In Contention

Tag: Agora

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Costume Design — Volume II

    Glitz and glamor.  Period prestige.  Newbie talent and old favorites.  How is the race for Best Costume Design shaping up this year?

    In my opinion, Jenny Beavan is leading the way at this point in time. Beavan earned six nominations in the 1980s and 1990s for her work on Merchant-Ivory films, winning for “A Room With a View.” But after “Anna and the King” and “Gosford Park,” she has been out of the running for almost a decade. That said, there must have been occasions (notably “Sherlock Holmes” last year) where she must have been very close. This year, she designed the threads for leading contender “The King’s Speech.” Recreating British royalty of the 1930s seems almost certain to result in Beavan’s return to the final five.

    Another eight-time nominee (albeit one with two wins) is Colleen Atwood. Atwood again teams up with director Tim Burton this year on “Alice in Wonderland.” The work was crazy fantasy. The branch doesn’t always go for that but they do frequently go for Atwood. That fact, combined with the film’s massive box office haul, leads me to believe Ms. Atwood is looking at nod #9 this year.

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  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Costume Design — Volume I

    Costume design in many ways represents much about the Oscars: glitz, glamor, beauty. But obviously threads do much more than make movie stars look attractive.  They build character, set mood, define period and serve as a defining design aspect of a film.

    Like art direction, the nominees for here overwhelmingly fall into one of two categories: period or fantasy. Indeed, when two contemporary films (“The Queen” and “The Devil Wears Prada”) were nominated in 2006, it was a rare occasion.

    It’s not an exact science, but while a fantasy film is almost always nominated every year, there is usually only one as four films tend to be period. It also should be noted that recent winners in the category have all highlighted British or French royalty and high society.

    Being a Best Picture contender does not hurt with this branch (same with any), but the branch also does a great deal of thinking for itself. Last year, for instance, both “Bright Star” and “Coco Before Chanel” managed nominations here, the only ones for their respective films. In the last four years, four other films (“Curse of the Golden Flower,” “Marie Antoinette,” “Across the Universe” and “Australia”) have also managed the feat, rare for crafts categories.

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  • 11/18 Oscarweb Round-up

    Philip Seymour Hoffman in Pirate Radio• The swashbuckling spirit behind “Pirate Radio.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Anne Thompson wants to know where the screeners of “The Hurt Locker” are.  Probably waiting on “New Moon” box office receipts. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • The gall: Why Roger Corman doesn’t deserve an Oscar.  Apparently there’s a “pro” side on the way. [Cinematical]

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  • 10/22 Oscarweb Round-up

    Adam Shankman• Steve Pond takes note of an Oscar milestone regarding Adam Shankman: the first tweeting Oscarcast producer! [The Odds]

    • Tom O’Neil stirs the pot, says there might be a “Precious” backlash in the works. [Gold Derby]

    • He does so in response to Lou Lumenick, who wonders whether Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey are hurting the film. [Lumenick on Film]

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  • 10/14 Oscarweb Round-up

    The Hangover• Dave Karger, in a slow news week, digs up the old “‘Hangover’ for Best Pic” notion.  No. [Oscar Watch]

    • Jeff Wells face-to-face with “Fantastic Mr. Fox” director Wes Anderson. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Susan King talks to editing legend Anne V. Coates, whose career was showcased at the Academy last night. [Los Angeles Times]

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  • Previewing the 34th annual Toronto fest

    TorontoIn less than a week I will kiss my wife and kids goodbye and head into Toronto, about 50 miles away, for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Twelve years ago my wife and I found it makes no sense for me to attend the festival for 16 to 18 hours and then try to drive home; beyond the danger of driving exhausted, arriving home at three in the morning tends to wake them up because our stupid, stupid dog begins barking the moment anyone pulls into the driveway. So for 10 days I live in the Delta Chelsea Hotel on Gerrard Street.

    This year I am finding leaving for the festival easier. Last year my wife Sherri was diagnosed with brain cancer and dealt with the removal of part of a considerable brain tumor. We went through radiation last summer, the loss of her beautiful, lush red hair, and the constant exhaustion she had to deal with. Cancer, sadly, is a family affair, and not something anyone should go through alone.  But this year we are in a good place.  The monster seems to be at bay, for now.

    So what I am looking forward to seeing?  Well first let me state that I’m shocked “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Amelia” and a handful of other films are not here. They seemed like good fits for the festival, their filmmakers have been here before, etc.  That said, it looks like one of the best festivals in recent memory, though I am not sure anything will ever beat out 2007, which presented a bounty of great pictures.  I was leaving screening room after screening room giddy.

    This year looks like a challenge for even the toughest film fester. Choosing the films to see is the toughest part because there is no chance you’ll see everything you want to see. There are generally three of four press/industry screenings at the Varsity, Cumberland or new AMC Theatres, as well as the public screenings which the press have limited access to. Our press pass allows us access to six (I think) Gala performances in the evening, but they sell out quickly. There is also a DVD library where you can watch the films in the rooms provided on your own, but films are meant to be seen on the big screen.

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  • ‘Agora’ trailer

    In yesterday’s inaugural edition of Oscar Talk, Kris and Anne Thompson discussed the bad buzz swirling around Alejandro Amenabar’s Rachel Weisz-starring historical epic “Agora,” which has been fruitlessly seeking a distributor since premiering at Cannes in May — and will continue the hunt at Toronto.

    Right on cue, here comes the trailer, and … let’s just say that Anne’s prediction of a “noble failure folly” looks ominously on-target. I’ve loved much of Amenabar’s work, but if I could barely keep my eyes open through the trailer, it doesn’t bode well for the film. Your thoughts?

  • Mixed early word for ‘Agora’

    Rachel Weisz in AgoraI’ve had slight misgivings about Alejandro Amenabar’s much-awaited historical epic “Agora” for a while, and I’m not really sure why. It’s certainly nothing to do with Amenabar’s own track record. For me, “The Others” stands as one of cinema’s great ghost stories, and while “The Sea Inside,” for which he won an Oscar four years ago, wasn’t quite up to his previous film’s immaculate standards, it was a rousing, intermittently stunning effort.

    Perhaps it’s because, even in his most conceptually elaborate work like “Open Your Eyes,” his work has such an intimate scale that the prospect of him taking on a massive sword-and-sandal endeavor like “Agora” doesn’t quite gel. Perhaps it’s because star Rachel Weisz has shown such wildly inconsistent taste in her selections of late. I have no idea, but I’m not particularly comforted after reading the rather mixed slate of reviews that followed the film’s unveiling at Cannes this morning.

    The Hollywood Reporter dithers over the film, declaring it a bit of a slog, but one that repays the effort, with “an unfaltering performance” from Weisz:

    Amenabar gets most of the epic staples out of the way relatively early: flatly acted scenes of textbook exposition, overly earnest extras, main characters who wander unscathed through hordes of butchery and, of course, frequently swelling music. The story then becomes a timely parable on religious intolerance, inexorable fundamentalist violence and the powerlessness of reason and personal freedom in the face of both.

    It is a pleasure to see Weisz’s scenes of scientific inquiry, which capture the passion of research and discovery without artifice or pretension. That the scientist is a woman makes it all the more engaging.

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  • Coppola goes to Cannes after all

    Francis Ford CoppolaAfter turning down an out-of-competition slot at Cannes earlier this week, it seems Francis Ford Coppola has had a change of heart. Variety reports that his new film, “Tetro,” will open the festival’s Directors’ Fortnight on May 14, marking the much-awaited film’s world premiere.

    The addition of Coppola adds some welcome lustre to a sidebar that frequently gets unfairly neglected in favour of the Official Selection (where “Tetro” was previously offered a place). The Director’s Fortnight may also attract attention for showcasing significantly more US talent than the selection of competition films announced yesterday, which included a mere two American titles (and only one from a Yank filmmaker, at that).

    In contrast, five American features make the Fortnight lineup, including Sundance talking-points “Humpday” and “I Love You, Philip Morris.” (Meanwhile, Lee Daniels’ much-garlanded Sundance sensation “Precious” (AKA “Push”) will appear in the Un Certain Regard strand of competition.

    Though the media focus tends to remain on the 20-odd films up for the Palme d’Or, Cannes runs far deeper than that. Some have complained that yesterday’s competition lineup, with its high quotient of previous winners and established auteurs, feels a bit too safe and insular (though “safe” hardly seems an apt adjective when the likes of Gaspar Noe and Lars Von Trier are involved), but it’s not just new talent lurking in the sidebars.

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  • Poking the Oscar stick at the distributorless

    Cover of The Men Who Stare at GoatsMichael Cieply, writing at The Carpetbagger (which, if you haven’t been aware, has been transformed into a year-round film blog at The New York Times rather than solely focusing on the awards season), has put up brief addressing a few titles that, as of yet, have no U.S. distributor but are very much on the minds of studios looking for latter year Oscar hopefuls.

    “It’s time to think about the Oscars,” Cieply writes, “or it is if you happen to be a film distributor with ambitions for the award season that, thankfully, won’t start for the rest of us until at least September.  At least a handful of movies with awards potential, but no U. S. distributor so far, are being watched closely by players in the game.”

    Cieply then goes on to list six titles in play: Alejandro Amenábar’s “Agora,” Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” Jon Amiel’s “Creation,” Jean-Marc Valle’s “The Young Victoria” (reviewed by Guy earlier this month — he wasn’t a fan), Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” and Grant Heslov’s “Men Who Stare at Goats.”  Three of those were listed specifically my year-in-advance Oscar column back in February and, of course, all but one have been listed in our contenders section for over a month.  The list comes from the mouth of an anonymous industry source who’s looking, however, so I’ll admit it has more stroke than my petty ponderings.

    The inclusion of the Weir film is a surprise, however.  Just last month actor Ed Harris told me he was off to Bulgaria to shoot his portion of the film, a historical epic revolving around escapees from a Siberian Gulag in 1940.  So that film is still very much in the making and likely won’t hit theaters (if I were to make my best guess) until 2010.

    Of the others, I would bet “Agora” could really hit the ground running this season if it isn’t dashed by its own ambitions.  The rest…well, we’ll see.