In Contention

Tag: Wild Grass

  • My dream Oscar ballot, part two

    Yesterday, I began my very far-fetched (and in some cases, frankly impossible) wishlist for Tuesday’s Oscar nominations with my favorite achievements in the technical categories. Today, I offer up my picks in the top races, and I don’t mind telling you things got pretty agonizing in some categories.

    “Why can’t I have 15 nominees for Best Supporting Actress?” one half of my brain asked earlier this morning, as I once more marvelled that any pundits could once have deemed that particular race “weak.” Cooler instincts prevailed, but it bears repeating just what a staggering, and pleasingly varied, year it’s been for female performances on both sides of the category divide. I was also surprised to see how many performances stood tall from films that weren’t necessarily on their stars’ level — I like to think there aren’t too many coattail picks here.

    I’ve veered from Academy format in one respect: I’ve dispensed with a Best Foreign Language Film category. Not only do I dislike the award in principle — it’s a different language, not a different medium — but my general picks are heavy enough on foreign fare that a ghetto category seemed superfluous. Check out my picks after the cut, and share your thoughts in the comments.

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  • 77 scores competing for Oscar, ‘Toy Story 3’ not among them

    They may have enjoyed a three-year run of nominations in the category, finally taking the gold with “Up” earlier this year, but Pixar’s hot streak in Best Original Score will not continue at the 2010 Oscars. Although Randy Newman’s “Toy Story 3” score wasn’t ruled ineligible by the Academy — unlike his work on last year’s “The Princess and the Frog,” which faced a late disqualification — Newman himself has opted not to enter it in the race.

    Pixar’s latest therefore joins a number of high-profile titles on the bench in this category, including the previously disqualified likes of “Black Swan,” “The Fighter,” “Tangled” and the Carter Burwell double-shot of “True Grit” and “The Kids Are All Right.”

    As Steve Pond points out, the official list of 77 films competing for Best Original Score makes for easily the narrowest field of the general categories. The good news, however, is that most of the names we most want to see recognized are still on it, including Daft Punk for “TRON Legacy,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for “The Social Network,” Sylvain Chomet for “The Illusionist” and arguable frontrunner Hans Zimmer for “Inception.”

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  • FIRST HALF FYC: Best Screenplay (Original and Adapted)

    For the third episode in our new Oscar-season feature, we take a recess from the acting races and look instead to the screenplays that roped the actors in to begin with. If you’re new to the feature (or even if you aren’t), the game is simple: railing against awards voters’ usual bias towards late-year releases, we’re highlighting a ballot’s worth of notable contenders in each major category, from films released in the first half of the year.

    I’ve been doing the categories on a one-by-one basis, but today I’m doubling down and covering both the Original and Adapted Screenplay races. This is partly in order to squeeze in everything I want to cover before Oscar nomination morning, but also partly because one of the categories proved less than rewarding on its own: starting with the adaptations and finding the pickings so slim, I decided that a beefier post was to be created from twinning the categories.

    That’s not to dismiss the films and screenplays I’ve selected, even the least of which offer substantial points of interest — and for which I still have more affection than some of the bigger names being  tossed into the Oscar ring. Indeed, the films in this list that don’t entirely click for me are no less (and often more) intriguing than those that do.

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  • ‘A Prophet’ tops César nominations

    Kristin Scott Thomas in LeavingWhat a shocker, right? In the nominations for France’s premier film awards, Jacques Audiard’s Oscar contender leads the field with a massive 13 bids. (Look out for my interview with Audiard, coming soon.)

    It’s nice to finally see some love for Niels Arestrup’s astonishing work in the film, but when a contemporary prison drama can nail down a nomination for Best Costume Design, a sweep is afoot.

    That said, the Césars don’t always go to plan: last year saw heavyweights like “The Class” and “I’ve Loved You So Long” upset by “Séraphine,” the film that went on to take Best Actress awards from two of America’s most prestigious critics’ circles. It’s always worth keeping an eye on titles that do well here.

    I’m surprised that Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass” didn’t do better here: the New Wave veteran’s critically beloved new effort scored a Best Film nomination, but little else, with Resnais himself snubbed in the Best Director race.

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  • ‘Hurt Locker,’ ‘Basterds’ crack Cahiers du Cinéma list

    Inglourious BasterdsAll cinéastes know that the annual Top 10 issued by Cahiers du Cinéma is pretty much the ne plus ultra of critics’ lists. The legendary French film magazine has taste that veers from the rigorously auteurist (recent list-toppers include “Redacted,” “Tropical Malady” and “Paranoid Park”) to the frankly perverse (“Lady in the Water” made the 2006 list).

    So when a comparatively mainstream Oscar frontrunner like “The Hurt Locker” crops up on this year’s Cahiers list, you know it officially taken the mantle of this year’s across-the-board critical darling.

    This year’s collective is a typically idiosyncratic affair, with an especially Gallic flavor: Alain Resnais tops the list, while eternally French-favored Yanks Tarantino and Eastwood feature highly.

    Their Top 10 is after the cut (thanks to Auteurs Daily for the tip).

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  • French masters vie for Louis Delluc Prize

    Wild GrassWhile I was away in Paris earlier this week, I was reminded there of the nominations for the Louis Delluc Prize. Awarded to a single title, it is arguably the most prestigious award in French cinema, having been won by such titans as Truffaut, Renoir, Chabrol, Malle, Bresson, Cocteau, Tati … well, you get the idea.

    Meanwhile, some formidable auteurs feature in this year’s shortlist, including past three-time winner Alain Resnais and, of course, current Oscar player Jacques Audiard. The eight nominees are:

    “Hadewijch” (Bruno Dumont)
    “I’m Glad That My Mother Is Alive” (Claude and Nathan Miller)
    “In the Beginning”     (Xavier Giannoli)
    “Irene” (Alain Cavalier)
    “Making Plans for Lena” (Christophe Honoré)
    “A Prophet” (Jacques Audiard)
    “Welcome” (Philippe Lioret)
    “Wild Grass” (Alain Resnais)

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  • Strong praise for Resnais

    Wild GrassI just stumbled across Glenn Kenny’s grandiose praise for Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass” and I’m champing at the bit for this film more than I already was:

    Okay, it’s “too soon,” and yeah, I’m a bit tired, but, still…here’s my Facebook page update as of now: “Resnais’ Wild Grass is a whacked-out masterpiece with an ending worthy of the final minutes of 2001 and/or the last chord of ‘A Day In The Life.’ There, I said it, I’m glad, and I’m gonna say it again, repeatedly, in various formats.”

    Wowsers.

  • Still crazy after all these years

    In the course of my daily rummaging, I happened upon this beautiful French one-sheet (pictured left) for Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass”  that instantly takes the lead in my personal “poster of the year” race. (The film, as we recently mentioned, has the honor of opening the New York Film Festival.)

    Wild GrassLast Year at Marienbad

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  • Resnais and Almodóvar bookend world-flavored NYFF lineup

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesindieWIRE has the full lineup for this year’s New York Film Festival, which runs from 25 September to 11 October, and at a glance, it looks remarkably like a greatest-hits lineup from May’s Cannes festival.

    This year, both the NYFF’s opening and closing films have been plucked from the Croisette. Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass,” for which the 87 year-old New Wave master received a special career-achievement award at Cannes, will kick off proceedings, marking the second year in a row that a French title has taken this high-profile slot.

    Palme d’Or winner “The Class” opened NYFF last year en route to an Oscar nod. Whether a similar path awaits Resnais’s film, a high-flown romantic melodrama which was very warmly reviewed in Cannes, of course depends on what the French choose as their entry from a bumper crop of possibilities.

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  • What will take the Palme d’Or?

    Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw in Bright Star It’s all over bar the voting. Tomorrow, Cannes jury president Isabelle Huppert will meet with her formidable, female-dominated team of eight – including the diverse likes of Robin Wright Penn, Asia Argento, James Gray and Hanif Kureishi – to pick over the 20 Competition titles they have seen over the last fortnight and select their collective favorites.

    As I’ve said before, the most surprising thing a Cannes jury can do is not to surprise: to hand the Palme d’Or to the critical and/or popular favorite. It can happen, of course – critics and pundits alike called it for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” the day it screened in 2007, and were proved right – but the list of upsets is long and illustrious.

    As you’ve probably heard by now, if the bookies have their way, French auteur Jacques Audiard will be brandishing the Palme this time tomorrow, his prison drama “A Prophet” having wowed critics and audiences across the Croisette. I’ll be delighted if he does, but I’ve questioned whether a French production can win two years running, after a two-decade drought to boot.

    Of course, such streaks aren’t unheard of: the U.S. held onto the Palme for three years between 1989 and 1991. Other questions running through my mind are whether Frenchwoman Huppert might want to avoid making the festival too much of a local affair, and whether Audiard’s all-male film will resonate as strongly with a mostly female jury.

    If not, there are a number of alternatives. By my count there are six titles seriously in the hunt for top honors. Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” is fancied by many to finally land the director the top prize. Earlier today, the film made its presence felt by claiming the FIPRESCI critics’ prize for best in show, though it should be noted that the jury’s and FIPRESCI’s choices have only lined up three times this decade.

    (More speculation, and my final predictions, after the cut.)

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  • Cannes: sizing up the Competition, part two

    Charlotte Gainsbourg in AntichristContinuing yesterday’s survey of the runners and riders in the race for the Palme d’Or…

    “ANTICHRIST” (Lars Von Trier)

    The pitch: You’ve seen the trailer. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe star as bereaved parents who retreat to a remote woodland cottage to nurse their grief, only to be terrorised by unnamed forces of evil. (English dialogue)

    The history: Over his seven previous Competition appearances, Von Trier has enjoyed a gradual ascent from the Technical Grand Prize for 1984’s “Element of Crime,” to the Jury Prize for 1991’s “Europa,” to the Grand Prix for 1996’s “Breaking the Waves” (1996) to, at last, the Palme d’Or for 2000’s “Dancer in the Dark.” Nothing since then, however, with his masterful “Dogville” coming up surprisingly (and undeservingly) empty-handed.

    The outlook: The film may appear to be familiar (albeit bloody terrifying) horror fare in the trailer, but we should know by now never to presume what a maverick like Von Trier has up his sleeve. Cannes is usually averse to the genre, so whether the film made the lineup because it’s something more subversive, or simply because it’s directed by one of their favourite sons, remains to be seen. Either way, the film will need to be something special to get Von Trier back in the winner’s circle – after all, “Dancer in the Dark” proved so polarising, juries have been unwilling to take a chance on him since. He tends to put his actresses through the wringer, so perhaps there’s a chance for Charlotte Gainsbourg here – but who knows?

    “SPRING FEVER” (Lou Ye)

    The pitch: Erotic drama follows a young man hired to survey a married man’s homosexual affair; tangled relationships ensue as the spy and his girlfriend become sexually drawn to the adulterous couple. (Mandarin dialogue)

    The history: Not counting an unfortunate 2006 withdrawal after his “Summer Palace” fell foul of Chinese censors, this is Lou’s second Competition appearance.

    The outlook: There is a great deal of goodwill in the world-cinema fraternity for Lou, who has fought a continuous battle with the Chinese censorship board. His last film, the politically charged “Summer Palace,” resulted in the director receiving a five-year ban from filmmaking – a ruling Lou is flagrantly flouting by screening his new film (which was shot in secret on handheld cameras) at this year’s festival. It’s a courageous move, and I think there’s a strong chance the jury might like to demonstrate their support for the embattled auteur with a prize of some variety.

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