In Contention

Tag: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  • 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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  • ‘Tinker, Tailor’ joins the December club

    American viewers already frustrated about waiting two months longer than the Brits to lay eyes on Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” — welcome to our world, guys — won’t be pleased by Pete Hammond’s revelation in a recent column that the wait has been extended by three weeks.

    Yes, Focus Features has pushed the film back from its original November 18 release date to December 9, a move that some will interpret as indicative of bolshy awards-season hopes for the star-studded John Le Carré adaptation — though the pre-Thanksgiving berth wasn’t exactly Oscar-unfriendly either.

    That said, Focus might have picked a date with less intimidating high-end competition: originally set to precede “The Artist,” “The Descendants” and “Hugo” by only a few days, the film now need only stare down limited releases of Madonna’s “W.E.” and Jason Reitman’s “Young Adult.”

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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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  • 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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  • Venice competition includes Polanski, Cronenberg, Alfredson

    These days, so much media speculation precedes the announcement of any major festival lineup that the eventual unveiling comes almost as an anti-climax — or at least it would do if the long-expected films weren’t so appetizing in the first place. As was the case with the Toronto lineup on Tuesday, the just-revealed programme for this year’s Venice Film Festival is as heavy on highlights as it is light on surprises, and that’s good enough for this Lido-bound journo.

    In recent years, as Berlin has receded, Venice has grown into an increasingly bolshy competitor to Cannes, taking a slightly riskier, younger approach to Competition programming while nabbing enough sexy, big-name auteur titles to draw the headlines. It’s a balance that has paid off handsomely in recent years: “The Hurt Locker,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Black Swan,” “I Am Love” and “A Single Man” all debuted in Venice before going on to greater success elsewhere.

    This year’s Competition lineup would appear to continue the pattern: for every long-established auteur in line for the Golden Lion, there’s at least one buzzy up-and-comer arriving on the back of a breakthrough hit.

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  • ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ poster

    Yes, another poster — but it’s a good one, and for a film many of us are awaiting rather eagerly, so hopefully you’ll let it slide. The teaser trailer for Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy novel (previously, and very successfully, filmed for television with Alec Guinness in 1979) debuted to a warm response a few weeks ago, and this tastefully sober one-sheet, playing up the more cerebral qualities of the material,  further supports expectations of a classy package. (Spot the release date, by the way.) Also nice to see Gary Oldman given lone above-the-title billing, despite the presence of supporting names that might currently be more marketable. Full poster, courtesy of Empire, after the cut.

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  • ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ international teaser trailer

    Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” follow-up “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is a film I’ve very much looking for. On paper, it looks like a dream, and judging by the freshly premiered international trailer (courtesy of The Guardian), the film appears to be a tightly wound potboiler that might electrify this Oscar season. Focus Features will be distributing and I think Gary Oldman could have a decent shot at that elusive first Oscar nomination. Check out the international teaser by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • ‘Let the Right One In’ director Alfredson goes British

    Tomas AlfredsonIs a John Le Carré adaptation now some kind of rite of passage for lauded foreign directors crossing over to English-speaking audiences?

    Okay, I’m stretching. Still, it’s interesting that a few years after Fernando Meirelles made the switch with his take on Le Carré’s “The Constant Gardener,” we now have “Let the Right One In” helmer Tomas Alfredson taking on the British author’s defining work “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”

    ScreenDaily reports that UK stalwart Working Title is shepherding the first big-screen version of Le Carré’s classic espionage novel — which was very successfully adapted for TV in the 1970s, with Alec Guinness famously taking on the role of George Smiley, an elderly spy brought out of retirement to hunt an MI6 mole in the Cold War era.

    No cast has yet been announced for the film, which begins shooting next year. In something of a “Frost/Nixon” reunion, the film is being produced by Working Title heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, while Peter Morgan (also an executive producer) is on script duty.

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