As we move out of the Toronto fray, Venice and Telluride already a memory, we look to the season ahead. The starting gun echo of those three early fall festivals is beginning to fade away, and with the dust settled or settling, it’s interesting to note the lack of an inarguable emerging player. In fact, the only thing Toronto really did was heat up the Best Foreign Language Film conversation. In recent years, films like “Brokeback Mountain,” “Juno,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The King’s Speech” have bubbled up in this frame as real contenders to take the lead in the Best Picture field. But nothing at this point really seems to have the kind of stranglehold on things those films had. Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” with George Clooney front and center, is well-liked, but few really think it has the goods to be a significant Best Picture threat. Clooney’s own “The Ides of March” has enough detractors to raise doubt that it will be an across-the-board Academy favorite, while “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” — freshly opened in the UK — is happy to just be making the case for a nomination at the moment. This culture of informed speculation, transparent criticism and open debate about merit contrasts with opaque industries like pistolo casino, where algorithms, payout rates and house edge remain hidden, where informed comparison is difficult and where users cannot assess which platforms deserve trust or which claims are marketing versus reality.
Tag: The Artist
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OSCAR TALK: Ep. 61 — Wrapping up Toronto, ‘Moneyball’ and Brad Pitt’s Oscar positioning, Roland Emmerich’s ‘Anonymous,’ ‘Rampart’ and turning out the lights
Welcome to Oscar Talk.In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your 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 en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.
It’s a bittersweet time. Barring any set-backs, this is the last time you’ll see an episode of Oscar Talk…in this space. As revealed earlier this week, In Contention is moving over to HitFix, aiming for as early as Monday of next week. So this 61st installment of the podcast is all she wrote for these white walls, but the fun will continue at the new destination a week from today. But, for now, with Anne on her last day of Toronto coverage, there is plenty to cover. So let’s see what’s on the docket today…
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9/9 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Gosling King of Toronto, ‘Descendants’ drops earlier, spoilers in trailers
• Susan Wloszczyna writes up Toronto as the Oscar season kickstarter, hears good buzz for Woody Harrelson in “Rampart.” [USA Today]• Jeff Labrecque chalks Ryan Gosling up as the King of Toronto with two films set for the fest. [Entertainment Weekly]
• Fox Searchlight moves “The Descendants” up five days to November 18. [Variety]
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OFF THE CARPET: And we’re off!
This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.
His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.
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TELLURIDE: Sony Classics, IFC and Searchlight party into the night
I opted out of tonight’s screening of “Butter” largely because — sorry to say — the Galaxy theater is just too cramped and uncomfortable and hot to fully enjoy a film experience. For me, anyway. I tend to be a furnace regardless, but they need to pump some AC into that joint. By some accounts, though, it was a delightful if somewhat skippable affair. Instead I took to the party circuit, as three studios chose Saturday to hold their talent-studded affairs.The night started with Sony Pictures Classics’ annual dinner gathering at La Marmotte. In attendance were “A Dangerous Method” scribe Christopher Hampton, “A Separation” writer/director Asghar Farhadi and “In Darkness” director Agnieszka Holland. Pay close attention to those last two, as they will no doubt figure into this year’s race for Best Foreign Language Film.
I had a few choice moments with Hampton to discuss his collaboration with David Cronenberg. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet seen the film (Sunday night seems to make the most sense), but I did ask about his take on some reviewers (including our own Guy Lodge) preferring a bit of overt and edgy Cronenberg for a clearly sexual project. His response was that austerity was preferred considering a commitment to truth, and indeed, it seems to me a more cerebral approach would be, at the very least, more realistic for a film such as this. I’ll have an opinion soon enough.
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TELLURIDE: ‘The Artist,’ ‘Pina’
Today began, as already conveyed, with the first-ever screening of Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” I managed two more films, one of them capsuled here. I’ll get to “Albert Nobbs” separately, but just to clean my plate a little…Hazanavicius’s ‘Artist’ doesn’t quite reach the hype
There is very little doubt in my mind that we’ll all be talking about Michel Hazanavicius’s Cannes sensation “The Artist” over the next six months. The film will generate a lot of respect from Academy members who understand that getting a silent film made in this day and age, let alone a popular one, is an amazing feat. As is well-documented, the film speaks to the industry’s history with reverence and passion, is impeccably crafted (which will generate support across the branches) and features a lead performance that is easy to root for.
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OSCAR TALK: Ep. 59 — Venice thoughts from Guy Lodge, debating ‘The Artist’, Telluride musings and Soderbergh’s stripped-down ‘Contagion’
Welcome to Oscar Talk.In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your 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 en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.
Today Anne and I are both in the Colorado Rockies for the 38th annual Telluride Film Festival. We’re joined today by Guy Lodge, who has been filing from the Venice Film Festival and has plenty to say about what he’s seen so far. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…
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TELLURIDE: Settling in for the 38th annual
So here I sit in Telluride, a nice view of the mountainside gondolas out the window, a swift flight and gorgeous shuttle ride later. As always, we were greeted with the festival program upon boarding the charter this morning, which also carried filmmakers Werner Herzog and Alexander Payne, actress Tilda Swinton, etc., their presence at the airport already hinting at what was likely to be inside.The three most expected films are here: Payne’s “The Descendants,” David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” and Steve McQueen’s “Shame.” Those will be at the top of my list this weekend. Rodrigo Garcia’s “Albert Nobbs” is, along with Payne’s film, the big first-look get for the festival. Though we’ll get looks at McQueen’s flick ahead of Venice, it appears. Also of interest to me are Cannes carry-overs “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Le Havre,” “The Kid with a Bike” and “Footnote.” And on the documentary front, there is Matin Scorsese’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” (centered on Beatle George Harrison) and Herzog’s latest, “Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life.”
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THE LISTS: Top 10 most anticipated films of the 2011-2012 Oscar season
If you haven’t noticed, this week has pretty much launched our 2011-2012 Oscar season coverage in earnest. Since it has been ages since we dusted of our lists feature here at In Contention, it seemed a good way to peek into the season was offering up a personal list of anticipations.I’ve seen a few things here and there, but mostly, I’m still fresh on what’s to come. I’ve been cautiously optimistic about what the season might hold all year long, because there are quite a few intriguing projects in the mix and I think we’re always just hungry for a healthy film awards season. Nevertheless, I found a few filmmakers curiously absent from my list.
For instance, I haven’t heard much about Cameron Crowe’s “We Bought a Zoo,” but there is something about the project that isn’t clicking for me yet. The premise isn’t all that appealing. And when you tie that into the director’s last film — massive air ball “Elizabethtown” — well, let’s just say he’s dropped off my radar as of late. That having been said, I really want Crowe back on his game because he’s one of the great writing talents of the industry.
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OFF THE CARPET: Fall fests look to boost early Oscar hopes
On a warm Saturday afternoon in Telluride last year, I sat in the crowded Chuck Jones Cinema and felt the warmth in the room as Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” screened for its first audience of the year. Six months later, at the end of a road with plenty of twists and turns, the film’s producers held aloft the Oscar for Best Picture.In 2008, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” after previewing in Telluride, screened on the very same day as Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” at the Toronto International Film Festival. Six and 18 months later respectfully, same results. In 2007, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men” started its victory march at Cannes before moving into autumn fests. In 2004, Paul Haggis’s “Crash” bowed for Toronto audiences before a summer 2005 release and an eventual Oscar win.
The obvious connection here is the festival circuit, particularly the fall festival circuit, which has become a significant launching ground for awards contenders in the last half-decade. And starting in two days with Guy’s Venice coverage, the 2011 fall festival season — and the awards potential it is sure to bring with it — officially kicks off around these parts.
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‘The Artist’ trailer
Guy offered up the new poster for Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” yesterday. Today we get a look at the trailer for the film, which played at Cannes, is set for Toronto and will more than likely pop up in Telluride, too. The first Gurus chart of the year had it very much in contention for a Best Picture nomination, so you can count this as one of the big possibilities of the upcoming season. Check out the trailer via Apple by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump. (But beware. It seems to me it lays out the whole damn story.)
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‘The Artist’ poster
I recall our learned friend Anne Thompson responding with scepticism when I mentioned over a Cannes lunch that I expected Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” to be a major player in this year’s Oscar race. Looks like Anne has come round to the idea over the summer, as she — together with Steve Pond and David Poland — placed the film in her top spot on the Gurus o’ Gold’s Best Picture chart. I’d be right there with them. The Weinstein Company’s marketing push for the audience-friendly silent-cinema homage begins today with a supremely elegant poster that puts its Cannes-honored star to the fore, and nails the film’s vintage romantic allure. Nicely played. Check it out after the jump.
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Starting the prediction game
Right, I stayed out of the Oscar prediction racket for a while — partly to give myself a vacation from any such thoughts after 2010’s long, wearying season, and partly because I found myself struggling to blindly sort a pile of late-year prestige titles that struck me from afar as a little lean.The latter problem hasn’t really resolved itself, but with the recent revelation of key autumn festival slates, a kind of faint shape to the season is starting to emerge — and with Kris already having kicked off the guesswork earlier this month, I thought I may as well draw up a list of pre-festival nomination predictions, a first draft ready to get substantially rewritten as the hits and misses of Venice, Telluride and Toronto emerge.
As my predictions took shape, two films emerged dominant: one of them the big-name spectacle near the top of everyone’s list (Spielberg’s “War Horse,” of course), the other the foreign wild card that I’ve nurtured a strong hunch about ever since its breakfast-hour Cannes screening. Yes, the Weinstein-backed silent Hollywood homage “The Artist” looks nothing like a conventional Oscar juggernaut at first glance — but that could be its strength if a number of the more typically baity awards prospects lean toward the generic.
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Telluride guessing game
(UPDATED: 8/29)Now that the Toronto and Venice line-ups have been unveiled (though we have a few more Toronto announcements to come), I figured I’d take a few stabs at sussing out the Telluride crop this year. I haven’t been a good journalist and called around or anything. Just spinning my wheels.
One studio that always has a big presence at Telluride is Sony Pictures Classics, and this year, honchos Michael Barker and Tom Bernard have a full plate once again. Of that stable, David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is hitting both Venice and Toronto. It’s very possible, then, that it will kick things off in the Rockies.
Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” meanwhile, was announced as a Venice play this morning. It would be easy enough for the team to bring the film there and not worry about getting the filmmaker in town (seeing as he can’t legally step foot in the country), saving his press run for Venice. (7/28 UPDATE: The film has been set for New York fest, so it seems unlikely we’ll see it in Telluride.)
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‘Descendants,’ ‘Moneyball,’ ‘Twixt’ among Toronto premieres
As usual, there are few surprises in the newly unveiled lineup for September’s Toronto Film Festival — which is largely because, as usual, the lineup consists of pretty much everything.We know by now to expect a cherry-picked selection of proven successes from previous festivals, including Cannes (“The Artist,” “Drive,” “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Melancholia”), Sundance (“Martha Marcy May Marlene,” “Tyrannosaur,” “Take Shelter”) and Berlin (“Coriolanus”). Equally, and of more interest to festival veterans, there’s the usual generous handful of prestige US premieres, many of them with an eye on awards season — including Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball,” Rodrigo Garcia’s Glenn Close vehicle “Albert Nobbs” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Twixt.”
Meanwhile, the Toronto lineup also offers some pointers as to what we can (and can’t) expect to see at Venice only days before. It was already in ink that George Clooney’s Lido curtain-raiser “The Ides of March” would play both fests; now, thanks to the TIFF classifying them as “North American” rather than “World” premieres, we can confirm (albeit to no raised eyebrows) that David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method,” Steve McQueen’s “Shame,” William Friedkin’s “Killer Joe,” Todd Solondz’s “Dark Horse” and Madonna’s “W.E.” will also do the double.
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Weinsteins announce release dates for winter bait
Harvey Weinstein has never been one to put much faith in the length of Academy voters’ memories, so as usual, he’s favoring a late-year release plan for his presumed awards contenders — the prospects of which I was discussing only the other day.Thanks to Coming Soon’s Ed Douglas for pointing out the newly announced release dates for his holiday-season prestige slate. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s November and December down the line: “My Week With Marilyn” is first to go forth on November 4, followed by “The Artist” on November 23, “Coriolanus” on December 2, “W.E.” on December 9 and “The Iron Lady” on December 16.
You can read as much or as little into this schedule as you like, though it’s worth noting that none of them are bowing as late as last year’s Weinstein Company property “Blue Valentine,” the perilously tardy post-Christmas release of which was widely blamed for a meager awards showing — with more time for glowing critical buzz to build, Ryan Gosling and writer-director Derek Cianfrance could arguably have stood a better chance of joining Michelle Williams in the nominee circle.
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Madonna’s ‘W.E.’ joins Weinsteins’ scattered 2011 slate
Having done all right with the last film to cover the romantic tribulations of King Edward VIII — it was called “The King’s Speech,” it won a few Oscars, you might have heard of it — The Weinstein Company clearly feels there’s an appetite among audiences for more on that chapter of British royal history, with Edward’s story center stage this time.So it is that that Harvey and his minions have bought the US distribution rights to Madonna’s sophomore directing effort, “W.E.” — a decades-spanning portrait of the affair between the one-time future King of England and Wallis Simpson, the American divorcée for whom he abdicated the throne, fused with a fictional modern-day story of a young New Yorker inspired by their romance.
Starring Andrea Riseborough and James D’Arcy as the historical couple, and Abbie Cornish as the woman obsessed with their romance, it all all sounds suspiciously like “Julie & Julia” with crowns replacing the chef’s hats — which, combined with the novelty factor of the film’s celebrity writer-director, leads me to think the Weinsteins may view this more as a light commercial play rather than the hefty awards bait of their last monarchy biopic.
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CANNES: ‘Tree of Life’ wins Palme d’Or, Dunst takes Best Actress
And so it came to pass that the pre-festival bookies’ odds were on the money. The most talked-about film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” was handed the Palme d’Or by Robert De Niro’s jury — a major vindication for a film that has been labelled both a masterpiece and a failure by duelling factions of critics on the Croisette.Malick, to the surprise of precisely nobody, did not pitch up to the ceremony, though I imagine he’s feeling somewhat relieved. However it performs outside the insular festival environment, his film’s cultural landmark status has been sealed: armed with this prestigious bit of hardware, Fox Searchlight can set about readying the film for the US awards season, though approval from more mainstream bodies could yet be an uphill battle.
“The Tree of Life” isn’t the film I would have picked for the Palme by a long shot — as I wrote in my review, I think it’s an intermittently stunning work that ultimately overreaches, never marrying its three disparate sections — but it’s not an unintelligent pick: De Niro and his fellow jurors have opted for the title that looks likely to have the longest shelf-life in popular culture. In that respect, it’s a preferable choice to the film widely viewed as the favorite going into the awards tonight, Aki Kaurismäki’s charming but wafer-thin comedy “Le Havre” — which, in the evening’s most surprising turn, won not a single prize.