In Contention

Tag: Milk

  • 10/29 Oscarweb Round-up

    Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road• Steven Zeitchik thinks “Frost/Nixon” will get a pass for journalist worship. [Rizky Biz Blog]

    • Bill Horberg captures the San Francisco debut of “Milk” in pics. [William Horberg]

    • Eugene Hernandez, meanwhile, reports from the scene. [indieWIRE]

    • Ditto Brad Brevet, with some nice video interviews tossed in for good measure. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Jeffrey Wells draws a correlation between Nixon’s apology in “Frost/Nixon” and the painful knowledge that we’ll probably never get the same out of our current Commander-in-Chief. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Anne Thompson gets a big thumbs up from the first long-lead screening of “Revolutionary Road.” [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Susan King runs down the upcoming AFI Fest honorees. [The Envelope]

    • Xan Brooks runs down his six favorite Bond openings. [The Guardian]

    • Patrick Kevin Day reveals the secrets of makeup wizardry on “Synecdoche, New York.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Mike Jones reports on “Adam Resurrected”‘s resurrection as an Oscar hopeful. [The Circuit]

    • Dave Karger and Missy Schwartz talk the year’s two remaining “mystery” films. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Translation: “Blah, blah, blah…WHY WON’T YOU LINK TO ME?!…blah, blah, blah.” [And the Winner is]

  • ‘Milk’ing it further

    Not to spend too much time today on “Milk” stuff, but I absolutely adored WNYC writer Nathan Lee’s closing graph of a piece written largely in response to yesterday’s unfounded media flurry over the studio strategy of publicizing the film:

    Of course no one is feeling very chill at the moment, and “Milk” is no ordinary prestige picture. Here is, after all, a movie about an intensely charismatic, rhetorically gifted community organizer who rose to power with a burden of minority status. Sound familiar? Indeed, it’s impossible to watch “Milk” and not see the Obama narrative reflected in ways that are both stirring and unnerving. Were “Milk” already in theaters and chewed over by the media, it would have been sucked into the election discourse like everything else – and likely raised the subject of political assassination in ways that no one much wants to contemplate.

    Read the rest here.  Also, Focus honcho James Schamus has written a defense against the Zeitchik piece that is certainly worth a look:

    …today has been proclaimed “Focus Features Day” by the Mayor – who clearly didn’t get The Hollywood Reporter in time to understand our underhanded, apolitical approach to marketing the film.

  • Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t trying to kill the movie

    Frank Langella in Frost/NixonFor the most part, I really enjoyed Sasha Stone’s recent “State of the Race” column at Awards Daily.  Stone’s been kicking around this beat for longer than she’d probably care to remember and she has a gift for thinking deeply about the insanity of an Oscar race.  But I think she takes the issue of “tension” this season slightly over the top by leaning a bit too heavily on the eagerly posted sentiments of a new-to-L.A. blogger trying to make his mark.

    She starts like so:

    Over at Hollywood-Elsewhere, Jeff Wells reports that both Milk and Frost/Nixon are pretty good, in his estimations.  He gives them both about an 8.5 on a scale of one to ten but says he doesn’t understand what the early impressions of Frost/Nixon were about and the so-called bad buzz he heard about Milk was also unfounded.

    She then quotes Scott Feinberg, an Oscar blogger who seemed to think people with a measured response to “Milk” had somehow lost their credibility because they didn’t leap at the hero worship of the tale and felt the film didn’t resonate as deeply as it might have.

    To begin with, it’s clear Feinberg made the comment to elevate his status a bit.  “Look, people send me tips.”  That kind of thing.  But beyond that, we’re not at the stage of rival publicists killing this film…yet.  And while I’m sure Wells understands that, I’m not sure that Feinberg does.

    Long lead press and trade features staffers made up the majority of those who’d seen “Milk” prior to yesterday’s trio of screenings in California (two for the press here in L.A. and a premiere/benefit in San Francisco).  There’s no agenda for them to convey lukewarm sentiments to the film, so to blow their reactions and their motives into something false is very irresponsible.

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  • 10/29 Oscarweb Round-up

    Frost/Nixon• Jeffrey Wells responds to yesterday’s “Frost/Nixon”/”Milk” double feature. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • David Poland gives high marks to the former… [The Hot Blog]

    • …well, and the latter as well. [The Hot Blog]

    • Mark Olsen previews the AFI Fest. [The Envelope]

    • Patrick Goldstein pokes and prods Bill Maher about a “Religulous” hater. [The Big Picture]

    • Anthony Breznican writes up “Doubt” with quotes from the director and an exclusive clip. [USA Today]

    • Recall the gold: Best Director race of 1988. [Entertainment Weekly]

  • 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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  • 10/28 Oscarweb Round-up

    Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt• Michael Cieply says “Welcome to the pop Oscars” regarding the big budget Oscar pushes this year. [New York Times]

    • Tom O’Neil reports that the two biggest stars in “Doubt” won’t be at the AFI world premiere on Thursday. [Gold Derby]

    • Patrick Goldstein wonders why Oscar consistently shies away from the funny bone. [The Big Picture]

    • A chat with “Dear Zachary” director Kurt Kuenne. [indieWIRE]

    • Nicholas Lezard comments on Gus Van Sant’s potential adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” [The Guardian]

    • Anthony Breznican profiles Elizabeth Banks and her star-making year. [USA Today]

  • No Oscar update this week

    Screenings of “Milk,” “Frost/Nixon” and “Doubt” are happening this week.  Rather than take a final blind stab at placing those contenders in the landscape of awards season, I thought I’d hold off a week and take my own counsel after I see the highly anticipated trio.

    Feel free to use this space to give us your own prognosticative thoughts.

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Art Direction — Volume One

    Tech Support at In ContentionThe Academy Award for Best Art Direction is somewhat of an odd category in that the art director does not actually receive a nomination or statuette.  Rather, the award is given to two individuals with unique roles in the crafting of a film’s sets.  The production designer heads up the entire art department, specifically in charge of set creation and design. The award also recognizes the set decorator, responsible for filling in the sets with details and dressing to bring them to life.

    Much like he costume designers, this branch tends to favor period and fantasy work, surely because such sets naturally draw attention to themselves.  It does tend, however, to be more kind to fantasy than the branch’s costume designing colleagues. It also usually prefers grandiose work and large-scale set pieces.

    Just as I believe is the case in Best Costume Design, Catherine Martin might be leading the way for “Australia” here this year. Martin, who won this category for “Moulin Rouge!” in 2001 and was also nominated for “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” five years earlier, will have the opportunity to create the interiors – and exteriors – of a rugged Australian outback filled with hubby Baz Lurhmann’s distinct vision.

    Donald Graham Burt has fashioned numerous contemporary films, or films set in the relatively recent past, in his career to date. With “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” he has the opportunity to visually wow us through eight decades of 20th century. The film, at the least, should be visually spectacular so I suspect Burt is looking extremely good for a nomination.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Holding back

    Meryl Streep in SoubtEvery Oscar season is about managing expectations. Studios, of course, want to keep the murmurs to a minimum whether they have the goods or not because the peril of peaking too early is just as bad as the sting of negative word-of-mouth. Similarly, being “the one to beat” sets a film up to rise to an unfair occasion rather than coming to the table fresh.

    Holding back is a tradition and is even one of two philosophies on the awards season sell. There are those who’ll tell you that, if you have a great movie, you should show it and show it proudly. The other side of the equation believes in the manipulation of when and where opinion will trickle out. It seems every year a train wreck of sorts occurs, and this year, that train wreck was obviously “Frost/Nixon.”

    After landing in London to some mediocre reviews (no one at this site, by the way, ever said the film was bombing with critics across the board), should Universal Pictures have been particularly surprised? Ron Howard, America’s white-bread filmmaking standard exhibiting to the chilly British disposition? It wasn’t going to be a rapturous reception, and with the film having been completed for months on end, holding back until the London festival to give anyone a sanctioned peek raised eyebrows long ago.

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  • ‘Ballast’ tops list of Gotham Indie award nominees

    BallastThe Gotham Independent Film Award nominees have been announced (note the change in moniker this year), and Lance Hammer’s Mississippi drama “Ballast” leads the pack with four nominations.  Six films received two nominations apiece, including Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” and Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

    One film that might have popped up had it been eligible was Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” but the film was not ready to screen for IFP in time.

    These are the first set of film awards nominations of the 2008 season, kicking off the campaigns for more than a few potential Oscar contenders, including actresses Rosemarie DeWitt, Melissa Leo and Rebecca Hall, each of them nominated in the Breakthrough Actor category.  The documentary race also includes a number of Oscar hopefuls, “Man on Wire,” “Trouble the Water” and “Encounters at the End of the World” among them.

    The frontrunner at this point is probably the bread-winner of the nomiantions process: “Ballast.”  But I have a feeling “The Visitor” could spark enough support to surprise in the end.  Also nominated for Best Feature is Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” the film’s only mention.

    The awards will be held on Tuesday Decmber 2 at New York’s Cipriani Wall Street.

    (Full list of nominees after the jump.)

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  • 10/16 Oscarweb Round-up

    Tim Burton• Patrick Kevin Day gets some choice words from costumer Jacqueline Durran about the shoot-from-the-hip nature of working with Mike Leigh. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Tim Burton is too busy to see “The Dark Knight.” [Hero Complex]

    • Josh Brolin was initially insulted at the offer to play George W. Bush. [USA Today]

    • Shock of shocks: the kooks depicted in “Religulous” are pissed. [CNN]

    • Erik Lundegaard charts Presdential depictions through cinematic history. [MSNBC]

    • Even though they were staying at the Hilton across the street from the Ziegfeld, John McCain and Sarah Palin declined Oliver Stone’s invitation to the Gotham premiere of “W.” [New York Daily News]

    • Michael Cieply writes up a nice preview of Gus Van Sant’s “Milk.” [New York Times]

    • In honor of Don Cheadle stepping in for Terrence Howard on “Iron Man 2,” the top 13 character switcheroos.  Word up on #2. [Premiere]

  • 10/13 Oscarweb Round-up

    Marc Forster• Robert Abele gets Josh Brolin to reveal his inner ‘W.’ [The Envelope]

    • Tom O’Neil gnaws on the Oscar potential of Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married.” [Gold Derby]

    • Peter bart makes a lot of presumptions and assumptions about the craven mentality of duel performers in a given Oscar season. [Peter Bart]

    • Vulture kicks off this year’s Oscar Futures with pro on “Milk,” con on “W.” [Vulture]

    • Alonso Duralde studies the work of Leonardo DiCaprio as “Body of Lies” releases into cinemas. [MSNBC]

    • Brad Brevet does the same, but draws the conclusion that DiCaprio has never quite hit it out of the park. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Scott Bowles, meanwhile, draws up an obit on the box office performance of “Body of Lies.” [USA Today]

    • Jeff Dawson goes in depth with “Quantum of Solace” helmer Marc Forster. [The Times]

    • Lauren Schuker digs into the global investments on Oliver Stone’s “W.” [Wall Street Journal]

    • Larry Charles chooses his 28 most subversive comedians. [Entertainment Weekly]

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Costume Design — Volume One

    Tech Support at In ContentionThe Academy Award for Best Costume Design recognizes, shock of shocks, the clothes and accessories worn by actors in a film.  Clothing can add to the story and express the nature and situation of the characters who wear them.

    If a single word could be used to describe this category, it would be “period.”  31 of the 40 nominees here this decade were period pieces.  This is not altogether surprising.  Period clothes automatically draw attention by not being the sort of fashion we see every day on the street and require the costume designer to accurately portray the time in which the film takes place.

    The nominations two years ago “The Queen” and “The Devil Wears Prada” were refreshing in my opinion but extremely rare, being the first contemporary nominees in a dozen years.  Admittedly, fantasy films occasionally find a home here as well.  Seven nominees this decade fit that mold.  But even so, there is usually only one –- and never more than two –- spots available for non-period films in this category.

    This is also an arena that tends to reward many familiar faces.  In a typical year, only one or two of the nominees are first-timers, while many designers are (usually deservedly) seen year after year.  This trend has occasionally resulted in some films one would never expect to find in the awards race landing the label “Oscar nominee.”

    Catherine Martin might be leading the way this year.  She won this category seven years ago, the last time both she –- and her husband/director Baz Lurhmann -– worked.  That film was “Moulin Rouge!” and its design elements were fantastic.  Again doubling as a production designer on “Australia” this year, Martin will fashion the world of a Briton coming to a strange historical land, filled, as always, with Lurhmann’s bordering-on-fantastical elements.  The design opportunities should once again be amazing and I’d be quite surprised if Martin failed to make the cut.

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  • More buzz for Brolin

    The mixed notices for Oliver Stone’s “W.” — some of which seem to be simultaneously admiring and bewildered — make it quite clear that the film isn’t going to be a player in the top categories. But we pretty much knew that all along.

    Josh Brolin’s performance, however, is another story altogether. After the stunning breakthrough that he’s had in the past year, playing an incumbent president — and a widely-loathed one at that — in a film by an off-the-boil director might not have seemed the safest career move.

    But the gamble appears to have paid off: whatever the ultimate fate of the film, Brolin’s interpretation of Bush has been widely hailed as a courageous and accomplished addition to an increasingly interesting filmography. Naturally, Oscar talk is swirling, and Screen International’s review minces no words on the matter:

    A wonderfully brash and fearless performance … If the film itself fails to figure in the year-end awards shortlists, Brolin must surely be considered a likely best actor nominee. Wholly immersing himself in the part, he doesn’t imitate the president so much as breathe human complexity into him. Rudderless and restless as a young man, Brolin nonetheless plays him as a likeable enough fellow, a harmless jock, attractive to women and tortured by his father’s expectations. As a president, Brolin plays him as a man of some intelligence, even if his arrogance and machismo are on full ugly display.

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  • 10/8 Oscarweb Round-up

    Angelina Jolie in Changeling• Tom O’Neil wonders if Bill Maher can cure his Emmy drought with an Oscar instead. [Gold Derby]

    • Patrick Goldstein calls ‘W.’ a “mess,” confirming my worst fears… [The Big Picture]

    • Erica Abeel corners Mike Leigh at the New York fest. [indieWIRE]

    • Bill Murray talks “City of Ember,” his divorce. [Associated Press]

    • Stephen Holden thinks “Changeling” and “The Wrestler” are “shameless Oscar bait.” [New York Times]

    • Oscar-winner Faye Dunaway talks to Xan Brooks about her work in a new indie. [The Guardian]

    • Tom Wilkinson, the actor who does it all. [USA Today]

    • Jeffrey Wells continues to pass along the good “Milk” word second hand. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Variety’s Peter bart is blogging again after a week’s drought.  Call off the search party. [Peter Bart]

    • Glenn Kenny paid to see “An American Carol.” [Some Came Running]

  • OFF THE CARPET: Who we are, who we want to be

    (from left) Josh Brolin and Toby Jones in W.In the last few weeks, drama has persisted in the yet-to-be-heated Oscar season.  Producers are debating exhibitors in public and mid-summer opinions of awards-caliber product are being revisited — in some cases disavowed — as more and more viewers get their peeks.

    On the positive side, two studios have launched the screener circuit with indie films they hope can muster some remembrance, while the foreign film news bite barrage has come to a close with the qualification deadline.  But there isn’t much to go on in terms of assessing the season, not a lot in the way of tangible grist for the mill.

    Lots of smoke, very little fire.

    In part, that should explain a lack of predictions updates here at In Contention, shifting and sliding for no reason.  And indeed, this week’s update isn’t a massive overhaul — or even an overhaul — beyond putting a few things into context here, trimming the fat there.  But as I set out to update our projections this week, I became more and more aware of 2008’s striking theme of self-reflection this Oscar season.  And hey, it seemed as good an idea for a column as any.

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  • 9/30 Oscarweb Round-up

    Mickey Rourke• Mark Olsen reports on the first U.S. screening of German foreign film Oscar entry “The Baader-Meinhof Complex.” [The Big Picture]

    • Jeffrey Wells passes along a note from an exhibitor acquaintance who thinks “Milk” is a home run, but “Frost/Nixon” is a bit stale. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Then he picks the five likely Best Picture nominees, based on the criteria of stories involving journey and redemption. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • In a truly tasteless display, Elizabeth Snead makes wise cracks alongside 28 photos of Mickey Rourke’s more bizarre fashion decisions through the years. [The Envelope]

    • David Poland responds to the manipulation of Nikki Finke. [The Hot Blog]

    • Nathaniel Rogers doesn’t think any of the “Reader” hub-bub is a big deal at all. [The Film Experience]

    • Anne Thompson runs down the stacked Best Actor category with the potential Downey vs. Foxx “Soloist” showdown in mind. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Tom O’Neil corrals seven pundits for his own predictions chart to light a fire under the collective rear of the Buzzmeter techs. [Gold Derby]

    • James Rocchi chats it up with “Religulous” maestro Bill Maher. [Cinematical]

    • Karina Longworth reviews “Che” and reports from the NYFF Soderbergh press conference. [Spout Blog]

    • Adam Moss corners Woody Allen in the Big Apple. [New York Magazine]

  • 9/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    John Wayne• David Poland takes stock 22 weeks out, and somehow thinks early buzz on Sean Penn’s “Milk” performance is “soft.” [Movie City News]

    • Warner Bros. sends out a mailer offering Academy members the choice of a Blu-ray “Dark Knight” awards screener.  Wally Pfister’s nomination moves further into place. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • In a nutshell, “Little Children” author Tom Perrotta wonders whether John Hughes was full of shit. [The Guardian]

    • An A.O. Scott overview of the New York Film Festival. [New York Times]

    • Susan King digs into the legacy of John Wayne. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Alright, this is getting out of hand — and just stupid.  Reporting on an alleged bet on the test screening score of “The Reader” for its release prospects? [The Big Picture]

    • Top 10 tear-jerkers. [Premiere]