In Contention

Tag: Elegy

  • Pedro Almodovar starts the buzz on Penelope Cruz in 2009

    Pedro Almodovar at the 75th Annual Academy AwardsWriting in the weekend’s New York Times Magazine, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar becomes one of the first to begin spitballing the efforts of an actress we’re likely to be talking about this time next year:

    Last year she finally came into her own in America, as she had already done in the rest of the world. Penélope is one of the most versatile actresses with whom I’ve worked. And this season she has proved it, with two performances in very different keys: the hysterical, very funny painter in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and the young, neatly coiffed student in “Elegy.”

    What will 2009 bring? For starters, “Broken Embraces,” a hard-nosed drama with the feel of a thriller, and Rob Marshall’s “Nine,” a remake of Fellini’s “8½.” My film is finished, and I’ve seen images from “Nine,” and I can tell you that this year Penélope Cruz will continue to plumb depths we haven’t seen before.

    Check out the rest here.

  • SANTA BARBARA: Writers talk writing, Cruz walks the red carpet

    Penelope Cruz talks to festival director Roger Durling at the Santa Barbara International Film FestivalYesterday was another busy event day for the Santa Barbara fest.  It was a shame the Director’s Panel was canceled, but participant Andrew Stanton switched gears to join Robert Knott (“Appaloosa”), Tom McCarthy (“The Visitor”) and Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”) for an Anne Thompson-moderated discussion on their work at the keyboard this year.

    It was a good discussion, though I couldn’t help a double take at Black’s prepubescent appearance as he waltzed casually on stage.  I mean it as a compliment.  I was also intrigued by his noting one of the things that really interested him when working on the spec “Milk” script was the famed politician’s not-so-heroic side.  “Sometimes he’d be in the bath house when he should have been home with his boyfriend,” Black said.  I say intrigued because one of the key criticisms of the film has been its overly haloed depiction of the man, a criticism that, frankly, hasn’t been properly defended by even the film’s legion of supporters (and I count myself in their ranks).

    Stanton, meanwhile, was perhaps the most thought-provoking member of the panel, finding a nice place amid Black’s low-key veneer, McCarthy’s wit and Knoll’s hilarious interjections.  And thankfully, Jeffrey Wells martyred himself by asking why Stanton continued to be “oblique” when addressing the overweight “teletubbies” of “WALL-E.”  This has been a bone of contention for me on the film for some time, not so much because I feel it undermines the film, but because I believed it to be an easy opportunity for mean-spirited “fat” jokes, so to speak.

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  • Small pleasures: Guy’s best (and worst) of 2008

    It’s a lovely thing when you realize, at least part of the way through adulthood, that we still possess the ability to surprise ourselves. When left to graze at leisure, the mind can stumble upon some unexpected notions, frequently overriding the conclusions we thought we had reached after twelve months of watching, writing and (occasionally over-) thinking. And more often than not, it knows best.

    This is what I discovered when I sat myself down on a poolside lounger in the remote hills of Portugal’s Algarve region and set about finalizing this list, which had been eating away at me for the better part of the last six weeks. After various tortured drafts drawn from my scrappy 2008 diaries, notebooks and In Contention entries — none of which looked sufficiently reflective or, frankly, right to me — I decided to dispense with notes entirely and start from scratch, using my memory as my sole resource.

    And so it was that when I asked myself, “What’s the best film you saw in 2008,” the answer that came was not only amazingly swift, immediately satisfying and ultimately inarguable, but it was not the answer I expected to receive. Of course, I knew the film would crop up somewhere prominent in the list — the mind is a filter, after all, not a magician’s hat — but it was one of several films this year (and indeed, on this list) that I would call “growers.”  You see them, you like them, but it takes a few weeks, months even, of rumination and interpretation before you realize just how much you love them.

    It’s something that should be borne in mind when it comes to awards voting, which work on a “survival of the fittest” basis: some films simply take longer than others to make a collective (or selective) impact. This may rule them out of competition time frames, but it doesn’t make them lesser achievements. Similarly, certain films that seem like huge, important deals at the time can leave us scratching our heads when removed from the flurry of the season. In a perfect world, Oscar voting would take place a year or two (or 10) after the release of the year-end glut — but it was ever thus.

    One perception of mine that hasn’t changed through the compilation of this list, however, is that it’s been a year of bijou pleasures. As one talked-up Hollywood title after the other disappointed, dissipated or dared to be merely “good,” the films left standing for me were mostly on the intimate side: small but beautifully formed works bound by character rather than concept, often asking penetrating questions about society, family and the nature of the individual. As the Americans, by and large, treaded water, European cinema soared, with France enjoying a particularly golden streak — the likes of which we haven’t seen in well over a decade.

    I may have complained often in these pages that it’s been a “bad year” for film, but as I look down the list of 20 titles that I finally arrived at, covering as it does a pretty rich variety of moods and forms, it now seems graceless to say so. When Hollywood flickers, different voices emerge, and for that we should be grateful. Perhaps it hasn’t been a bad year…just a smaller one.

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  • 12/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road• Jeff Wells senses the “push back” against certain contenders, steps up to bat for “Revolutionary Road.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Yours truly chats it up podcast style with John Campea to dish on how early favorites are shaping up. [The Movie Blog]

    • David Poland reports on the BFCA’s newest category: Best Action Film. [The Movie Blog]

    • T.L. Stanley talks “Elegy” with Sir Ben Kingsley. [Gold Rush]

    • David Carr reports from the sadly left-out-in-the-cold Fox Searchlight table at the Gotham Awards. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Geoffrey Macnab talks to Danny Boyle about Oscar heavy “Slumdog Millionaire.” [The Independent]

    • John Horn corners “Doubt” helmer and scribe John Patrick Shanley in the Big Apple. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Patrick Goldstein responds to some (some would say) odd Golden Globe classifications. [The Big Picture]

    • As “Milk” strives to make a difference, five films that actually did as much. [Spout Blog]

  • Baffling Golden Satellite noms unveiled

    Golden Sattelite AwardsI’ve never been sure what purpose the Golden Satellite Awards serve. People are only dimly aware when they take place, nobody cares who wins — least of all the winners — and they manage to be irrelevant both as serious film awards and as Oscar bellwethers.

    Nevertheless, they roll around every year, and they’ve just announced their nominations for 2008. It’s a typically eccentric list, with nominees in several categories seemingly drawn from a hat. Some people might read something into the fact that “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is missing from the top categories — though I commend them for the quirky inclusion of “Frozen River” in the Best Picture lineup — but these awards truly mean nothing. The list below makes for entertaining (and occasionally amusing) reading, but nothing more.

    For a good indication of the Satellites’ level of credibility, check out their bizarre nominees in the Best Original Screenplay category, which include not one, but two adaptations. Most hilariously, one of them is Philip Roth, nominated as the sole writer of “Elegy.” I’m sure Roth is surprised for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he didn’t write the screenplay. What the fuck?

    Best Motion Picture, Drama

    “The Reader”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”
    “Revolutionary Road”
    “Frost/Nixon”
    “Milk”
    “Frozen River”

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  • INTERVIEW: Dennis Hopper

    Dennis HopperThe voice on other end of the line sounds nothing like the many wild and somewhat insane characters Dennis Hopper has portrayed throughout his career, which now spans more than 50 years. This is a man who has walked with James Dean (his mentor), John Wayne (who affectionately labeled him a “pinko”) and Francis Ford Coppola.

    As a director, Hopper was part of the movement that would bring the New American Cinema into play, closing the 1960s with his biker flick “Easy Rider,” and though he won prizes at Cannes and was hailed around the world, he has rarely directed since.

    Hopper portrayed perhaps the single most terrifying character in a film with his seething work as Frank Booth in David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.’  The same year he was nominated for an Oscar for his work as the town drunk seeking redemption with his son through basketball in “Hoosiers.”  Even Hopper was stunned that the Academy failed to nominate him for Lynch’s film instead.  He remembers roaring, “HOOSIERS?  You’re kiddin’ me, man” when being told of the nomination. “Blue Velvet” was a film the Academy obviously feared, allowing a single nomination to David Lynch for his dreamy, surrealistic direction of the classic.

    Currently Hopper is celebrating the upcoming DVD release and a low-key Oscar campaign for Best Supporting Actor in “Elegy,” a fine little film in which he portrays the poet best friend of Ben Kingsley’s introspective professor — Sir Ben as Hopper calls him.

    “I was a big fan of Isabel’s [Coixet, the film’s director] work”, he explains. “So when my agent called and said I had an offer to be in a film with Sir Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz, I jumped in. It was a very human story, the sort of film I like to see, and being a big fan of Philip Roth helped me along. The film had comedy and tragedy, and most of all characters I think we can all identify with.”

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  • 11/5 Oscarweb Round-up

    Barack Obama• Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond take aim at Dave Karger’s Oscar predix. [Gold Derby]

    • Peter Bart praises Sean Penn’s performance in “Milk,” says it soars to the top of the kudo list. [Peter Bart]

    • Xan Brooks picks five films President elect Obama should check out now that he’s headed to the White House. [The Guardian]

    • Plus, it’s not too early to start pondering actors who might take on the role of Obama on the big screen. [Premiere]

    • Peter Knegt writes up the early days of the 2008 AFI Fest. [indieWIRE]

    • T.L. Stanley sits down with “Elegy” star (and Best Supporting Actor hopeful) Dennis Hopper. [Gold Rush]

    • Anthony Breznican talks to Kate Winslet about her potential one-two Oscar punch this year. [USA Today]

    • Dave Karger picks three unsung performances that deserve an Oscar push (he’s always good with these). [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Appalling.  “Milk” takes on a whole new importance. [Los Angeles Times]

  • Adapting Philip Roth

    Cover of The Dying Animal by Philip RothPhilip Roth is author of 25 novels and other works of non-fiction.  Revered in America, he has won every major American literature prize, including the National Book Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2002.  Despite his literary success, his films have had a difficult journey to the silver screen.

    I joined the long line of Roth fans that were disappointed with Robert Benton’s adaptation of “The Human Stain,” the 2000 novel that received the National Book Award for the best work of American fiction. It was an extraordinary book and perhaps Roth’s finest. And I believed that it would translate nicely onto the silver screen. While the novel weaved in and out of the past and present, the transitions weren’t so frequent that it would create a problem for the screenwriter, Nicholas Meyer (Oscar-nominated for “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.”

    Benton was able to attach an exceptional cast that included Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise. But when the film bombed with critics and audiences alike, it was quickly pulled from mainstream movie houses and relegated to small boutique theaters, and for short periods of time. It made only $5.3 million against a production budget of $30 million.

    Mr. Roth’s work has been adapted again by Mr. Meyer this year. Taking the pages of “The Dying Animal” and turning them into the film “Elegy,” Mr. Meyer and the film’s director, Isabelle Coixet have managed to create a finer adaptation of the text, and a far better film.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Newman remembered, Rudin/Weinstein, Foreign film race

    Paul Newman in HudAs we head into the weekend, here’s a quick overview of what we (and you) have been talking about at In Contention this week:

    • Kris paid tribute to the incomparable Paul Newman, as well as rounding up some of the man’s greatest performances.

    • As the Scott Rudin-Harvey Weinstein soap opera continues, Kris wonders where this leaves “The Reader” in the race.

    • John Foote contemplated the screen’s greatest leading ladies, past and present.

    • Matteo Garrone presented his red-hot foreign-language contender “Gomorrah” in London. I was impressed with the film.

    • Speaking of which, all the submissions for Best Foreign Language Film are in.

    • In the wake of a sensational new trailer, Apple takes a mouthwatering look at the tech credits of “Australia.”

    • Continuing the technical conversation, Gerard previewed the runners and riders in the Best Sound Mixing race.

    • Clint Eastwood scooped the first in what could be yet another run of awards for him this season.

    • And finally, in case you weren’t aware awards season has started, the people behind “Frozen River” and “Elegy” would like to remind you otherwise.

  • 10/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    WALL-E• A clip from “Changeling.” [Oscar Watch]

    • And another. [The Envelope]

    • Or, if you prefer, the first five minutes of “Blindness.” [Yahoo! Movies]

    • David Poland breaks the news that “Che” will get its U.S. debut at AFI Fest here in Los Angeles — at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. [The Hot Blog]

    • Tom O’Neil makes it clear that “Elegy” screeners only went to the AMPAS acting branch. [Gold Derby]

    • Rounding up the 50 greatest animated films of all time.  Further into the tank for “WALL-E.” [Rotten Tomatoes]

    • Famous cameos.  I heart the first one on the list. [The Independent]

    • David Thompson chats it up with “Burn After Reading” star Tilda Swinton. [The Guardian]

    • Has Dirty Harry become anti-cop? [The Big Picture]

    • Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen continue to make the rounds on “Appaloosa.” [USA Today]

    • Emily Parker goes head-to-head with a thoughtful Fernando Meirelles. [Wall Street Journal]

    • Glenn Kenny doesn’t care about what you don’t care about. [Some Came Running]

    • The Big Apple’s finest thespians. [New York Magazine]

  • ‘Elegy’ the second film to go out to AMPAS

    Screeners of Isabel Coixet’s “Elegy” are set to go out to Academy members this week, fresh on the heels of Sony Pictures Classics’ “Frozen River,” which went out over the weekend.

    Key pushes for the film are Best Actor (Ben Kingsley),  Penélope Cruz (Best Actress), Dennis Hopper (Best Supporting Actor), Patricia Clarkson (Best Supporting Actress) and Nicholas Myer (Best Adapted Screenplay).  Let the games begin.

  • ‘Broken’ beauty

    The news that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired rights to “Broken Embraces,” the latest from Spanish master Pedro Almodovar, isn’t really much of a story. After all, SPC have handled Almodovar’s last nine features, and after the success of “Volver,” why would they stop now?

    However, it does provide a nice excuse to post this gorgeous still from the film, courtesy of Almodovar’s always-interesting blog:

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  • Reel Geezers not big on ‘Elegy’

    These getting old yet? Maybe not…but the closing line of this one is cute enough: