In Contention

Tag: The Burning Plain

  • Jennifer Lawrence would like to remind you she’s hot

    Assuming (and I am assuming) that the film remains in the conversation, Kris and I will be at loggerheads all season over “Winter’s Bone” — I am a fan, he is emphatically not. What we do agree on, however, is that the film’s 19-year-old star, Jennifer Lawrence, is the real deal.

    Actually, we agreed on this point a year ago, when Lawrence emerged as the standout of a strong ensemble in Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain.” The film went largely unseen, but those who did get round to it were consequently less surprised than everyone else by the actress’s remarkable, film-carrying turn in this year’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize champ.

    Back in February, in a published conversation with The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers, I unwisely put my neck on the block by predicting a 2010 Best Actress Oscar nomination for Lawrence — and while the market for female Oscar contenders in bleak indies is already getting crowded, what with Lesley Manville and Michelle Williams in the mix, I’m sticking by that still-premature call. As I wrote to Nathaniel then: “[I]t’s such a mammoth performance, plus she’s young and hot.”

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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • OFF THE CARPET: Looking at the leading ladies

    Helen Mirren in The Last StationNow is the time when everyone begins assessing the race at its beginnings, and the gist I’m getting is that no one really knows what to write about.  Stabs at analysis end up being responses to other takes or rehashed arguments, and nothing really insightful is being brought to the table.

    And let’s face it.  As we dip into what looks to be the longest early-season lull in some time, there really is nothing insightful to offer.  So let’s just spit-ball…

    I think the Sony Classics acquisition of “The Last Station” is more significant than most seem to be aware right now.  There are only a handful who have seen it (Telluride being the film’s only festival stop so far), so that’s understandable.  And the film isn’t a knock-out, one that will be damned as merely efficient in some circles.  But with Helen Mirren in the lead actress race, it’s worth noting that suddenly that category is further framed as the old guard versus the new.

    And I may be wrong in my conviction, but I have to say it again: Mirren is VERY much in this race.  As the fiery Countess wife of a literary titan, she brings equal parts passion and delicacy to a complicated, certainly flawed character.  She’s afforded a number of moments that give her room to chew the scenery, and if Christopher Plummer happens to ride a wave of sentiment to a nomination as well, part of me feels that he will owe something to Mirren’s coattails.

    My predictions for the leading ladies this week are Mirren, Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe and, my weak link, Marion Cotillard (who is expected to be a lead actress push for “Nine,” but things could change).  In that collective we have three former winners, two legends of the form, two newbies and one performer shifting into the second gear of her career.  I think that’s a pretty good balance.

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  • 9/22 Oscarweb Round-up

    Jane Campion• Peter Bart takes note of two of the season’s leading ladies of the Oscar circuit, unlikely rivals Jane campion and Kathryn Bigelow. [BF Deal Memo]

    • Eugene Hernandez on the Oscar marathon. [indieWIRE]

    • Bilge Ibiri compares “The Insider” to “The Informant!” [Future of Classic]

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  • ‘At the Movies’ reboots

    The new iteration of “At the Movies” debuted this weekend with A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips.  The duo tackled Shane Acker’s “9,” the Sandra Bullock comedy “All About Steve,” Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain” (with a rather swift and wrong-headed assessment from b0th, I feel) and Mike Judge’s “Extract,” among others.  Here’s an online exclusive that I rather enjoyed, the two critics discussing the films that hooked them and made them realize there was more to the medium than entertainment value:

  • 8/25 Web Round-up

    Charlize Theron in The Burning Plain• Jeff Wells speaks up on the Best Actress race. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • “Black Dynamite” goes to Apparition. [Variety]

    • Behinds the scenes of “The Burning Plain.” [Coming Soon]

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  • Did Michelle Monaghan just enter the Best Actress race?

    Michelle Monaghan in TruckerI haven’t seen James Mottern’s “Trucker,” which had a world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and was praised in many quarters, most agreeing that Michelle Monaghan’s lead performance was awards caliber.

    Ironically, the press release (published in part after the jump) quotes The Hollywood Reporter’s Roger Friedman front and center just a few days after he bemoaned what he perceived as a weak year for Best Actress contenders.

    The strongest contenders right now look to be Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia,” Carey Mulligan in “An Education” and, sight unseen, Hilary Swank in “Amelia.”  If enough voters see “The Burning Plain,” Charlize Theron certainly has a shot.  But the bubble is big on this race, I’ll give Friedman that.

    Monterey Media has decided to release the film up for an October 9 release, right in the middle of the awards season.  We all know surprise contenders show up sooner or later.  Maybe we’re looking at our first one right here.

    A snippet of the press release after the jump.

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  • Salvaging ‘The Burning Plain’ across the pond

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainA couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the tortuous release schedule that Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut “The Burning Plain” has endured since making a respectable bow at Venice almost a year ago. The film’s buzz has fluctuated wildly over the months, but it was never softer than in March, when it opened in the UK to an alarmingly weak response.

    The hard numbers make for shocking reading: opening on a meager six screens, the film earned a humiliating $10, 626 in two weeks, before disappearing altogether. (For the sake of comparison, another humble Arriaga-penned effort, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” grossed over 11 times that amount.)

    As one of the few people who contributed to that gross, I may have had some reservations about the film — but there’s no question it deserved much better. Perhaps spring wasn’t the right season for a small prestige item like this.

    More than that, I suspect a film as intrinsically American as this one needed to arrive in the UK with some Stateside critical momentum behind it to prod the local press into giving it more coverage. Wrong time, wrong place.

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  • ‘Burning Plain’ is Arriaga at his best

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainLast night I caught Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” and like Guy, I’m having trouble settling my thoughts on the piece.  I suppose our combined ponderings will have to serve as the film’s review here at In Contention, but unlike Guy’s relatively reserved recommendation, I have to say I wholeheartedly endorse it as perhaps Arriaga’s most focused and, therefore, effective work yet.

    As a screenwriter in tandem with filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu (a partnership which crumbled around the production of 2006’s “Babel”), Arriaga has proved adept at twisting his narratives with potent themes and powerful, evocative structures.  But “The Burning Plain” represents a brave move inward rather than forward.

    I agree with Guy’s notion that the debuting director may have been “looking to safely downshift gears by making a tasteful, intelligent mainstream melodrama,” but more than that, I believe the film to be Arriaga’s most successful character study to date.

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  • 8/6 Web Round-up

    Nation's Pride• Nikki Finke takes umbrage with the “Nation’s Pride” trailer being used to promote “Inglourious Basterds.” [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

    • Graeme McRanor sits down with “District 9” composer Clinton Shorter. [Jawbone.tv]

    • Top 10 movie pregnancies. [The Film Experience]

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  • The see-sawing ‘Burning Plain’

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainThanks to the reader (modestly unnamed) who sent me a reminder of the recently released U.S. trailer for Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” a film that has endured a wildly uneven buzz trajectory since debuting at Venice nearly a year ago.

    Hailed out the gate as a strong 2008 Oscar vehicle for Charlize Theron, despite mixed notices for the film itself, it then dropped from view entirely, languishing in distributor-less purgatory for months on end. Its UK release came and went in March with zero fanfare and tepid reviews, and its U.S. prospects looked little better.

    I offered some thoughts on the film then, deeming it worthy as performance showcase (young Jennifer Lawrence, in particular, is a revelation) but dramatically thin and structurally obvious as storytelling.

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  • ‘The Burning Plain’ poster

    The Burning Plain

    (Courtesy: Collider)

  • Thoughts on ‘The Burning Plain’

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainI’ve been meaning to review Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut ever since I saw it two weeks ago, but for some reason, my thoughts on the film just won’t settle into place.

    It’s not a case of the film being particularly challenging or impenetrable — it’s Arriaga’s most structurally simple work to date, and arguably his most middlebrow too. I am, however, having trouble gauging precisely what the renowned screenwriter’s aspirations for the project were.

    If his intention was to make a searching character study for an arthouse audience, one that examines the occasionally mirroring intricacies of mother-daughter relationships from opposite ends of a slow-burning narrative candle, I’d have to deem the film an ambitious misfire, one that is too transparent in structure and thin in characterisation to bear the weight of its literary tropes.

    It is possible, however, that for his first outing in the director’s chair, the creator of such opaque, thematically dense narratives as “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams” was looking to safely downshift gears by making a tasteful, intelligent mainstream melodrama, one that operates more as an actors’ showcase than a writer’s (or filmmaker’s) platform. If so, the “The Burning Plain” — a generally compelling, well-crafted piece graced with a focused, charismatic trio of female performances — largely fulfils such a brief.

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  • ‘Plain’ brings buzz for Theron

    I’ve already said how high my hopes are for “The Burning Plain,” the directorial debut from one of the most interesting screenwriters in the business, Guillermo Arriaga. Now the reviews are trickling in, and they’re — predictably — mixed.

    Variety, as is often the case these days, provides the major buzzkill, dismissing it as “an elaborate writing exercise” (like that’s a bad thing) with “little to become engaged with.” Happily, Lee Marshall at Variety’s UK equivalent, Screen International, couldn’t disagree more:

    A powerful contemporary melodrama, more restrained but also much cleaner, in dramatic focus and emotional thrust, than the three films Arriaga penned for Inarritu … A sombre story about an unforgivable act and its cross-generational fallout is here leavened by a greater dose of hope and redemption than Arriaga has yet allowed himself, and the games The Burning Plain plays with its audience are amply justified by the emotional punch of the film’s denouement.

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  • First look at ‘The Burning Plain’

    As I mentioned in my Venice preview, “The Burning Plain,” the directorial debut from screenwriter extraordinaire Guillermo Arriaga, is one of my most anticipated titles of the year. Now a new series of images from the film has been revealed – check them out here.

    Not much to be gleaned from them that you hadn’t suspected already – it’s clearly an intimate piece focusing on actors rather than visual fireworks, and Charlize Theron is in dressed-down (but still beautiful) mode. The synopsis provided indicate that Arriaga is playing typically complex structural games:

    “The Burning Plain” weaves together two storylines taking place in the past and present. Kim Basinger will play Gina, the mother of Charlize Theron’s character as seen in childhood. Theron will play Sylvia, who tries to find common ground with her parents after a turbulent childhood. The two narratives eventually converge.

    So far, so good. Meanwhile, the announcement that the film will also play at Toronto only emphasises that this is one to watch. Arriaga has yet to misfire in my view – incidentally, his novel, “The Night Buffalo,” is excellent too.

    We all know by now how great an actress Theron can be when she connects with her material, and Basinger, rather like her ex-husband, is a more interesting character player than she ever was a star. (I’ve squeezed the former actress into my list of predictions – you can take a look at them here.) Here’s hoping the momentum keeps building.