In Contention

Tag: Yolande Moreau

  • THE LONG SHOT: Critical mass

    Guy’s updated Oscar predictions here.

    Just one week on from the first formal awards announcements of the season, the Oscar season may still be taking its first steps, but my personal interest in the precursor trail is nonetheless set to peak this very weekend.

    That, of course, is when the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association weigh in with their selections of the year’s best, showing up the likes of the nominee-naming Washington group as the pretenders they are, while classing up the season with some unapologetically idiosyncratic film smarts.

    Or so we hope – for as much as the major critics’ groups often delight us by throwing caution (and Oscar-soothsaying cred) to the wind with rebellious left-field picks, they are equally capable of falling dully into line behind pre-anointed favourites. I was recently chased by Tom O’Neil’s resurrected Gold Derby site for my NYFCC and LAFCA predictions, and while I’m as game as anyone for a spot of light-hearted, consequence-free punting, the irony of the exercise still nagged away at me: the day I predict either group’s set of winners accurately is the day they’ll cease to matter to me.

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  • BERLIN: ‘The Killer Inside Me,’ final notes

    Casey Affleck and Kate Hudson in The Killer Inside MeHaving named its prizewinners yesterday, the Berlinale officially wraps today. I meant to file my last post on the festival once I arrived home on Friday night, but assorted tasks and distractions kept it on the back burner. Too many things, too many things, as Amber Waves would say.

    My last day in Berlin served up one of the films I’d most been looking forward to, tireless British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom’s Jim Thompson adaptation “The Killer Inside Me.” Winterbottom’s baldly violent noir arrived in town with the embers of its Sundance controversy still glowing, hoping to liven up a staid Competition. Werner Herzog’s jury might not have taken the bait, but many audience members at the press screening I attended did.

    “Fuck you!” yelled one German journo, rather lamely, at the screen once Casey Affleck’s Texan sheriff (and moonlighting serial killer) had finished pummelling Jessica Alba’s lovely face to the texture of steak tartare. After that, obediently outraged grumbles greeted assorted scenes of sex and sadism, while a chorus of boos accompanied the end credits.

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  • ‘Hurt Locker’ tops with LA Critics

    Kathryn BigelowToday is a very good day to be one Ms. Kathryn Bigelow. A few days ago, we asked you which film looks set to be the critics’ darling of the season — today, at least, the clear answer appears to be “The Hurt Locker.”

    Hours after sweeping the board with the Beantown crowd, Bigelow’s Iraq-set heartpounder took the top two prizes in the LAFCA voting. What this means for the film’s Oscar chances is open to question, but its 58 year-old helmer’s trifecta of prizes today bodes well for her chances of become the first female Best Director Oscar winner in history.

    The film wasn’t as dominant as it was in the Boston critics’ awards. Jeremy Renner’s Boston upset was not to be repeated, with Jeff Bridges taking his first (and, I suspect, not his last) Best Actor honor of the season for “Crazy Heart.” Meanwhile, DP Barry Ackroyd came in second to Christian Berger for “The White Ribbon.”

    More thoughts, and a full list of winners and runners-up, after the cut.

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  • EDINBURGH: “35 Shots of Rum,” “Séraphine,” “The Maid”

    35 Shots of RumTuesday was a day of mellower pleasures at the Edinburgh Film Festival, from an idle sun-soaked writing break in the park, to a chance conversation with Paddy Considine and Shane Meadows (both as smart and affably bloke-ish as you’d expect) outside the theater, to, most importantly, a trio of quietly impressive, character-oriented foreign-language titles.

    Two of them — France’s “Séraphine” and Chile’s “The Maid” — were decorated earlier this year with glittering prizes from the Césars and Sundance, respectively. Typically, the strongest of the three (and one of the best of the festival, not to mention the year) comes with no such accolades, having played inexplicably out of competition at Venice last year.

    35 SHOTS OF RUM (***1/2)

    Call it coincidence, but the finest films of this year’s festival have all come from the hands of female filmmakers. However, if Andrea Arnold’s and Kathryn Bigelow’s new efforts found them substantially broadening their canvases to knockout effect, “35 Shots of Rum” (which also played last night at the LA Film Fest across the pond) is an immaculate miniature from a master filmmaker; wispy at first glance, the film deftly accumulates tiny environmental and character details to create a richly satisfying tableau of restless lives.

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