In Contention

Tag: The King’s Speech

  • THE LONG SHOT: I’m just here for the movies

    “You’re the Oscar guys, aren’t you?” asked the spike-heeled PR officer upon eyeing the press badge dangling from my neck, her voice exuding the steely sweetness they teach you on the first day of public relations boot camp. It was midway through the Venice Film Festival and I was too beat — or my mouth just too full of complimentary cheese — to rephrase her blunt description. I nodded in reply: yes, I am indeed “the Oscar guys.” One of them, at any rate.

    “Thought so,” she said, eyes darting across the room, perhaps in search of my chart-brandishing entourage. “Not much for you here, is there?”

    On the one hand, I could hardly argue, not least since we’d both just emerged from a film — Chilean auteur Pablo Larrain’s brilliant nightmare of a black comedy “Post Mortem” — that stands as much chance of securing an invitation to the Kodak Theater as Kim Kardashian does to the Kennedy Center Honors.

    Five days into the festival, and the only film screened that belonged in the Oscar conversation (following the critical belly-flop of Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” at least) was high-gloss opener “Black Swan,” and even that was generating “too cool for the Academy” conclusions. Oscar-watching at European festivals, even blogger-inundated Cannes, is a pretty spotty sport compared to the FYC frenzy of Telluride and Toronto.

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  • ‘Meek’s Cutoff,’ Franco top Toronto critics’ poll

    “The King’s Speech” may have come out on top with Toronto Film Festival audiences, but the critics — at least, the broad cross-section surveyed by indieWIRE in their annual post-festival poll — have other ideas. Kelly Reichardt’s period western “Meek’s Cutoff,” my own pick of the Venice fest, was voted film of the festival by a sizable margin, with 76 points to 58 for runner-up “127 Hours.”

    Of course, regular audiences will have to wait until 2011 to see what the fuss is about, but expect critical reaction to be as breathless when Oscilloscope eventually open Reichardt’s film. It’s too rarefied an arthouse item to get the awards attention it merits, of course, but no matter: I sense a future classic is being born.

    Higher-profile awards-season fare comes next on the list, with “Black Swan” and “The King’s Speech” all but tied for third place, while foreign-language titles finding their way into the top 10 include Palme d’Or champ “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” Venice prizewinners “Attenberg” and “Silent Souls.” and Canada’s probable Oscar submission “Incendies.”

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  • Rockwell, Carter, Garfield, Wasikowska tapped for HFF honors

    On the heels of last week’s introductory announcement, it has been announced that Sam Rockwell, Helena Bonham Carter, Andrew Garfield and Mia Wasikowska will be recognized at this year’s Hollywood Film Festival awards.  The press release, in part:

    The 14th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards, presented by Starz, are pleased to announce honorees who will be recognized for their achievements at the festival’s Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony.

    Academy Award-nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter will receive the “Hollywood Supporting Actress Award,” actor Sam Rockwell will be honored with the ” Hollywood Supporting Actor Award, ” actress Mia Wasikowska will receive the ” Hollywood Breakthrough Actress Award, ” and actor Andrew Garfield will be recognized with the ” Hollywood Breakthrough Actor Award. ”

    “These honorees have been steadily laying the groundwork of choice projects upon which to build their Hollywood careers, and this is their year to really stand out,” said [founder Carlos] de Abreu.

    Full list of awards recipients announced thus far after the jump.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: King…for the moment

    Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” is on top of the world right now.  Telluride buzz was hot and it carried all the way through the Toronto International Film Festival to a coveted People’s Choice award.  The race is already being boiled down in some quarters to this old school Academy play versus a Gen-Y instant classic opening in just under two weeks.  You couldn’t ask for more if you were The Weinstein Company with this film as your prize pony…

    …except maybe a season half as long as it actually is.  Hooper’s film finds itself in a very precarious spot right now.  Just ask awards consultants at Paramount Pictures.

    After coming out strong with the of-the-moment “Up in the Air” last season, taking the same Telluride-Toronto crowd-pleasing path, their film slowly boiled down to an also ran and even came up short in the one category it seemed assured going into the Academy Awards.

    It’s easy to peak early in an Oscar season.  It takes tactical endurance to really come out on the other side with something to show for yourself and “The King’s Speech” is burning fuel fast and early.  But I imagine if anyone understands this it’s Harvey Weinstein, who, if he does find himself in a battle with “The Social Network” for the big prize, will be going toe-to-toe with one of his former Miramax executives, Cynthia Swartz (who has overseen Best Picture marches for “Crash,” “No Country for Old Men” and “The Hurt Locker” in recent years).

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  • Some predictions for a Sunday

    Okay, so it’s been almost two months since I last offered up some Oscar nomination predictions, so now that the big triple-header of autumn festivals is over, I thought it time for an update. (Remember, you can always access my predictions page at the tail of the right-hand sidebar.) With the season slowly beginning to swing — my first Long Shot column will land on Wednesday — you can expect more frequent revisions.

    I’ve marked which contenders have been subbed in and out, though the changes aren’t as numerous as I might have expected — I had a summertime hunch about “Made in Dagenham” that I’m sticking to after its warm Toronto reception, and what reason have we been given yet to doubt the likes of “Toy Story 3,” “Another Year” and “The Social Network?”

    As usual, I operate on gut feel, which is a hit-and-miss system: my misgivings about “The King’s Speech” as a major player were obviously unfounded, but until precursors show me otherwise, I’m still not buying “Inception.” As usual, look to Kris for level-headed predictions, but I enjoy trying to spot the snubs. (Last year, my dogged refusal to include “Invictus” in my Best Picture projections all season eventually paid off. Stopped clock, and all that. )

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  • TIFF: ‘The King’s Speech’ takes Toronto audience award

    Well, in case you weren’t already convinced, you can pretty much write a Best Picture nod for “The King’s Speech” in ink now. Following in the footsteps of such titles as “American Beauty,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Precious,” The Weinstein Company’s period drama just took the People’s Choice Award on the last day of the Toronto Film Festival — confirming that the film plays across the board.

    Of course, it oversimplifying matters to say that Toronto’s audience award equals a Best Picture play; indeed, only three winners in the last decade have gone on to secure a nomination for Oscar’s top prize. But when a film enters the festival with that much advance buzz and then makes good on it, it’s fair to say that the script is being followed.

    The runner-up prize, meanwhile, went to the British-South African co-production, “The First Grader,” an inspirational true-life drama about an 84 year-old Kenyan man starting school — seemingly the kind of  sentimental human-interest crowdpleaser that is catnip to festival audiences, even if critics have been more divided.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 32 — What’s hot out of Toronto, ‘Social Network’ steals the thunder, ‘The Town’ comes out strong, ‘I’m Still Here’ has no clothes

    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 (except today) 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.

    Apologies for the tardiness this time around. Anne has been in transit from Toronto and we kept missing our windows, but she’s back home now and we offer a little more for you to chew on this weekend. Let’s see what’s on the docket…

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  • Schemers trying to control their little worlds

    It’s intriguing that two of the most press shy entrepreneurs of the internet age – Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker – have suddenly participated in two dense magazine profiles this month.  It’s almost as if there was a film depicting key moments in their lives set for imminent release and they want to set the record straight.  Oh…

    Really, though, I was struck reading this Vanity Fair profile of Parker that the character described is perhaps a bit more interesting than the more simplistic character Aaron Sorkin wrote in “The Social Network.” In the film, Parker is portrayed by Justin Timberlake as a paranoid, mean-spirited misfit.  A misfit (and party animal) he may be, but Parker is lauded in the piece as a “higher being,” “generous” and “loyal,” and frankly comes off as something of a saint.

    The writer does mention that Parker reached out to potential sources to smooth out his image, but even still, the accounts of generosity become a bit too consistent to ignore.  Parker works well as an antagonistic figure in the film, mind you, but I think an instance of some of this would have added a nice layer of depth to the character.  After all, Zuckerberg sure is dealt with in complex hues, and is all the more fascinating for it.

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  • 9/13 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Richard Corliss, clearly irritated by early Oscar buzz, comes down hard on “The King’s Speech” and seems to think it is “bad enough” to win the Oscar for Best Picture. [Time]

    • Colin Firth, meanwhile, responds to said Oscar buzz. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Regarding “Let Me In,” Stephanie Zacharek contends “like a piece of great music, a strong movie can withstand multiple interpretations.” [Movieline]

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  • Another scene from ‘The King’s Speech’

    A number of you were thirsty for more after yesterday’s look at a scene from Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.” Today we get another one, courtesy of Awards Campaign:

  • Clips from ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘The King’s Speech’

    Clips are coming fast and furious for awards contenders these days.  Last week a pair from “Somewhere” and “Never Let Me Go” hit, and now, one more from the latter (which somehow turned up as an “exclusive” on two sites) and one from Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech.”

    The scene from “Never Let Me Go” is actually one of the scenes that bothers me most from the film for a myriad of reasons.  It’s cut here before the real spoiler hits, so I guess it’s safe to view.  “The King’s Speech” clip does a nice job of giving you a sense of the visual style of the piece, which isn’t a tame, vanilla kind of filmmaking.  I think the perception (understandably) has been that this film will be a soft lob kind of vacant filmmaking, but I maintain that Hooper brings an interesting directorial signature to the work.

    Both films are set to play the Toronto Film Festival over the next week or so.  Have a look at the clips after the jump and tell us what you think.

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  • 9/8 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Jean-Luc Godard tells the Academy in a “cordial letter” that he may attend the Governor’s Awards if his schedule permits.  AMPAS feels need to convey this to you via press release (because no one wants to look like a stood-up date). [Oscars.org]

    • Launching a new season’s coverage, Steve Pond tries to make his September record 2-0 by predicting “The King’s Speech” for Oscar victory this year. [The Odds]

    • David Poland reassesses the field and warns against getting caught up in festival euphoria. [Movie City News]

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  • TELLURIDE: That’s a wrap on the “Show”

    If you’ve been keeping up with the Telluride coverage then you know my thoughts on the 10 films I was able to catch over that four-day spread.  So I’m not going to bore you with a tedious recap here.  Instead, now that I’m back and relaxed in LA, not looking at the clock and rushing to make this or that event, I think I’ll just take a moment to reflect in general.

    On the way to yesterday afternoon’s Labor Day picnic, as I crossed over the San Miguel River on a quaint wooden bridge, I was struck with the disappointment that has been rotting at the back of my mind during the entire festival: God I wish I could take the time to smell the roses there.

    Telluride is a beautiful place to launch a film festival and its tranquility is reflected in festival-goers’ sensibilities.  There aren’t mobs of people out to see stars.  There aren’t flashbulbs popping off around every other corner.  Everyone is very much here for the movies and the chance to discover something new.  I don’t think it has been tainted, or at the very least, programmers and directors have gone a long way to keep that face out in front.

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  • 9/7 Oscarweb Round-up

    • The Gurus o’ Gold step up to the plate of a fresh season, each of us picking 15 unranked bets for Best Picture likelihood pre-Toronto. [Movie City News]

    • Jeffrey Wells begs to differ on the notion that Gemma Arterton has a shot at awards success in “Tamara Drewe,” which he calls “the most loathsome film of Stephen Frears’ long and distinguished career.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • “Waiting for Superman” turns up the publicity heat and fuels the public education debate with a big ole’ spread. [New York Magazine]

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  • 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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  • INTERVIEW: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Tom Hooper

    Telluride Film Festival

    For actor Geoffrey Rush and director Tom Hooper, David Seidler’s script “The King’s Speech” came to them by serendipity. Still in stage play format, it arrived at Rush’s Melbourne residence with a note apologizing for a cold call avoiding the traditional agency pipeline. For Hooper, it came to him because his mother happened to be Australian.

    “My mom was invited by some Australian friends to a fringe theater play reading of this unproduced play, having never been to a play reading in her life,” the director says, tucked into a booth with Firth and Rush at Telluride’s Rustico restaurant. “They were like, ‘We need some Aussies in the audience, would you come along?’ She called me up and said, ‘I think I may have just seen your next film.’ She sent it to me and it sat on my desk. Two or three months went by and I read it in one sitting. I rang her up and said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’”

    Rush politely declined the offer to star in a play that was “trying to be ‘Henry V,’” but noted that the central idea of Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue assisting King George V with his stammer could make for quite the film. His copy of the script, by the way, was accompanied by a DVD of the very reading Hooper’s mother attended.

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘The Way Back,’ ‘The King’s Speech’

    The second day of Telluride has brought treat after treat. I decided early this morning to skip the world premiere of Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” in favor of Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” because I could slide two films in rather than the one. Peter Weir’s latest, “The Way Back” (which didn’t generate many reviews at all from last night’s premiere — most must have been at “Never Let Me Go”) was playing shortly after.

    It couldn’t have been a better decision. I was treated to both the film of the festival so far and a profoundly moving work of art from a modern master.

    Let’s dive in…

    “The Way Back” (****)

    Peter Weir has made a career out of visual feasts with thematic resilience. Some might consider him the David Lean of our time, and with good reason. But the key difference is that Weir has slowly developed an art house niche out of epic scale filmmaking.

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  • TELLURIDE: Settling in with the freshly unveiled line-up

    I’m just settling in here in the Colorado mountainside as the Telluride Film Festival prepares to draw the curtain on its 37th dance tomorrow afternoon.

    As I look over the schedule (I Tweeted the films earlier this morning), I’m seeing plenty to chew on. For starters, the world premiere of Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” is slated for tomorrow night. I was crushed, though, to see it slotted at the exact same time as the world premiere of Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go.” But both will screen plenty throughout the fest, as a tribute to Weir is in store to go along with the former, while Romanek and actress Carey Mulligan are in town to promote the latter.  Author Kazuo Ishiguro will also be here to sign copies of his novel.

    Telluride is preempting Toronto on Romanek’s film, as well as the new Errol Morris documentary, “Tabloid.” Meanwhile, Sylvain Chomet’s animated “The Illusionist” has been playing the festival circuit all year and is definitely near the top of my must-see list.

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