In Contention

Tag: Ralph Fiennes

  • OFF THE CARPET: Strong year for double-dippers

    We find ourselves right in the middle of the big Toronto press junket, er, film festival, where 200-plus films are landing, many of them as world premieres, and the landscape of this year’s Oscar race is really beginning to take shape.

    As I looked out at the various films in play this year, it suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps more than ever, there are a lot of double-dipping actors and actresses in the hunt. Not all of these performances are or will be awards bait necessarily, but there could still be cases for more than a few saddling up to dual nominations this year.

    At the top of that list would have to be Brad Pitt. After already giving what many believed to be his best performance to date in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” the paparazzi-hounded star found himself the recipient of a lot of great ink for his work in “Moneyball” when it screened in Toronto at the end of the week. Wisely, Fox Searchlight will be planning a supporting actor push for the actor in Malick’s film, which is both practical (given his clear lead in the other film), and organic (given that, at least in my opinion, he is supporting to Hunter McCracken’s lead in “The Tree of Life”).

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • ‘Coriolanus’ poster

    Another day, another poster. Interesting that they’re selling this one less as The Ralph Fiennes Show (he is Coriolanus, after all) and more as a two-hander. It’s worth playing up Gerard Butler’s contribution — his performance here is a career highlight — but I maintain my broken-record position that Vanessa Redgrave is the real story here. Meanwhile, I’m slightly surprised at what a slick marketing push this one is getting: the film is more of a curio than you might think. Interested to see how this pans out. Full poster after the jump.

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  • ‘Coriolanus’ UK trailer

    I stuck my neck out back in February at the Berlin Film Festival and said that Vanessa Redgrave will snag a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination (at least) for her galvanizing interpretation of Volumnia in Ralph Fiennes’s hopped-up take on Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus.” I’m sticking to my guns — and I imagine more voices will join mine when the film finally makes its second festival appearance at Toronto next month — but you wouldn’t get the message from this slick, alluring UK trailer, which understandably places the emphasis squarely on the film’s testosterone component. (More thoughts, plus the embed, after the jump.)

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  • My only friend, the end

    I’ll make this brief.

    “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” hits this weekend. It will be massive. The devoted will turn out and love it. The sense of grand closure will settle for many. But I’ll just have to cop here at the beginning to the fact that I cannot connect the dots on this series and likely never will.

    I suppose I’ll just focus on what I did enjoy about the latest film, which I saw last night, rather than wallow in the overall displeasure. Who wants to be a spoilsport? A party-pooper? A wet blanket? A kill-joy? A fuddy-duddy?

    Mercifully, the film clocks in at just over two hours, rather than blowing right on past the two-and-a-half-hour mark like most of the other films in the franchise. And since it’s largely built around action sequences and an overall vibe of suspense, it moved along nicely. I liked that.

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  • BERLIN: ‘Coriolanus,’ Redgrave and an early Oscar bet

    The cavernous Berlinale Palast theatre was packed to the gills for today’s noontime press screening of “Coriolanus” (***), and small wonder — in a Competition lineup heavy on oatmeal fare boasting comparatively unfamiliar names, Ralph Fiennes’s directorial debut is one of the few entries that affords viewers a little star-gazing.

    Fiennes, of course, takes the title role in his revisionist take on Shakespeare’s under-filmed tragedy, with Gerard Butler, Brian Cox and the soon-to-be-ubiquitous Jessica Chastain adding further name appeal.

    As the crowd staggered out of the auditorium two hours later, the name being murmured most approvingly was that of the film’s oldest and most distinguished star. And with good reason. As Volumnia, the proud, politically-minded mother of the titular Roman general, Vanessa Redgrave gives one of “those” performances, an Olympian masterclass in classical acting that conjures spontaneous emotional fire upon a bed of immaculate technique.

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  • Off to the Berlinale

    In a couple of hours, I’m jumping on a crack-of-dawn flight to one of the coolest cities on earth for a week at the Berlin International Film Festival — or, to use the name that rolls more luxuriously off the tongue, the Berlinale.

    I probably should have mentioned this earlier and posted some sort of festival preview. The truth, however, is that I’ve been so preoccupied with other business that I’ve barely read through the festival programme myself — the date rather snuck up on me. I’ve never done so little homework ahead of a festival — yet after my first Berlinale experience last year, that doesn’t feel like a bad approach.

    Berlin prides itself as being a festival of discovery, with more of an emphasis on rising talent than the lofty auteur names that tend to favor the sunnier festival climes of Cannes and Venice. True to form, my favorite finds of last year’s festival were ones I knew little about in advance (like Arvin Chen’s “Au Revoir, Taipei,” which wound up in my 2010 Top 10) or ones I wasn’t aware would show up until the last minute (like “The Illusionist,” buried so deep in last year’s programme many critics missed it altogether).

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  • First Berlinale selections revealed, ‘True Grit’ to open fest

    Of all the festivals I attended this year, Berlin was perhaps the one with the most covert significance. At the time, it seemed critics were foraging for scraps amid a dismal competition lineup and a confusingly scattered selection of sidebars — and yet so many of the films I caught there (and some that I didn’t) are still with me at the year’s end.

    Prizewinners like “The Ghost Writer” and “How I Ended This Summer” continue to grow in stature in Europe, Sundance follow-ons like “Winter’s Bone,” “The Kids Are All Right” and “Exit Through the Gift Shop” are in the thick of the Oscar conversation, and you probably all know by now how I feel about the 2010 Berlinale’s most buried world premiere, “The Illusionist.”

    In other words, there’s little way of telling what treasure might be gleaned from the festival lineup until you’re actually there. That said, although that tantalizing, briefly-floated possibility of the Berlinale snagging “Tree of Life” didn’t pan out, this morning’s freshly unveiled list of the fest’s first eight official selections offers smaller notes of intrigue.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 Oscar nominee fields

    Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's ListIn exactly one week’s time, we’ll have a brand new list of Oscar nominations to pore over, pick apart and eventually file away in our subconscious with the other 81 editions of this annual collective. For Oscar geeks, nomination day is in many ways more exciting than the ceremony itself, celebrating a broader spectrum of work and throwing up far more surprises along the way.

    For all that, once the winners are announced, the nomination list as a whole tends to be disregarded, returned to only by trivia buffs and the geekiest of Oscar geeks. (Guilty on both counts.) And that’s shame, because a field of five nominees can often be more illuminating viewed collectively than even the worthiest of individual champions.

    Today’s list, then, is devoted to that most elusive of Oscar holy grails: the perfect nominee field.

    Yes, more often than not, the Academy will nominate several notable achievements in a single category. But rarer than hen’s teeth are the robust Oscar categories that feature a full house of five outstanding nominees, five contenders that would all be worthy of a win in any other year. No unremarkable coaster nominees sliding in on the coattails of a popular picture. No bad films with an expensively studio-bought  nominations. No filler. No fat. Just five superb achievements.

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  • The Great Performances: 2005

    Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain2005 was the year of Heath Ledger’s beautiful, moving performance in “Brokeback Mountain,” which I saw for the first time in Toronto.  It instantly became the talk of the festival, and the film became the one to beat for the Academy Award.

    Ledger was astonishing as the taciturn cowboy who is more surprised than anybody when his soulmate turns out to be another cowboy, portrayed superbly by Jake Gyllenhall. If there is a more deeply felt moment in film history than Ledger gently adjusting Gyllenhall’s shirt at the end of the film, his eyes filled with tears, I don’t know what it is. That’s loss, that is absolute heartbreak, that is one of the greatest acting performances of the decade.

    Phillip Seymour Hoffman would win the Oscar for his transformation into “Capote” and he’s very good, but just not in the same league as Ledger. I wondered from time to time if “Infamous” had been released earlier if Toby Jones might have won the Oscar instead of Hoffman. Each becomes Capote in a very different manner, and side by side it is difficult to choose the stronger portrayal. Certainly I prefer Hoffman’s as it is darker, and for me more realistic, but there can be no denying Jones.

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  • The Great Performances: 1996

    Robert Carlyle in Trainspotting1996 was an odd year, a year when the independent cinema dominated the weak product emerging out of Hollywood. I am going to confess right off the top of this article (as I have numerous times before) that I was not a fan of “The English Patient,” which for me remains one of the most vastly over-appreciated films ever made.  I couldn’t stand Kristin Scott Thomas’s work, though I did enjoy the Dafoe/Binoche storyline.

    So with that out of the way, and firmly in mind, let’s go…

    The Best Actress race was clouded with the notion that Madonna was hell-bent on being nominated for her performance in “Evita,” which finally made it to the screen after years of starts and stops. Her performance split critics, but for me lacked the depth and edge that it was given on stage by Patti Lupone, and that Meryl Streep or Michelle Pfeiffer would have given the role. Her performance proved that Madonna should stop acting as she has little or no acting talent, and should stop making movies and trying to conquer Hollywood as she did the music industry.

    Honestly, the performance rarely rises above a really good community theater performance. Mercifully she was not nominated, but she did win the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical over the eventual Oscar winner, Frances McDormand in “Fargo.” The nominees for Best Actress included, McDormand, Kristin Scott-Thomas for the aforementionend “The English Patient,” Diane Keaton for “Marvin’s Room,” Brenda Blythyn in “Secrets and Lies,” and best of all, perhaps, Emily Watson in “Breaking the Waves.”

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  • Danny Huston to play Poseidon in ‘Clash of the Titans’

    Danny HUstonBoy, Danny Huston sure does seem to be going for the cash grab lately.  He’s a talented actor, so I sure wish he’d try to expand beyond the creative rut he’s in right now.  First “30 Days of Night,” then “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” now this?  We’re a long way from “The Proposition.”

    All that said, I’m strangely looking forward to the “Clash” remake, which has already landed Liam Neeson in the role of Zeus and Sam Worthington in the role of Perseus.  Ralph Fiennes is also set to star as Hades and one of my favorite young actresses, Alexa Davalos, has been cast as Andromeda.

    Here’s the Hollywood Reporter brief, fit with an unfortunate lede:

    Danny Huston is getting wet for Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures.

    Huston has been cast as Poseidon in “Clash of the Titans” opposite other Mount Olympus power players Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes. Sam Worthington, Mads Mikkelsen, Gemma Arterton, Jason Flemyng and Alexa Davalos also are in the cast.

    The retelling of the Perseus myth, directed by Louis Leterrier (“The Incredible Hulk”), began shooting Monday outside London.

    The question remains. Who’s gonna play Medusa!?

  • Liam Neeson = Hollywood’s go-to mentor

    Liam Neeson in Batman BeginsCan we just assume that whenever the Hollywood moguls in all their infinite, maniacl wisdom decide to actually film an unending epic based on the Bible, Liam Neeson is likely to get the role of God?

    We’re already talking about the guy who mentored both Batman and Obi Wan Kenobi, who starred as the magical authority figure of “Chronicles of Narnia” series, who brought inspiration in the early 20th century to those seeking a free Irish state and, of course, saved a bunch of Jews.  Let’s not forget he’s also set to play probably the country’s most universally praised president of all time whenever the filmmakers decide to light that fire.

    Now, naturally, Neeson has been cast as Zeus in Louis Letterier’s “Clash of the Titans” remake.  The role was originally played by Laurence Olivier, which surprised many filmgoers back in 1981, that the celebrated film and theatre actor would stoop to genre depictions.  Ralph Fiennes is reportedly in talks to play Hades, making for an irresistible showdown of good versus evil.

    But back to Neeson, Hollywood’s go-to guy for mentor types and overall heroic displays, I’m very happy to see him hit the ground running and keep his chin up after the awful tragedy he and his family endured last month.  Keep working.  It’s all you can do.

    And regarding the “Clash” remake: part of me wishes it wouldn’t happen, because I love the original so much.  But part of me REALLY wants to see this thing, too.

  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Fallujah’ soars, Thomas Vanguarded

    The Road to FallujahSomething of a slow day today at the festival — well, I purposely put the breaks on in favor of some quality time with you guys throughout the day and to put my feet up for a spell at the ole’ homestead.

    Anyway, I was really taken with Mark Manning’s “The Road to Fallujah,” an Iraq war documentary that played at Sundance last week and had its California debut this evening at the Arlington Theatre.  There was a nice turn-out, largely because Manning is a local (the first Santa Barbaran, in fact, to bring a film to Park City and then back the hometown fest).  But what I expected to be a derivative analysis of “what we did wrong” slowly revaled itself as perhaps one of the very best docs on the conflict we’ve seen yet.

    A former oil platform worker who up and decided one day to take a documentary course and shoot over to the middle of hell and find out what was going on, Manning only commits one sin that tends to irk me in non-fiction filmmaking: he put himself in the film.  If this is done to dramatically impacting effect (like in, say, “Dear Zachary”), it’s generally forgiveable at the start.  But it actually didn’t get to me as the film went on because the portrait Manning paints is immediate, penetrating and emotional.

    In essence, the film is a “what do the Iraqi people do now?” think-piece, littered with depictions of collateral damage and, of course, an extended look at the build-up to the Battle for Fallujah, the horrors of war during it, and the repercussions both Iraq and the U.S. are left with as a result.  Manning makes great use of his string of talking head experts, grabbing the key lines at the right times.  It’s amazing all this came from a night class education.

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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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  • BAFTA predictions

    The BAFTA nominations drop tomorrow, and while I hardly covered myself in glory with my foreign film Oscar forecast yesterday, I’m going to wade into the murky waters of prediction once more.

    On the one hand, it’s a fool’s errand trying to predict the BAFTA nods, as they can frequently be the most perverse and contrarian awards voters of the lot. On the other, they make the task a little easier for us pundits by releasing 15-strong longlists in each category ahead of the voting.

    As I wrote back in November, the BAFTAs can be inconsistently parochial in their voting, frequently handing multiple nods to middlebrow homegrown product, while simultaneously sidelining the most acclaimed British films of the year. A look at this year’s longlists confirms that trend, as relatively mediocre Brit flicks like “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,” “Mamma Mia!” and “The Duchess” all received multiple mentions, while critical darlings “Hunger” and “Happy-Go-Lucky” landed in a paltry three categories each — Best Film not among them.

    The BAFTA voters’ provincialism is most shamefully evident in the Best Supporting Actress longlist, which features such bizarre inclusions as Judi Dench for “Quantum of Solace” and Rebecca Hall for her arm-candy role in “Frost/Nixon.” As for the Best Adapted Screenplay citation for “Mamma Mia!,” well, the less said the better. Of course, it’s a mistake to read too much into these lists. The idle frequency with which certain titles pop up — “Frost/Nixon” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” lead with 14 mentions each, but more surprisingly, a lightweight contender like “Burn After Reading” managed a staggering 11 — suggests the voters weren’t thinking too hard either.

    Which films will fare best tomorrow is another matter — it’s not uncommon for a film to feature strongly in the longlists only to go MIA on nomination morning. Below the cut are my best guesses, together with some thoughts on the top categories.

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  • 1/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    Ralph Fiennes• Patrick Goldstein responds to that B.S. Daily Beast Penn/Rourke thing.  Probably a little too lax but at leat he somewhat lays into the “journalist” responsible for the piece. [The Big Picture]

    • Michael Cieply scopes out tobacco use in the year’s Oscar contenders. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Andrea Hubert catches up with “Slumdog Millionaire” star Dev Patel. [The Guardian]

    • Kevin Maher talks “The Reader,” among other things, with Ralph Fiennes. [The Times]

    • Susan Wloszczyna takes a first journalistic stab at Martin Scorsese’s upcoming “Shutter Island.” [USA Today]

    • A creepily in depth look at the top “Jeffrey Wells moments” of 2008.  Yeah.  We’re the story. [Spout Blog]

  • Globe cheers, jeers and predictions

    As ever, this morning’s Golden Globe announcement provided a mixed bag of talking points, with some pleasantly zany curveballs at one end of the scale, and a couple of yawnsome autopilot nominees at the other. Like most awards bodies, they’re never going to get it completely right: for every inspired inclusion or omission there’s an equally perplexing one. (Ralph Fiennes for “The Duchess,” anyone?)

    But looking at the nominees from a bargaining perspective — tempering, for example, my disappointment that Richard Jenkins didn’t make the Best Actor cut with the knowledge that Clint Eastwood didn’t either — I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m happier with them than I expected to be.

    With that in mind, I offer below a couple of my own personal highlights and low points of the nominee list (though, given that I haven’t seen “Milk” yet, I’m leaving off that heated topic), followed by some way-too-early, subject-to-change predictions. Feel free to supply your own.

    THE GOOD

    Comedy rules: The comedy/musical categories are usually a dumping ground for filler nominees in less-than-memorable mainstream products, and previously expressed fear that this year, given the lack of high-profile contenders, they could make some really desperate stretches this year. Happily, the HFPA showed genuine resourcefulness by dipping into indie waters to celebrate the oddball wonders of “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “In Bruges,” while singling out the superb, less-discussed likes of Rebecca Hall and Brendan Gleeson for recognition. With classy, intimate works like “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “Last Chance Harvey” joining the mix, the resulting set of nominees is, dare I say it, considerably fresher than their dramatic counterparts. How often can you say that?

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