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Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Us magazine critic Thelma Adams
Us magazine critic Thelma Adams about today's snub of a very deserving Supporting Actress: "Robin Wright Penn delivered the year's ten tautest dramatic minutes in the underseen Nine Lives, as a pregnant wife whose chance encounter with a former lover in the aisles of an L.A. grocery store shatters her serene existence -- and his." Damn right.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:05 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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The following allegedly came from
The following allegedly came from Walk the Line star and Best Actress contender Reese Witherspoon, on the subject of today's Oscar nomination: "I was completely surprised." No...no. She couldn't have said that.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:48 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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The people at 20th Century
The people at 20th Century Fox are said to be totally bummed about Walk the Line not getting a Best Picture nomination, but c'mon...Reese and Joaquin are nominated for their respective acting categories and the film is over $100 million and still climbing. The biopic lost momentum due to its own lack of sway over the last four or five weeks (those Golden Globe awards notwithstanding), but Fox's Oscar consultant Gregg Brilliant was apparently out-schnorred and out-hobknobbed by Munich consultant Tony Angellotti and Fox's ad campaign was also out-spent by Universal's. If Munich...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:53 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Flight 93, the made-for-TV 9/11
Flight 93, the made-for-TV 9/11 drama that had its first Arts & Entertainment (A&E) airing last night, wasn't half bad. Too many babies appeared`in the calls-from-home sequences and too many wives of too many guys on the plane cried and said "I love you"... not in real life, of course, but all that friggin' crying felt drama- tically tedious to me. Director Peter Markle...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:55 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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I'm going to risk it
I'm going to risk it and admit to something I'm not proud of, but the following passage in the New York Times coverage of the Goleta postal-worker slaughter made me snicker. This is ghastly...people are dead and families are grieving...but there's something about the dry prose style of this passage that produced a slight grin: "The attack is the latest in a string of attacks by disgruntled mail workers that has given rise to the term 'going postal...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:48 AM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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How did Munich pull off
How did Munich pull off those surprising Best Picture nominations (Picture, Director, Screenplay) after getting shut out with the guilds and BAFTA and being generally up against the wall? I think it came down to Universal spending a shitload of money on advertising. Oscar prognosticator Pete Hammond believes that "spending was certainly a big factor...you saw pretty much a nonstop TV campaign over the last week or two...that`Drudge Report rumor that Universal wasn't supporting it enough was obviously totally wrong...newspaper ads, trade ads...plus the influence of Oscar consultant Tony Angellotti...the amped-up Munich...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:14 AM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Nommie Nommie
Once Upon a Time
I'm thinking of a film about two men in love with each other, but one of them loving a bit less. They have sexual hunger for women and children are sired, but nothing approaches their feelings for each other. They're pried apart by social-political con- cerns and they never quite mesh, but the man who loves a bit more can never quit his feelings. He doesn't know how, and he hurts badly as a result.
...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:53 AM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
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The sound of the other
The sound of the other Chris Penn shoe...the one everybody suspected was probably in the wings...is starting to be heard: Page Six is reporting that friends "privately suspect that his death [last week] was caused by drugs. One Penn pal said: 'Chris fought a battle with drugs his whole life, and it had gotten bad again.'" Why is it when a guy dies too young and too soon, which is almost always due to un-natural causes...why do friends and family always consider it sensitive and respectul to keep mum about why he apparently passed? The ...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:43 AM on Monday, January 30, 2006
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Newsweek's round-table chat with the
Newsweek's round-table chat with the five directors everyone is assuming will be Oscar-nominated for Best Director -- George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck), Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Bennett Miller (Capote), Paul Haggis (Crash) and Steven Spielberg (Munich) -- has some good banter and at least one strong political acknowledgement. "From the end of the first wave of the civil-rights movement, all the way through Watergate, people were constantly talking about what was going on in the country," says Clooney. "...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:21 AM on Monday, January 30, 2006
Sunday, January 29, 2006
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What exactly will constitute an
What exactly will constitute an upset or big surprise in terms of Tuesday morning's Oscar nominations? I've been trying to figure that one. I'm not sure I give that much of a shit right now, but I guess I'll rustle up some enthusiasm starting tomorrow sometime...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:39 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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Variety critic Todd McCarthy has
Variety critic Todd McCarthy has written a good bitch-and-moan piece about Sundance '06. Called "The Big Chill," it bemoans the mostly underwhelming dramatic competition entries except for Wristcutters: A Love Story (I presume this means McCarthy doesn't harbor loads of affection for the award-winning Quinceanera...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:11 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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Like I mentioned earlier today,
Like I mentioned earlier today, nobody I spoke to during the Sundance Film Festival had anything to say at all about the dual-award-winning Quinceanera, but Roger Ebert saw and wrote about it, at least. He called it "one of the strongest and most touching films in the competition...there is rich human comedy here, and sadness, and a portrait so textured that we get very involved...[it's] a film that is serious, joyful, and filled with heart."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:42 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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The top two Screen Actors
The top two Screen Actors Guild awards -- Best Actor and Best Actress -- were handed out earlier this evening to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his legendary lead performance in Capote and Reese Witherspoon for her soulful country gal turn in Walk the Line. And the Best Supporting Actor trophies went to Cinderella Man's Paul Giamatti and The Constant Gardener's Rachel Weisz. It's a fait accompli they'll all be nominated Tuesday morning, and I guess they're the quartet to beat at the Oscars on March 5th. Crash's "upset" win over Brokeback MountainRead More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:17 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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Santa Barbara Film Festival director
Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling sat down with KTYD talk-show guy Matt McAllister last Friday to talk about the lineup for the festival (which kicks off Thursday, 2.2), and wound up issuing a "Brokeback challenge"...which McAllister accepted. Using the patient-but-persistent approach, Durling gradually talked the faintly homophobic McAllister into seeing Brokeback Mountain, which the jock has said he wouldn't sit through due to feared squeamishness over the same-sex coupling scenes. Listen to the chat...it's pretty funny. Durling and McAllister will be attending a screening of Brokeback...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:50 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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The Guardian's Graham Fuller is
The Guardian's Graham Fuller is buying into a fantasy being pushed by Envelope columnist Tom O'Neil that Walk the Line or Crash might take the Best Picture Oscar from Brokeback Mountain. Whatever...fantasies are fun to wallow in sometimes.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:03 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
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With all the Sundance jazz,
With all the Sundance jazz, Nicole Laporte's Variety story about the limbo-tracking (i.e., slow-boat demise) of Joe Roth's Revo- lution Studios went in one ear & out the other. Partly because it felt like ho-hum news. Anyone with a casual interest in the savoring of good movies wrote off Revolution a long time ago. Formed by Roth in 2000, it became quickly known as a toney outfit that got lucky now and then but seemed to mostly churn out synthetic crap. I really liked Rent, The Missing, Punch Drunk Love and Black Hawk Down...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:05 AM on Saturday, January 28, 2006
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I ran into Marshall Fine,
I ran into Marshall Fine, author of a new John Cassavetes bio called "Accidental Genius", at the Picturehouse party at Zoom the other day.
I told him I was 90% sure I had received a copy, and planned to write about his book soon...but here's an admiring New York Times review by Phillip Lopate in the meantime.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:51 AM on Saturday, January 28, 2006
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"It is generally understood that
"It is generally understood that Sundance juries, which are composed of independent filmmakers, actors and actresses, producers, journalists and others associated with low-budget moviemaking, are sympathetic to films that have little chance in the marketplace," writes John Clark in a close-of-Sundance piece in today's New York Times. "After all, many of the jury members were once struggling (and in some cases still are). As a result, they will sometimes give the top prize not to the best film in competition but to the best film that needs help the most."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:49 AM on Saturday, January 28, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
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Here's the single most disgusting
Here's the single most disgusting story about the '06 Sundance Film Festival, written by freelancer Chris Lee and published by the L.A. Times. Why disgusting? Because it's about a kind of glitzy cancer attached like a boil to the back of a once-great film festival. And because it made me want to throw up. On Lee. Sample graph: "To get to the truth of the underground Sundance economy, an intrepid Times...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:52 PM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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"How did Brokeback Mountain break
"How did Brokeback Mountain break out? By surgically targeting where the movie would play in its initial release; selling it as a romance for women rather than a controversial gay-bashing tale; and opting out of the culture wars rather than engaging them." So reads John Lippman's Wall Street Journal article [free] about the surprising box-office success of this film, which is selling more tickets than Munich...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:32 PM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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There's a Brokeback Mountain Oprah
There's a Brokeback Mountain Oprah Winfrey show that ran today (Friday, 1.27). Here's the link.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:13 PM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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To all those thoughtful movie-loving
To all those thoughtful movie-loving righties who wrote in doubting the veracity of the claims in Al Gore's global-warming movie An Inconvenient Truth, I have this reply: if you don't want to believe something, you can usually figure some way of doing that under the guise of subjectivism. Where there's a will, there's a way...right? The scientific and geological data "isn't in yet" on global warming and the president of Iran says the holocaust never happened. I think we all understand that righties don't want to buy into global warming...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:38 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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Here's an audio clip of
Here's an audio clip of Sundance movie star Al Gore ripping into George Bush on Martin Luther King day over constitutional abuses.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:34 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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Three Brokeback Mountain items: (a)
Three Brokeback Mountain items: (a) despite George Bush's recent assertion that he hasn't seen Ang Lee's film, producer James Schamus said recently that the White House has requested a print and that one was sent over; (b) a guy named Pepe Ruiloba has written and told me after seeing Brokeback Mountain [he] was surprised to discover that the male prostitute that Jack Twist picks up across the boarder is none other than the film's Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:14 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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Steven Soderbergh's Che recently filmed
Steven Soderbergh's Che recently filmed some exterior scenes on Mahattan's Uper East Side, with Benicio del Toro playing the title role. Here's a photo supplied by Latino Review. I'm assuming this photo is genuine, but you never know.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:04 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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It's worth saying again: Lajos
It's worth saying again: Lajos Koltai's Fateless is the first near-great film of 2006. The exquisite widescreen framing, desaturated color and exquisite editing make it, to my eyes, the most visually immaculate Holocaust death-camp drama ever made (am I saying this right?) as well as one of the most realistic seeming and subtly-rendered in terms of story. Based on Imre Kertesz's mostly true-life account, it's about a young Jewish boy from Budapest who ends up in a concentration camp during World War II and just barely survives. It lacks the story tension and rooting factor of Polanski's The Pianist...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:49 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
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An excellent Tony Scott-authored New
An excellent Tony Scott-authored New York Times piece about Sundance '06...observing the usual razzmatazz, nostalgia pangs, contradictions, side amusements, etc.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:53 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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Here's an okay Al Gore/Inconvenient
Here's an okay Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth piece by the Washington Post's William Booth.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:44 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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I can guess but I don't precisely know who these guys are, but they're Quinceanera...Read More
Alarm Sounder
Quince...what?
Day after day and hour after hour during the Sundance Film Festival I asked every journalist, distributor and agent I ran into what they'd seen and liked (or half-liked). I must have asked this question 60 or 70 times over the eight days I was up there...
And nobody mentioned Quinceanera, a small-scale drama about sexual tensions vs. Hispanic community values in L.A.'s Echo Park. It was like it didn't exist...one of those strugglers that sometimes get lost in the shuffle.
I can guess but I don't precisely know who these guys are, but they're Quinceanera
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:16 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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"I have seen one of
"I have seen one of the wisest films I can remember about love and human intimacy," Roger Ebert wrote a couple of days ago about Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas...which I just saw this afternoon. "It is a film of integrity and truth, acted fearlessly, written and directed with quiet, implacable skill. [And] I will not forget it." Nor will I. Pajamas is a very smart and probing film about an adult relationship that eventually goes bad. But after a while (after about 90 minutes, give or take) I started to really, really hate it...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:00 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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Goran Dukic's Wristcutters: A Love
Goran Dukic's Wristcutters: A Love Story is playing noon on Friday (1.27) at the Eccles, so now I don't have an excuse to miss it. That's too bad. I don't want to see any movie of any kind about post-mortal purgatory, or about anyone cutting their wrists... fuck that shit and send it to hell. And the lead guy Patrick Fugit (who was completely perfect in Almost Famous) has been rubbing me the wrong way in his last couple of films. Everyone's been telling me to see it though, so I guess I'm stuck. "I'm saying that Wristcutters...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:45 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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This just happened, just now...right
This just happened, just now...right across from me. A guy sitting on the couch in the lobby of the Yarrow hotel said to a critic friend who just wandered over: "Hey, how was I for India?" The critic answered, "B for boring." Bad news for the filmmaker, right? Maybe, but you need to take into account a certain tendency that critics and journalists have when speaking to each other in groups, which is to always be clever.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:29 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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I sat right outside the
I sat right outside the Yarrow press screening room when Right At Your Door was being shown late Wednesday afternoon...obviously wanting to see it but also needing to freshen the column material and put up new photos. Duty prevailed. Door, a futuristic thriller about terrorist destruction hitting Los Angeles, has been acquired by Lionsgate, and at least six others have been bought also. Little Miss Sunshine has been acquired by Fox Searchlight, Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep by Warner Independent, The Night Listener by Miramax (I haven't seen a less commercial- seeming film at this festival),Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:18 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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A dead-certain acquisition to come:
A dead-certain acquisition to come: the quietly moving and intriguingly measured Stephanie Daley, which I saw early Wednesday afternoon at the Eccles. My hat is sincerely tipped to director Hilary Brougher, and especially for eliciting such superb performances from Tilda Swinton and especially Amber Tamblyn, who is now on the Big Map because of this film. (It's too bad after giving such a finely textured dig-deep performance in Daley that she's agreed to star in the lowballing Grudge 2). Other Sundance pickups in the wings include Bobcat Goldwaithe's Stay (which is nominally about the ramifications of Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:03 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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The lawyers representing Kirby Dick
The lawyers representing Kirby Dick and This Film Is Not Yet Rated have been making a curious call since the film first press-screened two days ago (i.e., Tuesday). As noted in Wednesday's article about the film, it reveals the names and backgrounds of the MPAA's previously anonymous film raters and appeals board members. But the lawyers and the good publicists at Falco Ink, obviously conerned about a possible MPAA blowback, are declining to provide these names for print purposes...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:38 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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The only gay cowboy joke
The only gay cowboy joke I've half-chuckled at since Brokeback Mountain opened some eight and a half weeks ago is that one in The New Yorker...know it? Shows a guy lying in bed and working on a laptop, and he's saying to a guy in long johns and cowboy hat standing nearby, "And what if I don't want to be Jack or Ennis?" This 1.25 piece by USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna is one of the best Brokeback Mountain cultural-impact readings I've come across since the film opened. It's basically about how and why the spread of Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:11 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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I think it's fair to
I think it's fair to at least ask if there's such a thing as the Curse of Ryan Gosling. Excepting The Notebook and The Believer, every film Gosling has made has been very well chosen -- i.e., hip, smart, serious, indie-level...but they've all turned out a bit precious and unsatisfying. Murder by Numbers, The United States of Leland, Stay, The Slaughter Rule...all smart-and-sensitive, all problem movies. Which is why I haven't yet gone to see Gosling's latest, Half Nelson...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:53 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Right at Your Door, an
Right at Your Door, an economically produced, realistically scrappy drama about what happens when a bunch of terrorist "dirty bombs" are exploded around Los Angeles, has allegedly been picked up for theatrical distribution by Lionsgate. You didn't hear it from me.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:50 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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David Poland is too much
David Poland is too much of a hard-ass in his critique of Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated, but he makes some good points here and there. One thing I felt absolutely should have been acknowledged in Dick's film (but isn't) is the fact that filmmakers routinely look for ways to push the envelope...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:01 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth,
Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, which I saw this afternoon, is about as succulent and brilliant as a "spinach documentary" -- i.e., one that's very good and nutritional to watch -- can possibly be. It's basically a documentary presentation of Al Gore's global-warming slide show, which the former President candidate and vice-president has been presenting to audiences around the globe for the last few years. Everyone on the planet needs to see this film...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:38 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Here's Roger Ebert saying more
Here's Roger Ebert saying more than a few flattering things about Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas, which I am now committed to seeing at the Park City Racquet Club tomorrow evening (Thursday), no matter what.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:26 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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The last Word item I
The last Word item I tapped out was yesterday (1.24) around 1 pm. This feels like a losing battle, but I'm about to see The Darwin Awards at the 6 pm Eccles show...well, I might make it there...and poor Chris Penn, one of the costars, is dead at 43. And of course no one is going to voice the thought that first came to mind when they heard the news, including me. But we all know it's unnatural for a 43 year-old body to expire without a contributing factor or two. Very sad news...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:46 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
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I went straight from Tuesday
I went straight from Tuesday night's God Grew Tired Of Us after-party to the Eccles screening of Jonathan Demme's Neil Young: Heart of Gold at 9:30 pm. Obviously in the class of Demme's Stop Making Sense, it's a very clean and classy concert film...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:56 PM on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
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This Film Is Not Yet Rated...Read More
Lonely Deliverance
Dick's MPAA Flap
Kirby Dick is complaining that the MPAA illegally copied, apparently for internal purposes, a "digital version" of his new film This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which a several journos saw at a press screening yesterday morning and which screens at 9:30 pm tonight at the Sundance Film Festival.
More to the point, Dick got L.A. Times reporter John Horn to do the squawking for him in a piece that ran Wednesday (1.25) called "Avast, Ye Pirates!" It struck me as a thin beef, but it made for good press.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:59 AM on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
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I should have posted this
I should have posted this yesterday, but Munich screenwriter Tony Kushner has countered the criticisms of the film's political opponents with this very intelligent response, which appeared in the 1.22 L.A. Times. And Steven Spielberg has finally let go with some anger at these criticisms through an interview he gave to a writer for the German magazine Der Spiegel. Now, if just one of them had addressed the why's and wherefore's of that sex scene intercut with Munich massacre footage...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:31 AM on Monday, January 23, 2006
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New York Times reporter Sharon
New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman got in touch with the Little Miss Sunshine principals -- producer Jon Turtletaub and Cinetic Media's John Sloss -- and wrote this comprehensive piece about the five-year effort to finance the film and the 10-hour effort to sell it last Friday night and early Saturday morning. The victor was Fox Searchlight. The selling price was $10.5 million "plus 10 percent of all gross revenues on the film, a hefty figure that set tongues wagging." Sunshine will hit theatres sometime this summer.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:51 AM on Monday, January 23, 2006
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Hollywood Elsewhere's Sundance coverage slowed
Hollywood Elsewhere's Sundance coverage slowed to a near-total halt on Sunday, 1.22. This has been a pleasant but (so far) unexceptional festival...everyone is in agreement about this. Not so hot...nothing really igniting....shoulder-shrugging. And with Sunday's wake-up downshifting and not seeing this or that allegedly mezzo-mezzo movie seemed like a permissible way to play it. No...inspired! Woke up late and kinda groggy after crashing at 3 am...wrote a column, missed Stewart Copeland's Police doc, Everyone Stares...saw Freida Lee Mock's straightforward but pleasingly passionate Tony Kushner doc, Wrestling with Angels...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:26 AM on Monday, January 23, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
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I'm told that the increasingly
I'm told that the increasingly eccentric Ralph Nader woke up this morning, took a shower, watered the plants, walked the dog around the block and decided be'd better not attend the Sundance Film Festival, and therefore Monday's press conference for Henriette Mantel and Stephen Skovan's An Unreasonable Man, a doc about Nader, has been cancelled as Nader "will no longer be able to attend," according to an IDPR press release.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:36 PM on Sunday, January 22, 2006
Saturday, January 21, 2006
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Last night a filmmaker I
Last night a filmmaker I respect (there's a reason not to divulge his name) told me he was deeply impressed with Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar's A Lion in the House, which people are referring to as the "kids dying of cancer" movie. It runs 230 minutes. I asked film journo Harlan Jacobsonif he was planning on seeing it or if he'd heard anything to support the filmmaker's opinion, and he said, "Well, I figure I'm going to live another 30 years or so..."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:06 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
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That entertainment attorney who told
That entertainment attorney who told me Saturday afternoon that Mia Goldman's Open Window, a drama about violation with Robin Tunney, Joel Edgerton and Cybil Shepard, is being bid on by serious people...I've since determined that guy was probably talking out of his ass. That or he was smoking something.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:56 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
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Today's (i.e., Saturday's) news #1:
Today's (i.e., Saturday's) news #1: Cinematical's Karina Longworth is reporting that "Paramount" (big Paramount? Paramount Classics?) has closed a deal for $10 to $12 million to distribute Little Miss Sunshine, the dark family comedy that got standing ovations after the Eccles screening last night and after the Library screening early this morning. Maybe...but I was told by two knowledgable industry guys sources just before a Racquet Club screening of Sherry Baby late this morning that Fox Searchlight ...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:37 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
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Yesterday's news #1: Got into
Yesterday's news #1: Got into town around 5 pm Friday afternoon, dumped my stuff, got my press pass and went straight over to the Eccles to see Little Miss Sunshine. [My reaction is in the lead column story.] I was told before and after by three people that Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which screened Friday afternoon, is a Problem Movie. (One guy told me that "30 or 40 people walked out" by the first hour.) I myself saw Paul Cuigan's Lucky Number Slevin...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:39 AM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
4 comments
Sunshine Sublime
Docs Own It
So far the most affecting highs of Sundance 2006 are not coming from the features but the documentaries. No narrative except Little Miss Sunshine has generated any kind of noticable wattage, but everywhere you turn people are talking up the docs.
Yesterday afternoon I saw Freida Mock's conventional but nonetheless moving and impassioned Wrestling with Angels, a study of the great playwright Tony Kushner. Here, at last, was a film of serious substance and palpable emotion...something that woke me up...a movie about caring and striving and laying it on the line.
...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:19 AM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
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In my story about Nick
In my story about Nick Cassevetes' Alpha Dog [see below], I failed to give credit to Lewis Beale for having been the first to write about the legal troubles that are threatening to impede New Line Cinema's plans to release Alpha Dopg in February. Beale's story ("Based and Bested by a true Story') ran in the New York Times on 10.19; here's a link to a syndication of the story that ran in the Arizona Republic.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:19 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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Here's an okay q &
Here's an okay q & a with Sundance Film festival founder Robert Redford by Time's Desa Philadelphia.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:11 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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Nicole Holofcener's Friends with Money,
Nicole Holofcener's Friends with Money, the Sundance Film festival's debut flick, had two showings last night at the Eccles -- at 6:45 and 9:30 pm. It's now 10:10 am Friday and and I haven't found one quickie review anywhere yet. C'mon, press contingent! ...it's a bit early in the festival to be dragging ass. (That means you, Indiewire.) Yesterday I asked a friend to e-mail me a fast ten-word review of Friends with Money -- he responded with one. The film costars Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, Jason Isaacs (who's fantastic in Nine LivesRead More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:00 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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This is only about four
This is only about four months late, but when the 50th anni- versary of James Dean's death was being written about early last September, I was searching all over for this fairly high- quality (i.e., by the CG standards of the late '90s) computer simulation of how the smash-up between Dean's Porsche (a.k.a. "Little Bastard") and Donald Turnupseed's black and white Chevy probably went down. I couldn't find it, and then all of sudden it turned up yesterday on my external hard drive so here it is. (It's a Quicktime file.)
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:48 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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Here's a pretty good London
Here's a pretty good London Times piece by Denis Seguin about Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary strongly critical of the MPAA's CARA ratings board. Excerpt: "It wasn’Äôt censorship that really annoyed Dick. What got him going was the anonymity of it all. So, armed with a budget of $1 million, Dick hired a private investigator named Becky Altringer...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:38 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
59 comments
Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain
For the first time since the '93 Sundance Film Festival, I haven't gotten a jump on things by arriving early in Park City -- Wednesday night, say, or early Thursday afternoon -- and filing the usual hot story about the food I've bought at Albertson's and the people I've run into in the aisles.
I won't even be picking up my press pass until late Friday afternoon, which means I'll be missing the 1:30 pm press screening of The World According to Sesame Street...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:56 AM on Thursday, January 19, 2006
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Pete Hammond has sent in
Pete Hammond has sent in some additional views on the Syriana switcheroo: "When I interviewed Gaghan for his WGA nomination screening the weekend before last I asked him if Syriana was basically an original and he admitted that only about a paragraph of the actual book is in the movie, but after spending so much time with Bob Baer in preparing the film he felt the inspiration he got from him is throughout the film. But an adaptation of a book? Never. On the cover of Bob Baer's "See No Evil," the book tie-in for Syriana...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:09 AM on Thursday, January 19, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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It's too late for me
It's too late for me to double-check this, but In Contention's Kris Tapley is reporting that the Academy has suddenly and rather surprisingly waited until today -- Wednesday, 1.18 -- to announce a significant decision that was made about 20 days ago, which is that the screenplay for Stephen Gaghan's Syriana has been classified by the Academy as an original screen- play, and NOT...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:41 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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It's always a problem getting
It's always a problem getting to Sundance events in the early morning, but IFC Films is having a breakfast and panel discussion at the Premiere & Film Music Lounge, 277 Main Street, on Monday, 1.23, from 9 to 11 ayem. The subject is "collapsing windows, vertical integration and the new day-and-date model"...gotta try.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:52 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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Two days ago I copied
Two days ago I copied and pasted every p.r. message about films, events, promotions and panel discussions at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and put it on a mini-hard drive and printed it out at Sir Speedy. It's on thick paper but even with that it's thicker and heavier than any script I have -- it's like a Russian novel...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:34 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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This is about 10 days
This is about 10 days old but it only just appeared on my screen: a MacLeans piece by author George Jonas about (a) the writing of "Vengeance", his 1984 book about Mossad's revenge campaign upon the supporters and perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre, and (b) how, in his opinion, Steven Spielberg got it all wrong. The title is "The Spielberg Massacre: My book was all about avenging evil. Then the King of Hollywood got hold of it." The piece is well-written, seems grounded in reality...worth reading.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:26 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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"Friend of the court" Jeff
"Friend of the court" Jeff Dowd (a.k.a. "the Dude") is imploring those visiting Park City, Utah, over the next eight to ten days to please pay proper attention and respect to Patricia Foulkrod's The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, which is screening in the independent film doc competition section. It's basically a piece about post-traumatic stress and emotional recovery problems that U.S. soldiers have been coping with after returning from the Iraq War. Kind of the same story as the one presented in The Best Years of Our Lives, only different...right?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:13 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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3,148 features were considered for
3,148 features were considered for Sundance 2006, according to Kenneth Turan's annual start-of-the-festival piece in the L.A. Times. up from last year's 2,613, as well as more than 4,300 shorts. Plus the fact that "indie-style films such as Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck are dominating the awards season as never before," he notes. "This roaring success, however, has also brought unwanted attention and aggressive commercialization to the independent world. Through no fault of its own, Sundance has become Mardi Gras North...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:08 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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"STUDIO EXECS PREFER 'BROKEBACK' OVER
"STUDIO EXECS PREFER 'BROKEBACK' OVER 'MUNICH' -- SPIELBERG SAID DISPLEASED," a Drudge Report headline said earlier today. I'm not saying this allegation is gospel but who at Universal wouldn't be feeling more enthusiastic about Brokeback Mountain than Munich at this stage? An emotionally moving critical fave now sitting at the top of a Showbiz Data box-office chart vs. a politically despised, okay-but-no-cigar Spielberg movie that's doing blah business and which nobody but nobody thinks has a chance of nabbing any Oscar nominations of note, much less the awards.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:37 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
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USA Today's Scott Bowles is
USA Today's Scott Bowles is floating the idea that Walk the Line is surging after winning three Golden Globes last night and may even be nipping at Brokeback Mountain's heels. Why not? Anything to make it seem like a horse race. (The Envelope's Tom O'Neil is playing a similar tune, saying that Crash or Good Night can still beat Brokeback at the Oscars.) The best part of the Bowles piece is the observation that Globe acceptance speeches are Academy audition tapes.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:15 PM on Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
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One of the few complaints
One of the few complaints about Good Night, and Good Luck is that Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) is portrayed in ways that are insufficiently fleshed-out. He's too virtuous, too noble...too much of a paragon of journalistic integrity. In my first riff on the film in early October, I said that co-screen- writers George Clooney and Grant Heslov should "have added more shading...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:25 PM on Monday, January 16, 2006
Sunday, January 15, 2006
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Things changed on Saturday and
Things changed on Saturday and it it began to look as if Glory Road might squeak past Hoodwinked for the #1 slot...but it's a very tight competition with The Chronicles of Narnia also in the race. And that's all I know...I'm going off to meet up with Larry Clark in Santa Monica and then do some bike-riding.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:31 AM on Sunday, January 15, 2006
1809 comments
Globe Finals
Dog Has Its Day
Of the dozens of definite-interest films playing at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival (which I haven't even begun to try and summarize), Nick Cassevetes' Alpha Dog has easily gotten the most press...and yet it's showing at the very end of the fes- tival (Friday, 1.27 at the Eccles, and Saturday, 1.28, at Prospector Square) when most of the hot-and-happening crowd will be gone.
I have it on very good authority that it's worth sticking around for. Alpha Dog...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:06 AM on Sunday, January 15, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Sean P. Means and (I
Sean P. Means and (I guess) some others at the Salt Lake Tribune have assembled loads of material in this section on Sundance '06.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:14 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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I haven't done any serious
I haven't done any serious Sundance digging, but there's one film I've consistently heard is awfully good, and I'm not saying this because it was written by Michael Arndt, a guy I happened to swap apartments with last summer. It's called Little Miss Sunshine, it's a "heart" movie about a dysfunctional family, and it costars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin (the little girl who said "there's a monster outside my window...can I have a glass of water?" in Signs) and Paul Dano...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:41 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Here's to the fearless Don
Here's to the fearless Don Murphy, a laser-brained, seriously tough-nut producer I've known since about '94 (when he was producing Natural-Born Killers with his then-partner Jane Hamsher)...a guy who won't take 'no'...a guy who once tore into me because I had the absolute temerity to ring up Vincent Gallo and later Ed Sanders because I was interested in the progress of a possible Murphy-produced Charles Manson movie...a guy who once said to me, "You...are...my...bitch...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:25 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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I should have posted this
I should have posted this Friday (1.13), but it's weird reading the piece by the Wall Street Journal's Jon Weinbach about the "other" Munich movie called Sword of Gideon -- a 1986 HBO cable movie -- that's about the same thing (i.e., an Israeli assassin's sense of gathering guilt over helping to kill several conspirators who helped perpetrate the 1972 Munich Olympic games massacre) and more-or-less based on the same 1984 book "Vengeance," by Canadian author George Jonas. Weinbach makes this sound like a big revelation, to wit: "Now here's something else to add to the discussion: ...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:58 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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"Between the wide-angled planes of
"Between the wide-angled planes of her cheekbones, [Claire Danes'] features are large and mobile -- more chunky than delicate -- and expressive in a way that at times seems out of her conscious control," begins a 1.15 New York Times profile by Dana Stevens. "On the day we meet in a crepe place in SoHo, around the corner from the loft she shares with the actor Billy Crudup, Ms. Danes's face looks, by moments -- and I mean this in the nicest way -- almost like that of an eager, curious animal."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:56 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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From an admiring but somewhat
From an admiring but somewhat brash, straight-from-the- shoulder profile of Philip Seymour Hoffman by David Edel- stein in the 1.15 New York Times. Interesting Hoffman quote: "There are certain jobs, in certain environments, when I'm not as scared. So, therefore, I am who I am, which I think is a pretty decent person. But if I'm struggling, if I feel like I'm falling short, I'm incredibly hard on myself...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:26 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Poor Shelley Winters, who died
Poor Shelley Winters, who died yesterday at the age of 86 years and 4 months, was always feisty and frank. I sat right next to her at a 1983 Cannon Films press luncheon for Over the Brooklyn Bridge (held prior to shooting), and as producer Menahem Golan got up and began making a speech, Winters squinted her eyes and said to pretty much everyone at our table, "Don't like him... nope, don't like him...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:33 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Here's a totally hilarious trail
Here's a totally hilarious trail of Roger Friedman Fox 411 quotes about how it's all going downhill in terms of prospective awards and healthy box-office for Brokeback Mountain, starting on December 9th and moving right up to January 13th. Scroll to the bottom of the page...it's a scream. (Thanks to N.Y. Daily News guy Wayman Wong for this.)
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:14 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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"I just read your Wired
"I just read your Wired comment about James Franco with Tristan and Isolde not catching a break, and I couldn't agree more about his being a fine actor. His work on Freaks and Geeks (the most perceptive show about high school to ever air) was wonderful. It's unfortunate that so many people only know him as Peter Parker's bitch from the Spider-Man films." -- Jesse Perry, Nashville, Tenn.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:07 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Brokeback Mountain, playing in just
Brokeback Mountain, playing in just over 700 theatres as of yesterday, will reach $32 million or thereabouts by the end of the four-day weekend. I'm presuming that Focus Features will expand big-time after Monday's night's expected Best Picture win at the Golden Globes awards. One marketing expert is forecasting a $60 million haul by the end of the theatrical run, but I don't know...if it wins the Best Picture Oscar on March 5th it'll get a new surge and probably stay in theatres until April, and it could go a lot higher. Ain't no reins on this one.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:49 AM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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The box-office positions could switch
The box-office positions could switch between now and Monday night, but it appears that Hoodwinked, the animated Weinstein Co. release, is going to nudge its way into being the #1 film over the Martin Luther King holiday. Analysts are projecting a 4-day take of $16,900,000 over the second-place The Chronicles of Narnia with a projected $16,340,000. Hoodwinked "is not burn- ing up the pea patch," a marketing veteran commented, "but it's the first kids picture to hit the market since Narnia." Some anal- ysts were speculating that Glory Road...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:11 AM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Here's a very fine beat-by-beat
Here's a very fine beat-by-beat description of "Diana," that short-film sequence in Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives that I got all jazzed about in one of my October columns...the one that happens in the supermarket between Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs. The description (accompanied in Sunday's edition by similar riffs by A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis) is by the New York Times' Stephen Holden. I'm guessing that 97% of the people reading this never saw Nine Lives. Well, it'll be out on DVD on 2.14.06...just four weeks from now.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:00 AM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
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I had a nice and
I had a nice and relaxed "Elsewhere Live" chat with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga on Wednesday, 1.11. Arriaga is the gifted screenwriter of Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melqui- ades Estrada (Sony Classics, opening wide in early February) as well as three films by Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu -- Amores Peros, 21 Grams and the forthcoming Babel. I'll eventually put this into the "Elsewhere Live" archive, but here it is in the meantime. Arriaga spoke to me from his home in Mexico City.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:55 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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Another slam against Munich, this
Another slam against Munich, this one from the Washington Post op-ed columnist Charles Krauthammer. Doesn't matter on this coast because Munich is a dead horse. In late December when the notion of "poor Munich" was the going thing I thought it might get lucky with a Best Picture nomination, but I doubt even this will happen now.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:11 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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I was talking today with
I was talking today with a journalist friend about David Poland's Oscar blogger-rat pack analogy (Anne Thompson is Shirley MacLaine, Tom O'Neil is Joey Bishop, etc.) and the journo said, "Well, Poland's part of this group so who's he? Akim Tamiroff?" (This is a reference to Tamiroff having co-starred with Sinatra, Martin, Lawford, Davis, et. al. in the 1960 Ocean's 11.)
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:56 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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I don't cover Hollywood business-affairs
I don't cover Hollywood business-affairs stories because they're boring (guys buying other guys' companies and getting their friends to run them, etc.) but I'm told there's activity going down right now regarding a purchase of Lions Gate. The suitors could be either MGM chairman-chief exec Harry Sloan, who's an old pal of Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer, except that Sloan would first have to void Sony's purchase of MGM (he's supposedly not happy there) by giving the money back and then he'd be free to do the Lions Gate deal. The other possible scenarios are about ...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:23 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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David Carr, the N.Y. Times
David Carr, the N.Y. Times Carpetbagger guy, tried to dimiss Walk the Line as a Best Picture contender this morning...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:15 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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I liked David Poland's comparing
I liked David Poland's comparing the various Oscar bloggers to early '60s Rat Pack members (Pete Hammond is Sammy Davis, Jr., David Carr is Dean Martin, I'm Bing Crosby, et. al.), but boy, is he wrong when he says the Oscar race "is a horse race" and "there is no Secretariat this year" and that "anything can happen." I know it's more fun to pretend the ball is still in the air, but that sad little flick about them cowboys jes poke-poke-pokin' along has the Best Picture Oscar all but roped and tied...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:43 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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It's very cool to be
It's very cool to be mentioned and quoted in this Variety piece, written by Patrick McLean, about the various Oscar bloggers ("Oscars watchers buzzed by blog blitz"), but I want to try to teach a grammatical lesson. Wired magazine tried to make the same point a couple of years ago and failed, to wit: it's not "Web site," it's "website." And when are editors going to get past this bizarre obsession with capitalizing the "i" in "internet"? You know, my Shortwave radio...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:08 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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There's a theoretical concern that
There's a theoretical concern that Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, the undoubtably excellent Palestinian submission for Best Foreign-Language Film, isn't going to make it because Academy members with a special loyalty to Israel are less than supportive because the film is a thoughtful, fair-minded look at a couple of would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. I called some people about this and there wasn't much of a response so maybe it's hooey. A distribution exec theorized that there might have been an anti-Paradise Now attitude out there last fall, but most of the ardent Hebrews...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:28 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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There are two gorillas among
There are two gorillas among the Best Foreign-Language Film contenders: Gavin Hood's Tsotsi (Miramax), a South African film which I loved and wrote wrote about September from the Toronto Film Festival, and Christian Carion's Joyeux Noel (Sony Classics, 3.6), the French entry that I saw in Cannes last May and didn't much care for. There's also Lajos Koltai's excellent Fateless (Thinkfilm, from Hungary), Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl (from Germany), Kwang-Hyun Park's Welcome to Dongmakgol (from South Korea), Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now (Palestine), Fabiane Beilinsky's The Aura (from Argentina), Kaige Chen's The Promise...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:10 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
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That Rolling Stone piece about
That Rolling Stone piece about the secret life of V for Vendetta co-director Larry Wachowski, written by Peter Wilkinson, went up today on the magazine's website. But the most interesting passage is about their (alleged) creative attitude. Wilkinson quotes entertainment lawyer Eric Feig as saying that the Wachowski's "[are] not that interested in movies right now. V for Vendetta was set in motion before The Matrix...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:32 PM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
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Horror filmmaker Eric Red (The
Horror filmmaker Eric Red (The Hitcher) killed a couple of people in a West Los Angeles demolition-derby car wreck accident in May 2000. I don't know what the moral is, but this is one of the weird- est Hollywood-filmmaker-dodges-the-legal-consequences stories I've ever read. Written (and very thoroughly reported) by Paul Cullum, it's in this week's L.A. Weekly and is called "Death Race 2000."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:37 PM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
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This Video Dog/Salon piece may
This Video Dog/Salon piece may seem at first like only a moder- ately amusing parody of Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, but hang in there. The payoff comes at the end, and it's pretty close to hilarious.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:36 PM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
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Moby is "helping out" with
Moby is "helping out" with the music for Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, which will be out towards the end of the year, and he's seen an early edit and here's what he said about it on his journal: "It's remarkable....some people will love it and some will hate it. It's not going to be a movie that allows for ambivalence or indifference, and it's safe to say that almost no one who sees it will be able to say what it's about. I love it, and i'm really happy to be working on it."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:55 AM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
52 comments
...Read More
Vendetta Days
Down To It
I finally saw Debra Granik's Down to the Bone last night and got the wisdom of what almost every deep-focus movie journalist and critic has been saying since it (barely) opened in New York and Los Angeles nearly six weeks ago, which is that it's grimly real but has something that doesn't let up.
This is a profoundly honed and life-like low-budgeter about a mom with two kids coping with drug addiction, and Vera Farmiga, who plays this withered young woman like she's not playing her at all, is the absolute shit.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:13 AM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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It's over two weeks old
It's over two weeks old (heavens!), but this Mick LaSalle piece in the San Francisco Chronicle is one of the most perceptive and well-grounded explanations why theatrical revenues dropped in '05...and why they'll continue to drop (putting aside the claims of those who insist that the slump is a statistical myth or wieves' tale) until something drastic happens. Which of course won't happen until mainstream films start costing less to make...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:15 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Time's Richard Corliss on the
Time's Richard Corliss on the great Terrence Howard: "He exudes a charismatic musk as DJay, the pimp-turned-rapper in the indie film Hustle & Flow. Those soft eyes, the feline athleticism, a voice that can caress subtlety into any dialogue -- viewers get a taste of that, and in a minute they say, 'This guy's a natural star.'"
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:30 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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We all know that screw-ups
We all know that screw-ups happen now and then, and this one's not a rumor: the Technicolor tech guys who sent out screeners of Steven Spielberg's Munich on behalf of NBC Universal have messed things up as far as members of the British Film Academy (BAFTA) are concerned. The purchase order on Universal's part was correct, but somehow it wasn't carried out right and BAFTA's 3000-plus members "were sent encrypted 'screener' DVDs that were mastered for North America, and can only be played on special [multi-region] DVD players supplied by Cinea (www.cinea.com -- a Dolby subsidiary)," according to a Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:41 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Okay, we've figured out the
Okay, we've figured out the best actors to play director Nicholas Ray in Phil Kaufman's I Was Interrupted, which will cover Ray's final decade. Candidate #1: Nick Nolte. Candidate #2: Liam Neeson. Candidate #3: Sam Shepard, but Ray's voice was deep and bellowing so Shepard would have to do something about that aw-shucksy twangy thing. Candidate #4: Geoffrey Rush, but I don't think so. And Candidate #5: Ian McKellen...maybe.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:57 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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An amusing, appealing teaser for
An amusing, appealing teaser for Kevin Smith's Clerks 2 (Weinstein Co.), which may turn up at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival...or so I've been told.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:35 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger,
Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger, currently in Australia and interviewed at the Melbourne premiere of Ang Lee's film, had a couple of things to say about Larry Miller's refusing to show it in Salt Lake City last weekend. But Ledger's claim that West Virginia had lynchings "only 25 years ago" appears suspect. According to this June 2005 Washington Post article about Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia (who was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan), the last lynching in West Virginia was in 1931.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:23 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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The salivating ambition of the
The salivating ambition of the Broadcast Film Critics Awards aside, the awards they handed out early Monday evening were right down the middle of the bowling alley -- Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, Ang Lee for Best Director, Philip Seymour Hoffman for best Acotr in Capote, Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress in Walk the Line, et. al. The only hiccups were (a) naming the bizarrely over-rated The 40 Year-old Virgin as Best Comedy, and (b) giving John Williams the Best Musical Score award for Memoirs of a Geisha instead of Gustavo Santaolalla's for Brokeback Mountain.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:24 AM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Monday, January 9, 2006
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No one has ever been
No one has ever been able to explain any kind of easy-to-sort- through criteria by which a regular guy can decide that the sound editing on this film is better than the sound editing on that film. It's always been a total mystery to me...to everyone. And why is is that only the expensive big-noise films with elaborate costumes and weaponry seem to get nominated for the sound editing Oscar? This year's nominees, in alphabetical order, are ...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:55 PM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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The Broadcast Film Critics --
The Broadcast Film Critics -- the new whores on the block, the KY Jelly conquistadors said to be determined to out-glitz and out-fellate the Golden Globes -- are handing out their coveted awards tonight. Be sure and watch and see which of their ten Best Picture nominees -- Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Cinderella Man, The Constant Gardener, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich and Walk the Line -- walks off with the prize. That's right -- they've listed Memoirs of a Geisha as a