In Contention

Tag: Mark Ruffalo

  • ‘Margaret’ finally goes free

    And you thought “The Tree of Life” had a protracted journey to its eventual release. It’s well over two years since I first wrote about the woes of Kenneth Lonergan’s chronically delayed sophomore feature, “Margaret,” and even then, it was a stale issue. The film was shot in 2005 — long before co-producers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella passed on, long before leading lady Anna Paquin’s career was transformed by “True Blood” — and has languished in post-production purgatory (with occasional trips into legal hell) ever since.

    Indeed, the wait for “Margaret” simply to travel from set to screen has now exceeded the already frustrating five-year gap between Lonergan’s marvelous, Oscar-nominated debut, “You Can Count on Me,” and the production of his follow-up. Some blamed Lonergan’s perfectionism in the editing room, others an unruly, 168-page shooting script; whispered reports from test screenings weren’t overly encouraging. For better or worse, I had assumed by now, the film was lost to us.

    Happily, I was wrong. Making good on a brief but firm promise made a year ago, distributor Fox Searchlight has named a September 30 release date for the film.

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Supporting Actor

    Very few of the 20 actors nominated for Oscars this year (if any) feel like egregious calls. As usual, the lead actor race is the most impressive, but the Best Supporting Actor slate isn’t too shabby, either. Each performance is masterful in its own way, and each serves its respective narrative to the fullest.

    Two of the nominees this year are depictions of real life individuals and three are complete manifestations. But all five of the below actors owned their roles and then some, finding the right flow of eye-catching showmanship without dominating the narrative arc. And though some might argue, I’d say each is perfectly representative of “supporting” in the truest sense of the word.

    The nominees are:

    Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
    John Hawkes, “Winter’s Bone”
    Jeremy Renner, “The Town”
    Mark Ruffalo, “The Kids Are All Right”
    Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Nomination week

    • In case you’ve just emerged from a coma, “The King’s Speech” led the Oscar nominations on Tuesday with 12 bids.

    • “The King’s Speech” was also the surprise winner at the Producers’ Guild Awards, drastically shaking up the Best Picture race.

    • In the wake of these developments, Kris adjusted his winner predictions accordingly.

    • In a special mid-week edition of Oscar Talk, Guy and indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt joined Kris and Anne to break down the nominations.

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  • Ruffalo finally gets the nod

    Amid the assorted geeky stat-studies I made in the wake of yesterday’s Oscar nominations, I noticed that it hasn’t been a vintage year for first-time nominees in the acting categories. Of the 20 actors selected, 12 are repeat nominees — the highest number since 2002. But among the eight thesps making their Oscar debut are some very gratifying choices indeed.

    The unusually robust Best Supporting Actor category is particularly pleasing in that regard. It’s always cheering when a long-serving character actor identified by most moviegoers as “oh, that guy” finally gets the spotlight, so amid the range of reactions to yesterday’s news, I haven’t heard a single person who isn’t happy for John Hawkes — an actor who deserved more individual plaudits than he got for his 2005 lead turn in “Me and You and Everyone We Know.”

    And Christian Bale’s high-end choices and hard-graft technique placed him on many an Oscar-watcher’s “overdue” list, so I’m glad he finally got the nod for what I regard as his finest hour.

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  • ‘Social Network’ adds NYFCC to its tally

    Well, the (rather predictable) steamroller keeps on going today as “The Social Network” adds the New York Film Critics Circle to its tally of early kudos.  The question now and through the next few weeks will be, is it “L.A. Confidential?” That was the question for “The Hurt Locker” last year, though, and we know how that turned out.

    More notable, I think, is the resurgence of “The Kids Are All Right” after a small speed bump in this morning’s BFCA announcement.  The film won Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay.  Colin Firth, meanwhile, followed yesterday’s LAFCA win for Best Actor with a tip of the hat from the New York crowd, all prelude to an inevitable Oscar win come February.

    Melissa Leo also continues to have a great showing in the precursor season, as she took home the award for Best Supporting Actress.  And…wait, I’m getting bored already just writing this up.  Just have a look for yourself at The Circuit.

    [Photo: Focus Features]

  • 12/2 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Hickenlooper’s photo diary, the race’s generation gap and the ‘My Dog Tulip’ Oscar campaign

    • Anne Thompson has George Hickenlooper’s “Casino Jack” photo diary. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Patrick Goldstein writes up the “My Dog Tulip” Oscar campaign. [The Big Picture]

    • Vincent Cassel on “Black Swan,” movie overkill and the politics of selling out. [Movieline]

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  • 11/10 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Biutiful’ crew on the circuit, Hooper’s Hollywood education, Weinstein v. Rudin II

    • Anne Thompson ponders how the year’s mainstream studio pics might fare with Oscar. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Patrick Goldstein catches up with Tom Hooper and the director’s Hollywood education. [The Big Picture]

    • Steve Pond dutifully reports from a “Biutiful” post-screening Q&A with members of the crew. [The Odds]

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  • ‘Margaret’ will see light of day, says Searchlight

    Last year, I dedicated a couple of posts to the mysterious case of “Margaret,” Kenneth Lonergan’s seemingly terminally delayed follow-up to his 2000 directorial debut “You Can Count on Me.” The film, a character drama starring Anna Paquin as a traumatised witness to a bus accident, with Mark Ruffalo and Matt Damon in support, was shot in 2005 — but has been stuck in the editing suite ever since.

    Working from a vast, ambitious 168-page script, Lonergan has reportedly been unable in four years to complete a cut of the film that pleases him. (This extensive LA Times report details the financial and legal consequences of his creative blockage.) However, just as the issue had slipped from memory — with many assuming the film would never be released at all — Anne Thompson dropped this brief but encouraging update from distributor Fox Searchlight a few days ago:

    Searchlight states: “we do have a finished cut by Lonergan and we plan to release the film sometime in 2011.”

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  • COMIC-CON: Ruffalo and Renner a go for ‘Avengers’

    I’ll get to today’s Marvel’s “Avengers” presentation later tonight, but the news worth conveying is that Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner were on hand to be confirmed as Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk and Hawkeye, respectively.  The announcement was made by Robert Downey Jr., who was here with Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and director Joss Whedon, making for one hell of a photo op.  Chew on that for now.

  • Moore and Ruffalo are all right, too

    Even in the most evenly matched and mutually dependent of ensembles, it seems, some will always be deemed more equal than others. So it is with this summer’s great white indie hope, “The Kids Are All Right.” Since the film bowed at Sundance in January, all its players have been warmly received by critics — but it was Annette Bening, as the more authoritative half of a middle-aged lesbian couple, who initially emerged as the consensus standout and likely awards player.

    That’s understandable in many respects. It’s a fine performance, and arguably the film’s most surprising: Bening can be a divisively mannered actor, but this is the loosest and most spontaneous she’s yet let allowed herself to be on screen. It doesn’t hurt that, between the film’s adult characters, hers perhaps tests audience sympathies the least.

    But in what is plainly a two-lead film at the very least — for my money, there’s a convincing case to be made for Mark Ruffalo’s intruding third parent as a leading player — people shouldn’t be so hasty to hand out best-in-show ribbons.

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  • Ruffalo is back with ‘Kids’

    Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right” opened the Los Angeles Film Festival last Thursday night, right across 11th Street from the Staples Center downtown as the Lakers triumphed in Game 7 of the NBA playoffs.  No, they weren’t rioting on Figueroa because the movie’s good, but it IS a solid piece.

    I spoke briefly about it in the 6/11 edition of Oscar Talk, but on the occasion of its recent festival showcase, I wanted to again address what I think is the film’s key ingredient: Mark Ruffalo.

    For me, “The Kids Are All Right” is a return on the investment anyone put into Ruffalo 10 years ago when he first made waves in Ken Lonergan’s “You Can Count on Me.” After the actor frankly seemed incapable of tapping back into that essence for the better part of the decade, his work here makes good on the promise his charisma and raw talent made back in 2000.  Aside from Tahar Rahim’s inarguable work in Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet,” Ruffalo’s is the most refined, natural performance I’ve seen all year.

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  • REVIEW: “The Kids Are All Right” (***1/2)

    Annette Bening and Julianne More in The Kids Are All RightBerlin International Film Festival

    A spry, sun-bleached and often rather sexy study of what makes a family in modern America, “The Kids Are All Right” breezes by so pleasurably it’s easy to forget what a daring and very necessary film it is. Gift-wrapping its smart sexual politics with kicky dialogue, bright visuals and a pleasingly messy tangle of relationships, Los Angeles-born auteur Lisa Cholodenko’s fourth (and finest) feature is her most mainstream to date, but makes a virtue of those concessions.

    Since its deservedly buzzy Sundance premiere, you’ve probably already heard “The Kids Are All Right” described ad nauseum as a lesbian – or perhaps more coyly, liberal – drama. With the film having been adopted by Focus Features, who recently had success with “Brokeback Mountain” and “Milk,” it seems likely the tag will stick, particularly if award season beckons.

    But such a label, however well-intentioned, does a disservice to Cholodenko’s admirable avoidance of social tract. Rather than hectoring its audience to accept its characters as normal, this film goes one better by doing just that, and not commenting on the matter any further.

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  • ‘Winter’s Bone’ takes Sundance gold

    Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's BoneTalk about a good day for female filmmakers. Hours before Kathryn Bigelow’s history-making triumph at the DGA Awards, Debra Granik took the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (in the U.S. Dramatic strand) for her critically lauded sophomore feature “Winter’s Bone.” Granik and co-writer Anne Rosselini also took screenwriting honors for the film.

    The film is one I had highlighted last month as a title to watch, so I’m glad to see it living up to expectations. I’m an admirer of Granik’s 2004 debut “Down to the Bone,” which put Vera Farmiga on the map — hopefully, “Winter’s Bone” can similarly boost the fortunes of young Jennifer Lawrence, who so excelled in “The Burning Plain” earlier this year.

    Granik’s film stars Lawrence as a resilient teenager searching for her missing father in the Ozark Mountains. Comparisons have already been made to Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River,” which took the same award at Sundance two years ago.

    The corresponding Grand Jury Prize winner in the documentary category was Sebastien Junger and Tim Hetherington’s debut effort “Restrepo,” a chronicle of one year in the lives of the Second Platoon in Afghanistan’s deadly Korengal Valley.

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  • Ones to watch at Sundance 2010… maybe

    Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling in Blue ValentineI always get a curious thrill from looking down the list of films selected to compete at the Sundance Film Festival — the 2010 batch of which has just been announced by festival directors John Cooper and Trevor Grath.

    You know there are at least one or two titles there that we’ll all be talking about in precisely one year’s time, just as “Precious,” “An Education” and “The Cove” have blossomed from festival darlings to surefire awards contenders in the space of 11 months. What’s far harder to tell is which of the 58 titles listed here might be “the one.”

    Still, last year I played something of a guessing game with the lineup, singling out one film from each of the competition’s four strands that seemed of particular interest to me: my faith in “An Education” was, obviously, handsomely repaid, while “Big Fan” (a winner at this week’s Gotham Awards), “Afghan Star” (the UK’s foreign Oscar entry) and Doors documentary “When You’re Strange” have done respectably for themselves.

    OK, I missed “Precious” — so as far as that particular game goes, I’m going to quit while I’m behind. Still, what follows is a selection of ten titles that I’m keeping an eye on.

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  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “Shutter Island” by Dennis Lehane

    Shutter Island by Dennis LehaneDeep into Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel noir “Shutter Island,” there’s a wonderfully telling exchange between the two central characters. Reflecting on the gothic heights to which their situation has spiralled, one observes, “It’s all a bit Grand Guignol, don’t you think?” His partner’s reply: “I don’t know what the fuck that means.”

    Ostensibly a nod to class difference within the narrative, it’s also arguably a tongue-in-cheek dig at the novel’s self-reflexive straddling of high and low culture. “Shutter Island,” of course, is Grand Guignol of the highest order, but with an acute awareness of the term: steeped in references to throwaway pulp fiction and lurid 1950s B-movies, but written with the literary discipline and deference of a serious novelist.

    Needless to say, Boston-ish setting aside (and even then, “Shutter Island” goes to significant dramatic lengths to distance itself from the city), the novel is a very different beast from the two Lehane titles successfully given the screen treatment in recent years. For all their whodunnit trappings, “Gone Baby Gone” and “Mystic River” traded largely in earnest authenticity; “Shutter Island,” by contrast, hinges on artifice.

    Lehane has apparently stated his admiration for Graham Greene’s alternation between “novels” and “entertainments”: this, carefully wrought and quotation mark-enclosed as it is, is plainly his idea of a pure entertainment, a funhouse, a ride.

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  • Gorgeous ‘alternative’ poster for ‘Brothers Bloom’

    I may only be lukewarm on the film itself, but I wholeheartedly adore this poster design for “The Brothers Bloom,” which recalls (to me, at least) a 1970’s Robert Altman effort in its intricate, throwback Americana style. Dreamed up by director Rian Johnson’s cousin Zach, it seems it’s only being used for web purposes, though it captures the film’s retro preciousness a lot better than the thoroughly generic official one-sheet (pictured below the cut).

    One quibble with both posters: I realize that Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz are Oscar winners while Mark Ruffalo remains unnominated (where’s the justice in that?), but hasn’t the latter star at least earned the right to be billed above the title?

    The Brothers Bloom

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  • Sort-of-new ‘Brothers Bloom’ trailer

    Not significantly different from the one they put out way back in the mists of 2008, this one comes with not one, but two ringing critical endorsements from AICN. Make of that what you will.

    From what I remember of my now 6 month-old viewing of the film, it’s a nice enough little trifle, elevated by a sly pair of comic turns from Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz. (Adrien Brody, by contrast, looks a little uneasy with this sort of gossamer material.) And it looks terrific, with some award-level costume design in particular — but I found the film’s overriding tweeness a little oppressive.

    All of which is to say I fear it might still struggle to find an audience, so I’m unsure if it stands to benefit from being pushed back so far. We’ll know next month.

  • Posters for ‘Nothing But the Truth,’ ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’

    Yari Film Group has just released the poster art for its awards season duo, Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth” and Brian Goodman’s “What Doesn’t Kill You.”  Each of these films is struggling under the weight of big-spending studios this season, and it’s a shame.  Each contains an exemplary 2008 performance (Kate Beckinsale in “Truth” and Mark Ruffalo in “Kill”).

    I also really like the poster design.  Okay, so the “Kill” one-sheet is a clear rip-off of “The Departed,” but I still like it.  And the “Truth” poster is crisp and sophisticated, not as on-the-nose as it could have been.  Nice work overall in what has been an awful year for poster art.  Have a look:

    Nothing But the Truth and What Doesn\'t Kill You