Tag Archives: stephen daldry

Enough, Already, With the CinemaCon Oscar Hype

Every year, studios, exhibitors and press gather in Vegas for the annual hype harvest that is CinemaCon (n

VIDEO: Let’s Watch All the James Bond Film Intros Played at Once

Here is a new-ish 60-second bit of viral video that I wouldn’t mind installed in my living room: The first minute of every James Bond film, played on one screen divided into 22 parts. You won’t be able to take your eyes off it. As a bonus, find an older, longer complement that may finish the mind-blowing job commenced by the more recent video. Also: You’ll need full-screen and — if you’re at work — headphones for maximum effect. Turn it up! [Via Grantland ]

Link:
VIDEO: Let’s Watch All the James Bond Film Intros Played at Once

Oscar Index: Ladies First

You know that when two of the most respected pundits in all of Oscardom argue (within days of each other!) for curtailing both the epic Academy Awards season race and the ceremony in which it culminates, patience for all this crap is wearing thin. With that in mind — and also considering that the “race” for most of these categories ended weeks or months ago — who’s up for an Oscar Index lightning round? (The entire staff at Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics raises its hands.) OK, then — to the Index! The Final 9: 1. The Artist 2. The Help 3. The Descendants 4. Hugo 5. Moneyball 6. The Tree of Life 7. Midnight in Paris 8. The Daldry 9. War Horse Though we cannot rule out any of these underdogs’ mounting a behind-the-scenes charm blitz before Academy polls close next Tuesday, or the implications of the reminder that no movie about movies has ever won Best Picture , The Artist ‘s triumph at last weekend’s BAFTA Awards only tightened its seeming lock on the Best Picture Oscar. Still, let’s hear it for The Descendants , blazing the media afterburners for a desperately needed uptick. ( The Help , by comparison, got a forlorn-looking electronic billboard .) Also, don’t look now, but somebody actually dared to write thoughtfully about The Daldry . Not a minute too soon! Anyway, yes, Steve Pond , we’re all with you: Let’s just end this farce already. The Final 5: 1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist 2. Alexander Payne, The Descendants 3. Martin Scorsese, Hugo 4. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life 5. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris While the BAFTAs nudged Hazanavicius ever closer to Oscar glory and Sasha Stone contemplated the beneficiaries of a potential split vote — which is really the most that the pundits and campaigners engineering an anti- Artist backlash can hope for at this point — only Allen received a truly needle-moving endorsement this week. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Nick Jonas : “[F]or directing, I chose Midnight in Paris because Woody Allen is my favorite. He’s awesome.[… T]here would be a Woody Allen film on the tour bus every now and again. There’s always a Woody Allen movie on.” Now you know. The Final 5: 1. [tie] Viola Davis, The Help 1. [tie] Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady 3. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn 4. Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 5. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs “I hope we can all agree that when the Oscar conversation involves actresses as massively gifted as Meryl and Viola we all win,” wrote Nathaniel Rogers of the juiciest race going. “If only we could have a tie!” Haha, fine for now, but NO . Don’t give the Academy any ideas; it’ll totally screw up my Oscar-party ballot. That said, it’s quite a conversation, with the BAFTAs and the Berlinale’s gala tribute tilting momentum back Streep’s way. But if we’re to believe that the continued dissemination and discussion of these events among awards observers and the media cognoscenti are really the factors that persuade Oscar voters (and I guess we are to believe that, rightly or not — otherwise, what are we doing here?), then wouldn’t it follow that the continued dissemination of Davis’s boundless class, intellect and talent on the campaign trail would either match or supersede Streep’s own carefully cultivated hype? Take this incredible appearance that Davis and Help co-star Octavia Spencer recently made on Tavis Smiley’s show, an interview that’s been covered here , there and everywhere [transcript via The Carpetbagger ]: “I want you to win,” Mr. Smiley said, “but I’m ambivalent about what you’re winning for.” Ms. Davis was direct. “That very mind-set that you have and that a lot of African-Americans have is absolutely destroying the black artist,” she said. “The black artist cannot live in a revisionist place,” she added. “The black artist can only tell the truth about humanity, and humanity is messy. People are messy. Caucasian actors know that. We as African-American artists are more concerned with image and message and not execution,” she said, “which is why every time you see your images they’ve been watered down to the point where they are not realistic at all.” “My whole thing is, do I always have be noble?” she continued. “As an artist, you’ve got to see the mess.” The Academy has never really given any indication of having taste that would or could be moved by a case like that. But if its members in the actors branch in particular do have that taste, and they can hear her voice above the noise, then Davis may yet be the actress to beat. For now, meanwhile, it’s just too close to call. In other brief news, Mara got another profile-boosting close-up while Close — who’s facing such delightful headlines as ” Glenn Close: Next Queen of Oscar losers? may as well ask to just be awoken when it’s Feb. 27. Tough world. The Leading 5: 1. Jean Dujardin, The Artist 2. George Clooney, The Descendants 3. Brad Pitt, Moneyball 4. Demi

Oscar Index: The Beginning of the End

There’s good news and bad news to begin this post-nomination , next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-last installment of Oscar Index. The good news? It’s kind of almost over! The bad news? Oy. Please don’t make me repeat it. The laurel-sniffing wonks at Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics went 27 for 34 predicting its regular, top six categories, which means that the Academy basically tossed in a “surprise” every fifth nomination or so — though specialists at the MIASKF technically refuse to classify anything that was on last week’s charts as a “surprise.” So basically, if it’s not all two nominations for The Daldry , then you probably should have seen it coming. Which you did. As such, we resume the Sisyphean torment of our Oscar-addled eternities, pushing boulders that look and feel suspiciously like crystal balls up hills that look and feel vaguely like the bones of 84 years’ worth of snubs. What does it all mean? To the Index! The Final 9: 1. The Artist 2. The Descendants 3. The Help 4. Midnight in Paris 5. Hugo 6. Moneyball 7. War Horse 8. The Daldry 9. The Tree of Life My favorite parts of nomination morning — apart from the Lucasfilm plant who yelped, ” Red Tails ! Gotta be Red Tails ” as Al Roker informally polled Today Show tourists about their Best Picture predictions — were the peals of ecstasy that greeted The Daldry ‘s announcement among the year’s nine Picture nominees. It sounded like a dog clamping down on a chew toy made of publicists. Other nominations elicited vaguely similar reactions, but that was The Reaction, as if to underscore just how desperately all the parties of all the films involved had chased this singular recognition, and how favorably the Academy regards its most dogged pursers. That’s nothing new, of course. But for a film that has both critics and audiences on record as utterly disinterested (at best) to find 5 percent of the voting body — around 270 people or so — necessary to call it the Best Picture of 2011 ? That’s just fundamentally fucked up. It literally doesn’t make sense . It’s one thing to look back and deduce how a film like, say, Crash actually wins Best Picture (e.g. through vote splitting among other nominees). It’s another thing to look at this year’s nine nominees — loaded with the range of critical and commercial (to say nothing of self-referential ) successes we’ve been accustomed to forecasting as the Academy’s favorites for generations now — and comprehend the basic qualifications of this group to recommend anything more than what this producer or that studio commanded them to acknowledge. Again: So what, right? C’est la Oscar ! Indeed, anyone who’s been doing this a while is accustomed to being vexed, perplexed, bemused, confused, shocked, rocked and baffled. But I’m not only not used to battling the undertow of cynicism so early in the season, I’m also not used to the Academy so obviously stirring such malevolence in audiences. Forget about the press: We’re just as insular and aloof and susceptible to influence as the Academy is. I’m thinking of ordinary viewers now — people who, for better or worse, look to the Academy as tastemakers and who now have a squealing clique of flacks to thank for steering them and their money toward shameless, reconstituted Oscar bait like The Daldry . The ordinary viewer doesn’t know that this film wasn’t made for him or her, but rather for 5 percent of an audience of 6,000 “industry professionals” sought to anoint it as “Oscar-nominated.” The ordinary viewer may never learn more about such provocative, sincere brilliance as Melancholia or Take Shelter , or the disgracefully buried Margaret , or the delicate jewel that is Bill Cunningham New York (which the Documentary Branch, in all its lobotomized glory, naturally snubbed), all because they couldn’t compete with The Daldry ‘s more moneyed, seasonal “greatness.” The ordinary viewer doesn’t notice the handiwork of Scott Rudin’s cabal of mercenary Oscar ninjas, star-flinging sharpshooters laboring on The Daldry ‘s behalf. But God willing, the ordinary viewer heard that sound in the back of the Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Tuesday morning and recognized its quivering evil as the alarm it was. Apart from that? Congrats, to the Tree of Life team, I guess? And don’t count out The Descendants , or something . Whatever: Everyone’s going to kissing Harvey Weinstein’s ring again when they lose to the recent PGA Award-winner The Artist , so… yeah. At least we have the Super Bowl to look forward to. The Final 5: 1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist 2. Martin Scorsese, Hugo 3. Alexander Payne, The Descendants 4. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris 5. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life Scorsese leapfrogged Payne thanks to 11 nominations for Hugo — and he may not be done there, depending on how warmly sad Academy lifers receive a front-runner whose name their president, Tom Sherak, couldn’t be bothered to pronounce correctly Tuesday morning. Though Sherak screwed up “Score-say-zee”‘s name, too, so who knows? “Malick” rolls off the tongue, no? Let’s surprise him and find out. The Final 5: 1. (tie) Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady 1. (tie) Viola Davis, The Help 3. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn 4. Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 5. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs Poor Tilda Swinton, another casualty of the Academy’s 2012 shocking kamikaze quest for mediocrity. Glenn Close evidently tends to bring that out in the actors’ branch. Who knew? We’ll always have Rooney, I suppose. Anyway, when I or anyone else have a little clearer read on who’s where in the top two, the Index will reflect it. But right now it’s basically a bunch of Oscar pundits shrugging and staggering out of happy hours in New York and L.A., hiccuping deep revelations like, “Awwww, man, they don’t make Best Actresses like Halle Berry anymore, those were the days,” and “I wonder if chairs at the Kodak Theater talk to each other… What would they [PUUUUKKEEEE]…”, etc. etc. The Leading 5: 1. [tie] Jean Dujardin, The Artist 2. [tie] George Clooney, The Descendants 3. Brad Pitt, Moneyball 4. Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 5. Demi

The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Nearly a month after its Oscar-qualifying run found it alienating critics in New York and Los Angeles (and almost two months since indelibly, ignominiously entering the zeitgeist as The Daldry ), this week finally finds Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close reaching theaters nationwide. And while roughly half of reviewers to date have lauded director Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel, the other half has issues — big issues — with everything from lead actor Thomas Horn to Daldry’s handling of the book’s central tragedy of 9/11. It’s no Jack and Jill , but that’s no reason not to throw on a raincoat and go frolic in the bile. Wish you were here, David Denby ! 9. “Despite its overweening literary pretensions, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about as artistically profound as those framed 3-D photos of the Twin Towers emblazoned with ‘Never Forget’ that are still for sale in Times Square a decade after 9/11. It’s Oscar-mongering of the most blunt and reprehensible sort.” — Lou Lumenick , NY Times 8. “Poor little Oskar! Such an adorable, pint-sized heap of neuroses. What better mouthpiece for an author, or a filmmaker, to use as a way of exploring the personal cost of a great communal tragedy. Do you get the idea that Oskar must emerge from his own teeny-tiny personal prison and, yes, embrace the world? Never has the tragedy of 9/11 been made so shrinky-dinked.” — Stephanie Zacharek , Movieline 7. ” Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close isn’t about Sept. 11. It’s about the impulse to drain that day of its specificity and turn it into yet another wellspring of generic emotions: sadness, loneliness, happiness. This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies — or, as in the case of this movie, the twin towers — and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling . And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage.” — Manohla Dargis , NY Times 6. “Oskar is a nasty piece of work. On that dreadful day, Oskar comes home early from school. He hears his father’s voice messages. He hides them from his mother, Linda (Sandra Bullock). He denies her listening to Tom tell her he loves her. Oskar is selfish. He sneaks out and buys an identical answering machine, records the identical outgoing message, and keeps the old one for himself. He counts his lies. Oskar has ‘head-up-his-ass’ platitudes and has read too much Jean-Paul Sartre.” — Victoria Alexander , Film Festival Today 5. “Almost half a century after Dallas, I still have trouble watching film of President Kennedy’s assassination. Yet Stephen Daldry’s screen version of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel, adapted by Eric Roth, proves hard to handle for other reasons. The production’s penchant for contrivance is insufferable —- not a single spontaneous moment from start to finish -— and the boy is so precocious you want to strangle him.” — Joe Morgenstern , Wall Street Journal 4. “Mixing the horror of 9/11 with a cutesy story about a boy’s unlikely quest just comes off as crass. Throwing a tragic old man on top — to no apparent purpose, really — cheapens things further. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the kind of movie you want to punch in the nose.” — Tom Long , The Detroit News 3. “[I]t will always be ‘too soon’ for Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close , which processes the immense grief of a city and a family through a conceit so nauseatingly precious that it’s somehow both too literary and too sentimental, cloying yet aestheticized within an inch of its life. It’s 9/11 through the eyes of a caffeinated 9-year-old Harper’s contributor. GRADE: F” — Scott Tobias , AV Club 2. “Thomas Horn is a terrible actor; I don’t want to call him annoying because that might be the way Oskar is written, but dammit, I wanted to throttle the twerp pretty much for the whole movie. This film is so spectacularly bad that the bar for pretentious, deep-thoughts movies has been lowered roughly the length of my middle finger.” — Capone , Ain’t it Cool News 1. “This is a film so thoroughly rotten to its smarmy and diseased little core that tearing into it here hardly seems an adequate method of dealing with it — going after the negative with battery acid and a sledgehammer might be closer to what it deserves. This is a film that takes one of the most terrible tragedies in our history and reduces it to a level of kitsch that makes a painting of the burning World Trade Center done on black velvet with a sad clown on the side bearing witness seem dignified by comparison.” — Peter Sobczynski , eFilmCritic Reviews via Rotten Tomatoes Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

Originally posted here:
The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Nearly a month after its Oscar-qualifying run found it alienating critics in New York and Los Angeles (and almost two months since indelibly, ignominiously entering the zeitgeist as The Daldry ), this week finally finds Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close reaching theaters nationwide. And while roughly half of reviewers to date have lauded director Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel, the other half has issues — big issues — with everything from lead actor Thomas Horn to Daldry’s handling of the book’s central tragedy of 9/11. It’s no Jack and Jill , but that’s no reason not to throw on a raincoat and go frolic in the bile. Wish you were here, David Denby ! 9. “Despite its overweening literary pretensions, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about as artistically profound as those framed 3-D photos of the Twin Towers emblazoned with ‘Never Forget’ that are still for sale in Times Square a decade after 9/11. It’s Oscar-mongering of the most blunt and reprehensible sort.” — Lou Lumenick , NY Times 8. “Poor little Oskar! Such an adorable, pint-sized heap of neuroses. What better mouthpiece for an author, or a filmmaker, to use as a way of exploring the personal cost of a great communal tragedy. Do you get the idea that Oskar must emerge from his own teeny-tiny personal prison and, yes, embrace the world? Never has the tragedy of 9/11 been made so shrinky-dinked.” — Stephanie Zacharek , Movieline 7. ” Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close isn’t about Sept. 11. It’s about the impulse to drain that day of its specificity and turn it into yet another wellspring of generic emotions: sadness, loneliness, happiness. This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies — or, as in the case of this movie, the twin towers — and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling . And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage.” — Manohla Dargis , NY Times 6. “Oskar is a nasty piece of work. On that dreadful day, Oskar comes home early from school. He hears his father’s voice messages. He hides them from his mother, Linda (Sandra Bullock). He denies her listening to Tom tell her he loves her. Oskar is selfish. He sneaks out and buys an identical answering machine, records the identical outgoing message, and keeps the old one for himself. He counts his lies. Oskar has ‘head-up-his-ass’ platitudes and has read too much Jean-Paul Sartre.” — Victoria Alexander , Film Festival Today 5. “Almost half a century after Dallas, I still have trouble watching film of President Kennedy’s assassination. Yet Stephen Daldry’s screen version of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel, adapted by Eric Roth, proves hard to handle for other reasons. The production’s penchant for contrivance is insufferable —- not a single spontaneous moment from start to finish -— and the boy is so precocious you want to strangle him.” — Joe Morgenstern , Wall Street Journal 4. “Mixing the horror of 9/11 with a cutesy story about a boy’s unlikely quest just comes off as crass. Throwing a tragic old man on top — to no apparent purpose, really — cheapens things further. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the kind of movie you want to punch in the nose.” — Tom Long , The Detroit News 3. “[I]t will always be ‘too soon’ for Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close , which processes the immense grief of a city and a family through a conceit so nauseatingly precious that it’s somehow both too literary and too sentimental, cloying yet aestheticized within an inch of its life. It’s 9/11 through the eyes of a caffeinated 9-year-old Harper’s contributor. GRADE: F” — Scott Tobias , AV Club 2. “Thomas Horn is a terrible actor; I don’t want to call him annoying because that might be the way Oskar is written, but dammit, I wanted to throttle the twerp pretty much for the whole movie. This film is so spectacularly bad that the bar for pretentious, deep-thoughts movies has been lowered roughly the length of my middle finger.” — Capone , Ain’t it Cool News 1. “This is a film so thoroughly rotten to its smarmy and diseased little core that tearing into it here hardly seems an adequate method of dealing with it — going after the negative with battery acid and a sledgehammer might be closer to what it deserves. This is a film that takes one of the most terrible tragedies in our history and reduces it to a level of kitsch that makes a painting of the burning World Trade Center done on black velvet with a sad clown on the side bearing witness seem dignified by comparison.” — Peter Sobczynski , eFilmCritic Reviews via Rotten Tomatoes Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

See the rest here:
The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

New Oregon Football Uniforms: Darth Vader Suits Up For the Rose Bowl!

The Force is strong with Oregon’s latest football uniforms, but can the galactic empire shut down Wisconsin’s ground game? We shall find out January 2. The school, whose Nike Pro Combat gear claims to be the most advanced football uniform system in the world, is ready to do battle in the Rose Bowl. Most advanced? Debatable. Most frequently changing, terrifying and hilarious? Yes. With Nike CEO and Oregon alum Phil Knight introducing new versions more often than we can count, the Ducks’ uniforms are always a hot college football topic. Their new, Darth Vader-esque iteration allegedly features 11 different synthetic materials within the jersey and pants alone, and 16 in the complete uniform. None of which could shut down Matt Barkley a few weeks back. Just saying. To help identify your favorite Ducks, the new unis include larger, bolder numbers with an iridescent sheen similar to that of Vader’s cape a mallard’s feathers. No word if the tinted, all-black visor also features a James Earl Jones voice modulator.

More:
New Oregon Football Uniforms: Darth Vader Suits Up For the Rose Bowl!

Sandra Bullock Speaks on Jesse James Split, Feeling "Permanently Broken"

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close star Sandra Bullock is finally opening up about the pain caused by Jesse James, whose infidelity ended their marriage early last year. The 47-year-old Oscar winner admitted in a new interview that she thought she’d never return to acting following the debacle, believing she was “permanently broken.” “I was perfectly content to be permanently broken,” Bullock said of the 2010 scandal, which started with revelations that James bedded Michelle “Bombshell” McGee . The news of his rampant infidelity broke just days after Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for The Blind Side and gushed about James in her acceptance speech. Bullock told the AP that eventually, director Stephen Daldry lured her back to set with a starring role, opposite Tom Hanks, in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close . “I didn’t think I was in a place where I wanted to work or step out of where I was. I wasn’t prepared. But the opportunity was louder than my head,” she said . Fortunately for her, and fans everywhere, she is no longer broken. In fact, she’s in a better place professionally and personally, as a wonderful mom to Louis Bardot.

Here is the original post:
Sandra Bullock Speaks on Jesse James Split, Feeling "Permanently Broken"

Nick Swardson to Work Again, and 5 Other Stories You’ll Be Talking About Today

Happy Wednesday! Also in today’s edition of The Broadsheet: The man who helped make cinema safe for the counterculture has died… Kenneth Branagh’s back-up plan… Apologies worth considering… and more.

Visit link:
Nick Swardson to Work Again, and 5 Other Stories You’ll Be Talking About Today

Oscar Index: And the Winner is… Old

We’ve officially crossed the halfway point of this year’s Oscar Index — a bittersweet milestone where the team at Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics takes a deep breath, orders a stiff drink, and then… orders another eight or so stiff drinks. While they slam their ways over the awards-season hump, join me for a quick run-through of where things stand this week.

Continued here:
Oscar Index: And the Winner is… Old