CANNES 09: "Antichrist" Gets a Stoning

Yet, despite all of the extreme responses this film has received since its screening in France, I still really want to see it, and may even want to see it more now. Good or bad, it looks damn interesting. (Ebert said it may, in fact, be unendurable, but it's not a boring movie, and that's plenty good to me.) And even if director Lars von Trier is the most self-righteous man on the planet, he makes some courageous films that look astounding, here aided by longtime collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle, who just won the cinematography Oscar for "Slumdog Millionaire." (Trier's a little like Kanye West in this regard: makes some irresistible stuff, but I abhor the man himself.) I enjoyed what he said at the conference that followed a few days after the screening where he was heckled to justify his work. (Anne Thompson has more from the conference.) He said something to the effect of "You are all my guests...I don't have to justify myself..." or this little picture of his, which he called "a dream" and has on several occasions also called his form of therapy after a bout of depression, and this little picture is a piece of his mind and soul. He is not our guest, so he doesn't have to humor us.

While not every reaction has been pure hatred and disgust, I think the Spartan yelling match is going to deem the dissenters the winner for the time being. Its chances at wide domestic release and/or success are in jeopardy. But I think they'll come around. Eventually. I think.

Do bad reviews excite you?


IMAGE from: Slashfilm

Coppola's "Tetro"

I love the cinematography and look of this film so far, and the posters are beautiful as well. There's three I've found (via Awards Daily), but the one included here is my favorite - evocative use of color in those light flares and the situating of the text (and the choice of font itself) atop the shot of Vincent Gallo and his brother would make for a perfect Criterion Collection cover. Slap on a "Director Approved" sticker and the neat letter-c logo and you're set. I'd buy that. Well, if the movie turns out, then I'd buy it. This is the first Francis Ford Coppola's written personally since "The Conversation" so hopefully that bodes well for the picture as a whole. (Criterion doesn't currently have any Coppola films in their collection, but I'd say this and "The Conversation" could surely, fittingly, get the ...ahem, conversation started.) The film's formula looks astoundingly fine on paper: Greek tragedy-like story involving an Italian musician father + Osvaldo Golijov to provide sweeping music on that front, whose score sounds at least ten steps away from a Nino Rota composition + immigrant family struggles, a la "The Godfather" + achingly beautiful Spain + Maribel Verdu to romance us as the girlfriend + Vincent Gallo under the direction of Coppola (the name of the game is restraint, Mr. Gallo) + Pedro Almodovar vet Carmen Maura in a mentor-role to play opposite Gallo = Cannes/Oscar glory? One can dream.

I've always thought that the circumstances that perpetually surround Coppola have been what has made his output drop - those expectations that he will conjure up another film-opera of dramatic grandeur like "Godfather" are hard to work with/through/around. He is actively trying to survive what George Lucas aggressively seeks to sustain. That past glory. Coppola, like Lucas, is a dynamic director and his projects ("The Conversation," "Apocalypse Now," "Bram Stoker's Dracula," even "The Outsiders") reveal latent idiosyncracies that were either too transparent, rudimentary or non-existent "Godfather"-era and they show his inclination to refashion his style with every picture. ("Dracula" strikes me as his most different project, but they all possess something unique from the others.) That's why so many people feel that the new "Star Wars" trilogy didn't work - Lucas is a different filmmaker with a different economy but the material and its fans demanded consistency, continuity. Coppola's fans work the same way. Of the "Film School Generation" the only one who's been allowed to carve out new territories is Steven Spielberg, whose projects combine the economy of an indepedent film (even titans like "Munich" and "Minority Report" took only a couple weeks to actually shoot) with the resources of typical Hollywood. I'd go as far as to say that while Spielberg has fashioned some real marvels, Coppola is the real technical genius, Spielberg just knows people and knows how to make them shine.



Here's hoping that Coppola finds himself even further revived with "Tetro" after the lukewarm reception "Youth Without Youth" received. He once said that he's only been able to make movies again (this was around the time "Youth" was in production) because he was inspired by the advances his daughter, Sofia, has been able to make with limited budgets that was the norm back during the New Hollywood days ("Easy Rider," "Bonnie & Clyde," etc.). Coppola's a step away from that generation, so it'll be exciting to see how he handles old sensibilities in new environments.

If you'd like to see the first three minutes of "Tetro," take a trip to Kris Tapley's In Contention site which has a nice embedded video. I've gone on for too long, and I don't want to clutter this post up even further. Tapley's also got some great info from Coppola on what his literary and cinematic inspirations were for this film.

Is Coppola making an offer you can't refuse?


TRAILER from: In Contention
POSTER from: Awards Daily

"Ponyo" or: One-Sheet on the Web by Disney

I noticed that the poster doesn't actually have the film named as "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea" any longer, which I guess is great for those guys who put the titles up on the marquee at the cineplex and for people who found it clunky (like me). But the title was good for at least partly specifying what the film's setting is and what it's about (my assumption, of course). And the original title was more musical and fun to say, not that "Ponyo" on its own isn't fun to roll off the tongue. The poster is as effervescent and enchanting - though minimalist, as the others before it - as it was always expected to be, with or without the rest of the title, and in the end this is a Hayao Miyazaki film so it's all about the visual detail and simple themes. This, like Pixar's "UP," looks like it's to be dominated by beautiful pastels and primary colors. The poster doesn't disappoint. The cast doesn't seem like it will, either.

Miyazaki films are also, to me, all about their translation in the West, which includes the dubbing, so while I'm excited about this cast of talents (Cloris Leachman, Tina Fey and Lily Tomlin in animated form - yes!) I'm not entirely convinced just yet. I either absolutely adore the dubbing ("Howl's Moving Castle," "Princess Mononoke") or am irked by it (don't go crazy on me, "Spirited Away") and this seems to have not only more characters to voice, but more big-namers involved, likely at the hands of Disney and John Lasseter - who is Miyazaki's heir to the animated throne. This makes the film vulnerable to mediocre dubbing: most of these actors aren't known for their vocal expressiveness (Matt Damon, I'm looking at you) and most of them are well-known which means they might've just gotten the job for marketing purposes. Hopefully knowing how popular and acclaimed Miyazaki's previous films have been has pushed them all to really hit the limits to their acting skill - using only your voice is hard.

Has this film charmed its way 'onyo' anticipated list?

UPDATE: In Contention's Kris Tapley notes that the film was only retitled here in the U.S. It'll retain its original title in at least Japan, where it's likely to shoot to the top of the box office for the remainder of the year.
UPDATE: It's also worth mentioning that Ain't It Cool also has a shot of the film itself, link below.


POSTER from: Ain't It Cool via In Contention and Slashfilm

Sam Mendes Gives it Another "Go"

Only a few months after Sam Mendes' powerfully and cripplingly dramatic "Revolutionary Road" (which was robbed of some much-deserved nominations, not wins, at this last outing at the Oscars, most definitely for Leonardo Dicaprio but also for the underrated Kathy Bates) and he's already geared up for another go with yet another American couple to explore in "Away We Go." Lucky for them he's had his fill of destroying dreams, and now is intent on preserving the glue that holds a couple together (played by John Krasinski of "The Office" and Maya Rudolph who was a favorite of mine from "SNL" and appeared in Robert Altman's swan song "A Prairie Home Companion") after they find out their newborn baby might not have a home. It's totally new territory for Mendes - who's done suburban parody, disconcerting war pictures, and cold gangster films - and as far away tonally from "Revolutionary Road" as can be conceived, so it's an experiment I'm quite excited about, especially with all the talent involved.

'Away We Go' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

The film has the stylings of "Little Miss Sunshine" which yields some amount of promise, but at the same time makes me groan at the prospect of sitting through another film in which people act insensitively to one another for our own amusement. (As much as I adore Catherine O'Hara, her line and delivery about moving "3000 miles away" are completely unfunny to me.) But unlike "Little Miss Sunshine," the film looks like it'll take a more tender approach to their oddities and misgivings, all in a post-"Juno"/"Rachel Getting Married" kind of way, relishing in the unpredictable joys that arise from difficult circumstances rather than pitting those circumstantial incidences and, albeit unlikely, aspirations against an overtly cruel, bitter and cynical world as was depicted all throughout "Sunshine." (With the exception of the pageant director at the end, every minor character in the entire film is either a bastard or a fool.) I think the film takes more notes from the worldview of author Dave Eggers (who plays screenwriter here, this now being the second film penned by him that I am interested in) than director-duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who often uses the harshness that can tinge an expression misinterpreted or taken out of context to contrast with their eventual softness. His characters are frequently hardened souls (or souls looking to get hard - sorry, vulgar, but true) who don't quite experience enlightenment in some climactic moment, but rather discover that their severe callousness is choking the people around them, or themselves. (His novel You Shall Know Our Velocity! explores precisely that in the guise of a road narrative.)

I've had a particular interest in Sam Mendes ever since he did "Road to Perdition" and after I'd discovered that he was a comrade of Rob Marshall's ("Chicago," "Memoirs of a Geisha," the upcoming "Nine") in their work in theatre and on Broadway. His films maintain that stage sensibility, very often framed in such a way that they could retain utter fidelity if transported instantly to the Steppenwolf house, for instance. ("Revolutionary Road" could be the next "August: Osage County" if it only had some great talent willing to do it.) His use of light, music, camera distance, even color reeks theater and its a wonderful thing to keep in mind while watching his films. The heartbreaking scene in "Road to Perdition" where Tom Hanks meets Paul Newman for the last time in the rain surrounded by buildings dotted with windows and silhouettes peering out is made all the more moving when you consider that if it were on the stage, it would've been conceived of as a choreographed dance almost, with bullets as their confetti or glitter, rather than as two disparate performances occurring at once in a large sound stage. There seems to be a lot of open-air environments in "Away We Go," so it'll be fascinating to see how Mendes might apply his theater background.

The film arrives in limited release on June 5th.

Will you be going "Away" on this "Road"?


IMAGE from: Paste
IMAGE from: Entertainment Weekly
SCOOPED first by: In Contention

State of the Race, Feb '09 Edition

Welcome!

This is the first post here at Cine-O-Rama, where I aim to discuss not just the movies in all their stages of development, but especially those films which are considered in contention at the biggest awards ceremony in the business: the Oscars. We'll traverse the landscape of the festival circuits, the critic circles and the box office to assess each of the films, their importance and their innovations; and recall films from the past which have stood the test of time.


Ripped straight from my personal blog, with some added flourishes:

Taking a cue from Kris Tapley at In Contention, I'm very quickly going to run through who I believe are the current major forces in the upcoming Oscar race in '10. Quite a long ways to go before that point, but then isn't it the best feeling when you can say you called it ten months in advance? Besides, I've always found it interesting to see how films evolve over time and sustain changes in their consumption, and maybe we'll be able to see some surprises unfold right before our eyes as the year passes.

No pictures are standing out so deeply quite yet, which makes the whole ordeal even more sensitive and interesting since they're all on relatively equal footing, but I have my money on "Amelia" as a definite Actress contender for Hillary Swank - would be her third nom, with a win being three for three - which could play out either like "Boys Don't Cry" (only nommed for Actress) or "Million Dollar Baby" (which went all the way to Best Picture). If it hits its mark, she'll likely be up against her former director in the Best Picture category, Clint Eastwood from "Million Dollar", who will complete his Untitled Nelson Mandela project with Morgan Freeman later this year, who will likely go all the way to the Actor category. Eastwood is a darling with Oscar (though 2008 wasn't his year, apparently, since both "Changeling" and "Gran Torino" managed to get neglected except for Angelina Jolie's nom for the former) and this project has some deep history in it. I'm sure the old farts in the Academy will recall the global awareness of apartheid and Mandela's struggle against it in a way that they couldn't remember the Wineville Chicken Murders that were at the center of "Changeling."

Of course, with Eastwood back in top form with an ambitious and heavy project that'll really let him stretch his legs out, he's got to have the competition, and I think this may play out similarly to the year "The Departed" won, with Martin Scorsese this year giving us "Shutter Island," which sounds like a swashbuckler but is in fact a CIA flick with his old pal and very frequent collab Leonardo Dicaprio in the starring role. Got a taste of the FBI with "Departed" and decided to go one step further, I suppose. The premise sounds a bit too actiony and espionagy (are they words? on the internet, they are) not meditative or dramatic enough, but we'll see. In a game of Kevin Bacon's six degrees of separation, I think Paul Haggis, who was Eastwood's scripter for "Million Dollar Baby," may see his rival from a couple years ago rise again, with Ang Lee's next follow-up to "Brokeback Mountain" after "Lust, Caution" ("Brokeback" should've won Picture, I keep telling people) being "Taking Woodstock." A period flick about the undying and seminal concert, it might be appealing in a way that "Milk" and "Frost/Nixon" were last year if only because they hearken back to a very strangely American past and unearth some of the nuances of the times that we all have forgotten about. The Academy might be itching to give some love to Ang Lee in the Picture category after they relegated him to just Best Director the year "Crash" crashed the party and stole Picture. Yes, I'm bitter.

As a fan of "Chicago," I'd personally love to see Rob Marshall get back to the big stage with "Nine", which is an adaptation of the stage adaptation of Federico Fellini's "8 1/2," a marvelous black and white film. Marshall failed to make it there with "Memoirs of a Geisha" (which wasn't a bad film, just messy and politically incorrect with the casting), so he's probably focused on Big O with this one. Got an incredible cast, too, with recent winner Daniel Day-Lewis, and a good sliver of the actresses that were at the Oscars this year as the addressees to the noms - Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard, not to mention other winners and noms Judi Dench, Kate Hudson and Penelope Cruz (who finally got her dues last weekend). Lots of gorgeous women, Day-Lewis is a lucky bastard. I could easily see this be a huge hit with the supporting categories, but perhaps Day-Lewis will earn for himself yet another nomination and solidify his position near the top of the acting food chain.

But the real one to beat, I think, will be Peter Jackson's new film, the adaptation of "The Lovely Bones." Early word is already brewing, and the coffee that's being stirred smells good and bold. They at the studio and on the ground resist using the "O" word, of course, but media monkeys are throwing it around for them, including even my old professor Anne Thompson at Variety. Snippets, set pictures, all that have been decidedly infrequent and there's a lot of hush hushing from the actors in the film, so you know they know they've got something golden in their hands that they have to guard it from our prying eyes and hungry hands. Could be Jackson's grand return to family drama, and the natural progression from his previous "Heavenly Creatures", which is one of his absolute best works. He's new Hollywood royalty, new money to Eastwood's very very old money, and could very easily have the movie-to-beat for the entirety of the year.

Of course there are other films to watch, but as it stands, these are the ones I'd bet my money on. Though if you were a betting man (I'm not), you'd probably figure that now wouldn't be the time to bet, as the campaign has but barely started. Wait for some studio honchos to get big-headed or enter a momentary state of weakness and declare an early victory before putting up your dukes.


Others to watch for in all categories: Michael Mann's "Public Enemies," with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale; Kevin MacDonald's "State of Play"; Jason Reitman (of "Juno") directing "Up in the Air" with George Clooney and Vera Farmiga; Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant"; Julie Taymor's (of "Across the Universe") "The Tempest" with a sex-reversal and Helen Mirren now in the lead role; Michelle Pfeiffer's period vehicle "Cheri" (does that sound odd to you?); the Alejando Gonzales Inarritu ("Babel") film "Biutiful" with Javier Bardem; Paul Greengrass of "United 93" with "Green Zone" and Matt Damon; James Cameron's long time-coming alien flick "Avatar"; and the Sundance hit "An Education" which may pull itself up to the ranks in some of the acting categories.

Keep those eyes... open (spoken like Patrick Bateman).



IMAGE taken from The NY Post