Contenders? A look ahead to the 2010 awards slate possibilities

With the date for next year’s Oscars announced Friday as February 27th, 2011 (back in its standard time frame after this year’s push back to avoid Winter Olympics competition) and the BAFTAs now announced as February 13th, 2011 it clearly has to be time to look ahead to some of the potential contenders for the 2010 Awards.

Of course in a perfect world it would be a three horse race between The Expendables, Machete and Predators, but I can’t help thinking that even if the Academy extended the Best Picture nominees from 10 to 100 none of these would be likely to get a look in. Call me crazy!

So just a scant 11 months away from the big night what is currently on my horizon as seeming like potential Oscar bait?

True Grit – Any of the following would be enough to get this film consideration: The Coen Brothers writing and directing; Roger Deakins on as DP for a western; Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges taking on the role of Rooster Cogburn that won John Wayne his only acting Oscar; Josh Brolin and Matt Damon in the supporting cast. The combination of all these things surely makes this a sure fire front-line contender.

Hereafter – Okay so I say this about the new Clint Eastwood movie every year and some years it proves more true than others, but frankly Eastwood could send a CCTV tape into the Academy and drum up at least a couple of nominations so a reteam with Matt Damon (nominated this year in Eastwood’s Invictus) seems a good bet.

Get Low – The reputation preceding this film regarding veteran actor Robert Duvall’s performance alone puts this in the “pay attention” stakes. Add Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray and the Academy will be considering this.

The Fighter – (Pictured above). I’m not a fan of David O Russell but a true-story, boxing themed picture starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo screams Oscar potential. Three of those four actors have had Oscar nomintions in the past 3 years, and the insane thing is Bale is the one who hasn’t. On set pictures suggest he’s pulled a Machinist-style body transformation for this one. Could Bale finally be set for the Oscar recognition he deserves? I’m betting yes.

Love And Other Drugs – Another one with incredible early word. The IMDb tries to tell you this is a rom com, which doesn’t sound very Oscars, but this has Ed Zwick (Glory, Last Samurai) directing Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, with Hathaway already being lauded for her portrayal of a woman with early-onset Parkinsons disease. Hathaway seems much loved in Hollywood and after her stunning role in Rachel Getting Married at this early stage she seems a good bet for one of the 5 best actress nominees. And it had nudity which is one of those hallmarks of “serious actress” roles – see Hathaway’s own turn in Brokeback Mountain (with Gyllenhaal) or Halle Berry’s Oscar-winning turn in Monster’s Ball.

127 Hours – Danny Boyle directing the underrated James Franco (overdue some Oscar recognition – Milk anyone?) in the true story of a mountain climber trapped under a rock for 5 days who eventually cuts his own arm/leg (I forget which, I saw Danny Boyle talking about it at the end of last year) off in order to escape/survive. Harrowing, grueling, all about the acting. Hello Mr Oscar, sign me up!

The Greatest – There’s no shortage of opportunities for this year’s Best Actress nominee Carey Mulligan (who should have won) to get another nomination next year. One possibility is for supporting actress (always a sure fire-win for a young actress with a Best Actress loss under her belt) in The Greatest. This romantic drama weepy seems a bit like Moonlight Mile from about 8 years back based on the trailer below. Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon (also in Moonlight Mile) are parents whose son (Aaron Johnson) is kicked in a car accident and find themselves having to deal through their grief with the pregnant girlfriend of their son (who they don’t really know and Sarandon dislikes). That would be Mulligan sporting a flawless American accent. This is early in the year though in the US so may only have Bafta potential.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/videonews.php?id=64355

Never Let Me Go – The other (and stronger) Mulligan shot also would likely see her in a push for supporting actress (seriously, add Wall Street 2 into the mix – who knows how big her role as Gordon Gekko’s daughter is – and Mulligan could have supporting actress sown up one way or the other already). Never Let Me Go sees Mark Romanek finally back behind the camera for the first time since the brilliant (and vastly underrated) One Hour Photo in 2002. Based on the novel by Kasuo Ishiguro (Remains Of The Day) and starring Keira Knightley, Mulligan and the ever excellent Andrew Garfield this should get attention unless it proves to be a real clunker!

Blue Valentine – A relationship drama starring two of the best young actors around (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams – both past Oscar nominees) that was one of the hits of Sundance? Yup, Oscars beckon.

The Way Back – Peter Weir is a superb director and he’s making his way back here after 7 years away (since Master & Commander) with a 1940s-set true story about soldiers trying to escape from Siberia (I think). Colin Farrell and Ed Harris star.

The Descendants – Alexander Payne steps back behind the camera for the first time since 2004’s Sideways and has George Clooney in the lead as a widower searching, with his two daughters, for his late wife’s lover. This one should at least garner attention.

The American – Clooney again as Anton Corbijn follows up the excellent Control with the story of an assassin. So Clooney in lighter Payne-directed mode (Up In The Air Clooney) or in more serious mode (Michael Clayton Clooney)? Perhaps both! I bet he’s in the actor race somewhere though.

How Do You Know? – equally bound to get viewed at the very least is this rom com for the simple reason it’s the new James L Brooks. Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson star and rumour has it Brooks’ lucky charm Jack Nicholson is along for the ride.

Another Year – Lesley Manville stars in the new Mike Leigh, whose films are always cause for celebration and awards attention. Plus Imelda Staunton and Jim Broadbent feature. Typically though no clues as to the plot or even tone.

Betty Anne Waters – look out Oscar voters Hilary Swank is back with another true story portrayal. Oscar experts Fox Searchlight are distributing this story of a high-school drop-out single-mother (I may have just worn out my hyphen key!) who puts herself through law school to defend her brother, wrongfully accused of murder. Sam Rockwell (as the brother) may finally get the Oscar recognition he deserves (and deserved this past year for Moon).

The King’s Speech – wait a minute this year’s Oscar-loser Colin Firth following up his best ever performance (in A Single Man) by playing King George VI. Support from Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon and Sir Derek Jacobi. Hello consecutive nominations for Mr Firth!

Black Swan – okay so it has a supernatural bent but Darren Aronofsky knows how to deliver a damn fine film and he has a cast including Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Winona Ruder and Barbara Hershey to help him. No shoe in but can’t be ruled out either.

Inception – Chris Nolan steps away from the bat for a thriller that looks to be a mind-bender but that little is known about. Of course what is known is that Nolan has assembled a phenomenal cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy); and that the man has never made a bad film. Stepping away from Batman may make the academy take him a little more seriously for once (and they already took notice with nominations for both Bat-films, even if not the big ones).

The Rum Diary – No idea what to make of this long gestating film but you can never ignore Johnny Depp and the return of Withnail & I’s Bruce Robinson to the director’s chair after nearly 20 years makes it a must see at least.

The Social Network – David Fincher telling the story of Facebook’s creation? Could be brilliant, could me a major WTF? It seems an odd, and therefore intriguing, match of director and subject. I love (LOVE) Fincher’s Zodiac so hoping this true story proves as intriguing (because frankly the subject matter doesn’t do anything for me).

Tree Of Life – Terrence Malick directs Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Unless it’s a train wreck (and yes, I did see The New World so I know how possible that is!) this is surely an Oscar voters must-see at least. Rumour has it it may first see the light of day in Cannes so that may tell us more if it happens (of course Malick will have to stop tinkering for that!).

There are of course numerous others. We could bring up Toy Story 3 which, as a Pixar film, has already locked a slot in the Best Animated Feature category.

Then there’s films from industry stalwarts Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island) and Ridley Scott (Robin Hood), but Shutter Island feels too early and not good enough. It’s a better film than The Departed but Scorsese has his Oscar now and Shutter isn’t good enough to stay in voters minds for 10 months IMHO. Robin Hood is another “we’ll see come Cannes” one but the uninspired trailering makes it look more Kingdom Of Heaven than Gladiator, and both the Ridley/Russell/period epic and Robin Hood story in general feel very “been there, seen that” so I don’t expect big things or awards attention for this unless if really surprises and knocks it out of the park. Time will tell.

Oh, my! Predators looking pretty cool!

There are three big, stupid, old-school action movies this year and i'm excited for all three, but Predators didn't make my top 10 most anticipated films of the year, whereas Machete (co-directed by Predators' producer and co-writer Robert Rodriguez) and The Expendables did. Why? Casts, plain and simple.

The Expendables has the greatest action cast ever assembled full stop (Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Terry Crews, etc) while Machete places kick-ass supporting actor Danny Trejo front and center and surrounds him with about the most eclectic cast of all time (Robert DeNiro, Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba and Lindsey Lohan all in one movie! That's just plain bizarre!)

But now Rodriguez has posted some behind-the-scenes footage from Predators on the official website (and a trailer is due later this week) which gives a better concept of what the intention is on this sequel/reboot of the franchise which saw one of the best action films of the 80s, followed by a pretty decent and underrated sequel before being butchered in the past 5 years by the AvP films.

Frankly if there a man for the job of overseeing a reboot of this material Rodriguez with this genre, action, kick-ass, entertainment approach (see From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, Desperado, Planet Terror) is the perfect man.

This footage gives me hope and boosts Predators up my must-sees for 2010:

http://www.predators-movie.com/

Bullock: Oscars & Razzies - how make a speech

I haven’t seen The Blind Side so I can’t comment on Sandra Bullock’s worthiness to win the Oscar Sunday night, but everything about her conduct over the awards weekend justifies it in my book.

Firstly there was the Oscar speech. Easily the best of the night and arguably the best Best Actress acceptance in modern history. It seemed genuine. It had emotion but neither the histrionics of a Halle Berry or a Gwyneth Paltrow nor the forced “look at me emote” of Nicole Kidman. It was funny, from the self deprecating opening of “did I really earn this, or did I just wear y’all down?” to the references. Even when the emotions took over with tributes to her mother she still threw in several funnies and ended on that note too. Often winners evoke the brilliance of their fellow nominees and it is always a hideous, false gush, but not from Bullock, again she seemed genuine and was funny (and thankfully unlike Kate Winslet from last year did remember all of them – she forget Angelina!)

I also like the idea of films like Speed and Demolition Man playing on TV with an “Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock” slogan!

The win also made it a good showing for stars of the 1993 remake of The Vanishing, with both Bullock and Jeff Bridges winning. I bet Kiefer Sutherland and Nancy Travis wish they’d done supporting performances this year.

But ultimately the main reason you have to love her and give her the award is her appearance at and acceptance speech for Worst Actress (for All About Steve) at the Razzie Awards Saturday night – complete with DVD copies of All About Steve for all the members of the audience. She was gracious and hilarious – funnier than she’s been on film in years – and frankly utterly loveable.

This simply demands to be watched:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/16553/golden-idol-spirit-awards-the-razzies

She’s never been in a position to win an Oscar prior to The Blind Side and she may never be again and so this seems fine. I would have liked Carey Mulligan to win, but I have no doubt given her extraordinary talent that she’ll have many, many more opportunities.

This was a Bullock version of Julia Roberts’ Erin Brockovich win.

Don’t know what the film is like but after her Razzies and Oscars performances I’m glad I’ll be able to revisit Speed 2: Cruise Control and Love Potion #9 with the knowledge I’m watching Oscar-quality acting (sort of!)

New Trailers: Two of the best for 2010?

New trailers for Iron Man 2 and Tron Legacy here. Finally get to see a bit more about what the new Tron film is about, so next up from Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges is...

http://www.program-glitch-esc.net/

Meanwhile having not survived Iron Man Bridges won't feature in Iron Man 2 but this trailer suggests it'll do just fine without him:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

Now all we need is a True Grit trailer (which, as it has only just started shooting is likely to be a good 6 months plus away) to complete the Bridges related 2010 joy.

And if you haven't seen his Oscar-winning turn in Crazy Heart yet stop reading this now and go out and see it immediately.

The Dude Abides!

The BAFTAs: An assessment

It proved a good night at the Baftas last night as pretty much all the right films and performances won. Even the annual jingoism award, which inevitably crops up in an acting category, seemed justified: Colin Firth’s superb, career-best performance in A Single Man (and I won £50 on that so it pleased me!). Plus Firth gave the best speech of the night in his fantastically laconic tone. Note here that Carey Mulligan’s win doesn’t count as jingoism since hers was far and away the best performance in the category.

Mulligan’s win was of course a highlight. Expected but thoroughly deserved and it feels like a justification to those of us who have been banging on about how good she is and how big she was destined to be for the past 3-4 years. She also wins best dressed. She looked fantastic.

Equally great was Moon’s win at the top of the night for Duncan Jones as best first-time director. Love the film and so glad it didn’t go to Sam Taylor Wood’s uninspired Nowhere Boy.

Of course The Hurt Locker’s 6 wins, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, was the triumph of the night. It was my vote for Best Film and I’m glad to see it beat out Avatar – though I think this was pretty expected at the Baftas despite what American publications like Variety say about “surprises”. I was particularly pleased here to see Mark Boal take screenplay over Quentin Tarantino (which also happened at the WGA Awards Saturday night). This is great because as good as QT’s dialogue is that script just lay there on the page. Tarantino made a hugely enjoyable, well crafted film but I had despised it in script form when I had read it a year earlier and it really showed me that Tarantino’s true talent lies in his direction, the way he brings together all the great elements behind and in front of the camera, not his writing. Sure he writes great dialogue but Hurt Locker deserved this win and I thought it was the one they might not get.

I was disappointed that Up’s fairly twee score got Best Music. Coraline’s (unnominated) score was far superior, and of the nominees Crazy Heart deserved the win. But then Crazy Heart, much as I loved it, never felt to me like a film that was going to gel with Bafta voters (hence, my placing the bet on Firth to beat bookie favourite Jeff Bridges).

I also would have liked to see Coraline win Best Animated Film. I don’t want to come off like an Up hater. I’m not, I loved it. But there was something so fresh and brilliant about Coraline that I would have liked to see it buck the Pixar-win-trend.

As disappointed as I was by the inevitable win of Kristen Stewart for the Orange Rising Star Award (or Jello BAFTA as I call that hideous statue) over Mulligan we all knew thanks to Twilight and it being the public-vote award that this would happen. What provided the silver lining though was that Stewart seemed genuinely embarrassed to have won, clearly knowing it was only due to the obsessive Twilight fans and not really because of how people felt about her work. And let’s be fair, Stewart really impressed in Sean Penn’s Into The Wild and was great in last year’s Adventureland; and she also seems to go out of her way to make a lot of small budget indies inbetween Twilight sequels like this week’s domestic opener The Yellow Handkerchief, Sundance films Welcome To The Rileys and The Runaways. In fact Stewart gave the distinct impression in her exception speech that she wasn’t terribly enamoured of Twilight fans – not that I’m sure they’d notice. Plus Mulligan was always going to win Best Actress so it all evened out.

The “lack of imagination” award (or Costume Design as it’s generally known) predictably went to uninspired costume drama The Young Victoria. Why imaginative works of genius like The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus consistently get overlooked here is beyond me but on the plus side it did lead to winner Sandy Powell dedicating here award to the woman who had cut her costumes for years and died after Young Victoria before accidently calling her “replaceable” – brilliant!

James Corden scored good laughs as a presenter (Nick Frost died on his arse with his attempts at humour) but one of the best laughs of the night was a cut to Avatar producer Jon Landau after he was named-checked in the acceptance speech for Production Design, where he was clearly about to doze off.

The reel of Vanessa Redgrave’s acting history reminded us how great an actress she is and how much she deserved the Fellowship; and then her off-the-wall rambling bonkers speech (who knew Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It said “Thank you Bafta”?!) reminded us how true her reputation for being bat-shit crazy is. She’s basically our Shirley Maclaine!

Amongst a generally good evening though my biggest disappointment was finding out that Lord Attenborough had chosen as his successor as president of the academy Prince William. Ugh! What a step backwards. I’ve rarely agreed with any Dickie sentiment and this seems typical Dickie but I think is a mistake. It should have been kept in industry. Perhaps Lord Puttnam for instance.

Picture of the year?! Genius on the Goya red carpet

I for one was thrilled to see the brilliant prison riot drama Cell 211 (Celda 211) triumph at the Goya Awards at the weekend with 8 awards including Best Film.

However the highlight of the event has to be the above red carpet moment from presenters Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. This photo is surely a picture captioners dream. Everything works for comedy - Penelope's stance, her expression, her head tilt; Bardem's stance, his smile, the fact you can't see his hands; the publicists apparent attempt to not notice anything; the crowd's (especially the bald gent) clear focus on Penelope's posterior. It may be my favourite red carpet photo ever. I applaud the photographer that took it. You sir (or madam) deserve your own award!

Steven Soderbergh - how many films can this guy make in a year?

News stories abound today of Steven Soderbergh’s new film casting up, with Matt Damon and Jude Law on board and Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet in negotiations.

So they must be in Knockout, right? No, wait that’s already filming. Then Cleo that 3D musical with Catherine Zeta Jones must be back in the offing, no? No! Could they be joining Mr CZJ (Michael Douglas) is the much touted Liberace film? They’re not?

No this film, apparently set to shoot in the autumn after he’s finished up on Knockout, is called Contagion.

Is it me or is Soderbergh on a one-man mission to contradict all the directors who go on about how hard work making a film is and how it takes up “two-three years of your life”. You hear that time and again.

Soderbergh has made 14 films in the past decade. 14! Yes, okay, that includes Eros which was only a segment of a 3-part anthology film and both parts of Che but still…

He had 2 films out in 2000 (Erin Brockovich & Traffic), 2002 (Solaris & Full Frontal), 2008 (both Che films), 2009 (The Girlfriend Experience & The Informant!) and has hardly been slacking in the years between.

Also you look at some of the titles and wonder is he deliberately trying to tell other directors and the industry how easy it is. His constant “Traffic” of films is “Out Of Sight”. He’s upfront about how to get a film made fast and effectively, even acting as his own DP. You could say he makes his views “Full Frontal”. He is an “Informant!” for the red camera and making films quickly and cheaply, living in a “Bubble”.

He is constantly knocking another one out (see his latest film title) and they come thick and fast like a “Contagion”.

I think he is actively goading the film industry. With his titles he’s going “look at me and get your act together”. I greatly look forward to his future films “Better Than You” and his “Fast & Furious” remake!