In Contention

Tag: The American

  • 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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  • LONDON: ‘Brighton’ hits the rocks

    The success of the London Film Festival’s annual Surprise Film screening isn’t exactly dependent on the surprise element: more often than not, the film’s identity can be pinpointed in advance simply by asking yourself which title you most expected to find in the festival lineup, and then didn’t.

    But even if pretty much everyone sitting in the Leicester Square theater three years ago knew they were about to see “No Country for Old Men,” that didn’t stop the keen applause, peppered with whoops of approval, when the title finally flashed on screen. Ditto the equally predictable-but-welcome selection of “The Wrestler” the following year. It’s a bit like actually getting what you asked for on Christmas morning: the unwrapping is a mere formality, but the result satisfies nonetheless.

    Festival director Sandra Hebron did pull a genuine surprise last year, when the consensus expectation of “Where the Wild Things Are” was dashed by the PSA-style opening of Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Still, by last night, Twitter-abetted speculation had narrowed so conclusively around Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock” — it being the most conspicuously absent Britfilm at a British festival, after all — that anything else would have been a jaw-dropper. (To Hebron’s evident vexation, it was the first title shouted out when she played her annual “guess-the-movie” game with the audience.)

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  • 9/16 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Jacki Weaver talks “Animal Kingdom” downunder. [New Zealand Herald]

    • Rowan Joffe on how he conceived “The American” as “an almost parodic contemporary Western.” [Movieline]

    • Mark Romanek on music videos vs. movies. [Wall Street Journal]

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  • Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Really?

    I never did put up a “What did you think of ‘The American?’” post last week but I am very interested what readers thought.  Of course, the film won the box office this weekend, which should be seen as a major victory for Focus Features marketing.  This was a film that needed to go out big on opening weekend because it simply wasn’t the film being sold to general audiences and wasn’t likely to fall in their favor.

    But is it such a crime to protect one’s investment?  Do marketers not have a responsibility?  And are they evil for following through on that?

    Well, Patrick Goldstein (who disliked the film and paints broadly with that brush) tip-toes the line between a “yes” and “no” answer to that question in a recent item asking whether viewers were bamboozled into seeing the film.  I tend to think it was a savvy job in a difficult profession.  Moments like this are when precision is necessary, or an outright disaster could be on your hands.  But then again, I really liked the film, so maybe I’m painting too broadly with THAT brush.

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  • 9/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Joe Morgenstern writes a love letter to Carey Mulligan.  It’s still all happening. [Wall Street Journal]

    • Jennifer Lawrence’s buzz wave makes its way across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • The foreign film submissions are already off to the races, and now the Netherlands (“Tirza”) declares. [Variety]

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  • 9/1 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Thomas Gladysz on the rarity of giving an Honorary Oscar to a film historian, in this case, 2010 honoree Kevin Brownlow. [The Huffington Post]

    • Roger Ebert sprinkles four stars on “The American,” which opens today. [Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Gregory Ellwood makes 10 predictions about the 2010-2011 Oscar season. [Awards Campaign]

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  • Corbijn’s ‘American’ would like your attention

    Director Anton Corbijn’s sophomore feature is not an Oscar film.  Unfortunately, such a classification immediately conjures skepticism, cynicism and wariness of a project slated for late summer/early fall release.  But the fact is, just because a studio knows a film won’t appeal to the sensibilities of awards season doesn’t mean it’s a turkey: it’s not a bad thing to not be an Oscar film.

    What “The American” is, however, is a measured, calculated, at times quite fascinating exercise in observing human behavior.  It’s the ultimate in “show, don’t tell,” a film with a central brooding, finely tuned performance from George Clooney that isn’t what you’d expect from the actor.

    It’s a quiet film, one that forces you to just simply watch and listen.  Corbijn and Clooney are putting on a very different kind of show for the viewer, one that doesn’t dazzle with spectacle and big budget intrigue.  They strip the mechanics of performance and visual storytelling down to an essence that the best filmmakers will surely appreciate, and most audiences will surely reject.

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  • A very European ‘American’

    Amid the growing buzz for the films about to make the festival rounds over the next two weeks, it’s easy to forget that one rather high-end title is hitting theaters as soon as Wednesday.

    Anton Corbijn’s hitman drama “The American,” starring George Clooney, was once expected to be in the festival pack — certain rumours had it opening Venice at one point — but Focus Features took us off-guard, settling instead on a release date that pre-empts the festival rush.

    Naturally, this change of course prompted chatter that the film wasn’t awards fodder (not something it ever especially appeared to be) and that it was more of a commercial play. That, however, certainly isn’t the impression left by this extensive LA Times piece on the film, which emphasises the “European” nature of the film’s tone and pacing — a gentle way of saying that it lies on the slower, more oblique end of the spectrum.

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  • Anton Corbijn’s ‘American’ picture book

    Anton Corbijn’s “The American” will be screening for press very soon, and it’s one of the films I’ve been most looking forward to this year.  The photographer-turned-director’s debut feature, “Control,” was one of the 10 best of 2007 in my book, and the latest looks to be a tense thriller with visual style to spare.

    Of course, it would be an aesthetic looker.  Corbijn’s photography is the stuff of legend.  And he’s directed some visually dynamic music videos in his time, such as Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” and the most intriguing of U2’s “One” trilogy.  But the director seems to making more of the production of his latest feature than we tend to get out of a filmmaker.

    First, he blogged the experience with nice accompanying photography.  Now it seems a collection of his photographs behind the scenes will fill what’s sure to be an attractive picture book, “Inside The American.”  Can’t wait to pick up a copy.

    Some more Corbijn awesomeness after the jump.

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  • Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’ to open Venice

    [FURTHER UPDATE: Focus has confirmed that “The American” will not, in fact, be appearing at Venice.]

    [UPDATE: “Black Swan” has indeed been confirmed as the Venice opener, and will play in Competition. More soon.]

    I’ve been saying for some time that this year’s Venice Film Festival looks to be a very good vintage, capitalizing on the number of highly anticipated auteur works that weren’t quite ready in time for Cannes. Even with Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” still a major question mark — some are even suggesting it won’t surface this year — there’s plenty to get quivery about besides, as is clear from this tasty Variety piece.

    Nick Vivarelli’s article reiterates the titles — including Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” and Julian Schnabel’s “Miral” — that have long been all-but-guaranteed to show up at Venice, but adds some tantalizing new ones. Chief among them is Darren Aronofsky’s ballet psycho-thriller “Black Swan,” which will premiere as the festival’s opening film on September 1.

    The press release breaking the news, and more Venice possibilities, after the cut.

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  • ‘The American’ poster

    I’m pretty amped for Anton Corbijn’s “The American.” The photographer and music video pioneer did a bang-up job with his feature debut, “Control,” and this adaptation of the Martin Booth novel looks to be a nice post-summer, pre-awards season antidote, as the trailer suggested last month.  Today a new poster for the film has hit and it’s pretty striking.  Check it out after the jump.

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  • ‘The American’ trailer

    I think the announcement of a September 1 release date was probably enough to assume Focus Features sees more commercial potential than awards prospects in Anton Corbijn’s “Control” follow-up, but it’s worth running the trailer.  Corbijn, you might recall, has been blogging his experience on the film.

  • Anton Corbijn blogs ‘The American’

    If only for the names involved, Focus Features’ thriller “The American” is one of my more anticipated films of 2010 — George Clooney stars, Rowan Joffe (who had a hand in my best-of-decade contender “Last Resort,” and also has “Brighton Rock” coming up this year) writes and, best of all, Anton Corbijn directs.

    Corbijn’s 2007 Ian Curtis biopic “Control” was a remarkable debut — though it felt less like an introduction than an extension of the director’s iconic work in the realms of photography and music video. I’m interested to see how he fares with a glossier genre piece. Blogging the shoot over at Focus’s site, he’s posted some production stills — they look a little like outtakes from one of his Depeche Mode videos, but that’s fine by me.

    The American

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Handicapping 2010 a year in advance

    Hilary Swank in Betty Anne WatersUncle.

    I told myself I wasn’t going to write this column this year, let alone make predictions, but some of you were just too cute in your emails and Twitter DMs asking for something akin to my annual year-in-advance take on the race, so I struck a balance: a column and contenders list, but no charts and no predictions.  Fair enough?

    The 2010 Oscar season looks, from afar, to be a muted affair.  Most of the films that look like competitors on paper have a distinctly “small” vibe.  Of course, no one knows when a film like “The Blind Side” will decide to come along and sweep the heartland and the Academy at large off its feet.  Maybe Tony Goldwyn’s “Betty Anne Waters” will play that role this year.  Maybe not.

    There are a considerable amount of actors and actresses with multiple performances on the way, more than usual, I’d say.  And most encouraging, the original screenplay field seems to be much more robust than the adaptations.

    Last year the big dogs looked to be “Amelia,” “Invictus” and “Nine,” and we all know how that turned out.  In fact, it happens with some frequency.  So why bother getting too deep into all of this now?  And to say nothing of the fact that, perhaps mercifully, nothing on the horizon appears to have that level of awards-baiting appeal.  No major filmmakers looking to cozy up to Oscar.  No big stars that seem overdue and are going for it with an obvious role.  None of that, really.

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  • Anton Corbijn’s next: ‘The American’ with George Clooney

    Anton CorbijnI was a huge fan of “Control” so this sounds like music to my ears.  The press release, in part:

    Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in the title role of The American for director Anton Corbijn (Control). Focus Features holds worldwide rights to the suspense thriller, which begins production this week on location in Italy. Focus CEO James Schamus made the announcement today.

    The screenplay by Rowan Joffe is adapted from Martin Booth’s novel A Very Private Gentleman, published in 2005. The film’s producers are This is that’s Anne Carey, who most recently produced Adventureland and The Savages; Smokehouse’s Grant Heslov, an Academy Award nominee as producer and co-writer of Good Night, and Good Luck, and producer/director of this fall’s The Men Who Stare at Goats; Smokehouse’s Mr. Clooney; Ann Wingate, who most recently produced Into the Storm, starring Emmy Award winner Brendan Gleeson; and Jill Green, executive producer of the long-running U.K. television series Foyle’s War. Enzo Sisti, co-producer of the upcoming When in Rome, is executive producer of The American.

    Alone among assassins, Jack (played by Mr. Clooney) is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his contact Larry (Bruce Altman of this fall’s Peter and Vandy) that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a spell. The assignment, as specified by a Belgian woman, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten of Focus’ award-winning In Bruges), is in the offing as a weapon is constructed. Surprising himself, Jack seeks out the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto (Italian screen and stage veteran Paolo Bonacelli) and pursues romance with local woman Clara (Italian leading lady Violante Placido). But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate.