Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan: “There has been a lot of chatter about whether you should be competing for the Best Actress Oscar or Best Supporting Actress. Was that decision yours?”
Another Year‘s Lesley Manville: “It wasn’t, really. Sony has now quite categorically put me in the Best Actress category. That might be an error — I don’t know — but it’s their call. I’m a novice at this, so I wouldn’t dictate it, really. I don’t know. It seems to have been a good year for women.”
Buchanan: “And thus, it’s a very crowded category.”
Manville: “I sort of try to think beyond that, that at last, it’s a good year for actresses. You know? And a lot of those actresses are over 40. It’s not just about young people — there are films being made that deal with women getting older. That’s a huge bonus, and here in America, that’s a huge step forward. But I’m kind of here and I’m doing [the awards circuit], and I can’t make the outcome be anything other than what it will be. I’m quite philosophical — I wasn’t born yesterday, and I’ve been acting for over 30 years. I’ve got a reality check on it.” — from a 12.31 Vulture interview.
Movie-wise, the first three months of any year are always rough-going. The second and third month, actually, because January, bad as it is commercially, is always covered by the Sundance Film Festival. And yet last February and March each offered a film that ended up on some 2010 ten-best lists: Roman Polanski‘s The Ghost Writer on 2.19 and Noah Baumbach‘s Greenberg nearly 30 days later.
Not this year apparently, to go by appearances and guesstimates. Which January, February or March openings will at least get me through the bad patch? A few seem intriguing, but ingredient- or expectation-wise I’m not seeing anything that’s remotely Ghost Writer or Greenberg-level. If somebody knows something I don’t, please advise.
The best January release (1.21) I’ve seen so far — certainly the one with the strongest performance — is Martin Pieter Zandvliet‘s Applause (1.21). It’s a straight character-driven drama that feeds off the magnetic Danish actress Paprika Steen, who plays a divorced stage actress with anger, alcohol and general-incompatibility-with-the-world issues. It opens during Sundance but Steen has been gathering admirers since Applause began screening two months ago.
There’s also Sang-soo Im‘s The Housemaid (1.21), which I saw and half-liked eight months ago in Cannes. “A sexual hothouse melodrama made in the spirit of Claude Chabrol and Brian DePalma,” I wrote. “Dark perversity within a well-to-do family…I wasn’t entirely floored but was done with it for the most part.”
Peter Weir‘s The Way Back opens the same day, but you can take your time. “I knew going in that anyone making a journey of 4000 or 5000 kilometers on foot will face terrible strain and hunger and hardship,” I wrote on 11.24. “What, then, did The Way Back tell me? It told me that making a journey of 4000 or 5000 kilometers on foot involves terrible strain and hunger and hardship.
Nor was I taken with John Wells‘ Company Men, which opens the same day. A drama of layoffs and despondency affecting three Boston-area white-collar guys (Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper), it “plays like an intelligent funeral in a nicely furnished minimum-security prison,” I wrote during Sundance ’10.
There’s also Richard J. Lewis‘s Barney’ s Version (1.14), which I panned on 12.6. “[It’s] so steeped in the lives and culture of Montreal Jewry that I was having trouble breathing,” I wrote. “Barney’s Version isn’t just about boomer-aged Canadian Jews who grew up and lived in Montreal, but will probably only play with boomer-aged Canadian Jews who grew up and lived in Montreal.”
There’s a chance that Gregg Araki‘s Kaboom and Hans Petter Moland‘s A Somewhat Gentle Man (which I’m watching on disc tonight) could pan out so let’s not say anything.
I haven’t seen Ron Howard‘s The Dilemma, Ivan Reitman‘s No Strings Attached (rumored to be a possible Norbit-in-the-ointment film that could diminish Natalie Portman‘s Oscar chances), Season of the Witch (i.e., the latest Nicolas Cage IRS-debt film) or The Green Hornet (forget it).
It’s too early to discuss February or March with any authority. But the only February release that looks even half engaging right now is Miguel Arteta‘s Cedar Rapids (Fox Searchlight, 2.11 — a Sundance ’11 premiere). And only three March releases stand out for me — Jonathan Liebesman‘s Battle: Los Angeles (Sony, 3.11), Jonathan Hensleigh‘s Kill The Irishman (Anchor Bay, 3.11) and Carey Fukunaga‘s Jane Eyre (Focus Features, 3.11).
I finally caught up with Martin Scorsese‘s Public Speaking. Fran Lebowitz‘s luterary output has been sparse sparse over the last couple of decades, but she knows. “Simply making people laugh is the lowest form of humor”? This is the other kind.
Last March I posted shots of old-time Times Square marquees (“Big Ass Marquees,” “More Marquees“) from the ’50s and ’60s. Here are some new discoveries. The color pic of the Astor’s display for Alfred Hitchcock‘s Spellbound is an eye-popper. If only the others had this kind of luminosity. You can almost see Michael Corleone and his girlfriend Kay trying to nudge their way through the main doors.
Spellbound, a movie that has not gained esteem with the passing of time, opened on 12.28.45.
“Along with the almost-complete disappearance of palace-sized movie theatres with balconies over the last 30 years is the abandonment of super-sized, building-mounted promotional art,” I wrote last year. “We still have the huge billboard posters along L.A.’s Sunset Strip and along 42nd Street between Eighth Avenue and Times Square, but it’s a shame that today’s moviegoers will never know the visceral thrill of standing before flamboyantly large movie promotions attached to big marquees (or building walls above marquees) that were common in Times Square until the mid ’60s. They had a real Collossus of Rhodes-type aura, these displays. What’s life without a little grandeur?”
At some point during Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones’ Letter to Elia, it’s said that Baby Doll director Elia Kazan persuaded Warner Bros. to mount this huge, erotically provocative billboard of Carroll Baker.
The 5,920-seat Roxy theatre, located at the northeast corner 50th Street and 7th Avenue, opened on 3.11.27 and was torn down in 1960.
Notice that neither the billboard nor the marquee mentions James Dean — the movie was sold entirely on the reputations of Elia Kazan and John Steinbeck.
Snapped sometime prior to the 6.3.55 opening date of The Seven Year Itch, the second of five ’50s films directed by Billy Wilder during his house-director phase, so-called because these film represented a creative hibernation for Wilder, a retreat from his usual cynical characters and stories, acid-tinged dialogue, third-act emotional turnarounds. The house phase also included Sabrina (’54), The Spirit of St. Louis (’57), Love in the Afternoon (’57) and Witness for the Prosecution (’57). Wilder finally returned to form in ’59 with Some Like It Hot. The house phase began in the wake of the success of Wilder’s Stalag 17 (’53). It’s been speculated it may have partly been prompted by the failure of Wilder’s bitterly caustic Ace in the Hole (’51).
For those worshippers of numerology and calendars who don’t subscribe to the notion of constant renewal and 24/7 refresh, this confirms last night’s reboot. Let’s make the best of it. I’m game.
“WikiLeaks is America’s Tienanmen. Julian Assange is the tank guy. We’re all holding our breath to see if we go all the way.
“While the people on the ‘don’t’ side try to discredit the man, and what he’s done, the story is still getting out. There are new revelations every day. As Arianna Huffington has said, all it takes is one story to electrify everything. I think in our gut we know [that] if the process is allowed to go forward, we can never go back.
“Assange says let’s know all there is to know. Let’s tell the people who take us to war and destroy countries and kill hundreds of thousands for profit — no more secrets. We’re not just going to suspect you’re doing it, we’re going to know. And maybe, if they know we’ll know, they won’t do it.” — Dave Winer, www.scripting.com, 12.31.10.
HE is offering a pat on the back to Jamie Stuart‘s for his big “Idiot With a Tripod” triumph. I was one of those to whom Stuart sent his blizzard video last Monday. It was Roger Ebert‘s enthusiastic response, of course, that launched it.
It’ll be midnight in Paris in about two hours, so I guess it’s time to post my usual “the hell with New Year’s Eve” sentiments. 2010 was a very good year movie-wise, and a fairly terrible one politically. But I have few complaints, and I hope that others are feeling as good these days, or are feeling at peace. This is the best era of my life. It’s a good time to be happy. Raise a glass, hug someone, smile, etc.
That said, there’s nothing fills me with such spiritual satisfaction as my annual naysaying of this idiotic celebration of absolutely nothing.
I love clinking glasses with cool people at cool parties, but celebrating renewal by way of the hands of a clock and especially in the company of party animals making a big whoop-dee-doo has always felt like a huge humiliation to me. Only idiots believe in the idea of a of a midnight renewal. Renewal is a constant. Every morning…hell, every minute marks the potential start of something beautiful and cleansing, and perhaps even transforming. So why hang back and celebrate a rite that denies this 24/7 theology, and in a kind of idiot-monkey way with party hats and noisemakers?
I would feel differently if I was in Paris or Prague or Rome. It’s another thing over there. Three years ago I wrote that “my all-time best New Year’s Eve happened in Paris on the 1999-into-2000 Millenium year — standing about two city blocks in front of the Eiffel Tower and watching the greatest fireworks display in human history.
“And then walking all the way back to Montmartre with thousands on the streets after the civil servants shut the subway down at 1 a.m.” That couldn’t have happened eleven years ago. Must be a mistake.
Stanley Kubrick was one of the reigning cinematic geniuses of the 20th century, but the defining behavioral trait of the last 30 years of his life was an increasing tendency to lead a hermetic, hidden-away life. I’ve long felt that this isolation made his films seem more and more porcelain and pristine, and less flesh-and-blood. I mentioned this once to Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s brother in law, and he didn’t disagree. “That was the man,” he said. I feel that Kubrick became a kind of cautionary tale.
I wouldn’t imply that Sofia Coppola has become an artistic equal of Kubrick’s, but she does know, as Kubrick did, about fashioning cinematic realms with great care and exactitude, and so it’s fair, I think, to ask if she’s going down the Kubrick path in other ways. Indiewire‘s Anne Thompsonseems to think so. Yesterday she scoldedSomewhere‘s director-writer for succumbing to a kind of isolationist lifestyle and mentality, and urged her to “open up to other collaborators and voices.”
It’s been widely observed that Coppola has focused too often on passive, well-off characters indulging in aimless doodling and wandering inside swank abodes (hotels, palaces). And that she’s enacted too many “daughters and fathers, passive female figures and powerful men” stories. She’s obviously drawing upon her life as Francis Coppola‘s priveleged daughter. But the main reason reason, said Thompson, is that Coppola is “living inside a protected, hermetic world of friends, family and Coppolas, producer-father Francis and brother Roman.”
Thompson’s opinion seems to have emerged from (or been partly shaped by) an interview she recently did with producer Scott Rudin. Her Coppla piece noted that Rudin “had a project for her to consider, but when he tried to reach her, he couldn’t get close.”
A producer has told me the same thing. If you have a project you want to discuss with Coppola, you “can’t get past the agent…nobody can. You can’t get a meeting and you can’t float something to her. You only can submit a script with an offer.”
All artists have to taste experience and expose themselves to as much life’s push-pull as possible, but I wonder how many other directors have operated (and arguably done well) out of a carefully controlled, hermetically sealed place?
Ten or eleven years ago I wrote how Eyes Wide Shut was a fascinating stiff that essentially portrayed Kubrick’s decline. I referred to Eyes Wide Shut as a perfect white tablecloth but also one that feels stiff and unnatural from too much starch.
“If you want your art to matter, stay in touch with the burly-burly. Keep in the human drama, take walks, go to baseball games, chase women, argue with waiters, ride motorcycles, hang out with children, play poker, visit Paris as often as possible and always keep in touch with the craggy old guy with the bad cough who runs the news stand.”
A few days ago someone inserted an idea that The Fighter‘s Best Picture headwind has somehow diminished because it hasn’t done True Grit-level business. Okay, it hasn’t astonished. But since opening wide on 12.17 on roughly 2500 theatres, David O. Russell‘s film had made about $34 million as of 12.29, and boxoffice.com‘s Phil Contrino is projecting $44 million by Sunday evening.
“So I’d say it’s performing on track,” Contrino said this morning. “If anything, it might be getting hurt by how well True Grit is doing.”
Do you think it’s doing well in terms of per-screen average? Where do you see it ending up? Are others wrong in saying that it’s under-performing?
“The Fighter‘s per-screen average is fine,” he repeated, “considering that it has to compete with True Grit, which is getting the steak-eaters, Black Swan and its under-35 females, and The King’s Speech apparent hold over the older, traditional-minded conservative types. It looks like it could hit $55 to $60 million all in.
“People panic when a film doesn’t break records during its opening weekend, but we still live in a world where great flicks can hang around in theaters for a while based on positive word-of-mouth. The Fighter will earn its money in slow-burn fashion.
But The Fighter isn’t a pretty good movie — it’s real, it’s exceptional, it has great performances, it’s about families and drug addiction, etc. Why are people more eager to see bearded Jeff Bridges draw his big ole six-shooter and stumble around and go “arrhhrrg-gaahhrrg” that watch Wahlberg, Bale, Adams and Leo mix it up in real-deal Lowell? I mean, a movie like The Fighter should be looking at a higher overall take, no? More like $70 or $80 million?
“The problem is competition, not the quality of the film,” he replied. “Take True Grit and Black Swan out of the equation and it would easily hit $70 to $80 million.”
What demographic is The Fighter not reaching out to or doing as well as it should with? Older women? I’ve read that some over-35 females feel that The Fighter portrays working-class women (i.e., Melissa Leo and the seven sisters) with too crude and coarse a brush. Is that the issue?
I would have edited out the portion in which I get on the L train, but it should be noted that the elderly bum lying sideways on the seat like a dead seal (i.e., briefly glimpsed) smelled of rank intestinal substances, which is why no one was sitting near him. Thank God the aroma was diluted somewhat by other bodies and scents, but this, ladies and gentleman, is the New York subway system at times. The smellies do what they want.
