In Contention

Tag: The Poseidon Adventure

  • Ronald Neame (1911-2010)

    It’s inevitable, but somewhat depressing, that most of the obituaries cropping up for British filmmaker Ronald Neame, who passed away yesterday in Los Angeles aged 99, mention “The Poseidon Adventure” at the top. (And look, I’ve only gone and done it myself.)

    As a director, writer, producer and cinematographer, Neame’s résumé is considerably more scattered and interesting than that hoary slab of big-studio Velveeta — including trick-laden DP duty on “Blithe Spirit,” Oscar-nominated script work on David Lean’s “Brief Encounter” and “Great Expectations” and a good run of unflashy but considered directorial efforts.

    Second to “The Poseidon Adventure,” Neame might remain best-known for directing Maggie Smith to her Oscar-winning (and career-best) performance in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” but on the less tony end of the scale, he had a knack for peppy comedy, including two delightful capers with happily mismatched star duos, “Gambit” (Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine) and the particularly underrated “Hopscotch” (Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson).

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  • Counting to ten

    Since the Academy announced the new ten-lane track for the Best Picture race, any number of bloggers have projected which extra films might have made the cut under this format in the last few years, a process that, for many, retrospectively hands hypothetical nods to everything from “Doubt” to “Memoirs of a Geisha” to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

    It’s a process that is as dispiriting as it is occasionally heartening, but so far there hasn’t been much informed analysis of how the Academy’s weighted balloting system might affect the lower reaches of the list. (I must wonder, for example, whether a “Geisha” had enough number-one votes to even crack a list of ten — the new format will certainly test the remaining power of the studio system.)

    Anne Thompson, however, offers by far the most interesting backward-glancing “what-if” piece I’ve yet read, in which an unnamed (but clearly authoritative) film historian digs a little further back to consider what a ten-nominee Best Picture category might have looked like in the years from 1967 to 1979.

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