In Contention

Blog

  • To you and yours

    I’m taking a serious vacation for the next four days.  Minimal updates if any.  I know, scandalous.  A blogger taking the risk of losing traffic by ducking out for more than 24 hours.  WTF??  But you know what?  I deserve it.  And you do too.

    So go do what makes you happy and enjoy Thanksgiving.  Not to get all corny, but I’m certainly thankful for the spike in interest this year and hope that readers new and old are getting something out of our little contribution.  And I’m more than thankful to my modest staff of writers, doing what we can to keep you interested in the mundane particulars that inspire us to write.  So thanks to Gerard, John, Guy, Brian and Blake.

    We’ll reconvene next week.  For now, I’m off to San Francisco for some much needed anti-L.A. time, so be safe, be merry, pop in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and soak it up.  The Oscar crush is coming.

    Happy Thanksgiving from In Contention

  • Clint Eastwood growls through the opening of Best Original Song contender

    Gran TorinoI like Clint.  I really do.  I’m sticking up for him against all this timidity regarding his “cranky old guy” performance in “Gran Torino” because I know the role is something special.  Despite considering his recent string of success to be the most overrated era of any filmmaker’s career, I’m glad he’s out there making movies.  In the face of sudden disgust with his latest film, “Changeling,” I went to bat for him and even thought it to be his best work in quite a while.

    Basically, I’m no Clint basher.  But even I have to stop and wonder why the hell he’s singing in the opening verse of this Best Original Song contender for “Gran Torino.”  Suddenly I have the ole’ Adam Sandler sketch in my head: “There all gonna laugh at you!”

    Have a listen…if you dare (apologies for the crude recording…had to do it manually and I’m knee deep in holiday packing):

    [display_podcast]

  • Grace

    A little something to get you in the spirit. (Remember Christina Ricci’s cool days? I miss those.)

    No holiday for me, of course — lousy unthankful non-American that I am. So I’ll be holding fort around here for the next few days, while Kris takes a well-deserved breather. It’ll be quieter than usual, but feel free to keep me company.

  • 11/27 Oscarweb Round-up — THANKSGIVING EDITION

    • EW rounds up eight memorable Thanksgivings at the movies. “The Ice Storm” wins for me. No contest. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Anne Thompson on the indies hoping to score in the acting races. [Variety]

    • Dave Karger lays out the Oscar prospects for “Milk” and “Australia.” [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Todd Martens reports on some alternative Best Original Song contenders. Yay for Jenny Lewis. Boo for Mariah Carey. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Miyazaki’s “Ponyo on the Cliff” has an English-language voice cast. Step up Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon and Tina Fey. [The Guardian]

    • Some Oscar predictions from the ever-perspicacious pen of Nick Davis. [Nick’s Flick Picks]

    • And Brad Brevet weighs in with some updated picks of his own. [Rope of Silicon]

    • A.O. Scott calls “Milk” a “marvel.” I’m starting to think we might have our winner here. [New York Times]

    • Uh, so apparently TomKat are remaking “Last Tango in Paris.” April Fools’ Day was, like, eight months ago, but whatever. [SpoutBlog]

    • Finally, just to cheer you up on your day of gratitude, Hollywood is doomed. [Forbes]

    Sorry, I made it as festive as I could. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.

  • First set of winner predictions

    Clint Eastwood in Gran TorinoBefore the holiday I thought I’d make my first calls on the year’s Oscar winners.  Bear in mind we don’t even have a list of nominees yet and anything can happen.  I think around this time last year I was predicting “Into the Wild” for across-the-board wins and it only managed two nominations at the end of the day, so, grain of salt and all that.  I just like to go on the record around this time, so here we go:

    Best Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Actor: Clint Eastwood, “Gran Torino”
    Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, “Doubt”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Original Screenplay: “Milk”
    Best Art Direction: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Cinematography: “Defiance”
    Best Costume Design: “The Duchess”
    Best Film Editing: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Makeup: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Music – Original Score: “Defiance”
    Best Music – Original Song: “The Wrestler”
    Best Sound Editing: “The Dark Knight”
    Best Sound Mixing: “The Dark Knight”
    Best Visual Effects: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Animated Feature Film: “WALL-E”
    Best Documentary Feature: “Man on Wire”
    Best Foreign Language Film: “Captain Abu Raed”

  • Sigh

    Screen Daily delivers the bewildering news:

    Day one sales of “Mamma Mia! – The Movie” have beaten “Titanic”‘s record, to become the fastest selling DVD of all time in the UK. Sales reached 1.669 million units, following its launch on November 24.

    The previous record for day one DVD sales was held for 10 years by James Cameron’s Titanic. It sold 1.1 million units on its first day of release in 1998 in the UK.

    This is just the latest milestone in a truly staggering journey for the film that has already seen it become the second-highest grosser of all time in the UK, again breathing down the neck of “Titanic.” Meanwhile, with a worldwide cume of other $560 million, it is handily the highest-grossing musical of all time. Words fail me.

    I sense at this point that BAFTA will be unable to ignore the homegrown phenomenon. (Hell, people are making similar demands on AMPAS regarding “The Dark Knight.” Better film, but try telling that to the 1.6 million Brits who rushed out to the DVD store this week.)

    So I’m officially predicting right here that “Mamma Mia!” will be nominated for Best British Film come January. I’m also banking on a Best Actress nom for Meryl Streep, whether in place of or alongside “Doubt.” (BAFTA permits actors to be nominated twice in a category.) Julie Walters, as I mentioned earlier, looks like an inevitable Best Supporting Actress candidate.

    Finally, I’d count on a scattering of craft nods — sound, costume design and music. (Again, BAFTA’s curious rules make it eligible in this category — “Chicago,” “Walk the Line” and “Dreamgirls” all made it.) And hell, why not throw Amanda Seyfried into the mix for their Rising Star Award?

    So, that makes seven BAFTA nominations. I’m just saying. Forewarned is forearmed.

  • Something for spring

    Ever get taken completely unawares by a film’s existence?

    It’s no doubt my own oversight, but before happening upon this trailer, I had never heard of “Duplicity.” (In my defence, who would remember that title?) Kind of surprising considering it reteams “Closer” co-stars Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, and comes from the hand of recent Oscar nominee Tony Gilroy.

    It’s a pleasant surprise, though: from where I’m standing, it looks like a crisp, stylish divertissement in the “Charade” mold, which is good enough for me. (Owen’s presence is always a plus in my book. And bonus points for the Goldfrapp cue.)

    Am I the only one thinking this looks a lot more fun than “Michael Clayton?” Here’s hoping. (Apple version here.)

  • ‘Reader’ stirring the awards season dust

    Kate Winslet in The ReaderGold Derby’s Tom O’Neil attended an east coast screening of “The Reader” this week, which featured a Stephen Daldry Q&A session afterward.  He reports as follows:

    “I tried to leave things ambiguous,” Daldry said. “I want to keep what she learned and what she didn’t from us. It’s not for us to know.”

    During the first part of the film, it’s clear that Kate Winslet’s character, Hanna, is “morally illiterate,” Daldry added. (There were loud gasps throughout the audience when he uttered that phrase.) But later in the story, Daldry said, he and screenwriter David Hare cautiously applied “complicated calibration to try to find careful relations to when you are sympathetic to her and when you’re not.”

    Two Oscar pundits who saw “Revolutionary Road” and “The Reader” this week and who asked not to quoted by name (for reasons I don’t understand but will honor) believe that “The Reader” has a better shot at a best-picture nomination and even a lead actress bid for Winslet. A few others I admire disagree and pick “Revolutionary Road” for both categories. Personally, I haven’t sorted out my own thoughts yet, but the former opinions — and the response “The Reader” got Tuesday night in New York — tell me that Harvey Weinstein may be quite happy on Jan. 22 when noms are unveiled.

    Contrast that with the fact that I’ve jerked the film from a number of categories this week and I think you’re looking at a mixed bag at the moment, at least on the prognostication front.  I only have my gut to go by for now.  We need more people to see this thing and speak up.  But I think this peek-a-boo game Daldry says he was playing with Winslet’s character’s feelings and that general “uncertainty” will make it a tough AMPAS sell.  My two cents, anyway.

  • “Yeah, you do, baby.”

    “I enjoy playing real-life people. I’ve always had a knack for taking on characteristics or mannerisms. And I was the most spoiled actor on the movie because I was able to spend every day with the real Cleve [Jones],” who was on set as a historical consultant. “Cleve would watch me and be like, ‘I don’t do that.’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah, you do, baby.’ People don’t always know how they act.”

    -Emile Hirsch talking about his “Milk” performace with New York Magazine’s Emma Rosenblum.  I’m beginning to think Hirsch might be a dark horse of sorts.  Despite his snub last year, something the Academy may (or may not) want to make up to him, the actor has probably the most “showy” supporting turn of the bunch.  And he does a fine job, one of very few performances I’ve been able to tolerate from him.  What’s more, he gets one of the real laugh-out-line zingers that’ll connect with Southern California crowds regarding “a couple Sundays in Orange fucking County.”  You’ll know it when you hear it.

  • You can’t stop what’s coming

    John Wayne in True Grit (left) and Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (right)

  • No one on the corner has swagger like us

    M.I.A.

    “A.R. was the most established, amazing producer…He works with 100-people orchestras, and his sound is huge. Then on the other end of the room was me, making music on GarageBand [software] and playing Danny these really gritty, badly recorded MP3s. We had all these meetings and stuff, and then I realized that’s what the movie is — it’s the contradiction between these two things. That’s what the whole continent [of India] is…

    “If I was painting a picture of that part of the world, it’s not that I’d make it more glum, but I would try not to involve all the positive stuff from it, like the singing and dancing and easy stuff. I think we’re already used to that, and comfortable with that part. So there times that I was like, ‘We don’t have to make it so Bollywood’ … Danny, I think, wanted it to be good on both sides. He wanted the Indian population to get it, as well as the West. That’s a really difficult thing to do, and I think he did it — I think he did it really well.”

    From Todd Martens’s 11/24 interview with artist M.I.A., re: her electrifying work on the “Slumdog Millionaire” soundtrack.

  • Oscar screener Christmas

    Oscar screeners

  • 11/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    WALL-E• Jeff Wells is beside himself because Oscar prognosticators understand “Che” has a snowball’s chance in hell at a best Picture nomination. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Noah Forrest podcasts “Changeling” screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski. [Movie City News]

    • Anne Thompson gets the “Australia” goods from Hugh Jackman. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Tom O’Neil, meanwhile, wonders if pundits are underestimating the film…nah. [Gold Derby]

    • The economy takes a bite out of one of the season’s biggest Oscar bashes. [Vanity Fair]

    • Pete Hammond is a party pooper, makes sure we all understand a SAG strike could put a damper on the season. [Notes on a Season]

    • Nathaniel Rogers talks to “Rachel Getting Married” gals Rosemarie DeWitt and Jenny Lumet. [The Film Experience]

    • Peter Bart joins my Brandon Walters bandwagon, says director Baz Luhrmann has created a star. [Peter Bart]

    • Kevin Kelly talks to “WALL-E” and “Star Wars” sound whiz Ben Burtt. [Spout Blog]

    • Patrick Goldstein digs into the emotional chill factor of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” [The Big Picture]

    • A Harvey Milk Cliff’s Notes for your “Milk” screening preparations. [USA Today]

  • ‘Reader’ gets a poster

    Same as the artwork on the cover of a special “author’s notes” booklet by Bernhard Schlink, handed out at yesterday’s press screening:

    The Weinstein Company\'s The Reader

  • OFF THE CARPET: Insert witty Oscar column headline here

    Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThis year’s Oscar season is sapping the creativity from my bones.  Perhaps it’s foolish to come to this space every week and offer a full-blown column.  Sometimes there isn’t much to talk about.  This year, however, the things we do have to talk about don’t seem worth talking about.

    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” for instance, was the most anticipated film of the season.  But three days after finally seeing the film, I’m not feeling the resonance I anticipated.  The film is a cinematic marvel, a stroke of screenwriting brilliance and a massive leap forward across an array of technical achievements.  But it hasn’t captured my imagination like I thought it would.

    Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

    “The Reader” finally screened to the press at large yesterday, both here in Los Angeles and in the Big Apple.  The buzz leading up to the big reveal was that, hey, this might be a bigger contender than we anticipated.  But personally speaking, the result is almost an afterthought — no lingering, no spirited embrace of the film’s themes and story particulars.  Just another film.

    So, is it just me, or is the soft landing of so many of the year’s perceived heavies beginning to tangibly expose 2008 as the Oscar low point we all thought it would become?

    (more…)

  • INTERVIEW: ‘Changeling’ screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski

    J. Michael Straczynski“In the feature film world, we television writers barely exist,” explains J. Michael Straczynski screenwriter of Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie.  “So for this to all happen so fast is really a fairy tale year for me. I am elated with how this has all gone down and changed the course of my life.”

    Straczynski was making a fine living on the small screen, writing episodes of “Murder She Wrote” and “Jake and the Fatman” before moving on to  Showtime’s series “Jeremiah” and “Babylon 5,” two of his most well-known credits.  He had worked as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times and upon discovering the story of Christine Collins, he put it on the back burner for a few years until he found the time to do it right.

    He describes his research and fact-finding like “putting a jigsaw puzzle together” for the simple reason that facts and articles had been lost, and they simply did not have the technology then to store everything he required. Taking a year off writing television, he researched the Collins case and put a script together, which his agent sent off to Imagine Entertainment and Ron Howard.  The script was bought as is and Howard wanted to direct the film, but when his schedule became impossible, “Frost/ Nixon” looming on the horizon, he sent the screenplay to Clint Eastwood.  The grizzled vet read the work on a plane back to the States and committed to direct after the first reading.

    Yes.  This was a FIRST DRAFT that went before the cameras within a year of being sold, something rather unheard of in Hollywood unless you’re Woody Allen.

    (more…)

  • Oscar column on the way

    Just a note to say it hasn’t slipped my mind. I know some folks get testy when I don’t get that sucker up but fast. With “The Reader” screening yesterday and “Gran Torino” next Monday, I’ve pushed the “Off the Carpet” columns to Tuesdays for these two weeks. It’ll be up shortly.

  • 11/25 Oscarweb Round-up

    David Fincher• Jeff Wells is a fan of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” but he’s not sure it’s a Best Picture slam dunk for this reason or that.  I’d be inclined to agree with him if that guild screening on Saturday hadn’t gone over so well. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Meanwhile, Tom O’Neil takes a (probably unfair) swipe at David Fincher’s Q&A etiquette.  It’s true, he’s not the sort to get all cerebral for you like a pet monkey, and it’s true, that chilliness might affect him and the film, but don’t all the greats share these traits? [Gold Derby]

    • An ambitious list: the top 100 movies based on books. [The Movie Blog]

    • Wow, a feature on the return of an Oscar blogger.  But I guess the Bagger is that special breed that deserves the copy.  Call it blogger envy. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Having actually seen the film now, Dave Karger jumps on the gravy train for Clint Eastwood’s performance as a Best Actor contender.  Mostly he’s reporting everything we told you in our script review a few months back, though.  Gruff character but with a great arc that’ll leave them crying, etc., etc. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • T.L. Stanley joins the tiny chorus of “Australia” cheerleaders.  Maybe it’s not that tiny, but I haven’t heard from them much this week. [Gold Rush]

    • John Horn, meanwhile, features director Baz Luhrmann. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Patrick Goldstein dissects “Frost/Nixon” scribe Peter Morgan. [The Big Picture]