In Contention

Tag: Orson Welles

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1973 and 1974

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    “The Sting” swept the 1973 awards and it remains one of the breeziest films to win top honors. The combination of Newman and Redford, working at the top of their game and re-teaming with “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” director George Roy Hill proved irresistible.

    Unbelievably, it was joined in the Best Picture race by films from Best Director nominees George Lucas and Ingmar Bergman. If ever there was a pair that represented polar opposites of the filmmaking spectrum, they were nevertheless cinematic equals for a night here.

    Tatum O’Neal became the youngest winner of a competitive Oscar while 1974 saw Art Carney win over Pacino, Nicholson, Hoffman and Finney in some of the roles of their careers. Try explaining that one to anyone today without having to google Art Carney.

    1974 also gave us the first sequel to ever win Best Picture in “The Godfather Part II” and you’ll find no complaints here, although Coppola’s other Best Picture nominee that year, “The Conversation” is equally good.

    Oh, and Oscar’s one and only instance of full frontal nudity. So far…

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  • 10/29 Oscarweb Round-up

    John Cusack in 2012• John Horn dutifully writes up the pre-release buzz of “2012.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Pete Hammond on how legends Orson Welles and Tennessee Williams could figure into this year’s Oscar race. [Notes on a Season]

    • Years that could have used 10 Best Picture nominees. [Variety]

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  • 10/23 Oscarweb Round-up

    Unforgiven• Pete Hammond follows up on the Academy’s foreign screenings, plus more. [Notes on a Season]

    • Like me, Steven Zeitchik senses a little “Slumdog” in “Precious.” [Risky Business]

    • David Poland catches some intriguing similarities between the recently released “Invictus” and a number of other posters from Eastwood flicks. [The Hot Blog]

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  • Back to Welles

    Christian McKay in Me and Orson WellesIt’s funny how strong festival buzz can be frozen indefinitely as a film jumps through the increasingly complicated hoops of securing distribution — only to be thawed and reheated later.  Such looks to be the case with Richard Linklater’s latest, “Me and Orson Welles” — or, to be more specific, its breakout star Christian McKay.

    A year ago, the previously little-known Brit was the talk of Toronto for his apparently uncanny interpretation of Welles — even critics lukewarm on the film itself had nothing but superlatives for McKay. (Our own John Foote waxed lyrical here, while Eddie Marsan, who plays Welles associate John Houseman in the film, couldn’t stop gushing about the performance during our interview last fall.)

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  • Heart stop by window light

    I’m digging into March’s Criterion Blu-ray release of “The Third Man” (which largely ports over most of the 2007 Criterion double-dip), and I have to say, Orson Welles’s first appearance in the film, that knowing smile illuminated by window light, a Viennese woman barking at Joseph Cotton’s novelist-turned-gumshoe, is flat out one of the most arresting moments in cinema history.  I’ve never been much for Carol Reed’s seminal classic, but every moment Welles is on screen, I can’t look away.  It’s always been that way for me.

    Orson Welles in The Third Man

  • TORONTO: ‘Good,’ ‘Me and Orson Welles,’ ‘Every Little Step,’ ‘The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond,’ ‘The Hurt Locker’

    Christian McKay in Me and Orson WellesListening to the conversations of the other critics in the various theaters, it becomes very clear that this year’s fest has been something of a disappointment, the first in a long, long time.

    At least one critic pointed out to me that Oscar and TIFF divorced this year, which has been mentioned ad nauseum and is probably a pretty fair assessment of the situation. A lot of the press are heading home today and tomorrow as the festival begins that slow march toward the end, always exiting with a whimper and never a bang.

    These last couple of days I have screened some interesting films: a noble failure, a superb documentary, a fine war film that is still not the great film we need about Iraq.  I will get to them as I can, but for now, some quick catching up…

    (Reviews after the jump.)

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