In Contention

Tag: Sugar

  • SHORT TAKE: “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” (**)

    BFI London Film Festival

    (LFF coverage will begin in earnest when the fest itself kicks off next Wednesday. However, given that this film is opening Stateside on Friday, it made sense to yank the review forward.)

    Hitherto a pair of the brightest lights on the American indie-film scene, writing-directing duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck share an apparent interest in rerouting classic Hollywood story patterns to a sharper, sadder place. Their first two superb features both took on genres largely characterized by inspirational narratives, only to find compromised hope in irregular resolutions: “Half Nelson” is an idealistic-teacher movie where the educator in question needs as much repair as his students, while “Sugar” is a sports drama whose gifted baseballer hero winds up pursuing the American Dream off the pitch.

    If anyone, then, could breathe new life into the well-fed subgenre of the mental-asylum drama, you’d think it would be these two. Alas, Boden and Fleck have come a cropper with “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” a terminally precious and timing-deficient youth comedy that sees the filmmakers trading in their quiet, observational character shooting style for an artificial attempt to emulate the tricked-out, capital-Q Quirkiness of early Wes Anderson.

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  • Michael Moore on ‘Hurt Locker’ politics

    Michael MooreOne of the most common lines (usually used in praise) on our newly-crowned Best Picture winner is that it’s deliberately apolitical, taking no sides in the Iraq conflict as it aims simply to present the soldier’s experience on the ground. Kathryn Bigelow herself dismissed that as something of a misconception in a recent interview with Steve Pond:

    I guess my feeling is that graphic portrayals of innocent children killed by bombs, and soldiers incapable of surviving catastrophic explosions … I think that’s pretty clear. And then also, to add to that, the movie opens with a quote, “The rush to battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” So it’s definitely taking a very specific position.

    Blogging last night on the Oscar race, Michael Moore says much the same thing — less tacitly, of course, than Bigelow:

    The truth is “The Hurt Locker” is very political. It says the war is stupid and senseless and insane. It makes us consider why we have an army where people actually volunteer to do this. That’s why the right wing has attacked the movie. They’re not stupid — they know what Kathryn Bigelow is up to. No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”

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  • My dream ballot: part two

    Charlotte Gainsbourg in AntichristYesterday, I began my far-fetched wishlist of nominees for tomorrow’s announcement with a look at the technical categories. Today we move into the big races. And as much as I thought I had my favorites clearly mapped out in my head, a rundown of the eligible titles made for some very crowded races indeed.

    Once again, I’ve mostly played by the Academy’s own criteria, considering only U.S. releases from 2009 — hence the slight discrepancy with my Top 10 from December. But where certain titles seemingly never made it through the administrative red tape guarding Oscar eligibility, I’ve intervened on their behalf. (Films as good as “Summer Hours” can’t go unmentioned, after all.)

    Check out my picks after the cut, and share your own last-minute thoughts and hopes in the comments. My final predictions are coming shortly.

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  • Buried treasures: Chad’s best of 2009 (list and ballot)

    Robin Williams in World's Greatest DadUnlike Kris, I can’t quite come to the conclusion that 2009 was the best year of the decade. Nor can I call it the “year of the woman,” the “best year for animation” or “the year James Cameron brought a sense of wonder back to the cinema.” The only thing I can personally label 2009 is “The Year I Put in the Work.”

    In other words, as my taste drifts further and further away from the mainstream options, it becomes harder and harder to see the films that excite me. We’re talking about a list where the top 9 films earned a combined $2.3 mil at the box office, which “Avatar” will make in the time it takes you to read this article.

    Now, I am well prepared to field some comments on this thread labeling me a “snob” or an “elitist.” I am also willing to bet that these comments will come from people who have not seen many of the films I will single out.

    And who can blame them? Many of them played for exactly one week in a small, L.A. theater and then vanished into ancillary market oblivion. If I wasn’t diligent about seeing them that week then it was tough luck, and it took serious motivation to keep that going 52 weeks a year. But, my goodness, the rewards!

    In the end, I didn’t see everything I wanted to. “Lorna’s Silence,” “The Beaches of Agnes,” “Beeswax,” “Collapse,” “Tony Manero” and “The White Ribbon” all passed me by and could easily be included on this list in the future. On the flipside, interesting films I did see like “Wah Do Dem,” “Modern Love is Automatic” and “Alexander the Last” will never see the light of day in theaters and had to be disqualified from this list.

    I know Guy and Kris went with honorable mentions and a top 10, but I’m pushing forward with a straight top 20. Check back tomorrow for my dream ballot.

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  • Things of beauty: Guy’s best of 2009

    Julianne Moore and Colin Firth in A Single ManThe year of the woman. The year of animation. The year of science-fiction. Depending on who you read (and believe), the final year of the decade has been an awful lot of things.

    If you’re with Kris, it’s also the best cinematic year of the last ten. If you’re with an awful lot of others, it’s quite the opposite. I’ll stop short of rewriting the first page of “A Tale of Two Cities,” but suffice to say it’s been different things to different people.

    What kind of year has it been for me? I think I’ll need another year to figure that out in detail. But as I compiled the list you’re about to read, I happily concluded that it’s been, at the very least, a good one: the 25 titles gathered here were jotted down with minimal brain-racking, with still more fighting from the sidelines.

    None of them are grudging inclusions, either: I sincerely liked most of these titles too much to allow room for popular or critical phenomena that are worthy of respect, but nonetheless didn’t connect with me personally. There was a sufficient range of quality work in 2009 (following a lean 2008) that any film lover could afford to construct his own playlist of future treasures without resorting to consensus.

    Before we begin, a note on the construction of the list. In addition to my Top 10, there are 15 honorable mentions here, five of them singled out for extra consideration. Some of you will quibble that I opt to include international or festival releases that have yet to surface in the U.S.

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  • If I had a ballot

    Sam Worthington in AvatarEvery year I like to keep track of personal favorites throughout the Academy’s designated categories (plus one of my own addition, Best Ensemble). At the end of the year, my “if I had a ballot” post is the result.

    Of course, for the most part, I follow Academy designations here. If something is ruled ineligible, I play along. It’s not that often that something like that is egregious anyway, though the music branch consistently tests my resolve on the matter.  In years past I’ve tried to make it an AMPAS/critics’ awards hybrid kind of thing, but this makes it easier.

    I know, I know.  “Why don’t you just list what you think should be nominated, the rules be damned?”  Because then I couldn’t call it “If I had a ballot?”  But I guess I’m contradicting myself by adding a category.  I don’t know.  I’m just trying not to be too lamely definitive or authoritative with something like this, I suppose.

    Anyway, I’m also abstaining from offering up a list of foreign language nods. Firstly, I feel it’s been a rather weak year in general there, but I also haven’t made my way fully through the list of submissions either. So I’ll address that another time.  The same goes with he doc features, as I’d rather push through more of the eligible titles first.

    This year the top 10 is the Best Picture field, obviously, and from there, I toss my two cents into a variety of discussions. Here’s what I came up with…

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  • Going out with a bang: the best films of 2009

    Sharlto Copley in District 9I’ve often been asked throughout the latter part of 2009 why I should have the gall to consider it the best year of film product in a decade. It’s such a subjective circumstance that, of course, the only answer is, “I liked a lot of movies.” That’s not enough for most. Hard and fast evidence is necessary. A carefully outlined, persuasive argument is expected.

    I just liked a lot of movies.

    The year began slowly, as they tend to do. The first film I saw that cried for end-of-the-year remembrance was a modest baseball drama I caught at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in February. Then it was all the way into the summer before a blockbuster banged the first four-star gong, followed shortly by a happenstance viewing of an unconventional British biopic at the Los Angeles Film Festival and a catch-up viewing of one of the year’s Sundance hits.

    Sprinkled throughout was top-tier animated product, a Comic-Con screening of one of the best sci-fi outings in years (and a homefront viewing of another first-time filmmaker’s fascinating foray into the genre), not to mention finally catching up with one of two exemplary war dramas that debuted in Toronto last fall.

    Before long, the summer, with all its surprise delights, both substantial and appropriately frothy, began to wind down. The fall awards season picked up steam as Telluride fired the starting gun and, after that, it seemed every trip to a darkened theater brought some form of satisfaction.  Even the entertainments seemed to satisfy completely.

    How can one defend the position any more succinctly? I liked. A lot. Of movies. And I relish the opportunity now to pay tribute to the year’s best, some 30 titles, each of which could have been a top 10 finalist in any other year.

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  • AFI announce Top 10 American films of 2009

    Algenis Perez Soto in SugarJeez, give us some breathing room. Anyway, the American Film Institute has revealed their annual selection of the year’s best U.S. titles, and as usual, it’s a pleasingly diverse, idiosyncratic list.

    My heart sings to see Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s marvelous “Sugar” make the cut, at the expense of heavily-hyped titles like “Invictus” and even “Avatar” — Anne Thompson reports the latter got a special citation for technical achievement, though it’s not in the press release.

    From an awards-watcher’s perspective, however, the most interesting inclusion here might be “The Messenger,” whose higher-than-expected precursor profile suggests some may be underestimating its Oscar potential.

    Those looking for correlation with the Academy’s eventual Top 10 should bear in mind that a foreign title like “An Education” isn’t eligible for inclusion here. Even so, I’d say there are plenty of American titles not included here that are more likely to land Best Picture nods than, say, “The Hangover.”

    But that’s the beauty of the list — it’s always a joy to see a set of year-end honors with more on its mind than mere Oscar prognostication. Check out the full Top 10 after the cut.

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  • 11/27 Osarweb Round-up

    (from left) Penelope Cruz, Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard in Nine• The significance of “Nine” for Anthony Minghella’s legacy. [The Guardian]

    • Steven Zeitchik catches on to the year’s thin original screenplay race and bangs the drum for “Sugar.” [Risky Business]

    • Lauren Shucker talks “Up in the Air” with director Jason Reitman. [Wall Street Journal]

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  • THE LONG SHOT: Consider this

    John Malkovich and Jessica Haines in DisgraceThere’s nothing like an Oscar season to prove what a small number five (or even ten) is.

    We may only be in November, but already, months of conversation, covering a broad canvas of Oscar sure-shots and long-shots alike, have devolved into a ruthless mathematical elimination process, as previously five-wide categories fill up with safe bets. Before you know it, scores of previously fancied contenders are jostling for a mere one or two supposedly “free” slots on the ballot, and with each week that passes, the pool of possibles is culled further.

    This is, of course, hardest on independent or leftfield contenders. Having fought mightily even to enter the discussion in the first place, they must then rely on a flaky combination of precursors, DVD screeners and prayer to stay afloat.

    Miracles do happen, of course, thanks largely to the Academy’s weighted ballot system, where a number-one vote is all. (Nobody was talking about Tommy Lee Jones to take the last Best Actor slot in 2007, but there he was nonetheless. Ditto the recent likes of Michael Shannon, Samantha Morton and “City of God.”)

    With that in mind, I’d like to spotlight one contender in each major category that deserves a similarly happy outcome. Many of them are names I’ve championed before. Most of them are sitting on the furthest reaches of the sidelines. All of them deserve better.

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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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  • Nominees announced for 19th annual Gotham Awards

    Algenis Perez Soto in SugarAnd here…we…go!

    I’m on my way out the door and so I can’t fully comment on the just announced list of Gotham Award nominees (which, along with the trickling-in list of Hollywood Film Fest winners, really is making this seem like an Oscar season all of a sudden, no?)  But here they are.  A handful of other awards/honors were announced a few weeks back.

    I’m glad “Sugar” got something, even if it is a lone nomination in the ensemble field.  “The Hurt Locker” cleaned up with nominations across the board.  “Big Fan” did really well, too.  Your thoughts?

    Best Feature
    “Amreeka”
    “Big Fan”
    “The Hurt Locker”
    “The Maid”
    “A Serious Man”

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  • THE LISTS: Top 10 first-half releases that deserved better

    Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston in He's Just Not That Into YouAround this time last year, we did a mid-year stocktake of sorts, wherein the site’s various contributors named the best (and worst) of what the cinematic year had presented thus far. You may have noticed that we haven’t offered up a similar piece for 2009. Time constraints may have had something to do with it, but given the slow start we had to the year, I suspect regular readers won’t have found it particularly hard to pick our favorites from the crop.

    As we’ve made clear on these pages, Kris and I are united in our admiration for such 2009 releases as “Public Enemies” on the large end of the scale, and “Sugar” on the much, much smaller end and, of course, “The Hurt Locker” somewhere in between. On our own individual tangents, Kris loudly declared his love for “Star Trek,” while back in May I went to bat for Olivier Assayas’s gorgeous “Summer Hours” – with the caveat that it wasn’t a 2009 release for me at all.

    (Release dates play havoc with such lists – using the U.S. release calendar as my guide, I could just as well hand year-best status to something like “Hunger,” if I hadn’t already done so in 2008. Even in the list below, I’ve technically cheated three times by including films that saw the light of day in my neck of the woods last year.)

    In any case, all of these are films that, wonderful as they are, either have already built devoted critical and/or public followings, or (as in the case of “Enemies”) hardly need further exposure. (Do you really need one more critic this summer to remind you about the wonders of Pixar?)

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  • 2009’s Oscar drought…same old song and dance

    Michael Caine in Is Anybody There?Over at Variety, newly minted editor-in-chief Tim Gray writes what we’ve been mentioning around these parts for a while: the first half of the 2009 film year is decidedly bereft of anything that might be deemed “Oscar-worthy” come January 2010.

    Aside from “Star Trek” and “Up,” the recognized critical faves of the year thus far, the best films I have seen are Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Sugar,” Duncan Jones’s “Moon” and Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” but I expect only two of those could stir the awards pot.

    Critics have also responded, intriguingly, to Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell,” but I think we all know it’s safe to strike that one from the awards roster.  And Focus Features’ “Coraline” is likely to make an impact on the animated feature race, but beyond that, you’d be hard-pressed to offer much in the way of a solid list as we approach the mid-way point.

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  • Two sugars

    As you know, we really love Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Sugar” here at InContention. The film opens today here in the UK, and I sincerely hope discerning Brit audiences can get past the unfamiliar baseball angle and see this for the lovely, universal character piece it is.

    Anyway, I thought I’d share this beautiful poster art from AllCity Design, easily the best in the game when it comes to UK release one-sheets. I love that they include rejected designs on their website — this one didn’t make the cut (the design they went with is pictured after the jump), but the elegance of its palette and composition caught my eye.

    Sugar

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  • 5/18 Web Round-up

    Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian• “Star Trek” looks to be a hit off-world. [The Carpetbagger]

    • It looks like Kenneth Branagh and Marvel have found their Thor: Chris Hemsworth from “Star Trek.” [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

    • Jeff Sneider takes a long, hard look at the MTV Movie Awards. [Examiner.com]

    • Tom O’Neil poses the obvious question: Will “Angels & Demons” bring another Razzie bid for director Ron Howard? [Gold Derby]

    • Speaking of which, someone finally calls out the two worst writers in the business as responsible for the clunky film. [Peter Bart]

    • Dan Jolin wonders if the latest 3D craze is a bunch of hogwash. [Empire]

    • Laughing stock Roger Friedman gets a new gig as “senior correspondent.” [Hollywood Reporter]

    “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” premieres in D.C. [Washington Post]

    • On the stamina of fan-movie filmmakers. [The Independent]

    • Sad to see a once-great magazine reduced to nothing but constant top 10 lists, but here’s another one: top 10 “safe for work” movie strip scenes.  Oy. [Premiere]

    • Tom Shone talks to Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, writer/directors of the brilliant “Sugar.” [The Guardian]

  • “My life”

    Faith in mankind restored. SUGAR doubled this weekend ($125K) what it made last weekend ($60K). And Indiewire reports: “What’s more, its $6,389 average was up near $1,000 from last weekend.” Now if only this continues.

    From family & friends who were at Q&As at 4/3 & 4/4 , 4/10 Boston plus I was at 4/11 SF, all were sold out – but then again all are Fleck/Boden home turf.

    One thing that struck me at SF was a 20 y.o. Chinese immigrant student, a 35 y.o. woman immigrant restaurant worker, and a U.S.-born 40-something Filipino gay man literally saying “That is *my* life!” (An extraordinary statement, especially by the women, if you think about it.)

    From commenter Ligaya on a recent “Sugar” post/plea for business.

  • ‘Sugar’ deserves a look

    Algenis Perez Soto in SugarChad didn’t bring up Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Sugar” in this weekend’s Sunday Cents column because, on 11 theaters, the film brought in a modest $71,000.  And it probably won’t move the needle much throughout its run where box office is concerned.  But I felt a need to put it back up on the radar since it will start expanding throughout the spring and hopefully find an audience of some sort.  By year’s end, I expect “Sugar” to still be lingering as one of 2009’s finest offerings.

    Here is my short reaction to the film when I saw it at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in January:

    Even though I never fully understood what it was trying to say, I fell in love with Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson” follow-up “Sugar.”  I missed the film at last year’s AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and it received a world premiere over a year ago at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, but a day after catching it at the Lobero Theatre here in Santa Barbara, I still find myself turning it over in my mind.  It’s the lingering sort of cinema that I’m tempted to say will mean something different to you every time you watch it.

    Algenis Perez Soto is the film’s revelation, a tender first-time performer who excels under the direction of Boden and Fleck, two filmmakers who have cornered the market on intimate indie filmmaking that actually resonates.  The duo isn’t afraid of the natural awkwardness of relationships, but not in the pretentious sort of way that leaves you reaching for a barf bag at every step of the way.  They trust their characters to be honest first, dramatic second.

    That can also be a hindrance for obvious reasons.  The narrative rarely escapes a sense of safety.  Nothing is ever threatened along the way.  Nothing ever seems truly at stake.  But, in a sense, such is life.  But “Sugar” is as much a departure from the themes of “Half Nelson” as it is an extension of them, and to be such drastically different films, that is fascinating.

    Give this one your 10 bucks, not the car movie.  Please.