In Contention

Tag: Robert Downey Jr.

  • An open letter to James Franco

    Dear James,

    So you don’t think much of the Academy. That’s okay. A lot of us don’t. And after the outcome of last night’s awards — in which capping an inevitable Best Picture Oscar for the safe, stolid stylings of “The King’s Speech” with that extraneous Best Director win for a worried-looking Tom Hooper was roughly akin to dipping Wonderbread in milk for maximum squishiness — I suspect even a lot of movie buffs who don’t make a year-round sport of henpecking the Academy’s choices are on your side.

    Your antipathy towards the Academy may be rooted in different disappointments than those of the blogging majority. We know for starters that you don’t much rate “The Social Network,” the 2010 title most clearly destined to fill the blank in many a “How did _______ lose?” whine-fest between awards geeks in years hence.

    But Lord knows your own pony was even more cruelly treated by voters: when the film’s artsy death-rattle of a theme song couldn’t even beat a rushed Randy Newman Xerox of a Pixar jingle that everybody forgot he already won for in 2001, it was clear the once-so-buzzy “127 Hours” had been reduced to a phantom presence in this year’s race.

    (more…)

  • 2/1 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Wolverine, Iron Man to present, ‘Superman’ snub “reverse McCarthyism,” Franco’s class

    • Greg Ellwood shrewdly notes potential motive to announcing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) first as presenters at this year’s Academy Awards. [Awards Campaign]

    • Tom Hooper and Geoffrey Rush respond to the notion of cutting “The King’s Speech” to appease a PG-13 rating. [Inside Movies]

    • “Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco meets on Thursday afternoons weekly.” [Movieline]

    (more…)

  • Jackman turns down Oscar hosting gig

    With the season now unshakeably upon us, it’s time to dust off the annual conversation topic of who should host the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. I am prompted to do so, of course, by Deadline’s recent scoop that 2009 host Hugh Jackman — the first choice of new Oscarcast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer — has turned down the gig, owing to a scheduling conflict with the shooting of of “Wolverine 2.”

    Many will be disappointed by this news, given that the Jackman-hosted telecast was one of the better-received of recent years. As one of its few detractors, I’ll admit to feeling relieved: Jackman’s song-and-dance schtick was amiable enough, but he lacked the comic zeal I prefer in an Oscar host.

    To be fair, the balance between comic and cuddly is a difficult one to strike at the Oscars. There’s ample room for error on either side of the beloved Billy Crystal school of sweet-and-sour satire: Jackman played it too safe for my liking, but neither do I want to see an encore of Chris Rock’s hostile, room-cooling barbs. The Academy Awards, as much as we might like to mock them, are effectively the industry’s prom night, and the tone should be appropriately celebratory.

    (more…)

  • THE LONG SHOT: When you wish upon a star

    “Mila Kunis is so winning Best Supporting Actress this year,” remarked an independent filmmaker to me over drinks today, referring, of course, to the 27 year-old’s sly breakout turn in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” This was no idle fan statement. The man knew his Oscar onions – his theory was built upon established Academy affection for hot ingénues in sashaying support roles, as well as the current absence of any obvious frontrunners in the category.

    Still, even as he explained this, my eyebrows must have shot up somewhere past my hairline. As the writer who caught hell from many readers for daring not to predict Natalie Portman among my Best Actress nominees last month, the prospect of Kunis even getting nominated for subtly smoking work in an outré arthouse thriller hadn’t crossed my mind. I told him as much while emphasizing, as an admirer of the performance, how much I’d like to be wrong.

    “That’s what everyone says to me,” he replied. “‘Oh, she’s a revelation, I’d love to see her nominated, but she won’t be.’ Whenever I start hearing that kind of talk about a person or a film, that’s when I go to the bookies and put money on them. If everyone’s seeing the same thing in them, who’s to say the voters aren’t?”

    (more…)

  • ‘Due Date’ trailer

    Hey, two Zach Galifianakis trailers in a row.  This one is for “Due Date,” the new film from “The Hangover” director Todd Phillips.  The southern boy in me LOVES the Waffle House shout-out, but anyway, the film looks like a great tandem comedy for Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr.  Check out the trailer from Yahoo! Movies by clicking the image below, or watch the embed after the jump.

    (more…)

  • SHORT TAKE: “Iron Man 2” (**1/2)

    “Good is the enemy of Great,” wrote Jim Collins, in one of the more high-maintenance self-help plans you’re likely to encounter. As nice a thought as it is, this law appears to have no place in the world of the Hollywood franchise blockbuster, where Crap is the enemy of pretty much everything, and Good is usually one courtesy too many for time-strapped, dollar-eyed producers.

    With myriad noisy-yet-joyless “Transformers” types littering the release schedule each summer, then, the bar for commendability is set rather low: it often takes but one redeeming feature to launch such products into critics’ good books in addition to the box office charts.

    It’s in this way that Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man” carved a reputation as one of 2008’s pleasant surprises: narratively choppy, technically perfunctory and indifferently performed in support, it nonetheless boasted a star turn from Robert Downey Jr so fleet-footed and gleefully off-message that it made all the surrounding elements seem wittier by sheer association.

    It should come as no surprise to students of the Hollywood mainstream that Favreau’s swiftly delivered sequel, already raking in the cash on its European release, aims no higher, and reaches no wider, than its predecessor. By and large, Favreau and his collaborators have figured that the shortcuts they got away with in the first film are still fit for purpose.

    (more…)

  • 1/19 Oscarweb Round-up

    Robert Downey Jr. at the 2010 Golden Glone Awards• Searching for meaning in Robert Downey Jr’s Stark-esque Globes beard.  Perhaps too much meaning. [CHUD]

    • Roger Ebert dives back into the enigma of Michael Haneke’s “Cache.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Stretching to compare “Avatar” to “Slumdog Millionaire” because of it’s “out of the blue” success. [24 Frames]

    (more…)

  • 9/15 Web Round-up

    Jason Reitman on the set of Up in the Air• James Rocchi sits down with Jason Reitman to talk “Up in the Air.” [AMC TV]

    • Jeffrey Wells bangs the Best Picture drum for Rodrigo Garcia’s as-of-yet un-acquired “Mother and Child.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Michael Douglas talks “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” [Empire]

    (more…)

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 Tarantino characters

    Christoph Waltz in Inglourious BasterdsIt’s been over a month since we cranked out an installment of The Lists, but with Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” set for release on Friday, it seemed a good time to cook up a new collective.

    When most people praise Tarantino’s skill as a screenwriter, they tend to focus on his well-honed ear for dialogue.  But I have always been much more enchanted by his ability to create a wide array of separately interesting characters that are nevertheless of a piece with the filmmaker’s pulp sense of the world.

    Each of Tarantino’s films are ensembles of one level or another, usually elevated off the page by the performances he gets out of actor eager to take on something fresh.  And no matter the quality of Tarantino’s work behind the camera, the material is always, if nothing else, unique.

    So a list of the greatest characters ever conceived by the man seemed to be the best course of action.  The list doesn’t merely include characters from Tarantino’s films as a director, mind you.  Those he conceived in original screenplays filmed by other directors were considered as well.  Eight films are featured on the list, two of them twice.

    The only Tarantino-affiliated films that don’t appear are “From Dusk Till Dawn” (a personal favorite that, if I was asked on another day, might show up somewhere) and the “Death Proof” segment of “Grindhouse” (which, if I were feeling particularly generous one day, might yield a mention for Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike).

    All other Tarantino extravaganzas are well-represented.  Let’s dig in here…

    (more…)

  • One more parting shot…

    Snapped by Jon Favreau on the Hall H stage during the “Iron Man 2” panel discussion:

    (from left) Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International

    And a taste of Kevin Smith at the Con, where he talks about the fact that the title “A Couple of Dicks” may not hold (My camera lost battery power half-way through.  Apologies):

  • ‘Sherlock Holmes’ trailer

    I have to say, this looks sillier than I anticipated.  It’s comical (not in the way intended) and leans a bit too heavy on the farce throttle.  When the title screen came up, I chuckled.  It’s not to say that the film doesn’t look fun, because clearly it does.  But it has a rather unwelcome gloss to it and, of course, is such a bastardization of the source material that I’m glad we have some time to square ourselves with the direction of the project before release.

    Anyway, that’s me.  What do you think?

  • Downey suits up one more time

    Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 2

    (Courtesy: USA Today)

  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Obsessed’ impressed

    ObsessedAmerica liked it and they put a ring on it.

    Beyonce’s new thriller “Obsessed” topped the domestic box office this weekend with $28.5 million, adding another impressive performance to the budding actress’s career. Impressive box office performance that is.

    Whether or not Beyonce truly and gracefully inhabits the character of a woman forced to kick ass when some other crazy bitch starts stalking her man, I can’t be certain. This should easily make $70 million+ from a $20 million budget so all involved have just gotten a nice bonus.

    Despite gunning for the same target audience, Universal’s “Fighting” also performed admirably and earned $11.4 million for third place. You can’t accuse them of not being straight to the point and enough males or teens must have thought that a movie called “Fighting” had to be bad ass and worth their $10. Channing Tatum’s career lives to fight another day.

    Actual star power enters the fray at number four with “The Soloist.” Joe Wright’s once-Oscar hopeful earned $9.7 million, which is okay but not enough to justify moving out of the 2008 season. Even though audience reaction is bound to be positive, I just don’t see the legs being great here and a sub-$30 million finish won’t have anybody remembering these folks when ballots are due next year.

    (more…)

  • Was it worth the wait?

    Jamie Foxx in The SoloistWhen Joe Wright’s “The Soloist” was shifted from prime Oscar territory last autumn to a considerably more low-profile 2009 slot, many presumed that the film was something of an artistic disappointment. However, word also went round that the move was a sympathetic one, aimed to place less pressure on a film that, despite the talent involved, was more crowdpleaser than prestige item.

    Meanwhile, two diametrically opposed trade reviews do very little to clear up the picture ahead of the film’s release next week. (They appeared a few days ago, but escaped my notice until now.) Todd McCarthy’s Variety pan confirms the suspicions of the sceptics, actually suggesting that the film appears uncomfortably caught between awards-baiting and more populist urges:

    Neither rarefied art film nor widely accessible inspirational drama, “The Soloist” falls between the cracks both creatively and commercially … Joe Wright’s first American feature has moments of power and imagination, but the overworked style and heavy socially conscious bent exude an off-putting sense of self-importance, making for a picture that’s more of a chore than a pleasure to sit through.

    Charismatic and dynamic as they’ve been on any number of previous occasions, both Foxx and Downey seem to labor here as they grapple with roles viewers will find difficulty warming to. Downey, in particular, fails to find either outer charm or inner soul in Steve Lopez.

    The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt, however, sings a very different tune, describing the film as “excellent, if flawed.” His disagreement is most pronounced on the matter of the film’s lead performances, going so far as to suggest that they remain strong awards contenders:

    Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx are on fire in the lead roles: They’re both charismatic as hell without sacrificing any of the emotional honesty necessary for you to believe that these movie stars are a scruffy reporter and a mentally ill musician … True, Academy members tend to remember only the last three months of a year when voting, but these performances are extraordinary enough that the memory should not fade by fall.

    (more…)

  • NYT Mag’s Great Performers

    The New York Times Magazine has launched a sweet set of slide shows, “Great Performers,” narrated by journalist Lynn Hirschberg featuring Oscar nominees Frank Langella, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Mickey Rourke, Penelope Cruz (saucy shots!), Kate Winslet and Robert Downey Jr.

    These shots of Winslet and Rourke are definitely my favorites.  Loky has become a star in his own right this year:

    Kate Winslet

    Mickey Rourke

  • Fly on the wall

    Come on, who wouldn’t want to listen in on this particular conversation? Rourke’s way with the dainty teacup makes me smile. And his outfit (loving that pocket square) is strangely awesome.

    Sasha Stone has a bunch of nice pics from yesterday’s nominees luncheon, including the Class of 2008 shot. Check ’em out here.

  • “Alan Parker had a boner…”

    Sorry — just now getting this up on the site.  Brilliant stuff:

    More here.

  • After cooling off a bit…

    Michael Shannon in Revolutionary RoadYesterday the Academy displayed just what a fractured organization they are, championing a small film like “Slumdog Millionaire,” for which I applaud them, but snubbing “The Dark Knight,” one of the best reviewed films of the year and a titan at the box office. All day I was asking, ‘How?’  All day I wondered just how out of touch this organization truly is and what a major overhaul is needed.

    Call it ageism if you must, but we I think we need new blood in there.  I have been covering the Academy Awards for more than 20 years and have had my share of disappointments and shocks over that span of time. One would think I’d get used to it.

    I remember the rage when “Ghost” was nominated for Best Picture and when Roberto Begnini won Best Actor. That anger and shock was nothing like I felt yesterday morning at 8:30 Ontario time.

    I could not speak. I closed my office door and quietly raged, trying to make sense of it. Reading the other reactions helped ease the wound (I take it personally you see when my films are snubbed) and tried to see the good in the nominations this year. And as Guy astutely points out, there is some good.

    Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” made the cut, as did Richard Jenkins for “The Visitor.”  Both deserved, both terrific performances. “Wall-E” grabbed a screenplay nod, as well as sound nominations, and “Slumdog Millionaire” did very well indeed, with 10 nods. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” lead the pack with 13 and Brad Pitt finally got a nomination for Best Actor — long overdue.  Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei made the list for “The Wrestler” and all four major actors from “Doubt” are nominees.

    (more…)