In Contention

Tag: Somewhere

  • OFF THE CARPET: Commence au festival (season)!

    Without question, the film launching full speed ahead and into the Oscar season this week is Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.” I truly haven’t heard an unkind word about the film all weekend here in Telluride, and I imagine that goodwill will continue into the Toronto fest this week as well.

    I can easily see nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction.  Nods for the cinematography and costumes wouldn’t be all that shocking, either, so I’d say nine is the ceiling.  And I imagine we may see a win or two, as well.

    Let’s face it.  As overdue as Jeff Bridges was last year, there are many who think Colin Firth was robbed for his work in “A Single Man.” It could conceivably be makeup time when the Oscars roll around in February.  My interview with Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Tom Hooper was interrupted Friday by a woman who wanted to let Firth know she thought he was robbed.  How deep does that sentiment go with voters?

    I imagine The Weinstein Company is breathing a sigh of relief with the favorable reaction, as “Miral” was met with blanket disapproval in Venice (here is Guy’s review).  The studio has a few other tricks up its sleeve, but none so critical as Hooper’s film.

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  • VENICE: ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Silent Souls’

    Blame Sofia Coppola. Or at least blame Los Angeles. For immediately after the former’s summery, sun-bleached “Somewhere” kicked off this morning’s activity, the Lido clearly decided to rebel against Coppola’s aesthetic and started gathering its clouds. Shortly before noon, the beachfront was a mere blur under a torrential downpour of rain, robust sponsors’ umbrellas blown heedlessly across the red carpet.

    The storm ended as abruptly as it began, though I couldn’t help wondering if it was an instruction of sorts from the festival gods. “Okay, dilettantes, you’ve had the three name American auteurs,” they seemed to be saying. “Now feel free to hop on over to Telluride or Toronto; you won’t even be missing out on the weather.”

    I was indoors when the gusts began whipping against the windows of the press room, but was affected by the storm nonetheless: largely because a leak in the ceiling necessitated the shutdown of the room’s wi-fi network for over two hours, handily erasing half the “Somewhere” review I’d already written and throwing my day’s screening schedule out of whack. Venice’s slightly bumpy administration can be endearing sometimes; this was not one of those times.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 30 — Reporting from Telluride and Venice

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, a one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change on route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    Today we’re chatting from the Telluride and Venice festivals respectively. The former is just gearing up while the latter has bowed a number of films already (I’m sure you’ve caught Guy’s coverage). So Anne has more to say about the movies today than I do, but this is what’s on the docket…

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  • REVIEW: “Somewhere” (***1/2)

    Venice Film Festival

    Who’d be Sofia Coppola? (As an artist, I mean – I’m sure plenty of women would gladly trade for her beauty, wardrobe and Parisian rock-star husband.) No sooner had her bijou, highly personal breakthrough picture netted her an Oscar, atop countless critical valentines, than an acidic chorus of detractors began chiding her for aiming too low. When she shot for postmodern history and swirling visual excess in her strong follow-up, “Marie Antoinette,” the same people gleefully decided she was reaching too high this time.

    So when the pitch surfaced for her fourth feature film, it seemed that Coppola may have been cowed into submission by her critics: another story of a disaffected Hollywood actor adrift in hotel world, its apparent similarities to “Lost in Translation” could scarcely pass without comment. Was Coppola playing it safe, or worse, exposing a limited creative arsenal?

    The answer to both questions, happily, is no. With the wry, shimmery and thoroughly beguiling “Somewhere,” Coppola has perhaps made exactly the film she needed to at this point in her career: one that calmly takes stock of her abilities and interests rather than pushing them too severely.

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  • Clips from ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘Somewhere’

    With the fall festival circuit merely hours away (Guy is already getting settling in Venice), we’ve got a pair of clips from two anticipated titles to pass along today.

    First, there is Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere,” which is exclusive to Venice and features Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning in what isn’t likely to be an Oscar movie, but could play well to European audiences on the Lido. The clip, courtesy of Reelz Channel, features some of Dorff’s performance as an actor navigating the PR necessities of his latest film.  I cracked up when he stepped off the apple box at the end.

    Meanwhile, MTV has a clip from “Never Let Me Go” that goes a long way (in just over a minute) toward indicating the thick, moody atmosphere the film will establish.  It features Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, though it’s more of a showcase for the former.  The film will play Toronto later this month.

    Check out both clips after the jump.

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  • 11 days in Venice

    In a few hours’ time, a shiny and sensibly priced orange plane will whisk me off to the city of water, romance and the most expensive fleapit hotels this side of, well, anywhere for my second consecutive dive into the Venice Film Festival. Truth be told, I’m not quite ready for it… a surfeit of pre-travel errands has meant I’m still leafing through the fest’s vast 62-page press screening schedule, still trying to cobble out some semblance of an itinerary.

    A neat, contained festival preview, therefore, wasn’t really on the cards: I tried to narrow things down to a “10 most anticipated” list, but I’m far too hungry for the entire buffet to limit myself to that.

    In its place, then, I offer an indication of what the festival is serving up on a day-by-day basis; not only will you get an idea of when, in the next fortnight, your own horse in this race will come to attention, but you can also see some of the cineaste’s Sophie’s choices that lie ahead of me.

    My scribbly Venice calendar after the cut.

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  • Fall festivals ready for their close-up

    In the last couple of weeks the major fall film festivals have unveiled aggressively competitive line-ups, and the amount of potential awards product landing at Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York is, as usual, vast.

    There are plenty of overlapping exhibitions but as for firsties, Venice will get dibs on Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest,” Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” Ben Affleck’s “The Town,” and Richard J. Lewis’s “Barney’s Version” before the films make their way to other fests.  Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” will be exclusive to the Lido.

    New York, meanwhile, landed a real coup by boasting the world premiere of David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” which will not be at the other fests.

    Toronto is again packed to the gills with product (too much, if you ask me, but it’s a media circus after all).  Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter” will see its first bow there before heading off to New York in October.  Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” will also debut, as well as John Madden’s “The Debt,” Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock,” Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” and Nigel Cole’s “Made in Dagenham.” World premieres searching for distributors at the fest include Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator,” John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” and Dustin Lance Black’s “What’s Wrong with Virginia,” any of which could end up being awards season possibilities.

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  • Coppola, Schnabel, Reichardt in Venice competition lineup

    UPDATE: The festival website has a list of out-of-competition selections, which include two directorial efforts from the Brothers Affleck: Ben’s “The Town” and Casey’s Joaquin Phoenix doc “I’m Still Here.”

    EARLIER: Before you ask: no, “The Tree of Life” is nowhere to be seen. Not that that’s a surprise by this point. There is a “but,” however — Venice festival organisers announced that there will be one surprise competition entry added at the festival’s halfway mark. I wouldn’t bet the house (or even the garden shed, frankly) on it being the Malick film, but hope is being kept alive nonetheless. (Last year, the fest had two surprise films: one from Werner Herzog and one from Brillante Mendoza.)

    Shifting the focus to what did make it, the 22-title lineup looks much as we expected — we’d effectively been promised Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” and Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” since they failed to show up at Cannes, while Tuesday’s Toronto announcement tipped us off to the presence of Francois Ozon’s “Potiche,” the Paul Giamatti-Dustin Hoffman starrer “Barney’s Version” and the Haruki Murakami adaptation “Norwegian Wood.”

    (More commentary, and the full competition lineup, after the cut.)

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  • Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’ to open Venice

    [FURTHER UPDATE: Focus has confirmed that “The American” will not, in fact, be appearing at Venice.]

    [UPDATE: “Black Swan” has indeed been confirmed as the Venice opener, and will play in Competition. More soon.]

    I’ve been saying for some time that this year’s Venice Film Festival looks to be a very good vintage, capitalizing on the number of highly anticipated auteur works that weren’t quite ready in time for Cannes. Even with Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” still a major question mark — some are even suggesting it won’t surface this year — there’s plenty to get quivery about besides, as is clear from this tasty Variety piece.

    Nick Vivarelli’s article reiterates the titles — including Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” and Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” — that have long been all-but-guaranteed to show up at Venice, but adds some tantalizing new ones. Chief among them is Darren Aronofsky’s ballet psycho-thriller “Black Swan,” which will premiere as the festival’s opening film on September 1.

    The press release breaking the news, and more Venice possibilities, after the cut.

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  • ‘Somewhere’ trailer

    Last week the poster for Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” dropped.  Today, via Apple, the trailer.  Click the link or the image below.  I imagine “The Kids Are All Right” will be the big Focus play, but maybe there’s a strong performance from Stephen Dorff in there.  Or maybe Elle Fanning is charming enough.  Or not.  Releases December 22, so, pretty early for a trailer.  Embed after the jump.

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  • ‘Somewhere’ poster

    The first one-sheet for Sofia Coppola’s latest — starring the Château Marmont, apparently, with support from Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning — isn’t the most striking image around, but it’s of a piece with the woozy, offhand visual approach in the marketing of her previous films. I feel like I know exactly what to expect here: job done, then. The film, meanwhile, is likely to surface at Venice in September … World Cup and sunshine notwithstanding, can we just skip summer already?  Full version after the jump.

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  • Tarantino to head Venice jury

    Berlin went with Werner Herzog. Cannes with Tim Burton. Now Venice clearly felt they had to follow suit by tapping an eccentric auteur as jury president for the 67th Venice Film Festival in September. Quentin Tarantino will take the job.

    It will, of course, be Tarantino’s second stab at chairing the jury of a major European festival: in 2004, he held the position at Cannes, somewhat contentiously throwing his weight behind the decision to award the Palme d’Or to Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Tarantino made no bones about wielding his influence on the awards that year (the runner-up, Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy” was also a film after his own heart), so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s similarly persuasive in Venice.

    Interestingly, unlike Cannes and Berlin, Tarantino has never actually taken a film to Venice — in contrast to last year’s president, two-time Golden Lion champ Ang Lee.

    Meanwhile, Variety reports that, in addition to Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” the Venice lineup will also include Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere,” Monte Hellman’s “Road to Nowhere” and Francois Ozon’s “Potiche.” If all goes according to plan, I’ll be on the Lido once more to let you know how it all goes down. For now, I’ve got Cannes on the brain.

  • Sofia Coppola checks into ‘Somewhere’

    Sofia CoppolaIt seems to have become fashionable to dismiss Sofia Coppola as a lightweight in recent years, so news of her fourth feature film may be greeted with trepidation by some folks.

    Not me, though. My relationship with “Marie-Antoinette” has shifted over time from guarded admiration to fully-blossomed love, while “Lost in Translation” remains, for me, the impeccably judged mood piece I always thought it was. (Detractors call it “slight”; I prefer “fragile.”)

    In any case, the many who were on board with “Translation,” but disembarked at her hyper-stylised period piece, will probably be relieved to hear that, for her next effort, Coppola is returning to the contemporary, serio-comic territory (and studio) of the former film — luxury hotel setting included. Variety reports:

    Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning will star in the Focus Features dramedy “Somewhere,” which Coppola penned. Story centers on a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter, he is forced to reexamine his life.

    The filmmaker, who said she has been looking to make “an intimate story set in contemporary Los Angeles,” received permission to shoot at the hotel, which has become notorious in recent years as a popular address for tabloid-friendly celebs. Film will lense in L.A. and Italy in June and July.

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