• Wes Anderson talks editing “Black Swan” with Andrew Weisblum. [Awards Campaign]
• Oscars invade New York’s Grand Central terminal. [Oscars.org]
• Mandi Bierly gets a few Oscarcast details on the Franco-Hathaway chemistry and the opening number. [Inside Movies]
• Tom O’Neil takes back Gold Derby, prepares re-launch of GoldDerby.com on November 1. [Gold Derby]
• Grilling a Harvard grad on the accuracy of final club depictions in “The Social Network.” [Vulture]
• Cole Abaius chats with Armie Hammer about his performance(s) in the film. [Film School Rejects]
As we head into the big weekend of this year’s hotly anticipated Academy Awards telecast, I thought I’d toss this list up once more, broken down by film. We’ve added to it a bit since the nominees were announced.
And if you’d like to re-live the season so far, you can see how things have panned out at The Circuit.
“Avatar”
James Horner (Best Original Score)
“Bright Star”
Janet Patterson (Best Costume Design)
“Coraline”
Henry Selick (Best Animated Feature)
• Pete Hammond reports from on the ground at Saturday night’s DGA awards. [Notes on a Season]
• Dave McNary from the angle of each nominee’s speech detailing the need for maintaining believability in their films. [Variety]
• On the heels of Kathryn Bigelow’s big win, Kira Cochrane wonders why there are so few female filmmakers. [The Guardian]
• Nikki Finke says Oscarcast producers may be secretly considering a third host. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
• Julian Sancton talks to the brilliant (and all but forgotten this season) Anthony Mackie. [Little Gold Men]
• Davis Guggenheim’s education crisis documentary “Waiting for Superman” is Sundance’s first pick-up. [The Wrap]
I can’t help but wonder if there are some hard-working publicists out there getting in the ear of a few people, since we’ve had two pieces in as many days calling the race for Best Animated Feature a potential upset waiting to happen.
Anyway, first, at The New York Times, Brooks Barnes uses LAFCA and NYFCC wins for Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” over Pixar’s “Up” as a basis for determining the race is bending in the Roald Dahl adaptation’s favor. Sasha Stone notes the mantra, however: critics don’t vote for Oscars. Barnes then goes on publish fluffy quotes from vested interests that don’t really make the case one way or the other.
Meanwhile, at The Hufington Post, Sam Wasson notes that “Fantastic Mr. Fox” manged to force Anderson “out of his world of decadence and ushered him toward a more economical, barebones approach to story.” Which could go a long way for him with the Academy, Wasson seems to suggest, since his recent work has been a bit inaccessible and it’s been almost a decade since the writer/director was recognized by the organization.
• “The Road” takes desolate journey from page to screen. [Wired]
• Andrew O’Hehir talks “Bad Lieutenant” with Werner Herzog. [Beyond the Multiplex]
• Anne Thompson says “Avatar” could debut at AICN’s Butt-Numb-A-Thon, of all places. [Thompson on Hollywood]
“The reason Roald wrote such wonderful children’s books was that he could think like a child. Wes has that capacity too.”
With this statement, at a cozy round-table interview in the dining room of bucolic Dahl homestead Gipsy House, Liccy Dahl makes clear her endorsement of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” the auteur’s oddball adaptation of the beloved children’s book by her late husband, which opened in limited release on Friday.
Sitting beside her, the lank-haired, nattily suited Anderson blushes slightly and peers down at the table. They make a curious pair of collaborators, the dandy American hipster and the gentle British countrywoman, but the sincere affection between them is plain to see, as is Dahl’s genuine excitement about the film.
“Things have been changed and embroidered in the film, but the magic hasn’t been taken away,” says Dahl, adding that Anderson’s trans-Atlantic take on the story (its animal characters live in England, but speak and behave as Americans) is appropriate given the international appeal of her husband’s work. “The essence of the story stays the same: good versus bad, the survival of a starving family.”
• Jeffrey Wells grills New York waitresses on their knowledge of the mere existence of “The Hurt Locker.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• Oscar hopefuls “Anivl! The Story of Anvil” and “Food, Inc.” among IDA Award nominees. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Tim Gray gets quotes making a case against The 10. [Variety]
• Deborah Sontag talks “The Messenger” with Oren Moverman, Woody Harrelson, etc. [New York Times]
• Roger Ebert sits down with the fast-becoming new “it” girl, Gabourey Sidibe. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• With movies still to be seen in 2009, Noah Forrest pegs “25th Hour” as the decade’s best. Brave choice. I’m a fan. [Movie City News]
Yahoo! Movies has an awesome exclusive look today behind the scenes of Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and the unusual process by which he and his team of actors recorded voices for the film. Check it out:
London Film Festival
Rather like two well-matched friends that one sets up on a failed blind date, Roald Dahl and Hollywood really ought to have got along better over the years. Taken at face value, Dahl’s rightly beloved children’s books should be a cinch to film: the concepts are high, the imagery vivid, the storytelling swift and snappy.
Yet for all these virtues, and for no lack of trying on Hollywood’s part, a stone-cold classic filmization of one of his novels still awaits us. Some stand by Mel Stuart’s irony-deficient “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”; others will put in a word for Henry Selick’s vividly textured but emotionally inert take on “James and the Giant Peach.” No filmmaker has exhibited more understanding of Dahl’s cruel streak than Nicolas Roeg, but his largely dazzling “The Witches” still loses its nerve in the final reel with a facile ending.
Though the men share a broad eccentricity, Wes Anderson’s fey, faintly solipsistic creative touch once more seems a less-than-perfect match for the nastier, more arch sensibility of Dahl – and there are a few glib missteps in his otherwise appealingly ragged riff on “Fantastic Mr. Fox” that show up the disconnect.
But Anderson has at least been savvy in picking one of Dahl’s youngest-skewing, most sweet-natured narratives for his first ever adaptation. The brevity and elemental simplicity of the book’s survival-themed tale provides a lot more room for Anderson’s trademark affectations and diversions – be it the familiar 1970s-style duds or a jangly nonsense ditty from Jarvis Cocker – than Dahl’s later, darker work would.
• Dave Karger, in a slow news week, digs up the old “‘Hangover’ for Best Pic” notion. No. [Oscar Watch]
• Jeff Wells face-to-face with “Fantastic Mr. Fox” director Wes Anderson. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• Susan King talks to editing legend Anne V. Coates, whose career was showcased at the Academy last night. [Los Angeles Times]
• Gregory Ellwood mulls over the pros and cons of this year’s Best Actor hopefuls. [Awards Campaign]
• Andrew O’Hehir on the British indie film explosion. [Beyond the Multiplex]
• A.J. Schnack does a nice job of wrangling up info on the shortlisted short docs. [All These Wonderful Things]
• Lee Daniels and his cast and crew had a blast making “Precious,” despite the gut-wrenching display on screen. [Movieline]
• Hugo Rifkind sits down with Wes Anderson to talk “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” which is set to open the London Film Festival. [The Times]
• Dennis Lim talks to Nicolas Winding Refn about his film “Bronson,” one of the year’s best. [New York Times]
Gee, they weren’t kidding when they said this is a Wes Anderson film in every respect apart from the lack of human beings. As for Anderson’s recent claim that this is “a British film … set in the UK” … well, perhaps it’s just set in the tourist district, but it looks American as apple pie to me. (By the way, surely Roald Dahl is enough of a legend to be advertised by name, rather than as “the author of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’”)
On a more serious note, something about the visuals on display here doesn’t gel for me … am I the only one who thinks the stop-motion looks a tad rushed and plasticky? I want to be excited for this — not least because I’ll be about for its world premiere at the London fest — but I find myself, to put it gently, concerned.
As the London Film Festival grows in scale and stature by the year, its opening film becomes an ever bigger deal. Last year, they scored a massive coup by kicking off with the world premiere of “Frost/Nixon,” and I’m pleased to report that they’ve maintained that standard by landing Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” to open this year’s fest.
The eagerly awaited animated pic will have its world premiere on 14 October, just over a week ahead of its UK release (and a full month before its Stateside bow). Its selection continues a happy friendship between Anderson and the LFF — just two years ago, “The Darjeeling Limited” closed the festival. (Here’s hoping this is a slightly more well-received selection.)
In the press release, Anderson explains why this is the appropriate place to unveil what is, after all, a decidedly British production:
Fantastic Mr. Fox is a British film – based on a Roald Dahl book, set in the UK, produced in the UK – and so I am especially pleased to have been invited to be the opening night movie of this year’s London Film Festival. We had a wonderful experience at the LFF with my previous film, and I am eagerly looking forward to introducing Fantastic Mr. Fox to the world in this wonderful venue.
Over at USA Today, Susan Wloszczyna has an exclusive first look at nine new images from Wes Anderson’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” plus some insight into the film’s screenplay:
The much-expanded plot has been tweaked to include many elements found in Anderson’s other films, including a dysfunctional clan and a male rivalry. The four Fox children in the book have been whittled down to one handful: Ash (Jason Schwartzman, channeling his Max character from Rushmore), a petulant social misfit who wears a superhero cape and resents his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, Wes’ brother) for being good at everything.
Schwartzman, a veteran of three Anderson features, proclaims Mr. Fox as “the ultimate.” “It’s funny, but also visually beautiful. Instead of adapting his style of directing to animation, he brought animation to him. He made a Wes film.”
That last bit isn’t exactly a selling point for a guy like me.