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  • James Franco tapped for Santa Barbara’s Outstanding Performance of the Year Award

    Odd, I was just having a Twitter discussion about who might receive this honor from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and my honest guess was James Franco.  Lo and behold, he’s been tapped for the honor.

    The press release, in part:

    The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is proud to present James Franco with the Outstanding Performance of the Year Award on Saturday, January 29, 2011.  He will be honored for his compelling performance in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours at the 26th edition of the Fest which runs January 27-February 6, 2011…

    “A truly exceptional actor who embraces the character and lives the story to tell it,” comments [festival executive director Roger] Durling, “James Franco eases onto the screen, seducing the audience no matter if he is the hero, the villain or the victim.”…

    Franco will join an illustrious group of previous Outstanding Performance Award recipients, including Colin Firth (2010), Penelope Cruz (2009), Angelina Jolie (2008), Helen Mirren (2007), Heath Ledger (2006), Kate Winslet (2005) and Charlize Theron (2004).

    More SBIFF awards announcements as they come.

  • ‘The Fighter’ poster

    You know the drill.  We got a fluffy trailer.  Then we got a gritty trailer.  Now we get a poster.  The one-sheet for “The Fighter” was making the rounds yesterday but I held out for a high-res version, which you can check out for yourself after the jump.

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  • 10/19 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Steinfeld’s ‘Grit,’ Zuckerberg on accuracy of ‘Social Network,’ Poland’s barbs for de Abreu

    • Anthony Breznican chats briefly with “True Grit” star Hailee Steinfeld. [USA Today]

    • Sasha Stone on seat-seeking and saving in the grand theater of Oscar season. [Awards Daily]

    • Mark Zuckberg says the framing device for “The Social Network” is inaccurate.  He just likes building things, okay? [Thompson on Hollywood]

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  • LONDON: ‘Cold Weather,’ ‘Carlos,’ ‘Little White Lies’

    Okay, so my weekend plans to catch up on my LFF review backlog didn’t entirely pan out — though the schedulers have, at least, kindly slowed the snowball effect by screening a number of films today that I had already seen. Strange as it sounds, given that it’s been on the festival track for five months now, Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” (reviewed in Cannes) finally premiered in its home country this evening, while Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” continued to dismay critics at this morning’s press screening — as I treated myself to a smug lie-in.

    The weekend, however, was one of multiple festival treats for me, including my first dip into this year’s particularly enticing Treasures From the Archives sidebar, featuring a broad array of immaculately restored classics and curios.

    Joshua Logan’s “Picnic,” a widely forgotten Best Picture nominee from 1955, was an unexpected candidate for this treatment, but the gleaming new print of this creaky but affecting slice of small-town Americana repaid the archivists’ gamble — the film’s ambitious narrative-hopscotch structure remains fresh, the scattergun ensemble acting less so, but the real purpose of the outing was seeing master DP James Wong Howe’s luscious color lensing primped, polished and projected on London’s classiest cinema screen.

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  • ‘Biutiful’ trailer

    Guy had his say on Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful” at Cannes and I had some softer things to say out of Telluride.  It’s possible that a very touching and controlled performance by Javier Bardem gets into the Best Actor line-up, and the film will represent Mexico in the foreign film race.  But we’ll have to see how the Academy reacts.  In the meantime, the official trailer has hit at Apple.  Check it out by clicking the image below or watch an embed after the jump.

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  • POLL: Predict the 2010 Best Picture nominees

    Also by request, I’ve updated this week’s sidebar poll.  It’s October and I know a number of you haven’t been able to see most of the contenders, but it’s good to get an early gauge of what the readership thinks will be nominated come January.  And it dovetails nicely with our new Calling All Predictions feature.

    In the left sidebar I have listed what I think are the 27 films with a legitimate shot at a Best Picture nomination this year.  Granted, things can change.  Something could jump up and surprise.  And we all know there are films that will fall out of contention.  So perhaps we’ll update with another poll later in the season.  But for now, I’d say 27 is a beefy enough number, and in case someone wants to go out onto a limb, the requisite “other” selection has been included.  Just be sure to let us know in the comments section here what you’re thinking.

    So have at it.  You can select no more than 10 so just crank out your predictions and we’ll see how right (and wrong) you all are in a few months time.

  • 10/18: CALLING ALL PREDICTIONS

    It was suggested last week that I give you all a space to chalk up your own predictions, so that’s what we’ll do.  Every Monday, before the Off the Carpet column is posted, I’ll put up one of these “Calling All Predictions” posts.  Although, I should note that I may not get around to writing the column today.  Busy as always, but I have run a comb through the Contenders section, adjusted rankings here and there and tossed out anything that is currently lacking U.S. distribution.  My take is, if no one has bit by now, no one will.  At least not for 2010 awards consideration.  I’ve also updated the predictions in the right sidebar.

    So go ahead and predict to your heart’s content.

  • ‘Winter’s Bone’ leads the way with Gotham Award nominees

    The nominees for the 20th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced this morning by Elvis Mitchell via live stream and we get a lot of what we’d expect.  Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone” received three nominations, including Best Feature, while Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right” received two.  Those were the list-toppers.

    Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” received one nomination, for Best Feature.  The director is also getting an honorary award, however, as previously announced.

    The biggest surprise for me is “Let Me In” nailing down a Best Feature nomination.  I was happy to see Glenn Ficarra and John Requa nail down a Breakthrough Director nomination for the delightful “I Love You Phillip Morris,” and I also caught “The Company Men” last week (the same day as Ficarra and Requa’s film, actually).  It’s a tight piece of work and it’s nice to see John Wells spotlighted in that category, too.

    Check out the full list of nominees after the jump.

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  • ‘For Colored Girls’ living portraits by Tim Palen

    Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls” screened last week. I haven’t heard anything. Maybe the silence is deafening? In any case, the film is set to hit theaters November 5 and has drummed up some awards buzz that is beginning to fade as of late.

    Off the press release wire today, Lionsgate Marketing Chief Tim Palen — himself an accomplished and award-winning photographer — has created eight “Living Portraits” for the film, which will be on display at the Lehman Maupin gallery in New York October 24th-27th.

    Lionsgate has created an online gallery to showcase the work. This was debuted exclusively at Yahoo! Movies but there is a link that redirects to this site, a nifty virtual gallery where you can view all eight. It’s a unique way to market a film, that’s for sure. Meanwhile, Macy Gray’s work may have joined Kimberly Elise’s and Thandie Newton’s as stand-out, potentially awards worthy performances in the film.

    Check out an embed of the Janet Jackson “living portrait” after the jump.

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  • Jeff Bridges talks ‘True Grit’

    I was talking with a filmmaker/Academy member yesterday who asked me where I saw the Oscar landscape heading over the next few months. We had the usual (by this time of year, unfortunately boring) conversation with me making the usual points, before he offered, “I think it’s going to be ‘True Grit.’ It just feels that way. And I think Bridges is going to get two in a row.”

    It’s a meaningless Sunday afternoon discussion, mind you, and not indicative of anything more than one guy’s view. But here’s someone who hasn’t seen a number of the big contenders that have received plenty of press as of late, but all he could think about was the Coens’ upcoming western adaptation. If anything, it’s indicative of how much of a hold the film seems to have on the industry sight unseen, as I frequently encounter this kind of anticipatory giddiness.

    I’ve been reading Charles Portis’s novel as of late, and striking to me has been the simplicity of the dialogue and near mundane way the prose plays out (typical in most western novels, but not stylized in this way). Dare I say it reminds me very much of Cormac McCarthy and, specifically, “No Country for Old Men.” No surprise, then, that the Coens were drawn to the material, and that’s a point actor Jeff Bridges makes in a recent interview with Cowboys & Indians magazine.

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  • 10/18 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Buzz for Rudd, Ebert chats up ‘Secretariat’ author, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ push for Best Pic

    • Jeffrey Wells posts a reader review of James L. Brooks’s “How Do You Know” that claims Paul Rudd is a sure-fire Best Supporting Actor nominee, but I’d expect a lead campaign for him and buzz for Jack Nicholson in support. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Steve Rose on the secret of the Winkelvi from David Fincher’s “The Social Network.” [The Guardian]

    • Roger Ebert still high on “Secretariat,” sits down with the source material’s author, Bill Nack. [Chicago Sun-Times]

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  • ‘The Fighter’ featured on ‘Mad Men’

    Tonight, during the season finale of AMC’s “Made Men,” Paramount Pictures featured a two-minute trailer of sorts for “The Fighter.” It differs drastically in tone from the official trailer that hit a few weeks ago. Instead of the lofty hallmarks of a “Rocky”-esque feel-good experience, we get a more character-focused assemblage. Watch an embed of the trailer after the jump.

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  • LONDON: Five foreign Oscar contenders

    (Please note that one of the films reviewed here, “Aftershock,” was not screened as part of the London Film Festival programme — but since I saw it this week, it made sense to include it in this discussion.)

    Admittedly, 11 out of 65 is a figure that is only impressive if you’re counting the listenable tracks on most latter-day hip-hop albums, but as a measure of the number of Best Foreign Language Film contenders I’ve seen, it’s more than I’ve ever managed by this early point in the race. For that, I have my growing trail of film festivals to thank (even if I also have Venice schedulers to blame for ensuring that I missed Canada’s hot prospect “Incendies” in favour of — of all things — “Miral”), and this year’s London Film Festival has served me particularly well in this regard.

    I’ll be seeing Belgium and Spain’s entries toward the back end of the festival, but having attended screenings of five contenders in the past week (four of them at the fest), it seemed a neat number for a cluster-review. (I’ve already discussed the hopefuls from Algeria, Czech Republic, Greece, Mexico, South Africa and Thailand on these pages, as well as in Friday’s episode of Oscar Talk. Meanwhile, I thought it less curmudgeonly to limit myself to a 140-character review of India’s entry a few weeks back.)

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Jackass Forever After’ surely a go

    I’ve been at a friend’s house watching the games all afternoon, so, slow to get this up this weekend.  Anyway, we can bet on more poop shenanigans after this monster opening for “Jackass 3D.” I can’t remember what “Life As We Know It” is every time I look at the title, by the way.

    [Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations]

  • CINEJABBER: Drifting along in the same stale shoes

    Catch up with the idea behind these weekend posts here.

    And speaking of the weekend, thank God it’s here.  That’s all I can say.  I’m still pushing through Peter Weir’s catalogue.  Next up: “Dead Poets Society,” which I probably haven’t watched since I owned the VHS.  But more and more, I’m finding that “The Way Back” is more reflective of his early work, and it perhaps has the most in common with “Gallipoli.”

    After that I’m thinking about re-visiting Kurosawa’s work.  Much of the early stuff I’ve never seen, actually, and it’ll be a nice reprieve from Oscar madness during the season.  Boy is that absolutely necessary.

    But I also need to hunker down and finish reading Charles Portis’s “True Grit.” I’m hoping to do something special list-wise around the release of the Coens’ new adaptation and as much as I loathe the first film, I never sat down and read the novel until recently.  It’s a real charmer and easy to see why the Coens were drawn to it’s no-nonsense prose.

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  • LONDON: ‘Conviction,’ ‘Amigo,’ ‘Everything Must Go’

    “To get the challenge to play someone like this makes me a better person,” said a rather intense-looking Hilary Swank at yesterday’s London Film Festival press conference — the someone in question, single mom turned crusading lawyer Betty Ann Waters, sitting to her immediate left.

    Not being personally acquainted with Ms. Swank, I can’t verify the before-and-after truth of this claim, but I can say that this endearingly earnest tone is entirely shared by Tony Goldwyn’s film “Conviction” (**1/2).

    A rote courtroom drama that is but one “The Betty Ann Waters Story” subtitle — and Jaclyn Smith casting switch — away from being Thursday night TV fodder circa 1988, “Conviction” (which opened in the US yesterday) is one of those so-implausible-it-has-to-be-true stories that blandly and single-mindedly champion blanket virtues like hope, loyalty and tenacity over finer, more fractious social and personal details, but keeps you dorkily invested in its principals’ plight despite your better instincts.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Supporting ladies gather, London opens, Hardy goes to Gotham

    • Off the Carpet picked out the likeliest runners in a highly malleable Best Supporting Actress race.

    • We checked in on the Best Animated Feature race, where it seems we may be looking at a three-nominee field after all.

    • Away from the awards beat, the week’s big news was the casting of Tom Hardy in Christopher Nolan’s next Batman venture.

    • The Academy formally revealed the list of 65 contenders for Best Foreign Language Film.

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  • Portman and Giacchino: too many notes?

    “It’s quality work. There are simply too many notes,” says the Emperor Joseph II to an incredulous Mozart in Milos Forman’s 1984 Oscar-guzzler “Amadeus.” It’s a delicious critique, and it’s one I’ve found myself remembering a lot over the past few weeks of London Film Festival viewing, during which I seem have jotted down the word “overscored” in more shorthand film reviews than I care to count. (On the bright side, it’s made me all the more appreciative of the minimalist power of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s work on “The Social Network.”)

    But then I seem to have watched an inordinate number of recent films — be they down-the-middle Hollywood product like “Conviction” or ungainly European art films like Ferzan Ozpetek’s “Loose Cannons” — that suffer to some extent from the sheer conspicuousness of their music scores, scene after scene smothered in swooping strings or plinky piano motifs aimed to telegraph emotion instead of supplementing it.

    The two biggest offenders, in my book, are scores from gifted, Oscar-winning composers that have garnered much acclaim and even awards buzz: Rachel Portman’s for “Never Let Me Go” and Michael Giacchino’s for “Let Me In.”

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