In Contention

Tag: Never Let Me Go

  • OFF THE CARPET: The year of the woman, take two?

    It wasn’t by coincidence that the three photos decorating the season’s introductory installment of this column two weeks ago represented lead actress contenders in the 2010 Oscar race. After all the talk of 2009 being “the year of the woman,” owing much to the number of female directors who found themselves in the mix (and inevitably leading to Kathryn Bigelow’s history-making moment at the Kodak), I’m sensing an even better argument for 2010 as a singular season for the fairer sex.

    Let’s start with the performances. By my count, there are already eight nominatable offerings from lead actresses this year (which contrasts drastically with a dearth of supporting hopefuls).  This is just going by what I’ve seen, mind you.

    For starters, Natalie Portman has dazzled the early festival season with her work in “Black Swan.” Lesley Manville, meanwhile (should she remain a lead focus), sets a high bar in “Another Year.” Despite my feelings on the film, Carey Mulligan really settles into a next-level groove in “Never Let Me Go,” and Jennifer Lawrence, of course (like Mulligan last year), has already become the year’s star-in-the-making story in “Winter’s Bone.”

    Dovetailing with the performances themselves, there are also films that seem to reflect the theme in narrative. In “Secretariat,” for instance, Diane Lane capably (if a bit histrionically) portrays headstrong Penny Chenery, a woman of virtue in an era when she was expected to keep her head down and clean house. Similarly, Sally Hawkins absolutely kills as the Norma Rae-ish Rita O’Grady in “Made in Dagenham,” fighting for equal pay in a similar time (and she’s likely to be joined in the hunt by co-star Miranda Richardson for a fiery supporting turn). And we can’t forget the palpable feminism apparent in summer indie “The Kids Are All Right,” where Annette Bening and Julianne Moore both bring their “A” game.

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  • 9/13 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Richard Corliss, clearly irritated by early Oscar buzz, comes down hard on “The King’s Speech” and seems to think it is “bad enough” to win the Oscar for Best Picture. [Time]

    • Colin Firth, meanwhile, responds to said Oscar buzz. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Regarding “Let Me In,” Stephanie Zacharek contends “like a piece of great music, a strong movie can withstand multiple interpretations.” [Movieline]

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 31 – Searchlight’s busy season, ‘The Way Back’ and a not so brave new world for similar filmmaking, Toronto anticipations

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

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

    Today Anne is calling from Toronto after a long journey from the Venice film festival, while I’m back home in LA following a great Telluride fest last weekend. We’re both able to talk from a more informed perspective on a number of the season’s hotly anticipated films, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • Whoa there, hoss

    With the fall festival season and all it’s expected “prestige” product going before many sets of critical eyes over the next two months, I think it would be smart to heed Danny Leigh’s words at The Guardian, who warns, “Never let me go overboard.”

    The problem with the Oscar season is that it can be a rush to dismantle or anoint, and the greatest offenders are already sharpening their knives or fluffing pillows for a soft landing.  All I can ever do is be honest about what I think about a film and give early thoughts on awards potential (something that is always in flux, mind you).  But sure, the freshness of an unexpected doosey or an overwhelming positive experience can tip the balance of coverage at these fests.

    Peter Sciretta recently wrote about the issue of reviewing at festivals and I agree with much of what he said.  It’s why I prefer the more relaxed weekend of Telluride to the marathon of something like Toronto.  But Leigh hits it right on the mark.  He drags out David Poland’s already battered “masterpiece” review of Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go” and uses it as a case study in “too much” when it comes to praise.

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  • Clips from ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘The King’s Speech’

    Clips are coming fast and furious for awards contenders these days.  Last week a pair from “Somewhere” and “Never Let Me Go” hit, and now, one more from the latter (which somehow turned up as an “exclusive” on two sites) and one from Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.”

    The scene from “Never Let Me Go” is actually one of the scenes that bothers me most from the film for a myriad of reasons.  It’s cut here before the real spoiler hits, so I guess it’s safe to view.  “The King’s Speech” clip does a nice job of giving you a sense of the visual style of the piece, which isn’t a tame, vanilla kind of filmmaking.  I think the perception (understandably) has been that this film will be a soft lob kind of vacant filmmaking, but I maintain that Hooper brings an interesting directorial signature to the work.

    Both films are set to play the Toronto Film Festival over the next week or so.  Have a look at the clips after the jump and tell us what you think.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Commence au festival (season)!

    Without question, the film launching full speed ahead and into the Oscar season this week is Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.” I truly haven’t heard an unkind word about the film all weekend here in Telluride, and I imagine that goodwill will continue into the Toronto fest this week as well.

    I can easily see nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction.  Nods for the cinematography and costumes wouldn’t be all that shocking, either, so I’d say nine is the ceiling.  And I imagine we may see a win or two, as well.

    Let’s face it.  As overdue as Jeff Bridges was last year, there are many who think Colin Firth was robbed for his work in “A Single Man.” It could conceivably be makeup time when the Oscars roll around in February.  My interview with Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Tom Hooper was interrupted Friday by a woman who wanted to let Firth know she thought he was robbed.  How deep does that sentiment go with voters?

    I imagine The Weinstein Company is breathing a sigh of relief with the favorable reaction, as “Miral” was met with blanket disapproval in Venice (here is Guy’s review).  The studio has a few other tricks up its sleeve, but none so critical as Hooper’s film.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘Tabloid’

    On the first day of this year’s fest, things are off to an interesting, up and down start. I would bore you with an intro, but it’s late and I’m fading. Let’s get to the reactions…

    “Never Let Me Go” (**)

    I went back and read Guy’s summation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go” after seeing the film tonight (I’ve never read it and knew nothing of the story’s plot going in). He wrote of a “discussion of mortality and the human condition” in an emotional context that, for a filmmaker like Mark Romanek (who knows from visual emotional storytelling — just look at the video for Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”), seemed a perfect marriage of material and artist.

    Shockingly, however, Romanek’s adaptation kept me at arm’s length from frame one. There is a distance here, a cold sense of removal from what would otherwise be an extremely moving narrative. I wanted desperately to feel for the characters and their plight (I won’t hazard particulars for fear of spoilers). But I felt nothing…at all. I wanted them to rage against their circumstances and show an ounce of the spirit they in one instance even set out to prove they have, but there was, again, nothing.

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  • TELLURIDE: Settling in with the freshly unveiled line-up

    I’m just settling in here in the Colorado mountainside as the Telluride Film Festival prepares to draw the curtain on its 37th dance tomorrow afternoon.

    As I look over the schedule (I Tweeted the films earlier this morning), I’m seeing plenty to chew on. For starters, the world premiere of Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” is slated for tomorrow night. I was crushed, though, to see it slotted at the exact same time as the world premiere of Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.” But both will screen plenty throughout the fest, as a tribute to Weir is in store to go along with the former, while Romanek and actress Carey Mulligan are in town to promote the latter.  Author Kazuo Ishiguro will also be here to sign copies of his novel.

    Telluride is preempting Toronto on Romanek’s film, as well as the new Errol Morris documentary, “Tabloid.” Meanwhile, Sylvain Chomet’s animated “The Illusionist” has been playing the festival circuit all year and is definitely near the top of my must-see list.

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  • Rachel Portman’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ score available

    I’m heading out to catch my flight for Telluride in a bit, but I wanted to turn your attention to this before I take off.  Rachel Portman hasn’t been in Oscar’s good graces for 10 years now, but she has a hell of an opportunity this year with a beautiful score for Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.” The album hits stores September 14, but Portman’s compositions were made available on iTunes Monday.  Beautiful, haunting melodies.  A real home run of emotion.  I imagine she’ll be back in the hunt this year.

  • Clips from ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘Somewhere’

    With the fall festival circuit merely hours away (Guy is already getting settling in Venice), we’ve got a pair of clips from two anticipated titles to pass along today.

    First, there is Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere,” which is exclusive to Venice and features Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning in what isn’t likely to be an Oscar movie, but could play well to European audiences on the Lido. The clip, courtesy of Reelz Channel, features some of Dorff’s performance as an actor navigating the PR necessities of his latest film.  I cracked up when he stepped off the apple box at the end.

    Meanwhile, MTV has a clip from “Never Let Me Go” that goes a long way (in just over a minute) toward indicating the thick, moody atmosphere the film will establish.  It features Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, though it’s more of a showcase for the former.  The film will play Toronto later this month.

    Check out both clips after the jump.

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  • 8/31 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Peter Sciretta rounds up early reactions to Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.”  It’s across-the-board praise and admiration. [/Film]

    • Nathaniel Rogers takes note of one of the biggest Oscar sleepers: Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom.” [The Film Experience]

    • Sasha Stone talks marketing in the age of cynicism, ending with a hope that the Academy can turn a blind eye to the snark of tweeners.  (It almost always does, no?) [Awards Daily]

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Once more into the breach

    So nine years ago yesterday I started a crappy, embarrassing little amateur site on Yahoo!’s now defunct Geocities platform and called it Oscar Central. It was a way to blow off steam in film school, maybe fold an offline hobby (Oscar-watching, predicting, obsessing) into an online community that seemed to already have healthy numbers. Plus, hey, it was the early years. I figured some low tech internet training was far from the worst thing I could be doing.

    That’s a long way of saying today kicks off my 10th season of Oscar coverage online, and in that decade, plenty has changed. One thing has remained the same, however, and that is a focused interest, both from myself and a growing readership, in the admittedly arbitrary and somewhat solipsistic process of awarding the “best” in filmed art and entertainment.

    To put it more succinctly: Here we go again.

    The 2010-2011 Oscar season takes its first real steps Wednesday as the 67th annual Venice Film Festival sets sail on the Lido. That opening night will see Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” get its toes wet as Fox Searchlight tests the season’s waters, perhaps with a worthy follow-up to the director’s 2008 awards title “The Wrestler,” perhaps not. Two days later the 37th annual Telluride Film Festival lifts its curtain in the mountains of Colorado, bringing any number of “surprise” bows (we all know what they’ll be but, again, I’ll respect the fest’s wishes in this space), before Toronto’s media circus fills in the cracks and brings us to mid-September and the fiery beginnings of Oscar’s 83rd barbecue.

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  • 8/30 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Rooster Cogburn must be a leftie this time out, because his patch covers his right eye!  See! [American Thinker]

    • Naturally, Thomas Friedman goes to bat for “Waiting for Superman.” [New York Times]

    • Lane Brown points out a strong season of lead actress contenders on the horizon. [Vulture]

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  • Never…Let Me…Go

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Original Score — Volume I

    I am marveled by the accomplishments of all the crafts artists who elevate our films, but this is particularly the case with respect to music composers. Composing equals genius as far as I am concerned.These musicians  join the film at the end, when usually only the director, editor and perhaps the sound mixers are still working.  But capturing the mood and feel of a film that has been created in your absence must be extraordinarily difficult.And  I do not need to count the ways in which a brilliant score can make a good film truly unforgettable.

    The category of Best Original Score is one of the hardest to predict in my opinion, even shortly before the nominations are announced. So what sort of music is rewarded by this branch? Certainly being noticeable in the film helps. Loud music and/or music which plays for lengthy parts of the film with minimal dialogue can do well, too. Being an animated film or a Best Picture contender hardly hurts either.

    For years, we could count on John Williams to take a spot among the nominees. But given that Williams is only composing for Steven Spielberg these days, his name has been absent from the nominees for five straight years now. (I suspect we’ll see him finally move past Alfred Newman on the all-time list next year.)

    Nevertheless, while the branch is not quite as insular as it was in the earlier part of last decade, it remains a fairly exclusive club. Seldom do composers get first trips to the Kodak – usually only one a year. In fact, of the past 11 years, only three have seen two new nominees, and only one has seen three.

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  • Fall festivals ready for their close-up

    In the last couple of weeks the major fall film festivals have unveiled aggressively competitive line-ups, and the amount of potential awards product landing at Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York is, as usual, vast.

    There are plenty of overlapping exhibitions but as for firsties, Venice will get dibs on Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest,” Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” Ben Affleck’s “The Town,” and Richard J. Lewis’s “Barney’s Version” before the films make their way to other fests.  Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” will be exclusive to the Lido.

    New York, meanwhile, landed a real coup by boasting the world premiere of David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” which will not be at the other fests.

    Toronto is again packed to the gills with product (too much, if you ask me, but it’s a media circus after all).  Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” will see its first bow there before heading off to New York in October.  Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” will also debut, as well as John Madden’s “The Debt,” Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock,” Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” and Nigel Cole’s “Made in Dagenham.” World premieres searching for distributors at the fest include Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator,” John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” and Dustin Lance Black’s “What’s Wrong with Virginia,” any of which could end up being awards season possibilities.

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  • ‘127 Hours’ to close London Film Festival

    Last year, London Film Festival organizers managed to secure a pair of world premieres — “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and the John Lennon bio “Nowhere Boy” — to open and close proceedings. This year, they haven’t been so lucky, bookending the festival’s 54th edition with two hot tickets from Toronto instead.

    With that said, they’re still thoroughly respectable, and suitably British, picks. We already knew that Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go” would kick off the festival; now comes confirmation that the closing night gala is Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours,” which stars James Franco in the well-known survival story of mountaineer Aron Ralston. The film reunites Boyle with producer Christian Colson and writer Simon Beaufoy; you may recall that a certain other collaboration between the trio closed out the London fest two years ago.

    Both films will be making their European premieres at the festival, which runs from October 13 to 28. The news suggests that, after luring out a number of American journos last year, the LFF is setting its sights a little closer to home. Statements from Boyle and LFF director Sandra Hebron after the cut.

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  • ‘Never Let Me Go’ to open London Film Festival

    Previously a handy catch-up festival for locals who had missed out on the major premieres of Cannes and the like, the London Film Festival raised its profile significantly in the last two years by opening with major world premieres — “Frost/Nixon” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

    They haven’t quite managed to repeat the trick a third year running: this year’s curtain-raiser, Mark Romanek’s Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation “Never Let Me Go,” will have already premiered at Toronto the month before. Still, it’s a prestigious feather in the film’s cap, a handy pick for those Europeans unable to make the flight out to Canada, and an appropriately British way to kick off the festival. Coincidentally enough, it’s the fourth year in a row that the LFF has opened with a semi-Brit pic from a North American director.

    The 2010 London Film Festival will run from 13 to 28 October. All eyes now will be on festival director Sandra Hebron’s closing night selection. Last year, the festival closed with another world premiere — Sam Taylor-Wood’s “Nowhere Boy,” which will finally make its way to US theaters this autumn — and if they plan to maintain the  international press presence they enjoyed last year, they’ll want to do the same. Shooting for the stars here, but… “Harry Potter,” anybody?

    Press release after the cut.

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