Day: May 17, 2013

The Weinstein Co. invited press and buyers to a Majestic Hotel preview of the company’s 2013 films. The crowd was shown trailer/footage reels for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Fruitvale Station, The Butler, August: Osage County, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, The Grandmaster, Grace of Monaco, Salinger, Only God Forgives, James Gray‘s The Immigrant and One Chance, a drama about opera-singer Paul Potts.

Grace of Monaco star Nicole Kidman, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints costar Rooney Mara, the Fruitvale Station guys (Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz) and Mandela: Walk to Freedom director Justin Chadwick and costar Naomie Harris joined Harvey Weinstein on stage for the presentation.

Based on the trailers shown, the likeliest Weinstein Co. Oscar contenders are John Wells‘ August: Osage County and Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station. If you ask me Twenty Feet From Stardom, which the Weinstein Co. acquired at Sundance, is a likely Best Documentary Feature Oscar contender but today’s presentation was about future releases. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which I saw at Sundance, is going to be a sizable critical hit and a likely Spirit Awards nominee.

Yesterday’s word on Ari Folman‘s The Congress was a little iffy and head-scratchy so I didn’t make the effort to catch it as soon as possible. I’ll get around to it — Folman is a major filmmaker and attention must be paid — but I’m not going to sprain an ankle doing so. And then Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn sent me his review this afternoon, which raised my interest levels somewhat.

“Has there ever been a movie so aggressive toward Hollywood power structures?,” Kohn asks. “From Budd Schulberg‘s 1941 novel ‘What Makes Sammy Run?’ to Robert Altman‘s The Player, storytellers have constantly assaulted the studio system, but Folman makes its evils come alive with phantasmagorical effects that force viewers to see the argument from the inside out.

“The Congress rails against commercialism with an absurdly far-fetched premise rendered in the bright palette of a Ralph Bakshi movie and a wandering surrealism that echoes Naked Lunch. Yet it’s also a wholly original and thoroughly surprising fusion of sensory overload and liberal philosophy bound to confuse and provoke in equal measures.”

I didn’t want to watch this teaser for Jon Turtletaub‘s Last Vegas because I figured it would play it right down the middle and I didn’t want that sludge in my head. What the hell, I watched it anyway. And it played it right down the effing middle — old dogs cuttin’ loose, “Welcome to Las Vegas!”, “Four vodka and Red Bulls!”, yay, we’re bombed! No surprises, no counter-current, no side-pocket shots…nothing.

This stately, impressionistic, half-painterly and faintly lewd composition indicates that Lars von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac will have a certain X-factor (as opposed to X-rated) mentality. It promises that the film will be up to something cool and off-center, although I can’t remotely guess what that might be. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Christian Slater, Shia LaBeouf, Stacy Martin, Connie Nielsen, Willem Dafoe, Stellan Skarsgard, etc.

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David Bowie‘s “Beauty and the Beast,” which is now 35 years old (Jesus!), has become the worst ear bug that I’ve had to deal with in a year or so. The only way to get rid of bugs is to listen to the song so many times that you can’t stand it any more. Most of yesterday, all last night, in my dreams, right now…won’t leave me alone.

I’m still fiddling around and shuffling the deck and not yet dealing the cards on my review, but of all the rooted, spellbinding performances in Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past the one that really put the hook in, for me, was Pauline Burlet‘s as Lucie, the elder daughter of Berenice Bejo‘s Marie. I haven’t felt this kind of surging river current in a new actress since I first saw Carey Mulligan go to town in An Education. Burlet is only 16 or 17 or something, but she’s clearly the new Marion Cotillard-plus. Indeed, she played the young Cotillard (or more precisely the young Edith Piaf) in La Vie En Rose when she was 10 or 11.

(l. to r.) The Past director-writer Asghar Farhadi, costars Berenice Bejo, Ali Mosaffa.

In my book (and this in no way compromises the value of Berenice Bejo’s lead perfoirmance), the most eye-opening performance in The Past is given by Pauline Burlet.

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The sky is blue and the sun is out! On top of which I’ve seen two phenomenal, award-destined films — strong>Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station and Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past — within the past 14 hours. I’m sitting in the Orange cafe now and trying to bang something out on The Past and perhaps Fruitvale Station, although I wonder if I have it in me to write two thumbs-up reviews in a row. It’s much easier to write a slam. What makes a domestic melodrama seem soapy to a snarky few and Eugene O’Neil-ish to others? Here’s the initial Twitter dialogue on The Past:

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