In Contention

Tag: The Road

  • Prepping for Telluride

    36h annual Telluride Film FestivalTomorrow morning I’m on a plane at 10:30 to the mountains of Colorado and the 36th annual Telluride Film Festival.

    This will be my first trek to the fest, which has always been, by many accounts, the most coveted detour of the fall festival season.  They keep it small.  The vibe is meant to be intimate, definitely an antidote to Cannes or Toronto, where the media frenzy stretches on for a week and a half.  Here we get four days in the refreshing thin air, and there are a number of films I’m looking forward to.

    The line-up used to be a tightly guarded secret.  It was a leap of faith.  You land, get the schedule, and then you know.  But news travels fast in a town like this, so more and more, the secrecy of Telluride’s schedule has leaked out over the years.  This year is no different on that front.

    “Up in the Air” from director Jason Reitman is way at the top of my list.  Something about the project is tugging at me, and that USA Today interview with the director yesterday did a lot to fan the flames.  Reitman had great success with “Juno” when he took it to Telluride in 2007, so he’ll be looking to duplicate that again as Paramount primes its Oscar pony.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Original Score — Volume I

    The Princess and the FrogAs long as humanity has been recording history, music has been immensely important in society. Not only can it be joyous and entertaining, but it can capture the mood and feel of a time and a place. Cinema has been no exception in this regard.

    The creation of original music for a film is awarded by the Academy in the Best Original Score category. The composer has one of the most difficult and lonely jobs in filmmaking. Almost always arriving at the end of the editing stage, he or she has to fashion music appropriate to the mood of a film.  But when a composer does a magnificent job, the result can be iconic.

    This category tends to awards its favorites. It is notoriously one of AMPAS’s most insular branches (though it has warmed up to newbies slightly in recent years). It also tends to award music that features prominently in the films.  From this vantage point, however, it is always hard to guess which films will find themselves in contention, largely because we have not heard the scores.

    An exception in this regard is Michael Giacchino’s work on Pixar’s “Up.” Giacchino, who was nominated two years ago for “Ratatouille,” has once again composed a soundtrack which can be sad, joyous and suspenseful. The film is likely headed towards a Best Picture nomination, and I suspect a citation here will follow.

    Another animated film which may very well end up in contention is “The Princess and the Frog.” The music is being handled by Randy Newman, clearly beloved by the music branch. I remain skeptical of how this film will be received and, in any event, think that Best Original Song may be the more likely spot to consider for this film. However, Newman’s name means a lot and there are few other favorites in the running this year.

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  • Touchdown in Venice

    VeniceGreetings from the cavernous, marble-clad press room of the Venice Film Festival. After a more-frenzied-than-average day’s travelling (thanks to a domino set of transport delays resulting in the kind of mad airport dash usually reserved for rom-com heroes only), I have arrived in Venice in more or less one piece — and if ever a city was designed to melt away the stresses of a rough transit, it’s this one.

    Even in sticky September heat, it’s as unremittingly, broodingly lovely as every postcard, photograph or film scene has ever suggested — as I navigated the shady labyrinth of criss-crossing bridges and canals to my hotel, it was hard not to expect a ghostly tyke in red to pop up a few paces ahead. Or Dirk Bogarde in a Panama hat. At least Helena Bonham-Carter in a carnival mask. But no. Such are the mild letdowns of initially meeting cities through the movies.

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  • The five Venice titles I’m most curious to see

    Jared Leto in Mr. NobodyAt the crack of dawn, I board a flight to Italy — so this time tomorrow, if all goes well, I’ll be writing to you from the water-riven city of Venice after having attended a festival screening of John Hillcoat’s “The Road.” It’s both my first visit to the city and my first taste of one of the major film festivals, so it should be an exciting few days all round.

    Venice may lag slightly behind Cannes in terms of glamor and auteur attractions, but it’s arguably the European festival that feeds most into the awards season to come: as recent Cannes winners have remained largely arthouse-bound, Venice has birthed several crossover successes that went on to factor to varying degrees in the race: in recent years, “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Queen,” “Atonement” and “The Wrestler,” among others, saw their buzz begin on the Lido.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Take a deep breath…

    George Clooney in Up in the AirThe calm before the storm is beginning to subside.  Can you sense it?

    By the end of the week, the Venice and Telluride fests will be underway.  A week later, Toronto will weigh in.  When the smoke settles in roughly three weeks, the season will suddenly be a lot clearer…and yet so much of it will remain a mystery as latter year hopefuls limp (or stomp) into the fray in November and December.

    Yes, the season is upon us.  And while studios continue to think over the true value of Oscar notices, especially in a widened playing field, business marches on as usual.  Venice will tell the tale for efforts like “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” “The Informant!,” and “Capitalism: A Love Story,” while Telluride could make or break the hopes of films such as “The Road” and “Up in the Air.”

    Some overlap will go down in Toronto, but the most anticipated first-look there will likely be the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man.”  Meanwhile, distributors might be looking to beef up their schedules with films like “Creation” and “Leaves of Grass” looking for buyers.  But for those with ponies primed and ready, these festivals are very much the starting gun for awards runs, as ever.

    So before the madness ensues, we get one more stab in the dark.  But given the perceived road ahead, it seems to me that films with a healthy pre-season awards profile going into the fall are in pretty good shape as it is.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals beckon, ‘District 9’ opens

    Sharlto Copley in District 9• The New York Film Festival unveiled a decidedly foreign lineup, with Alain Resnais and Pedro Almodovar at either end.

    • Speaking of festivals, the long-awaited “The Road” was among the titles added to the Toronto slate this week.

    • With everyone excited about “District 9” this week, we took time to chat to the film’s breakout star Sharlto Copley.

    • Best Film Editing was the subject of this week’s installment of Tech Support.

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  • ‘The Road’ and others set for TIFF

    (from left) Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee in The RoadRight now, all is right with the world.

    The Toronto International Film Festival has confirmed that John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” the film I am looking forward to most this year, is going to be here in the Special Presentation Program.

    Yes!! I have been waiting for this film since reading that amazing book in three days a year ago.

    Along with the Viggo Mortenson, Charlize Theron and Robert Duvall starrer will be new films featuring Natalie Portman, George Clooney, Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Colin Firth, Omar Sharif, Jeff Bridges and countless others, making for another star-studded Toronto line-up.

    Among the films announced today in addition to The Road are, “Mother and Child” from director Rodrigo Garcia, a study of three women and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters. Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington star in the film.

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  • Hollywood focused on the end of the world as we know it

    Denzel Washington in The Book of EliI’ve been meaning to write this piece for a while now, but I never got around to it.  Paul Harris at The Guardian beat me to the punch, so I’ll run his thoughts instead.

    The recent wave of post-apocalyptic films flooding and being prepared for the marketplace is intriguing indeed.  Fads always pop up in Hollywood output, whether it’s the one-two punch of “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak” in 1997, “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” a year later, “The Truman Show” and “EdTV,” etc., studios know when something is hot and when to strike.  But it’s usually two or three projects and then on to the next thing.

    But this year and next, we have Alex Proyas’s “Knowing,” the Cormac McCarthy adaptation “The Road,” Roland Emmerich’s “2012,” Shane Acker’s “9,” Ruben Fleischer’s “Zombieland,” The Hughes brothers’ “The Book of Eli,” television’s “The Colony” and a new “Terminator” installment, all productions either depicting a post-apocalyptic environment or the end of days in some manner or another.  It all perhaps started with the Will Smith vehicle “I Am Legend” in 2007.  The trend even extends to animated films, as our commenters shrewdly note “WALL-E” as an example.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals, foxes and funny people

    Adam Sandler in Funny People• In the week’s most dramatic news, Universal rather cleared its awards slate by bumping both “The Wolf Man” and Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” to 2010.

    • Against expectations, we were won over by Meryl Streep’s latest bid for that elusive third Oscar, “Julie & Julia.”

    • The Venice Film Festival unveiled a typically well-planned lineup, with “The Road” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” leading the American charge.

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  • Venice lineup includes ‘The Road,’ ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’

    Venice Film Festival(UPDATE: For whatever reason, my initial source failed to mention that George A. Romero’s latest zombie opus, “Survival of the Dead,” is also in competition.)

    In years past, the Venice Film Festival has unveiled several titles that went on to figure significantly in the awards season ahead — “Brokeback Mountain,”The Queen,” “Far From Heaven” and “Vera Drake” all began their journeys with major wins on the Venetian Lido. Last year alone gifted us with “The Wrestler,” “Rachel Getting Married” and this summer’s hot property, “The Hurt Locker.”

    However, looking down the list of list of titles in competition at this year’s fest, it’s hard to tell if there are any selections that could go a similar distance.

    As usual for the festival, it’s a Euro-loaded menu — and a tasty one at that, featuring new offerings from the likes of Claire Denis, Fatih Akin and Jacques Rivette — while, as with Cannes this year, the U.S. contingent is on the small side. (There is, incidentally, one “surprise film” film in competition, so the speculation is not yet over.)

    Now is as good a time as any to reveal that I have an invested interest in the lineup, as I’m attending the festival for the first time, so we’ll be bringing you all the Venice news and reviews first-hand for a change.

    (More details, and a full list of films in competition, after the cut.)

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Cinematography – Volume I

    Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely BonesLIGHTS…CAMERA…you were probably waiting for the word “action,” no? Action is, after all, what many individuals go to a film to see. But the “lights” and the “camera” in this classic phrase bring a film beyond a book or a radio show…and capture the “action.”

    The individuals who paint the images of cinema with light and composition are rewarded in the Oscar category of Best Cinematography. Cinematographers are pivotal in the making of any film and it is thus unsurprising that directors often continuously work with the similar camera heads.

    Like many cinephiles, I must say this is my favorite of the so-called “technical” categories and I eagerly anticipate the race every year.  This year is no exception.

    Australian D.P. Dion Beebe might seem to be leading this year’s lenser race with his third collaboration with Rob Marshall, the musical adaptation “Nine.” Despite not being cited by the Academy for some of his more innovative work (see Michael Mann’s “Collateral”), Beebe has been previously nominated for 2002’s “Chicago” and won the Oscar in 2005 for “Memoirs of a Geisha.” “Nine” will give him the opportunity to pay homage to Federico Fellini while also capturing sprawling musical numbers, a feat this category tends to reward.

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  • What are the best post-apocalyptic films ever?

    Denzel Washington in The Book of EliIn our daily web round-up posts there tends to be one or two lists in the mix.  I’m increasingly stunned at Premiere’s capacity for cooking these things up.  It’s almost as if that once-sterling film journalism outlet has become nothing but a list generating machine.

    Of course, the reason for lists — you’ll hear it from any hit-conscious editor — is traffic.  Readers love them.  And if they have a space to debate said list, perhaps even offer up their own, then the hits keep coming.  I literally had a list mandate of sorts when I was working at The Times of London last summer, which is where the obsession over collectives first started to kind of freak me out.  At least I managed to work movies into one of them, and hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

    Anyway, this is a long-winded lead-in to a recent post by one of our regulars, Chuck of Entertainment Today and Beyond, picking the Top 10 Post-Apocalyptic Films.  With “Terminator Salvation” already in theaters and “The Book of Eli” (which got a first look feature in USA Today Tuesday) and “The Road” still to come, it seems a rather en vogue topic, I guess.

    Here’s Chuck’s list:

    1. “Dawn of the Dead” (George A. Romero, 1978)
    2. “Planet of the Apes” (Franklin J. Shaffner, 1968)
    3. “The Stand” (Mick Garris, 1993)
    4. “The Day After” (Nicholas Meyer, 1985)
    5. “The Omega Man” (Boris Sagal, 1971)
    6. “The Road Warrior” (George Miller, 1981)
    7. “Day of the Dead” (George A. Romero, 1985)
    8. “The Day of the Triffids” (Steve Sekley, 1962)
    9. “Testament” (Lynne Littman)
    10. “Miracle Mile” (Steve De Jarnatt, 1988)

    Your thoughts?

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Cannes unspooled, ‘The Road’ unveiled

    Opening night at Cannes 2009• Kicking off a Cannes-loaded week, we offered a two-part profile of this year’s contenders for the Palme d’Or.

    • Meanwhile, this week’s Top Ten list reflected on the greatest runners-up in the festival’s history.

    • As “Up” opened the festival, Pixar maintained its recent critical streak.

    • Within the competition, however, it’s two films from female auteurs — “Bright Star” and “Fish Tank” — that have critics buzzing.

    • Away from the Croisette, there was lots of talk about “The Road” this week, with a new trailer and early review.

    • In a neat coincidence, “The Road” was also the subject of this week’s Page to Screen column.

    • In a major week for debuting trailers, we also got a look at two very different hot properties: “Nine” and “Precious.”

    • Ahead of its June U.S. release, we reviewed Michelle Pfeiffer’s comeback vehicle “Chéri’.”

    • We looked into the box office success of “Star Trek.”

    • We revisited some buried treasures from the 1980s.

    • And finally: is the theatrical experience overrated? Have your say here.

  • ‘The Road’ gets a trailer

    Spooky. The minute I post my delayed Page to Screen discussion of the “The Road,” the film’s trailer finally pops up online. I’m going to try this tactic again in the future. Anyway, here it is.

    As that first Esquire review warned us the other day, the marketers appear to have made the curious decision to sell this as a propulsive action piece. I’m not sure who they imagine will fall for that angle, but don’t panic just yet.

  • PAGE TO SCREEN: “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy

    The RoadWe’re working from the outside in on this one, folks. You may recall that Brian Kinsley offered a thorough examination of Joe Penhall’s “The Road” screenplay for this column back in September last year, which already addressed many of the challenges inherent in this particular adaptation.

    However, in keeping with Page to Screen’s return to discussing source material rather than scripts – and with John Hillcoat’s film on a lot of people’s minds this week – I thought it a good time to take another look at Cormac McCarthy’s much-garlanded novel. I should specify that I have neither read Penhall’s adaptation nor seen the film; the novel is the only text with which I am engaging at this point.

    It seems only fair to start with a blunt, and admittedly very guilty, confession: I don’t very much like McCarthy’s novel.

    Before the irate attack begins, let me clarify that this statement is not in any intended as a challenge to “The Road’s” literary worth, much less its potential for successful filmmaking. It is, in its paradoxical construction of loose, virtual shaggy-dog-style narrative and terse, urgent prose, an indisputably awe-inspiring novel, one that at once gazes into the back-to-back mirrors of who we are and who we will be, and arrives at some discomfitingly vivid prophecies in the process.

    I commend McCarthy’s avoidance of didacticism and rationalisation: the novel’s grim, apocalyptic future is presented as a terrifying inevitability rather than a cautionary allegory, offering no concrete indication of what led humanity to the long-desecrated point at which the narrative begins.

    That may not make the novel as ideologically constructive as the kind of “it takes a village” finger-pointing that colors so many other literary and cinematic warnings of man’s imminent self-destruction – the film, when it finally arrives, would surely make for an interesting double-feature with Andrew Stanton’s “WALL-E” – but it is certainly a much more jolting, unnerving experience for it.

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  • Roadworks

    I know I promised a Page to Screen column on “The Road” today, but once in a blue moon, promises have to be broken. The start of the Cannes festival has ushered in a wealth of distractions, and as much as it slips my mind some days, I have a life away from my laptop too. I am but one man.

    So I must this once postpone the piece until tomorrow — but rest assured that Tuesdays will remain Page to Screen days from next week.

  • Esquire calls ‘The Road’ the year’s ‘most important movie’

    (left to right) Kodi Smith-McPhee and Viggo Mortensen in The RoadWe’ve certainly waited a while to get any substantial word on “The Road,” not least since it got pushed back by an entire year to ease the pressure of post-production. John Hillcoat’s film screened in unfinished form late last year, provoking a scattering of commentary — the Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers offered some interesting thoughts, though sensibly held off on any detailed critique — but the film has remained something of a mystery.

    Now, amid an interesting profile of the film, Esquire magazine’s Tom Chiarella has gone on the record as saying it’s good — very good indeed. Though he admits the film is a harrowing sit (as it well should be) that you won’t necessarily want to endure more than once, he’s full of admiration for the film as a fundamental piece of storytelling:

    The Road is no tease. It is a brilliantly directed adaptation of a beloved novel, a delicate and anachronistically loving look at the immodest and brutish end of us all. You want them to get there, you want them to get there, you want them to get there — and yet you do not want it, any of it, to end.

    You should see it for the simplest of reasons: Because it is a good story. Not because it may be important. Not because it is unforgettable, unyielding. Not because it horrifies. Not because the score is creepily spiritual. Not because it is littered with small lines of dialogue you will remember later. Not because it contains warnings against our own demise. All of that is so. Don’t see it just because you loved the book. The movie stands alone.

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  • ‘The Road’ gets a release date

    (from left) Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Scott-McPhee in The RoadJohn Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” has been a big question mark for film-goers ever since it was yanked from the 2008 awards season.  I heard at the time (second hand) that the film was in disarray and needed to be “completely taken apart.”  Brian Kinsley, you may recall, reviewed the screenplay (essentially a cut-and-paste job) for us back in September.

    Whatever needed to happen seems to have happened as I’ve been hearing great things here and there, mainly for Viggo Mortensen’s lead performance.  And now, according to The Weinstein Company’s website, the film has finally nailed down a 2009 release date for the film: October 16.

    This is great positioning if TWC/Dimension is to take the genre film route with marketing, and from what I’ve heard, that would be the smart play.  Two weeks before Halloween and decent exposure in the middle of the awards season gives the studio some leverage on where to take it.  Audience and especially critical approval will tell the tale soon enough.

    In case you missed it, Guy wrote up a recently revealed gallery of conceptual art work for the film earlier this week.  I’m most looking forward to Nick Cave’s work with Warren Ellis on the film’s score, as their collaboration on “The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford” in 2007 was absolute magic.  Cave talked about his work in the film industry with the LA Times last year.