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  • Billy Crudup talks ‘Public Enemies’

    Billy Crudup in Public EnemiesAt the beginning of the year, my two most anticipated films happened to feature Billy Crudup in pivotal roles.  “Watchmen” came and went and is perhaps better left in the rearview, though the actor received solid notices from proponents and detractors alike.  “Public Enemies,” however, still lies ahead as the summer movie season pushes forward.

    The film, directed by Michael Mann, has Crudup taking the reins as J. Edgar Hoover, the former F.B.I. director who declared a war on crime and mobster John Dillinger in particular.  I missed Susan King’s brief Los Angeles Times profile on the actor last week, but happily stumbled across it over the weekend.

    Crudup speaks briefly about his unexpected approach to the character in the following exchange:

    Crudup says that the “Public Enemies” script, by Ronan Bennett and Mann and Ann Biderman, was rich with character development — “filled with this mixture, which seemed always to be Hoover’s problem, of ego and patriotism. That was more than enough for me to tackle him.”

    Mann, says Crudup, always sort of characterized Hoover as a visionary to the actor. ” ‘Visionary’ to me speaks of somebody who is attempting to change society or culture for the good,” Crudup says. “It was interesting to think of him in a somewhat positive light.”

    “Public Enemies” opens nationwide July 1.

  • 5/4 Web Round-up

    Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds• Premiering a Brad Pitt character poster from “Inglourious Basterds.” [Ain’t It Cool News]

    • Digging into the world of fan-made films across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • John Hiscock talks to J.J. Abrams about selling a re-imagined “Star Trek” to classic stars and fans alike. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Peter Knegt kicks of “(123) Days of Summer: An Indie Film Guide.” [indieWIRE]

    • Grady Hendrix looks at the comic book history of this weekend’s box office champ: Wolverine. [Slate]

    • Pointless Megan-Fox-looking-hot video that is bound to sell more issues.  I gladly watched. [Esquire]

    • Meanwhile, test your Wolverine wisdom. [USA Today]

    • “Daniel Craig: ‘I’ll keep doing Bond until my knees go’” [The Independent]

    • Mark Olsen talks to the principles on Fox Searchlight’s summer rom-com, “(500) Days of Summer.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Celebrating Swine Flu in style with a list of 13 deadly movie outbreaks. [Premiere]

  • Tell me something good

    I quite enjoyed this NYT series of “memos to Hollywood” from Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, which include some well-deserved chiding of the Internet, the MPAA ratings board, and romantic comedy producers, among others. But I was disappointed that when it came to the ever-popular sport of bashing the Academy Awards, Scott only had this tired argument to hand:

    It’s just not working: the Academy Awards broadcast, with its mixture of snark and high-mindedness; the pool of pseudoserious, faux-prestigious specialty-division B-pictures; the long, dreary slog of the awards “season.” You’re losing touch with the mass audience on one side and the tradition of popular art on the other. Take some risks, rejigger the formula, expand the membership pool. Do something!

    He’s not wrong, exactly: we can all fill page upon page with a list of the Academy’s recurring failings. Year after year, they demonstrate an aversion to both daring specialist cinema and successful genre work that renders them irrelevant as a yardstick of artistic worth — but it was ever thus. (And to be fair, both critics’ groups and festival juries are capable of making blindingly short-sighted decisions on occasion. Awards are a fundamentally problematic institution, whoever dishes them out.)

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘X’ marks the spot

    X-Men Origins: WolverineAfter all the hype, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” opened with a solid $87.0 million at the box office this weekend.  Both “X2” and “X-Men: The Last Stand” started with over $100 million* but “Wolverine” does better the $72.6 million of Bryan Singer’s original from 2000. When a film is received as poorly as Brett Ratner’s third entry in the franchise was, it’s only natural for the follow-up to start a bit lower.

    Almost any franchise will prove this but the easiest example is “Batman.” Schumacher did his worst with “Batman & Robin” and unsuspecting customers shelled out $67.1 million* on opening weekend. The movie collapsed from there and it took Warner Bros. years to attempt another shot at the bat. In steps Christopher Nolan and “Batman Begins” debuted with a cautious $54.6 million. Everybody loved it, the stars aligned and “The Dark Knight” opened to $158.4 million. Obviously, there were other factors at play but look at the “Back to the Future,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Matrix” films for further proof.

    Anyway, all that is to say that $87 million isn’t really disappointing, nor is it that spectacular. “Iron Man” debuted with $98 million on this weekend last year without any previous big screen incarnations. “Wolverine” will most likely not make it to $200 million and life goes on.

    Matthew McConaughey tried his luck at counter-programming and brought in $15.3 million for “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.” That’s the worst debut he’s had in the romantic comedy genre since “EdTV” in 1999 and only a tiny fraction better than “Made of Honor”’s debut last year versus Tony Stark. I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess that McConaughey’s salary was a bit larger than Patrick Dempsey’s so that return is just not good enough. I like to think that it didn’t do well because it looked awful but that wouldn’t explain “Wolverine”’s numbers.

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  • Coppola on ‘Tetro’

    TetroYou’ve likely seen the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tetro” by now. It seems to be going down well with some bloggerfolk, but I must reluctantly say the trailer didn’t really sing to me. It certainly looks attractive (even if the black-and-white lensing struck me as a tad self-regarding when viewed out of context), but there’s a stilted quality to the character exchanges that I can only hope is the result of heavy-handed trailer-cutting.

    Anyway, Pam Grady at FilmStew is significantly more impressed by what she’s seen, and based upon the trailer and some behind-the-scenes footage, is anticipating something rather special. (Though if any critic declares the film “Coppola’s crowning achievement” upon its release, I will gladly eat my hat and film the act for posterity.)

    I was very interested, however, to read Coppola’s description of his dramatic influences for “Tetro,” which fully supports the hints of heightened melodrama in the trailer:

    “The gods were Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan,” he says. He insists that Tetro – a story of two brothers whose father is a great classical musician and conductor, not unlike Coppola’s late father Carmine – is only very loosely autobiographical. Likening the father in Tetro to “a mythic Greek tragedy father, Desire Under the Elms, a [Cat Under a Hot Tin Roof] Big Daddy,” he insists his own old men was exactly the opposite. “My father was a wonderful father and a very interesting man.” “I’ve set it in Argentina to disguise it so nobody in the family would think it was about us,” he jokes.

    He also explains his entirely personal rationale for shooting in black-and-white, suggesting a desire to channel the classic cinema that has most resonated with him in his own lifetime — but fully acknowledging it may cause audiences to stay away. Here’s hoping otherwise.

  • Coppola’s ‘Tetro’ gets a trailer

    The trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tetro,” which will play as part of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes later this month, has shown up at the film’s official site.  Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon has an embed, which I’ve included below.  Beautiful cinematography once again.  Have a look:

  • Tell us what you thought of ‘Wolverine’

    X-Men Origins: Wolverine

    The summer officially starts at the multiplexes this weekend with the release of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”  I’m already on the record, so tell us what you thought of the film in the comments section below.  I’m curious how this one is going to play to the masses.

  • Disney’s ‘Ponyo’ gets a poster

    Retitled for domestic release.  The animated feature category could be stacked this year:

    Ponyo

    (Courtesy: AICN, via /Film)

  • Oh, Jennifer

    Jennifer Garner in Ghosts of Girlfriends PastI have a horrible confession to make: I am probably going to see “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” at some point this weekend. As if that wasn’t mortifying enough to admit in public, I’ll go further: I am doing so voluntarily.

    This time, no friend or manipulative relative is dragging me into the theatre as a helpless victim of counter-programming. On the contrary, I’m desperately seeking an ally to spare me the humiliation of sidling up to the ticket booth and mumbling “One for ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,’ please.”

    I have no takers yet, and I understand why -– the film looks fucking dreadful, after all. The trailer cheerfully kills a little portion of my soul every time I see it. And every time a London bus emblazoned with the film’s hideous poster art and godawful title passes my living room window (which is to say about every quarter-hour), I have to resist the urge to hurl a rock at Matthew McConaughey’s bronzed, charisma-vacuumed mug. So why am I punishing myself in this manner?

    Two words: Jennifer. Garner.

    We all have a list of actors who we really know we shouldn’t love, who do terribly little to earn our devotion with an ever-more-dodgy resume — but who, like a really toxic ex, somehow manage to lure us back for their latest effort, however unpromising. And, nestled somewhere between latter-day Jude Law and another Jennifer with TV roots, Jennifer Garner is one of mine.

    Garner has, for me, that indescribable movie-star ‘it’ quality that keeps her empathetic and interesting even when the film around her is going down in flames. I’ve never not liked Garner in a film. (OK, “Elektra” came close.) But I rarely like anything she appears in.

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  • ‘Black Sunday’ still reigns as the screen’s most accomplished depiction of terrorism

    Black SundayI remember watching 9/11 unfold in horror. As I came home that day, leaving the idle Toronto International Film Festival, all I wanted was to be with my family. Together we watched CNN well into the night and I found myself unable to translate some aspects of the day to my curious daughter. Explaining what happened was easy; explaining why was impossible.

    We live in times when terrorism is a very real part of our lives, when acts of terror come unannounced, swift and brutal, doing exactly what the engineers of hate hope to accomplish.

    Cinema is my job, my life. I spend much of my life in the dark watching flickering images created by artists, their stories unwinding through the projector and unto the screen. Sometimes they make films to make us laugh, sometimes they try to frighten us, enlighten us, or thrill us. Sometimes films replicate life in such a way it is unnerving, the realism is that strong.

    Every now and then comes a film seems to be too real, too close. I felt that way after seeing John Frankenheimer’s unnerving thriller “Black Sunday” in 1977. The film was terrifying in its depiction of terrorism, portrayed with a grim realism and matter-of-fact reality I had rarely seen before. It seemed to me that Frankenheimer had actually contacted real-life terrorists and been permitted to film their deeds.

    “Black Sunday” was based on a best seeling novel by Thomas Harris, who had not yet written “Red Dragon” or “The Silence of the Lambs.” The rights to the book were snapped up by Paramount and Robert Evans set to work on a blockbuster wrongly envisioning the project as a disaster film. His greatest move was to hire director John Frankenheimer, who saw something darker, more sinister — something extraordinary.

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  • “What does it mean, ‘exact change?’”

  • Bale puts a bow on THAT rant

    Christian BaleFrom an interview with Christian Bale in the new issue of Total Film:

    I’m not making any excuses, but there is an essential trust and it’s not a tacit one, which is every sound guy says, ‘We are not only not recording, we are not even listening.’ So, well, there goes that.

    I just don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to know that much either. I’m actually someone that’s very anti the whole B-Rolls, DVD extras and stuff like that.

    I understand people are interested, I get that they want to hear about it, but to me I look at it as old school movie magic and with magic you do not reveal your secrets.

    The man has a point; as repelled as I was by his on-set behaviour, it’s really not an incident of which I should have been aware. We’re all arseholes on occasion, but most of us don’t have those occasions broadcast to the entire world.

    Ahem. Anyway, if that doesn’t sound like the final word on the whole unfortunate affair, I don’t know what does.

  • Cool as Caine

    Michael Caine in Is Anybody There?As we were reminded via Kris’s lovely piece a few days ago, Michael Caine gives great interview. Coupled with his trademark Cockney candour is the kind of unguarded conversational ease that comes from decades in the business — he clearly knows how to politely direct the conversation into the area he deems most productive.

    Such is the case in a recent interview with the thesp  in the Telegraph, in which he spends the requisite amount of time on his widely acclaimed performance in John Crowley’s “Is Anybody There?” before going on a number of enjoyable tangents, both personal and political.

    Under the former banner comes such invaluable advice as the secret to a successful marriage lying in having two bathrooms, while under the latter — well, let’s just say he isn’t a fan of Gordon Bown’s Labour government. (His blunt assessment: “They’ve gone rotten and they’ve gotta go.”) What I really liked, however, was his graceful and pragmatic approach to the issue of his eventual retirement:

    What happens now is that I’ll sit here and see if another script comes in that I really want to do, and if one doesn’t then I’ll be retired. There will be no fanfares, I just won’t appear again. You don’t retire, movies retire you.

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  • Playing critic

    Glenn KennyKris’s review of “The Girlfriend Experience” is but one of several that singles out the contribution of esteemed film critic Glenn Kenny to the film. In a sharply self-reflexive bit of casting, Kenny plays another critic of sorts — one who judges and critiques the performance of erotic escorts. But on his ever-readable blog, with tongue firmly in cheek, Kenny is quick to distinguish himself from the sleazebag he inhabits on screen:

    I here pay homage to the pioneers who paved the way for me: the rare film critics who put themselves in the shoes of the performers they analyze and appraise. Steven’s claim that what I do in Girlfriend is “just Glenn being Glenn” notwithstanding, I am not playing myself in the film, for my mother raised me better than that. Rather, I am portraying someone with my vocabulary, and an attitude that’s not entirely foreign to me.

    This serves as an introduction to a witty survey of previous acting efforts from notable critics, including a hilarious discussion of Rex Reed’s performance in the notorious 1970 catastrophe “Myra Breckenridge”:

    He was quite game … But still—he’s terrible. His line readings are flat throughout, and not in a good way. The nadir comes when his Myron is strolling through an orgy and a nude woman asks him, “What movie am I?” He looks down at her pubic area and, not even bothering to work up the tone of indolent contempt that was, and still is, a trademark of his, drawls, “How Green Was My Valley.” Ugh.

    All of which serves to remind me that “Myra Breckenridge” is one of those legendary “all-time worst” staples that I have yet to see. That nugget really whets my appetite.

  • SHORT TAKE: “The Girlfriend Experience” (***)

    The Girlfriend ExperienceSteven Soderbergh really gets back to what he’s good at in “The Girlfriend Experience,” a look at five days in the life of Chelsea, an upscale Manhattan escort (adult film star Sasha Grey, in her mainstream debut).

    The film is intimate (no pun intended) but also keeps the audience at arm’s length, forcing a voyeuristic quality to the goings-on.  Soderbergh employs long takes throughout, allowing his characters to steadily reveal their intentions, desires and simple thought processes.  But what he ultimately conveys is a portrait of some alien being, seemingly out of touch with all human feeling and emotion.

    Perhaps this is Grey’s downfall as an actress (since Soderbergh goes to great lengths to establish her as a thoughtful person), or perhaps it is the filmmaker’s point.  Whatever the case, “The Girlfriend Experience” represents Soderbergh at his most compelling, asking questions with his work behind the camera, probing the reality of relationships and bringing his audience along on a journey that ultimately gives no answers, offers no revelations and abruptly concludes after a brisk 77 minutes.  It doesn’t work completely but it is a preferable road to the “Ocean’s” series for the filmmaker to be on, of that we can be sure.

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  • Getting back to normal…kind of

    Things have been a bit thin around here lately, we know.  We’ve tried to keep the train moving in these post-Oscar months, but when you’re as focused on the season as we can be around these parts, a long slumber is necessary.  But May is here and it’s time to whip this place back into shape.

    Things are going to be moving into a more structured frame next week.  We’ll be bringing back the daily round-ups for starters, to give you guys a more streamlined look at what’s going on across the web.  They are quite popular during the season so we figured we’d keep the ball rolling as we move into the summer.

    Also, Guy will start writing our Page to Screen series.  Remember, this will no longer be a script review column, as it has been the last two years.  Instead, we’re going back to the roots of the series, reviewing source material of film adaptations.  Guy will kick things off on Wednesday with a look at Collette’s “Cheri.”

    We’ll also drum up some lists again (finally) and try to keep them coming weekly on Tuesdays, like last year.  Cannes will be upon us in a couple of weeks, then the massive summer movie season and, before you know it, the Oscar months will be breathing down our necks once again.

    One final note, since I get a dozen inquiries a week about it.  The first prediction update of the season (since our year-in-advance stab) will drop on Monday, May 24, the day after Cannes has hopefully cleaned up some of the picture for us.  Stay tuned for that.

    Anyway, just a heads up.  Carry on…

  • Winslet, Cruz, Herzog crack 2009 TIME 100

    Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet at the 81st Annual Academy AwardsGiven the debate currently active on these pages over what does and does not merit the term “influential” in the film world, there couldn’t be a better time to link to Time magazine’s list of (supposedly) the world’s 100 most influential people.

    Time slightly sidesteps the inherent comparative silliness of such a list by breaking it down into spheres of influence — though you have to admit there’s something slightly confounding about a survey that places Michelle Obama and Rafael Nadal in the same category. (Apples or oranges? Discuss.)

    But even  by just taking a mini-survey of the film-related figures in their Artists & Entertainers division, one has to conclude that they are as uncertain about what “influential” actually means as so many others are. In many cases, the list could be more plainly described as “famous people who have had a very good year.”

    Take Kate Winslet, for example — an undeniably great actress, a constant media presence in the last few months, and duly rewarded for her pains. But “influential?” As accomplished a performer as Winslet is, I’m not convinced that she has significantly altered the craft in which she works, or given rise to any discernible popular or artistic trends. Going strictly by the book, I’m afraid I’d have to declare Zac Efron a worthier inclusion than Winslet.

    The same caveat goes for Penélope Cruz, also on the list — a very talented and likable figure who some feel scored a personal best in the past year, but success does not equal influence. (On the other end of the scale, while his industry power remains a constant, what has Tom Hanks done in the past 12 months to merit his inclusion? And what did any of these folks do so right that, say, Christopher Nolan did not?)

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  • Tribeca awards ‘About Elly,’ Hinds, Kazan

    Mark Rendall and Zoe Kazan in The Exploding GirlThe Tribeca festival has a hit-and-miss record when it comes to picking winners that go on to great things. However, they certainly proved prescient last year, when they handed their top prize to “Let the Right One In,” so it’s worth taking a moment to mention this year’s choices.

    Of course, their Best Narrative Feature winner, Iranian ensemble drama “About Elly,” already has a major festival gong under its belt, having taken the Best Director prize at February’s Berlinale. Following the film’s Berlin premiere, Screen International described the work, which investigates the foibles of a group of friends holidaying at a Caspian beach resort, as “one of the most remarkable Iranian films to surface in the last few years,” while the Tribeca jury’s statement reads:

    Out of a strong selection of films, the jury was unanimous in our passion for this seamless piece of ensemble filmmaking. The universality of the characters and themes, and the directors riveting grasp of this story make “About Elly” a film that collapses barriers and deepens our understanding of the world we share.

    (The statements on each winner are a handy detail, by the way.) Given that Iran went with “Song of Sparrows,” another Berlin-bowing festival hit, as their official Oscar submission last year, I suspect we might be hearing more of this title in the 2009 foreign-language race.

    The jury looked further west for their acting prizes, however, handing awards to Ciarán Hinds for “The Eclipse,” a low-key ghost story from acclaimed Irish playwright Conor McPherson and Zoe Kazan in the American indie effort “The Exploding Girl.” The 25 year-old actress (granddaughter of Elia) has drawn a number of raves for her performance as an insecure college student returning home for a semester break. As someone who was very impressed by Kazan’s delicate character sketch in “Revolutionary Road,” I’m looking forward to seeing this.

    Full list of winners here.