In Contention

Tag: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

  • OFF THE CARPET: Strong year for double-dippers

    We find ourselves right in the middle of the big Toronto press junket, er, film festival, where 200-plus films are landing, many of them as world premieres, and the landscape of this year’s Oscar race is really beginning to take shape.

    As I looked out at the various films in play this year, it suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps more than ever, there are a lot of double-dipping actors and actresses in the hunt. Not all of these performances are or will be awards bait necessarily, but there could still be cases for more than a few saddling up to dual nominations this year.

    At the top of that list would have to be Brad Pitt. After already giving what many believed to be his best performance to date in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” the paparazzi-hounded star found himself the recipient of a lot of great ink for his work in “Moneyball” when it screened in Toronto at the end of the week. Wisely, Fox Searchlight will be planning a supporting actor push for the actor in Malick’s film, which is both practical (given his clear lead in the other film), and organic (given that, at least in my opinion, he is supporting to Hunter McCracken’s lead in “The Tree of Life”).

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    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.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Closing the book on summer 2011

    The summer movie season has come to an end, and what an interesting season it was.

    We saw three billion-dollar grossers for the first time ever in one year, let alone one three-month spread (thank you, 3D). We saw a bit of a glass ceiling for comic book movies, proving nothing is a sure thing in that game. We saw indie darlings with more stamina than the big dogs and we saw R-rated comedies find impressive footholds.

    But what does it mean in the spectrum of a film awards race, seeing as we have one knocking on our door in a bit more than a week’s time? Let’s consider.

    First and foremost, as reported here last year (and confirmed by Variety a few weeks ago), Warner Bros. Pictures is all set for a balls-to-the-wall Best Picture push for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.” With 10 digits in the bank and counting, and with a breathtaking critical pass, now is the time, and it’s a smart tactic. DVDs will be out right in the thick of the season, adding fuel to the fire. And it’ll be a nice counter to the other in-houses pushes, dramas like “Contagion,” “J. Edgar.,” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” (The studio could also go screenplay hunting for Dan Fogelman and “Crazy, Stupid, Love” if it wants.)

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  • BOX OFFICE: Our ‘Help’ in ‘Apes’ Past

    Okay, so now you know why I’m not usually charged with box-office pun duties. Come back to the five and dime, Chad Hartigan, Chad Hartigan, and so on. Still, it doesn’t take a prodigious number-cruncher — lucky, since I’m not one — to tell that this is quite a result for “The Help.” Even accounting for bestselling source material, for a female-driven, racially-themed drama in which the biggest star is the still-green Emma Stone to come this close to toppling a summer popcorner as robust as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is pretty spectacular: expect a strong hold as word of mouth for Disney’s cuddly civil-rights film builds, buttressing the eventual Oscar campaign. (For the sake of comparison, the far more star-powered “The Blind Side” debuted with $34 million in 2009.)

    Surely the week’s unhappiest new release, meanwhile, falls outside the Top 10: “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” pulled in a miserable $5.7 million, suggesting that the show’s many fans can still tell the difference between a film and an iTunes playlist in three dimensions. I’d worry that we’ve collectively lost our sense of wonder, but people are still going to see “Final Destination 5,” so let’s not panic.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • On the “danger” of Andy Serkis

    I suppose some might put it down to the fact that I didn’t find the film as spirit-lifting as many critics did, but I have a hard time signing the blogosphere’s imaginary petition for Andy Serkis to get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

    It’s not that I don’t admire Serkis’s expertise, or accept motion-capture performance as a valid and exciting discipline. Nor am I a physical purist in terms of what constitutes award-level acting. Not two years ago, I happily included James Gandolfini on my hypothetical Oscar ballot for “Where the Wild Things Are,” and I have no beef with the 2001 BAFTA nomination handed to Eddie Murphy in “Shrek.” An actor’s face may be his foremost tool, but if he can affect audiences without it, then more power to him.

    I will admit, however, to some uncertainty as to the border between Serkis’s contribution and that of the FX team; whereas I can locate and identify the limitations of Gandolfini’s work, much of the critical praise for Serkis’s Caesar hinges on a undeniable expressiveness that has nonetheless been enhanced beyond the actor’s own means.

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  • Things we lost in the fire

    Apologies for the silence on the site in the last day or so — Kris has been in transit, while I’ve been distracted by dispiriting events close to home.  The riots that have been plaguing London since Saturday night seemed to finally attract the full attention of international news networks today, but I’m not sure how effectively they can convey the queasy jumble of anger, confusion and dread afflicting most of the city’s residents, myself included.

    Many of us, even, are scarcely getting the full impression: it’s hard enough to wrap one’s head around local misfortunes — last night, I was dryly informed via Twitter that a bus a mere half-mile from my house had gone up in flames — before taking in the full, discontinuous jigsaw of incident and loss, and moving on to ponder what this means on a broader (and longer-term) national and social level.

    “It’s sad that so much damage is somehow being done with so little conviction,” I overheard a train passenger say this afternoon, a quote that seemed to me to sum up the stateless quality of the last couple of days.

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Apes’ rose

    I’m no box office expert, but while $54 million is obviously a great late-summer number for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” I can’t help but wonder if it would have had a shot at more bank if it had been let out of the bag earlier via advance press screenings. Regardless, word of mouth could keep its legs strong, and I’m sure Fox is more than happy with this. “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” hit a billion worldwide earlier in the week and will be lapped domestically by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” later this week. “Cowboys & Aliens,” meanwhile, is toast.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • Tell us what you thought of ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’

    I finally caught up to Rupert Wyatt’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” tonight and thoroughly enjoyed every frame. It’s easily the best blockbuster of the summer season and, I’d say, the best film of the franchise (including the classic first installment, which is far better as a concept than it is as a film). It’s also a real shame Fox couldn’t build some steam by showing it earlier and getting the word out, because I think a bigger box office might have been in the cards. We’ll see how it does Sunday, but for now, midnight screenings should be letting out shortly on the east coast. I’d love to hear your thoughts, so head on back here with them when you get around to the film this weekend.

  • Serkis addendum

    Thanks to reader Micah for pointing me to this NPR interview with Andy Serkis, which offers a nice nugget to dovetail with this morning’s post about Oscar-worthiness and the potential for a Special Achievement Award for the actor’s work in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” Here is his take on awards hub-bub around performance-capture (which starts at the 18:40 mark):

    My take on it is — and having worked on it for some years now — is that acting is acting. A performance is a performance. When we shoot these things, after they’ve been shot, the director, Rupert Wyatt, cuts the film, he edits the film. And the actor’s performance — my performance as Caesar, for instance, in this film — he can see my face on film going through all the emotions. He then cuts the entire story using my performance. And then eight or nine months down the line the visual effects shots, the overlaying of the performance with the skin and the texturing and coloring and painting over my eye movements and so on, that’s done later on. But the director’s already edited the movie and told the story and wants to uphold the performance of that actor.

    [Photo: NPR]

  • Forget Best Supporting Actor — it’s time to honor Andy Serkis’ “Special Achievement”

    There has been a lot of talk this week about Andy Serkis’ stirring performance-capture portrayal of ape rebellion leader Caesar in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” In many quarters, writers are calling for consideration in the Best Supporting Actor category. It’s a song and dance Serkis and those of us who follow the film awards season have heard before, but I wonder if it’s the wrong approach.

    It’s important to face facts if you want Oscar recognition for Serkis. The Academy — an actor-dominated body — is not ready to hail performance-capture outside of the effects arena. Period. Two years ago, “Avatar” showed us that there was fear there when it missed out on a Best Picture win. It was admittedly one of a handful of issues that served as a stumbling block, but the sense (amplified by competing Oscar campaigns) was that a quickly advancing technique could one day render actors obsolete. Yes, it was a ridiculous fear, but it was a fear nonetheless. And for some, I’m sure it still is.

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  • Weta out in front for VFX Oscar with ‘Apes’

    I missed last night’s big press screening of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (inexplicably held until the last minute and then embargo-requested — didn’t hold — by the studio despite people loving the film). I will, however, be catching it tomorrow night, but one thing we’ve been counting on since the beginning is a nomination for Best Visual Effects.

    Now, it’s looking more and more like the film could just walk away with the statue. Put state-of-the-art effects in a bad movie and you have an uphill climb. Just ask “Transformers.” The Academy at large doesn’t know what it should be looking for in the below-the-line categories, so more often than not, members just pick their favorite of the bunch.

    However, if you have undeniable effects work in a blockbuster that actually goes over well with the Academy, you have something to work with.

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  • COMIC-CON: It all ends

    Well, like I said. Another year, another Con.

    For a convention I expected to be a bit more laid-back than usual, it sure was anything but. I guess I put that on myself by hustling back to LA for a concert and back down again to wrap things up, but even having covered just a sliver of the event (compared to the thorough coverage from outlets with multiple on-hand correspondents, who do it so well), boy am I glad it’s over.

    If you’ve read the coverage then you know my extended thoughts, but here’s a recap nevertheless.

    The highlight of the entire weekend was, for me, finally seeing Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.” The film is an invigorating experience, an artful meditation that takes the most simplistic of narratives and turns it into a thorough character study.

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  • COMIC-CON: Fox brings ‘Apes’ and Andrew Niccol’s new vision of the future

    After all the “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” riff-raff cleared the drain this morning (sorry), I finally made it to Hall H in the afternoon, for 20th Century Fox’s panel. The slate of films previewed included Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” Andrew Niccol’s “In Time” and Rupert Wyatt’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

    I figure I’ll start with the latter, since it’s fresh on the brain. This is actually a film I haven’t been able to really take seriously for quite some time. I have a blind spot for it and just have kind of ignored it (while admitting that the effects stuff we’ve seen is impressive).

    Well, after seeing two clips and a sizzle reel of the third act action sequences, I’m not only sold on seeing it, but I think it could actually be something great. Not to be all breathless. Maybe my expectations are so low that any favorable morsel would have been delicious, but I’m stoked for story elements now, not just technical aspects.

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