel with a facile ending.
Though the men share a broad eccentricity, Wes Anderson’s fey, faintly solipsistic creative touch once more seems a less-than-perfect match for the nastier, more arch sensibility of Dahl – and there are a few glib missteps in his otherwise appealingly ragged riff on “Fantastic Mr. Fox” that show up the disconnect.
But Anderson has at least been savvy in picking one of Dahl’s youngest-skewing, most sweet-natured narratives for his first ever adaptation. The brevity and elemental simplicity of the book’s survival-themed tale provides a lot more room for Anderson’s trademark affectations and diversions – be it the familiar 1970s-style duds or a jangly nonsense ditty from Jarvis Cocker – than Dahl’s later, darker work would.
(Apologies for the “Fantastic Mr. Fox” review that appeared prematurely here as a result of embargo confusion. It will be reposted later today.)
There may have been silence on my end these past few days, but I assure you it hasn’t been for lack of activity. The days leading up to the London Film Festival — which officially kicks off tonight with the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — have been crammed with press screenings and assorted admin duties.
Yesterday, meanwhile, was given over to the film’s extraordinarily elaborate, and most enjoyable, press junket, staged across a range of picturesque locations in Roald Dahl’s home village of Great Missenden, an hour’s train ride from London. (More on that later.) Fox has spared no effort or expense in the launch for this unusual film, which culminates tonight with the LFF Opening Gala party at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea.
• After a quiet week for awards news, this week’s Off the Carpet column contemplated the depth of the Best Actress race.
• A topic that Kris and Anne also debated in this week’s episode of Oscar Talk.
• Speaking of Best Actress, “An Education,” with its nomination-bound performance by Carey Mulligan, finally hit theaters this week.
• And speaking of Mulligan, she placed highly in our list of the Top 10 actors under 30.
I mentioned recently that the London Film Festival is upping its profile by adding a couple of new awards to its roster, including a crowning Best Film prize. This, I felt, was a positive development for a festival that becomes a richer, more rewarding cinematic showcase by the year. However, I must admit to being disappointed by the conservative approach they’ve taken to their new premier prize.
Festival director Sandra Hebron yesterday unveiled a shortlist of nine contenders for the inaugural Best Film award, and a mostly familiar bunch of titles it is:
“Balibo” (Robert Connolly)
“Bright Star” (Jane Campion)
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Wes Anderson)
“Micmacs” (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
“Nowhere Boy” (Sam Taylor-Wood)
“A Prophet” (Jacques Audiard)
“The Road” (John Hillcoat)
“A Serious Man” (Joel and Ethan Coen)
“The White Ribbon” (Michael Haneke)
Throughout this week, I’ve been attending advance press screenings for the upcoming London Film Festival — a handy bonus the organizers provide to give journalists some breathing room when the fest actually begins.
I’ll get to writing up the films once festival business actually begins on the 14th, but after watching “Eccentricities of a Blonde Haired Girl,” the latest from Portuguese veteran (and I mean veteran) Manoel de Oliveira, I felt compelled to mention my sheer astonishment at the man’s achievement.
The film itself — which went down well recently at the NYFF, if indieWIRE’s critics’ poll is any indication — is a beguiling curio, but the real story here is that de Oliveira, who made his first feature in 1942, will be 101 years old in December.
100 years old, folks. And he’s busy working on his next feature as we speak. That someone is out there making films at all at his age is laudable enough. That he’s making good ones is nothing short of heroic. Has any other filmmaker stayed active that long? Is this a record? Any helpful geeks out there with the numbers to hand?