In Contention

Tag: The Lives of Others

  • When one decade isn’t enough

    Apocalypse NowAmid the plethora of “best of the 2000s” lists doing the rounds, the London Film Critics’ Circle has decided to go one (or two, rather) better.

    Since the end of this decade coincides with the organization’s 30th anniversary, they’ve rather oddly elected five standout films of the last three decades.

    Take note that it’s not a comprehensive “best films” study. The five titles have been selected from the list of previous top-category winners at their own annual awards ceremony. (“The Wrestler” was their choice this year.)

    Anyway, they made the most of their time span, going all the way back to 1979 for their #1 choice: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” I find it hard to argue with that, personally. Anyway, for all you list junkies out there, their top five is after the cut.

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  • Searching for Oscar meaning in IMDb’s top 15 of the millennium

    IMDbOver at IMDb there is a new feature called “The Power of Film” (lofty title, that), which has listed out the top 15 films of the millennium as voted on by IMDB users, i.e., fans, the public, regular folks.

    The IMDb top 250 is an ever-changing mish-mash of high-,middle- and low-brow entertainment that always makes for an amusing cross section of what the public thinks of cinema from one moment to the next.  “The Godfather” and “The Shawshank Redemption” trade off the #1 spot consistently, save for the spike of interest in this major new release or that, films that insinuate themselves high early on but inevitably fall down the list as more viewers get a look.

    The new feature, unsurprisingly, features Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” at the top, but strewn throughout is a diverse mixture including the “Lord of the Rings” triology, German Oscar-winner “The Lives of Others” and Pixar entries “WALL-E” and “Up.”  And speaking of Oscar, MTV’s Terri Schwartz has spun her wheels on the idea that, with a larger slate of Best Picture possibilities, the IMDb list could prove an omen for the potential blend of eclectic and entertainment cinema so many expect the Academy’s line-up to resemble from this year forward.

    (Schwartz’s thoughts and IMDb’s list after the jump.)

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  • Is ‘The Class’ in a position to upset ‘Bashir?’

    (UPDATE: I see Dave Karger is placing his money on “The Class” too. Interesting.)

    Yesterday, Kris took a look at the Best Documentary Feature category, and wondered whether the winner there is quite the foregone conclusion that most people think. Supporting his argument was the category’s unusual rule that voters have to have seen all five contenders before casting their ballots –- a rule which can make the category less susceptible to consensus thinking than elsewhere, as voters are forced to make aesthetic decisions for themselves rather than letting the campaigns decide for them.

    It’s a situation that can either consolidate a frontrunner’s appeal, or throw up a surprise as voters lose their hearts to a less-publicised gem. And while I agree with Kris that the latter is a possibility in the doc race, I’ve been wondering lately whether a similar upset could be brewing in the Best Foreign Language Film race –- which also requires voters to view all the nominees.

    For some time, “Waltz With Bashir” has been installed as the de facto frontrunner in this race –- and with good reason. It’s vastly acclaimed (remember the National Society of Film Critics named it the year’s best film, period), wildly inventive, won a number of significant precursors (though it recently stumbled at the BAFTAs) and, crucially, has a cache of political currency that could seal the deal for the frequently high-minded voters in this category.

    But it has a number of strikes against it too. It’s the first animated film ever to be nominated in this category, as well as the first documentary –- and the Academy isn’t exactly known for embracing the new. Given that voters in this field tend to be older Academy members, are we sure that they will take an animated effort seriously here? And are we sure that they won’t be put off by the film’s challenging, oblique structure? I’m not.

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  • Two years on

    Considering it’s written by the editor-in-chief of the foremost entertainment news publication in Hollywood, Peter Bart’s Variety blog continues (for this reader, at least) to be a disconcertingly slipshod affair. That his pieces frequently appear so rushed and second-hand is enough cause for concern without throwing elementary factual errors into the mix.

    But his most recent post, on the difficult certain directors experience in following up breakout successes, contained this groaner:

    What ever happened to that loveable husband-and-wife team of Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton who gave us “Little Miss Sunshine” four years ago?

    Uh, two years ago, Mr Bart. Hardly the longest hiatus in filmmaking history — least of all for indie-oriented filmmakers who have a prolific commercials career, and may need time to gather up funding for a project. It’s pretty well-known that Faris and Dayton have been planning an adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s brilliant novel “The Abstinence Teacher” (not the easiest sell in the world) since 2006, and have been working extensively with Perrotta on the script.

    These things don’t happen overnight — why the impatience? (Bart also manages a sideswipe at “The Lives of Others” director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, saying he’s “stalled” since his film came out two years ago, apparently an eternity in Bart’s mind.)

    Anyway, the main point of Bart’s post is to say that “The Abstinence Teacher” is set to start rolling for Warner Brothers in early 2009, which is obviously good news. While I found “Little Miss Sunshine” a little too pat for my liking, Dayton and Faris’ jagged visual sensibility and droll line in humour should be a perfect match for Perrotta’s incisive, wickedly funny study of a high school sex-ed teacher at war with a rigidly conservative suburban community. In tone and texture, it sits roughly halfway between Perrotta’s other two novels-turned-films, “Election” and “Little Children,” which bodes well for the new project.

    Something to look forward to. If you don’t mind a little wait, that is.

  • ‘O’ Horten’ trailer

    Bent Hamer’s “O’ Horten,” Norway’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film, has just got the shiny Apple treatment for its trailer. It looks melancholy, sweetly strange and altogether rather winning, as one would expect from the always interesting Hamer, whose Matt Dillon-starring 2005 effort “Factotum” really deserved more notice.

    The trailer comes complete with besotted quotes from Kenneth Turan and Lisa Schwarzbaum, and I’m hearing a fair bit of Oscar buzz around this one — that February 20 release date is auspicious indeed. Two years ago, Sony Pictures Classics released surprise winner “The Lives of Others” around the same time, and it paid off handsomely. Are they planning a similar coup for “O’ Horten”?

    With so many of the presumed frontrunners in the category on the bleak, gritty side, the voters may well gravitate towards a gentler, seemingly more sentimental contender like this.

  • Italy leads the charge at European Film Awards

    Proof positive that 2008 is a banner year for Italian cinema: Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Il Divo,” both masterpieces of a very different stylistic ilk, lead all nominees for the European Film Awards, with five nominations apiece.

    Joing them in the hunt for Best European Film are “The Class” and “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which makes four of my favourite films of the year in the list. Rounding out the nominees in that category are “Waltz With Bashir” and “The Orphanage,” neither film one to be sniffed at either.

    By any standards, that’s one hell of a group — I would be very surprised if the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best Picture match that collective quality. I’d be hard pressed to pick a personal favourite, though my gut says the Italian nominees will split the vote, and the wonderful “The Class” will emerge victorious.

    Four of those six reappear in the Best European Director category, with Steve McQueen (“Hunger”) supplanting Mike Leigh as the British nominee in that race. More puzzlingly, Leigh is also absent in the Best European Screenwriter category — curious, since “Happy-Go-Lucky” strikes me as more of a writerly achievement than the nominated “Waltz With Bashir.”

    More thoughts, and a full list of nominees, after the cut.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (***)

    The Baader Meinhof ComplexGermany has hit something of a sweet spot with the Academy of late, having won Best Foreign Language Film twice in seven years, and scoring two additional nominations — all with somber, rock-solid takes on aspects of the country’s fascinating 20th-century history. (Last year’s winner, “The Counterfeiters,” may have been from Germany’s neighbor Austria, but it was a clear continuation of the trend.)

    So I’m not at all surprised to hear whispers that this year’s German entry, “The Baader Meinhof Complex,” is going down well at Academy screenings. A weighty, expansive and absorbing study of the war of terror waged against the state by the radical Red Army Faction in 1970s Germany, as well as the personal conflicts raging between its three leaders, it ticks any number of Academy boxes: it feels ‘important’ yet accessible, exotic in subject but familiar in form. Intelligently structured and immaculately crafted, its initially daunting 150-minute running time fairly zips by.

    Yet it isn’t quite a great film. Where Florian Henckel von Donnersmarcks’s stunning “The Lives of Others” managed to filter volumes of political context through a finely wrought personal narrative, “The Baader Meinhof Complex” — admittedly working within the bounds of non-fiction — occasionally struggles to locate the human complexity within the history.

    The three protagonists speechify to rousing effect, but their psychological motivations and vulnerabilities remain frustratingly opaque to the end. Fine actors like Martina Gedeck and Moritz Bleibtreu consequently can’t find enough notes to play in the portrayals of the title characters; more compelling is Johanna Wokalek, who, as Baader’s wife Gudrun, colors her political passions with a fierce sexuality.

    Uli Edel directs with a sure, selfless hand, placing story before style, which makes sense with story material this rich. While his approach borders on the prosaic at points (I could do without such literal music cues as “Blowin’ in the Wind”), this is still robust meat-and-potatoes filmmaking: not as innovative or as challenging as other fare on offer, but nutritious nonetheless. The density of incident and detail crammed into the film’s frame is impressive, but it’s hard not to come away wishing one knew the people at its centre a little better.

  • The Guardian dashes Ledger’s Oscar hopes

    Not particularly new or earth-shattering perspective, but worth a link nontheless.  From a Xan Brooks item this morning in The Guardian:

    History…is not on [Ledger’s] side. James Dean was twice nominated in the wake of his death and yet still finished up as a posthumous loser on the night. More recently, Oliver Reed (for Gladiator) and Ulrich Mühe (The Lives of Others) were both tipped in vain for at least a nomination. In fact, the only actor ever to be awarded a posthumous Oscar was Network’s Peter Finch. Felled by a heart attack during the voting period, he swept to glory on a tidal wave of grief.