In Contention

Tag: Restrepo

  • Tim Hetherington (1970-2011)

    This is terribly sad news. Tim Hetherington, the gifted British photojournalist who justly shared a Best Documentary Feature Oscar nomination with Sebastian Junger earlier this year for their joint debut “Restrepo,” has died on the front line in Misrata, Libya, where he was documenting the conflict. Also killed was his colleague, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Chris Hondros.

    I haven’t adequate words to respond to this. Hetherington, Hondros and his ilk are braver, better men than the rest of us: they risk their lives so that the rest of the world can see what would otherwise be unimaginable. “Restrepo,” which both Kris and I listed as one of 2010’s finest, is a vivid portrayal of combat unprecedented in its sensory immediacy, the result of many months spent embedded in a US Army unit in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

    Hetherington broke his leg on the assignment; would that the injury remained the biggest misfortune of his career. (On the same assignment, he took the now-famous shot posted below, for which he won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2007.)

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  • The five categories giving me hell

    With a little over 48 hours until the big night, I find myself in an uncommon state of disarray — my crammed Oscar weekend “To Do” list includes viewing all 15 short nominees in order to make an informed dart-throw of a prediction (stickler that I am, I held out for a theatrical screening), preparing copious supplies of food and alcohol for my second annual hotel-suite Oscar party (sorry, the guest list is full) and somehow finding time to write a final predictions piece.

    Before I can check off that last task, however, I actually have to settle on some final predictions — and despite the presence of solid frontrunners in most key categories, this year is giving me more trouble than most. For a race that, only a couple of weeks ago, seemed smothered in blanket affection for a single film, other possibilities have opened up that unusually equalize the possibilities of both a titanic sweep and a widely splintered share-a-thon.

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  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Documentary (Feature)

    It has been noted what a solid year of documentary filmmaking 2010 was. It was well-reflected in the Academy’s initial narrowing of the feature field to 15 contenders and is certainly evident in the ultimate quintet of nominees, each of them informative and bold in their own ways.

    Still, it came as quite a shock to many that the perceived frontrunner of the year, Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman,” was left off the list. Theories run rampant, but at the end of the day, it seemed the branch just didn’t go for the film’s stretching of truths and hastily boiled-down rhetoric. Nevertheless, an opportunity may have been missed to shine a light on the issue of education reform, which is still a considerable one.

    The nominees are:

    “Exit through the Gift Shop” (Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz)
    “Gasland” (Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic)
    “Inside Job” (Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs)
    “Restrepo” (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)
    “Waste Land” (Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley)

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  • 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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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 49 — Final pre-nod discussion

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    We’re moving into the last weekend before the Academy’s big nominations reveal on Tuesday. Anne is calling from Sundance, where the festival is just gearing up, leaving me alone in LA to my devices. But there are a number of things to address in these final pre-nod hours, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • FIRST-HALF FYC: Best Picture

    For the past eight weeks, I’ve been spotlighting nomination-worthy names,  in all major Ocar categories, from the first half of the US release calendar. Today, we close out the series with an alternative January-to-June Best Picture 10, though it comes a week after ballots closed — timing was never my strong suit.

    A look at this category on the Oscar side of things proves why I felt this series of columns necessary in the first place. Of the films currently being mooted for a place on the Academy’s Best Picture list, only two — “Toy Story 3” and “Winter’s Bone” — were released prior to July 2010. If the latter does wind up making the cut, it raises hope that small-scale indies can override voters’ perilously short memories. If it doesn’t, well, we must just accept that the first six months of the year contained no Oscar-worthy adult drama. Or, you know, not.

    There’s no doubting nine of the films on my list below are wild long-shots to show up in Tuesday’s nomination announcement — indeed, several of the titles aren’t present on the Academy’s list of eligible productions.

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  • A look at Oscar’s 15 documentary feature hopefuls

    While Guy has been surveying the foreign field, I’ve been diving in elsewhere.

    It has been considered a banner year for documentary filmmaking. So naturally, the Best Documentary Feature race has been an interesting one to watch since the season’s early days.  Two months ago the Academy announced 15 finalists (whittling it down from 101 eligible titles) still alive in the race for this year’s doc Oscar. Branch members will now select five nominees from the remaining hopefuls, which will be announced as part of the Academy’s big reveal Tuesday.

    Even if there are a number of examples that didn’t make the list but probably should have, those 15 films largely make for a sound representation of a great year for the form. I spent the last couple of weeks revisiting some and saddling up to others for the first time, so it seemed worth it to offer up my thoughts on each and my perspective on the race.

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  • DGA announces documentary nominees

    Two days after revealing their feature film nominees, the Directors’ Guild of America has named their five selections in the documentary category. It’s a list that mostly lends credence to the presumed Oscar frontrunners, with one notable exception: Chinese director Lixin Fan, whose lavishly acclaimed debut “Last Train Home” was left off the Academy’s 15-title documentary shortlist, to the dismay of many a critic.

    Fan isn’t the only first-timer to crack the DGA’s list: war journalist Sebastian Junger and photographer Tim Hetherington made the cut for their gutsy foray into filmmaking, “Restrepo.” Notably, if not surprisingly, absent is “Exit Through the Gift Shop” director Banksy — the Guild was never likely to tap a celebrity outsider who won’t even identify himself, and I suspect the Academy will have similar reservations.

    Meanwhile, note the three overlaps between the PGA and DGA lists, “Client 9,” “Waiting for Superman” and “Inside Job,” with only the last-named film also scoring with the Writers’ Guild. Just in case you hadn’t spotted the one to beat. Check out the nominees at The Circuit.

    [Photo: National Geographic Entertainment]

  • Guardian shortlists 10 titles for Best First Film

    When I was filling out my ballot for indieWIRE’s 2010 critics’ poll, Best First Film was perhaps the category I spent the longest time deliberating over — as unremarkable as the year has been in other respects, the amount of scrappy new directorial promise surging up through the cracks has been both unusually high and unusually prominent.

    Excitingly, much of this fresh filmmaking energy has been on the non-fiction side of things — something reflected in The Guardian’s newly announced shortlist for their annual Best First Film award. Four of the 10 films selected are documentaries after a fashion, even as they play with the boundaries of the format. (One of them, of course, turns out to be wholly a performance piece.)

    Included, of course, is Kris’s #1 film of the year, as is the film I eventually settled on for my indieWIRE vote. The list follows the UK release calendar — hence the inclusion of a 2009 title and the exclusion of, say, “Animal Kingdom” — but it’s a fine selection nonetheless.

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  • Likability: the best films of 2010

    I don’t quite know how to peg 2010.

    On one hand it has felt like a weak year. On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed quite a few films. Maybe the story lies in that sentence: “enjoyed.” There were precious few films that really rocked me, but plenty that were a nice enough experience.

    If you listened to Friday’s Oscar Talk, then you know my top 10. But before publishing it in this space, allow me to walk through the many films that fell short, starting at the top with Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine.” Here is an honest depiction of a relationship in crisis with performances that hit the mark. It wears its soul on its sleeve.

    The Coen brothers’ dip into the western genre, “True Grit,” was a straight-forward piece of flavorful filmmaking much appreciated for its restraint, while similarly, Ben Affleck’s “The Town” didn’t attempt reinvention of the wheel while forging a resonant character study in a genre film’s clothing.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Kicking the tires on the circuit

    On the precipice of December, the season feels at once stale and fresh. We’re in the post-Thanksgiving food coma paradox that hits every year. But things are going to start heating up real soon.

    The last two films out of the gate, “TRON Legacy” and “True Grit” (both ironically starring Jeff Bridges), have already started screening.  SAG ballots are already in the hands of nominating committee members and voting deadlines are approaching for various organizations.

    The circuit “officially” begins Thursday with the always arbitrary National Board of Review announcement. The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association will get a jump on the critics awards once again when they announce one week from today, while the Los Angeles (12/12) and New York online (12/12) and print (12/13) critics will have their say the following week, as well as the BFCA (12/13) and HFPA (12/14).

    The excitement will build to the usual pre-holiday stall and pick right back up on January 4 when the writers and producers guilds announce nominees, followed the same week by the art directors and sound mixers. And the date most will have their eyes on — January 10 — will bring the DGA’s list of contenders. Before you know it we’ll be on a collision course with the January 25 Oscar nominations announcement and things will be mercifully nearing an end.

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  • 15 films shortlisted for documentary feature Oscar

    Cue the annual outcry over what titles didn’t make it — judging from the Twitter reaction, this year’s most-mourned snubee is the Chinese critical darling “Last Train Home.” (I’d join the pitchfork-wielders, but I haven’t had an opportunity to see the film yet.) More surprising, however, is the omission of such widely fancied contenders as “The Oath” and “A Film Unfinished” — yes, folks, hell is experiencing a cold snap and the Academy snubbed a Holocaust documentary.

    Beyond that, hoewever, most of the perceived frontrunners are present, including “Inside Job,” “Waiting for Superman,” “Restrepo,” “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” and “Waste Land.” Joining them on the list, I’m happy to say, is “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” which I suspected would fall foul of the Academy’s usual resistance to crowdpleasing pop-culture docs. (The likes of “Catfish” and “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” took that bullet instead, unfortunately.)

    At this stage, I’m afraid I’ve seen only a third of the shortlist — from which Banksy’s shape-shifting, satirical art study is comfortably my favourite. (Come on, Academy: aren’t you a little curious to see who will show up if you nominate him?) “Inside Job,” however, plainly remains the film to beat. Full list after the cut.

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  • Deadline for Oscar docs looming

    As we enter the fall festival season with an Oscar prediction sheet still covered in question marks, there is at least one category where almost all the viable contenders have already been seen. I speak, of course, of Best Documentary Feature, a race already crowded with possibilities from earlier fests and the summer release calendar, and with a submission deadline less than a week away.

    Over at The Odds, Steve Pond informs us that filmmakers have until September 1 to enter their docs for Oscar consideration, having completed qualifying theatrical runs (one week minimum) in the past 12 months. Sifting through the titles in play, Pond likes the chances of such heavily-buzzed titles as “Restrepo,” “Inside Job” and “A Film Unfinished.”

    All three films take on weighty subjects — respectively, the conflict in Afghanistan, the global economic crisis and (a well-known pet theme of the Academy) the Holocaust — which should stand them in good stead with a voting branch not renowned for its sense of humor.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘Restrepo’ co-director Sebastian Junger

    It may have a hard time distracting audiences from shinier baubles on the summer-movie tree, but there are few films currently in theaters more invigorating and essential than “Restrepo.”

    An unprecedentedly first-hand war documentary, shot on the fly by a pair of filmmakers embedded in a U.S. Army unit stationed in Afghanistan’s perilous Korengal Valley, it emphatically earns the previously overused adjective “immersive”: as Taliban bullets rattle past the camera lens, the terror and confusion of combat hits harder than it has – or could – in any narrative war film.

    The film, which expands its release considerably today, leads an already impressive charge of American non-fiction cinema in 2010; it won the top prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and we can expect an outcry if due respect isn’t paid by the Academy’s documentary branch.

    The achievement is all the more impressive for being the debut film of Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, not that either name is an unfamiliar one. Hetherington is an acclaimed British photographer who won the coveted World Press Photo Award in 2007: interestingly, for an image from the same assignment that bore this film. Junger, meanwhile, is something of a superstar journalist, an adventurer best-known for his 1991 book “The Perfect Storm.” That work may have been Hollywood-ized in 2000, but Junger’s own big-screen ambitions were rather more casual.

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  • More halfway-mark blues

    A few weeks ago, I commented upon the scarcity of viable awards contenders released in the last six months, coming to the unsurprising conclusion that there hasn’t been much to, well, comment upon. In the past few days, however, Variety’s Tim Gray and EW’s Dave Karger have revisited the subject … and haven’t come up with very much either.

    A common emerging sentiment is that, with such a meagre first-half slate, filling 10 slots on a Best Picture ballot could be a challenge for many voters – and could ultimately result in a decidedly weak nominee field, one with more “Blind Sides” than “District 9s.”

    Sasha Stone has challenged this by suggesting that, in what she (if not everyone else) believes will be “a great year for film,” the Academy may end up looking to arthouse or non-summer genre fare to fill the gaps – though, to take two of her listed alternatives, it has to be said that while most critics would be down with “Winter’s Bone” making the list, “Shutter Island” would be a much more contentious nominee.

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  • ‘Get Low,’ ‘Monsters,’ ‘Skeletons’ among Edinburgh winners

    I have an irritating habit of missing key prizewinners at film festivals, so it was with some astonishment that I perused the list of films honored at the close of the Edinburgh Film Festival — only to find that I’d seen most of them. Considering the brevity of my visit, and my mostly random selection procedure, I can only conclude that the less I prepare for a fest, the better I do.

    Clearly, it’s not because I have a natural nose for a winner — I’d never have guessed that Aaron Schneider’s sluggish, self-regarding folk tale “Get Low” was a likely winner of the festival’s Audience Award, yet the public evidently responded to it more than I did. No accounting for tastes, I suppose.

    This particular award has proven something of a good luck charm in recent years, with winners like “Tsotsi,” “Man on Wire” and “The Secret of Kells” all going on to bigger things — perhaps last year’s Toronto buzz for the Robert Duvall vehicle wasn’t a false alarm after all.

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  • EDINBURGH: ‘Get Low,’ ‘Restrepo,’ ‘Vacation!’

    My third day in the ‘Burgh (shut up, I have legitimately heard people call it that) wasn’t as film-heavy as the previous one: social commitments and a certain football match between Slovenia and some other country got in the way. Under these circumstances, three screenings — taken together, as disparate a cross-section of the U.S. indie scene as one could ask for — felt like an entirely honorable commitment, particularly when the first (and worst) of them rewarded me with the still-smarting black eye I mentioned yesterday.

    Chalk it up, however unfairly, as a further gripe I have with a would-be Oscar vehicle for Robert Duvall that has been pestering the festival circuit since last fall.

    “GET LOW” (**)

    Oscar-winning short director Aaron Schneider’s feature debut is the kind of prestige production that has critics reaching for adjectives like “handsome” (or, at a push, “elegant”) in the absence of any more compelling emotional connection to the material. If anything, however, the ample visual burnishment on display (it’s no surprise to learn Schneider began his career as an acclaimed cinematographer) only ends up smothering a decidedly minor-key narrative: a folksy slab of mini-Americana that Horton Foote might have penned in a particularly mannered mood, and then binned for lack of consequence.

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  • ‘Winter’s Bone’ takes Sundance gold

    Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's BoneTalk about a good day for female filmmakers. Hours before Kathryn Bigelow’s history-making triumph at the DGA Awards, Debra Granik took the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance (in the U.S. Dramatic strand) for her critically lauded sophomore feature “Winter’s Bone.” Granik and co-writer Anne Rosselini also took screenwriting honors for the film.

    The film is one I had highlighted last month as a title to watch, so I’m glad to see it living up to expectations. I’m an admirer of Granik’s 2004 debut “Down to the Bone,” which put Vera Farmiga on the map — hopefully, “Winter’s Bone” can similarly boost the fortunes of young Jennifer Lawrence, who so excelled in “The Burning Plain” earlier this year.

    Granik’s film stars Lawrence as a resilient teenager searching for her missing father in the Ozark Mountains. Comparisons have already been made to Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River,” which took the same award at Sundance two years ago.

    The corresponding Grand Jury Prize winner in the documentary category was Sebastien Junger and Tim Hetherington’s debut effort “Restrepo,” a chronicle of one year in the lives of the Second Platoon in Afghanistan’s deadly Korengal Valley.

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