Fancy this timing, I’ll finally be getting around to “I Live You Phillip Morris” later this afternoon. Today, via Entertainment Weekly’s Pop Watch blog, we get our first look at the poster. The film stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor and is set for release December 3. Check out the full image after the jump.
For the past few months, we’ve been keeping you abreast of the submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, so this finalized list of contenders, which was sleuthed by Pete Hammond earlier this morning (and officially unveiled by AMPAS via press release here), doesn’t contain too many surprises.
As usual, however, a few low-profile late entries have snuck into the mix since the October 1 submissions deadline, while one film (Afghanistan’s entry “Black Tulip”) appears to have been disqualified, as the country does not feature on the Academy screening schedule. An eligibility-date snafu, I’ll be bound.
The four titles new to our list come from Ethiopia (“The Athlete”), Georgia (“Street Days”), Greenland (“Nuummloq”) and Kyrgyzstan (“The Light Thief”). I’m hoping to see the last of those — reportedly a heartwarmer about an electrician coming to the aid of an impoverished rural community — at the London fest later this week, but the other three are unfamiliar to me. Always nice to see more African countries in the running, however.
I kind of don’t like calling it “Batman 3,” but in any case, Mike Fleming is reporting at Deadline that Tom Hardy, star of Christopher Nolan’s “Inception,” has been cast in a “lead role” in the sequel to 2008’s “The Dark Knight.”
Naturally, “insiders are keeping the role secret and won’t even say if he’s up for a villain role, but that seems a reasonable assumption,” Fleming writes. I find myself wondering. I heard an interesting theory (there are many surrounding these films) some time ago that Hardy would be an intriguing choice for actor Basil Karlo, aka Clayface (given his actorly role in “Inception”). All talk, of course.
There is also discussion that, solely based on the fact that the film is shooting in New Orleans, the villain might be bayou-centric…Killer Croc. I’d frankly be all about that if they could pull it off. Part of me wants this third film to embrace the heightened reality of the universe, rather than boil too much further into realism. Supernatural elements could be done in a classy fashion, I think.
The Academy has just announced the eight finalists for this year’s Best Documentary Short award. They are:
“Born Sweet”
“Killing in the Name”
“Living for 32”
“One Thousand Pictures: RFK’s Last Journey”
“Poster Girl”
“Strangers No More”
“Sun Come Up”
“The Warriors of Qiugang”
Think fast: when was the first time you remember seeing Sam Rockwell on the big screen? Most people probably caught up with him in the late-1990s in films like “Safe Men,” “The Green Mile” and “Galaxy Quest.” Others perked up, surely, when George Clooney had the vision to give him the starring role in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” For me, it was a near walk-on in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
He’s come a long way since taking on the role of a punk kid in the Foot Clan factory. I’ve loved him in pretty much everything, be it his aptly named Jimmy Silk in David Mamet’s “Heist,” his equally compelling grifter in Ridley Scott’s “Matchstick Men,” his underrated portrayal alongside Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” or, certainly, his pitch-perfect work in last year’s sadly forgotten (come awards season) “Moon.”
This year the actor is poised to potentially break out into the Oscar scene with a quality, lived-in piece of work in Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction.” Rockwell stars as Kenny Waters, a Massachusetts bad boy wrongfully imprisoned and eventually freed through the diligence of his sister, Betty Anne, who put herself through law school in order to prove his innocence. Fox Searchlight has provided us with an exclusive clip featuring Goldwyn and Betty Anne Waters discussing the casting of the role. Check it out after the jump.
Already announced, this year’s AFI Fest will be bookended by “Love & Other Drugs” and “Black Swan.” Today, more news. The press release, in part:
AFI FEST 2010 presented by Audi today announced its Centerpiece Galas, featuring ABEL (DIR Diego Luna), BARNEY’S VERSION (DIR Richard J. Lewis), BLUE VALENTINE (DIR Derek Cianfrance), CASINO JACK (DIR George Hickenlooper), THE COMPANY MEN (DIR John Wells) and an ensemble Tribute to THE KING’S SPEECH with director Tom Hooper and actors Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.
Also announced today are the films that will be presented as Special Screenings: The U.S. premiere of AMIGO (DIR John Sayles), CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (DIR Werner Herzog) in 3-D, MADE IN DAGENHAM (DIR Nigel Cole) and RABBIT HOLE (DIR John Cameron Mitchell).
The festival will take place at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Mann Chinese 6 theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel from November 4-11. The fest will also once again offer free tickets to all films, including Galas and Special Screenings Learn more here.
[Photo: The Weinstein Company]
You know the drill. Rattle off any queries you might have for us to address on this week’s podcast. If we didn’t get to yours last time don’t worry, I’ve saved them all and I’m sure we’ll get around to them at some point. Anne and I will be joined by both Guy and indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt from London this time around, so it’ll be a fearsome foursome. So far I know we’ll be addressing “Carlos” and the foreign language film category.
• Tim Gray weighs in on Oscar’s potential slide to January. [Variety]
• Darren Aronofsky is closer to jumping on board the “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” sequel than we thought/feared. [Deadline]
• Oliver Stone is pretty worried about Michael Douglas’s health concerns. [Associated Press]
Catch up with the idea behind this series here.
1983 was dominated by James L. Brooks and his sentimental weepie, “Terms of Endearment.” I can’t imagine it deserved the award, but I also have no room to complain since this is one of the few Best Picture fields where the winner is the only title I’ve actually seen.
Linda Hunt won Best Supporting Actress for “The Year of Living Dangerously,” playing a man. Felicity Huffman would come close to doing the same in 2005, while Sarah Jessica Parker sees her efforts continually overlooked film after film (I kid, I kid).
1984 was a battle royale between “Amadeus” and “A Passage to India,” with Milos Forman’s biopic eventually emerging triumphant. This year also saw Mr. Miyagi from “The Karate Kid” nominated in the same ceremony that awarded the first acting Oscar for an Asian to Haing S. Ngor.
Take it away, Sally Field- “The first time I didn’t feel it. But this time I feel it! And I can’t deny the fact that you like me! Right now, you like me!”
Amid the recent kerfuffle over the Motion Picture Association of America’s curious decision to slap Derek Cianfrance’s sensitive marital drama (and Oscar hopeful) “Blue Valentine” with a commercially inhibiting NC-17 certificate, I failed to note that the MPAA’s most drastic rating celebrated rather a significant anniversary last week.
October 5 made it 20 years since Philip Kaufman’s sexually explicit literary biopic “Henry & June,” the first film ever to be given the NC-17 classification, opened in US theaters.
Like “Blue Valentine,” Kaufman’s film was a high-end prestige item aiming for critical kudos and even a shot at year-end awards (indeed, it did wind up nabbing a solitary Oscar bid) that the sage folks on the ratings board nonetheless deemed a little too adult for the adults.
For decades before then, the X rating (now defunct, but still prevalent in everyday speech) had been their standby for such films — of which one, “Midnight Cowboy,” managed to override the X-rated stigma to win the Best Picture Oscar — but had since become too closely associated with grimy pornographic material.
I’ve been making notes on this in the comments section of yesterday’s Off the Carpet column throughout the morning, but it’s looking more and more like the magic number of 16 won’t be reached in this year’s animated feature film race. By my count, we have 12 titles.
One of them, Bill Plympton’s “Idiots and Angels,” may not have submitted the proper paperwork (I’m unsure at the moment). But it opened last week in New York regardless and will hit Los Angeles screens on October 29. Wouldn’t it be great to see Plympton in the mix, though?
I had originally though the Japanese “Tales from Earthsea” would be eligible, but while opening in a foreign territory one year prior is permitted (more of this arbitrary nonsense — it’s scattered throughout AMPAS rules and regs), more than that is not. The film opened in 2006 in Japan.
I’ve slowly begun to perk up at Chris Morris’s “Four Lions,” which has been playing the festival circuit all year and is heading for a November 5 release. I need to track down some screenings, but it’s worth noting that the film, a farce about British jihadists, was written in part by Jesse Armstrong, one of the co-nominees of last year’s “In the Loop.” And judging by the new poster, I’m guessing the film is funny. Check out the full image after the jump.
• President Obama met with children featured in the film “Waiting for Superman” yesterday. [Associated Press]
• Handicapping this year’s documentary feature Oscar race. [Vulture]
• Dave Karger explains his Gurus choices, calls “Love & Other Drugs” (one of his predicted Best Picture nominees) one of the sexiest films he’s seen in years. [Oscar Watch]
Its installments come all too infrequently these days, but Best Pictures From The Outside In — a collaborative project between The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers and his learned pals — is one of the best sources of Oscar discussion and analysis on the web.
That’s not only because it provides ample opportunity for kvetching over the Academy’s past mistakes (our favorite sport, let’s face it), but because its system of pairing up Best Picture champs from opposite ends of history often reveals unexpected patterns of progression (or not, in some cases) among the voters.
Their latest episode is a doozy on both counts, covering as it does one of the most roundly jeered winners in the category’s history, 1989’s thoroughly vanilla race-relations drama “Driving Miss Daisy.” (By contrast, the other featured champ, 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives,” holds up to this day.)
My attention was drawn to this article last week, but since the London Film Festival kicks off this week (and Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” will be competing for top honors there), now seems an appropriate time to link to it. Picking up on the role England’s capital city has played in a number of Leigh’s films — including his latest — the Wall Street Journal quotes the Salford-born director on his self-proclaimed status as an “ethnic London filmmaker”:
It’s precisely the city’s specificity that engenders the grittiness of Leigh’s “Naked,” for example, or the quiet melancholy of “Another Year.” “By definition, London is a kind of place that means so many things,” Leigh said. “I’ve lived in London exactly 50 years. When you reflect on your life in a slab of 50 years…I adore London. I think it’s a wonderful, glorious city. That does inform the stuff that you’re talking about.”
Fear not, you haven’t entered a very somber Tardis and woken up in December 2009. The BBC World Cinema Award is a small but creditable gong dished out annually to honor the best in foreign-language film — but due to a significant change in the show’s calendar, this year’s award effectively spanned the last two years of UK releases.
Hence the rather stale-sounding list of nominees, but congratulations anyway to Michael Haneke’s 2009 Cannes champ “The White Ribbon,” which triumphed over “I Am Love,” “A Prophet,” “Let the Right One In” and “Waltz With Bashir.” (Note the absence of a certain pair of recent Oscar winners for Best Foreign Language Film.) Previous winners of the award include “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Downfall.”
The award was determined by a jury headed by Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright Christopher Hampton, and presented in London last week. At the same time, Bernardo Bertolucci was honored with a lifetime achievement award. Anyway, nothing to stop the presses for, but thought you’d like to know.
[Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]
Well, it makes sense for The Weinstein Company to tidy up its slate a bit. “Blue Valentine,” “Nowhere Boy” and big dog “The King’s Speech” are enough to play with, and there is also “The Company Men,” which has been screening lately.
So we bid farewell to Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” which was looking like an awards season also-ran anyway, given the response out of Venice and Toronto. From the Lido, Guy wrote that “Schnabel’s stated passion for the material is scarcely evident in his screen treatment thereof” and that the film is “enlightening neither as emotional essay nor as straight-up history lecture…[it] seemingly lands shy of every imaginable target audience: it’s too dry for the middlebrow awards set that might otherwise thrill to its superficially good intentions, too didactic for the highbrow intelligentsia that turned out for the director’s previous outings, and too dull for just about everybody.”
David Poland originally Tweeted the news last night. I’ve been waiting all morning for an informed source to verify. Crazy, I know, but anyway, with said verification, chalk it up. The film will be released in March of next year.
[Photo: The Weinstein Company]
