Joaquin Phoenix has a collection of awards nominations and wins that many actors would look upon with envy, but he is calling, “bullshit.” The actor won applause at the Toronto International Film Festival for his role in Paul Thomas Anderson ‘s The Master and he even picked up a Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival last month (shared with Philip Seymour Hoffman ). But the actor said he thinks the whole process is the “stupidest thing in the whole world.” Speaking with Interview magazine in their latest issue about a wide-range of topics, the two-time Oscar nominee blasted the awards race, saying he’d like to stay clear of the machine, even as the current season – and industry – of awards goes into full throttle. “I’m just saying that I think it’s bullshit. I think it’s total, utter bullshit, and I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t believe in it. It’s a carrot, but it’s the worst-tasting carrot I’ve ever tasted in my whole life. I don’t want this carrot. It’s totally subjective. Pitting people against each other . . . It’s the stupidest thing in the whole world.” Phoenix received Oscar noms for Walk the Line (2005) and Gladiator (2000) and has been all but anointed with another one this year for The Master . He’s also received many festival nods throughout his lengthy acting stint and even a Golden Globe for Best Performance for an Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Walk the Line in which he played musician Johnny Cash. “It was one of the most uncomfortable periods of my life when Walk the Line was going through all the awards stuff and all that. I never want to have that experience again. I don’t know how to explain it – and it’s not like I’m in this place where I think I’m just above it -but I just don’t ever want to get comfortable with that part of things.” [ Sources: Interview via Huffington Post ]
Fittingly, Richard Gere’s new Wall Street thriller Arbitrage had a screening this week hosted by The Wall Street Journa l, Brioni, and high-end jeweler Piaget. But the Peggy Siegal Company fete was hardly a frivolous bacchanal. Gere and his fellow stars Susan Sarandon and Brit Marling wondered out-loud why more investment bankers weren’t in jail, and writer/director Nicholas Jarecki noted his goal was to turn a “paper crime into a blood crime”. Reporting from the red carpet, I quickly discovered this smart movie is clearly a result of a smart cast – and you can make the same discovery via the video below! Plus do you catch that clear angling for an Oscar nom for Gere…? Nice to see his co-stars supporting him so strongly! Follow Movieline on Twitter . Follow Grace on Twitter .
Also in Monday morning’s round-up of news briefs, a Fox studio co-head prepares to leave, consolidating leadership at the movie giant. Author Salman Rushdie says a controversial book he published in ’88 would “never be published today.” And remembering film professional/journalist Sandy Mandelberger. Hezbollah Leader Calls for More Protests Against Anti-Muslim Movie Sheik Hassan Nasrallah called for protests to continue Monday as the fall out from the anti-Muslim video Innocence of Muslims appears to be continuing into another week. The news comes after the U.S. State Department called for the removal of non-essential personnel from its embassies and consulates in Tunisia and Sudan,” Deadline reports . Fox Filmed Entertainment Co-Chief Tom Rothman to Exit Studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman is exiting Fox at the end of the year. Jim Gianopulos will become the sole Chairman/CEO at the studio, which will be consolidated into the freshly dubbed Twentieth Century Fox Film, Deadline reports . The Master Sets Specialty Box Office Record It’s not every weekend that a specialty film can claim a record, but The Master opened with an incredible $145,949 per-theater average, the best limited release ever for a live-action film, topping another record-breaker from earlier this year, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom , which bowed with with an average of $130,749 at four locations, Deadline reports . Salman Rushdie: ‘ Satanic Versus would not be published today’ The author said he thinks a climate of fear and reprisal exists today that would prevent him from getting his controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Versus from being published today. He said the banning of the book in many countries and the subsequent threats on his life including a fatwa by Iran’s then supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, had created a “long-term chilling effect,” BBC reports . RIP Arthur Sandy Mandelberger Mandelberger was a film professional and journalist, most recently Editor in Chief of FilmFestivalToday. He died at 57 on August 29th and is survived by his mother Eta and his partner of 37 years, Richard and sisters Miriam and Fanny. He battled cancer for nine years and asked that any donations be made to the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Also in Tuesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, a 3-D newcomer tops the weekend’s Specialty Box Office among newbies. Roman Coppola ‘s second directorial effort with Charlie Sheen is headed to theaters. And, the Locarno Film Festival appoints a new Artistic Director following the sudden departure of its former head. Venice Golden Lion Watch at Festival Midpoint: The Master Dominates Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is emerging as the favorite half-way through the Venice Film Festival. Of the eight films that have officially screened, the post-war “relationship opus set agains the backdrop of a religion that resembles Scientology has received the best score in a festival poll of critics,” Deadline reports . Second Hobbit Movie Re-Named The third installment in the upcoming Hobbit movie trilogy, The Hobbit: There and Back Again will be released worldwide in July, 2014. That will be only seven months after the second film will be released. The second installment also has a new title, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug arriving December 13, 2013. It was originally titled There and Back Again . The first movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14th of this year, Reuters reports . Specialty Box Office: Flying Swords 3-D Tops Newcomers; Samsara , Sleepwalk with Me Expand Strong New specialty movies mostly coasted through the holiday weekend, with newcomers ranging from fairly solid to weak in their Labor Day bows. Indomina Releasing’s IMAX 3D opener Flying Swords of Dragon Gate soared to the top of the pack with a decent $8,333 average for its opening in 15 locations, while Millennium’s Little Birds launched in one theater, grossing $8,314, Deadline reports . Roman Coppola’s Charles Swan III Heads to Theaters Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III starring Charlie Sheen will roll out in theaters in February. NYC-based A24 picked up rights to the film, while digital platform FilmBuff will handle domestic digital distribution. Set in L.A. the comedy follows a graphic designer (Sheen) whose breaks and needs find repair after his girlfriend leaves him, TOH reports . Locarno Names Italian Journalist as New Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian, an Italian journalist, author and festival programmer will take over as the Locarno Film Festival’s Artistic Director following the sudden departure of Olivier Pere on August 27th, THR reports .
Also in Monday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, Martin Scorsese ‘s Frank Sinatra pic gets a writer. Harvey Weinstein is tapped to MC Toronto Film Festival -Asian film event. Haley Joel Osment’s Sassy Pants is heading to theaters and Jodie Foster boards a mob drama as director for Showtime. Harvey Weinstein to MC Toronto Asian Film Summit The Weinstein Company chief will act as the master of ceremonies for the closing banquet of the event, hosted by the Toronto International Film Festival that will spotlight the relationship between East and West. Previously announced guests include Jackie Chan who will attend as Guest of Honor and MPAA Chairman Senator Chris Dodd. “We’ve received tremendous support and interest from the industry and we’re confident this event will help foster deeper relationships and generate new business opportunities between key film players in the East and West,” said TIFF CEO Piers Handling. Sassy Pants Heads to Theaters North American rights to the coming-of-age comedy/drama have been picked up by Phase 4 Films. Haley Joel Osment, Ashely Rickards (MTV’s Awkward ) and Anna Gunn (AMC’s Breaking Bad ) star in the film about teen Bethany who flees her over-protective mother and goest to live with her dad where she forms a bond with his much younger boyfriend. The film, which made its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, will release the title in theaters and VOD this fall. Around the ‘net… Cosmopolitan Editor Helen Gurley Brown Dead at 90 The former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief died at 90 in New York shortly after being admitted to a hospital. She edited the magazine for 32 years and was the author of the groundbreaking Sex and the Single Girl . During her tenure at Cosmopolitan she became known for encouraging women to have sex regardless of marital status. She said her goal was to let tell readers “how to get everything out of life – the money, recognition, success, men, prestige, authority, dignity – whatever she is looking at through the glass her nose is pressed against,” BBC reports . Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master to Head to Toronto The Toronto International Film Festival’s Artistic Director Cameron Bailey tweeted that The Master will join the lineup at the event, which opens September 6th. The film, which debuts in Venice, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams in a story said to be inspired by the early days of Scientology, THR reports . Billy Ray to Write Sinatra for Martin Scorsese Universal Pictures has tapped Billy Ray to write the script for the Frank Sinatra biopic that Martin Scorsese will direct. Scorsese is currently filming Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf Of Wall Street , Deadline reports . Jodie Foster to Direct & Produce Mob Drama This is her first move behind-the-camera for television. She’ll direct and executive produce Angie’s Body for Showtime. The concept centers on a shrew, sexy and sometimes lethal woman who runs a family-based crime syndicate, Deadline reports .
After much speculation, the Venice Film Festival officially said Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master will join the event’s Competition as its 18th title. Organizers of the 69th annual event taking place August 29th to September 8th, added four more titles in all Wednesday to the festival’s roster. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Laura Dern, the 1950s-set drama that has been dubbed Anderson’s “Scientology movie.” The feature follows the relationship between a charismatic intellectual (aka, “the Master), whose faith-based group begins to gain a following in America, and a young drifter who becomes his right-hand man. Also joining the Venice Film Festival lineup out of competition (with descriptions provided by the festival): Como voglio che say il mio future? (To Know My Future?) by Ermanno Olmi and Maurizio Zaccaro (Special Screening) – The film offers a significant cross section of the expectations, hopes, disappointments and fears of young people today. Convitto Falcone (Collateral Event) by Pasquale Scimeca – The film is dedicated to Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino on the 20th anniversaries of their death, but it also remembers the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Pio La Torre, of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and many others. The story is set in the present day, and the plot centers on young people who must come to terms with their sense of justice, even in their small everyday gestures. Du Hase es Versprochen (Forgotten) the feature-length directorial debut of German director Alex Schmidt. The Midnight Horror centers on two childhood friends, Hanna (Mina Tander) and Clarissa (Laura de Boer) who meet after 25 years. They decide to return together to an island where they had once spent their vacations, but they will be haunted by the ghosts of the past.
After much speculation, the Venice Film Festival officially said Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master will join the event’s Competition as its 18th title. Organizers of the 69th annual event taking place August 29th to September 8th, added four more titles in all Wednesday to the festival’s roster. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Laura Dern, the 1950s-set drama that has been dubbed Anderson’s “Scientology movie.” The feature follows the relationship between a charismatic intellectual (aka, “the Master), whose faith-based group begins to gain a following in America, and a young drifter who becomes his right-hand man. Also joining the Venice Film Festival lineup out of competition (with descriptions provided by the festival): Como voglio che say il mio future? (To Know My Future?) by Ermanno Olmi and Maurizio Zaccaro (Special Screening) – The film offers a significant cross section of the expectations, hopes, disappointments and fears of young people today. Convitto Falcone (Collateral Event) by Pasquale Scimeca – The film is dedicated to Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino on the 20th anniversaries of their death, but it also remembers the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Pio La Torre, of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and many others. The story is set in the present day, and the plot centers on young people who must come to terms with their sense of justice, even in their small everyday gestures. Du Hase es Versprochen (Forgotten) the feature-length directorial debut of German director Alex Schmidt. The Midnight Horror centers on two childhood friends, Hanna (Mina Tander) and Clarissa (Laura de Boer) who meet after 25 years. They decide to return together to an island where they had once spent their vacations, but they will be haunted by the ghosts of the past.
Searching For Sugar Man , which tells the improbable story of how a singer-songwriter named Sixto Rodriguez rose, fell, and found superstardom in what amounts to a parallel universe, is an elegy in several keys. One is clear and familiar: Upon his excited discovery by a noted producer, the music business circa 1969 ate Rodriguez for breakfast, and a talent still acknowledged by his peers went to waste. The second is more personal, and although Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul leaves a distinct and ultimately frustrating berth around the man at the center of his documentary, it becomes poignantly clear that an abbreviated resume and a family to feed didn’t keep Rodriguez from living an artist’s life. And then, perhaps most resonant and abstract, there is the film’s charting of the confluence of circumstances that can create a legend and shape lives – a confluence whose particularities are less and less possible in an information-glutted age. Sugar Man opens with much but fleeting stylistic fanfare. Over a blend of vivid landscapes, a steady-cam tour of bleak and snowy Detroit, moody recreations of key scenes and a neat effect that moves from image to illustration and back, various players (beginning with a Cape Town record-store owner called “Sugar”) recount the film’s heavily fragmented story of a mysterious musician out of Detroit who, South African legend has it, staged “probably the most grotesque suicide in rock history.” Why “South African legend,” you might ask, and the answer is what takes Sugar Man ’s story from sad but common to extraordinary. In many ways that story belongs to the men who stand in for what was apparently a solid chunk of the South African populace in the 1970s, when apartheid was in full swing and the country was under totalitarian rule. A hilarious origin story has an American girl bringing a single Rodriguez album into the country, patient zero-style, with bootlegs and label requests proliferating from there. With sizable cuts from Rodriguez’s two studio albums of Dylan-esque folk rock accompanying them, those men (musicians and music fans) describe how songs like “I Wonder” and “Anti-establishment Blues” sparked something – a glimmer of rebellion, the comfort of fellow feeling – in them. Elsewhere referred to as an “inner city poet,” if Rodriguez’s lyrics lack a certain prosody they are written squarely and straightforwardly in the protest tradition of the time. A grassroots process that had to sidestep censors and a heavily restricted media helped foment a folk hero in the public’s imagination. Rodriguez, we are told, is bigger than Elvis in South Africa, and certainly bigger than the Rolling Stones. His sonorous tenor is sweet but strong and pleasingly clear – somewhere between Cat Stevens and Neil Diamond. Even so, the truth is that, though skilled and even singular, of the songs we hear nothing astonishes or even comes close; a couple sound too dated to be great. But then we’re not supposed to be evaluating his music for signs of greatness, not really. Perhaps under different circumstances, like the ones in South Africa, he might sound different; he would be different. Much discussed is the lack of personal details that fueled the Rodriguez enigma; his mystery was part of what made him great. Bendjelloul upholds that idea, whether he likes it or not, after a rambling exposition of how a couple of amateur Cape Town sleuths finally tracked the very much alive Rodriguez down. Mexican by birth and extremely reticent by nature, Rodriguez is an uneasy interview; we learn more about him just watching his delicate form move down a snow-laden sidewalk like an exotic but flightless, black-coated bird trapped in a crummily ordinary world. Interviews with his three daughters are sweet but a little unsatisfying, and in its final third – which details his triumphant arrival in South Africa and introduction to an adoring audience of twenty thousand – Sugar Man falters. Various threads of the story (including the rather major question of how an estimated half a million records sold resulted in zero royalties) are left to fray. It isn’t clear that the director recognized the most prominent among them: Bendjelloul is enamored not with the deeply organic nature but the novelty of this “instant” success story. And yet Sugar Man is most interesting when it touches on the conditions that combined to draw a cult hero out of some decent music and a generously enabled, imagination-firing mystique. I imagine even the wise and thoughtful Rodriguez himself would insist that more than one man’s third act justice, this is a story about time and a swiftly vanishing context. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
As breathlessly reported by Variety’s Jeff Sneider via Twitter : “Ladies and gentlemen, The Master primed for limited release on Sept. 14, will expand the following weekend!” The Weinstein Co. will release early in prime awards season moving the pic up from an October release, rolling the Philip Seymour Hoffman-starrer wide on September 21. The bad news for Austin, Texas film geeks: The timing seems to contradict speculation that Anderson’s hotly anticipated pic might debut at Fantastic Fest, which runs September 20-27, though it may still screen there post-limited release. A Venice , late Toronto , or Telluride premiere is likely. [ Variety ]
Looks like indie film financier/Tweeter Megan Ellison’s promise came true : According to a Box Office Mojo update, Paul Thomas Anderson ‘s The Master has been added to the fall 2012 release calendar, to open on October 12 — just in time for an awards run! No official word from distrib The Weinstein Co. on the date or final title for the Philip Seymour Hoffman-starrer, nor mention of if/when the pic will first debut at one of the season’s prestigious film festivals. While you await more info, mark your calendars… [ Box Office Mojo via The Playlist ]
