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So “Captain America: The First Avenger” managed to hold the Harry Potter buzz wave to one weekend crown by coming out on top this week. I think it’s a pretty solid number given the givens, but anyway, my eyes are on that #10 spot. Woody Allen’s locomotive keeps chugging along. (Courtesy: Box Office Mojo)
BOX OFFICE: ‘America,’ f*** yeah
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 4:22 pm · July 24th, 2011
Filed in: Box Office
BOX OFFICE: ‘Harry Potter’ and the Record-Breaking Hit
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:54 am · July 17th, 2011
We all saw this coming. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the culmination of 10 years of filmmaking that racked up tons of dollars along the way, won the box office this weekend. Things started with the highest opening day gross of all time ($92 million, blasting away the record previously held by […]
Filed in: Box Office
OSCAR TALK: Ep. 56 — Special Edition! — Cannes so far, ‘Tree of Life,’ Von Trier, taking the 2011 awards pulse
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 8:32 am · May 20th, 2011
Welcome 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 […]
Filed in: Oscar Talk
REVIEW: “Midnight in Paris” (**1/2)
Posted by Guy Lodge · 8:30 am · May 11th, 2011
Cannes Film Festival Opening Night “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Nobody actually quotes L.P. Hartley in “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen’s often charming if largely over-explicated ode to the healing and deceiving properties of nostalgia. If they don’t, however, that could just be because a spring breeze stole the […]
Filed in: Reviews
WEEKLY WRAP: ‘King’s Speech’ marches on
Posted by In Contention Staff · 5:49 pm · February 4th, 2011
• “The King’s Speech” continued its cruise through phase two of the season with a widely unexpected Directors’ Guild victory… • … and scooped top honors at a surprise-free Screen Actors’ Guild Awards ceremony. • Following this brace of wins, this week’s Off the Carpet column said what we were all thinking: the race is over. […]
Filed in: Daily
Woody Allen’s latest to open Cannes
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:41 am · February 2nd, 2011
The ever-informed insider Cédric Succivalli broke the news this morning that May’s Cannes Film Festival will kick off with Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” — an ensemble romantic comedy starring, among others, Marion Cotillard, Carla Bruni, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen and Léa Seydoux. It’s hardly a surprising choice. Cannes […]
Filed in: Daily
INTERVIEW: Patricia Clarkson
Posted by Guy Lodge · 8:26 pm · November 5th, 2010
“I’m going to bring back the letter,” a flustered Patricia Clarkson announces as she makes her way to our lunch table, ever-so-slightly rain-mussed but otherwise immaculate in black and cream, a jaunty matching fedora astride her familiar blonde mane. “I’m never late. I blame email for this. I’m only just getting acquainted with it.” She […]
Filed in: Interviews
Mike Leigh celebrates “hidden city” of London
Posted by Guy Lodge · 3:52 pm · October 11th, 2010
My attention was drawn to this article last week, but since the London Film Festival kicks off this week (and Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” will be competing for top honors there), now seems an appropriate time to link to it. Picking up on the role England’s capital city has played in a number of Leigh’s […]
Filed in: Daily
9/23 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Brolin on Stone and Allen, remembering ‘Goodfellas’ and a ‘Boonmee’ how-to
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:06 am · September 23rd, 2010
• In a joint venture with Interview magazine, Roger Ebert corners Casey Affleck on “I’m Still Here.” [Chicago Sun-Times] • Kevin Gray talks “Wall Street” and Woody Allen with Josh Brolin. [Vulture] • Steve Pond runs a comb through the contenders so far to gauge strengths and weaknesses. [The Odds]
Filed in: Daily
LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1975 and 1976
Posted by Chad Hartigan · 7:00 pm · September 15th, 2010
Catch up with the idea behind this series here. These two years offer two of the best slates of Best Picture nominees ever in my opinion. ’75 of course belonging to the second ever winner of the top five awards, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” I’ve got no qualms with that particular film, but […]
Filed in: Life Without Oscar
‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’ trailer
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 11:42 am · July 20th, 2010
Here we go again. I think I gave up on high hopes for Woody Allen efforts back around “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” or thereabouts. Yeah, I loved “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” but, well…few and far between. The trailer for Allen’s latest, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” has hit via Yahoo! Movies, and I […]
Filed in: Daily
CANNES: ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,’ ‘Kaboom,’ ‘Inside Job’
Posted by Guy Lodge · 9:00 am · May 16th, 2010
Apologies for yesterday’s scarcity of Cannes updates: a bumper day of back-to-back screenings cut unavoidably into my writing time, particularly as “Another Year” — widely agreed, among those I’ve spoken to, to be the standout film of the Competition so far — merited a more substantial take than most. One day and several films later, […]
Filed in: Reviews
Almodóvar and Banderas, together again
Posted by Guy Lodge · 9:02 am · May 5th, 2010
Speaking as we just were of actors returning from the wilderness, when was the last time Antonio Banderas starred in a film you had any interest in seeing? (Talk to the hand if your answer contains the word “Shrek.”) From strained paycheck jobs like “My Mom’s New Boyfriend” to gruesomely botched prestige projects like “The […]
Filed in: Daily
Cannes official selection unveiled, includes Leigh, Iñárritu
Posted by Guy Lodge · 2:17 am · April 15th, 2010
Okay, before you ask, “The Tree of Life” is reportedly not ready — though the Cannes selection has apparently seen a cut, so never say never. Four slots in the competition lineup have yet to be filled. That aside, many of the expected names are present and correct, including former Cannes champs Leigh, Kiarostami, Mikhalkov, […]
Filed in: Daily
OFF THE CARPET: Original players
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 2:44 pm · November 16th, 2009
When I had the unmitigated gall last week to project a set of winners for this year’s Oscar race, I was a bit startled at how easy Mark Boal’s script for “The Hurt Locker” slid into the Best Original Screenplay slot. Looking over the landscape of contenders in the category, it’s a little obvious why […]
Filed in: Off the Carpet
The Oscar show you didn’t see
Posted by Guy Lodge · 4:22 am · November 15th, 2009
For those of us not important/famous/rich enough to have attended last night’s honorary Oscars presentation, the Governors’ Awards — tickets began at $350, apparently — Steve Pond has a comprehensive report of the proceedings, complete with pictures and some gossipy details. I’ve complained before about the Academy denying us Joe Public movie fans the chance […]
Filed in: Daily
Is it May-December again?
Posted by Guy Lodge · 8:32 am · August 14th, 2009
As usual with Woody Allen’s projects, we have little idea what the film he’s currently shooting in London — with Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin and Freida Pinto, among others — is actually about, but this snap from the set, of Anthony Hopkins and 31 year-old British comedienne Lucy Punch (who stepped in when Nicole Kidman […]
Filed in: Daily
In praise of the studio suits
Posted by Guy Lodge · 12:49 pm · August 13th, 2009
It’s a few days old, but I only just got to this excellent Guardian piece in which Danny Leigh wonders whether Hollywood studio executives are done a disservice by the widespread perception of them as ruthless corporate shills with little sense of artistic responsibility. (An image best typified in semi-fictional form, of course, by Kevin […]
Filed in: Daily
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