In Contention

Tag: Nicole Kidman

  • In praise of Kate’s … feet?

    I’m not sure where I stand on David Thomson these days. He is surely one of the greatest film writers still at work today; few of his rivals manage such a fine balance of personal appreciation and critical insight, particularly in the area of performance. (As a prose stylist, Thomson at his best leaves Ebert for dust, in my opinion.) His “Biographical Dictionary of Film” is as essential as it is idiosyncratic, while last year’s “Have You Seen … ?” is a bedside-book delight, ideal for dipping in and out of at leisure.

    But in recent years, his work has grown increasingly sloppy and, in some cases, frankly unhinged. His further “Biographical Dictionary” entries for the Guardian have been spotty and back-handed of late, but the clincher was his factually malnourished and unavoidably creepy 2006 “biography” of his long-time cinematic crush, Nicole Kidman, which paid stomach-churning tribute to the Australian’s “commas of breast” and “gingery pubic hair.” An embarrassment for all concerned, it truly has to be read to be believed.

    It’s difficult to say, then, whether it’s good or bad news for Kate Winslet that Thomson appears to have set his sights on her instead, writing an extraordinarily generous tribute to her in today’s Guardian, calling the actress “the finest performer of her generation,” and waxing lyrical about her performance in “The Reader” (“easily the best and most disturbing film of the year”). It is, in fairness, a civil and intelligent appreciation for the most part, after an eccentric opening that focuses on her, er, feet:

    Near the end of The Reader there is a large close-up of two bare feet … The feet are less than lovely – mottled, calloused, the toenails out of shape, everything well-worn. My wife opined, “They can’t be Kate Winslet’s feet – must be a stand-in, a foot-in. Perhaps they are Sam Mendes’s feet, and he did the shot so she could have a lie-in.”

    Not to disparage the consideration and fondness between Mendes and Winslet, husband and wife, director and actor, I preferred to think that Winslet is too much the perfectionist to let false feet into her picture. “She’d have been up at four in the morning,” I said, “getting the make-up people to give her the opposite of a pedicure” … I assume that Winslet would take any trouble, from the tips of her broken toes to the proper split ends in her elderly German hair. “Would Meryl Streep entertain anyone else’s feet?” I asked my wife. She agreed not. And that is the standard here: Kate Winslet is the heir to Meryl Streep.

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: the crafts of ‘The Reader’

    Tech Support at In ContentionThe past week has been exceptionally good to Stephen Daldry’s “The Reader” on the awards circuit.  The film followed up its five Golden Globe nominations with the same number from BAFTA, not to mention Kate Winslet’s BFCA and Globe awards for her performance as Hanna Schmitz.

    I recently had the chance to speak to several of the individuals who have helped to bring the film to life from behind-the-camera: production designer Brigitte Broch, costume designer Ann Roth, makeup artist Ivana Primorac and cinematographers Chris Menges and Roger Deakins.  All five artists look back on “The Reader” fondly but they all nevertheless share a principal theme in their recollections: delay.

    Conflicts with his contractual obligations on “Doubt” meant that Deakins had to leave the production with the vast majority of the film left to shoot.  Menges says he then found himself torn upon receiving an offer to step in.

    “I first met Roger in the 1970s when he left school,” he recalls.  “He’s been to my home in Wales several times.  Roger shot 31 days of the film and I did 65.  Principally, I’ve never done it before but because I knew Roger and respect his work, it was not as difficult as it could have been.  Obviously, I do some things differently, but the principle that Roger and I adhere to is that the visual power of the film obviously comes from working closely with the director.  No D.P. has won an Academy Award without working with a director who has great visual flare.”

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  • 1/10 Oscarweb Round-up

    Nicole Kidman in Australia• “Milk” composer Danny Elfman has signed on to score “Terminator Salvation.”  Eh. [MTV]

    • Jeffrey Wells keeps the quoted-out-of-context game running with that Nicole Kidman “squirm” story. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Regarding said story, Michael Cieply reports it properly, indicating the “perils of candor.” [The Carpetbagger]

    • Alicia Lozano writes up the resurrection of the Golden Globes. [The Envelope]

    • Tom O’Neil has some backstage interviews from Thursday’s Critics’ Choice Awards. [Gold Derby]

    • Anne Thompson reports on Oscar hopes from the AFI Awards. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • T.L. Stanley stakes a claim for her Golden Globe bets. [Gold Derby]

    • Guy Adams has a preview of the upcoming Globes, with a bit about that Anne Hathaway win slip-up. [The Independent]

    • Exciting times for indieWIRE: a new design and, apparently, a newly imagined site is on the horizon. [indieWIRE]

  • NYT gets down with ‘The Wrestler’

    The New York Times has been a veritable piñata of goodies these past few days. In addition to the return of the Carpetbagger, they are treating us with a double-shot of “Wrestler”-related interviews, one with relative newbie screenwriter Robert D. Siegel, and of course, a massive profile of man-of-the-hour Mickey Rourke.

    I’m not sure what it is about Rourke, but he clearly brings out the best in journalists. His interview with Kris was, I think, one of the most inspired to have graced these pages, and this vast NYT piece follows suit. With none of the affectations that often come with overly PR-directed interviews, he exhibits the kind of open, candid sense of self that can only come with having got both the sweet and the fuzzy ends of the lollipop in his career; he’s one of the few movie stars around today who not only has interesting stories to tell, but is actually willing and able to tell them.

    As usual, this one’s full of nice incidental tidbits, whether he’s admitting that “Harley Davidson and the Motorcycle Man” is the only film he regrets making (really? So “Wild Orchid” was okay, then?), or offering sage advice on dog-parenting. (On being told that peanut butter and bacon isn’t really a suitable diet for his beloved pug Loki, he shoots, “She’s sixteen years old … she can have whatever she wants.”)

    But the meat of the interview comes when he confronts his own career collapse, rationalising it in a surprisingly lucid and moving way:

    I resented all the money and what came with it, the way people treated me in a special way. I didn’t know how to play the game. Nobody told me it was a business. I thought my acting talent transcended the business of films. I never had a game plan for my career. I didn’t have the tools for that. If I would have been educated enough, I might have avoided a lot of pain. So I became arrogant and self-destructive. I fought everyone ’cause I thought that was a kind of strength, but it became my weakness.

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  • REVIEW: “Australia” (**1/2)

    20th Century Fox's AustraliaGod bless Baz Luhrmann.  There are few directorial talents with the energetic potential he brings to his projects.  Danny Boyle comes to mind.  On good days, Fernando Meirelles does as well.  But one thing each of these filmmakers capitalizes on through their complicated sense of visual storytelling is the power of intimacy in the scripts they set out to film.

    Somehow, Baz Luhrmann forgot about that.  Not that he wouldn’t be capable of tacking a project as ambitious as “Australia,” but at least right now, it has proven to be simply too much movie for the filmmaker at this stage in his career.

    Visceral satisfaction it has.  Larger than life characterizations are its forté.  If you’re willing to let it, you’ll probably be swept off your feet.  But somewhere in the ambition, Luhrmann loses a grip on his own talents, producing something that is a considerable mess.

    “Australia” is really two movies smashed together.  The 165-minute run time becomes taxing if only because each thread is so haphazardly meshed with the other.  It is all the more ironic considering the film is, at heart, about the power of storytelling.

    The first half details the arrival of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) to the Outback and her husband’s property at Faraway Downs.  She comes to the territory with a mind to sell off the land and bring her husband back home to England, but soon discovers the wicked and thieving ways of local beef baron King Carney (Bryan Brown) and his flunky Neil Fletcher (David Wenham).

    There to meet her at the boat in the seaside burg of Darwin is the Drover (Hugh Jackman), a rough-and-tumble cowboy cut from the same cloth as Clint Eastwood’s many characterizations.  (Drovers move livestock across large distances, real cattle drive type stuff.)  A blue collar guy to say the least, with an impeccable physique that Luhrmann never shies away from displaying (and never fails to leave one feeling the need to do a few crunches), the Drover works with and lives among the indigenous peoples of the country: the Aborigines.

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  • It’s not just Oprah

    Looking across the early reviews, I think it’s fair to say that “Australia” has cleared the first hurdle. They’re mixed, for sure — hardly new territory for Baz Luhrmann — but there’s a lot of admiration out there, even within the kvetching. There were a number of voices out there anticipating an outright disaster, but so far, it doesn’t sound like one to me.

    The harshest takes so far seem to have been from the Australian press, which isn’t at all surprising. People are more liable to be aggravated by the romanticisation of their own culture than one foreign to them, after all. And “romanticisation” is the operative word here; as with “Moulin Rouge,” one clearly has to buy into Luhrmann’s fanciful stylisation to appreciate the film.

    Screen International obviously did, even if they’re a bit winded by it all:

    Luhrmann has fearlessly gone for the biggest, lushest goal he could imagine — a romantic, old-fashioned epic to stand beside “Gone With the Wind.” Though it fails to reach such Hollywood heyday heights, “Australia”‘s combination of high adventure, awesome landscapes and panting passions is sure to bring out romance starved adult audiences … If the restless richness becomes somewhat indigestible before the film’s considerable length is reached, that’s part of the Luhrmann package. Who else would dare such excess?

    Jackman is the epitome of handsome, untamed individualism: Kidman tempers haughty stridency with a delicate comic playfulness, touching in a scene with young Nullah where she teaches him, with no confidence in her own ability, to sing Over The Rainbow … (Brandon) Walters, aged 12, is perfect as the beautiful, troubled Nullah.

    Technically, this is ravishing, from production and costume designs from Catherine Martin to DoP Mandy Walker’s often-majestic footage. Australia is long on digital effects, mostly to good purpose, though some of the wartime Darwin harbour wide shots are wisely held for the briefest of seconds … The soundtrack is a potpourri of heightened effects and soaring musical themes.

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  • 11/19 Oscarweb Round-up

    Kate Beckinsale• David Poland misses the stylistic point of “Revolutionary Road.” [The Hot Blog]

    • Anne Thompson is on the right track, though. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Dave Karger digs into the Oscar prospects of the elusive “Seven Pounds.” [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Pete Hammond covers the week in screenings, much of which you’ve already read here.  But he gets more second-hand gossip that Clint Eastwood knocks it out of the park in “Gran Torino.”  Press-at-large screenings start in two weeks. [Notes on a Season]

    • Michael Ordoña talks to Nicole Kidman and Baz Luhrmann (the L.A. Times are getting the royal Fox treatment lately) about “Australia.” [The Envelope]

    • Tom O’Neil talks “Nothing But the Truth” with star Kate Beckinsale. [Gold Derby]

    • Someone call the medic, Grandpa is hearing voices. [Peter Bart]

  • 11/17 Oscarweb Round-up

    Nicole Kidman in Australia• Jeffrey Wells has kind words for “Bigger, Stronger, Faster” and spends some time with director Chris Bell. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Nathaniel Rogers talks with “Happy-Go-Lucky” star Sally Hawkins. [The Film Experience]

    • David Poland talks to the “Slumdog” crew. [The Hot Blog]

    • Ben Lynfield goes deep on “Waltz with Bashir” across the pond. [The Independent]

    • Eastwood calls Jolie “a fine actress hampered by beauty.” [Daily Telegraph]

    • Might the gyrations on Wall Street affect what we want to see in the cineplex? [MSNBC]

    • Danny Boyle talks his Mumbai undertaking with the Gray Lady. [New York Times]

    • Here’s a random list: the top 10 most accessible foreign films of the last decade. [Spout Blog]

    • Donna Freydkin spends some quality time with Nicole Kidman. [USA Today]

    • Guillermo Del Toro’s five favorite films. [Rotten Tomatoes]

  • At least SOMEONE has seen ‘Australia’

    Some people are getting very excited about the gushing praise Oprah Winfrey heaped upon “Australia” in yesterday’s edition of her show, which was entirely dedicated to the movie. She proclaims it “the best movie I’ve seen in a long, long, long, long time,” so I guess she kind of liked it.

    While it’s heartening to hear warm words for the film, I think people may be placing a little too much stock in them — simply because it’s the only opinion of the film that has been expressed so far. I love Oprah, but we all know she’s not the most discerning voice out there.

    On the other hand, this does remind me of a similar show she devoted to “Moulin Rouge,” in which she said something to the effect that the film gave her the same kind of moviegoing rush that she got when she saw “The Wizard of Oz” as a kid. When I saw the film, I knew exactly what she meant. Hopefully, she’s onto something again here.

    Anyway, for those who are interested, here’s a rather haphazardly edited highlights reel of yesterday’s show. You’ve gotta love Oprah’s giddy enthusiasm at the start:

  • ‘Australia’ poster

    20th Century Fox's Australia

  • Adapting Philip Roth

    Cover of The Dying Animal by Philip RothPhilip Roth is author of 25 novels and other works of non-fiction.  Revered in America, he has won every major American literature prize, including the National Book Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2002.  Despite his literary success, his films have had a difficult journey to the silver screen.

    I joined the long line of Roth fans that were disappointed with Robert Benton’s adaptation of “The Human Stain,” the 2000 novel that received the National Book Award for the best work of American fiction. It was an extraordinary book and perhaps Roth’s finest. And I believed that it would translate nicely onto the silver screen. While the novel weaved in and out of the past and present, the transitions weren’t so frequent that it would create a problem for the screenwriter, Nicholas Meyer (Oscar-nominated for “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.”

    Benton was able to attach an exceptional cast that included Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise. But when the film bombed with critics and audiences alike, it was quickly pulled from mainstream movie houses and relegated to small boutique theaters, and for short periods of time. It made only $5.3 million against a production budget of $30 million.

    Mr. Roth’s work has been adapted again by Mr. Meyer this year. Taking the pages of “The Dying Animal” and turning them into the film “Elegy,” Mr. Meyer and the film’s director, Isabelle Coixet have managed to create a finer adaptation of the text, and a far better film.

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  • Memo: Uh, the Best Actress race is VERY heated

    Kate Beckinsale in Nothing But the TruthAs a few commenters have been discussing elsewhere, it seems that some supposedly attentive Oscar bloggers figure 2008 to be a weak year for the lead actress race.  We’ve been calling it the most competitive derby in years around these parts for quite a while now, so the notion that anyone would find it to be thin is perplexing to say the least.

    Well, I’m happy today to see that Pete Hammond is on our bandwagon, writing the following at his Notes on a Season blog:

    This year, however, it is already clear that the race, for all intents and purposes, is backloaded with the most imposing and competitive list of genuine best actress possibilities in many years.

    A tsunami is coming, and [Melissa] Leo and [Penélope] Cruz are getting out of the way by taking their best shot now, hoping it’s enough to stay alive when the big storm of contenders hits shore.

    He then launches into a laundry list of contenders, all of them thoroughly covered before.

    We’re currently banking on Kristin Scott Thomas, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep around these parts.  Those are four slots that seem secure.  After that, it’s a toss-up between Anne Hathaway, Melissa Leo, Penélope Cruz, Michelle Williams and Sally Hawkins in the indie sector.  If it’s not an indie performance the AMPAS wants to recognize, they’ll have high-budget fare to choose from in Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman.

    I’m sticking with Kidman for now.  Makes as much sense as any other contender.

    Have your say. Who are you predicting for Best Actress right now?

  • Whoa!

    Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in Australia

  • Baz Luhrmann on his “crushing ambition”

    I’ve already expressed my eagerness for Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia,” probably my single most anticipated film of the year. I was thoroughly enraptured by the trailer that had many others passing snide pre-judgments on the film. (Bizarrely, words like “corny” and “artificial” were frequently thrown up as pejoratives, indicating that the self-irony of Luhrmann’s previous work entirely escaped certain audiences.)

    Now my appetite has been further whetted by this lengthy profile of the film that appeared in today’s Sunday Times, in which Luhrmann and his stars make the scale of their ambition abundantly clear. And that ambition, to go by this quote from Nicole Kidman, is to create something as vast, iconic and quintessential as the title suggests:

    This is the last of a dying breed, this kind of movie. They don’t build stuff like this any more. To feel that air and see people ravaged by the elements, as hard as it is, it’s exquisite. I dreamt of making a film that had the passion and the weight of the films I grew up watching — Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago. When Baz and I first started speaking about this, seven years ago, I said there needed to be a film about our land that speaks on a much broader scale.

    No pressure, then. Luhrmann, meanwhile, acknowledges the flak he will likely receive (already expressed by some readers on this site) for that bald, broad title, but his defence is both intelligent and mischievous:

    Why “Australia?” Well, first of all, to get people all uppity about it, so there’s a lot of comment. I think about films like Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Africa, Casablanca, Hawaii, by James A Michener: epics that use one word to describe a place. The film can’t be definitive about Australia, but ‘What does it mean?’ is not a bad place to start when you’re creating a story.” Sixty years ago, Casablanca meant “faraway, exotic.” I think even now, to the rest of the world, ‘Australia’ just means big, somewhat mysterious, somewhat misunderstood. This is a land far, far away. It has a sense of fairy tale about it.”

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  • Let’s hear it for the ladies!

    Meryl Streep in DoubtWow, what a damn fine year for lead actress performances.  When was the last time you heard anyone say that?

    I caught some flack recently when I took Meryl Streep off my predicted five nominees in the category.  “How can the Goddess miss?”  Well, she can, and she has, but regardless, the point is that there is some really stiff competition this year for the leading ladies, and man, that’s exciting (and unique)!

    Sally Hawkins (“Happy-Go-Lucky”), Charlize Theron (“The Burning Plain”), Kristin Scott-Thomas (“I’ve Loved You So Long”), Angelina Jolie (“Changeling”), Penélope Cruz (“Elegy”), Melissa Leo (“Frozen River”) and Michelle Williams (“Wendy and Lucy”) represent the seen and raved performances.  Anne Hathaway’s work has also been viewed, but we’ll get to that at the end of the week.  Rest assured, she’ll have her fans as well.

    On the horizon we’ll have Nicole Kidman (“Australia”) and the aforementioned Streep (“Doubt) in big Oscar hopefuls, not to mention Kate Winslet’s double dip in “The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road” (which ought to make home life interesting for the five-time nominee around campaign time).

    There are still fringe possibilities for Keira Knightley in “The Duchess” or Emily Blunt in “The Young Victoria,” while Laura Linney could add an Oscar nod to her Emmy success if “The Other Man” finds a distributor in Toronto.

    There’s always Julianne Moore lurking with her work in “Blindness” should the mixed reaction from Cannes prove to be a different story in Toronto, and Kate Beckinsale, by the way, is fantastic in Rod Lurie’s “Nothing But the Truth,” so who knows?

    So let’s not get our panties in a twist over shifting and sliding in this category over the next few months.  I don’t need consistent emails asking “Why did you take so and so out of your Best Actress chart,” because the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of horses in this particular race.

    Which is what we want, right?

  • ‘Che’ = ‘Havana’s Gate’

    Ouch:

    Call it Havana’s Gate. Steven Soderbergh’s elephantine account of the rise and deification of revolutionary icon Ernesto (Che) Guevara could prove as deadly to the director’s career as Heaven’s Gate was to Michael Cimino’s. Running a bladder-bursting 4 hours and 22 minutes (split over two parts), it reeks of authenticity but also self-indulgence. A potentially great performance by Benicio Del Toro in the title role is buried beneath Soderbergh’s stylistic tics and an almost complete lack of dramatic tension. It feels like every plodding jungle bootstep of Che and his band of rebels is shown, first in Cuba and later in Bolivia, but we never really get to know the man whose face launched a million T-shirts.

    Pete Howell has also given high marks to Ed Harris’s “Appaloosa” and Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married.” Neither was my cup of tea, and the former was an outright disappointment of potential, but I expect there to be plenty of fans to go around for each.  Especially “Rachel,” with a delicious duo on screen in the form of Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie Dewitt. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, eat your hearts out.

  • New (ish) ‘Australia’ images

    This page of “Australia” images is a Movie City News exclusive, though at least two of the pics have been on the net in some form for a while (including the saucy rain shot that’s been sitting cropped on our buzz page for some time).  In any case, these look to be an initial set of teaser posters for the film:

    Australia posters

    I dig it.  The first shot of Hugh Jackman is the more fetching, though.  Fox is gearing up a major campaign for this film, which will likely have the full power of the studio behind it, what with Searchlight’s apparent off-year.  I’m looking forward to it, but with an odd sense of anxiety.

  • Day-Lewis in line for ‘Nine?’

    OK, so the dream cast potentially just got dreamier.

    Nothing has been confirmed yet, but Variety reports that none other than Daniel Day-Lewis (one almost feels that should be preceded with a Sir, no?) is in talks to play the lead in Rob Marshall’s film version of “Nine” — the Broadway show that is in turn based on Fellini’s “8½,” and is arguably one of the artiest musicals out there.

    If he boards, Day-Lewis will be joining a cast already sagging under the weight of its riches: Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and (wow) Sophia Loren.

    It is a fascinating casting prospect for a number of reasons, and not just because we know so little of Day-Lewis’ abilities as a song-and-dance man. (And for those unfamiliar with the show, it’s a full-on, virtuoso musical role — no getting away here with shuffling and speak-crooning, a la Rex Harrison.) Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that a great voice and great moves are merely two other weapons in the man’s well-stocked arsenal of actorly gifts; given how selective Day-Lewis is with his projects, I sense he wouldn’t take the part if he wasn’t sure he could pull it off.

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