In Contention

Tag: Robin Hood

  • Of notes and diaries on the Croisette

    While Guy is doing a bang-up job handling Cannes for us this year, I thought I’d poke around and see what some of the other usual suspects of the Oscar season are covering things on the ground.  When I clicked over to Awards Daily, I wasn’t the least bit disappointed.

    Sasha Stone, attending the fest for the first time in the 11 years she’s been on the film awards beat, has charted her experience in a series of diary entries that uniquely — and smartly — aims to assess the psychology of a place so wonderfully bizarre as a cosmopolitan film festival.  Her coverage is armed with cheeky barbs such as this:

    There are obscure screenings and high profile screenings and many variations therein. But it does give one a warped sense of things when you see crowds begging for tickets to Wall Street 2. If it were any ordinary Friday in the states you’d be thinking, “do I really want to go see another sequel?” Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t, but it is pressing here. It is a must-do.

    Pete Hammond, meanwhile, kicked the tires on his Notes on a Season column over at The Envelope to piece together one of his typical “Notes on the Town” features from the fest.

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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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  • When the stars go blue

    It’s a quiet first day at Cannes, with only two films screening and little besides a pair of unremarkable press conferences (which, dingy yellow-carder that I am, I couldn’t directly attend anyway) to report on — the highlight of which was Cate Blanchett’s curt answer to a dim-bulb journalist asking her how heavy the film’s chainmail costumes were to wear. “It’s all plastic,” she said drily, before waving on the next question.

    “Robin Hood” served as this morning’s entertainment — Kris has spared me having to review it at any length, but I’ll gather a few thoughts later this evening. (Hint: I like it more than Kris and less than Empire.) Tonight offers Mathieu Amalric’s burlesque-troupe comedy “Tournée (On Tour)” which I’m rather looking forward to. However the film turns out, at least, it plainly boasts the best poster of any film in the festival this year. Or out of it, for that matter.

  • ‘Twas the night before Cannes

    … and while plenty of creatures are stirring along the Croisette — not least some grim-faced papparazzi camping out overnight for their red carpet spot — there’s a palpable sense of a town collectively holding its breath, waiting for the crazy to hit.

    As such, I have little to report from my first day in Cannes; I could regale you with tales of queuing for my press pass, haggling with PR folk for interview time and, more pleasantly, taking a time-out to eat cherries on the beach, but I don’t want to use up all my “A” material already. I can’t even fall back on epic stories of harrowing ash clouds and flight delays, unlike many of my American colleagues — indeed, I’m one of the few who can claim his plane landed in Cannes ahead of schedule.

    Still, my journey did not pass entirely without hardship: it was raining heavily when I touched down in Nice this morning, and I got a little bit wet on exiting the plane. Such are the trials I endure for your sake, readers.

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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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  • ‘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.

  • OFF THE CARPET: Handicapping 2010 a year in advance

    Hilary Swank in Betty Anne WatersUncle.

    I told myself I wasn’t going to write this column this year, let alone make predictions, but some of you were just too cute in your emails and Twitter DMs asking for something akin to my annual year-in-advance take on the race, so I struck a balance: a column and contenders list, but no charts and no predictions.  Fair enough?

    The 2010 Oscar season looks, from afar, to be a muted affair.  Most of the films that look like competitors on paper have a distinctly “small” vibe.  Of course, no one knows when a film like “The Blind Side” will decide to come along and sweep the heartland and the Academy at large off its feet.  Maybe Tony Goldwyn’s “Betty Anne Waters” will play that role this year.  Maybe not.

    There are a considerable amount of actors and actresses with multiple performances on the way, more than usual, I’d say.  And most encouraging, the original screenplay field seems to be much more robust than the adaptations.

    Last year the big dogs looked to be “Amelia,” “Invictus” and “Nine,” and we all know how that turned out.  In fact, it happens with some frequency.  So why bother getting too deep into all of this now?  And to say nothing of the fact that, perhaps mercifully, nothing on the horizon appears to have that level of awards-baiting appeal.  No major filmmakers looking to cozy up to Oscar.  No big stars that seem overdue and are going for it with an obvious role.  None of that, really.

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  • My most anticipated films of 2010

    InceptionAnnually I put together a hasty list of my most anticipated films of the New Year on January 1.  I got rid of the pomp and circumstance around the perennial post a while back and just stuck with the list.  But a couple of things…

    I’m not sure if Kevin Macdonald’s “The Eagle of the Ninth” will make it to theaters in 2010, but that would definitely be a consideration.  And it’s difficult not to be interested in product from major filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Peter Weir and James L. Brooks, but, alas, they didn’t speak up for me when putting this together.

    Typically, the blockbusters will show up in numbers on something like this, because for me, that’s what I tend to anticipate.  When art seems to be skillfully married to commerce (like my #1 selection — which is most people’s #1 selection), all the better.  But it’s tough to really know what the art house product could have in store until we’re in the thick of the year.

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  • ‘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):

  • First look at Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood’

    When Russell Crowe was on Letterman the other night, it totally escaped me that the filming of Rilsey Scott’s “Robin Hood” was responsible for his new “Gladiator” hair do.  Now we get our first official look at Crowe in character, courtesy of USA Today:

    Russell Crowe in Robin Hood

    And here’s Crowe pitching “State of Play” in the aforementioned Letterman segment. There’s a quasi-interesting/humorous Helen Mirren story thrown in:

  • 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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