• Pete Hammond says the Best Actress race is close, pats himself on the back for the fact that one of the countless early ideas he threw at the wall actually stuck. [Notes on a Season]
• Rachel Abramowitz notes Carey Mulligan’s rise to stardom via Julian Fellowes, well, via an assistant friend of an assistant to a casting director who knew Fellowes’s wife. You follow? [24 Frames]
• The 20 best Oscar night dresses of the last 20 years. [Entertainment Weekly]
In most cases, the adapted screenplay category of a given Oscar race is packed with Best Picture nominees or contenders. This year, however, there was a nice balance of adapted and original screenplays in the Best Picture category, and in fact, of the “top five” films that trickled down throughout the season, three were original and two were adapted, a rarity.
Regarding the adaptations, things seemed to firm up for a while, but with the various WGA ineligibilities, one couldn’t shake the feeling that a surprise was in the works. At the end of the day, Scott Cooper’s run on “Crazy Heart” came to an unfortunate end, while a fan-fave British comedy found support.
The nominees are:
“District 9” (Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell)
“An Education” (Nick Hornby)
“In the Loop” (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche)
“Precious” (Geoffrey Fletcher)
“Up in the Air” (Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner)
I’m not sure why the Wall Street Journal is reprinting a preface to a book that his been in print for over nine months — indeed, I quoted the very same piece in Page to Screen back in July — as fresh content. Still, if you haven’t yet read it, Lynn Barber’s reflection on the journey her memoir “An Education” took to screen is worth a look.
Among other things, Barber picks up on the counter-intuitive choice of Nick Hornby, Britain’s king of “lad-lit,” to adapt this female-focused story:
I also learned that the scriptwriter [producer Amanda Posey] had in mind was her boyfriend -– now husband –- Nick Hornby. This made the whole idea more plausible, especially when I met Nick. I found it odd (still find it odd) that this preeminently ‘boy’ writer should so completely understand what it felt like to be a 16 year-old schoolgirl who was on the one hand very bright but on the other very ignorant about the world but, miraculously, he did. He even seemed to understand my parents, which is more than I could ever say myself.
Creative Screenwriting senior editor, Jeff Goldsmith, always bites off a lot when he lines up a massive panel of the year’s screenplay nominees to discuss the evolution of their work each year, which leads to any number of publicists grumbling in the shadows about the time overage. Last night’s panel was supposed to run until 8:30 but Goldsmith was still hammering away at 8:45. But he always asks well-considered, engaging questions and writers being writers, they have plenty to say.
The panelists included Nick Hornby, Alessandro Camon, Armando Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Geoffrey Fletcher, Terri Tatchell, Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner. Quentin Tarantino, Mark Boal and Oren Moverman were scheduled to attend but bailed out at the last minute, while the Coen brothers — no shock here — were never going to be there. So Goldsmith almost nailed down nine of the 10 nominated films.
It was a great discussion with plenty of insights. Goldsmith asked about defying genre, which he judged to be the connective quality of all the work represented by the panel, what the re-writing process was like for all involved, how they made it through the agony of staring at a blank page, etc.
Things are winding down in Santa Barbara. Today is the last day of the fest, an all-day celebration of Jeff Bridges’s work. Screenings of “Thunderbolt & Lightfoot,” “Starman,” “The Contender” and “Crazy Heart” are lined up. I’ll be moderating a Q&A with the actor following the “Crazy Heart” screening at the Lobero Theatre.
Yesterday it was the producers panel early in the afternoon, Patrick Goldstein moderating an enlightening discussion with Lawrence Bender, Mark Boal, Jon Landau, Lori McCreary, Ivan Reitman and Jonas Rivera. It was a good cross-section of perspectives on the work of a film producer, and certain a diverse mixture of budgets, economics and creative philosophy.
There was a moment when Landau proposed that it was a filmmaker’s responsibility to tackle gravitas and Bender took umbrage with that, positing that the real responsibility is to entertain. Obviously it depends on the circumstance and no filmmaker should be beholden to either ideology (as Boal, always the diplomat, shrewdly noted). But it was still funny watching Bender once again defending the frivolity of “Inglourious Basterds” in the face of loftier examinations from Landau, McCreary, etc.
Throughout the morning and early afternoon we took statements from or hopped on the phone with 44 of today’s Oscar nominees. Their reactions…
Maggie Gyllenhaal, supporting actress, “Crazy Heart”:
The thing is, you know, I’m so proud of the movie and I always have been, more proud of it than any of the work I’ve done so far. But because I wasn’t getting nominated for anything, I wasn’t expecting it. My phone was ringing so early and I thought, “Wait, maybe!” I was staying at my brother’s in LA. He said to me, “Your phone is going to be ringing all day.” He made me a cup of coffee and then we watched the sun rise. It was pretty mellow. But this wouldn’t be happening for Jeff [Bridges] or me if it wasn’t for Scott [Cooper].
Well, just after posting about the Weinstein titles that aren’t eligible for the writers, indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt reports that Nick Hornby’s wonderful work on “An Education” is also ineligible:
Hornby has been a member of WGA for 10 years, a representative for Hornby told indieWIRE today. But after production of “An Education” was completed, a new rule was instituted that Hornby also had to be a member of his local WGA Great Britain, which he was not.
*coughbullshitcough*
In any case, this should make for quite the, uh, unexpected list of nominees.
As always, the year’s adapted screenplay race is much more competitive than the original screenplay race. But what’s intriguing to note is that of the anticipated “big four” still to be widely screened, three of them are right in the thick of this discussion.
In the case of “Nine,” there is a chance for Anthony Minghella to receive his second posthumous Oscar nomination in as many years, something I don’t think we’ve seen since James Dean. But sometimes the razzle-dazzle of a movie musical can overshadow what craft there might be on the page, so it’s no slam dunk. Michael Tolkin is co-writer on the script, and even though I’ve seen the film, I’m prohibited from offering my thoughts on the work.
“The Lovely Bones,” meanwhile, is adapted from a beloved novel, looks to feature a more reserved and refined Peter Jackson than we’ve seen in recent years and could see the lovable trio (Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh) back in Oscar’s good graces. We’ll know when we see it.
The Royals and invited British press get their look on the 24th. Harry Knowles has received his typical peek (as Paramount continues to nurture the relationship as if it’s 2002 and AICN still moves the needle). The rest of the US press corps has to wait until the other side of the holiday on the 27th to judge. Hopefully we’ll still care by then. I heard some scathing criticisms out of an exhibitor screening last week.
Between now and December 31, we’re probably going to read more “best ____ of the 2000s” lists than we know what to do with. But we like lists, don’t we? And this only happens once every 10 years. Let’s not get blasé already.
So with the floodgates already open on “films of the decade” talk, there’s plenty more to fuel the discussion. Paste Magazine has a nicely balanced Top 50 that puts “City of God” in pole position, and wins extra cinephile points for putting Claire Denis alongside Peter Jackson in the top 10.
Meanwhile, The Times supplements their own collective with a (impossibly formatted) selection of Top Tens from assorted British industry figures, including Julian Fellowes and Richard Eyre. “An Education” scribe Nick Hornby wins top marks from me for a list that includes “Lantana,” “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” and “I’m Not There.”
But for my money, no list I’ve seen so far is as rich and well thought-out as Telegraph critic Tim Robey’s personal Top 100 — a corrective of sorts to the “films that defined the decade” list he compiled with his Telegraph colleagues, which took some flak on the web, these pages included.
• Brian Lowry on how The Ten is an Oscarcast producer’s nightmare. [Variety]
• With Hugh Jackman out, Jeff Wells thinks the Oscars need to skew younger with their host. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• The producers of “London River” launch a deserved Oscar campaign for Brenda Blethyn, despite still lacking US distribution. [Notes on a Season]
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 didn’t really talk too much about Lone Sherfig’s “An Education” when I saw it a few months ago beyond starting the drum circle on Alfred Molina’s wonderfully warm, authentic performance. But I find the film on my mind more and more with an October 9 limited release right around the corner.
The film is sublime and in perhaps (for me) the best movie year of the decade, it continues to stand out as one of the 2009’s most refined films on nearly every level. The acting, of course, is impeccable. I couldn’t possibly write anything new about Carey Mulligan’s work, and Peter Sarsgaard, who will hopefully be in the awards conversation but could be unfortunately forgotten in the clutter, delivers his finest work since “Shattered Glass” (and probably ever). The entire cast, in fact (and as noted in this space) is likely to get a well-deserved SAG ensemble nod.
Back in June I wrote that “An Education” was an example of “that rare occasion when a filmmaker taps into profound truths with the help of a cast that gets it, the themes surging through every vein, a driven vehicle of purpose.” I don’t feel any different today.
Amid the swirl of hype for “An Education” that’s been building for eight months now, there’s been surprisingly little mention of the man who is easily the biggest name involved with the film: superstar novelist Nick Hornby, whose free adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir looks certain to land him in the Best Adapted Screenplay pack.
The film is only Hornby’s second successful stab at writing for film, 12 years after he adapted his own novel “Fever Pitch” for the screen. However, as he states in this Wall Street Journal interview, the gap between screen credits wasn’t for lack of trying:
While several of his novels have been successfully adapted into movies, including “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy,” the 52-year-old Mr. Hornby has seen most of his screenplays fizzle in development, including a collaboration with actress Emma Thompson that “we just couldn’t get right.”
This year’s Telluride fest is slowly gearing up. There are a handful of press screenings this afternoon and the opener, Marco Bellochio’s “Vincere,” is set to play at 5:00pm. I’ll probably miss that in order to take in “The Last Station,” which if it picks up a buyer, could make good on awards potential for Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy.
Before things get going, though, I though it best to clear the slate with a few reactions to films playing here which I’ve already seen. More to come later this evening, I’m sure.
“An Education” (****)
Few films are likely to have the refined air of artistry that Lone Scherfig’s “An Education” offers. Based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, the story is, in a nutshell, that of a young girl eager to grow up but unprepared for the disappointments of adulthood. But the film is, of course, so much more than that.
• Carey Mulligan praises “An Education” writer Nick Hornby for being objective with her character. [New York Magazine]
• Gene Simmons tapped to vocalize Del Toro’s “Wolf Man.” [Contact Music]
• Fear not, there’s hope for more “Beavis and Butt-Head” on the horizon. [Collider]
“I was damaged by my education,” writes renowned British journalist Lynn Barber at the end of the captivating centerpiece essay in her newly published memoir “An Education,” a sober conclusion to a personal account that otherwise brims with breezy anecdotal humor.
The eponymous “education” is not academic, though she makes clear her lingering resentments over that too. Rather it’s an emotional – I’d say sentimental, but Barber treats it with too much venom for that – education, covering not only romantic and sexual instruction, but a deeper acquaintance with the betrayals and hypocrisies of adulthood.
The ostensible antagonist of the piece is the older lover who courts and ultimately cons the naïve 16 year-old Barber, but it becomes clear that she is using this story as a lens through which to examine the failings of her own parents, who allowed – encouraged, even – the end of a schoolgirl’s innocence.
It’s a forthright, often cruelly funny reflection that braids unconditional affection with anger, and it’s little wonder that producer Amanda Posey immediately saw its cinematic potential when the essay was published in literary magazine Granta in 2003.
One of the more popular Oscar bets doing the rounds is that, along with rising star Carey Mulligan, writer Nick Hornby will find himself in the race for Sundance favorite “An Education.” (I have a hunch the film may do even better than that, but that’s me.)
In contrast to the wealth of popular books reaching our screens this year, however, Hornby’s adaptation has taken a rather more circuitous journey: his script is a fictionalisation of journalist Lynn Barber’s autobiographical short story which appeared in Granta magazine a while back, but is actually just a taster for Barber’s full-length memoir, which is only being published later this month. Still with me? Good.
I will of course be covering all this in a Page to Screen column eventually. For now, the Observer has helpfully provided a 6000-word extract from Barber’s memoir that essentially covers the events that inspired the film, wherein a wide-eyed 16 year-old girl experiences the rush of first love and heartbreak at the hands of an older man in early 1960s London. It’s a delightful read — warm, melancholy and streaked with acerbic humor — and gives some idea of what to expect from the film. I particularly liked this extract, which balances specific personal emotion and sly social critique quite beautifully:
Events overtook me in the last few days of term. Miss R Garwood Scott the headmistress somehow got wind of my engagement and summoned me to see her. Was it true I was engaged? Yes, I said, but I would still like to take the Oxford exams. She was ruthless. I could not return to school (in those days you had to stay for an extra term to do Oxbridge entrance) if I was getting married. When was the wedding and which church would it be in? Not in church, I said, because my fiancé was Jewish. Jewish! She looked aghast – “Don’t you realise that the Jews killed Our Lord?” I stared at her. “So I won’t take the Oxford exams,” I said. My little gang was waiting for me outside her study. “I told her I was leaving,” I announced. “She tried to persuade me to stay but I refused.” They all congratulated me and begged to be bridesmaids. Then I went to the bogs and cried my eyes out.
As many of you already know, one of my central irritations of this year’s Oscar season has been the “Slumdog” backlash, an unnecessarily cruel response to a brilliant film’s rather boring sweep of all the major film awards over the past three months. I understand it on one level, because no one wants a predictable circuit. But Danny Boyle’s film has been unfairly maligned if only because it is such a masterful achievement in the face of the mediocrity to which it has been compared.
Thankfully, those of us who share in this irritation have author Nick Hornby on our side. Here is what he had to say (via Awards Daily) in response to a letter published in the London Review of Books:
There’s a lot packed in here: the snobbery, the smug and unexamined assumptions, the writer’s apparent pride in his utter ignorance of the independent film-making process, the nonsensical contradictions (can something be both “garish” and “gaggingly photogenic”?) It’s perfectly possible not to enjoy Slumdog Millionaire, of course – nothing appeals to everybody, and I didn’t have enough invested in the love story for the film to lift me as much as it seems to have lifted others. But typically, when the success of a book or a film or a piece of music baffles the liberal intelligentsia, then that success will usually be put down to the cynicism of the makers, or the depressing ignorance of the consumers. (Sometimes, when these critics are trying to be nice, they make a plea for better arts education. “It’s not the public’s fault that they enjoy the paintings of Jack Vettriano. They just don’t know any better.”) This letter is a prime example of that attitude: you loved Slumdog? You’re a moron…
In film people tend to talk about films “working” or “not working”, and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ clearly works – just as ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Shallow Grave’, two of Danny Boyle’s other films, worked – in fact, Boyle’s ability to turn forbiddingly unpromising material into movies that people actually want to see is remarkable. If his films are commercial, it’s because he wants them to be seen by a mainstream audience; the money-making that ensues is a by-product, rather than a goal in itself…
It would be nice to think that our artier film-makers and more literary novelists could look at ‘Slumdog’ and steal a few of its underpinnings. Is energy, for example, as vulgar an attribute as many of them seem to believe? And is coherent structure really such an awful thing? On the evidence of the LRB letter, though, our intellectuals are more likely to sneer. I’m sure they’re all very clever people, but they can be terribly dim sometimes.
Amen, brother. Hornby, by the way, is likely to be in the thick of the awards season this year with his adaptation “An Education.”