• The Academy considers moving the Oscars up to late January or early February. Same old song and dance. It would begin in 2012 and is dependent on the NFL’s plans. [Los Angeles Times]
• Tom Shone talks to “Nowhere Boy” director Sam Taylor-Wood. [New York Magazine]
• Monika Bartyzel toasts Helen Mirren’s rise from sexpot to Oscar winner. [Cinematical]
Variety’s annual Directors to Watch list lives up to its title more often than not, frequently highlighting names that go on to be hotter talking points in the year that follows.
Last year’s list, for example, include “(500) Days of Summer” helmer Marc Webb, who recently signed on to reboot the “Spider-Man” franchise, as well as Cary Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”) and Adam Elliot (“Mary & Max”) — in addition to already-lauded names like Matteo Garrone and Steve McQueen.
This year’s list similarly blends directors still in the wings with those who have already arrived. The year’s most successful freshman filmmaker, Neill Blomkamp, isn’t on the list (Variety hardly needs to remind the industry of his presence, after all), but two first-timers with films in the Oscar hunt are: “A Single Man”‘s Tom Ford and “Crazy Heart”‘s Scott Cooper.
London Film Festival
A bright, slight, mostly enjoyable portrait of the formative years of John Lennon, artist-turned-filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood’s “Nowhere Boy” opens with a nudge-nudge tease, as the singular opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night” reverberates through the theater over a shot of the 18 year-old Lennon running to school.
That single-second strum, however, is all we get of the ubiquitous Beatles songbook, as Taylor-Wood and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh (“Control”) go out of their way to distance their story from Fab Four iconography, even coyly dancing around any mention of the “B” word. “What do you call yourselves now?” Lennon’s weary Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) asks her nephew over breakfast, after he announces the band’s plans to travel to Hamburg. “Do you care?” is his tart reply.
Even if this is a little too cute, it’s cause for commendation that the film largely avoids the contrived “inspiration” cues that usually plague the musical-biopic genre. A fleeting glimpse of the original Strawberry Fields house in Liverpool is about as on-the-nose as things get; we’re spared the mandatory montages of the artist scribbling lyrics in a battered notebook, and even the Beatles cuts performed towards the film’s end are authentic fledgling efforts. (Over-familiar 1950s rock n’ roll standards comprise the bulk of the soundtrack, while Goldfrapp’s incidental score hardly registers.)
Sam Taylor-Wood’s debut feature has its world premiere tonight as it closes out the London Film Festival. I’ll have a short take up for you later today, but for now, here’s the trailer. (I’ll say this much: Kristin Scott Thomas’s recent run of form remains unbroken.)
You’ve heard me natter on enough for months about how “Fish Tank” is one of the year’s best films — now you don’t have to just hear it from me anymore.
Andrea Arnold’s lyrical character study of an unhappy Essex teenager (now being dubbed ‘the British “Precious”‘ by some lazy wags) leads the nominations for the British Independent Film Awards, with mentions in a whopping eight categories, including two for 18 year-old sensation Katie Jarvis.
Once a very niche Transatlantic equivalent to the Indie Spirits, the BIFA Awards are gaining in profile every year, painting a far more revealing picture of the state of the UK film industry than the Oscar-toadying BAFTAs.
They’re also naming more contenders who go on to feature heavily in awards season: “Slumdog Millionaire” was the belle of last year’s BIFA ball, while this year’s major crossover nominee promises to be “An Education.”
(More discussion, and a full list of nominees, after the cut.)
I meant to mention this just before I went on vacation in September, but it slipped my mind.
Anyway, adding to the many reasons for my interest in Sam Taylor-Wood’s “Nowhere Boy,” the John Lennon biopic that closes the London Film Festival on 29 October, is the promise of a score by electro-pop outfit Goldfrapp (probably best known Stateside for their 2005 hit “Ooh La La”).
The British duo, comprising musician Will Gregory and vocalist Alison Goldfrapp, revealed last month that they had almost completed the score, and would be recording string segments with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London. (An obvious tribute to Lennon, and a nice one.)
UPDATE: “Nowhere Boy” producer, Kevin Loader, addresses Jeff Wells’s concerns about the film’s non-appearance at earlier autumn festivals quite reasonably. He explains that the post-production schedule means the film simply won’t be complete in time for Venice or Toronto. I thought as much.
This is an interesting development. Lately, the London Film Festival has chosen to wrap up with big-name films, many of them already powered by previous festival hype — “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Babel” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” have all been given the closing night slot in recent years.
By comparison, the news of this year’s closing film, Sam Taylor-Wood’s debut feature “Nowhere Boy,” comes slightly out of left field. I’ve been eagerly anticipating Taylor-Wood’s portrait of the young John Lennon, which is being shepherded by The Weinstein Company, for a while now. For many others, however, I suspect it hasn’t really been on the radar.
1. It’s a biopic chronicling the formative years of one of popular music’s most gifted and fascinating icons. (How has it taken this long for a John Lennon project of any significance to come to fruition?)
2. It’s the feature film debut of Sam Taylor Wood — the British conceptual artist, musician, photographer, Anthony Minghella protegee and all-purpose celebrity. Her media ubiquity could arouse wariness if her award-winning 2008 short, “Love You More,” hadn’t been really rather lovely indeed. As it is, she could just be this year’s Steve McQueen.
3. It is written by Matt Greenhaigh, who scored a home run with “Control,” another jagged, intimate portrait of a British rock legend. And anything or anyone connected with a film as brilliant as “Control” deserves our full attention. Fact.
4. It stars Kristin Scott Thomas, inarguably one of the greatest thesps around these days, in the potentially rich role of Lennon’s loving but eternally disapproving aunt and guardian, Mimi Smith. It’s ideal casting, and Thomas carries a major IOU from this last awards season. Which brings me to my final point…
5. Rights to the film have just been acquired by The Weinstein Company, with a view towards a year-end release.
Harvey Weinstein reportedly “fell in love” with Greenhaigh’s script, which apparently focuses heavily on the emotionally charged custody battle between the aforementioned Smith and Lennon’s biological mother. It should be a meaty performance piece for Thomas and British TV actress Anne-Marie Duff (otherwise known as Mrs James McAvoy), and something tells me Weinstein might see a glimmer of awards potential there.
It doesn’t hurt that that it’s being co-produced by Film4, which, between “Slumdog Millionaire,” “In Bruges,” “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Hunger” had perhaps the most impressive slate of any production outfit last year.
Okay, so it only started shooting on March 8, so there’s no way of knowing which way this one’s headed. Still one to keep an eye on, methinks.