In Contention

Tag: Toronto Film Festival

  • Naïveté you can believe in

    Guy has already covered George Clooney’s  “The Ides of March” for us out of Venice. It’s too bad I couldn’t get into any pre-Toronto screenings (due to not attending the festival), since I was anticipating liking it more than Guy and it could have been nice counter-balance. But then again, maybe not.

    I’ve been reading a lot of reviews and Tweets out of Toronto screenings yesterday from the less-than-enthused. “There isn’t anything shockingly new in this political thriller,” Kyle Smith of the New York Post asserted. “[I]t was pretty much all in ‘Primary Colors’ 15 years ago.” His colleague, Lou Lumenick, Tweeted something similar (while nevertheless praising the cast).

    Similarly, eFilmCritic’s Erik Childress Tweeted that the film “is tremendously disappointing. No more than a watered down version of ‘Primary Colors.’” It’s beginning to sound like the film is going to be saddled by comparisons to that 1998 Mike Nichols effort (which was to Bill Clinton what “The Ides of March” is to Howard Dean). That film, by the way, only wound up with nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Kathy Bates) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

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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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  • (UPDATED) ‘Moneyball’ reviews fire the Toronto starting gun

    Okay, not reviews, plural. Not yet. The only reaction I’m finding for Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” (which screened here in LA a few times despite the usual studio falsehood — “we don’t have any screenings set right now” — typical) is Jeff Wells’s take at Hollywood Elsewhere. And it’s a glowing assessment, to say the least. He calls the film a “triumph” and thinks it’s definitely a nominee for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brad Pitt) and Best Adapted Screenplay. He doesn’t mention anything about Wally Pfister’s cinematography or Christopher Tellefsen’s editing, unfortunately.

    But regardless, we’ll save our sure-thing card until we see it — Jeff flies off the Oscar handle on dubious players too frequently to trust this just yet. And he kind of sends up a red flag when he alludes to the film not being a rousing sort of thing (which, obviously, isn’t in and of itself a drawback — I’m just playing Jeff’s own game of parsing words to death). I’m nevertheless hopeful and I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while.

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  • ‘Shame’ igniting pre-Toronto bidding war?

    I first reported out of Telluride that Fox Searchlight was looking like a good possibility to pick up Steve McQueen’s brilliant, stirring — and naughty — “Shame,” and expanded my thoughts on that possibility in Tuesday’s Off the Carpet column. Well, it looks like Deadline’s Mike Fleming is hearing similar things, and not just that Searchlight is in the mix, but that the film is kicking up a bidding war ahead of its Toronto bow. He writes:

    This year’s festival hasn’t started and already there are fireworks. Deadline broke news yesterday that Harvey Weinstein would start a VOD business, making the acquisitions market for fringe films more competitive; and last night, I heard that a bidding battle had already broken out for the Steve McQueen-directed Shame, which should be sold by the time it screens Sunday. Fox Searchlight is the favorite, Sony Pictures Classics is in the mix and I’ve heard that The Weinstein Company is hovering.

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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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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    Oscar TalkWelcome 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.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • Glenn Close’s “lifetime achievement” wagon gets rolling

    In the grand scheme of the awards season, an honour from the high-end but small-scale San Sebastian Film Festival doesn’t mean much on its own. But seen potentially as the first stop on a tour of similar recognition, the festival’s announcement of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Glenn Close — conveniently attached to the European premiere of her film “Albert Nobbs” — suggests the shape Close’s 2011 Oscar campaign could take. From the press release:

    Glenn Close, one of Hollywood’s most feted actresses, will be the film personality to receive this year’s Donostia lifetime achievement award at a ceremony on September 18th at 21:30 in the Kursaal Auditorium.

    In San Sebastian, the actress will introduce the European premiere (out-of-competition) of her latest film, Albert Nobbs. Helmed by Rodrigo García, the movie is set in 19th Century Ireland, a society dominated by men where women have no opportunities and are condemned to a life of servitude. The star of the film (Close) is a woman who disguises herself as a man to get a job in a hotel and earn the money she needs to fulfill her dream.

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  • Toronto updates lineup, plus ‘Take This Waltz’ teaser

    The vast Toronto Film Festival lineup is a still-growing beast, but today it swelled to 125 titles with the addition of a cluster of homegrown Canadian titles, including two films — Mary Harron’s “The Moth Diaries” and Jean-Marc Vallée’s “Cafe de Flore” — that will debut at Venice a few days earlier. Most exciting, however, is the world premiere of “Keyhole”: avant-garde auteur Guy Maddin’s first dramatic feature in several years reunites him with former muse Isabella Rossellini, while Jason Patric (hey, remember him?) takes the lead.

    Steve Pond has the list of new Canadian additions, while you can check out the full lineup (thus far) at the festival site.

    Speaking of all thing Canadian, by the way, a couple of readers have asked for a space to air opinions on the teaser scene (I’m not sure why some are calling it a trailer) recently released for the TIFF-booked “Take This Waltz,” the Michelle Williams-Seth Rogen romantic drama from Oscar-nominated actress-turned-filmmaker Sarah Polley. I thought the spot too isolated and inconsequential to merit much discussion, but the force is strong — check it out after the jump, if you’re so inclined, and share your thoughts.

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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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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Speech’ rises, ‘Town’ hovers, foreign list

    • At Toronto, “The King’s Speech” scooped the Audience Award, recently a harbinger of Oscar success. (Days later, a trailer landed.)

    • This week’s Off the Carpet pondered the film’s rosy awards outlook, but also warned of the fickle nature of frontrunner status.

    • Guy’s seasonal Oscar column, The Long Shot, kicked off with a reminder to put the movies first. (He also tested the waters with some predictions.)

    • Following an unexpected display of box office muscle from “The Town,” we wondered how far it can go in the Oscar race.

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  • 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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  • 9/20 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Timberlake’s Oscar hopes, Brolin’s peculiar suggestions, flurry of Toronto purchases

    • Tom O’Neil wrangles up perspectives on Justin Timberlake’s Oscar potential for “The Social Network.” [Gold Derby]

    • Steven Zeitchik sits down with “Catfish” directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Debating the ethics of movie spoilage on a user-generated web encyclopedia might be the very definition of futility, but the Gray Lady gives it a shot. [New York Times]

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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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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Venice winners, Toronto bites, ‘Network’ raves

    • Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” surprised many by taking top honors at the Venice Film Festival; we took a closer look at the Lido winners.

    • Meanwhile, we were considerably less than wowed by the festival closer, Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest.”

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column reflected on the unusual depth of this year’s Best Actress race.

    • A race that subsequently got even deeper as Lionsgate made the biggest acquisition thus far of this year’s Toronto fest: Nicole Kidman’s comeback effort “Rabbit Hole.”

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  • Oscilloscope nabs ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ for 2011 release

    Since word spread out of Venice of Michelle Williams’s strong performance in Kelly Reichardt’s superb Oregon Trail western “Meek’s Cutoff,” some of our more excitable commenters have been projecting a kind of two-pronged awards attack for the actress, who has another excellent showcase in December release “Blue Valentine.”

    We warned you all along that “Meek’s Cutoff” wasn’t likely to hit theaters in 2010, and we were right. Boutique distributor Oscilloscope has just acquired the film at Toronto, and will release it next year — the right call, given that a quiet wonder like this one would likely get lost in the crush of awards season.

    Oscilloscope (that’s Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s outfit, in case you’d forgotten) also handled Reichardt and Williams’s last collaboration, “Wendy and Lucy”; I was hoping that their latest might prove accessible enough to attract one of the bigger boys in the indie playground, but I’m sure the company will do right by them. Yauch himself seems rather taken with the film; his statement (via indieWIRE) after the cut.

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  • TIFF: Lionsgate picks up ‘Rabbit Hole’ for 2010 Oscar season

    Man, Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions are getting ON IT this year.  First Roadside rolled out the early buzz on “Winter’s Bone,” then it picked up Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful.” Soon after, Lionsgate announced a fall release for Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” and grabbed Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” through Roadside for a 2011 release.

    Well, now it looks like Lionsgate is wrapping up its acquisition of John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” which drew praise for Nicole Kidman (a potential nominee now), Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest (welcome to the supporting actress line-up) at the fest.

    Talk about having a full plate all of a sudden.  Deadline’s Mike Fleming reports that “the plan is to jump right into this year’s Oscar race by releasing  the picture  before year’s end. They will take advantage of a career performance by Nicole Kidman as a mother who loses her child.”  So add one more to “the year of the woman.”

    What more is there to add to that?  Congrats on a healthy slate of contenders and let the games begin.

    [Photo: Buzznet]