Day: November 29, 2010

A Peggy Siegal luncheon was held today at the Four Seasons for The Fighter, and particularly for director David O. Russell, star-producer Mark Wahlberg and costar Melissa Leo. After the food and schmooze Russell and I spoke for a half-hour — here‘s the mp3. Russell is my kind of whip-smart guy — highly perceptive, well-read, an adult, a father, and whimsical but in no way combustible or hair-trigger. His shorter hair, I think, signifies a new resolve never to be on YouTube ever again.

Yes, that’s N.Y. Press critic Armond White sitting near me (i.e., frame right) during the stand-up greeting that Wahlberg, Russell and Leo offered to the guests.

I asked Wahlberg during the lunch whether he’d read Christian Bale‘s Esquire interview, and he said yeah. We agreed it’s a good read and a good wrestling match. “So why isn’t he here today?,” I asked. “I mean, I know he doesn’t like to do these press things…” Wahlberg went into a schpiel about how he accepts the responsibility of having to promote any film, particularly one with award-season ambitions, with the usual meet-and-greets. “So why isn’t Bale here?,” I asked again. Wahlberg half cleared his throat and half-chuckled and mumured, “Ask him.” I told him the Best Supporting Actor thing is down to Bale vs. The King’s Speech Geoffrey Rush, he said, no surprise, that he’d been told that. And that was that. Bale is Bale.

I told him that as much as I worshipped The Departed, The Fighter feels more authentic in terms of the working-class Massachusetts accents and faces. He said that the authenticity largely came from his (and Russell’s) insistence on using Lowell locals — i.e., people who look and talk like the genuine article without having to “act” it.

(l.) Love Ranch producer Lou DiBella, (r.) legendary boxing writer Bert Sugar, who’s often described as Damon Runyon-esque and/or Studs Terkel-like.

(l.) columnist-critic Marshall Fine; (r.) The Fighter costar and Best Supporting Actress contender Melissa Leo.

If it turns out to be true, James Franco‘s Oscar co-hosting gig will probably kill his shot at being a Best Actor nominee for his performance in 127 Hours. Just as Tom Hanks once said “there’s no crying in baseball!,” you can also say “the Oscar telecast host can’t win the Best Actor Oscar! You can’t straddle lanes like that…no! If he’s the co-host, fine. And he’s a Best Actor nominee, fine. But you can’t do both.”

Nikki Finke is reporting that she “just learned that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has asked James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host the Academy Awards, and it ‘looks like’ both young stars have accepted the offer.

“There is always the chance that one or both of them might back out because of prior commitments and other concerns,” Finke adds, “But my sources say the host announcement could be made as soon as this week.”

Excuse me and due respect, but this is close to ridiculous. These guys would be great for hosting the MTV Awards, maybe, but they’re not skilled or funny or pizazzy enough to handle the Oscars. What are the producers thinking? Ratings, I know, but every good Oscar host needs a little Lenny Bruce running through his/her veins, and Franco and Hathaway, trust me, do not have that quality — it’s not in them.

Franco and Hathaway are cool and gifted and sensitive, certainly, but they don’t have that command-of-the-spotlight, look-at-me and then fucking-listen-to-me quality. This is the worst Oscar hosting idea since…when?

TheWrap‘s Steve Pond has passed along positive tweet impressions of Joel and Ethan Coen‘s True Grit, which screened to a select few last week in Los Angeles and also Saturday night here in New York.

I was told two things yesterday about True Grit. One, that it’s a surprisingly emotional film (i.e., surprisingly for the Coen brothers, that is). And two, that while Jeff Bridges‘s Rooster Cogburn performance is crackling and robust, Matt Damon “almost steals the show”in the Glenn Campbell role, and that he’s suddenly looking like a possible Best Supporting Actor nominee.

The great Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back but more importantly of Loving, the 1970 George Segal-Eva Marie Saint Westport ennui dramedy, had died at age 87.

Kersh was a feisty guy, fun to talk to, full of piss and vinegar, no day at the beach. I loved his brief little performance in The Last Temptation of Christ (“…but we want it!”). And yes, let’s acknowledge that he deserves eternal credit for defying George “it doesn’t have to be that good” Lucas on production values and other matters and making the best Star Wars film of all time.

The Fighter had another triumphant Manhattan showing last night, and at a good theatre for a change — i.e., Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade as opposed to the always-crappy-sounding Lincoln Square. After the lights came up star-producer Mark Wahlberg, director David O. Russell and Best Supporting Actress contender Melissa Leo sat for a q & a. Strong applause greeted the closing credits. New Yorker critic David Denby was there. Smart crowd, pretty middle-aged women, etc. It was the place to be.

The sound is indistinct on these iPhone clips (I forgot my camera due to being fagged and shagged from a red-eye flight I took on Saturday night), but if you turn the sound way up or wear headphones you can make it out.

So why weren’t Christian Bale or Amy Adams there? And why aren’t they taking part in today’s Four Seasons luncheon (which I’ll be attending at 12:30 pm)? Both give serious heavy-hitter supporting performances, and both are very likely Oscar nominees in their respective categories. And that’s not just the usual blah-blah.

Adams gave birth to a daughter about four months ago but if she bails on these events she’s going to weaken her standing, and in my opinion she’s easily Leo’s equal. (Her character is just as feisty, and is clearly the more sympathetic of the two.) We all know Bale doesn’t like to do these dog-and-pony shows but it’s December, for Chrissake, and he needs to get over it. You have to lube up and bend over. Is Bale this year’s Monique in this respect? Monique mixed with George C. Scott, I mean?

The Fighter delivers like a total champ the second time — no weakening, no diminishment. And the sound, as mentioned, was much cleaner and more crisp-sounding at the Walter Reade than it was at the Lincoln Square. Beware of Lincoln Square at all times!

On 11.12 I said that The Fighter is “a rugged little blue-collar thing that (I know this sounds like a cliche) pulses with grit and real feeling and emotional immediacy. It’s loose and crafty with a hurried, shot-on-the-fly quality. Which makes it feel appropriately “small” and local-feeling. To watch it is to be in it

I also said that “ten minutes into it I was saying to myself, ‘Wait…this is good…this is good…this feels right.’

“Hollywood has made good films about Massachusetts blue-collar people, but for me they felt ‘acted’ (like The Town and, no offense, The Departed). But Russell and Wahlberg, shooting almost entirely in Lowell on a fast 33-day schedule, have made some kind of real-deal thing here.

“And the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema (Let The Right One In) is brilliant — it feels close and true as it bobs and weaves and circles like a boxer And the soundtrack is full of great music, ’60s and ’70s pop tracks and lots of newer-sounding, heavy-percussion stuff, and it all just seems perfect for the task at hand. In this sense The Fighter is almost like Hal Ashby‘s Coming Home with one right-sounding cut after another playing like a juke box in a diner.”

Yesterday’s Oscar Poker was just Sasha, Phil Contrino and myself. We got into early True Grit talk, the award-worthiness of Shutter Island, general box-office tallies, Black Swan, spoilers, the diminishing theatre presence in the heartland, and the current leading candidates for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. Here’s an independent, non-iTunes link.