In Contention

Tag: Robert De Niro

  • Cannes jury includes Law, Thurman, Assayas

    [NOTE: We’re kicking off our daily Cannes preview series later today — stay tuned.]

    We knew months ago that Robert De Niro was presiding over this year’s Cannes jury, but the eight people joining him on the bench were finally named yesterday. Red-carpet stargazers should be pretty happy with this year’s crop: joining De Niro from the Hollywood side of things are Jude Law and Uma Thurman. (Perhaps festival director Thierry Frémaux is as big a fan of “Gattaca” as we are.)

    Filling the big-name auteur slot on the panel is Olivier Assayas, a three-time Competition entrant who some might say has earned jury president status. Other Cannes alumni include Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, who took the Jury Prize at last year’s festival for “A Screaming Man,” and Hong Kong action merchant Johnnie To, twice a Palme d’Or contender.

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  • Frontrunners stay strong at the Golden Globes

    Zzzzz…huh?, wha?  Oh…

    First and foremost, I have to note Ricky Gervais’s work as emcee. Last year’s stint was a bit stale, I thought, but this year the gloves were off. Way off. Which, for whatever reason, I was okay with tonight. The difference between Gervais and Armond White, though, if you want to go there, is that one is expected (and paid) to act like a clown. The other is not.

    And I have to think “That was my favorite film of the year” was a subtle joke. Not that subtle was in his toolbox.

    Anyway, kicking things off, Christian Bale’s speech in acceptance of yet another Best Supporting Actor trophy slid off the rails a bit toward the end as he rushed an impromptu shout-out to actor Robert De Niro. Apparently in the press room he said the legend was “the shit,” so maybe that’s similar to what was censored from the telecast. Earlier in the speech, though, he paid lovely homage to “The Fighter” actor and producer Mark Wahlberg. “You can only give a loud performance like mine when you have a quiet, stoic anchor,” he said.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Guild onslaught, Postlethwaite passes, more best of 2010

    • The Producers’ Guild of America surprised no one with their list of nominees.

    • The Writers’ Guild, however, threw a few curveballs (aided by assorted ineligibilities), while the USC Scripter Awards surprised some with one of their selections.

    • In sadder news, we said goodbye to esteemed British character actor Pete Postlethwaite.

    • After a few weeks of deliberation, Guy picked his best and worst films of 2010.

    • Continuing this week’s guild run, both the Cinema Audio Society and the Art Directors’ Guild weighed in with their nominees.

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  • Robert De Niro to head Cannes jury

    Sure, that Cecil B. DeMille Award at the upcoming Golden Globes is nice enough, but this is the greater honour. Robert De Niro has been selected as the president of the competition jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May — the third time this most European of festivals has tapped an American for the job in four years. (Tim Burton did the honors last year, Sean Penn in 2008.)

    For the past two years, the eventual Palme d’Or winner has seemingly, if not necessarily, borne the fingerprints of the jury president. Isabelle Huppert handed the prize to her friend and collaborator Michael Haneke in 2009 (and took a lot less stick for it than Quentin Tarantino did for rewarding his ex at Venice last year).

    Burton’s reign, meanwhile, culminated in the unusual occurrence of a fantasy film (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”) taking the gold. De Niro somehow seems likely to wield a less assertive stamp on the proceedings, though you never know until the post-fest gossip starts leaking out.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Fighter’ bows, Jackman bows out, Best Picture questions

    • David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” unspooled at the AFI Fest. Kris was impressed and later reported from a Q&A with the film’s stars.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column pondered the presence of money-spinners in this year’s Best Picture race.

    • The Long Shot, meanwhile, wondered if that very race is currently looking a little flimsy.

    • News of Hugh Jackman turning down the gig prompted the annual speculation over who should host the Oscar ceremony.

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  • Robert De Niro to receive HFPA’s Cecil B. DeMille Award

    The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced the recipient of this year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award.  Via Twitter, no less!

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1983 and 1984

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    1983 was dominated by James L. Brooks and his sentimental weepie, “Terms of Endearment.” I can’t imagine it deserved the award, but I also have no room to complain since this is one of the few Best Picture fields where the winner is the only title I’ve actually seen.

    Linda Hunt won Best Supporting Actress for “The Year of Living Dangerously,” playing a man. Felicity Huffman would come close to doing the same in 2005, while Sarah Jessica Parker sees her efforts continually overlooked film after film (I kid, I kid).

    1984 was a battle royale between “Amadeus” and “A Passage to India,” with Milos Forman’s biopic eventually emerging triumphant. This year also saw Mr. Miyagi from “The Karate Kid” nominated in the same ceremony that awarded the first acting Oscar for an Asian to Haing S. Ngor.

    Take it away, Sally Field- “The first time I didn’t feel it. But this time I feel it! And I can’t deny the fact that you like me! Right now, you like me!”

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  • Paramount and Lionsgate do it up pre-Globes

    Tobey Maguire in BrothersThere will be a number of post-Golden Globes parties tonight — Summit, Warner Bros., Fox, Weinstein, etc. — but a pair of studios did it up Saturday night in honor of their nominees.

    First at the Chateau Marmont, Paramount toasted its stable with a star-studded, paparazzi-snapping affair.  Actually, it wasn’t the least bit comfortable.  Talk about over-invited.  In the inner sanctum, surrounded by Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Benicio Del Toro, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Mike Tyson (who wasn’t on the list, but would you turn him away?), George Clooney, Chris Pine, Tobey Maguire, etc., breathing, let alone moving more than two inches, was a chore.  Jason Reitman was on hand early on but had to take off for the LAFCA gala before long.  Luckily, he missed that fire hazard.

    I got a few seconds with Farmiga, who was excited to say hello to Scorsese again.  Anne Kendrick and her beau Edgar Wright smartly made their way to a secondary room at one point where we had a nice chat.  Wright was, of course, being hit up by “Scott Pilgrim” queries left and right.  From the youngsters, that is.  The crowd was largely, shall we say, octogenarian.  Plenty of HFPA and Academy members scattered throughout.  And Kendrick, bless her heart, didn’t even want to talk about the “O-word.”

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  • De Niro, DiCaprio, De Mille, De Scorsese

    The pres release, in part:

    Golden Globe winners Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio will present the Cecil B. DeMille Award to Martin Scorsese at “The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards” on Sunday, January 17. The show, hosted by Ricky Gervais, will be broadcast live coast to coast on NBC (5 to 8 pm PT, 8 to 11 pm ET) from The Beverly Hilton.

    “The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards” will be seen in more than 160 countries worldwide and is one of the few awards ceremonies that span both television and motion picture achievements.

  • OFF THE CARPET: Looking at the leading gentlemen

    Colin Firth in A Single ManWe’ve taken concentrated looks at the lead actress and supporting actress categories in recent weeks.  Now let’s turn our attention over to the fellas.

    Behind the Best Picture race, of course, the lead actor competition is perhaps the most hotly anticipated award of a given Oscar telecast.  Movie stars are born, Hollywood staples are rewarded and careers leap to the next level.  It makes for an intriguing annual state of the union as it pertains the the film industry’s talent roster.

    This year, one of Hollywood’s brightest stars finds himself right at the front of the conversation.  George Clooney is likely to end up with his third acting Oscar nomination, for Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” and he’ll owe much of that to Reitman’s powerful work on the page.

    Clooney doesn’t give his best performance to date in the film.  But the material is so cleverly built around his persona that one can’t blame the actor for saddling up to a role that fits like a glove.  And there is something to be said for the bravery of taking one’s image on like that.

    Colin Firth, meanwhile, has caused a critical stir with his leading performance in Tom Ford’s “A Single Man.” He has already won the Venice Film Festival’s acting honor and has been tapped for another at February’s Santa Barbara Film Festival.  He is pitch-perfect in the film, giving a refined performance of nuance and gesture.

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  • De Niro to be honored by Hollywood fest

    Robert De Niro in Everybody's FineWe’ve brought you up to speed on the list of Hollywood Film Festival award honorees the last few weeks (full list after the jump).  But today we get the news that Robert De Niro has been tapped to receive the Hollywood Actor Award, adding some steam to his bid for a lead actor Oscar nomination for “Everybody’s Fine.”

    Of course, who knows what the virtual dismantling of Miramax will do to planned Oscar campaigns, but this is a nice added boost as the actor heads into the season looking for his first Oscar nomination in 17 years.  Fest director Carlos de Abreu is quoted in the press release:

    Robert De Niro is an American icon. Not only is he highly regarded for his body of work as an actor, producer and director, but also for the passion, integrity and dedication he brings to his performances on camera, as well as his intense off-camera preparation and study of the characters he brings to life. His performance in the upcoming film “Everybody”s Fine” is outstanding and flawless.

    The ceremony will take place October 26.  We’re still waiting to hear about the Hollywood Actress Award winner, which will likely be Meryl Streep.

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  • ‘Everybody’s Fine’ trailer

    Last week we told you about the Best Actor buzz potentially building on the horizon for Robert De Niro in the remake “Everybody’s Fine.”  Pete Hammond has seen the film and sung the actor’s praises, and now, we get this broad, sell-it-to-the-masses trailer.  If you can get past the awful voice over and awkward musical choices, I think there’s an interesting performance lurking in there — maybe:

  • BEST ACTOR WATCH: Robert De Niro in ‘Everybody’s Fine’

    (from left) Drew Barrymore and Robert De Niro in Everybody's FineI’ve been meaning to post something along these lines for a few weeks now.  Around roughly this time a year ago (plus a month exactly), we pointed you early on to a potential comeback in the works for Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.”  We all know how that turned out.  Now there are murmurs that Robert De Niro could be back in serious Oscar contention for the first time since…anybody?

    The film is Kirk Jones’s “Everybody’s Fine” and it is a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1990 film of the same name.  De Niro stars as a widower who realizes the only connection he has to his family was through his wife, so he sets off on an impromptu road trip to reunite with each of his grown children.

    In some ways it sounds like a role similar to George Clooney’s in “Up in the Air,” a sudden realization that one’s place in the world is very much determined by relationships with loved ones.  And it could be just the ticket for De Niro to get back into the fray.  Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell also star.

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  • Remembering ‘Raging Bull’

    Robert De Niro in Raging BullThe first time I saw “Raging Bull” was in 1980, the second day the film was in theater after release. I was an acting student at the time, heading to the theater with my friend Kevin McDonald, who went on to fame as one of the “Kids in the Hall” stars and film roles in “Galaxy Quest,” denim guy on “Seinfeld” and loads of voice work.

    Like me, Kevin was a film junkie, and we both had been looking forward to the new Scorsese film. Our paths went very different ways, but I know for a fact he recalls this evening with much fondness as what we saw changed our lives forever.  Two and a half hours later we left the theater exhausted, drained and stunned by the event.  We talked incessantly about the film on the subway as we headed back home and convinced our classmates to see it with us the next night, if I recall correctly.

    There was little doubt Robert De Niro would win not only the Academy Award for Best Actor but every other acting award n the planet as well, but I remember being shocked when Scorsese himself did not follow suit. When the Oscar nominations were announced, Scorsese and his film were up for eight, but the writing was on the wall: Robert Redford‘s “Ordinary People” was going to win the lion’s share, no doubt about it.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 performances from Michael Mann films

    Russell Crowe in The InsiderWith the forthcoming release of Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” (review) dominating — quite impressively, I might add — the publicity circuit this week, all eyes are on Johnny Depp.  An Ulmer Scale X factor for this character study posing as a summer blockbuster, Depp’s performance is sure to draw champions and detractors alike for its delicate, internalized particulars.  But of one thing we can be certain: the work is of a piece with Mann’s typically detailed approach to character.

    Mann’s collaborative process with his actors typically involves something called “character acquisition,” a tightly-conceived regimen, of sorts, that gives his films’ characters the authentic touch that makes his work so novel.  Many times these details won’t even be discussed in the overall narrative, but their background impact on the performer is unmistakable.  Take, for instance, the photos of the childhood home of Tom Cruise’s hitman Vincent in “Collateral” that Mann brought to the actor’s attention, merely by way of more fully developing the character’s clearly complicated formidable years.

    The result of this hard work has been a slew of captivating, at times career-best performances from some of the most accomplished actors working today.  A Michael Mann production represents the opportunity to go deeper with a performance and perhaps even learn more about the craft.  Will Smith has frequently discussed his collaboration with Mann as the most rewarding experience of his professional life.  And, as Javier Bardem once told me, “When Michael Mann invites you to his party, you don’t turn him down.”

    So with that, a collective representing the best performances to come from Mann’s 10 feature films to date seemed the best way into this week’s installment of The Lists.  It’s a very personal list, of course, as yours would be.  There are three performances from one film, none from two, and a pair of unconventional supporting turns to shake things up.  After going back through the director’s work last week in preparation for the list, even I was surprised my #1 choice was left standing, but regardless of order, see this as a way to compliment a true actor’s director.

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  • Are 70s acting legends on the verge of fading away?

    Jane Fonda in KluteGrowing up I was a huge John Wayne fan, but I remember when the Duke started to fade, and then that shocking evening he presented the Academy Award for Best Picture to “The Deer Hunter” just a few months before his death in 1979.

    Perhaps because we watch these people age in front of our eyes we feel a unique kinship with them, as though we know them, but seeing Wayne at the Oscars was shocking, a terrible reminder that the acting icons are very human, subject to everything life brings: aging and death (as we found out terribly this week).

    The great actors of the 1970s, those that kick-started a second movement in American acting — Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda — are all well past 60 these days, some over 70 with Duvall edging ever closer to 80. Their best work may indeed be behind them (one never knows) and to me it represents a point of great sadness. We may never see their like again.

    They brought to the screen an inherent realism, an extraordinary authenticity that only Brando had accomplished. The day is coming when we will never be able to look forward to another great performance from the likes of Nicholson or Duvall or Fonda again.

    I remember the moment I first became aware of Nicholson, seeing him for the first time in “Five Easy Pieces,” in which he established himself as the actor of the decade, that intelligent rebel who simply would never conform to what society felt he should. Nicholson gave us a great array of performances through the 1970s, fearless in the face of risk, even singing in “Tommy,” Ken Russell’s lavish rock opera by The Who.

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  • ‘Departed’ sequel sorta, kinda, maybe mooted

    As far as these sort of rumours go, it’s not completely fabricated, but it’s hardly solid either. Still, Mark Wahlberg (perhaps looking towards brighter things than “Max Payne”) has been dropping vague hints concerning a potential follow-up to 2006’s Best Picture. The Guardian tells it like this:

    “They were talking about bringing in a couple of new guys like [Robert] De Niro, maybe Brad Pitt or someone like that playing the bad guy, a corrupt politician or something,” Wahlberg told Digital Spy. “Then, like the Hong Kong trilogy that the movie is based on, come back and do a prequel and bring everyone else back who was in the first.”

    Indeed, “Infernal Affairs,” the Hong Kong thriller from which Scorsese’s film was adapted, inspired both a prequel and sequel, so it’s hardly an outrageous notion. Wahlberg did add that he’d only be on board “if we can make it better than the first,” which is a pretty tall order. I won’t start holding my breath just yet, but it sure sounds like a fun idea.

  • De Niro and Pacino: “Top 10 reasons I like being an actor”

    From last night’s “Late Night with David Letterman.”  These are all keepers, but I especially like #3 and #1: