In Contention

Tag: Red

  • CINEJABBER: Should auld acquaintance be forgot?

    Catch up with the idea behind these weekend posts here.

    Welcome to 2011.

    I’m back in Los Angeles (missed the crazy weather on this side of the country) and happy to be home after a two-week vacation that really turned out to be anything but.  Such is life.  And the season is waiting to take hold once more with guild announcements starting Tuesday, so I better put my game face back on.

    There isn’t much to offer in this space today, though if you’re interested, I took a number of Jack and Cokes straight to the face on my flight last night, celebrated the new year three times (time zone changes) and took to Twitter to live-Tweet “Inception” for a solid two and a half hours.  Twas fun.

    I revisited the “Alien” franchise during the holiday, taking in the glorious Blu-ray box set.  That’s a must own, I have to say.  And there’s this “Aliens vs. Predator” video game on PS3.  If you haven’t played it, give it a whirl.  There’s something badass and ninja about creeping around as an alien taking out marines.  You can play as the Predator, too.  Awesome.

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  • ‘King’s Speech’ leads Globe nods, ‘True Grit’ shut out

    True to form, the Golden Globe nominations are a buffet of the good, the bad and the unconscionably hideous — with perhaps a touch more emphasis than usual on the third of those this year. I refer, of course, to those largely mortifying Comedy/Musical races, where HFPA voters solved the lack of obvious contenders this year by giving in to their randiest star-shagging urges.

    Welcome to the Best Picture race, “Red,” “The Tourist” and (pauses to cross himself and say three Hail Marys) “Alice in Wonderland.” Or, you know, not. Congratulations on your double-shot of well-deserved Best Actor nominations, Mr. Depp. Or, you know, not. Sorry, Sally Hawkins, we liked you just fine in “Made in Dagenham,” but Angelina Jolie was obviously working harder in her movie. Or, you know, not.

    Still, even as we strike down upon the HFPA with great vengeance and furious anger, I’m feeling pretty chipper about some things: reviled as it is by many, “Burlesque” is the kind of grandly gaudy goof-off that I’m happy to see livening up the category, while my biggest air-punch of the morning came when my actress of the year Emma Stone’s name was read out for “Easy A.”

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  • Summit toasts ‘Ghost Writer,’ ‘Fair Game,’ ‘Red,’ ‘Twilight’

    Holiday parties sure are getting earlier, as the team at Summit Entertainment held theirs last night at BOA Steakhouse on Sunset.  The event was held to toast the efforts of cast and crew on the studio’s 2010 films — “Fair Game,” “The Ghost Writer,” “Red” and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.”

    I ended up chatting with Olivia Williams early in the evening about her experience on Roman Polanski’s film, which she clearly coveted.  She noted with candor how positive reinforcement isn’t exactly part of the process, not in any bad way, but just that hearing a “hey, nice job” isn’t the norm on a Polanski set, something she wasn’t expecting.  But she relished the experience and her handlers certainly think seeing her vibrant sense of humor on the circuit could make people realize how wonderful she is as a cold character in the film.

    Meanwhile, Jerry Zucker was there with his family as producer of “Fair Game.” While there was plenty to talk about regarding that political thriller, how do you engage in conversation with the guy who made “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun” without going there?  We talked potential torch-bearers of the form today, and he made it a point of mentioning how right “The Hangover” got it, that it was a comedy constantly surprising you, and that is key.  He’s currently working on a send-up of Broadway musicals tentatively titled “You Are Here,” which should be a hoot.

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Megamind’ outsmarts ‘Due Date’

    Keep forgetting to post these.  “For Colored Girls” opened to respectable numbers, per the usual for Perry.  I never saw the film because suddenly there was a cone of silence from the studio on invites (make of that what you will) and I didn’t much feel like chasing it down.

    “Secretariat” is holding okay.  “Red” even better.  Go Malkovich.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • Helen Mirren: everywhere and nowhere

    Amid the club of stars surfacing in two or more 2010 releases — Leonardo DiCaprio, Annette Bening, Chloe Moretz, and so on — has anyone been more ineffectually ubiquitous than Helen Mirren? The 65 year-old Brit has been working steadily since her Oscar win nearly four years ago, but apparently cracked the secret of human cloning this year, turning up in no fewer than six titles. (Seven if you count “The Last Station,” which most civilians only laid eyes on in 2010.)

    As much as this looks like a banner year for the actress on paper, however, her strike rate has been bewilderingly low. Brothel-madam biopic “Love Ranch,” directed by her husband Taylor Hackford, flunked with critics and audiences back in June, while “The Tempest,” her would-be highbrow awards bid, met with widespread scorn at the Venice and New York festivals.

    Two other adult-oriented dramas were left in limbo at Toronto, with John Madden’s “The Debt” booted to 2011, while “Brighton Rock” — for which Mirren ceded the critical spotlight to newcomer Andrea Riseborough — still languishes without a US distributor.

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  • CINEJABBER: Drifting along in the same stale shoes

    Catch up with the idea behind these weekend posts here.

    And speaking of the weekend, thank God it’s here.  That’s all I can say.  I’m still pushing through Peter Weir’s catalogue.  Next up: “Dead Poets Society,” which I probably haven’t watched since I owned the VHS.  But more and more, I’m finding that “The Way Back” is more reflective of his early work, and it perhaps has the most in common with “Gallipoli.”

    After that I’m thinking about re-visiting Kurosawa’s work.  Much of the early stuff I’ve never seen, actually, and it’ll be a nice reprieve from Oscar madness during the season.  Boy is that absolutely necessary.

    But I also need to hunker down and finish reading Charles Portis’s “True Grit.” I’m hoping to do something special list-wise around the release of the Coens’ new adaptation and as much as I loathe the first film, I never sat down and read the novel until recently.  It’s a real charmer and easy to see why the Coens were drawn to it’s no-nonsense prose.

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