Chris Cornell is having a pretty big year.

After announcing in 2010 that his Seattle grunge-pioneering band Soundgarden was getting back together, he’s been on the road for the better part of 2011 with the group. He went out on his own in the spring for his “Songbook” tour, a leg of intimate solo acoustic shows highlighting a number of the songs he’s written over the years, whether with Soundgarden or his other high-profile collaboration with members of Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave. He’s off to Australia now for another wave of those and this week announced fall and winter dates for a second US leg.

He has an original song in Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher” called “The Keeper” that is featured in the “Songbook” tour. The track, which could be a contender for Oscar recognition later this season, has been showcased on the late night talk show circuit over the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, grunge is celebrating a 20th birthday of sorts this year as a wave of pomp and circumstance has greeted the anniversary of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album dropping on the industry in September of 1991. That moment unleashed the Seattle music scene on unsuspecting consumers and rock fans who were, at the time, desperate for something more.

To that end, Cornell is also a considerable presence in Cameron Crowe’s “Pearl Jam Twenty,” a rock documentary chronicling that band’s two-decade sprawl that spends plenty of time detailing the Seattle scene of which Cornell and his band were very much a staple. Oh, and somewhere along the way he’ll find time to head back into the studio to crank out Soundgarden’s first original album in 15 years.

A busy year indeed. In the second of a two-part interview today, Cornell discusses reuniting with Crowe, hopping back in the saddle with his old bandmates for another tour and album and his perspective on the impact of the Seattle music scene over the last 20 years.

(Click here for part one from yesterday.)

“Pearl Jam Twenty” and the grunge explosion two decades later

This year Cornell had the opportunity to work once again with filmmaker Cameron Crowe, nearly 20 years after the experience that sparked songs like “Seasons” and “Spoonman” on 1992’s “Singles.” The film in question: “Pearl Jam Twenty,” Crowe’s rock documentary focused on the rise and consistency of Seattle band Pearl Jam.

The film spends a considerable amount of time setting the Seattle scene before really digging into the band at hand, but it’s more than that. In focusing partly on the early years of Seattle music, Crowe does a wonderful job of detailing the relationships of those who actually made and pioneered the scene.

“It was great doing that,” Cornell says. “I hadn”t actually hung out with Cameron in a long time. We”d been friends since ‘Singles’ and I don”t remember actually ever being in a situation with him where he was ‘Cameron Crowe, the music journalist.’ Obviously he has experience in doing that, going back to being a teenager and interviewing all of the bands that would be my heroes. But I had only been in situations with him when he was ‘Cameron Crowe, the filmmaker.’ And I don”t know that you can separate the two, but being interviewed by him for the film was amazing.”

Cornell’s interviews are largely used to establish the formation of Pearl Jam, which was a band risen from the ashes of Mother Love Bone, a Seattle staple that surely would have dominated the music scene had lead singer Andrew Wood (who used to be Cornell’s roommate in the early years) not died tragically of an overdose in 1990. The relaxing environment of an interview session with someone like Crowe, who was right there for the explosion of Seattle onto the mainstream, made the experience a meaningful one.

“He knew where to lead the questioning and what to ask and was also very interested and/or entertained by the answers,” Cornell says. “So it was a couple of hours of an interview where it was just, kind of, my memory being sparked by the questions, remembering all these different things.

“I also felt like the years of Cameron as a filmmaker combined with Cameron as a music journalist came together brilliantly. It very much has his personality and some of his humor and just the essence of a Cameron Crowe film, it”s there, it”s in there. It”s not distanced from either side. You don”t get the feeling like you”re distanced from the band or from Cameron as a filmmaker. It all seemed to come together perfectly and coexist really well, I think, with Pearl Jam’s history and their legacy. Being sort of in the middle of it, I felt like this captured what it felt like to me. And I don”t think there”s another person who would have been able to do that that well.”

Cornell says he was particularly happy that Crowe spent so much time on Mother Love Bone and Wood, as the band is kind of a skeleton key of sorts to understanding not only the Seattle music scene, but how that scene related to what was in the marketplace in those post-glam years.

“Andy was just starting to come into his own in terms of his talent and what he would have offered as a songwriter and a personality to music,” he says. “I think that their albums, to this day, have been hugely influential in rock music. I almost felt like the Seattle bands that came into prominence kind of smashed what was happening in commercial rock music. Just destroyed it. And it”s come back in the form of nostalgia, but it has never come back in a vital form.

“I think that Mother Love Bone could have been, in a sense, the bridge between commercial rock of that moment and Nirvana, for example. I think it could exist in either world effortlessly. And none of the rest of us did that. It might have changed how things ended up, instead of this absolute about face departure from what commercial rock was to what it became. If you were White Snake, you couldn”t be influenced by Nirvana and somehow include that in your subsequent releases in any meaningful way that was at all authentic. It’s impossible. But I think Mother Love Bone could.”

Back in the saddle again

Cornell is well aware that Soundgarden had a big influence on a lot of commercial hard rock bands of the period, but he doesn’t know if it necessarily did anything for them because they were — and still are — so specific to themselves.

“I think Soundgarden infuriated a lot of people because we were just never that easy to pin down,” he says. “We were never that easy to say, okay, it”s ‘X.’ I think on the one hand it probably hurt us commercially. But at the same time, I think it was “91 that we went on tour with Guns N’ Roses and we saw the extreme of how big it can get. We knew then we didn”t want that. And that was the one thing we got out of that tour and that experience. None of us felt very comfortable at all. But I think musically, something like that was never going to happen anyway because we were truly a band where all four members contributed musically, which creates multiple creative relationships. We were very adventurous, and still are.”

And indeed, the band is back at it again, touring hard, writing a new album, and Cornell says he has that old feeling again.

“There’s always this tendency to move on,” he says. “There’s always a tendency to resist covering the same territory. And there”s always a willingness by everybody to also push the boundaries of what we all collectively understand as the sound of our band. And I feel very lucky in that regard because, to me, that was what music was.

“My first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn”t know who was singing what song or who wrote what song. I only knew that they could do ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ which is Paul McCartney singing over a string quartet, or they could do ‘Helter Skelter,’ which was arguably one of the first metal songs, in a sense. They could do both of those things and it never occurred to me, nor to anyone else that I can think of, that that wasn”t okay.”

It doesn’t feel like 20 years since the explosion of grunge (a dirty word amongst these groups) to Cornell. After all, Soundgarden formed in 1984, so there’s so much history before the watershed moment of 1991/1992 that the 20 years doesn’t even speak for all of it.

“What formed me as a musician, a songwriter, the sound and personality of my band, a whole lot of that happened well before 1991,” he says. “So that almost seems like the short version. And looking at it in that way, 20 years seems like it”s not that long. But I”m really happy that we”re talking about it in the context of, you know, my band is together again, we”re making a new record, people actually give a shit about what happened 20 years ago in Seattle and that”s a good thing. Because it often doesn”t happen that way. Often, you know, someone is asking you about one song that was an international hit 25 years ago and you”re telling the story for the 3,000th time of how you wrote it when you were on the bus or whatever.”

“Machine Gun Preacher” is in theaters nationwide. “Pearl Jam Twenty” is available on Pay-Per-View currently and will hit DVD/Blu-ray on October 24.

EARLIER: Cornell discusses writing the original song “The Keeper” for Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher” and his history with film music over the years.

The BFI London Film Festival has always been more of a showcase festival than a competitive one, though it has long given out specialized awards for rising talent and documentary filmmakers. Two years ago, however, they aimed for a higher international profile by creating an overall Best Film award, with the winner chosen by a jury from a shortlist of the festival’s most notable gala selections.

The inaugural award in 2009 went to “A Prophet” — a wholly deserving choice, though not one that brought the festival itself much attention, given that the London prize looked like mere garnish alongside the film’s pile of more high-profile honors. Last year, I thought they served themselves better with more unique choices: with options including “The King’s Speech” and “Black Swan,” Patricia Clarkson’s jury surprised everyone by awarding the two smallest titles on the list, “How I Ended This Summer” and “Archipelago,” both of which benefited considerably from the exposure.

Following that, I’d expected this year’s Best Film shortlist to lean more heavily on less obvious titles. Instead, all nine films are either from well-known filmmakers or come with ample buzz from previous festivals, ensuring a more prominent winner than last year. Whether this is deliberate or not I can’t say, though a few curveballs would have been welcome. As it is, the choice is between:

“The Artist,” Michel Hazanavicius
“The Deep Blue Sea,” Terrence Davies
“The Descendants,” Alexander Payne 
“Faust,” Aleksandr Sokurov
“The Kid With a Bike,” Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
“Shame,” Steve McQueen
“360,” Fernando Meirelles
“Trishna,” Michael Winterbottom
“We Need to Talk About Kevin,” Lynne Ramsay

From the two-thirds of the list that I’ve seen, I’d vote for Ramsay’s film in a heartbeat. What inclinations this year’s jury — which includes Gillian Anderson and filmmakers John Madden, Asif Kapadia and Sam Taylor-Wood, among others — might have is anyone’s guess.

Finally, two major figures with films playing at the festival will be honored there with Fellowships from the British Film Institute: David Cronenberg and Ralph Fiennes. They’ll be joining an illustrious 67-person list of world cinema’s great and good, ranging from Martin Scorsese to Laurence Olivier to Orson Welles to Harvey Weinstein. (Danny Boyle was last year’s inductee.)

Cronenberg and Fiennes are both excellent selections, and it’s sweetly apt that they should be honored together in London, a decade after they collaborated in the city on “Spider” — still, for my money, one of the best things either man has done. Here’s Cronenberg’s statement:

“This is a monumental, in fact overwhelming, honour, and my being the first Canadian to receive it makes it all the sweeter. British cinema has been a potent inspiration for me, and to be associated with this particular group of filmmakers is tremendously exhilarating.” 

The news, incidentally, landed mere hours after my own interview with Cronenberg, which will feature on the site soon.

In other festival news, organizers have also revealed the shortlist for what used to be the LFF’s premier prize, the Sutherland Trophy — handed to the “most original and audacious” debut feature in the fest. Recent winners have included “You Can Count on Me,” “Red Road” and “Persepolis,” so it’s worth keeping an eye on. This year’s contenders are:

“Corpo Celeste,” Alice Rohrwacher
“Eternity,” Sivaroj Kongsakul
“Here,” Braden King
“The House,” Zuzana Liova
“Las Acacias,” Pablo Giorgelli
“Last Winter,” John Shank
“Michael,” Markus Schleinzer
“Mourning,” Marteza Farshbaf
“She Monkeys,” Lisa Aschan
“Snowtown,” Justin Kurzel
“The Sun-Beaten Path,” Sonthar Gyal
“Without,” Mark Jackson

I’ve only seen four of these, though if anything tops the magnificent “Snowtown,” an unshakeably claustrophobic true-crime drama from Australia, the selectors can congratulate themselves on a job well done. (I’m not sure if there’s some quirk of eligibility keeping “Martha Marcy May Marlene” off the shortlist — perhaps the intention was to limit the contest to less visible titles.)

I’ve seen even fewer of the festival’s Best Documentary nominees — only one, though I’m sure Kris will be pleased to see Werner Herzog’s latest in the mix:

“Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey,” Leila Doolan
“Better This World,” Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega
“The Black Power Mixtape 1967-75,” Goran Hugo Olsson
“Dragonslayer,” Tristan Patterson
“Dreams of a Life,” Carol Moley
“Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life,” Werner Herzog 
“Last Days Here,” Don Argott and Demian Fenton
“Whores’ Glory” Michael Glawogger

The BFI London Film Festival, and our coverage thereof, will kick off next week on October 12.

I haven’t talked much about Mateo Gil’s “Blackthorn” yet. The truth is I wasn’t all that moved to discuss it, and certainly as an installment of the western genre, I found it to be somewhat lacking. Nevertheless, it’s not the kind of film I’m all that interested in taking to task, either.

One thing that was captivating, as I knew it would be, was Sam Shepard’s performance as Butch Cassidy. Let me just get it out of the way: Shepard is the man. Plain and simple. I don’t even want to get into it. He just is. That line in “The Right Stuff?” When the dude says, “What is that? Is that a man?” And Levon Helm says, “You’re damn right it is.” Word. Up.

Anyway, I’ll be using the occasion of “Blackthorn”‘s October 14 release as a reason to finally dig into a list I’ve been meaning to cook up for a while now: my top 10 westerns of all time. But that’ll be next week. For now, Stu VanAirsdale has an interview with Shepard up at Movieline that is well worth your time.

In it, “Blackthorn” is naturally covered, but VanAirsdale takes the opportunity to probe a few other corners of Shepard’s career, namely his work with Terrence Malick in 1978’s “Days of Heaven.” Since Malick is very much in the media lately, with “The Tree of Life” coming to DVD and Blu-ray next week and a newly invigorated spirit (he has two more films on the way), I thought it was worth sequestering that bit of the interview.

Says Shepard of his experience on the film:

“I was very lucky to start out like that. That was virtually my first movie. I”d done a couple of other, little things, but that was my first sort of feature film. And to start off with Terry Malick, that”s not a bad way to go. But you still have the onus of producers trying to influence things – the whole oppression of people from the outside sticking their two cents in. I mean, anybody who”s going to advise Terry Malick on any aspect of filmmaking should just apologize…

“The last time I talked to him was in Austin, probably two or three years ago. I”ve kind of lost touch with him. We”ve talked on the phone a couple of times…

“I”d love to work with him [again], but that”s entirely up to him. I”d love to work with him. He seems to be off on a tangent of his own, now, though.”

There are plenty of other valuable insights throughout. Give the rest of the interview a read at Movieline.

One of the stories linked in today’s round-up is yesterday’s much-discussed news concerning Werner Herzog being cast as a villain opposite Tom Cruise in the Reacher film “One Shot.” I doubt very much I was alone by uttering to myself, “Brilliant,” when I read that news. And even though Herzog is so distinguishable that it would probably be a little tough for him to act often, I say screw that. Star in more roles, Werner! How great would it be to see him hit his golden years as an actor consistently popping up in films and in a variety of roles? No? Am I alone here? “The new Herzog movie” would take on a whole new meaning. Anyway, let’s see what’s going on in the Oscarweb today…

Werner Herzog will play a villain opposite Tom Cruise in “One Shot.” Brilliant? [Variety]

Steve Pond reports that the Academy’s long-gestating museum project may have found a home at LACMA. [The Odds]

Brad Brevet finds an interesting, though perhaps (consciously) unintentional (who knows?) parallel in the imagery of Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse” and Akira Kurosawa’s “Kagemusha.” [Rope of Silicon]

Thelma Adams, Susan Wloszczyna and Sasha Stone discuss the Best Supporting Actor race. [ThelmaAdams.com]

Melissa Molina chats with “The Ides of March” star Evan Rachel Wood. [Latino Review]

The 82nd Oscarcast team of Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin and Adam Shankman are planning a new film. [Deadline]

Kyle Buchanan keeps hammering the Oscar talk around “Bridesmaids,” ponders whether Kristen Wiig is deserving. [Vulture]

T Bone Burnett talks overlooked music geniuses across the pond. [The Telegraph]

Fox Searchlight announces a December 2 release date for Steve McQueen’s “Shame.” [Twitter]

Talking a digital “Anonymous” with DP Anna J. Foerster. [American Cinematographer]

Sony is holding a special screening of Roland Emmerich’s “Anonymous” tonight on the lot after bowing the film at Toronto last month. The occasion isn’t typical, though. Emmerich is on hand, along with entertainment attorney and author Bert Fields, to receive the Crystal Quill Award for contributions to the Shakespeare authorship debate.

“Anonymous,” of course, depicts the Oxfordian point of view, that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of William Shakespeare’s classic works. The film was actually met with a slightly more welcoming reaction at Toronto than I had originally anticipated.

You might recall I was a huge fan of the film when I saw it just before Telluride. “I think it”s [Emmerich’s] best work yet,” I wrote at the time. “[Screenwriter John] Orloff has spun a fascinating yarn, itself of near Shakespearean tragedy. It”s a complex interplay of relationships and motives, incest and politics that is ultimately about the power of the written word to change hearts and minds, the enduring nature of art and, above all, the integrity of an artist.”

Which makes me wonder — shouldn’t Mr. Orloff be receiving this attention? After all, this is his script, one that pretty much bottomed out in the wake of “Shakespeare in Love” and he waited over a decade to finally see someone translate it to the screen. By all means, let’s give Emmerich a big pat on the back for his work here, but Orloff is barely mentioned once in passing in the press release. And even that is a perfunctory “the film was written by” notation in the synopsis of the film. Screenwriters. It was ever thus.

Anyway, I still stand by my assessment of the film. The more I think about “Anonymous,” the more I feel like it’s one of the year’s very best. It stands a fair shot at receiving awards attention, I think, and could be a stealthy player in this year’s race. I’m still holding out hope that Rhys Ifans can get a leg up for his lead actor performance with at least a notice here or there. It’s stellar work.

Of course, Sony has an embarrassment of riches this year, so who knows which way the wind will blow for them?

Crystal Quill, by the way, is “a high profile event that celebrates the importance of Arts Education by acknowledging Shakespearean actors, directors, scholars, and educators that inspire appreciation for Shakespeare through film, performance, and research that supports high quality arts learning experiences,” the mission reads. Recent honorees have included director Baz Luhrmann and producer Mark Gordon.

“Anonymous” hits theaters nationwide on Friday, October 28.

Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a film that has stuck with me, ever since I saw it well over a month ago. I imagine most who caught it at Sundance in January feel the same way. It’s a film with a tangible presence, skillfully crafted and assembled and with a dynamite debut performance at the center of things.

Indeed, Elizabeth Olsen’s performance is the impetus for an upcoming list that will chart the best of debut performances across the history of film (chime in with your favorites here if you like to make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks). It’s absolutely award-worthy, and if you’re asking me, more layered and achieved than the most recent Sundance babies in the Best Actress category, Gabourey Sidibe, Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa Leo and Laura Linney.

Fox Searchlight has always been an intriguing match for the material, but I’m happy to see that, as ever, they are clearing a path for people to get a load of the demanding material on their slate this year. For Olsen, the studio released a nice little interview featurette yesterday. Have a look at that after the jump, but beware, there is talk of the film’s finale toward the end of the clip and that discussion might easily be considered SPOILERS to some.

“Martha Marcy May Marlene” opens in limited release Friday, October 21.

Chris Cornell is having a pretty big year.

After announcing in 2010 that his Seattle grunge-pioneering band Soundgarden was getting back together, he’s been on the road for the better part of 2011 with the group. He went out on his own in the spring for his “Songbook” tour, a leg of intimate solo acoustic shows highlighting a number of the songs he’s written over the years, whether with Soundgarden or his other high-profile collaboration with members of Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave. He’s off to Australia now for another wave of those and this week announced fall and winter dates for a second US leg.

He has an original song in Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher” called “The Keeper” that is featured in the “Songbook” tour. The song, which could be a contender for Oscar recognition later this season, has been showcased on the late night talk show circuit over the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, grunge is celebrating a 20th birthday of sorts this year as a wave of pomp and circumstance has greeted the anniversary of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album dropping on the industry in September of 1991. That moment unleashed the Seattle music scene on unsuspecting consumers and rock fans who were, at the time, desperate for something more.

To that end, Cornell is also a considerable presence in Cameron Crowe’s “Pearl Jam Twenty,” a rock documentary chronicling that band’s two-decade sprawl that spends plenty of time detailing the Seattle scene of which Cornell and his band were very much a staple. Oh, and somewhere along the way he’ll find time to head back into the studio to crank out Soundgarden’s first original album in 15 years.

A busy year indeed. In the first of a two-part interview today, Cornell discusses writing “The Keeper” and his history with music in film over the years.

Finding Woody Guthrie in the icon of Sam Childers

“I felt like there was a lot going on in terms of the arc of the story that it just seemed like, musically, it could be almost anything and it could work,” Cornell says, reflecting on the true-life story of gang-biker-turned-activist Sam Childers, the subject of Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher.” Actor Gerard Butler portrays him in the film. “Having said that, all the different musical styles that I thought would fit with the story, I didn”t really do any of them. There was sort of like this southern biker, rock feeling that would work for part of this guy”s personality, and there was gospel that was an option. There was African rhythmic, world beat, even hip-hop, different things that I think kind of fit.”

Eventually Cornell settled on the folky ditty “The Keeper.” Stylistically, it had nothing to do with the time or place depicted in the film, which tells the story of Childers’s fight for Sudanese children living on borrowed time in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) region of the Sudan. Cornell says the song just fit the mood of what he wanted to convey lyrically.

“I kind of boiled it down to a simple attitude,” he says. “It was kind of stressing me out, the concept of, ‘Who am I to write a song about something that is this intense that I haven”t experienced?’ I”m not an orphan growing up in the Sudan that was kidnapped or watched my parents or my family get butchered or was tortured or is in fear of my life, sleeping in the bush every night. And I”m also not somebody who”s essentially put their entire life aside to go over there and risk my neck to try to take care of these kids.”

So he came to it via a different approach: What if Sam Childers were Woody Guthrie, singing to these children, describing his dedication to them, his unconditional love and willingness to fight for their well-being no matter what it cost him? “That was sort of the clearest image of the man that I got from the script,” he says.

Cornell never met Childers before writing the song, but he did see him in action via the Angels of East Africa website. There are a number of YouTube links there featuring interviews with Childers in different villages and at the orphanage he and his wife, Lynn, founded over a decade ago. Cornell says he really responded to how direct Childers was in that material, describing the hardships of the LRA war zone.

“There”s a lot of aspects to the story of Sam Childers where you might not think he”s a very likable guy,” Cornell says. “He doesn”t necessarily always do good things. And I felt like that was one sort of clear and consistent theme about his story. He”s gonna do whatever it takes to take care of these kids.”

From “Seasons” to “The Keeper”

Cornell is no stranger to contributing music to films. Some might trace things back to “Sunshower,” the ballad he wrote for Alfonso Cuarón’s “Great Expectations” in 1998, but it really goes all the way back to Cameron Crowe’s “Singles” in 1992. The film was set in the early-90s Seattle music scene and even featured Cornell in a cameo role. And it’s an interesting story, how the solo song “Seasons” came to be featured on the soundtrack.

“I hadn”t actually written it for the film,” he says. “I had written it for Cameron, though. I just wanted to surprise him. Also it was an interesting moment where I felt like I was coming into understanding what creativity in music is all about. Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam had done some graphic art for the film and in one of the scenes, Matt Dillon”s character is supposed to have left his band and he”s become a solo artist. He”s making four-track acoustic recordings in his bedroom and then putting them in mom and pop record stores to sell. That”s something that we all actually did. And I think that”s where Cameron actually got the idea.

“So Jeff had come up with these fake titles and some graphics for this fake solo tape. I saw it on the set and I took Jeff”s titles and I took a copy of the sleeve and the cassette jewel box without a cassette in it. I went home and I wrote and recorded songs based on all those titles on a four-track. I dubbed them off onto cassette and put them back on the set and just kind of made them real. It was very quick. And in a sense, it was kind of like the first one I had written for a film, but not really focusing on the script or anything, focusing on kind of the essence of the whole thing.”

So out of nothing but a bit of unseen flavor came one of Cornell’s best songs. Not only “Seasons” came of that, though. “Spoonman,” which was featured on Soundgarden’s 1994 album “Superunknown,” also sprang from that process, as did “Flutter Girl,” which popped up on Cornell’s 1998 solo album “Euphoria Morning.”

Regarding “Sunshower,” Cornell mainly wrote that with Charles Dickens’s novel in mind, rather than the film, which saw a tough and winding road to the screen. “There were a lot of versions of the film,” he says. “And I don”t think I saw any of the film before I wrote it. I had the book and I”d seen all the other films and had a basic idea of the story.”

Before long Cornell was at the pinnacle of original song composition for films: a James Bond movie. He penned the track “You Know My Name” for 2006’s “Casino Royale,” and frankly, it wasn’t something he was all that jazzed about doing when he was first approached.

“It really started out with a phone call and a little bit of indifference, I have to admit,” he says candidly. “I wasn”t a fan of the most recent version of the franchise. They told me Daniel Craig was going to be the new James Bond and that they were changing, you know, just the whole approach for the franchise and also that it was going to be based on the first book where Ian Fleming introduces the character. Suddenly I thought, ‘Well, this might be great.'”

Cornell and his wife flew out to Prague where they were shown a rough edit of the film. The first few moments were really intense and that’s all Cornell says he needed to see. Before the first act was over he was already whispering in his wife’s ear that he just had to do this.

“The other thing that was nostalgic and exciting about it was the fact that I could be on any list that Paul McCartney”s on,” he says. “I remember ‘Live and Let Die,’ hearing it as a kid, and I didn”t know that there was a movie. I just thought it was a great song.”

In his time, Cornell has witnessed different periods of music in film. He recognizes the inherent commercial nature of such enterprises, of course, but there’s a longing for more in his recollections.

“I guess 10 years ago there was a period where every movie that came out had an accompanying soundtrack album,” he says. “There was often a lot of songs either written for the film or grabbed from recent releases with a couple of songs written for the film to create a soundtrack album. That album in turn would sort of be used to promote the movie and the movie would be used to promote the album. I”m really glad that”s over and I sort of liked the idea [on ‘Machine Gun Preacher’] of one song. I wouldn”t have minded the idea of several either, but I feel like in this particular case, it would have been schizophrenic.”

Nevertheless, Cornell reflects on films that have properly implemented an entire album of songs that combine to capture the essence of the material. He mentions “Harold and Maude,” which was given a musical identity by singer/songwriter Cat Stevens, and of course “The Graduate,” which is forever synonymous with the work Simon and Garfunkel contributed to it.

“You”ve got a group of songs as opposed to just incidental music that”s kind of there to support the emotional impact of a scene or a mood in a scene,” he says. “And it”s hard to do. It hasn’t been done very much. It”s difficult to just capture one type of a mood or an essence based in songs from one artist that works throughout the film and co-exists.”

Click here for part two of the interview as Cornell discusses Cameron Crowe’s documentary “Pearl Jam Twenty,” getting Soundgarden back together and the 20th anniversary of the Seattle music scene exploding onto the mainstream.

What else can we say about Jessica Chastain at this point that isn’t bordering on over-saturation? The girl is killing it this year, from Jeff Nichols’ “Take Shelter” at Sundance to Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” at Cannes to “The Help” and “The Debt” to close out the summer, with “Coriolanus” still to come.

Malick’s film is set for a DVD/Blu-ray bow one week from today, and it should be a hot seller among cinephiles, at the very least. I have a screener around here somewhere and I’ve been meaning to put it in and get a load of how it plays on the small screen. I imagine it won’t have the same impact, as Malick is the sort who always lends a bit of scope and majesty to his work that just feels at home on the big screen.

The elusive auteur has always been a point of fascination by those eager for any morsel of info on his process. When footage dropped a few weeks back of him directing Christian Bale in a new film at the crowded Austin City Limits festival, it was like Sasquatch in the wild or something. Well the same people who clamored for a look at that will be interested in a new, albeit brief video Fox Searchlight has made available in advance of next week’s home video release.

The video features Chastain recalling her first meeting with Malick and the audition process that led to her getting the role that would largely be her first introduction to audiences. There’s also a bit of footage from that audition. (“The Tree of Life” producer, Sarah Green, by the way, was instrumental in getting Chastain in front of director Jeff Nichols, which led to her work on his film, “Take Shelter,” which is in release and will be expanding throughout the next few weeks.)

No glimpses of the Loch Ness Monster himself, I’m afraid.

Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse” is still one of the great unknowns of the season. Touchstone Pictures smartly stirred some mid-summer buzz by dropping a teaser trailer for the film in advance of the Oscar season. It got people talking but it also set the film up as a sight-unseen frontrunner, what with all that Oscar bait dripping off of it.

Today, via Empire, the UK trailer has hit the web. Lots of crying, lots of emotion, heavy John Williams score – it’s kind of just an extension of that teaser. And the production value appears to be, naturally, outstanding. Is this going to be the one to beat? Is it just too easy to chalk something like this up? Is it destined to fall? Who knows?? Have a look at the new trailer after the jump.

When Kris invited your thoughts on “Take Shelter” last week, one reader”s comment in particular caught my eye: Jessica claimed to have felt cheated by the film”s ending, which she described as “too right-wing.” The comment struck me as interesting not because I agreed with it at all – for me, Jeff Nichols”s markedly ambiguous psychological drama doesn”t forge any political affiliations in its study of security and paranoia – but because it demonstrates how almost any film can become political if viewed through a certain lens.

It was a comment I bore in mind as I began assembling this week”s list, which Kris and I had already decided would be dedicated to political cinema – a category into which one of this week”s major releases, George Clooney”s “The Ides of March,” rather less arguably falls. If political subtext is often in the eye of the beholder, how exactly does one define what a political film is? It”s certainly not as simple as “films about politicians,” though that”s a long and distinguished list in itself, and one which certainly contributed to my eventual Top 10.

(Clooney’s film, by the way, noble prestige entertainment that is, falls wide of the all-time mark for me – as, I suspect, might a later 2011 entry, “The Iron Lady.”)

So as to help narrow things down, I kept the definition on the literal side, classing political films as ones that engage with social realities, past, present or future, in such a way as to invite the audience to consider their personal politics, as well as the institutions that govern them. That can take the form of non-fiction storytelling explicitly referencing major political figures and occurrences, but it can just as easily come clothed in hypothesis and allegory, or indeed fantasy. (I was sorely tempted to include Frank Darabont”s “The Mist,” but space was tight.)

With a brief this elastic, I make no claims for the list being definitive, but all ten films gathered here strike me as inherently political, even (and sometimes especially) when politics aren”t the focus.

Check out the list at our new gallery, and feel free to share your favorites in the comments section below.

It’s always interesting to watch the marketing of a David Fincher unfold. Notoriously, he eschews all traditional routes. He loathes the usual process of building interest in a film. I’ve been told by those close to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” that this very fact explains the recent, oddly structured four-minute trailer for the film, a bit of a middle digit to the status quo.

And hey, that’s fine. Hip cred is a big deal in this day and age. And I can understand a desire to rub against the grain of what’s accepted, because let’s face it. The usual is boring and uninspiring and, to say the least, not very creative. But still, the typical marketing machine serves its purpose and serves it well, so it’s important not to drown your film in “cool.”

That’s what I think “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is on the verge of doing. As a film fan and a Fincher enthusiast, I dig things like Mouth Taped Shut, the behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production that Fincher launched as, again, a push back against the expected marketing machine. But if I put myself in the shoes of the general consumer, I have to imagine some of this might feel impenetrable and kind of, I don’t know, elitist?

Nevertheless, getting guys like me to write about all of this is part of the trick, too. And here I am, pointing you to a recent video that documents the making of some “cool” razor blade posters for the film. The footage is accompanied by some of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s eerie score, and really, any excuse to unveil more of that is fine by me.

The video was unveiled at — you guessed it — Mouth Taped Shut. Check it out:

Linked in today’s round-up is a piece from the LA Times’ Steven Zeitchik asking what went wrong at the box office for “50/50.” It’s a shame, really, the instant analysis and diagnosis of films that hit and land a bit softly at the box office in opening week. “50/50” strikes me as a film that will build a bit of interest through word of mouth and maybe stack some more dollars in its favor. Then again, I thought “Warrior” would have been the same, but it started low and went further down the box office drain.

The point is, I think it’s unfortunate that the popular identity of a film has to be made or broken in the media based on first weekend numbers. Look at something like “The Help,” which didn’t even open in the top spot but soon claimed it and stayed there for three weeks straight. Let a film find that identity before assigning one to it. Anyway, let’s see what’s going on in the Oscarweb today…

Steven Zeitchik attempts a postmortem box office assessment on “50/50.” [24 Frames]

Anne Thompson takes note of Netflix’s Oscar-dominated top rentals. [Thompson on Hollywood]

20,000+ defendants dismissed from massive “Hurt Locker” torrent lawsuit. [Venture Beat]

The original ending of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” revealed at Visual Effects Society summit. [Hollywood Reporter]

Brian Salisbury chats with Oscar nominee Robert Forster on the occasion of today’s Blu-ray release of Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown.” [Badass Digest]

Charlie Kaufman takes a moment to tell you how to write a story. [The Guardian]

Scott Feinberg offers up what he sees as the five reasons for releasing an Oscar hopeful in December. [The Race]

Jeffrey Wright talks “The Ides of March” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” [Collider]

Luc Besson’s “The Lady” bowed at Toronto this year where reviews weren’t exactly glowing. But Cohen Media Group picked up the film out of the fest and Michelle Yeoh’s Best Actress campaign could be something to keep an eye on (as could David Thewlis in supporting if the film really catches on). Still, one wonders if the infrastructure will be there to feed a considerable awards campaign, or if the goal of turning a profit on modest spending will win out the day. Such is the balance of picking up a film like this. In any case, the trailer recently dropped via Yahoo! Movies and it gives a good overall indication of what we can expect from Yeoh and Thewlis. Check out the embed after the jump.

In my most recent predictions update, you might have noticed a new entry in the Best Original Screenplay category for “A Separation,” Asghar Farhadi’s festival darling and foreign-language Oscar hopeful. While I admit I can toy with some pretty unlikely predictions in the early stages, this one was more reasoned than most — and really fell into place for me when I noticed that Sony Pictures Classics had set a December 30 release date for the film.

Squeezing that narrowly under the wire into the 2011 release calendar suggests to me that the distributor may have more than just a Best Foreign Language Film nomination in their sights for the critically adored Iranian film. After all, a 2011 release date isn’t a requirement for the ghetto category; Sony in particular is frequently content to wait until after the nominations, or even the Oscars themselves, before opening their contenders, so as to capitalize on the awards prestige. (The category’s reigning winner, “In a Better World,” only opened in April.)

As the studio with the most successful track record in the category of late, Sony must fancy their chances of another nomination for Farhadi’s film; why, then, release it into the wilds of December, where it’ll have to compete against far glossier prestige titles for attention, unless they’re hoping to make inroads into other races? Best Original Screenplay would be the smartest target: the category looks malleable this year, and is unusually heavy on comedy contenders. A dramatic screenplay as rich and thoughtfully structured as Farhadi’s could well find fans in the reliably discerning writers’ branch of the Academy.

Winning over the directors would be a taller order, but precedent exists for lavishly acclaimed foreign films landing surprise nods in their category. Imagining 250-odd voters placing an Iranian family drama atop their Best Picture ballots, however, probably stretches the bounds of credibility.

“A Separation” isn’t the only heavyweight contender for the foreign-language Oscar that Sony is lining up for a December bow: Anne Thompson reports that Poland’s entry, Agnieszka Holland’s “In Darkness,” is getting the same treatment. The well-reviewed film arrives out of the festival season with quieter buzz than Farhadi’s film, but remains one of the most formidable on-paper contenders for the Oscar: a true-life Holocaust drama chronicling the survival struggle of a group of Jews hiding in the sewers of Nazi-occupied Lvov, it seems to tick a lot of Academy boxes, one of which is the familiarity of Holland’s name.

Holland herself has previously broken into the major Oscar categories. She landed a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination in the 1991 race for another Holocaust tale, “Europa, Europa” — a consolation prize of sorts for the film’s controversial absence from the foreign-language race after Germany chose not to submit it. (Or anything else, for that matter.) Could Sony be aiming for similar recognition for the new film? At this stage, it seems a stretch. Holland herself isn’t the writer on this occasion; first-time scripter David F. Shamoon is.

When a foreign-language film breaks into the general categories, it’s often in response to the film failing to find a place in the designated Best Foreign Language Film category, whether due to politics or voter neglect. Like “Europa, Europa,” in my Oscar-watching lifetime, “Talk to Her,” “Three Colors: Red,” “Il Postino” and “City of God” all found a way in on the back of that perceived snub. (In theory, Sony could hope for a similar happy ending for a November release, Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In,” which Spain passed over as their Oscar submission, just as they did “Talk to Her” in 2002. In this case, however, it’s hard to see this nasty thriller appealing to any Academy branches, save perhaps the composers.)

For a film legitimately in the hunt for the foreign-language Oscar, the road to general-category recognition can arguably be harder. Films that score in both areas usually break in on a wave of crossover audience appeal: think “Amelie,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or even “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

A film like “A Separation” is unlikely to acquire that level of popular buzz, so Sony will be counting on critical pressure to persuade voters that it’s worth of a mention outside its designated category. Meanwhile, the studio has yet to confirm a US release date for its latest major foreign-language possibility, Toronto Audience Award champ “Where Do We Go Now?”: with critics less likely to rally around this one in a big way, I sense they’ll wait for 2012 on that one. (Ditto yet another contender on Sony’s books: Israeli submission “Footnote.”)

As for the other foreign Oscar submissions, few studios outside of Sony have the savvy and the wherewithal to launch wider campaigns. It’ll be interesting, however, to see what Fox does with Mexican entry “Miss Bala,” a harsh but accessible drug-trade thriller that has generated considerable heat on the festival circuit ahead of its US release later this month. (UPDATE: I’ve just learned that the film’s US release has been postponed to January. So hold that thought.) Hard as it is to imagine this tough genre piece finding many friends in the Academy, it’s rare to see a studio this large in the hunt for the little prize.

Like the upcoming London Film Festival (which I will be covering first-hand from next week), the New York Film Festival is one of those greatest-hits affairs consisting mainly of cherry-picked successes from previous fests — with just enough new content to keep it from becoming a residents-only deal.

This year, for example, securing the world premiere of “My Week With Marilyn” (which will be unveiled on Sunday) has attracted enough eyeballs to the NYFF that even its repeats of already-reviewed hits from Cannes, Venice, Toronto and the like prompt flutters of Twitter activity.

I’d love to be in New York to bring you festival views directly — actually, I’d love to be in New York for many reasons — but obviously, I am not. Happily, however, Kris and I have seen enough of the NYFF selections between us that we could reasonably fake a festival report if required. It needn’t come to that, of course, but for those of you following the festival coverage, what follows is a quick round-up of the NYFF titles we’ve already reviewed and/or discussed here at In Contention.

I was an early adopter of Iran’s foreign-language Oscar hopeful “A Separation”, writing an enthusiastic take in February from the Berlinale, where it went on to win the Golden Bear and both acting trophies. Over six months later, Kris was no less impressed in Telluride. Also positively reviewed by me at Berlin was Hungary’s Oscar submission, Bela Tarr’s super-severe (if arguably self-parodic) “The Turin Horse.” Berlin proved a happy hunting ground for future Oscar submissions: I also discussed Wim Wenders’s dazzling 3D dance documentary “Pina” there. Kris wasn’t as taken with it at Telluride.

Fine films, all three, but none was my favorite of the Berlinale: fortunately, NYFF audiences can now see for themelves why I flipped for Best Director winner Ulrich Köhler’s Conradian dual-character study “Sleeping Sickness.”   

Naturally, New York has cribbed a bunch of higher-profile hits from Cannes. Big-league Oscar player “The Artist” needs no introduction by now, but here’s my glowing review from the Croisette — countered with Kris’ more reserved Telluride response. Two Cannes titles at NYFF have already opened in the UK. The first of them, Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia,” I thought remarkable. (Kris, again, had a more muted response, though he hasn’t written it up.) The second, Pedro Almodóvar’s glassy thriller “The Skin I Live In” didn’t quite meet my expectations, though I found plenty to appreciate in it nonetheless.

As usual, Cannes was another crucial fest for unearthing future foreign Oscar players. I saw Mexico’s “Miss Bala,” Turkey’s “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” and Finland’s “Le Havre,” but have yet to review them — I will rectify that in the coming weeks, as the films also resurface at the London fest. Kris, however, briefly wrote up some charitable thoughts on “Le Havre” from Telluride.

One I did review from Cannes, and none too favorably, was Israel’s submission, Joseph Cedar’s strained comedy of letters, “Footnote.” In the same piece, I also offered my thoughts on a foreign NYFF entry not submitted to the Academy: the Dardenne brothers’ affecting if unsurprising “The Kid With a Bike.” Cannes is also where I saw and raved about Sundance hit “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” due to make its final (and closer-to-home) US festival stop before its release later this month. Kris was equally stunned.

Which brings us up to the more recent discoveries of the fall festival season. The NYFF kicked off last week with Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” which Kris and I have both discussed in detail: if my Venice review was on the cool side, Kris was even less convinced last week. Similarly, neither of us was wowed by David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method”; here’s my Venice review, and Kris’ Telluride reaction.

Our streak of agreement continued, and to more positive effect, on Steve McQueen’s “Shame”; I enthused about it at Venice, and Kris’ Telluride appreciation followed shortly afterwards. (A final NYFF selection from the Lido is Abel Ferrara’s “4:44 Last Day on Earth”: I could hardly review it, but I did explain why I walked out here.)

Finally, the New York curtain will close on the 16th with “The Descendants”: I haven’t seen it yet myself, but Kris wrote up his guarded appreciation here. That concludes our long-distance NYFF attendance; expect some fresh reviews, including a few leftovers from previous festivals, as the month wears on.  

Last week — out of pure laziness because there frankly isn’t much about the season worth discussing without assigning dubious meaning to this and that — I shined a light on the lead actor category in this space. Today, for the same reasons, let’s move on to Best Supporting Actor.

Anne and I took a stab at the supporting categories in Friday’s Oscar Talk, but digging in a bit on the fellows, it’s exciting how wide open the field appears to be. When your best bet is a player in a fringe indie hopeful that isn’t likely to stir much discussion in other arenas, you know it’s a fluid line-up. Still, Christopher Plummer is a delight and makes it look so easy in “Beginners,” so, fittingly, he’s already having flags planted on his behalf by early kudo committees. But after that, it’s anyone’s game.

I placed a bet on Max Von Sydow last week after hearing multiple accounts of his work in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” being something special and the most viable option from the cast. But it’s still a largely unseen film, as is “My Week with Marilyn” and Kenneth Branagh’s supporting turn as Laurence Olivier. But those who have caught a look are quick to mention the two.

Of the films that have been widely screened, Albert Brooks sticks out as a real possibility in “Drive.” That is, of course, assuming the Academy can warm up to the chilly film. Certainly if Brooks maintains a presence throughout the season, he’ll be an easy vote for many. And it’s the kind of recognition that would open even more doors for the long-time comedy actor.

One question is whether Nick Nolte can hold on to a spot in the wake of box office woes for “Warrior.” That will be a tough hurdle to clear, and it’ll require a bit of a presence, much like Brooks. Sustaining anything from September on is difficult, but especially so when you face inherent uphill climbs.

It’s interesting, then, that so many veteran actors are leading the discussion in the category this year. But the fun doesn’t stop there.

Fox Searchlight is planning a supporting actor push for Brad Pitt’s career-best performance in “The Tree of Life,” a nice complement to his leading work in “Moneyball.” He could find traction in both categories easily. It’ll be interesting to watch how or if the focus shifts between the films.

George Clooney’s “The Ides of March” contains a pair of performances that could find room. Philip Seymour Hoffman nails the part of a jaded but loyal campaign strategist, however, I think Clooney’s sparsely utilized politician makes a more compelling case for recognition, especially given a knock-out delivery late in the film.

Jim Broadbent and David Thewlis have similar roles in “The Iron Lady” and “The Lady,” respectively. The latter has received good notices out of Toronto while the former is still to be revealed.

Another mostly unseen possibility is Patton Oswalt in “Young Adult,” who is said to be a very sympathetic element of the film. Meanwhile, Jonah Hill already has a healthy number of fans of his work in “Moneyball.”

There are a pair of brief but memorable portrayals in “The Descendants” (Robert Forster) and “Rampart” (Ben Foster). The former has the most potential for finding champions but neither are likely to gain considerable traction.

Finally, if enough people see their films, John Hawkes (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”) and Ezra Miller (“We Need to Talk About Kevin”) could easily find passionate supporters.  And who knows what the supporting casts of “J. Edgar” and “War Horse” bring to the table?

But since things are so up in the air, I’d like to throw my vote into the ether. Corey Stoll in “Midnight in Paris” remains one of the true delights for me this year. His riff on Ernest Hemingway through the author’s trademark prose style was perfectly executed. I keep saying I just had a big smile on my face whenever he was on screen, and that kind of presence deserves to be recognized. Here’s hoping he can find some traction this season.

QUICK NOTE: The Contenders section still isn’t up and running yet, but for now, I’ve done a small bit of updating in the sidebar predictions. The full list of predictions will soon be available there, but for now, it was easier to move the top eight categories there while we work on other elements.

What are some other supporting performances from the year that you think deserve a look in this wide open race? Rattle off your favorites in the comments section below.

Linked in today’s round-up is a piece from Nathaniel Rogers about the fact that there are simply no locks for Oscar in the earliest stages, certainly not for films that are still unseen. Though it wasn’t his point, it nevertheless got me thinking of two spats I got into last week with people who were flabbergasted at the idea of considering “War Horse” at the top of a list of Oscar guesses. “It hasn’t been seen!” No kidding. But the fact is, if you’re asking me to take wild stabs, I’ll take an unseen Steven Spielberg movie based on a hit play set during World War I over an Alexander Payne comedy that has played well at festivals — all day long. It’s like saying it’s silly in week one to bet on the Packers to make it to the Super Bowl because they play on Monday night and we haven’t seen what they’re made of, while the Lions killed in the early game on Sunday. Or something like that. It’s fair to bank it on pedigree because the fact is it’s all a bunch of nonsense guessing until voters — the people who matter in the equation — actually see the film, and that’s not usually until the holidays, anyway. So spare me the indignant, “But we haven’t seen it yet!” It’s okay if things change. Anyway, let’s see what’s going on in the Oscarweb today…

Nathaniel Rogers rattles off the ole’ “there are no locks” logic, which is of course bulletproof. [The Film Experience]

Tom O’Neil severs ties with the LA Times and goes out on his own once again with Gold Derby. [Awards Tracker]

Anne Thompson on the Oscar potential of Roman Polanski’s “Carnage.” [Thompson on Hollywood]

Steve Pond talks with “Moneyball” director Bennett Miller. [The Odds]

Gregg Kilday, meanwhile, wonders if the film can overcome baseball’s Oscar slump. [The Race]

Jeff Wells writes a love letter to Mexican foreign language submission “Miss Bala.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis belly-ache the Oscar-ization of the fall festival circuit. [New York Times]

David Poland responds. [The Hot Blog]

Edward Davis decides to spoil Charlie Kaufman’s latest publicly. [The Playlist]

Drew McWeeny talks to “50/50” star Anna Kendrick. [Motion/Captured]

This is Cinejabber, your weekend space to cut loose about whatever is on your mind.

Today I’m thinking about politics in movies. Not surface politics, mind you, like, say, George Clooney’s “The Ides of March” or Clint Eastwood’s upcoming “J. Edgar.” I’m talking about those movies that speak to the “zeitgeist,” if you will, whether inherently or interpretively.

It hit me because I heard the strangest take on the finale of “Take Shelter” recently. I won’t spoil it here, but someone called the ending of that film “too right wing.” Upon reflection, I suppose I could understand how someone might see that. But it just reminds you that people will find politics anywhere.

Some are on about “Moneyball” speaking to things like “innovative problem-solving, and a moral ground that will benefit the team.” Again, I can understand the dots and the connecting of them, but so often this kind of thing is perspective brought to the table rather than taken from it.

We saw this three years ago with “The Dark Knight” and supposed right-wing ideas of security. Some even went so far as to call the Caped Crusader and his hard-hitting “policies” to be a stand-in for George W. Bush.

If you want, you can see the end of “Melancholia” as a reflection of the Bush administration if you want to. (Okay, I stole that joke.) But I don’t know. Sometimes Batman just really wants to catch the Joker.

Anyway, as Guy teased yesterday, it’s worth mentioning that he will be writing up his top 10 films about politics list on Tuesday in advance of next week’s release of “The Ides of March.”

So, use all of that to springboard if you like. Otherwise, open thread. Have at it. The floor is yours.

(And I swear I didn’t mean to have two Cinejabber threads in a row speak to Batman.)