In Contention

Tag: Rachel Getting Married

  • All in the family: a note on the SAG nods

    I know I shouldn’t get upset. As Sasha Stone over at Awards Daily repeatedly intones, when it comes to awards analysis, “the trick is not minding.” You should coolly observe the trends, learn from them and be guided always by your head rather than your heart.

    But damn it, I’m only human. I can’t help getting invested in certain contenders. And I don’t mind admitting that I was utterly dismayed by this morning’s thoroughly unadventurous and, worse yet, insular set of SAG nominations. Did the voters really carefully consider all the possible options before putting pen to ballot paper? Did they really take time to decide which of the year’s performances and ensembles most moved and challenged them? Or did they simply reel off the five names in each category that they’ve heard the most about, and think are most likely to feature in the Oscar race?

    Maybe the answer to the first two questions is “yes.” But I doubt it. I find it hard to imagine that any actor adequately attuned to their own craft could consider all the female supporting performances of the year and somehow decide that Amy Adams’ performance in “Doubt” was more rich and complex than what Rosemarie DeWItt achieved in “Rachel Getting Married,” or Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler.”

    I don’t believe (or at least I don’t want to believe) that actors who supposedly have some experience of ensemble work can fail to notice that the ensembles of “Synecdoche, New York,” “The Dark Knight,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” or even “Rachel Getting Married” are denser, more intricate and infinitely more integrated than those of “Frost/Nixon” or “Doubt.”

    A great ensemble is about more than the prestige of the names within it. You’d expect actors to understand that, and last year’s off-the-wall nominations for “Hairspray” and “3:10 to Yuma” suggested that maybe, just maybe, they did. This year, however, was back to business as usual, as they turn their highest and most unique award into yet another Best Picture-emulating copycat list.

    (More thoughts, and predictions, after the cut.)

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  • Chicago crix join the ‘WALL-E’ wagon

    I know we issued a moratorium on regional critics’ awards the other day, but the Chicago Film Critics Association is semi-significant, and we did report on their nominations, so in the interests of closure, here are the winners.

    I must say, I’m starting to feel the heat for a “WALL-E” Best Picture nomination — could it displace “The Dark Knight” for the populist vote? I think so. Meanwhile, I’m really getting the feeling that Anne Hathaway could emerge as the Best Actress winner at the end of the day. I have no idea what would justify such an outcome, but that’s my hunch.

    Of course, I had these inklings before I saw these winners — which aren”t that relevant anyway — but it chimes in neatly enough, so I thought I’d throw ’em out there.

    Best Picture: “WALL-E”
    Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
    Best Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”
    Best Original Screenplay: Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, “WALL-E”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Foreign Language Film: “Let the Right One In”
    Best Documentary: “Man On Wire”
    Best Animated Feature: “WALL-E”
    Best Cinematography: Wally Pfister, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Original Score: Thomas Newman, “WALL-E”
    Most Promising Performer: Dev Patel, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Most Promising Director: Tomas Alfredson, “Let the Right One In”

  • Toronto loves ‘Wendy and Lucy’

    I’m not trying to keep up with the plethora of obscure critics’ awards anymore — with all due respect to the good people of Dallas or Tulsa or Albequerque or wherever, I don’t particularly care what their critics have to say. Harsh, but true.

    So from here on out, the only critics’ picks worth mentioning are the either the ones from a credible institution with at least some history, or the ones that highlight something interesting or under-appreciated. (As opposed to handing “Slumdog Millionaire” its 87th gong — great film, but seriously, to all the tiny critics’ groups out there trying to get noticed, why not veer from the herd?)

    Happily, the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards fulfil both requirements. They’ve been around for ten years, but in that time they’ve built a reputation for unusual (and pretty great) choices, honouring the likes of “Magnolia,” “Memento” and “A History of Violence.” I think any group that has singled out Miranda Richardson for “Spider” and given Best Director to the Dardenne brothers deserves my attention.

    And they’ve earned it again this year, handing Best Picture and Best Actress to the quietly stunning “Wendy and Lucy” — between this and its unexpected AFI list placing, Kelly Reichardt’s microbudget drifter tale is having a very good week indeed, while I’m glad some folks are acknowledging what a banner year Michelle Williams has had professionally.

    Their full list, with runners-up, after the cut. Pretty interesting picks all round (Van Damme — ha), even if the love for “Rachel Getting Married” continues to elude me. Also, the fact that they love her film enough to give it their top prize, but Kelly Reichardt doesn’t even appear in their runners-up for Best Director, leaves a bit of a sour taste. I’m not saying sexism is at play here, but it doesn’t make a great impression.

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  • ‘Rachel,’ ‘The Wrestler’ were close; Cruz, Hawkins sit pretty

    Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerAs I suspected, “Rachel Getting Married” and “The Wrestler” were right in the thick of today’s NYFCC voting.  As he does annually, Tom O’Neil runs down the inside scoop on the particulars of the vote.  He gets his info from the New York Post’s Lou Lumenick.

    Apparently “Rachel” was nipping at the heels of “Milk” for Best Picture, while Mickey Rourke came in a relatively close second for Best Actor honors in “The Wrestler.”   Robert Seigel’s script for the latter was also in the conversation, landing in third place.  It’s nice to see Kate Winslet was also in the running for Best Actress (for “Revolutionary Road”), albeit in fourth place.

    The only mentions for “The Dark Knight” were a second place showing for Heath Ledger and a third place showing for Best Cinematography, while the only landslide win looks to have been “Man on Wire” for Best Documentary, 20 points ahead of “Waltz with Bashir.”

    Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Karger, meanwhile, shrewdly points out that “in the last seven years, 11 actors have been recognized by both organizations (LAFCA and NYFCC) and all 11 eleven went on to score Oscar nominations as well.”  The peculiarity bodes well for Penelope Cruz and Sally Hawkins, Karger says, and I’m inclined to agree.

  • ‘Milk,’ ‘Happy’ win big with NYFCC

    Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-LuckyThe Best Picture victory for “Milk” is going to be the lede for most people as far as today’s New York Film Critics Circle awards is concerned, but the bigger story is “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which finds itself right back in the thick of the Oscar conversation.

    The group handed Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins honors for Best Director and Best Actress respectively for the film.  This marks the second award in as many days for both.  Leigh won the screenplay award yesterday with the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Hawkins was also singled out for her performance.

    But back to “Milk,” I was a little surprised to see the film do so well here, also taking honors for Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Supporting Actor (Josh Brolin).  It’s a slightly more populist opinion from a crowd that likes to be fringe, though Jenny Lumet’s screenplay win for “Rachel Getting Married” was anything but a shock.

    Penelope Cruz continued her expected steamroll through the Oscar season with yet another supporting actress win (she won with LAFCA as well), while “WALL-E” surprised no one with a victory as Best Animated Film.  Meanwhile, Anthony Dod Mantle, who came in as a runner-up with the L.A. critics for his work behind the camera on “Slumdog Millionaire,” happened to walk away with the honor today.

    “Man on Wire” took honors for Best Documentary, while “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” won for Best Foreign Film.

    It was yet another day of snubs for “Revolutionary Road,” which turned up with zero nominations from the BFCA and no mentions from the L.A. critics.  And a film that has suddenly become a real threat as the first major precursors have begun to arrive, “The Dark Knight,” hit an expected roadblock with the Gotham crew, finding no love in any category.  Slightly more surprising, however, is the lack of recognition for Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.”  But I have a hunch it was in the hunt throughout, maybe just coming up short in this category or that.

    (Full list of winners after the jump.)

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  • Waiting on the Gotham crowd

    NYFCCAlright, so last year, the NYFCC announcement came down close to 10:00 a.m. PST, so I expect in the next few hours we’ll have some answers.  You can check on the group’s official site to watch the winners clock in as announced (unless something changes this year), but for now, I’ll wager a couple of guesses.

    The way the New York critics vote, with various in-fighting and films left standing eventually crowned victor (which leads to weird Best Picture choices like “United 93” and “Out of Sight”), this group can be an erratic one to predict.  I’m not sensing a “Slumdog” victory or major love for “Milk,” but I think this is the place where, say, “Rachel Getting Married” or even “The Visitor” can claim a piece of the critics awards pie.

    That said, I’m going to guess way out on the fringe and say “The Wrestler,” with a win for Mickey Rourke to accompany it.  Maybe Aronofsky can even slide in for Best Director, or perhaps that’s where Jonathan Demme will get his precursor due.  For actress, I anticipate Anne Hathaway, but a win for Melissa Leo or Kristin Scott Thomas wouldn’t surprise me either.

    Anyway, take a crack at it and give us your NYFCC predictions below.

  • Globes rule ‘Rachel,’ ‘W.’ are dramas

    For those of you puzzling over whether certain titles will fall into the drama or musical/comedy categories at the Golden Globes, Tom O’Neil has a handy list to clarify matters.

    Most significantly, “W.” has not been accepted by the HFPA as a comedy, despite the film being submitted as one. This isn’t exactly new information — Dave Karger confirmed the film’s status a couple of weeks ago — but I know some were confused since the film was nominated in the comedic fields at the Golden Satellite Awards. It’s the right call, in my opinion: witty as the film was in some isolated instances, it wasn’t remotely a comedy.

    “Rachel Getting Married” will compete in the dramatic fields, too — again the correct classification, I think. Anne Hathaway will now have to face feisty competition even to get nominated in the Best Actress in a Drama race. Meanwhile, bar an upset by Meryl Streep, Sally Hawkins looks to have a clear run to victory in the comedy/musical category for “Happy-Go-Lucky.”

    Looking down the list of films eligible for comedy/musical consideration, it becomes difficult to spot the potential winners between the gruesome parade of dross such as “Disaster Movie,” “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” and “The Love Guru.” (Seriously, why do they bother entering?) At a guess, I’d say it’ll come down to “Burn After Reading,” “Cadillac Records,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “Mamma Mia!” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” with Woody Allen looking a good bet to claim his first Best Picture gong in a couple of decades.

    Suffice to say this category doesn’t look likely to have much impact on Oscar’s Best Picture slate this year.

  • ‘Ballast,’ ‘River,’ ‘Rachel’ lead the Indie Spirit nods

    James Franco in MilkI’m late to the table on today’s Independent Spirit Award nominations because I’ve been toiling away on the latest Oscar column (which should be up shortly).  Obviously, Sony Pictures Classics dominated the scene but I’m glad to see that this year’s crop is more “independent” than in years past.

    One nomination that stuck out to me was James Franco in the supporting actor category for “Milk” (a film good enough for four nominations but not for Best Picture — explain that to me).  Early on the idea was that Josh Brolin’s foil character Dan White would be the better bid for the category at the Oscars.  Then word came that James Franco was the heartbeat of the piece and likely a better fit.  Finally, the film landed and I was not alone in thinking Brolin hit his performance out of the park.  Now this, so who knows?  I still get the feeling Emile Hirsch is lurking in the wings waiting for a surprise, maybe with SAG or even Oscar, but that’s a difficult trio of supporting contenders to work through at the moment.

    I get the feeling this year’s Indie Spirits will be dominated by “The Wrestler” and “Rachel Getting Married,” maybe some love for “Frozen River” here and there.  I’m happy to see “Synecdoche, New York” land the Robert Altman Award (which always seems to go to a highly deserving crew), and I’ll certainly be pulling for Harris Savides yet again in the cinematography category.

    The nominations:

    Best Feature
    “Rachel Getting Married” (Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt)
    “The Wrestler” (Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin)
    “Wendy and Lucy” (Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani)
    “Ballast” (Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh)
    “Frozen River” (Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae)

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  • 11/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    WALL-E• Jeff Wells is beside himself because Oscar prognosticators understand “Che” has a snowball’s chance in hell at a best Picture nomination. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Noah Forrest podcasts “Changeling” screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski. [Movie City News]

    • Anne Thompson gets the “Australia” goods from Hugh Jackman. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Tom O’Neil, meanwhile, wonders if pundits are underestimating the film…nah. [Gold Derby]

    • The economy takes a bite out of one of the season’s biggest Oscar bashes. [Vanity Fair]

    • Pete Hammond is a party pooper, makes sure we all understand a SAG strike could put a damper on the season. [Notes on a Season]

    • Nathaniel Rogers talks to “Rachel Getting Married” gals Rosemarie DeWitt and Jenny Lumet. [The Film Experience]

    • Peter Bart joins my Brandon Walters bandwagon, says director Baz Luhrmann has created a star. [Peter Bart]

    • Kevin Kelly talks to “WALL-E” and “Star Wars” sound whiz Ben Burtt. [Spout Blog]

    • Patrick Goldstein digs into the emotional chill factor of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” [The Big Picture]

    • A Harvey Milk Cliff’s Notes for your “Milk” screening preparations. [USA Today]

  • Narrowing it down

    Over at Awards Daily, Sasha Stone has taken it upon herself to whittle down the Best Picture race to a brisk 11-title list, and it makes for sobering reading:

    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    “The Dark Knight”
    “Doubt”
    “Frost/Nixon”
    “Gran Torino”
    “Milk”
    “Rachel Getting Married”
    “The Reader”
    “Revolutionary Road”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”
    “The Wrestler”

    I can’t be the only person looking down that list and gloomily wondering, “Is that it?” (I suppose some might argue for “Australia” still, but even the positive early reviews don’t give me a great feeling.) Sadly, not only is Stone probably right, but she’s still being relatively generous — I would strike “Rachel Getting Married” off the list without too much hesitation. Meanwhile, the level of hype centering on Clint Eastwood’s Best Actor campaign for “Gran Torino” has me wondering whether those who have seen it don’t deem it Best Picture material. (I remain among those unpersuaded by the film’s trailer.)

    It seems to me that “Doubt”‘s chances of a Best Picture nomination depend entirely on how much award steam it gathers in the acting races, while “The Reader” remains a puzzle to me — it has the right credentials, the trailer looks solid, but why don’t I sense more excitement around it? Harvey Weinstein is still struggling to regain his golden touch at the Oscars, and it remains to be seen whether that early bout of bad press over the film’s release-date kerfuffle will linger.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Big guns unveiled, docs shortlisted, Saviano speaks

    A big week, this, in which the covers were finally lifted off some heavyweight titles. Here’s what we were talking about:

    • And speaking of those heavyweights, Kris ran hot on “Revolutionary Road,” but cool on “Australia” …

    • … while being offered a frustratingly truncated glimpse of “Benjamin Button.”

    • The Academy announced their 15-strong shortlist for Best Documentary Feature, and emerged with credibility largely intact, in my opinion.

    • We were fortunate enough to chat to the incredible Roberto Saviano of “Gomorrah” fame…

    • … as well as the charming Rosemarie DeWitt, our pick of the “Rachel Getting Married” ensemble.

    • Roger Ebert either picked the brain of an Academy insider, or made some bold predictions of his own. Interesting either way.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column played the waiting game.

    • Tech Support got musical this week, with a look at the composers in the hunt for gold this year.

    • We examined the horses (or lack thereof) in the Comedy/Musical races at the Golden Globes.

    • This week’s edition of The Lists delved into the embarrassment of cinematic riches that was the 1970s.

    • “The Wrestler” finally got a poster and an impressive trailer.

    • We contemplated next year’s BAFTA awards, wondering whether homegrown winners will again dominate proceedings.

    • The Best Picture debate over “The Dark Knight” continues apace.

  • In the round

    I don’t know why exactly, but the “roundtable” format of interviews that crops up a lot during awards season often strikes me as rather less fascinating than it’s meant to be. Unless the panel is very smartly chosen, I find the discussion tends to veer towards back-patting and faintly smug in-jokery, rather than stimulating argument between widely differing creative forces.

    Maybe I’m just blasé. But on reading the Hollywood Reporter’s two recent “Oscar Roundtables” with six screenwriters and six producers that THR thinks are likely to figure in the Oscar race, I couldn’t help being disappointed that, despite the level of talent involved, they didn’t have that many interesting things to say between them. (I’d go so far as to say that the best soundbite is quoted from the not-present Charlie Kaufman.)

    The selected writers are Jenny Lumet (“Rachel Getting Married”), Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”), Thomas McCarthy (“The Visitor”), John Patrick Shanley (“Doubt”), Andrew Stanton (“WALL-E”) and J. Michael Straczynski (“Changeling”). I have a hard time imagining the latter two will score writing nominations, but the race is young, I suppose.

    Writers can be pretty insufferable when talking about their “process” — I know, I am one. So there’s the usual semi-serious comparing of hours spent at the computer, feverish notebook scribbling and messy first drafts, but there isn’t much discussion of the specific screenplays and films at hand. McCarthy seems to be the most reticent of the group, only entering the discussion halfway through. A shame, really, as I’d venture that he’s possibly the best writer of the lot.

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  • INTERVIEW: Rosemarie DeWitt

    Rosemarie DeWittRosemarie DeWitt is excited.

    It can be difficult to gauge emotion in the formal, slightly removed context of a phone interview, but DeWitt’s warm, clear voice betrays an eagerness right from the get-go, articulating thoughts at a pace that occasionally exceeds my shorthand. Only when addressing the heady buzz of awards season does she finally pause to reach for words.

    “It’s crazy, seriously crazy, but more than anything, it’s just really flattering,” she says.  “This is the best job I’ve ever had, and I’m so, so proud of the film. Anything more than that is just…” A moment passes as she takes a breath, and considers the matter. “Wow,” she concludes simply.

    The film in question, of course, is “Rachel Getting Married,” Jonathan Demme’s barbed family drama that has been widley declared the filmmaker’s return to form after some years in the wilderness. The buzz, meanwhile, is for DeWitt’s subtle, complex turn in the title role, which has garnered considerable plaudits for the hitherto low-profile 34-year-old actor, a frequent stage presence only recently receiving her due on screen, both big and small.

    Best known until now for her tart, sexy portrayal of Midge, Jon Hamm’s bohemian city mistress in TV critics’ darling “Mad Men,” DeWitt is calling from Los Angeles.  She’s just finishing work on another cable series, “The United States of Tara,” a dark, high-concept comedy created by Diablo Cody and starring Toni Collette (an “absolute genius,” DeWitt gushes).

    All of which would be enough to get excited about without Oscar talk being thrown into the mix. But as Rachel, the older sister of Anne Hathaway’s self-destructive addict Kym, DeWitt’s attentive, commendably unflattering performance finds itself right in the thick of the Best Supporting Actress competition. Hers is, for me, the most resonant performance in a film that doesn’t want for thespian fireworks, largely because DeWitt never pushes Rachel into the stock character of the saintly, long-suffering sibling.

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  • Standing up for the women

    Kim Voynar has a sharp piece up at MCN in which she decries the absence of female-focused (and female-directed) films from the top line of Oscar contenders.

    Of particular irritation to her is that femme-driven films like “Rachel Getting Married,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “I’ve Loved You So Long,” “Frozen River” and “Wendy and Lucy” — the latter two directed by women too — are garnering fawning reviews and plenty of awards attention for their stars, yet for the most part are being written off as Best Picture contenders. The Oscar pundits, she believes, aren’t helping either:

    Twenty-three films on the Gurus of Gold Best Picture chart and of those, not a single damned one is directed by a woman. That’s just sad — both generally speaking, and because I’m rather shocked that Frozen River, at least, hasn’t manbaged to garner even a single vote in its favor. The only femme-helmed film even showing up on the Gurus’ Best Pic chart is … The Secret Life of Bees? Seriously? No offense to that film, but Dakota and the Bees above Frozen River? I honestly cannot imagine an objective version of reality where the former is a better film artistically speaking. And don’t get me started on the mostly dreadful Body of Lies being anywhere on that list when Frozen River is not. Oy.

    She has a point, even if her argument is (I suspect consciously) on the naive side. The truth is that tiny, discomfiting films like “Frozen River” and “Wendy and Lucy” would likely never be deemed Best Picture contenders, no matter who directed them — though I wish that weren’t so, particularly in the latter film’s case.

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  • Does ‘Rachel’ have Oscar legs?

    One advantage of the hectic festival environment is that, while seeing more movies in a month than is medically advisable, it offers a pretty ruthless method of separating the wheat from the chaff. If a film still sticks in your mind after seeing a million others in such a compressed timeframe, it clearly has something special. (For me, those would be the films in my London Top Ten list.)

    On the other hand, there are a couple of films that, even if they seem quite impressive in the moment, ultimately get lost in the crush. And so it was with me and Jonathan Demme’s much-vaunted “Rachel Getting Married.”

    One of the first films I saw in the festival press screenings, I enjoyed it for the funky looseness of Demme’s direction and a couple of interestingly barbed performances — even if I didn’t quite get the ecstatic wave of praise that greeted it in the US. A month later, however, with numerous other films jostling for attention in my brain, I find it difficult to remember much about the film at all… and that goes for the actors too.

    Of course, that’s an entirely subjective test, one that is largely irrelevant to awards prognostication — there are still plenty of ardent devotees declaring it the best film of the year (huh?), and they will no doubt continue to do so. Still, something caught my attention yesterday which suggested I might not be alone. In their always-interesting Oscar Futures chart, those wicked guys at Vulture sense a downturn in momentum for Anne Hathaway in the Best Actress race:

    This category is getting pretty competitive — was she really as good as everybody thought two weeks ago?

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  • 10/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    Luke and Brie are on a First Date• Tom O’Neil ponders Angelina Jolie’s Oscar hopes yet again… [Gold Derby]

    • …and rather pointlessly takes a shot at Sean Penn. [Gold Derby]

    • Peter Bart is charmed by Clint Eastwood’s development through the years. [Peter Bart]

    • Eastwood, meanwhile, offers up 12 key influences on his life in movies. [Entertaiment Weekly]

    • Peter Sciretta takes a look back at Paul Thomas Anderson’s short film “The Legend of Dirk Diggler.” [/Film]

    • Condon and Mark tap Roger Goodman to helm the 81st annual Oscar telecast. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Gaynor Flynn spends some time with Debra Winger, assumed by some to be a shoo-in nominee for the worst five minutes of “Rachel Getting Married.” [The Independent]

    • Howard Feinstein talks “Synecdoche, New York” with the haunted and brilliant Charlie Kaufman. [indieWIRE]

    • Ditto Rachel Abramowitz. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Harrison Ford is crowned best movie President for his performance in “Air Force One.” [Reuters]

    • Mark Blankenship digs into the differences between “Billy Elliot” on stage and screen. [New York Times]

    • Karina Longworth has some nice remarks about our old friend Chad Hartigan and his feature debut “Luke and Brie are on a First Date,” currently playing the Hamptons Film Festival. [Spout Blog]

  • LONDON: ‘Tony Manero,’ ‘The Other Man,’ ‘Awaydays,’ ‘Seamstresses’

    Before I continue my roundup of films from the last few days of the London Film Festival, I received an email asking why I haven’t mentioned such major festival titles as “Rachel Getting Married” and “Religulous.”

    There is little point in me reviewing titles that have already opened in the States (and which Kris has already discussed, in my opinion rather accurately), with so much coverage already available. But to deal briefly with three such films, I enjoyed “Rachel Getting Married” (***) for Jonathan Demme’s loose, funky aesthetic, but found the script disappointingly glib beneath the flashy surface wit. “Religulous” (**1/2) is entertaining but not as penetrating as it imagines itself, with Bill Maher claiming to stand for doubt, but showing precious little thereof in his one-sided argument. Meanwhile, the less said (from me, at least) about the fatuous trifle that is “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” (**), the better. Moving on:

    TONY MANERO (***)

    Chile’s official Academy Awards submission is a stark, studied and ultimately rather unsettling black comedy that provides a particularly bleak spin on the familiar character of the fame-crazed non-talent. Set in the late 70’s, against the ominous (and fascinating) political backdrop of the Pinochet dictatorship, the film centres on Raul (Alfredo Castro), a dour, dysfunctional middle-aged man whose chief pleasure in life is regular viewings of “Saturday Night Fever” at the local cinema.

    Obsessed with the John Travolta character for whom the film is named, Raul begins modelling himself on Manero, going so far as to enter a Manero lookalike contest on national TV, and leading a shabby dance troupe in meticulous pastiches of “Fever” dance numbers at a local bar. However, the startling lack of moral boundaries Raul shows in his quest to inhabit Manero leads him into a spiral of theft, lies and murder.

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  • 10/14 Oscarweb Round-up

    John Cusak (voice) as Igor in Igor• Tom O’Neil covers the landscape of double-dipping performers this year. [Gold Derby]

    • It looks like Don Cheadle will be replacing Terrence Howard in “Iron Man 2.”  Fucking lame. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • How Kyle Buchanan missed the boat on some obviously awkward moments in “Rachel Getting Married.”  Seriously, what’s with the critical love-fest on this thing? [Defamer]

    • Christopher Campbell, meanwhile, thinks Anne Hathaway will be nominated for an Oscar but doesn’t deserve it. [Spout Blog]

    • David Poland spends 30 minutes with Greg Kinnear and Marc Abraham, star and director of “Flash of Genius” respectively. [The Hot Blog]

    • Tim Moore goes behind the scenes of “Igor.” [Daily Telegraph]

    • Is now time for a “Wall Street” sequel? [The Guardian]

    • Anthony Kaufman thinks this year’s Best Foreign Language Film race might be the most predictable in years. [indieWIRE]

    • Dave Karger wonders where the Best Picture nominees are this season. [Oscar Watch]

    • And finally, our hearts go out to Gerard Depardieu, who lost his son Guillaume yesterday, far too soon. [Associated Press]