Philip Noyce‘s Catch a Fire (Focus Features, 10.27) is a smart, urgent political drama about how an uneducated average-Joe black guy, Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), was goaded — brutalized — into becoming an anti-apartheid terrorist in the early ’80s. But the idea the film came from a white guy, albeit an atypical one — Joe Slovo , the white chief of staff of the African National Congress√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s military wing and later Nelson Mandela‘s housing minister.

It all started when Slovo, according to this 10.15 New York Times story by Kristin Hohenadel, told his daughter Shawn Slovo, a screenwriter, that she should write a script about Chamusso.
√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ö‚ÄúTerrorism is the single biggest real fear in the contemporary world,√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù Robyn Slovo, another of Joe’s daughters and one of the flm’s producers, tells Hohenadel. √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ö‚ÄúWhat√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s interesting is there√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s not enough time spent looking at why a man would do this. Not all terrorists are the same. But this is our attempt to make an audience identify with a terrorist, there√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s no question about it.√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù
Chamusso “does not accept the terrorist label,” writes Hohenadel, adding that his fundamental claim is that he “was pushed to do it.”
For Noyce, Catch a Fire was “ultimately about transcendence,” she writes.
“South Africa’s recent history is a beacon to the rest of the world in terms of the peaceful resolution of bitter interracial conflict, keeping the infrastructure of the country intact, preserving the rights of citizens on all sides,” he says. “The movie really is about the South African miracle. The moral consequences of that struggle to all the participants, and then how in this society they’ve managed to move beyond that struggle. They live with it, they don’t deny it but they live together.”

Bad news, encouraging news: Doug McGrath‘s Infamous (Warner Independent), the second Truman Capote-writes-In Cold Blood movie, opened weakly yesterday in a limited 179-theatre break. $120,000 cume and $600 per print average yesterday — an expected $411,000 and a $2295 per-screen average by Sunday night. These numbers may not sound tragic, but in industry eyes this means it pretty much opened and closed. Stephen Frears‘ The Queen (Miramax), on the other hand, expanded from 11 to 46 screens and will have about $937,000 by Sunday night, not counting last week’s take. It’s doing very well, and will probably continue to do so for a good while. Not to mention the bump that will happen with Mirren gets her Best Actress nomination.

Takashi Shimizu‘s The Grudge 2 (Columbia), showing in 3211 situations, will end up in first place Sunday night with roughly $27,261,000. But the big story is Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (Warner Bros.), which will come in second roughly $19,369,000, dropping only 26%. That’s a very strong hold from last weekend, especially considering that last Sunday’s business was stronger than usual due to the Columbus Day holiday that came the next day (i.e., Monday, 10.9).
Man of the Year will be third with an expected Sunday-night cume of $12,399,000, Open Season will end up with $11,105 (decent hold). Texas Chainsaw Masscare: The Beginning, weakened by The Grudge 2, will have about $8,559,000. The Marine, which opened without critics screenings, will end up with $6,693,000, give or take. The Guardian, $5,738,000. Employee of the Month, $5,248,000. One Night with the King (a religious-right flick with “some sensuality,” starring Tiffany Dupont and costarring Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif with “some sensuality,” about Esther — as iin “the book of…” — winning the heart of the king). Jackass Number Two will end up with $3,122,000 for the weekend.

“It may be tempting to greet Marie Antoinette with a Jacobin snarl or a self- righteous sneer, since it is after all the story of the silly teenager who embodied a corrupt, absolutist state in its terminal decadence,” A.O. Scott wrote yesterday. on the occasion of Sofia Coppola‘s film being shown at the N.Y. Film Festival. “But where’s the fun in such indignation? And, more seriously, where is the justice? To say that this movie is historically irresponsible or politically suspect is both to state the obvious and to miss the point.”

But it’s not that Coppola’s film, which has visual splendor and a fine tonal consistency all through, is historically irresponsible — it’s the fact that it exudes vapid self-portraiture at every turn. Once you get past the well-honed profession- alism that went into the making of the damn thing, the selective nature of Coppola’s screenplay — she obviously relates to the trapped-rich-girl experience and little else — renders something not so much “boring” as rigorously drained.
And yet here are Scott and L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan (his piece also filed yesterday) defending Coppola’s integrity and basically saying that embracing a vapid approach is okay — deserving of respect — as long as you do it with disci- pline and style. There’s no question that Coppola had a vision when she made this film, and that it was very much her own. I’ve said that from the beginning, but God, what a diminishment of the vision thing.
There’s also no question that a significant factor behind Scott, Turan, Michel Ciment and a lot of other critics cutting Marie-Antoinette a break or going so far as to praise it is a certain sublimated kowtowing to the Coppola legend/tradition/ aura…a veiled showing of respect to a once very powerful king. Without this and other dad-related factors (including the rich-girl-trapped-in-a-royal-court sensibility in the first place), there would never have been a Marie-Antoinette. Is there anyone out there who believes Sofia would have won her 2003 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation without the Coppola gimme factor plus Bill Murray‘s inspired improvisings?

Had I not been all Bend-ed and distracted yesterday, I would have posted a sampling of reviews of Nicolas Hytner‘s The History Boys (Fox Searchlight,11.21) which opened yesterday in England. The consensus is not one of immense enthusiasm for the film, but derby-wise Richard Griffiths‘ performance as a rotund, intellectually spirited grammar school prof named Hector may — favoring winds allowing — have a shot at a Best Actor nomination.
The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil yesterday reported that Fox Searchlight, encouraged by the rave reviews Griffiths has gotten from London film critics, has decided to push him in the Best Actor category instead of Supporting, which had been the previous thinking due to Boys‘ ensemble-y nature.
Leslie Felperin‘s Variety review last Wednesday was the first to lower the boom on the film itself — now there’s a chorus of critics saying more or less the same things. The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw called it “an odd, faintly directionless experience…a stagey and oddly contrived movie directed by Nick Hytner, with the kind of elaborate, highly worked dialogue that is exhilarating in the theatre, but rather unreal-sounding on the big screen.
“It is set, notionally, in the early 1980s, though Bennett’s mental picture of the scene is surely from decades further back than that. There are some ’80s pop songs on the soundtrack and modernized touches that appear to overshoot the period runway; we get talk of ‘media studies’ (for the Oxbridge term? in the early 80s?) and the boys invoke their ‘rights’ when a master casually whacks them over the head with some exercise books.”
Bradshaw is especially good with his riffs on Mr. Creosote:
“Really, though, we are in Mr. Chips country. And the Mr. Chips who has wisely and wittily guided a number of clever-clogs youngsters to academic success is a master called Hector, rumbustiously played by Richard Griffiths. Heaven knows, Mr. Griffiths was no starveling playing Uncle Monty in Withnail and I 20 years ago — but now he is a mighty presence indeed.
“[Griffiths] actually has a stunt double listed on the final credits, presumably for long-shots showing Hector in his crash helmet sedately riding a motor-scooter into the school grounds, and that is not exactly Mission: Impossible stuff. As far as he is permitted, Griffiths dominates the screen with talent and charm — and sheer equatorial girth.”

It’s been a strong year for British films and British performers. The proof, says Daily Mail columnist Baz Bamigboye, is that the 2007 BAFTA Awards, set for Sunday, 2.11, will have a larger-than-usual amount of actual competing Brits. To make his point he starts by safely predicting “the Battle of the Dames” — Notes on a Scandal‘s Judi Dench vs. The Queen‘s Helen Mirren going head-to-head for the best actress crown. (Baz has seen Notes and says Dench “nails it.”) Dench’s costars in this film, Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy (as Blanchett’s husband) will also be up for best supporting BAFTAs, he says. Little Children ‘s Kate Winslet will also be in the running, he claims, for her role in Todd Fields‘ Little Children. So will Toby Jones for his “cracking portrayal” of Truman Capote in Infamous…wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. There’s no heat for Jones on this side of the pond — Bamigboye is saying he’s a likely BAFTA nominee because he’s British? he’s also predicting that the Venus team — costars Peter O’Toole (of course), Leslie Phillips (really?), Jodie Whittaker (doubtful) and a “peerless” Vanessa Redgrave (maybe) — may be nominated for their work in Roger Michell ‘s smalllish low-budgeter. Bamigboye is further predicting that Jude Law and Martin Freeman will get BAFTA noms for their work in Breaking And Entering.

The column wasn’t very active today either, largely because the Bend Film Festival jury — myself and five other guys — sat down and mulled over which films will win the cash (including a $10,000 Best of Show” award) and non-cash prizes for a little more than four hours. We started around 11:15 this morning and finished at 3:20 pm. There were some differences of opinion but very little debating; everyone was more or less on the same page. The winners will be announced on Saturday night.

Bend Film Festival jurors during deliberative recess — (l. to r.) entertainment attorney Richard Roll, director Taggart Siegel (The Real Dirt on Farmer John), myself, critic/journalist/Movie City Indie editor Ray Pride, director-writer-actor Hank Rogerson (Shakespeare Behind Bars), filmmaker Rory Kelly (Sleep With Me, Some Girl); in a Wall Street storefront window, a board game for sale; the festival’s flagship venue is the Tower theatre, located on Wall Street in the center of downtown; ditto; haven

Three strongly worded reactions — an ecstatic rave, a thumbs-up and a pan — to David Fincher‘s Zodiac (Paramount, 1.17) went up on AICN today following Thursday night’s screening of a nearly-finished cut at Hollywood’s Arclight.

San Francisco’s Transamerica tower was built between ’69 and ’72; the Zodiac action mainly happens between ’69 and ’71.

You can discount the wows or choose to regard them as plants, but it sounds at the very least like an impressively detailed and workmanlike policier coming from an early ’70s Pakula-type place. Given the building consensus that fall-winter season is looking weaker and weaker as we go along, it seems as if a limited December release of Zodiac would fill at least a portion of the void.
The ecstasy guy said he was “blown away,” called it “easily the best film I’ve seen this year,” “an instant classic”, “a great piece of filmmaking [and] easily one of the best films about an investigation I’ve ever seen.” The moderate admirer “didn√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢t think it was quite as good as either Se7en or Fight Club” [but] says it operates in a kind of Pakula-type realm (All The President’s Men, Klute) and called it “a terrific film, one that I was long looking forward to…almost consistently compelling, suspenseful, and dramatically effective.”

The shadows are getting longer and I have to make the rounds around Bend (at festival headquarters and at various opening night soirees), so I guess this is one of those days in which five items will have to do. Unless I get industrious later this evening.

Rapidly speaking: (a) Dreamgirls won’t be seen in its entirety until later this month, but it’s feeling more and more like a locomotive; (b) The Departed is Marty’s Rousing Return and a bit of a torch-bearer for the tradition of The French Connection; (c) Based on almost nothing (or virtually nothing), The Good German feels a bit pallid; (d) Little Children is all about Kate Winslet right now…if that; (e) Little Miss Sunshine is on the move again…yes!; (f) We all know about Helen Mirren‘s inevitability, but now The Queen, which seemed good but overly tidy at first, is starting to look like Best Picture material; (g) Babel is an aching, close-to-great film, and also superbly made; (h) hasn’t World Trade Center been out of the picture since August?; (i) Flags of Our Fathers is well respected, has its admirers, etc., but it’s been dissed also — no duckwalk; (j) The Good Shepherd has been sounding like a not-quite-there thing since last summer; (k) The History Boys is apparently over; (l) Bobby never got rolling; (m) Catch A Fire is as well-jiggered as a film of this sort can be; (n) The Pursuit of Happyness is automatically suspect because of Will Smith in the lead role; (o) Stranger Than Fiction died in Toronto; (p) The Last King of Scotland is entirely about Forrest Whitaker.

I’m just adding my voice to those who’ve already cheered Roger Ebert‘s re-appearance from his sick bed yesterday. “I won’t be back to full production until sometime early next year,” he said. “The good news is that my rehabilitation is a profound education in the realities of the daily lives we lead, and my mind is still capable of being delighted by cinematic greatness.”
The recovering critic assures us he “will eventually walk, talk, taste, eat, drink and live, more or less, normally. But it will be a struggle, involving another surgery to complete what began in June.
My favorite passage: “I have discovered a goodness and decency in people as exhibited in all the letters, e-mails, flowers, gifts and prayers that have been directed my way. I am overwhelmed and humbled. I offer you my most sincere thanks and my deep and abiding gratitude. If I ever write my memoirs, I have some spellbinding material. How does the Joni Mitchell song go? ‘Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’? One thing I’ve discovered is that I love my job more than I thought I did, and I love my wife even more!”