Month: January 2009

The financial woes that KO’ed Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth last month were briefly forgotten when this incontestably fine film, which I called “Lurie’s best, hands down” in my 8.18.08 review, was honored last night as the opening attraction at the 2009 Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Nothing But The Truth costar Noah Wyle, director-writer Rod Lurie at last night’s after-party in downtown Santa Barbara.

The Bob Yari Chapter 11 tragedy, announced on 12.13.08, turned Nothing But The Truth into an instant dead horse — no bookings, no ads, no nothin’.

I praised NBTT “because it’s feels smoother and crisper and more confidently dug into the soil than The Contender or Resurrecting The Champ or The Last Castle. It’s a growth-spurt thing, a movie that says, almost with a kind of shrug, ‘Okay, now I really know what I’m doing.’ And because each and every actor nails what they’ve been hired to do like the pros they are, and I don’t just mean the leads — Kate Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga, Alan Alda and Matt Dillon, all of whom hit triples and homers.

“I also mean costars Noah Wyle and David Schwimmer and even the homie-girl actresses who play Beckinsale’s cellmates when she goes to the pound for refusing to give up a source. I mean everyone up and down. Everybody delivers , nobody ‘acts.’

“Yes, I know and am friendly with Lurie, but I know good craft and good material when I see it, and I’m sure as hell not going to sit on what I know and feel because of a reverse-blowjob concern.”

Outside Santa Barbara’s State Street hotel — 1.23.09, 7:05 am.

Wetness from Hollywood Elsewhere on Vimeo.

Who wasn’t shocked at yesterday’s announcement about Stephen Daldry‘s The Reader being one of the Best Picture Oscar nominees? The Envelope ‘s Pete Hammond, for one.

In the wake of last week’s BAFTA announcement in which The Reader received several key noms including best picture, Hammond wrote that “this is the movie that has cropped up again and again in conversations I’ve had with academy members, not The Dark Knight.

“That decidedly unscientific survey has again proven to be right,” Hammond said yesterday. “My ‘group’ has in previous years pointed clearly to upset victories for My Cousin Vinnie‘s Marisa Tomei, Crash and Marion Cotillard winning for Best Actress. I’m getting on the phone with them right now to see who wins on Feb. 22. I’ll let you know.”

Art accompanying Oscar nomination piece posted earlier today by The Film Experience‘s Nathaniel R.

Based on the BBC mini-series of the same title, State of Play (Universal, 4.17) is “about a team of investigative reporters work alongside a police detective to try to solve the murder of a Washington congressman’s mistress.” Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck and Helen Mirren costar. Screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Tony Gilroy; directed by Kevin Macdonald.

Posted 10 days ago by Joe Nicolosi. You could make a whole series of idiot synopsis summaries about dozens of classic films.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

In a 1.23 Alliance of Women Film Journalist piece called “Oscar-Worthy Women’s Work, 2009 Edition,” Eleanor Ringel uses the terms “achingly desolate” and “beautifully bleak” to describe…Revolutionary Road? Okay, fine, but when I first read these four words as a pull quote I naturally assumed Ringel was talking about Kristin Scott Thomas‘s performance in I Loved You So Long.

Which, by the way, Ringel doesn’t mention at all in the piece. Everyone else in the ’08 sorority — Melissa Leo, La Streep, Viola Davis, Sally Hawkins, Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei, etc. — makes the cut, but not Thomas, who arguably delivered the year’s most delicate, searing, stone-solid female performance. Why am I pointing this out and not Ringel? What is this?

Ian Softley‘s Inkheart opens tomorrow. Yeegodz and little fishes.

Last week L.A.Times sports writer Lance Pugmire happened to run into Mickey Rourke during a visit to the Wild Card Gym. Rourke talked to Pugmire about the boxing world and the people in it. As Debbie Goffa writes, “It is a telling interview, just under four minutes long, and shows where Rourke’s heart really is — boxing.”

IFC Films has made a wise decision in acquiring U.S. rights to Armando Iannucci ‘s hilarious In The Loop, which I wrote about on 1.13. Pic will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this evening. It costars Peter Capaldi, James Gandolfini, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, Mimi Kennedy, David Rasche, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky and Steve Coogan. The deal was negotiated by Arianna Bocco and Betsy Rodgers for IFC Films with Cassian Elwes of William Morris Independent and Ben Roberts of Protagonist Pictures on behalf of BBC Films, Aramid Capital and UK Film Council.

Arriving in downtown Santa Barbara sometime around 3 pm.

State Street from Hollywood Elsewhere on Vimeo.

15 minutes south of Santa Barbara from Hollywood Elsewhere on Vimeo.