In Contention

Tag: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  • Wells joins the guessing game

    In response to Tom O’Neil’s contender shortlist that I discussed yesterday, Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere has come up with his own list of Best Picture frontrunners – and predicted also-rans. (O’Neil has since significantly amended his list, by the way – wisely removing “Blindness” and “Synecdoche, New York” from Best Picture consideration, and adding some titles including, bizarrely, “Mamma Mia!” Meanwhile, names like Tommy Lee Jones, Rachel McAdams and Kristin Scott Thomas enter the actors’ mix.)

    Wells’ top choices include “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (which he describes as “not the front-runner,  but the contender with the best script”), “Milk,” “Doubt,” “Gran Torino,” “Frost/Nixon,” “W” and “The Visitor.” “W” is a predictably contentious selection; I certainly know a few people who would disagree with his assertion that it “works on the page.”

    Rather more fun is Wells’ rundown of the titles that he thinks don’t have a prayer, which he breaks down as follows:

    “Appaloosa” (possibly worthy Ed Harris western but New Line leftover status dooms it); “Burn After Reading” (a dry Coen brothers goof, not an Oscar film); “Body of Lies” (I know nothing about this brilliant Middle Eastern spy thriller that would qualify it as Oscar bait); “Changeling” (Best Actress nom for Angelina Jolie but the film, while dramatically solid and well made, just isn’t stratospheric enough); “The Dark Knight” (are Tom and Pete having us off?); “Defiance” (an Ed Zwick World War II movie about Russian-Jewish resistance guerillas…hello?); “Mamma Mia!” (all right, that’s enough); “Miracle at St. Anna” (a Spike Lee movie in which a bank teller is shot by an old guy having a memory seizure?) and “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” (can’t and won’t happen).

    I must say I agree with him on most counts there – in particular, I’ll be somewhat surprised if “Miracle at St. Anna” and “Defiance” even turn out to be good films, let alone Best Picture possibilities. I can’t help thinking, though, that some little picture that’s slipped through all these lists will sneak up on us later this year. We sure weren’t talking about “Juno” a year ago.

  • Uh…‘Good Shepherd’ was always part of something more

    Universal Pictures\' The Good ShepherdI’ve read three stories today indicating that Robert De Niro wants to spin “The Good Shepherd” into a trilogy.  This…is not news.  Not exactly.

    The first mention was an aside in this Variety story, which was simply a “by the way” kind of thing.  Then Cinematical got a hold of it and passed the news along, and now I see The Movie Blog is sourcing Rope of Silicon (should have sourced Variety, but there’s that whole boycott brouhaha), and suddenly a couple of comments have become a “news item” for the day.

    I’d like to, if I may, quote my own words from a New York Times story nearly two years old:

    But Mr. De Niro, who was developing a C.I.A. project of his own at Tribeca Productions, agreed to a deal that kept things moving: He would consider directing or starring in “The Good Shepherd,” if Mr. Roth would write the Tribeca film, which deals with the period from the Bay of Pigs invasion to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

    At least one other CIA film was always in the cards, though the reception of “The Good Shepherd” (for which I have great respect despite its flaws) may or may not have slowed that train a bit.  Eric Roth told me about the possibility of a trilogy in the above interview, but that didn’t make the edit.

    Anyway, looking back at the Roth piece, I’m reminded of two of his scripts that I desperately hope find traction: “Hatfields and McCoys” (with Brad Pitt chomping at the bit to make it a reality) and “Comanche” (pitting Roth with Michael Mann once again for a western that sounds like it could be out of the park).

    This year, of course, Roth will be pushing the envelope as always with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” one of my most anticipated films of 2008.

  • Most anticipated of part two

    MGM\'s Quantum of SolaceLooking ahead to the second half of the year, there are more than a few films floating to the top of my list of anticipations.  Here’s what I’d call the top 10:

    1. “The Dark Knight” (hasn’t budged in six months)
    2.“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    3. “House of Lies”
    4. “Quantum of Solace”
    5. “Appaloosa”
    6; “The Brothers Bloom”
    7. “Milk”
    8. “Australia”
    9. “Pineapple Express”
    10. “Religulous”

    Anticipating with caution: “W”
    Movie I hope disappears before it releases the most: “Ace Ventura Jr.”

    How about you?

  • Now that it’s in English…

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=DelAqaM_p1Y

    And in Quicktime here.

  • Early predix: Nat Rogers pipes in

    So the ever-worthwhile Nathaniel Rogers at The Film Experience has joined in the predictions game – check out his thoughts here. Like many others, his list has “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” ruling the roost with eight nominations, with “Defiance,” “Doubt,” “Milk” and “Miracle at St Anna” rounding out the Best Picture list.

    The latter is a particularly interesting choice – one wonders whether the controversy-shy Academy voters will be put off by Spike Lee’s increasingly ridiculous quarrel with Clint Eastwood. Of course, January is a long way off, and if “Miracle at St Anna” turns out to be great, chances are this whole debacle will be forgotten by then. I fear it will not – but with “Changeling” not making his Best Picture list, Nat clearly sees Spike having the last laugh here.

    Elsewhere in Nat’s list, most of the usual suspects are present. I’m particularly pleased to see that he shares my faith in a Best Actress nomination for Sally Hawkins (“Happy-Go-Lucky”) – I’m going to be banging this drum all year, so get used to it. Nat, meanwhile, is evidently beginning the campaigning early for Michelle Pfeiffer in “Cheri,” going so far as to call her a “legendary actress.” I admit there won’t be any complaining from me if she finally cops a statuette.

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  • The soon-to-be extinct ‘Benjamin Button’ trailer…

    …looks positively AMAZING. Catch it while you can. I’m sure it’ll get yanked soon enough.

    The visual effects look so exquisite and seamless.  Director David Fincher has supposedly been pretty tight-lipped about his recipe in that arena for a while, but it looks to be a truly unique blend of CGI and makeup artistry.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnd0wsISY0

    Wow.

  • ‘Synecdoche, New York’ — another makeup contender?

    Rope of Silicon recently posted a series of stills from upcoming releases, including Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” films and Fernando Meirelles’s “Blindness.” But this image from Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” has me wondering if we don’t have another major contender for Best Makeup, a category shaping up to be more competitive than in years past.

    Here’s the pic:

    In addition to this new hopeful, I’d say there are solid bets to be placed on “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” and “Tropic Thunder.” Not a shabby start.

  • Pitt finally going to get some Oscar love?

    Over the course of his impressive career, Brad Pitt has not always been appreciated for the fine actor he is. This is an actor who could easily take the cheap way out and do one goofy romantic comedy or silly film after another, but who instead takes bold risks with his career, always challenging himself, and though sometimes falling flat on his face, growing as an actor.

    Pitt is not the first actor to grow in maturity through the years; look at John Wayne, badly under appreciated for much of his career, though his work in “The Quiet Man”, “Rio Bravo” and especially “The Searchers” was astounding. His last performance, as the gunfighter dying of cancer in “The Shootist,” richly deserved Oscar attention which sadly never came.

    Actors, the great ones, live to challenge themselves, never content to continue doing what they have done before, they need change, they live for challenge.

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  • Want to read up on some Fitzgerald?

    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

  • Call it 170

    Reading through Jeffrey Wells’s Hollywood Elsewhere this afternoon, I see he’s spitballing about the length of the script for David Fincher’s upcoming “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” written by Eric Roth.

    I made a call and got a different figure: 170 pages — with some considerable narration to boot.

    Wells’s point seems to be, “uh-oh, it’s gonna be long.” But as far as I’m concerned, a good movie can’t be long enough. So, you know, so be it if “Button” clocks in close to three hours long.

    A commenter at Hollywood Elsewhere, meanwhile, had this to say:

    I know somebody who’s seen a rouch (sic) cut (possibly just the assembly) and says it came in at 3 and a half hours.

    They also said it was a REALLY good 3 and a half hours, so there you go.

    Well, indeed. There you go. We’ll know more soon enough, but this is one of my most anticipated efforts of the season.

    Additionally, Roth is taking off from a 64-page short story, so we can bet on a lot of original material that, hopefully, adds to the emotional context of the original work. And the cover of the recently re-released short story, by the way, showcases the words “The inspiration for the upcoming motion picture,” so I wonder if, at the end of the day, the script might be deemed an original work because of what will likely be a profound, if necessary, departure from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words.

  • Woah…I think we have a real makeup contender

    Putting together a list of makeup contenders was a little difficult for the year-in-advance column this year. I ultimately settled on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (a film that will be integrating plenty of effects, makeup key among them), “The Other Boleyn Girl” (eh…I know) and “The Dark Knight” (maybe voters will be impressed by the effects used on Heath Ledger’s Joker and, late in the film, Aaron Eckhart’s Two-Face).

    Frankly, I didn’t see much else worth considering…until I came across this shot of Frank Langella in Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon.”

    Sure, I figured some makeup would be used on this film to bridge the gap in appearance between Langella and Richard Nixon. Certainly more than the stage production, which didn’t get too crazy, even for a theatrical performance. But I didn’t expect to find Langella completely lost under the effects. He’s unrecognizable in this, the closest shot of the actor in the film I think we’ve seen yet.

    If the film turns into a sweeper, we’ll certainly need to watch out for it here.

  • Variety sizes up the competition…again

    It looks like they’re spinning their Oscar wheels again over at that other film awards haven of mine.

    I say “again” because Justin Chang put together a very thorough year-in-advance rundown not two months ago, which was already wading further out into the waters than you’d expect from the Hollywood trade.

    This week — actually flying under my radar because I haven’t expected Oscar stuff out of Award Central in a while — it’s Pamela McClintock, eying the release date plays of various fall contenders as an angle on which to hang yet another look ahead. I came across the link via Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere.

    The usual suspects are rounded up: “Frost/Nixon,” “Revolutionary Road,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” etc. But there are a couple of new pics of note.

    For instance, I didn’t include John Hillcoat’s “The Road” (based on the Cormac McCarthy novel) on my own year-in-advance take because there was still some questiona s to whether it would be a 2008 release at the time. The Weinstein Company has it set for a Nov. 26 bow. And I also didn’t spotlight the Greg Kinnear starrer “Flash of Genius,” because quite frankly, it didn’t come up in discussions with Universal publicity brass, so I figured why bring it up? Both films are featured by McClintock.

    Anyway, the story isn’t much beyond a taking stock sort of thing, but it’s Oscarweb news nonetheless. Check it out.

  • OFF THE CARPET: 2008, a year in advance

    Another year, another set of wins…and another look ahead at what’s in store NEXT year.

    It’s never too late to take a long gander at what we might see dominating the film awards landscape in 365 days, and with that in mind, I’ve been doing my usual mulling over the possibilities for a few weeks to put together the sadly thorough examination of the 2008-09 award season that follows. Let’s get into it. There are some major considerations to take into account. right off the top.

    Like Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, who is set to be the entertainer of the year. With performances in “Body of Lies” (Ridley Scott) and “Revolutionary Road” (Sam Mendes), DiCaprio is working with a duo of awards-proven talent this year. Perhaps that will work against him, much like it did in 2006, and no major Oscar success will come knocking. But we’ll wait until we see the performances. Each of them could be enticing.

    This year’s Best Picture Oscar victor Scott Rudin is back again, by the way, with “Revolutionary Road,” recently inherited by Paramount Vantage and probably one of the true “frontrunners” this far out that we could put our finger on. The only other film in Vantage’s arsenal is Edward Zwick’s “Defiance,” which could simply be a commercial success, but might find its way to multiple nods like “The Last Samurai” and “Blood Diamond” in recent years.

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