In Contention

Tag: Michael Fassbender

  • ‘Slumdog’ scores at BIFA Awards

    Thanks to bright-eyed, bushy-tailed commenter Silrone for pointing out that the winners of the British Independent Film Awards were announced while I was mired in technical problems.

    “Slumdog Millionaire” emerged as the evening’s big winner, taking Best British Film, Best Director and Best Newcomer for Dev Patel, though “Hunger” ran it close, also taking three prizes, including Best Actor for Michael Fassbender. I’m simultaneously surprised and unsurprised: “Slumdog” was certainly the obvious frontrunner, but the BIFAs have a history of not following the script.

    Such was the case in the Best Actress category, where “Happy-Go-Lucky”‘s seemingly unbeatable Sally Hawkins lost out to Vera Farmiga for “The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.” I’m disappointed for Hawkins, though she will have other opportunities this season. In any case, I’m quite pleased to see some credit for Farmiga, my admiration for whom I recently expressed on these pages.

    Meanwhile, “Happy-Go-Lucky” was rewarded with well-deserved victories for supporting stars Eddie Marsan and Alexis Zegerman, while my fellow “In Bruges” fans will be pleased to see Martin McDonagh took home some hardware for his writing.

    Incidentally, I scored 7/13 in my predictions. Poor form — hopefully it’s all up from here. Full list of winners below the cut.

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  • Will BAFTA stick by their own?

    I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the BAFTA Awards. On the one hand, they can be far more daring and playful in their choices than the American Academy — this is an organisation, after all, that has handed their Best Film award to such enduring works as “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “GoodFellas” and “Lacombe, Lucien,” while nominating the Oscar-snubbed likes of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Usual Suspects.”

    Their technical awards are invariably more imaginatively awarded, too — take a look at their Best Film Editing category, for example, which in recent years has crowned “Eternal Sunshine,” “City of God” and “Mulholland Drive” as winners. And they can often be counted upon for gratifying upsets, as when Pedro Almodovar pushed past Sam Mendes for Best Director in 2000, or when “Trainspotting” blindsided “Sense and Sensibility” in the 1996 screenwriting race.

    For an awards show that fancies itself world-class, however, BAFTA can be infuriatingly parochial in their selections, stubbornly rewarding their own in the face of bigger, bolder competition. I doubt most of the voters could say with a straight face that “Four Weddings and a Funeral” was the very best film of 1994, nor “The Full Monty” of 1997, but they cleaned up nonetheless.

    For the last two years running, that kind of provincialism has ruled the voting, with this year’s awards looking particularly suspect. I think “Atonement” is a fine film, but handing it their top award seemed tokenistic at best, not least when the only other gong it took was for Best Art Direction.

    It’s a trend that Variety thinks could continue this year. In an article previewing the British contenders in the acting categories, they point out that Limeys have taken 16 acting BAFTAs in the last decade, compared to seven Oscars. Needless to say, they are frequently justified. It’s fair to say that this year, several British names will be cropping up in awards lists on either side of the Atlantic, and deservedly so — particularly in the Best Actress category, where thesps like Kristin Scott Thomas, Sally Hawkins and the ubiquitous Kate Winslet are all likely to figure.

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  • Italy leads the charge at European Film Awards

    Proof positive that 2008 is a banner year for Italian cinema: Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Il Divo,” both masterpieces of a very different stylistic ilk, lead all nominees for the European Film Awards, with five nominations apiece.

    Joing them in the hunt for Best European Film are “The Class” and “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which makes four of my favourite films of the year in the list. Rounding out the nominees in that category are “Waltz With Bashir” and “The Orphanage,” neither film one to be sniffed at either.

    By any standards, that’s one hell of a group — I would be very surprised if the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best Picture match that collective quality. I’d be hard pressed to pick a personal favourite, though my gut says the Italian nominees will split the vote, and the wonderful “The Class” will emerge victorious.

    Four of those six reappear in the Best European Director category, with Steve McQueen (“Hunger”) supplanting Mike Leigh as the British nominee in that race. More puzzlingly, Leigh is also absent in the Best European Screenwriter category — curious, since “Happy-Go-Lucky” strikes me as more of a writerly achievement than the nominated “Waltz With Bashir.”

    More thoughts, and a full list of nominees, after the cut.

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  • AFI FEST: ‘Hunger,’ ‘Che’

    Benicio Del Toro in CheFour days and three screenings into the 2008 AFI Fest, I’m one-for-two and looking to add to the “win” column as much as possible in the next week.  It hit me this afternoon, though, that no two films could be better suited to an introductory update from the festival, two exercises in subverting the conventions of the biopic.  One succeeds, one fails, but both maintain a certain spirit that you don’t find in the work of many filmmakers today.  And interestingly, both are set for distribution by the always courageous IFC Films.

    Let’s dive in…

    “HUNGER” (***1/2)
    Who the hell is Steve McQueen anyway?  Talk about bursting onto the scene out of nowhere — with what could have been an unfortunate namesake — and carving a spot for yourself that no one will soon dispute.  “Hunger” is one of the year’s best films, a curiously intimate dissection of the blanket, no wash and hunger protests of IRA prisoners held at HM Maze Prison in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

    Spearheaded by a committed (to say the least) performance from Michael Fassbender, the film may be the most visually dynamic effort to hit cinemas in 2008.  McQueen deservedly won the Caméra d’Or (for best first feature) at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, but a case might have been made for a technical citation for lenser Sean Bobbitt.  He captures the most mundane and intimate moments with an epic craftsman’s touch, guided no doubt by McQueen’s own preoccupation with lingering in this most uncomfortable — and unfortunate — of settings.

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  • ‘Hunger,’ ‘Bruges’ lead British Independent nominees

    The British Independent Film Awards are an odd, under-the-radar institution that frequently like to avoid the obvious and champion the underdog. Last year, for example, they bypassed the starrier likes of “Eastern Promises” and “Notes on a Scandal” to award their top prize to Anton Corbijn’s magnificent, under-rewarded “Control.” The previous year, they were even more daring: Best Film justly went to “This Is England” over “The Queen,” while Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker — gasp — lost to the unknown leads of Andrea Arnold’s “Red Road.”

    So it is this year that the nominations feature one doozy of a snub: while the top prize, Best British Independent Film, features such obvious contenders as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Hunger,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” is nowhere to be found. Ditto Best Director and Best Screenplay — the omission particularly galling when the likes of (gack) “Son of Rambow” made the cut. Did Leigh run over the voters’ dogs or something? Sanity at least prevailed in the acting categories, where Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan and the wonderful Alexis Zegerman all made the cut.

    Zegerman’s category, Best Supporting Actress, is an indication of how slim the pickings were this year: nods for the mediocre likes of Hayley Atwell in “The Duchess” and Sienna Miller in “The Edge of Love” don’t suggest a very deep pool of nominees. Meanwhile, Kristin Scott Thomas’ mention for the fun but flimsy trifle “Easy Virtue,” which I saw this morning at the Festival, is clearly an indirect nomination for her ineligible awards-bound work in “I’ve Loved You So Long.”

    Still, there’s plenty to cheer about here, not least the impressive showing for Martin McDonagh’s superb “In Bruges,” which jointly leads the field with “Hunger,” both films receiving seven nominations. The inevitability of the nominations for “Hunger” and “Slumdog Millionaire” doesn’t make them any less deserving, and “Man on Wire” is a pleasingly left-field choice in the top category.

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  • ‘Hunger’ trailer

    When I was in Belfast over the summer I went on a little tour guided by an ex-IRA guy who actually participated in the hunger strike with Bobby Sands.  In a thin year, Michael Fassbender is an Oscar contender.  Tight competition amongst the indies, though:

    By the way, why is Jeffrey Wells calling the First Showing post of the trailer “first anywhere” thing?  It’s been on YouTube for a few weeks now.  Anyway, very dynaminc looking film.

  • ‘Disgrace,’ ‘Hunger’ among other Toronto winners

    If you were remotely surprised that “Slumdog Millionaire” took the People’s Choice Award at Toronto, you’ve clearly been living under a rock for the past month. The  award is an auspicious one, having previously annointed such international Best Picture contenders as “Chariots of Fire,” “Shine,” “Life is Beautiful” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

    Whether or not the widely-predicted Best Picture nom for “Slumdog” materialises, we’re clearly going to hear the title a lot this awards season. (Not that the audience award is a guarantee of success — remember 2006’s winner “Bella?” No? Didn’t think so.)

    Looking further down the list of winners, however, I’m pleased to see recognition for two “difficult” films that I’ve been interested in for some time.

    As a devotee of South African author J.M. Coetzee, I’ve been eagerly tracking the film adaptation of his seminal novel “Disgrace,” which won the FIPRESCI (International Critics’) Prize for Special Presentations. By all accounts a measured, intelligent take on a very challenging work, the film, and leading man John Malkovich, have attracted very warm notices, including this Variety rave:

    Anchored by another marvelously quirky yet deadly serious performance from John Malkovich, and likely to be relished by the fan base of J.M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel, this is a strong, perceptive, old-school arthouse pic with solid legs in all media … Malkovich is a living symphony of tics and mannerisms in service of a profoundly self-absorbed character.

    Screen Daily was similarly enthusiastic, commending the film for its “intelligent restraint,” and going so far as to draw a comparison between Malkovich’s portrayal and Burt Lancaster’s monumental turn in “The Leopard.” David Poland loved it too, emphasising Malkovich’s “fearless, unshowy, brilliant” performance.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Indies on the march

    (from left) Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerMaybe mid-way through the Toronto Film Festival, two things are strikingly clear: Darren Aronofsky has the goods with “The Wrestler” and Danny Boyle’s streak of successful versatility at the helm continues with “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    Both films, which enjoy pre-Toronto success at Venice and Telluride respectfully, are also evidence that surprises will happen this time of year.  And with an uncharacteriztically level playing field in Toronto this year, we should be thankful they are getting a fair shake.

    One of them is set for distribution, however, while the other is waiting out a buyer.  But will “The Wrestler” find a home and see a release in 2008 or will an awards-heavy distributor pick it up and save it for a rainy day in 2009’s awards season?

    Both options are on the table, it’s just a matter of who bites first, and what they bring to the table.

    On the horizon, everyone is awaiting their post-Toronto peeks at films like “Australia,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Milk” (landing a trailer this week) and “The Soloist.”  David Fincher’s 20 minutes of footage from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” may have been caught off guard by over-zealous bloggers in Telluride, but the damage may not have been as considerable as some may have thought.

    Speaking of “The Soloist,” chatter is making its way out of the Paramount camp that Robert Downey Jr. is outstanding as LA Times columnist Steve Lopez and hopes are high for a Best Actor nomination.  And as far as “Milk” is concerned, prognosticators may have the wrong idea going in as to which supporting performance has the awards-worthy chops.  More on that at a later date.

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  • NYFF reveals full line-up

    Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerThe full schedule of the 46th annual New York Film Festival was released today.  indieWIRE has the scoop.

    The big showcase I’m looking forward to is, of course, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” (which I touched on yesterday).  But also landing in the Big Apple will be Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Che.”

    Time will tell if the latter remains distribution-less after a North American bow.  Something tells me, given Soderbergh’s tenacity, that it will.

    I’m also interested in Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” (with an “h” this time), which was a considerable favorite at this year’s Cannes fest, as well as Wong Kar-Wai’s “Ashes of Time Redux.”  Despite a personal distaste for the Chinese helmer, this project has a special something keeping my interest piqued.  Ari Folman’s Canne fave “Waltz with Bashir” will also make the trip.

    And then there is Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” a meditation on the IRA hunger strike that made Bobby Sands a national hero in Northern Ireland.  I spent a weekend in Belfast while I was overseas this summer and remember coming across a giant wall mural of Sands, part of a guided tour with one of his former compatriots who also participated in the protest.

    I’ve been hearing fantastic things about Michael Fassbender’s performance in the film.  He dropped an amount of weight that supposedly makes Christian Bale look obese in “The Machinist.”  It might be one of the lowest flying turns on the awards radar so far, and if IFC Films can spin a valiant campaign around the actor, watch out.

    Check out the full roster of NYFF titles here.  The festival begins September 26 and runs through October 12.