And by the way that isn’t a damn “driedel” — it’s a plain old spinning silver top. I’m not Hassidic and I didn’t go to school in Tel Aviv. They’re called tops. That’s what they used to call them in Westfield, New Jersey, where I grew up was a kid and a young teen.
I took some time earlier today to think about my contribution to Peter Howell‘s annual Toronto Star “Chasing the Buzz” feature, in which a selection of hardcore know-it-alls get to pick three Toronto Film Festival films they’re most looking forward to. That’s pretty limiting in itself but you also have explain why in one sentence…Jesus. I might change my mind but right now my faves are Jason Reitman‘s Up in the Air, Joel and Ethan Coen‘s A Serious Man and Rodrigo Garcia‘s Mother and Child. I’ll figure out the copy later on.
Mother and Child director Rodrigo Garcia; dopey 3 Amigos art
Howell won’t let me adequately explain the Mother and Child thing so I’ll do so here and now. All I’ve read is that it’s about an older woman (Annette Bening), the daughter she gave up for adoption 35 years ago (Naomi Watts), and an African American woman (Kerry Washington) looking to adopt a child of her own. I also know that Garcia, based on the evidence of his earlier Nine Lives, is excellent at getting into the souls of women and divining their relationships and so on.
But it’s mainly because one of the shorts in Nine Lives — a piece called “Diana” with Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaccs — is one of the most intensely emotional portrayals of an unresolved relationship that I’ve ever seen. Here‘s what I wrote about it four years ago.
On top of which Mother and Child has been produced by the Cha Cha Cha guys — Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
And here, by the way, is an excellent all-in-one, wheat-separated-from-the-chaff lineup of all the best-looking films showing during the festival. It’s been painstakingly assembled by Greg Cruse, described by Howell as “a blogger, film buff and fellow buzz chaser.”
The story and results from Howell’spoll will be published in the Saturday, Sept. 5 edition of The Toronto Star, and also appear online at TheStar.com the same day.
Originally posted on 8.22 by Movie City Indie‘s Ray Pride. who took it from Ben Stiller‘s Facebook page and Twitter postings (Twitter.com/RedHourBen).
In Contention‘s Kris Tapley‘s hasn’t read the script for Chris Nolan‘s Inception, but a source has so KT has decided to pass along a second-hand synopsis of the plot. He says he can’t be 100% sure of the particulars because WB publicity won’t comment “but it all seems fairly legitimate to me.”
The Big McGuffin, he says, is that some kind of ability/technology used by a team of shady espionage operatives led by Leonardo DiCaprio‘s “Cobb” to nefariously dive into people’s dreams and extract information.
Leo’s team members (this will eventually become a kind of Mission Impossible-like TV series with operatives hired each week to solve a problem by mind-scanning this and that “mark”) include Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s Arthur, Tom Hardy‘s Eames and Ellen Page‘s Ariadne, a college student studying in Paris.
Jacob’s team, says Tapley, “creates” the dreams and Ariadne is an “architect” or “engineer” of sorts. I’m already lost. If Team Leo is diving into people’s dreams and extracting info, how and why would they want to create dreams? Wait…perhaps they don’t just steal information from people’s minds but implant information of their own? Information that is (a) designed to manipulate and (b) may or may not be false?
Jacob’s team enters this and that dream via some kind of injection, and the technology can easily be transported in a suitcase, Tapley says. “In one scene (featured briefly in the trailer?), the team actually enters a person’s dream while on an airplane,” he writes.
Cillian Murphy stars as Fischer, “a business-type who is soon to become the head of a company. Jacob’s team is attempting to insert an idea into Fischer’s mind to compel him to separate the company into two smaller companies.
Ken Watanabe plays Saito, a character who’s blackmailing Jacob. Aside from Watanabe there is no classic villain in the story, but Cobb’s wife (Marion Cotillard) causes some trouble.
“Cobb and wife at some point find themselves stuck in many levels of a dream and she tries to convince him to stay in that world, that it is much better than real life. However, Cobb wants to return to his children and the real world.
“This plot point is a bit unclear, but I’m told that Lisa commits suicide in the dream in order to return to the real world. When Cobb himself returns, he is charged with his wife’s murder and has to flee with his children.
“The film will not be typical sci-fi fare at all,” Tapley conveys. “It’s set in the present-day real world” but with “virtually all of the ‘action’ scenes taking place in the dream environment. This should go a long way toward explaining the ‘Your mind is the scene of the crime’ tagline that accompanied the trailer. Ultimately it seems like a grounded, more tangible blend of Minority Report and The Matrix.”
Somebody asked me to name off my favorite under-40 female critics the other night. I forget how the subject came up or why under-40 was mentioned as opposed to under-30 or under-50, but off the top of my head I said Kim Morgan, Karina Longworth, Kim Voynar, Katey Rich, and…and…and I ran out of names.
There must be at least four or five I’m not thinking of so I’m asking for names and links and quotes. If LexG or anyone of that attitude/mindset mentions looks or hotness I’m going to erase the post — fair warning.
Tossing aside the age thing my favorite brilliant/eccentric/lunar-orbit female critic is Manohla Dargis of the N.Y. Times — I dearly love her writing. My second favorite is Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday, partly because she writes well and partly because I agree with her 90% of the time. I’m a fan of Slate‘s Dana Stevens and Salon‘s Stephanie Zacharek. And…uhm, no one else is coming to mind. Who am I missing?
In the space of a few hours, In Contention‘s Kris Tapley, Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet, and Awards Daily‘s Ryan Adams have suddenly seized on the notion of Trucker‘s Michelle Monaghan being this year’s Melissa Leo — an out-of-the-blue Best Actress contender for an allegedly exceptional performance as a negligent mom coping with an estranged son.
Do these guys have the same dope dealer? There are more than a couple indications that Trucker ain’t no Frozen River, and that it may be no more than an okay-but-no-cigar thing. And without the springboard of great reviews, Monaghan — however good she may be as hard-livin’ truck driver Diane Ford — hasn’t a snowball’s chance.
Trucker is an ’08 film that couldn’t land a usual-suspects distributor after playing the Tribeca and Austin film festivals 16 and 10 months ago, respectively. If it had any real mojo wouldn’t someone other than Monterey Media, which releases crap, have picked it up? Wouldn’t it have played at least a few other respected festivals? Wouldn’t Trucker (which opens on 10.9) have screened for at least some critics by now? I haven’t heard zip about it from anyone.
And wouldn’t Monaghan have found a respected champion other than the Hollywood Reporter‘s Stephen Farber, a solid critic known for dispensing occasional easy-lay raves? He wrote that Monaghan’s performance as a selfish blue-collar woman suddenly saddled with an estranged young son “elicits the same exhilarating sense of discovery that surrounded Sally Field‘s breakthrough in Norma Rae.”
Fine, but Variety‘s John Anderson said that Monaghan “has trouble finding a rhythm in the dialogue, or any sustained emotional plausibility in a film that relies on character-driven moments rather than narrative momentum. Like a runaway tractor-trailer, Trucker is carrying [Monaghan] directly from irresponsible to maternally alert. You can’t stop it. You can see it on the horizon as soon as the movie starts. What’s missing from the payload is surprise.”
Trucker has 13 producers and exec producers. Thirteen! That in itself spells trouble.
Trucker was directed and written by James Mottern. It costars Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt, Joey Lauren Adams (alarm buzzer!), Jimmy Bennett.
I feel for Monagahn wanting to snag a strong role for herself and kick herself up to a new level and all, but Gran Shaggy Poo says we ain’t goin’ for it. Set up some NY and LA screenings and let’s see how Trucker plays…fine. But until that happens the Monaghan hoo-hah stops here.
Sidenote: In his 4.28.08 review Anderson described Monaghan as “elfin.” Except a Google search says she’s either 5’7″ or 5’8″. That’s not elfin — that’s par for the course. Ellen Page is the current standard for Hollywood elfin. Next to Page Monaghan towers.
My favorite shot is the water-in-a-glass tipping into a steep angle.
The Envelope/Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neill reports that while Harvey Weinstein intends to use a “last-minute, ambush strategy” for Rob Marshall‘s Nine, he plans to use the Crash campaign model for Inglourious Basterds.
“Because the DVD will be a mass release, it won’t need to be watermarked with numerals identifying each disc with the name of an academy member or other award voter,” O’Neill writes. “That’s one of the sneaky ways Crash beat front-runner Brokeback Mountain for best picture of 2005 — Lionsgate blitzed Hollywood with more than 120,000 cheap DVDs.”
The only Inglourious Basterds Oscar nomination that’s going to happen is Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor — end of story. Harvey can blanket Hollywood with DVDs to make sure this happens, but isn’t Waltz’s nomination already pasted into most people’s heads? Tarantino’s screenplay hasn’t a prayer of being nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Not with that damn baseball-bat/brain-matter scene. Gran Shaggy Poo sez the over-50s ain’t goin’ for it.
Only two weeks and two days before the Toronto Film Festival begins on Thursday, 9.10 (which requires flying there and getting all set up on Wednesday, 9.9). New York-based producers and distributors know what goes, but I’m reminding everyone anyway that people like me tend to see maybe 25 films during the festival and that I now have about 33 films on my list not counting the two or three unexpected “finds” that you always hear about and want to squeeze in during any festival. So please get in touch if there’s anything to be seen here in Manhattan between now and Tuesday, 9.8. I won’t post until the festival begins but I really need to see as much as possible before it starts.
My 8.14 tally came to 34. I added Catherine Corsini‘s Partir but scratched Jan Kounen‘s Coco Before Chanel (saw the trailer…yeesh) and Carlos Saura‘s I, Don Giovanni, leaving a total of 33. So I’m most likely going to miss at least eight of these and possibly more…who knows how it’s going to go?
Here’s my two cents about Roger Friedman‘s 8.21 piece assessing the leading Best Actress contenders of the moment. Right now it’s a two-actress race — Carey Mulligan in An Education vs. Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia (with possible fortification coming from her It’s Complicated performance.). Obviously there are four months to go and anything can happen, but right now the Oscar is Mulligan’s to lose because of (a) the old “Streep nominated again?” factor and (b) Mullligan’s performance is delightful/exciting while Streep’s is merely expert.
(l. to r,.) Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Abbie Conrish, Penelope Cruz
Mulligan might very well not win because Oscar tradition has generally been about ingenues being nominated but not winning because they have to pay their dues and all that jazz. It would actually be cooler for Mulligan to just have fun with the nomination dance and boost An Education in the bargain, etc.
Abbie Cornish might manage a Best Actress nomination in for her performance in Bright Star, although she’s looking like a bit of a weak sister at this stage. (The movie’s real star is Jane Campion.) Nobody knows anything about Rachel Weisz in The Lovely Bones so just shut up and wait. Forget Penelope Cruz in Broken Embraces (although I think she’s wonderful in this film) because the reaction to Pedro Almodovar‘s latest has been tepid since Cannes. Forget Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer…just forget it. (You can’t be nominated for playing a whimsical, self-absorbed ditzoid.) And forget Gwynneth Paltrow in Two Lovers….not happening!
Friedman, by the way, says that Mulligan is the breakout star among his list of nominees and then adds, “Remember, you heard it here first.” That’s funny. I seem to recall some other guy jumping up and down about her last January and predicting that An Education “will definitely be in contention at the end of the year” in some capacity.
“The debate over the public option has been depressing in its inanity,” writes N.Y. Times Paul Krugman in today’s (8.24) edition. “Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.
“But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.
“So why won’t these zombie ideas die?
“Part of the answer is that there’s a lot of money behind them. ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something,’ said Upton Sinclair, ‘when his salary’ — or, I would add, his campaign contribution fund — ‘depends upon his not understanding it.’ Vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like Mr. Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation.
“But some of the blame also must rest with President Obama, who famously praised Ronald Reagan during the Democratic primary, and hasn’t used the bully pulpit to confront government-is-bad fundamentalism. That’s ironic, in a way, since a large part of what made Reagan so effective, for better or for worse, was the fact that he sought to change America’s thinking as well as its tax code.
“How will this all work out? I don’t know. But it’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.”
“If you are splashing around with a bunch of guys who are 93 percent white, an average of 45.62 years old and look as if they’ve done this before, you must be swimming in the studio directors’ pool,” wrote Michael Cieply in yesterday’s (8.23) N.Y. Times.
“Such is the profile of studio filmmakers, based on a survey of those who directed the 85 or so live action movies that have been released, or will be, in 2009 by the six biggest film companies — Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Brothers.
Cieply’s tally “does not count animated films, which are born by a different, more collaborative process, or the independent-style movies released by specialty divisions like Fox Searchlight Pictures or Focus Features.
“Rather, it is a scan of what is on the big studio schedules: comedies like The Hangover from Todd Phillips and I Love You, Man from John Hamburg; action films like Fast & Furious from Justin Lin and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen from Michael Bay; and the increasingly rare drama, like Shutter Island, which was on tap for October from Martin Scorsese (but has just been moved into 2010).
“What the count shows is that Hollywood directors are pretty much what they have always been: a small brotherhood of highly skilled craftsmen — more than 90 percent this year are men — who could hit or miss with any given film, but who tend to have solid experience. This year’s directors appear to have made 6.1 movies, on average — and probably have more in common with one another than with the increasingly diverse population around them.
“There’s no single process or pattern for deciding who will direct any given picture. The choices are born of an often awkward consensus among executives and producers, with plenty of lobbying from agents and occasional input from the movie’s stars. A filmmaker might write an attractive script and then insist on directing it as a condition of sale, or could simply be hired based on a great track record.
“Though Hollywood’s power structure remains heavily white, it has opened the ranks to far more women in recent years. But that shift does not yet appear to have changed the makeup of the studio directing pool.”
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