In Contention

Tag: All the King’s Men

  • ‘Another Year,’ ‘King’s Speech’ lead London critics’ noms

    The London Film Critics’ Circle can always be relied upon to throw a couple of wild cards into a nominee list of otherwise endlessly repeated names — demonstrating at least some awareness of life outside Oscar season. So it is this year, as their Best Director category is filled by Fincher, Aronofsky, Nolan, the Coens… and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai auteur behind Palme d’Or champ “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.”

    Similarly, “Carlos” powerhouse Edgar Ramirez crashes the otherwise familiar Best Actor lineup of Bridges, Eisenberg, Gosling and Firth. (Note: no James Franco, and a solitary Best British Film nod for “127 Hours,” suggesting that the film’s stock may be falling on this side of the pond too.)

    For the most part, it’s business as usual. “Another Year” and “The King’s Speech” top the list with six nominations apiece, though it’s interesting to see that neither film snagged a Best Director nod. (Indeed, five of “Another Year”‘s bids come in the performance categories — nice to see people recognizing that the film’s ensemble  extends beyond Lesley Manville.)

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  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1949 and 1950

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    “All the King’s Men” won the Best Picture prize in 1949, appropriately closing the book on the decade of socially conscious dramas hogging all of the attention. Somewhere, an eight year old Mike Medavoy sat in a dark theater watching and said, “I’m gonna grow up and produce a lifeless remake of this film. That’s what I’ll do.”

    The 1950’s were kicked off with “All About Eve” earning a record breaking 14 nominations and narrowly pipping “Sunset Boulevard” to the top prize. Again, the selection was appropriate as the two show business stories represented the new decade that would be considered a new “Golden Age of Hollywood”. As per usual, the Academy couldn’t fit all of the masterpieces into one show so the following missed the cut but are worthy of your time.

    1949 – “Jour de Fête” (Jacques Tati)

    Jacques Tati’s first feature came four years before his international breakthrough, “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday,” and doesn’t feature that titular character that would become his trademark, but it does feature all of the great things you would expect from a Tati comedy. Chiefly, that entails a lovable protagonist bumbling through his day to day life oblivious to the changing world around him and the effects his interactions have on it.

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 memories from TIFF

    Sarah Polley in The Sweet HereafterOne of the joys of my life is the 10 days in September I spend at the Toronto International Film Festival, bringing the film world to our city, the world press, and enough stars to take over Hollywood. The little festival that could, as it was known in the 1970s and early-1980s, The Festival of Festivals has become a world cultural event, perhaps the most important film festival in the world, and certainly rivaling Cannes for prestige.

    Created by William Marshall, Dusty Cohl and Henk den Henk in the mid-1970s, the festival struggled in its early days to get product, finally landing a major film with “Midnight Express” in 1978. A few years later “Chariots of Fire” would leave the fest on its march toward the Academy Award, while “The Big Chill” would make a huge impression when premiered here in 1983.

    More importantly, the actors and directors were turning their attentions to Toronto. In the early days, the organizers hosted tributes: Warren Beatty and Robert Duvall were there with many friends, further putting the festival on the map. Through the 1980s the festival continued to grow in prestige, expanding its Canadian program to showcase homegrown cinema, but never losing touch with Hollywood and world product.

    In the 1990s, Piers Handling took over as Director of the festival and changed the name to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and took the proceedings into the international realm. Handling, one of the greatest cinematic minds I have ever encountered, has been an extraordinary leader for TIFF, taking it into the next level of success worldwide while maintaining the roots that make it a people’s festival.

    I love it, and I maintain it is the finest festival on the planet.  Having covered it for the better part of a decade, close to 15 years, I think, here are my top ten memories of the festival, the films, the performances, the events, the goings-on.

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  • Calling out the Oscar quote whores

    Almost all critics and bloggers are guilty of it at some time or another — when one is suitably impressed by a particular film or performance, they often express their approval in Oscar-related terms. “So-and-so is Oscar-worthy,” “Start the Oscar buzz now for such-and-such,” and so on. It’s a lazy and fate-tempting practice, and I confess I fall into the trap occasionally myself.

    Now over at eFilmCritic, Erik Childress has posted an interesting and rather cheeky piece on the subject, in which he rounds up the worst offenders, and can’t resist taking the odd gleeful dig at certain misguided endorsements. This one particularly amused me:

    (2003) Angelina Jolie is brilliant. She gives another Oscar-worthy performance. (“Beyond Borders”) – Paul Clinton

    When you’ve stopped laughing, try these for size:

    (2006) Another powerful Penn performance. Oscar-worthy in every way. (“All the King’s Men”) – Clay Smith

    (2003) This film has more heart than any 100 films released this year. Earns its place in film history within the first hour. A masterpiece of nuance filmmaking. The first Oscar contender of the season. (“Matchstick Men”) – Mike Sargent

    (2004) One of the first serious Oscar contenders of the year. (“The Village”) – Jim O’Brien

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  • Kate Winslet: the greatest actress of her generation?

    Kate WinsletAt nearly 33 years old (eight days and counting) and with five Academy Award nominations under her belt, Kate Winslet may just be the greatest actress of her generation. Her work has not yet revealed any limitations.  Like Meryl Streep, she offers an authenticity in her work, even the lesser films.  She seems incapable of uttering a false line.  She defines authenticity at every turn.

    Her work in “Titanic” transcended the material, a shoddy screenplay that saw her running about the doomed boat making decisions about what to do next, and I’ll be damned if Winslet did not make it work. In the hands of a lesser actress, the performance, and perhaps the role, would have come across as silly, but she made a character out of Rose we dared to care about.

    There was heat between Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on the screen.  We believed the love, we believed the devotion, and she did this at a very young age. Earlier still she had gone toe-to-toe with Emma Thomson and Alan Rickman in “Sense & Sensibility,” earning an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress. Further back, you’ll witness chilling work in Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly Creatures” and one sees a major actress developing before our very eyes.

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