In Contention

Tag: Peter Jackson

  • INTERVIEW: ‘District 9’ star Sharlto Copley

    Sharlto CopleyWhen actor Sharlto Copley first pops up on screen in Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9,” it isn’t a grand movie moment in the style of John Wayne’s arrival (albeit out of focus) in John Ford’s “Stagecoach” by any means.  In fact, viewers might instinctively expect Copley’s character, Wikus Van De Merwe, to be a supporting player, what with his unassuming demeanor and character actor appearance.

    By the end of the film, however, audiences will have witnessed one of the most controlled, authentic portrayals of the year.  And this humble viewer’s prediction is that, down the line, the upcoming weekend’s wide release will ultimately be seen as the coming out party for an exciting new acting talent.

    At the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills recently, Copley winds down at the end of a lengthy press day for the film.  Fielding wall-to-wall questions from broadcast and print media can leave a person numb to the talking points, but as he hungrily chomps down on an apple, he still maintains focus on what it is about the project that interested him from the outset.

    “I guess I was always interested in films that either had a comedic edge or a depth to them, an intelligent aspect,” he says, staring off toward the downtown Los Angeles skyline as he searches for the words.  “As much as it could be exciting or whatever, that was always important to me.  And I think what Neill’s done with this film is combine those things really well.  You’ve got satire, you’ve got drama, so it’s a pretty unique situation.”

    Indeed, “District 9” is seen in some quarters as indicative of a human interest science-fiction story in a genre that has increasingly lost its grounded footing.  It makes for a nice sister film to Duncan Jones’s “Moon” in that way, sci-fi that interests itself with tangible emotional beats more so than the high concept science of it all.

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  • ‘District 9’ on the way

    Sharlto Copley on the cover of Entertainment WeeklyNeill Blomkamp’s “District 9” is primed to explode on the cinema landscape next week.  At least I hope it is.  I’m never good at reading the populist pulse, especially as it pertains to predicting box office and things like that, but on a $30 million budget, and being an exceptional piece of work that should become a word-of-mouth success on home video if not theatrically, I can’t imagine the film won’t pull a profit.

    Entertainment Weekly’s cover story this month features actor Sharlto Copley, praised on high in this space during last month’s San Diego Comic-Con International, with the fetching headline: “Why ‘District 9’ will blow you away.”  That’s a good start.  I know plenty of people who ask me daily, “What’s the deal with ‘District 9?’”  Breeding intense curiosity is always a win.

    Scott Bowles sat down with the film’s producer, Peter Jackson (who made his first ever trip to Comic-Con to promote the film), in San Diego and got some great stuff, particularly Jackson’s revelation that working on the film reminded him of his guerrilla filmmaking roots.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals, foxes and funny people

    Adam Sandler in Funny People• In the week’s most dramatic news, Universal rather cleared its awards slate by bumping both “The Wolf Man” and Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” to 2010.

    • Against expectations, we were won over by Meryl Streep’s latest bid for that elusive third Oscar, “Julie & Julia.”

    • The Venice Film Festival unveiled a typically well-planned lineup, with “The Road” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” leading the American charge.

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  • COMIC-CON: Wrapping it up

    2009 San Diego Comic-Con InternationalI wish I could tell you how awesome the “Iron Man 2” footage form yesterday’s Paramount panel was, but Hall H was packed to the gills and even us schmoes int he VIP line couldn’t get in because it was at capacity.  Without a doubt, the event was the most popular attraction at this year’s Comic-Con.

    It sounded good muffled through the walls.  That’s all I got.  Hoping for another screening in LA soon.

    By far the highlight for me was the Entertainment Weekly Visionaries panel with James Cameron and Peter Jackson.  It’s a pretty big leap from last year’s set of Zack Snyder, Frank Miller, Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow.  Let’s hope next year isn’t a step backwards at the crew responsible for this momentous occasion gets creative and puts a few equally brilliant minds together on that stage once again.

    Speaking of Jackson, “District 9” made a major splash here.  The screening was very well-received on Thursday and the Saturday panel got the crowd chomping at the bit.  In this community anyway, the film is sure to be a runaway hit.

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  • Peter Jackson on film delivery and the younger generation

  • Random geek crashes the Visionaries party at the Con

    Oh, there was a hilarious moment early on during that EW Visionaries panel yesterday, when a fan leaped onto the stage somehow, in a faux-geek guise, to crash the party. Here’s a clip of the disturbance, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly:

  • COMIC-CON: Visionaries Jackson and Cameron address the masses

    (from left) Peter Jackson and James Cameron at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con InternationalThe crowning jewel of the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, by far, has been the Entertainment Weekly-sponsored “Visionaries” panel yesterday evening, featuring filmmakers Peter Jackson and James Cameron.  So many real-world, in-the-trenches, eye-on-the-future topics were discussed that it became tedious to sit and transcribe the proceedings, so after a while I just committed myself to as many video clips as I could grab.  Though I was tweeting as much as possible.  Ditto Jeff Wells, who passed along some nice quotes throughout.

    The two talked about everything from motion-capture technology to balancing the duties of screenwriter with that of producer and director, and really, anything in between.  It was the most enlightening panel Comic-Con could have hoped for, and even the attendee questions were brighter than usual.

    Line of the evening: “It’s not a good idea to ask a woman if she wants to have another baby when she’s crowning,” which was Cameron’s response to a query about his next project.

    Much of the discussion was dedicated to the idea that these two guys constantly push the envelope, not only of what is possible in cinema, but of what a studio is willing to fund.  Cameron in particular displayed his usual maverick side when questions like this came about, at one point saying that Warner Bros. needed to “grow a pair of balls” regarding an eventual 3D release of the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.

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  • COMIC-CON: Peter Jackson receives standing ovation at first ever Con appearance

    Peter Jackson at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con InternationalPeter Jackson made his long-awaited first trip to Comic-Con yesterday in support of Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9,” which screened to a select audience Thursday. He received the expected standing ovation by the many Ringers and Bad-Tasters in attendance.

    “This is a moment to remember for the rest of my life,” he said after snapping a few photos of the audience like a geek in heaven.

    Jackson was joined by Blomkamp and actor Sharlto Copley on stage for a discussion of the thoughtful sci-fi film. An extended trailer (that, to my mind, gave away too much of the plot’s particulars) cranked the crowd’s anticipation for the film up to 11, but I personally wish the moderator had drawn out some more insightful commentary from Copley, whom I praised to the ends of the earth after seeing his riveting performance Thursday.

    Jackson talked about the project’s genesis, being born from the ashes of his failed “Halo” project. The seeds of “District 9” can be found in Blomkamp’s short film “Alive in Joburg,” which crossed Jackson’s path when he was seeking out a helmer for “Halo.”

    “The idea was that we would produce ‘Halo,’ but from the very beginning we wanted to find a new director, someone who was fresh, original, who would bring a new spin to the film,” Jackson said. “Neill had done a couple of short movies and we were really impressed. And then ‘Halo’ died due to studio politics. We got kind of disillusioned with what happened and we thought, ‘Why don’t we try to take control of the situation,’ so we suggested the idea of working on an original idea. Keep the budget low and put this energy into a different project. So it worked out for the best.”

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  • COMIC-CON: Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp unveil ‘District 9’ to eager first audience

    Sharlto Copley in District 9Last night Peter Jackson showed up at the Horton Plaza United Artists theater a few blocks north of the convention center with protege Neill Blomkamp and actor Sharlto Copley in tow.  The occasion: the first ever screening of Blomkamp’s “District 9,” a sci-fi installment that finds itself in the midst of a heavy “what the heck is it?” campaign right now that hopes to drum up anticipation for the August 14 release (and will no doubt see a spike in that once the web press finds time to sit at their laptops and hammer out reactions).

    I didn’t really know what to expect.  I haven’t follwed the viral on this to the letter like so many and I really just thought it would be a nifty diversion during the Con if nothing else.  But it was so much more.  The film, which I won’t even discuss plot-wise, isn’t a watershed moment for sci-fi cinema by any means, so don’t let me over state.

    What it is, however, is a dedicated, small piece of character-driven genre, much like Duncan Jones’s “Moon” in that way, that was smartly nurtured by Jackson.  It also has plenty of seat-leaping action moments to go around, but at it’s heart, it is a near one-man show from actor Sharlto Copley, a fresh young talent who, quite frankly, stunned the hell out of me with his control of a character that is quite complicated in some ways.

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  • New ‘District 9’ trailer and poster

    Expanding on the teaser that generated much excitement among genre aficionados a few months back, comes this more revealing trailer for South African Neill Blomkamp’s freshman feature “District 9,” produced in association with Peter Jackson.

    Can’t say I’m as sold on the venture as others are — and the new trailer makes it look rather broader and less enigmatic than what we were originally led to expect — but I’m always up for seeing my hometown of Johannesburg show its sun-bleached colors on screen. Represent, Joeys. (Newish one-sheet after the cut.)

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  • Eastwood goes head-to-head with Jackson this December

    Clint EastwoodIt’ll be Clint Eastwood in one corner, Peter Jackson in the other for round two this Oscar season.

    Tuesday we broke the news that Clint Eastwood’s untitled Nelson Mandela/1995 World Cup film would be titled “Invictus.”  Now comes word form Variety that the film will be released December 11, the same day as Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones” (featured this week in Guy’s Page to Screen column).

    “Invictus” follows Mandela’s attempt to use the 1995 Rugby World Cup to heal his nation following his release from prison, the fall of apartheid and his election as president of South Africa…

    Eastwood drew the title of the film from a short poem often recited by Mandela. “Invictus,” penned by William Ernest Henley, speaks to the will to survive in the face of adversity.

    “Invictus” isn’t the first picture to claim Dec. 11. Also opening that weekend is Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones,” from Paramount and DreamWorks.

    The Dec. 11 release puts “Invictus” and “Lovely Bones” in the heart of awards season.

    Also note the utter lack of sourcing our story from two days ago. Nothing new there, but you roll with the punches in this racket.

  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold

    The Lovely BonesRemarkable cinema can be born of lesser literary source material, and vice versa. An arresting narrative hook can be enough for an adept screenwriter and filmmaker to fashion into an evocative cinematic vision; the artistry (or otherwise) of the prose is of secondary importance.

    Sterling cast and credentials aside, it is for this reason that I hold out much hope for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s “The Lovely Bones,” a wildly popular novel that is nonetheless more exciting in its conceptualization than in its clunky execution. The novel offers bold visual and structural possibilities, not to mention a strong emotional charge, for Jackson and his collaborators to draw upon, but is weighed down by a maudlin, sometimes lurid literary sensibility that could benefit from the more interpretive route of visual storytelling.

    The story, in short, requires a subtler hand than Sebold’s to move into the realm of art; whether Peter Jackson, hardly the gentlest of directors recently, is the man for the job is something I’m intrigued to see. The Jackson of “Heavenly Creatures” could tease out the candid, often mordantly humorous tone that occasionally surfaces in the novel to good effect. The Jackson of “King Kong” risks drowning the delicate core narrative in effects-heavy supernatural dazzle, not unlike how Sebold ultimately smothers her story in spiritual bathos in an utterly unhinged final act. As a match of filmmaker and source material, it’s a double-or-nothing proposition.

    Perhaps that sounds unduly harsh on a debut fiction effort that has redeeming features beyond its overriding stylistic stickiness. Its essential gimmick – as you no doubt know, it’s narrated by the spirit of Susie Salmon, a murdered 14 year-old girl, observing how her family members variously handle the crisis on earth – is distinctive and immediate, and should translate well to film with judicious use of voiceover.

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  • Peter Jackson presents ‘District 9’

    I haven’t kept up with Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9,” a Peter Jackson production that has the geek world chomping at the bit.  But the recently released trailer has certainly sparked my interest.  A plot synopsis from the film’s IMDb page: “An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.”

    Alrighty then.  Click the jaw-dropping image below to check out the trailer over at Apple.

    District 9

  • Far from heaven

    Ever since it was announced that Peter Jackson had succeeded Lynne Ramsay at the helm of “The Lovely Bones,” I have been hopeful that the project would see him veer closer to the eerie understatement of “Heavenly Creatures” than the extravagant kitsch of “The Lord of the Rings.”

    The premise of Alice Sebold’s novel may indicate delicate drama, but its fantastical elements need a light touch to avoid tipping over into gauzy sentimentality. (We will, of course, be discussing the novel in our Page to Screen series, which starts next month.)

    So I’m pleased to read, in USA Today’s chat with the filmmaker, that restraint appears to be high on his agenda. Though he rightly picks up on the redemptive aspects of Sebold’s narrative (“Susie holds on to love, and by doing so, she transcends the horror of her murder”), he’s wisely taking an open-ended cinematic approach to the issue of the afterlife:

    “It’s God-less in the sense that when Susie dies, she finds herself caught in a place between Earth and heaven — she is in an ‘In-Between,’ as Alice Sebold calls it.” When she moves on, “we’re happy for audiences to imagine this new world in whatever way makes them comfortable.”

    Empire, meanwhile, offers a still that provides an intriguing glimpse of this ‘In-Between’ world. I’m feeling more and more optimistic about this.

    Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely Bones

  • ‘Lovely Bones’ next year’s Oscar victor?

    Cover of The Lonely BonesKris recently took his initial stab at predicting next year’s Oscar nominees, so I thought I would join the madness by planting a flag for “The Lovely Bones.”  I read the book in three days at the suggestion of my daughter, who knows that I admire Peter Jackson and that this is his next film. On the way to my office, the train offered a quiet solitude.  I’ll never forget this book.

    The greatest tragedy a parent can suffer is losing a child.  I simply cannot imagine the pain this must cause. As the father of two beautiful girls, 17 and 9, they are the lights of my life and reason for smiling everyday. Should anything ever happen to them, they might as well throw me in the ground with them, because I would be dead.

    “The Lovely Bones” deals with the rape and murder of a young girl, who then watches her family, and her killer, from heaven for years after the event. The father suspects the next door neighbor (great instinct) while the mother cannot deal with the agony and leaves the family to forge a new life. The sister experiences something rather extraordinary that I will not give away, while the heroine grieves for her loss of family as much as they grieve for her.

    Jackson is, in my opinion, an enormously gifted filmmaker. I stand among those who believe “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy was the greatest risk in movie history, which paid off tremendously. The final film, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” is a masterpiece that deserved every single Oscar it won, the NYFCC Best Picture it won, and actually should have been nominated for a couple more. I remember the emptiness I felt after seeing the film, armed with the knowledge that the trilogy was over and there was no film to look forward to seeing next year from the director.

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  • Helmers of the English language, the best and why: part two

    Peter JacksonThis is the second part of a feature running down the 10 best filmmakers working in the English language.  For part one, click here, and stay tuned in the coming weeks for a similar feature on European helmers.

    PETER JACKSON
    I know this one will bother some people but what Jackson accomplsihed with “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy was fucking historical. Who would have thought the man who made the small, personal thriller “Heavenly Creatures” could guide a film as big as “The Ten Commandments?” Furthermore, he gave the Tolkein story heart and soul, never sacrificing character for scope.

    “The Lord of Rings: The Return of the King” was such a staggering work of brilliance I never wanted it to end (some felt like it never did, with multiple denouements).  But after investing nearly 12 hours with these characters, I wanted to know every last detail of what would become of them. And “King Kong” (I love it!) was among the best films of its year, a massive work with superb visual effects, spectacular art direction and design and a terrific Naomi Watts performance.

    I look forward to “The Lovely Bones,” one of the very few books I have read in the span of two days, unable to put it down. If any director can take us to the heaven described in that book, it is Jackson.

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  • Peter Bart chats it up with Guillermo Del Toro

    Guillermo Del Toro on the set of Pan\'s LabyrinthVariety’s Peter Bart sat down recently with “Hellboy 2” director Guillermo Del Toro, presumably for the upcoming episode of AMC’s “Shootout.”

    He also has some nice pics up of the inventive filmmaker’s infamous sketchbooks, though they’re covered in watermarks.  I assume it’s all in the way of plugging Sunday’s episode (which should be a good interview…Del Toro could make even Peter Guber seem to be asking pointed questions).

    Here’s a look:

    Del Toro is a man who loves to let his imagination roam, but he is very much a serious student of film who can discourse on the craft of Hitchcock and who helps guide and promote the work of fellow Mexican filmmakers like Inaritu and Cuaron (with whom he has a production company called Cha Cha Cha). For him, movies are both a playpen and a serious business — and a superbly remunerative place to have a happy childhood.

    I’m REALLY looking forward to “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,” I must say. I was not much of a fan of the initial installment, though I could not, at the time, deny the sheer scope of imagination on display. The trailers and promotional materials for the sequel have indicated the next level of visual splendor, so much so that Cinematical’s James Rocchi said he felt as if his “imagination had eaten too much.”

    And despite my extreme distaste with much of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” franchise, I’m oddly anticipating Del Toro’s “The Hobbit” with a twisted sort of glee.

    Finally, it’s a few days old, but Jeffrey Wells recently sat down with the filmmaker (he’s always been an admirer). Have a listen.

  • SHORT TAKE: “King Kong” (***)

    King KongI don’t feel like writing passionately about “King Kong” in the slightest. What I can say with utmost conviction is that the film affords too much of EVERYTHING. The story is bloated, with subplots that could have been fleshed out more succinctly by capable hands (I contend that Peter Jackson is not the most gifted director when it comes to combining the dramatic and the spectacle, even if he is quite gifted at relaying them separately).

    I will, however, say what no one will have the guts to say. 80% of the visual effects in the film are not worth the saliva they will induce. The heart and soul of the budget in this arena was obviously afforded to the Kong close-ups, which, by and large convey one hell of an intimately realized animated creature, but I will stand firm and offer that 12 years later, no filmmaker has flawlessly combined the elements of CGI the way Steven Spielberg’s team did with “Jurassic Park.” These are green screen environments that recall the “Star Wars” prequels – I’m sorry to say.

    Much will be written about a dynamic duel between Kong and a trio of Tyranosaurs. And with good cause. The scene is pulse-racing, and along with the rest of the film’s action sequences, it is exhausting. But for this viewer, not necessarily in a good way. Not all of the time.

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