Day: January 15, 2010

I’m way the hell back in the line of journalists looking for one-on-ones with Kristen Stewart during Sundance 2010. I realize that, and I know it’s my own damn fault because I didn’t work it soon enough. My chances are improved, I realize, by the fact that she’s got two films playing there — The Runaways and Welcome to the Rileys. But it’s still going to be hard. What else is new?

Kristen Stewart in Welcome to the Rileys.

But I may as well say this out loud in hopes that the publicists (KStew’s, the ones repping the films) may be reading and thinking things over. Not to put it too clumsily but I’d greatly appreciate a little face-time. 15 or 20 minutes, I mean. Because the Movie Godz have told me they need to take a closer look because the filters have been too thick so far.

I’m making this request as the only columnist who’s written the following about KStew: (a) that she’s “the GenY Marlon Brando/James Dean/Montgomery Clift,” and (b) that during her ComicCon appearance last summer she “looked, frankly, kind of rock-and-rollish with a kind of cigarettes-and-booze attitude…a fascinating actress, but clearly not someone who’s looking for peace as much as truth, even if it scalds.”

A little gut twitch tells me Rileys might — I say “might” — be the better of the two, but we’ll obviously know soon enough. I leave for Park City five days from now.

The Golden Globe awards are happening Sunday night. Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone has asked for GG predictions for a poll she’s doing. I sent the following minus the “Why” and “Personal Preference” portions:

Best Motion Picture, Drama. HE prediction: Avatar? (Lightstorm Entertainment; Twentieth Century Fox). Why: Wow Factor, Money Avalanche, 3D Game-Change. Personal Preference: The Hurt Locker.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama. HE prediction : The Blind Side‘s Sandra Bullock. Why: Bullock is more of a Globey Globey-type girl than Carey Mulligan. Personal Preference: An Education‘s Carey Mulligan.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama. HE prediction : Crazy Heart‘s Jeff Bridges. Why: Convincing alcoholic sloth, career achievement award. Personal Preference: A Single Man‘s Colin Firth.

Best Motion Picture, Comedy Or Musical: HE prediction :

(500) Days Of Summer? (Watermark Pictures; Fox Searchlight Pictures). Why: It’s easily the best of the nominees. Personal Preference: (500) Days of Summer.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy Or Musical. HE prediction : Julie & Julia‘s Meryl Streep. Why: Gunboat Meryl factor. Personal Preference: Nine‘s Marion Cotillard.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy Or Musical. HE prediction : A Serious Man‘s Michael Stuhlbarg. Why: None of the other contenders — Informant‘s Matt Damon, Nine‘s Daniel Day-Lewis, Sherlock Holmes‘ Robert Downey Jr., 500 Days‘ Joseph Gordon-Levitt — have built up any steam. Complicating Factor: Stuhlbarg plays a wimp. Personal Preference: Stuhlbarg.

Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. HE prediction : Badass Mo’nique, Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire. Why: Please…this is hard for me. Personal Preference: Up In The Air‘s Vera Farmiga.

Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. HE prediction : Inglourious Basterds‘ Christoph Waltz. Why: The multitudes have spoken — settled issue — no choice in the matter. Personal Preference: The Messenger‘s Woody Harrelson.

Best Animated Feature Film. HE prediction : Fantastic Mr. Fox (?American Empirical Picture, Twentieth Century Fox). Why: Fox has been gaining, Up has been static. Personal Preference: Fox because of the Willis O’Brien methodology.

Best Foreign Language Film. HE prediction : Broken Embraces (Spain, Sony Pictures Classics). Why: Because it’s far and away the best of the nominees? Personal Preference: Pedro.

Best Director, Motion Picture. HE prediction : Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker. Why: Decided, locked. Personal Preference: Biggy.

Best Screenplay, Motion Picture. HE prediction : The Hurt Locker‘s Mark Boal. Why: The straight-from-life factor. Boal embedded, took notes, put it all together. Personal Preference: Boal.

Best Original Score, Motion Picture. HE prediction : Avatar‘s James Horner.

Best Original Song, Motion Picture. HE prediction : “I Want To Come Home” from Everybody’s Fine (?Music & Lyrics by Paul McCartney). Why: The Beatles…hello?

I don’t see why any U.S. distributor would hesitate to put subtitles on any British-made film, especially a low-budgeter shot in northern England. There are few things worse than being unable to understand your own language because of a litany of beefy, sickly-looking British actors with the absolute worst haircuts in the world swallowing and gobbledy-gooking their northern patois.

I don’t want anyone to alter their natural speech patterns, mind. I just want to understand what they’re saying. The obvious solution is subtitles, and yet this rarely seems to happen except when the films in question (like Paul Greeengrass‘s masterful Bloody Sunday) have gone to DVD.

I saw about 60% of James Marsh‘s Red Riding installment (i.e., part two of the trilogy) last night, and I finally gave up because I really couldn’t understand half of the fawkin’ dialogue. I understood Paddy Considine, who plays the lead role, and some of what some of the supporting players were saying, but only fragments.

The okay-that’s-it moment came when Considine’s ginger-haired detective colleague told him something fairly important (to judge by his stunned reaction), and of course I couldn’t understand her. And Marsh couldn’t be bothered to rephrase or reiterate the information in some way. And it wasn’t just me. Anthony Kaufman told me outside the screening room that he had watched this same scene repeatedly on a screener and still couldn’t figure it out.

I’m finished with the Red Riding trilogy. The Yorkshire Ripper can keep on killing for all I care. Marsh’s filmmaking style is sturdy and legible, and I was pleased with his use of 2.35 Scope. But I was lost — and I seriously hate muttering guttural British films that make me feel this way.

I’ve been persuaded…actually, I wanted to be persuaded that Amir Bar-Lev‘s The Tillman Story will be a major film to see at Sundance 2010. Because I know what it’ll be going in — i.e., an exposing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal‘s failed bullshit spin and a slam at U.S. war policy in the Middle East. Mother’s milk to me.

Jon Krakauer‘s Where Men Win Glory was an exploration of the life and death of Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety and U.S. Army Ranger who suffered a friendly-fire death in Afghanistan in April 2004.

McChrystal’s roundabout admission last year that he fraudulently approved awarding Tillman a posthumous Silver Star as a result of enemy fire was heavily focused upon by Krakauer’s book and in a 10.14 Daily Beast article.

It is virtually 100% guaranteed that those fine AT&T people will again be unable to provide the necessary iPhone air coverage in the Park City area during Sundance 2010. Just like last year, which was generally an agonizing Waiting for Godot experience for the first five or six days. So why have I bought the Sundance 2010 app? I’ll tell you why. I don’t know why.

I understood last year about Chris Nolan‘s Inception script being impossible to get hold of, but enough of that. Today is 1.15.10, Inception will be playing six months hence (7.16.10), and even hard-to-find scripts always get passed around during this final-approach period. Bright, well-placed fellows have sent me the hot ones before. I’m asking.