Month: December 2011

In a 12.9 Oscar-race article focusing on producer Scott Rudin (Extremely Loud & Extremely Close, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), N.Y. Times reporter Brooks Barnes writes that “the buzz from the few people who have seen Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close so far? Superb, but emotionally harrowing — one box of Kleenex might not suffice.”

Barnes also quotes a high-ranking studio executive as saying that Rudin “knows exactly what he has” in Stephen Daldry‘s 9/11 drama, “and it’s a jewel.”

And then a friend who’s seen Extremely Loud said something today that others may agree with: “It’s a better film than War Horse.” Meaning that it’s more or less the same kind of tear-soaked experience but that it uses a tad more restraint and is less emotionally scattershot than Steven Spielberg‘s film.

And then I remembered hearing from a person who’s witnessed reactions to screenings of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and how “they’ve been through the roof” on an “emotional gut level.”

Two seconds later a lightbulb went on and a little chime went “ding!”

Now, it may be that The Artist will eventually take the Best Picture Oscar, and if that happens…whatever. But if that black-and-white film loses steam and the choice comes down to War Horse vs. Extremely Loud…well! People like me will understand which side of the bread has the butter. So if — I say “if” — it comes down to an either/or, those with War Horse issues will, as Gen. Patton once said, “know what to do.” Just sayin’.

I have to leave in a few for round-table interviews at the Four Seasons for Angelina Jolie‘s In The Land of Blood and Honey. Everyone is looking to get what they want from these things, but whenever an object of tabloid fascination like Jolie sits down at the table, it’s highly likely that some ninny is going to go “off-topic” and ask some idiotic, inane, downmarket question. This is always cause for major eye-rolling, and is one reason why I hate these occasions. Hell, sometimes, is other journalists.

1:25 pm Update: Then again surprises happen from time to time. I’ve just returned from the Blood and Honey junket, and the q & a with Jolie was perfectly fine. In room #1414, at least. Nobody asked any inane tabloid questions. One person asked if handling a brood of seven children was analogous to directing a film, but that was allowable, I felt.

John Williams‘ War Horse soundtrack is about calculated symphonic dictation. It’s one of those scores that goads you, like an overbearing, baton-waving music teacher, into feeling this or that emotion on cue. Williams + Spielberg have been pushing the same buttons and working the same levers since Jaws. I once listened to an orchestra perform a summation of Williams’ best known movie themes at the Hollywood Bowl (with Williams conducting, of course). Well plowed and well trod, to put it mildly.

Mychael Danna‘s Moneyball score is more of a subtle, half-spooky weaver of spells. It’s hardly lacking in the activation of feeling or the use of compositional complexity, but it goes much easier and always seems to be slipping into your inner reservoir, creating spot-on ripples and currents but never trying to overwhelm or wash over. Danna, clearly, is trying to augment what you’re already feeling. As Jonah Hill put it in a recent HE interview, Danna’s score “watches the movie with you.”

Indiewire‘s Amy Dawes attended last night’s Dark Knight Rises prologue IMAX press screening, and has this to say about the big-screen debut of Tom Hardy‘s Bane character: “You’d have to know in advance [that] the villain was Hardy, given that he’s muscled up and puffed up, has a shaved head, and wears a disturbing-looking gas mask that hides all his features save his eyes – kind of a Hannibal Lecter hockey mask-look on steroids.”

On top of which Hardy’s “voice behind the mask is metallic and muffled — another cause for concern.”

The effect, says Dawes, “is more likely to appeal to S&M fetishists than to anyone who hopes to gaze upon the physically blessed actor, who also appeared in Nolan’s most recent movie, Inception.”

Hollywood Elsewhere will not be among the elite press people (including a fair number of fanboy types) who will be attending an IMAX screening this evening of Chris Nolan‘s seven or eight-minute Dark Knight Rises prologue. Reps for Deadline, Indiewire and other mainstream entertainment press will be at the Universal IMAX Citywalk event at 7:30 pm (with a reception to follow), and Nolan is hosting an earlier screening at the same venue at 5:45 pm for filmmaker friends.

I guess Warner Bros. publicists feel I’m not fanboy enough, but where is the logic in that? This wll be tonight’s biggest Twitter conversation and tomorrow’s biggest topic by far on entertainment sites, and how does it benefit their interests to keep someone with a recognized voice out of the conversation? I’ve been an admirer of Nolan’s stuff all along from Memento to Insomnia to Batman Begins to The Dark Knight to Inception. Am I on Nolan’s shitlist because of this June 2010 posting? All I did was summarize the reportings of others.

I know of another guy who’s been told “no-go” on this thing so I’m not the only one. But it’s silly and petty all the same.

The Dark Knight Rises prologue will be shown to the public at several IMAX theatres just before Mission: Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, which opens on 12.21. But only, apparently, at IMAX theatres.

Here’s a summary provided by Screenrant:

“There are undoubtedly a lot of people who will be paying to see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX solely for the purpose of glimpsing the six-minute preview for The Dark Knight Rises.

“Chris Nolan revealed in a recent interview that the footage screened in the preview will cover “basically the first six, seven minutes of the film. It’s the introduction to Bane and a taste of the rest of the film.

“Today we have word from a poster named ‘Rocketman’ over on the SuperHero Hype forums, who claims to have a description of the TDKR prologue footage. Read his version of said footage below (be sure to take a salt grain beforehand) and see how it jibes (or does not) with what Nolan alluded to,” and blah, blah, blah.

In the Gurus of Gold view, the top ten Best Picture contenders are, in this order, these: 1. The Artist; 2. War Horse; 3. The Descendants; 4. Hugo; 5. Midnight in Paris; 6. The Help; 7. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close; 8. Moneyball; 9. The Tree of Life; 10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The Gurus and the Gold Derby gang are continually estimating and revising their predictions, and I must confess I’m starting to weaken as far as the Artist onslaught in concerned. Or at least, I’m feeling weaker today.

The Zeligs have apparently decided where the safe havens are, and the resulting mentality is relentless and appalling.

Another interesting barometer comes from the Broadcast Film Critics Association website, which is the home of the Critics Choice Awards. They’re a fairly good indicator of where mainstream sentiment is, and right now, it appears, they’re thinking a bit differently than the Gurus. Presumably based on votes from the BFCA membership, they’ve assigned numerical ratings to the top contenders, and here, in descending order, is how it reads as of 3:30 pm Pacific:

1. The Descendants — 92 out of 100.

Tied for second place: The Artist, 91 out of 100, and Moneyball, 91 out of 100.

3. The Help — 89 out of 100.

Tied for fourth place: Hugo, 87 out of 100, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 87 out of 100.

5. Midnight in Paris — 85 out of 100.

6. War Horse — 80 out of 100.

7. The Tree of Life — 78 out of 100.

One For The Money (1.27) is obviously another broad, lightweight, formulaic Kathryn Heigel romcom — a perfect late-January release aimed at none-too-bright women. The standout thing, of course, is the casting of a relatively low-profile TV guy, Jason O’Mara, in the Gerard Butler role.

Brian Lowry‘s Variety review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows says that the upcoming Warner Bros. release “has the significant advantage of featuring Holmes’ preeminent adversary, Professor Moriarty, as played with reptilian charm by Jared Harris. So while director Guy Ritchie‘s excesses and modern concessions — among them a lot of explosions — remain intact, the parts of this second Sherlock Holmes are considerably more rewarding

“For purists, of course, there’s almost certainly too much gunplay and noise (including Hans Zimmer‘s bombastic score), but this is a Holmes designed to appeal as much to the Transformers generation as those steeped in his literary or even past cinematic exploits.”

The more you predict that Academy members will cast their Best Picture vote for a lightweight bauble or whorey manipulative schmaltz, the more likely it is that the Academy Zeligs will be inclined to vote for same. I can repeat this over and over into mid-January. Write it 100 times on the blackboard: “Oscar predictions tend to perpetuate easy-emotional-default mediocrities.”