In Contention

Tag: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

  • TELLURIDE: Clooney takes center stage

    George Clooney has been tapped this year for one of Telluride’s three big tributes, and it’s certainly the biggest of the trio. Whether it’s press and patrons schmoozing with the star at yesterday’s Patron Brunch, whispers around town (“Did you hear George Clooney is here?” “I really hope ‘The Ides of March’ is a TBA.”) or the ecstatic response to Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” this mountain burgh has been taken by Clooney fever.

    It’s a curious thing to see happen here at a festival that is so smooth and cool and not at all phased by celebrity. Clooney changes all those rules, though. And most of it has to be owed to his trooper disposition and charming charisma. He’s always “on,” and just about everyone wants to just throw back a few with the guy. Men want to be him, women want to…well, you get my drift.

    I tend to stay away from the tributes and spend that time taking in a film at Telluride. But since the actor is set to be feted later this evening, I thought I’d at least dedicate some space to his still in-progress career and the highlights that have brought him to this point.

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  • ‘District 9,’ ‘In the Loop’ also ineligible for WGA

    District 9With all the WGA casualties popping up this morning I thought I’d track down the eligibility concerns of a handful of other films in the mix and, lo and behold, some other high-caliber work doesn’t make the cut with the guild.

    Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell’s “District 9,” for starters, is not eligible.  It was not written under the guild’s guidelines and contracts and the writers are not WGA signatories.

    Some people may have thought this mass clearing might have made way for “In the Loop” to show up, but, alas, it is not eligible either.  Ditto (as you might have guessed) “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” along with Pixar’s “Up.” Animation companies do not sign agreements with the guild and are not signatories, even if sometimes the writers of animated films ARE signatories.

    I’m still poking around to see what else might be ineligible, but at this rate, I’ll be damned if I know what the list of nominees will look like now.  I guess we’ll suss that out in a few days when we preview the announcement.

  • London Film Festival shortlists nine titles for top prize

    Fantastic Mr. Fox I mentioned recently that the London Film Festival is upping its profile by adding a couple of new awards to its roster, including a crowning Best Film prize. This, I felt, was a positive development for a festival that becomes a richer, more rewarding cinematic showcase by the year. However, I must admit to being disappointed by the conservative approach they’ve taken to their new premier prize.

    Festival director Sandra Hebron yesterday unveiled a shortlist of nine contenders for the inaugural Best Film award, and a mostly familiar bunch of titles it is:

    “Balibo” (Robert Connolly)
    “Bright Star”     (Jane Campion)
    “Fantastic Mr. Fox”     (Wes Anderson)
    “Micmacs”     (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
    “Nowhere Boy”     (Sam Taylor-Wood)
    “A Prophet”     (Jacques Audiard)
    “The Road”     (John Hillcoat)
    “A Serious Man”     (Joel and Ethan Coen)
    “The White Ribbon”     (Michael Haneke)

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  • ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ poster

    Fantastic Mr. Fox

  • TECH SUPPORT: Best Original Score — Volume I

    The Princess and the FrogAs long as humanity has been recording history, music has been immensely important in society. Not only can it be joyous and entertaining, but it can capture the mood and feel of a time and a place. Cinema has been no exception in this regard.

    The creation of original music for a film is awarded by the Academy in the Best Original Score category. The composer has one of the most difficult and lonely jobs in filmmaking. Almost always arriving at the end of the editing stage, he or she has to fashion music appropriate to the mood of a film.  But when a composer does a magnificent job, the result can be iconic.

    This category tends to awards its favorites. It is notoriously one of AMPAS’s most insular branches (though it has warmed up to newbies slightly in recent years). It also tends to award music that features prominently in the films.  From this vantage point, however, it is always hard to guess which films will find themselves in contention, largely because we have not heard the scores.

    An exception in this regard is Michael Giacchino’s work on Pixar’s “Up.” Giacchino, who was nominated two years ago for “Ratatouille,” has once again composed a soundtrack which can be sad, joyous and suspenseful. The film is likely headed towards a Best Picture nomination, and I suspect a citation here will follow.

    Another animated film which may very well end up in contention is “The Princess and the Frog.” The music is being handled by Randy Newman, clearly beloved by the music branch. I remain skeptical of how this film will be received and, in any event, think that Best Original Song may be the more likely spot to consider for this film. However, Newman’s name means a lot and there are few other favorites in the running this year.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Whittling further as convention flees

    Max Records in Where the Wild Things AreAnother month, another step closer to the awards season.  As the summer winds down and the industry slowly begins to square itself with the off-season’s bombshell Oscar news, the picture becomes a little clearer.  Kind of.

    Universal Pictures, in a move speculated upon endlessly by now, shuffled two of its contenders — Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” and Joe Johnston’s “The Wolf Man” — off to 2010.  As Anne Thompson shrewdly noted in a recent item, the decision likely has everything to do with a numbers game.  The studio has experienced a rocky two quarters this year and things aren’t necessarily looking up.  Some think, in the case of “The Wolf Man,” the shift was made to avoid another box office misfire in 2009 (as by now, with push after push, the film is beginning to smell fishy).  Others say the “Green Zone” shift had a lot to do with “The Hurt Locker”‘s release pattern.

    Whatever the case, the evacuations change the Oscar landscape ever so slightly, giving us just a few more talking points in the vacuum of August before we have anything of value worth discussing when the fall festival season hits in less than a month’s time.

    Universal is now left with two critically divisive, commercially dubious titles in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” and Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” to hawk for awards consideration, effectively (if you’re asking me, though I realize no one is) taking the studio out of the game this year — or, at the very least, making the hill steeper.

    But taking note of the studio awards landscape, it doesn’t seem to me that anyone else is on surer ground.  As I look out at the many contenders and the campaigns being prepared for them, it appears the entire industry will be dealing with unconventional approaches and product to go along with the new changes in the Best Picture category (and all the headache that comes with them) this season.

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  • 7/29 Web Round-up

    Quentin Tarantino• Quentin Tarantino set to raise funds with special Chi-town screening of “Inglourious Basterds.” [Chicago Tribune]

    • Andrew O’Hehir on the lawsuit that could derailed the “Hobbit” adaptation. [Beyond the Multiplex]

    • In a tight economy, how do you decide what films deserve your hard-earned cash? [The Guardian]

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  • More images from ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’

    Wes Anderson on the set of Fantastic Mr. FoxOver at USA Today, Susan Wloszczyna has an exclusive first look at nine new images from Wes Anderson’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” plus some insight into the film’s screenplay:

    The much-expanded plot has been tweaked to include many elements found in Anderson’s other films, including a dysfunctional clan and a male rivalry. The four Fox children in the book have been whittled down to one handful: Ash (Jason Schwartzman, channeling his Max character from Rushmore), a petulant social misfit who wears a superhero cape and resents his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, Wes’ brother) for being good at everything.

    Schwartzman, a veteran of three Anderson features, proclaims Mr. Fox as “the ultimate.” “It’s funny, but also visually beautiful. Instead of adapting his style of directing to animation, he brought animation to him. He made a Wes film.”

    That last bit isn’t exactly a selling point for a guy like me.

  • Could ‘Mr. Fox,’ ‘Carol’ join toon Best Pic hopefuls?

    Fantastic Mr. FoxJoBlo has an exclusive first look today at the central character from Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” a Scott Rudin-produced animated Roald Dahl adaptation.  The film was recently shifted from Fox over to Fox Searchlight for the purposes of distribution, lest a small, niche film such as this be lost in the shuffle.  But I have also heard murmurs (none of them confirmed, mind you) that the film will be pushed for a Best Picture nomination now that there are 10 slots up for grabs.

    What is confirmed, however, is that Henry Selick’s “Coraline” will be campaigned for the top prize by Focus Features (while Richard Curtis’s “The Boat That Rocked,” recently speculated in this space as being primed for Oscar, will not).  And of course, Disney/Pixar will be hitting the pavement in favor of “Up.”  Before long, the question becomes, “Well if they’re going for it, we should, too.”  Which leads me to wonder…

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  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: Alexandre Desplat

    Tech Support at In ContentionOver the last several years, Alexandre Desplat has gone from being a relatively unknown (in the United States anyway) French composer to emerging as one of the most acclaimed and sought after commodities in the business today.  Receiving his second Oscar nomination this year for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Desplat has continued to cement his place at the top of his field.

    Despite the acclaim, however, he remains very close to his home in European cinema.  “I have tried to keep as much of a relationship as I can with my French directors,” he says.  “I always try to go to do two or three French movies a year.  That’s a lot but I don’t want to lose that.”

    While there are certainly exceptions, there is definitely a difference in the manner that French and American filmmakers approach their work, Desplat says.  Being forced to think differently because of different filmmaking styles helps his creative resources.  “It feeds me,” he says.

    David Fincher’s “Button” posed unique challenges for Desplat.  “It doesn’t have a linear storytelling,” he says.  “It’s a complex puzzle and I’d ask myself, ‘How do you deal with this in music and deal with the main character when he is a passive character?’  It’s not easy to capture in music.”

    Describing the film as a “sound epic,” Desplat notes that the music had to be strong without being overly dramatic or imposing.  It was a crucial demand from Fincher that Desplat says he had to struggle with.

    The composer has worked with some of the world’s top directors in recent years – Ang Lee, Stephen Frears, Jacques Audiard — but despite Fincher’s unique perspective in the wake of those talent helmers, Desplat says certain professional similarities smoothed the journey.

    “He has an amazing quality as a collaborator,” Desplat says. “He’s very demanding but so am I so that’s fine.  He’s very detailed but so am I, so that’s also fine.  He wants his people to bring their own world, talents and colors into the film.  I think that’s the sign of a great director.  All the great directors I’ve worked with know that it is crucial that your creative energy is opened and not just restrained.”

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