In Contention

Tag: Working Title

  • Foreign watch: UK enters ‘Afghan Star,’ ‘Reykjavik’ remake

    Afghan StarTwo interesting news tidbits relating to the Best Foreign Language Film race surfaced yesterday, the first of which is the United Kingdom’s bold, wholly unexpected decision to submit Havana Marking’s acclaimed documentary “Afghan Star” as their entry.

    The news is surprising for a number of reasons. It’s the first time the UK has submitted a documentary in the race — perhaps the selectors were inspired by the groundbreaking nomination of “Waltz With Bashir” in the category earlier this year.

    Moreover, the Afghanistan-centered film — which contains dialogue in English, Dari and Pashtun — marks a dramatic change from the Welsh-language features that BAFTA almost always puts forward for Oscar consideration. (Few people give the Brits much thought in this category, but they’ve actually been nominated twice before: for “Hedd Wyn” in 1993 and “Solomon and Gaenor” in 1999.)

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  • Gothams tap Bigelow, Portman, Tucci, Bevan/Fellner for career tributes

    Kathryn BigelowThe Independent Film Project has announced this year’s Career Tribute recipients for the 19th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards.

    The feted will be: Kathryn Bigelow, whose film “The Hurt Locker” is on a steady awards season course; Natalie Portman, who is said to give a pretty solid performance in Jim Sheridan’s upcoming “Brothers”; and Stanley Tucci, who is already a delight opposite Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia” and could be an awards contender at season’s end for his performance in Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones.”

    Working Title Films executives Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are also set to be honored — WELL-deserved.

    Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP, is quoted in the press release.  On Bigelow:

    Kathryn Bigelow’s unparalleled ability to portray thrilling action and stomach churning suspense have been a mainstay of her work as a director…What sets her apart, however, is her ability to bring those talents to bear on films of any budget while also presenting characters with emotional gravity.

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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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  • Critics sink ‘Boat’

    January Jones (right) in The Boat That RockedI mentioned last week that I had reservations about Richard Curtis’s new comedy “The Boat That Rocked,” which opens here in the UK on Friday. Every inch of the film’s marketing thus far (and there’s been a lot of it) gives me the impression of a talented team trying aggressively hard to have fun, but it all looks too calculated for my liking.

    And the tepid trade reviews the film is getting seem to suggest I had reason to be suspicious. Screen International strikes with the sharpest claws, going so far as to describe it as Curtis’s “personal Titanic.” (And they aren’t referring to the 1997 blockbuster, either.) Fionnula Halligan writes:

    There’s no sign of anyone in charge of this bloated Working Title vessel, which lurches and leaks its way through a series of flimsy setpieces before gracelessly coming to a watery grave … Problematic 134-minute running time turns what should have been a breezy comedy about radio broadcasters on a pirate ship into a draining experience and notices/word-of-mouth are unlikely to be forgiving.

    What transpires on Curtis’s Radio Rock feels historically bogus (would a DJ in 1966 really say “this will make you moist”?), if visually accurate. But what is most striking is the wasted opportunity here: surely life on the real Radio Caroline must have thrown up far more dramatic and comedic potential than Curtis is able to take on board here.

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  • Wright returns to Britain

    We have yet to see how Joe Wright’s first foray into contemporary American cinema turned out, though the demotion of “The Soloist” from prime 2008 awards-bait to quiet 2009 spring release has had the sceptics whispering for some time now.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Wright’s next project will find the “Atonement” helmer in the more familiar territory of the British period drama: “Indian Summer” will chronicle the last days of British colonial rule in India in the 1940s, following the handover of power from Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, to new Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru. (Some sources, meanwhile, suggest that the focus of the film will be a rumoured affair between Nehru and Mountbatten’s wife Edwina.)

    Besides Wright, more notable names are falling into place: as the fourth collaboration between Wright and Working Title, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are naturally on board as producers, while William Nicholson (“Shadowland,” “Gladiator”) is taking script duties. The Guardian reports “speculation” that Cate Blanchett and Hugh Grant are in line to star, which I’d take with a pinch of salt — though it’s plausible enough casting.

    As a fan of the widely misrepresented “Atonement” (it was a far smaller, stranger film than the romantic epic it was sold as), I’m on board for this. It’s not going to do much to clear the “next Anthony Minghella” buzz that has been circling around Wright for a few years now (misplaced talk at best, not least because he isn’t a writer), but it seems a good fit for his storytelling abilities. “The Jewel in the Crown” remains the benchmark for screen depictions of this fascinating era — if Wright can conjure similar magic, this could be a real contender.