In Contention

Tag: It’s Complicated

  • SANTA BARBARA: ‘Kells’ screens and the writers talk

    The Secret of KellsIt’s been a slow ramping up for me in Santa Barbara, coverage wise.  I’ve had some Wi-Fi difficulties that are being sorted and I’ve posted when I can from where I can, but a couple of notes on the last two days.

    Yesterday I took in a late afternoon screening of Tomm Moore’s “The Secret of Kells,” the film that probably served up the biggest surprise last Tuesday when it slid into the animated feature field over the populist, branch-respected “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and the less-respected “Ponyo,” which nevertheless comes from a titan of the medium.

    The film is beautiful in so many ways, offering a rich, artistic palette of shapes and color to paint a portrait of a well-circulated Irish story revolving around the non-fictional Book of Kells.  The artwork ultimately mirrors, in some way, the Insular art featured in the book, and the narrative itself, abstract as it feels at times, seems to be about the persistence of art and history.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Darkness’ falls

    Edge of Darkness*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    The self-proclaimed King of the World wiped the floor with the self-proclaimed King of Malibu as “Avatar” spent a seventh consecutive week at the top of the box office. A cool $30 million represents a drop of only 14% from last week and again sits only behind “Titanic” as the biggest seventh weekend tally ever.

    The running total is now $594.5 million and it should pass the $600 million mark by Wednesday, joining “E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial,” “Titanic,” “Return of the Jedi,” “Jurassic Park” and “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” as the only films of the modern era to do so. The success of this film has become so monotonous that I can’t even muster any energy to be snarky about it anymore.

    Mel Gibson’s return to the silver screen proved to be no “Taken.” It proved to not even be a “Legion” as it debuted with a soft $17.1 million. That’s the lowest debut for a Gibson joint since the $17 million start for “Braveheart” in 1995 on 1,000 less screens. Blame it on fading star power, bad accents, generic advertising and a lack of 3D smurf-like things riding dragons.

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  • ACE nominees

    Sharlto Copley in District 9For me, “District 9” is the biggest and most pleasant surprise for me in this morning’s American Cinema Editors announcement.  If ever the film looked like a lock for a Best Picture nomination, now is that time, I have to say.  Getting in over presumed Oscar frontrunners “Precious” and, most especially, “Inglourious Basterds,” that’s a pretty big feather in its cap if you ask me.

    “Star Trek” also makes another fairly strong case this morning for getting into the Academy’s 10 over something like “Invictus,” which keeps missing with guild after guild and should, perhaps, finally be called a spade.  The drama field is then rounded out by what has become the rather definitive frontrunner trilogy of films.

    In the comedy field, we get veterans in Joe Hutshing and Richard Marks perhaps predictably recognized for “Its Complicated” and “Julie & Julia” respectively, while the Coen brothers get their third nomination from the guild to date.  The other two: Best Picture nominees “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men.” Round it out with two comedies that are tricking people into thinking they’ll be Best Picture nominees (with no mention of the dead and dying “Nine”) and voila, the ACE Eddie nominees.

    Check out the full list after the jump.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Why it should be ‘The Messenger’

    (from left) Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in The MessengerThe writing is on the wall. “Nine” is on the precipice, teetering, on the brink of falling from the Best Picture ranks, 10 nominees or not. Speculation flies as to which film will be the beneficiary (as most concede this is the only slot in flux, though there are certainly compelling arguments against a secure spot in the line-up for “Up” and “A Serious Man”). And I find myself going back and forth as to which film deserves the designation.

    A glance at my best of the year column reveals what should be the obvious answer for me: “Star Trek,” J.J. Abrams’a tight reboot of a franchise that now has a new, vibrant lease on life.  It was, after all, my #11 film of the year.  It will absolutely land a number of #1 and #2 votes because, as mentioned in Friday’s Oscar Talk, it simply remains one of the most enjoyable films of the year for a great many.

    Also, it’s pretty nice when you have someone in the race, like Quentin Tarantino, calling it his favorite film of the year.

    That said, voters may feel that their sci-fi/genre vote has been cast with “Avatar,” while “District 9,” from producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp, is another genre entry that deserves a fair glance and could cock-block Abrams and company out of contention as well.

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  • Baldwin on Letterman

    This is from the holiday episode, which aired 12/23.  Early in the interview they touch on the Oscar hosting gig and later, of course, there’s “It’s Complicated” talk.  And a great story mid-way through about when Baldwin met Burt Lancaster in an elevator.  Hilarious stuff.  Here’s part one, part two after the jump.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: Box office is a Festivus miracle!

    Sherlock Holmes*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Holy shit. There’s no other way to describe the box office this weekend, which may well go down as the most attended three days on record. Nearly 35 million tickets were sold and three films grossed more than $50 million each.

    The number one movie for the weekend is James Cameron’s “Avatar.” I mentioned in the comments last week that it needed to drop a maximum of 35% to be considered a formidable box office force and a film with working positive word of mouth. Well, it dropped 3% to a virtually identical $75 million.

    $212 mil in 10 days for the film is the 18th highest total for any film after that amount of time and you can expect one more massive weekend and top spot finish on the way. $400 million is a very real possibility now and Fox has to get a lot of credit for convincing audiences that this was a film that you simply had to see or risk being ostracized. (I know from experience.)

    “Sherlock Holmes” came in a very strong second with $65.4 million for the weekend. Only “The Day After Tomorrow” has ever made more money as a non-#1 film, when it was beaten by the second weekend of “Shrek 2” in 2004.  It’s the sixth biggest December debut of all time and the film’s Friday gross set a record for a Christmas Day figure.

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  • Holiday film thoughts

    It struck me that I should probably offer up some space for you all to discuss the latest releases since it’s obviously been a slow-moving week, so if you want to speak up on “It’s Complicated,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Up in the Air,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “Nine” or, God bless you, “The Squeakquel,” have at it here.  I’m on a jet plane back to the West coast tomorrow evening and things will be back to normal Monday.

  • 12/14 Oscarweb Round-up

    George Clooney in Up in the Air• In case you missed this morning’s announcement, “Inglourious Basterds” and “Nine” led the field of BFCA nominees. [In Contention]

    • Frank Rich op-eds a love letter to “Up in the Air.” [New York Times]

    • Steve Pond painstakingly assembles a primer on how many votes a contender needs for an Oscar nomination per category. [The Odds]

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 13 — NBR, awards season party circuit and ‘Complicated’ awards prospects

    Oscar TalkWelcome to a belated edition of Oscar Talk, your weekly kudocast featuring yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood.

    On the docket today:

    • With the National Board of Review having kicked off the awards season, Anne and I discuss the big winners and implications for the season.

    • Tis the season and the party circuit is alight, so with that in mind, we talk about a few of the taste-makers around town this week, including…

    • Peter Jackson, Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci in an intimate cocktail party for “The Lovely Bones.”

    • Fox Searchlight’s holiday shin-dig in Century City with “Crazy Heart” principals in attendance.

    • An “Inglourious Basterds” DVD release party at producer Lawrence Bender’s home.

    • And a Summit holiday party with the folks from “The Hurt Locker” burning the midnight oil.

    • Finally, no reviews of “It’s Complicated” are allowed yet, but Anne and I discuss how we think it will fare in the awards race.

    Have a listen to this week’s podcast below, with a taste of Hans Zimmer’s score for “Sherlock Holmes” to start you off. As always, you can subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

    [display_podcast]

    Subscribe to Oscar Talk

  • THE LONG SHOT: The more you know

    Abbie Cornish in Bright StarHere’s something I’ll bet a lot of you wouldn’t have guessed: once upon a time, when my pants were short and my South African accent heavy, I was a very good Oscar pundit. I won every pool going. I beat the lame TV critics’ guesses and laughed in their televised faces. When that got old, I entered a radio “predict the Oscars” contest and won ZAR200 in mall vouchers. (Okay, that’s $26 – it was worth more in the 90s.)

    Since those heady days of glory, however, things have changed. The internet came along, for starters, and proved to be a hell of a lot smarter than me. But my own predictions – particularly at the nomination stage – got more wayward by the year; gone were the days of going five-for-five in one category after another.

    When it comes to picking the winners, meanwhile, I’ve begun losing Oscar pools to my brother, a mostly disinterested architect with an uncanny knack for calling the Academy’s most gauchely sentimental instincts. (He nailed the Best Foreign Language Film upset by “Departures,” for example, simply by reading a one-line plot synopsis of each nominee. I can learn much from him.)

    Why the lapse in form lately? It’s simple, really: I’ve started seeing the movies.

    That is to say, I’ve started seeing the movies in time. Back in the days when I had no access to press screenings or festivals, I was wholly at the mercy of South African release schedules, which usually meant I was lucky if one of the Best Picture nominees landed before Easter.

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  • 12/1 Oscarweb Round-up

    Roy Scheider in Iron Cross• Pete Hammond reports on a last minute surge to get “Iron Cross,” Roy Scheider’s final film, into Oscar contention. [Notes on a Season]

    • Gregory Ellwood takes note of the season’s box office champs so far: “Inglourious Basterds” and “Up.” [Awards Campaign]

    • Geoff Boucher talks to “Avatar” composer James Horner. [Hero Complex]

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Let it all bleed out

    Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely BonesEvery now and then this season, I’ve sat down and taken on the fool’s errand of deciphering what 2009, the year in film, has been “about.”  It’s silly because a given film year is the result of years and years of preparation and development, so to think a collective thematic consciousness settles in is a bit of a stretch.

    This year alone we have a swift production that at this time last year saw the filmmaker still in the editing suite for his late-2008 entry, while on the other side of the spectrum, a forward-thinking director will finally see the end of a decades-long journey for an anticipated “game-changer.”  Movies come from a thousand different places and a thousand different perspectives.

    Nevertheless, I’ve always come back to one thought on this year’s slate of films: catharsis.  With expected exceptions here and there, in one way or another, the bulk of what we’ve seen on screens in 2009 has very much been about emotional purging, bleeding out the past and, not to be too on-the-nose with the zeitgeist connotations, change.

    Let me illustrate.  The most and the least compelling examples are the best place to start: Lars Von Trier’s “Antichrist” and Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus,” respectively.

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  • THE LONG SHOT: Popular mechanics

    Chris Pine in Star Trek“My God, they’ve thrown in everything but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

    Quoted by writer Anthony Holden in his gossipy history “The Oscars,” this was one publicist’s dismayed response to the 1990 Academy Award nominations, which included such unusual concessions to popular (as opposed to critical) opinion as a Best Picture nomination for “Ghost” and a Best Actress nod for Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.”

    I remember this year well – I was eight years old, and it was the first Oscar race I followed in detail from burbling Christmas hype to the ceremony itself, digging up and scrapbooking all the press and TV coverage I could find.

    And from what I recall of my fledgling research, the unnamed publicist above wasn’t alone in her discontent. In particular, the “Ghost” nomination attracted levels of critical scorn even higher than those usually reserved for the Oscars – the common line being that the Academy had sold out to commerce rather than art, and that the sky would be falling at any given moment.

    Does this situation sound at all familiar?

    It should do. Though it was a response to an outcome rather than a possibility, the kvetching over the 1990 nods more than slightly resembles the panic that set in among certain pundits and fans alike (including, admittedly, yours truly) when the switch to 10 Best Picture nominees was announced in June.

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  • Could Baldwin be a sure thing for ‘It’s Complicated?’

    Alec Baldwin in It's ComplicatedSince I made my first Oscar nomination predictions in early June, I’ve had a weird hunch about Nancy Meyers’s “It’s Complicated” being something of a surprise package in the race.

    Now while I’ve known all along that Best Picture and Best Actress nods for the film were in the extreme wild-card class of prediction, a Best Supporting Actor nod for Alec Baldwin always felt comfortably right to me. Well-loved character actor, successful career reinvention, showy comic role in a probable December hit … all that’s needed is for the performance to be terrific, and the work is done.

    Over the months, Baldwin has crept onto more pundits’ predictions lists, with the news of his Oscar hosting gig being taken as a good or bad omen from various angles. Now Jeff Wells quotes two industry insiders who’ve seen the film, and say Baldwin not only has a nom in the bag, but potentially even a win:

    A non-vested writer-director guy told me this afternoon that he can “absolutely confirm” that Baldwin is the shit in Meyers’ film and a prime candidate for Best Supporting Actor. A vested party who nonetheless tends to be blunt said Baldwin is “a lay-down hand for a nom, Jeff. And he could win. Total breakout performance. Bet on it.”

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Original players

    (from left) Jeremy Renner and Evangeline Lilly in The Hurt LockerWhen I had the unmitigated gall last week to project a set of winners for this year’s Oscar race, I was a bit startled at how easy Mark Boal’s script for “The Hurt Locker” slid into the Best Original Screenplay slot.  Looking over the landscape of contenders in the category, it’s a little obvious why such a somewhat non-traditional entry would be pegged as a frontrunner: this is a pretty thin year for original screenplays.

    That should take nothing away from Boal’s work, which is certainly commendable.  But beyond Pixar’s “Up” (penned by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson) and the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man” (my pick for best-in-show in the category), there isn’t much competition for Boal’s play at the statuette.  I even find myself struggling with two more solid bets for nods after that trio.

    Fox Searchlight, however, is making some pretty strong moves on behalf of “(500) Days of Summer,” written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber.  The pair has already been cited by the Hollywood Film Festival as well as the Hamilton Behind the Camera awards.  Given the studio’s campaign prowess (and the undying spirit of the film’s champions), it makes sense to expect a spot to be reserved for the film here.

    To fill out the set, you’ve got a slot that is undeniably up for grabs.  So let’s dig into the field and see what we come up with.

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  • Studio FYC sites on the march

    A Serious ManIt’s that time of year, when studios roll out their awards-centric websites for films in play.  You get screening info, news and notes, reminders of how AMAZING their films are (with critical quotes to back it up), goodies like screenplays and such, etc.  It’s a good way to see how wide the net is cast during the season (since any and everything gets a “For Your Consideration” blurb), but I’ve always found it’s a good way to revisit the year’s films.

    First up, Universal Pictures has put together its standard assemblage hawking “Public Enemies,” “Bruno,” “Funny People” and “It’s Complicated.” Skimming through the “Public Enemies” section I was instantly reminded that Elliot Goldenthal’s score was actually quite wonderful and could be a sleeper to watch in a field that is notorious for its insularity.  You can even skim through tracks in a dedicated section and download the screenplay.

    “Funny People” has a similar set-up, with score toggling, the script, etc., while “Bruno” has no script to offer.  But you can listen to the raved out score again if you wish.  The “It’s Complicated” section has material to come and only mentions “in all categories” as it pertains to FYC business.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Looking at the supporting gentlemen

    Paul Schneider in Bright StarIn recent weeks we’ve been covering the performance categories in this space.  With little else of tangible interest, what else can we possibly discuss?  It’s as good a time as any to take note of what we have on our hands.  Be sure to check out our looks at Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress if you missed them.

    (Speaking of which, with the rise of “Crazy Heart” in this year’s race, it goes without saying Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal should be added to their respective fields as they are very much in this year’s race.)

    At first glance, the Best Supporting Actor category looks fairly established this season.  There have been, after all, a number of contenders already and plenty more to come.  But none have really stood out from the pack yet, making this race actually as up for grabs as any other.

    Possibly the most agreed-upon contender in the field has to be Christoph Waltz, who took acting honors in Cannes for his villainous portrayal in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” Waltz has made for quite the story off-screen as well, given his latter-career lift-off.  And even detractors of the film (yours truly included) have to consider his performance a highlight of the year so far.

    If anyone gives considerable chase here it’s going to be Christopher Plummer, smartly shifted to a supporting focus for his performance as Leo Tolstoy in “The Last Station.” Plummer will have sentiment (never been nominated) and added visibility (also appearing in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”) on his side.

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  • ‘It’s Complicated’ poster

    It's Complicated

    (Courtesy: IGN)