In Contention

Tag: Ridley Scott

  • COMIC-CON: Live, via satellite, Ridley Scott!

    So Fox’s big reveal Thursday was footage of and chatter about “Prometheus,” Ridley Scott’s (hopefully) triumphant return to the science-fiction genre.

    Out of the gate, moderator Damon Lindelof asked Scott (who was checking in via satellite from Iceland) why it’s been so long since he saddled back up to “the genre he redefined,” as the marketing material notes triumphantly. Said Scott, “I was too busy doing other movies and exploring other genres. I honestly never thought about science-fiction until there was something of the first ‘Alien’ that no one ever asked a question about. No exploration of that one big question.”

    Surely he’s talking about the Space Jockey of the first film, but nevertheless, everyone’s playing coy about the “Alien” connection. Scott said the new film has the DNA of the original film, but that they go off in another direction. Nevertheless, he hinted that by the end of “Prometheus,” you’ll understand the connection.

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  • 12/15 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Nudie ‘TRON,’ the Scotts eye westerns, Dorff talks Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’

    • Behind the scenes of “How Do You Know.” [Making Of]

    • Anne Thompson talks to “The Company Men” director John Wells. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • The western shows further signs of life under Ridley Scott and Scott Cooper’s helm. [Deadline]

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  • Directed by Kevin Macdonald and you

    If you’ve ever thought your YouTube videos merit more than a few “ZOMG LOL” comments from bored teenagers with names like “funkychik817,” Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott have a proposition for you. In honor of YouTube’s fifth birthday, the filmmakers are collaborating with the video-sharing website producing the first feature documentary composed entirely user-generated footage.

    Members of the public are invited to submit videos reflecting an aspect of their daily lives — all of which must be filmed in the 24-hour period of July 24. Macdonald and a presumably large team of editors will sift through the entries and select a “couple hundred” to make up a film titled “A Life in the Day,” which will premiere at Sundance at next year. (Scott will act as executive producer.) Nifty idea — USA Today’s Susan Wloszczyna has more details here.

  • Tension between Scott and Crowe on ‘Robin Hood’

    We’ve already pointed out the long, destructive development process of “Robin Hood” and how it yielded a Frankenstein assemblage due to multiple rewrites.  So it’s a full nine graphs into this Vulture “exclusive” before you get to the actual exclusive material: the film apparently almost splintered Crowe and Scott’s relationship forever.  Writes Claude Brodesser-Akner:

    With a Screen Actors Guild strike looming, and the release date blown, real tension began to mount between Crowe and Scott. Their familiar bonhomie had been replaced by frosty, terse exchanges. “There was a feeling of ‘Get it right already!” recalls one insider. “They were always speaking, but barely.” Said another source who watched the relationship deteriorate, “There were a lot of forces who all believed they were trying to do the right thing.”

    Then again, there’s not a lot of meat there, so who knows how serious the situation really was. Anyway, more grist for the mill.

  • ‘Nottingham’: How a hot script became a forgettable film

    Screenwriter blogs can often reward with a refreshing take on the film industry, even if they are at times flavored by the requisite misanthropy of those of us with visions of slug lines dancing in our heads.  Josh Friedman’s I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing was a good read for a time, though it hasn’t been updated in a while.  John August also has a nice outlet that can be a good resource as well.

    I only happened upon William Martell’s Sex in a Submarine today, as his recent post, “Robbing From The Poor (Writer),” caught my eye.  In a nutshell, it’s a thorough look at the development of Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” from a hot Hollywood property into a likely money-losing snooze of a film (with its champions here and there).  And if you’re a fan of smart, unique stories having a place at the table in Hollywood, it’s a bona fide horror story.

    I don’t track projects like some of the other film/fan sites out there, so I wasn’t aware of the fact that Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris’s “Nottingham” was a “C.S.I.”-style look at the classic tale from the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham using period forensics.  Sherlock Holmes in Sherwood Forrest, if you will.  But I can’t believe an idea that fresh was squandered so absolutely, even if it is par for the Hollywood course.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: ‘Robin’ of schlocksley

    *All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Fresh off a tepid debut at Cannes, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have unleashed their fifth collaboration upon the world. Forget Scorsese and DiCaprio, these guys are taking actor-director bromance to another level. Together, they’ve given us Oscar winning hits (“Gladiator”), non-Oscar winning hits (“American Gangster”) and non-Oscar winning non-hits (“A Good Year” and “Body of Lies”). Which category will “Robin Hood” fall under?

    The one comparison everybody can’t stop making is to “Gladiator” so let’s start there. The sword and sandals epic also launched in May, of 2000, and slashed up a $51.4 million debut. That was at the very beginning of May with no other summer movies out in competition it should be noted. Both director and star have become much more prolific and popular since then so maybe we should assume that “Robin Hood” could do a little better.

    Not so fast! Medieval/historical epics have had a torrid last few years at the box office. Scott’s own “Kingdom of Heaven” was supposed to kick off the 2006 summer season with a bang but only managed a $24.4 million debut and $58.8 million finish. Oliver Stone gave it the old college try with “Alexander” and found $17.5 million to start en route to a $43.9 million total. Granted, people hated that thing.

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  • CANNES: ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘On Tour’

    I spent a good long time trying to think of some glib, pithy way to link the pair of titles served up on the first day of the Cannes Film Festival, but must admit defeat — they have no common points whatsoever, apart from the fact that they both, like, feature French people. In lieu of such an intro, then: two films screened today. This is what they were.

    “ROBIN HOOD” (**1/2)

    It’s a fairly rote critical bitchslap to say that the closing credits are the best part of a movie, but that’s quite literally the case in Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood.” I say this not in snark, but in praise: it’s a genuinely remarkable credit sequence, animated in rich-hued, painterly style, presumably by the same artists behind the Scott Free company logo (a personal favorite). It’s rather a shame it couldn’t be stuck at the front of the film instead. Perhaps Scott thought its color palette would show up the actual film’s symphony of camouflage tones.

    Okay, that’s 100 words spent on the credits. If you think I’m stalling before delivering a damning verdict on the film, you’d be wrong, but I can’t find much of substance to say about it either. For the second summer blockbuster in a row, I must part ways with my esteemed editor in finding “Robin Hood” a sturdy if resolutely unfashionable entertainment, one crafted and performed by A-grade talent with more commitment than passion – but enough of the former to keep things on the rails.

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  • Call it ‘Robin Hood Begins’

    Anne tips us off to the first wave of “Robin Hood” reviews, which were meant to be held until Wednesday, given the Cannes screening and all.  Alas, no one seems to follow embargoes anymore, so the trades, as usual, spilled right after Empire did the same across the pond.

    For my part, I’ve been trying to write a review of the film ever since I saw it last week.  But I never seem to get past a graph or so when I come back to it, because — truth be told — the film just never seems to get out of the gate and is quite forgettable.

    It’s a prequel to the legend we all know, which is novel and interesting in and of itself, and certainly an attractive enough premise.  After all, the legend is just that, a legend, fit with all the convolution and, in some interpretations, anachronisms that come with the territory.  What better way to strip down and streamline the iconic figure than via a prequel as epic as this, one that plants the seeds for the classic strokes to come?

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  • Oops…

    I have Tim Robey to thank for drawing my attention to this classic subbing fail in David Carr’s recent New York Times profile of Ridley Scott:

    Scott Free, with headquarters in both London and Los Angeles, has a lot of Scotts … Sons Jake (“Welcome to the Rileys” with James Gandolfini and Kristen Stewart) and Jordan (“Cracks” with Eva Green) are in the mix as working directors.

    Spot the problem? A picture of Sir Ridley with his son Jordan after the cut.

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  • ‘Robin Hood’ to open Cannes

    More of a handy PR opportunity than an actual festival honor, Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” has secured the opening night slot at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival on May 12, two days ahead of its US and UK release date.

    Like last year’s Cannes opener, “Up,” the film will premiere out of competition, affording it the lustre, but not the critical pressure, of a festival berth. That said, the slot is no guarantee of prestige — in 2006, Cannes programmers were taken to task when Ron Howard’s widely derided “The Da Vinci Code” was selected to open the fest. Here’s hoping Scott fares a little better.

    “Up,” of course, broke something of a curse attached to Cannes’s opening night, which in recent years has showcased disappointments more often than not — in the years when festival directors haven’t courted blockbusters, the slot has housed in-competition flops like “Blindness” and “My Blueberry Nights.”

    I can’t see “Robin Hood” lending the fest the same hip cache that last year’s Pixar pic did, making it something of a conservative choice. But who cares — let’s get to the competition titles already.

  • ‘Robin Hood’ trailer

    Looks…kinda badass.   (New embed courtesy of First Showing, though I don’t know why NBC.Universal would be quick to jerk a YouTube version down but leave stuff like this, slathered with a watermark, online.  Things I’ll never understand):

  • Ridley Scott takes on ‘Red Riding’ remake

    Rebecca Hall in Red RidingYou may remember that back in March I raved about “Red Riding,” the British TV adaptation of David Peace’s quartet of Yorkshire-set crime novels that IFC will soon be distributing theatrically in the U.S.

    Specifically, I flipped for the first installment of the three-film series, Julian Jarrold’s “1974” — an exquisitely textured mood piece, with vivid turns from Andrew Garfield and Rebecca Hall, that remains one of the best films I’ve seen this year on any size screen.

    Six months later, Americans got to see what British critics had been gushing about since the spring (David Thomson overexcitedly stated that the films excelled “The Godfather” in the pantheon of crime cinema), as “Red Riding” played to a very warm reception in Telluride. (Even if Kris wasn’t entirely won over.)

    Now the buzz continues with the announcement that Columbia has acquired remake rights to the project, with director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Steven Zaillian in line to compress Peace’s mammoth narrative into a single feature film. (As a feat of adaptation, expect comparisons to what Curtis Hanson and Brian Helegeland took on James Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet.)  Scott will also produce via his Scott Free production company.

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  • Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ celebrates its 30th

    AlienIt seems the 30th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” unfortunately came and went back on May 25 before I even snapped to its attention.  I’ve never been a dedicated disciple of the film but it is unquestionably a staple of science-fiction cinema, a film packed with ideas that also succeeds at terrifying audiences both psychologicall and viscerally.  It’s peculiar that Scott hasn’t approached that level of thoughtful filmmaking in the 30 years since.

    Over at The Auteurs’ Notebook, Ben Simington has dedicated a healthy word count to the film, which is currently engaged in a one-week run at New York’s Film Forum to celebrate the anniversary with a new 35mm print of the 2004 director’s cut.  What I found particularly revealing, was Simington’s commitment to dissecting the film’s exemplary production design and set decoration.  “To say that Ridley Scott’s commercial breakthrough was robbed of its Oscar for Best Art Direction/Set Direction is a pathetic understatement,” he writes, “not only about the film in its own right, but also about the film within the history of moving-image arts.”

    Simington proceeds to spotlight key design elements that stuck out to him in a recent Film Forum screening, everything from the usual detail-oriented ornamentation of work spaces to more abstract interpretations read into nude pin-up posters in tandem with a photo of fried eggs.  It’s fascinating stuff, but it really catches stride for me when Simington writes up artist H.R. Giger’s contribution to the film’s architecture.

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  • 5/13 Web Round-up

    Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: The Next Generation• Nicole Kidman teams up with “Slumdog Millionaire” star Rubiana Ali in a Shekhar Kapur-directed, Ridley Scott-produced Schweppes ad. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Patrick Goldstein pulls back the veil on studio manipulation of box office expectations. [The Big Picture]

    • Revisiting “Star Trek: The Next Generation”‘s eerily prescient torture episode. [Slate]

    • Dissecting the meaning and pronunciation of “synecdoche” across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • Screenwriter David Nicholls on the “indulgence” of writing an adapted screenplay. [Live Journal via The Independent]

  • Watch this face

    You can’t lose much by making “star is born” pronouncements. If you’re right, you get to brag about your stunning foresight, and if you’re wrong — hey, nobody remembers anyway.

    But back in October last year, as I watched stunning young French ingenue Léa Seydoux illuminate Christophe Honoré’s lovely, woozy teen romance “La Belle Personne,” I was convinced there and then that I was seeing a major talent in the making. The César voters agreed, nominating her for Most Promising Actress. (The film, which you may remember I liked a great deal, got a limited U.S. release over a fortnight ago — catch it if you can.)

    So I was excited to see her name pop up on yesterday’s press release for Ridley Scott’s as-yet-untitled Robin Hood venture. My guess is the role won’t amount to much — but hey, Marion Cotillard did her time as eye candy in a Scott film (let’s not name it, shall we?) a little over two years ago, and she’s doing all right for herself these days.

    Seydoux will also be seen shortly in “Inglourious Basterds.” The girl’s going places, I tell you.

  • Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood film begins production

    Fingers crossed for this one.  Sue me, I still love “Prince of Thieves.”

    Anyway, Universal rolls out the red carpet with a big ole’ announcement today:

    Joining Crowe and Blanchett for the film are Oscar® winner Vanessa Redgrave (Julia, Atonement) as John and Richard’s mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine; Mark Strong (Body of Lies, Stardust) as King John’s vicious henchman, Sir Godfrey; Oscar Isaac (Che, Body of Lies) as King John; and Léa Seydoux (13 French Street, upcoming Inglourious Basterds) as the woman who will become queen, French Princess Isabella. Playing key members of Robin’s band of men are Scott Grimes (television’s ER, American Dad) as Welshman Will Scarlet; Kevin Durand (upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 3:10 to Yuma) as Robin’s right-hand, Scotsman Little John; and newcomer Alan Doyle as their troubadour, Irishman Allan Adayle.

    (Full press release after the jump.)

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  • 10/6 Oscarweb Round-up

    Toby Jones• Choire Sicha talks to Ellen Burstyn about “W.” and her new memoir. [Los Angeles Times]

    • A year later, Jeffrey Wells still very much hearts “Things We Lost in the Fire.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Peter Knegt profiles “Rachel Getting Married” screenwriter Jenny Lumet. [indieWIRE]

    • David Gritten corners the Coen brothers across the pond. [Daily Telegraph]

    • John Anderson details the Iraq war film as risky business with Ridley Scott tackling the subject in “Body of Lies.” [New York Times]

    • Doing more press for the Brits than Stateside these days, Oliver Stone chats it up with Oliver Burkeman. [The Guardian]

    • The diversity that is character actor Toby Jones. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Steve Daly talks with a Bill Maher-less Larry Charles. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • More fuel for the “‘Gran Torino’ is Eastwood’s last performance” fire. [Reuters]

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Sound Mixing — Volume One

    Tech Support at In Contention“Wait a minute, wait a minute.  You ain’t heard nothing yet!”

    Those words from Al Jolson forever changed filmmaking in 1927, ushering in “talkies” and bringing about the beginning of the end of the silent film era.

    The Academy Award for sound mixing recognizes the artists who fashion a film’s audio side.  It must be distinguished from Best Sound Editing, which is the integration of artificially created sound effects into the mix.  Mixing is the blending of those effects, along with dialogue, music and any other noise captured during filming.  The Oscar awards the sound re-recording mixers in this category, who do the blending, as well as the production sound mixer, who captures the sounds on the set.

    Blockbusters, action flicks, war films and musicals usually do particularly well in this category, given the extent to which the sound tends to draw attention to itself in these sorts of films.  It’s somewhat difficult to project the category this far in advance, however, as the sound mixers for many of the films are difficult to pinpoint; mixing is one of the last tasks done on a film.  But that’s not going to stop me from trying to handicap potential contenders!

    Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man” is the sort of film that has virtually everything this branch normally goes for.  The film is filled with action and high-profile sound work.  Plus, it kicked off the summer blockbuster season with not only lots of dough for producers, but also lots of raves from critics.  Veteran Oscar winner Christopher Boyes is in charge of this crew.  I’d say a nomination is quite likely.

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