• Wes Anderson talks editing “Black Swan” with Andrew Weisblum. [Awards Campaign]
• Oscars invade New York’s Grand Central terminal. [Oscars.org]
• Mandi Bierly gets a few Oscarcast details on the Franco-Hathaway chemistry and the opening number. [Inside Movies]
I didn’t see the Grammys this weekend. In fact, I tend to avoid them like the plague. But it was nevertheless an impressive slate of winners, so that’s a unique start.
In any case, it’s worth pointing out that Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett’s “The Weary Kind” wrapped up a long awards march by taking the award for Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media. So add that to a list of accolades that includes an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Critic’s Choice Movie Award, and the Americana Music Association “Song of the Year” honor. A great ride indeed.
“It’s incredible,” Bingham said to press backstage at the Grammys. “It’s been a hell of a ride. All this stuff flies by so fast and happens so quick. Afterward you look back on it, let it soak in, and see what it’s all about.”
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) dished out its annual kudos this weekend, which makes for a nice segue into a discussion of the year’s nominees for Best Cinematography. But it’s important to keep a few things in mind when it comes to guessing what the Academy at large will spring for in this field.
First and foremost, technical accomplishment doesn’t get you far with a number of people who don’t really understand what kind of a feat, say, “Children of Men” is. Or “Black Hawk Down,” for another example. It’s all about what looks like a post card, because “cinematography” so quickly translates to “prettiest movie” for a great many voters, unfortunately.
The nominees are:
“Black Swan” (Matthew Libatique)
“Inception” (Wally Pfister)
“The King’s Speech” (Danny Cohen)
“The Social Network” (Jeff Cronenweth)
“True Grit” (Roger Deakins)
• Nick Davis’s actress digest moves to the lovely Jennifer Lawrence. [Nick’s Flick Picks]
• Tom Hooper at the BAFTAs: The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. [The Race]
• David Poland talks to “Black Swan” costume co-designers Rodarte. [The Hot Blog]
The cavernous Berlinale Palast theatre was packed to the gills for today’s noontime press screening of “Coriolanus” (***), and small wonder — in a Competition lineup heavy on oatmeal fare boasting comparatively unfamiliar names, Ralph Fiennes’s directorial debut is one of the few entries that affords viewers a little star-gazing.
Fiennes, of course, takes the title role in his revisionist take on Shakespeare’s under-filmed tragedy, with Gerard Butler, Brian Cox and the soon-to-be-ubiquitous Jessica Chastain adding further name appeal.
As the crowd staggered out of the auditorium two hours later, the name being murmured most approvingly was that of the film’s oldest and most distinguished star. And with good reason. As Volumnia, the proud, politically-minded mother of the titular Roman general, Vanessa Redgrave gives one of “those” performances, an Olympian masterclass in classical acting that conjures spontaneous emotional fire upon a bed of immaculate technique.
I can’t let February the 14th pass without some acknowledgement on my part, so here it is: one of the coolest, warmest, hottest romantic exchanges I can think of in any movie. Scott Frank’s writing is conversational poetry here, Anne V. Coates’s editing shapes all the politics of lovemaking into a single scene, and George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, both as beautiful and as human as they’ve ever been on screen, define chemistry. I love this scene. I love this movie. Happy Valentine’s Day.
What screen romances do it for you?
Determined to make up for my rather feeble start to the Berlinale, I made it to five films on Sunday – and in a shock twist that defied the law of both averages and film festivals, I liked all of them to some extent, and two of them rather more than that. How appropriate that I get to put my poison pen away on Valentine’s Day of all days.
I’ll get to writing about “The Guard” (a scuzzily hilarious Irish cop comedy from John Michael McDonagh, brother of Martin) and Competition entry “Sleeping Sickness” (by some measure the best thing I’ve seen, or am likely to see, here) in a later roundup. The other three, however, demand to be grouped in a single post, just as Berlin programmers were making a point by scheduling them back-to-back: all of them were specialist niche films in 3D, marking the moment at which the technology formally stepped outside the multiplex and into the arthouse.
When Werner Herzog announced his intention to make his latest documentary in 3D, the howls of anguish from stern cinephiles could only have increased in volume if he’d added that it was actually going to be a Miley Cyrus concert movie. When his compatriot and contemporary Wim Wenders revealed similar plans for his non-narrative tribute to the late choreographer Pina Bausch, there were fewer protests, if only because after his last few features, nobody’s been paying much attention to anything Wenders does these days.
In today’s Oscar Guide, I addressed one of the biggest surprises of this year’s slate of below-the-line Oscar nominees: “The King’s Speech” being recognized for Best Sound Mixing. It’s easily attributable to sweeping love for the film, but I tried to give some context for why sound is actually integral to the experience of the film in some way.
Today, the good folks at SoundWorks Collection, in lieu of one of their custom profiles on the sonic construction of the film, have offered up a dense interview with production sound mixer John Midgley. Midgley has worked on films such as “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” “Hotel Rwanda” and “Children of Men,” and in the interview, he actually touches on some of the points I made in the piece.
Head on over to SoundWorks Collection to check out the full interview — a hefty 30 minutes’ worth — or watch the embed after the jump. It provides a lot of insight into a process that, even if it doesn’t appear award-worthy to the layman, deserves a great deal of respect nevertheless.
I feel like we’ve done a pretty decent job of educating some of our readership on the difference between Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing over the last five years here at In Contention. It struck me that we haven’t really covered it in a focused way this season, and the Oscar Guide seems as good a place as any to recap.
Sound editing, which we covered Friday, concerns the manifestation of artificial sound effects and the overall manipulation of the sonic identity of a film. Sound mixing concerns the balance of those various elements, in addition to music and dialogue, as well as the on-the-set maintenance of production audio. This year’s slate was an eyebrow-raising one to say the least.
The nominees are:
“Inception” (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick)
“The King’s Speech” (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley)
“Salt” (Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin)
“The Social Network” (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)
“True Grit” (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland)
Whether or not Luke Matheny’s “God of Love” nabs the Oscar for Best Live Action Short is still to be seen. It sure has its share of champions but it’s rare for a winner of the Student Academy Award to also take the big prize. Nevertheless, there’s clearly a publicity push in motion, witnessed by a cute press release that was waiting in my inbox this morning.
Matheny offers up his “top eight for a date,” films that dovetail nicely with today’s holiday (and what an opportune time for such a holiday to strike when your film is a riff on Cupid). They are (I’m assuming in no particular order):
“Joe vs. The Volcano”
“Paris Blues”
“Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”
“The Bodyguard”
“The Thomas Crown Affair”
“Doc Hollywood”
“Shop Around the Corner”
“Arthur”
• Patrick Goldstein remembers 1939: “When 10 great Oscar nominees really meant 10 great nominees.” [The Big Picture]
• Nikki Finke talks to Sony honcho Amy Pascal in the wake of “The Social Network”‘s post-season stall. [Deadline]
• Marnie Hanel chats with “127 Hours” production designer Suttirat Larlarb, with sketches to boot. [Little Gold Men]
I’ve been on the road most of the day, but happy news for Wally Pfister, who won the ASC award for “Inception.” I wouldn’t look to the Society for much in the way of prognostication. They’ve already seized the opportunity to award Roger Deakins, after all — twice. And had I thought about it, I likely would have predicted Pfister here, given the group’s history. But I don’t want to take anything away from this win, which is well-deserved when considering the work this guy has been knocking out of the park for a decade now.
I still say “True Grit” takes the Oscar, with “The King’s Speech” still as the spoiler.
Which reminds me: Don’t forget.
I had more interesting things to do at the Berlinale this evening than watch the BAFTAs, so the only commentary I can offer is on the winners list itself. And, well, it doesn’t make for terribly exciting reading. To the surprise of precisely no one, “The King’s Speech” ruled the night with seven trophies, though as I predicted, “The Social Network” barred its way in the Best Director category — with further wins for Adapted Screenplay and Editing bringing its total to three.
Clearly, Fincher’s Oscar hopes are still alive, though it would be unwise to read too much into this result: as I noted earlier, BAFTA voters split their top two awards more often than not.
Two of the wins for “The King’s Speech,” however, were widely unexpected. With Geoffrey Rush beating Christian Bale to the Best Supporting Actor award — and Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter both predictably winning their categories — the film becomes only the third in BAFTA history to scoop three of the four acting categories.
I have to take off and Guy is busy with Berlinale duties, but the BAFTAs are in progress. There may be a live feed out there somewhere but I don’t have time to track it down. I know you can keep track of the goings-on at BAFTA’s Twitter page. Consider this your space to discuss the winners. Guy will be back later with a full wrap-up.
All four at the top are new releases, but “Black Swan” will cross $100 million tomorrow or Tuesday, “The King’s Speech” will get there next weekend, and “True Grit” is at $160 million and climbing.
(Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)
Well, it didn’t take long for me to break my promise of daily festival reports. In the unlikely event that you were eagerly awaiting for my first Berlinale dispatch yesterday, I can only apologize: it’s hard to review films you haven’t seen.
A domino-like series of misfortunes conspired to make my first day of planned festival action entirely: a last-minute train cancellation from London caused me to miss my flight, while the rescheduled flight landed me in Berlin too late to register with the press office. Add the fact that I’m still limping round the city on a single crutch, and I am the poster boy for the Twitter hashtag titled #festivalfail.
On the plus side, I can inform you that the Competition title I missed yesterday — corporate thriller “Margin Call,” whose starry cast includes Kevin Spacey and Demi Moore — was at least one that has been roundly dismissed. Meanwhile, while I gained no film-related knowledge yesterday, I can at least share a culinary tip: the best burger you’ve ever eaten in your life is to be found at a pleasingly rowdy American bar called The Bird in Prenzlauerberg. Book a flight, and thank me later. (I understand there’s a second branch opening in Wyoming soon. I swear I’m not making this up.)
