Here's a really good TIFF interview with the two stars of The Imitation Game. It's better than the usual press conferences, because they're both pretty into not just the film, but current events as they relate to the story of Alan Turing. Benedict Cumberbatch was practically accosted by crazy fans at the Q&A after the Toronto premiere of the movie, so here he's able to actually talk about it in more detail. And he and Keira are pretty funny together too.
George Clooney to Receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes
I was okay with Tom Hanks getting the Kennedy Center Honors, because his body of work goes back the early 80's, but this is way too early. George Clooney has been announced as this year's recipient of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Cecil B. DeMille award, which is normally their trophy for lifetime achievement. Yes, Jodie Foster got it last year, but at least she's been working since she was a kid. This just screams like the HFPA's usual attempt to get a big star like Clooney to show up at their party in a year where he doesn't even have a movie out. Lame. Expect him to to be the target of jokes all night about his upcoming wedding. The Globes are on January 11th, 2015.
TRAILER: "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1"
Ok, so finally we have the official trailer for the first part of the last installment of the Hunger Games franchise. This one promises an epic battle and shows us Jennifer Lawrence back in stoic mode as the teen hero Katniss. Eh. It looks alright I guess (apart from Donald Sutherland's creepy looking giant head). I can tell you right now there was no need at all to divide this last book into two parts, but I'm sure the kids this is aimed at will eat it up as always.
BOX OFFICE 9/12-9/14: 'No Good Deed' Comes in Strong at #1
It was finally a somewhat more exciting weekend, as the Idris Elba/Taraji P. Henson thriller No Good Deed opened in first place with almost $25 million, slightly above expectations. The film cost just $13 million, so it's already a success, which is good because it received just a "B+" Cinemascore (although the studio should probably be happy about that, considering its Rotten Tomatoes score was in the single digits). It attracted a mostly female audience (over 60%), which has been underserved this summer, but we'll have to see if it has what it takes to hold on (especially with David Fincher's thriller Gone Girl coming up soon).
In second place was Dolphin Tale 2, which came in with $16 million, failing to match the opening weekend of the first movie, but this one did get an "A" from audiences, so it might hold on better than No Good Deed in the next several weeks. Holdovers made up the rest of the top five, with Guardians of the Galaxy, Ninja Turtles, and Let's Be Cops rounding out the pack. Let's Be Cops by the way, has proven to be something of a surprise success, grossing $72 million so far off a less than $20 million opening.
Top 5:
- No Good Deed- $24.5 million
- Dolphin Tale 2- $16.5 million
- Guardians of the Galaxy- $8 million
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $4.8 million
- Let's Be Cops- $4.3 million
There were also a few new limited release openings this week, the most successful of which was The Drop, the Dennis Lehane crime thriller that happened to be the late James Gandolfini's last starring role. It just missed a slot in the top five, opening with over $4 million in about 800 theaters. The Skeleton Twins, with SNL alums Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, also opened big, with nearly $500k from just 15 screens, while The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, was a bit disappointing, coming in with mixed reviews and just $77k from 4 theaters. Next week its the YA adaptation The Maze Runner, the Jason Bateman family comedy This is Where I Leave You, and Liam Neeson's latest action thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones. See you then!
'The Imitation Game' Wins the People's Choice Award at Toronto
The Toronto International Film Festival wrapped up today by announcing its winners of the festival prizes, including the coveted People's Choice Award, voted on by the audience. This has become a major Oscar bellwether in recent years, with movies such as The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, Silver Linings Playbook, and last year's 12 Years a Slave winning here first before going on to Oscar glory. This would theoretically place The Imitation Game as the Best Picture frontrunner for the moment (with many more movies to yet to debut of course). In any case, it should solidify the audience appeal of this movie, which started with the adoration out of Telluride and obviously continued at TIFF (where the audience taste tends to match pretty closely with the Academy's). This is going to be a major player, folks.
REVIEW: "Boyhood" (2014) Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette. Dir. Richard Linklater
It was a very bold experiment for Richard Linklater to attempt to make a coming of age film that depicts a child's life from the age of six to eighteen, and to do so while filming a few days every year for twelve years was such an ambitious undertaking that it's a miracle it all turned out the way it did. There are risks involved in embarking on such a project- after all, this was not a documentary but a fiction film, an original screenplay that was going to have to depend on amateur child actors to eventually grow into (hopefully) somewhat believable characters. What if the kids suddenly decided they didn't want to do it anymore? What if another actor had gotten hurt or even died during the shooting of it? The success of a movie like this depends on a lot of things going well that are not in the filmmaker's control, and the fact that this movie turned out so well was a stroke of luck as much as anything else.
The greatest accomplishment of Boyhood is the experiment itself, which successfully documents the passage of time over the course of twelve years in just under three hours, and to be able to see the actors change physically in that time is remarkable to behold, especially the kids. The change from six years old to a teenager is faster and more dramatic than at any other point in a person's life, and it does feel wondrous to watch that take place on screen. The film opens in 2002 as Coldplay's "Yellow" kicks in over the opening credits, placing us back at that point in recent history, as the boy, our protagonist named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), is picked up from school by his frazzled mom Olivia (Patricia Arquette), who's on to him about getting his homework done (and not for the first time, as we'll see at so many points throughout the film- I wonder how often the "do your homework" refrain is uttered in the life of a parent). From that moment on we meet his sister Samantha (played by Richard Linklater's daughter Lorelei) and eventually are introduced to their dad Mason Sr. (Linklater devotee Ethan Hawke), who they see just occasionally since the two parents are split up. We also get the a quick glimpse at the first of Olivia's bad boyfriends, who are a constant source of pain and interruption in the kid's lives.
It's somewhat difficult to describe the film after this, because it meanders through Mason and Samantha's childhood, marking the passage of time through changing haircuts, Iraq War news footage in the background and the rapidly evolving technological advancements of the twenty-first century (from Apple Oregon Trail to tamagotchis to iphones). Sometimes Mason Sr. shows up to take his kids to baseball games, bowling, museums, and every time Ethan Hawke arrives we look forward to seeing him, because even as an absentee dad he's fun and he's funny and Hawke gives such a natural, lived-in performance that we immediately buy him as this somewhat immature, irresponsible but carefree figure that comes and goes from their lives as he pleases, getting the benefit of being the cool dad without having to do any of the actual parenting. That falls to Patricia Arquette, a single mom who has to go back to school to get a better job, raise two kids every day, and has faults of her own, the worst of which is being drawn to alcoholic and abusive men, whom she parades in and out of her children's lives the way so many weak-willed single mothers unfortunately do.
The broken family unit and the bringing up of these two kids in this environment is relatable and heartbreaking and absorbing to watch, as the movie pretty much treats the most banal moments of life as milestones, which of course they are, especially for anyone who shares the memories of the characters, through whichever prism that brings you in most. For me, the most interesting way in was through the parents, as the child actors are very mannered and I'm sorry to say, artificial in many of their line readings, but for the first half of the film that's not much of a problem. Even though it's titled Boyhood, it feels like the exploration of the family as a whole through which we are experiencing the twelve years. Unfortunately about midway through the film, when little Mason becomes a teenager, Linklater feels the need to develop him specifically as a character and give him a personality, and so he suddenly becomes very much the focus of the film, carrying it now entirely on his shoulders as he tries to find out who he is.
And frankly, who he becomes is a rather pretentious, annoying, insufferably pontificating kid who moans on and on to his girlfriend about the evils of life and social media (which is really communicating Linklater's own feelings, as I don't quite buy into any kid who never knew a world without the internet bemoaning the evils of Facebook), and I spent the last hour and a half of the movie waiting impatiently for Hawke and Arquette to come back and take the focus off this whiny brat who'd dispelled all of my sympathy for him from earlier in his life. Even the sister disappears at this point and we're stuck with the kid, who was really the least interesting character in the whole film. It's certainly possible that this is the kind of movie that depends on your own personal identification with the people in question- I personally was far more interested in Hawke, Arquette, and maybe even the sister, so Mason's personal journey through the self-important teen years was simply tedious and unbearable to me. But we must spend so much time with him in this stage (when he was only tangential to the experience as a child) that the movie starts to feel long and so it falls short of greatness and is certainly not Linklater's best work. But it is an effective and ambitious experiment that's well worth seeing, and whether or not you're personally moved may depend on your own life experience and how well it relates to Mason's. I liked and was involved in the first half of his childhood much more so than in the latter half, and for me the kid was easier to take before he developed his unfortunate personality.
* * *
TRAILER #4: "Maps to the Stars"
So yeah, this seems like an excessive amount of trailers for a film that's not even coming out this year, but it looks like that may be the only way we'll ever get to see it. Unfortunately, it was confirmed that Maps to the Stars will only be released in Canada on October 31st, with its distributor Focus World set to possibly release the movie on VOD in 2015- which really sucks, because the movie won Julianne Moore the Best Actress award in Cannes, so I just can't imagine it being so bad that they can't even risk releasing it here. Moore does look terrific in it, but luckily, it was just announced that another movie of hers called Still Alice, an indie about a woman suffering from early onset Alzheimers, was just picked up in Toronto (where she got raves from the critics) and will be released this year, which will very likely place Julianne Moore as the Best Actress frontrunner. That would be long overdue for the four-time nominee, but as usual, it's because the Best Actress field is so barren, while Best Actor is as always, way overcrowded with at least ten great performances vying for five slots. Sad state of affairs indeed.
TRAILER: "Serena"
Ok, so this is the mysterious (and practically long-lost at this point) movie from director Susanne Bier, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, that has been languishing in distribution hell for the last two years, believe it or not. It doesn't look particularly awful, but for some reason no one wanted to pick up this movie, despite it being the third pairing of two of the hottest actors right now, so that can't be a good sign. It's secured a release date this year in the U.K. only, so who knows if we'll ever see it stateside, but here's a look at it for now anyway.
First Look at the New Batmobile
Zack Snyder released an official picture of the Batmobile on his twitter account yesterday:
This happened after a user leaked some grainier pics from Instagram. It looks to me like a combination of the old-school Tim Burton one and the Tumbler that everyone hated in the Nolan movies. Of course, the other alternative would have been coming up with something original, but we can't have that can we?
Toronto Roundup #2: 'Imitation Game' Makes a Splash from Telluride to TIFF
This final Toronto roundup is a combined one for Toronto and Telluride, which happened almost two weeks ago now, but I didn't get to summarize the few films that made their debut there. They did also play Toronto this week though, so we'll start off with the big winner out of Telluride, which was The Imitation Game, another biopic about a British genius, this time telling the little known story (at least here in the U.S.) of Alan Turing, the man who broke the Enigma code in WWII and invented the first computer, before he was prosecuted by the British government for being gay, which was illegal at the time. This movie came roaring out of Telluride and also hit big in Toronto, beloved by audiences across the board and could arguably be declared the one surefire Oscar contender to debut at the fall festivals so far (along with Birdman, which skipped TIFF). Benedict Cumberbatch in particular is being championed for a supposedly incredible performance as Turing and is considered nearly a lock for a Best Actor nomination, so I can't wait to see this when it comes out November 21st. Critics are a little more measured in their praise so far (always distrustful of anything crowdpleasing) but still positive, especially about the acting, and it'll be interesting to see if this will have to battle The Theory of Everything for attention as a rival biopic. But The Imitation Game has The Weinstein Company behind it, so frankly, I'd bet on this one, at least right now.
"Strong, stirring, triumphant and tragic, 'The Imitation Game' may be about a man who changed the world, but it's also about the world that destroyed a man." (Film.com)
"The movie is undeniably strong in its sense of a bright light burned out too soon, and the often undignified fate of those who dare to chafe at society's established norms." (Variety)
"Dominating it all is Cumberbatch, whose charisma- tellingly modulated- and naturalistic array of eccentricities, Sherlockian talent at indicating a mind never at rest, and knack for simultaneously portraying physical oddness and attractiveness combine to create an entirely credible portrait of genius at work." (Hollywood Reporter)
Then there's Wild, the Reese Witherspoon hiking drama based on the memoir of Cheryl Strayed. Wild premiered at Telluride to mixed-negative reviews at first, but seems to have had a much more enthusiastic reception at Toronto, interestingly enough. The movie looks like it will ultimately be well received, and Witherspoon looks almost certain to land her second Best Actress nomination, but any other nods would probably be a surprise (unless the movie ends up taking off at the box office).
"Reese Witherspoon delivers her best performance since she won the Best Actress Oscar for 'Walk the Line' a decade ago." (New York Post)
"The premise sounds corny, but Vallee, in collaboration with screenwriter Nick Hornby, gives the film its energy by pulling the narrative apart." (The Guardian)
"'Wild' never really earns its hard-fought struggle for redemption and personal reinvention." (The Playlist)
The other films out of Toronto were mostly acquisition titles that don't yet have release dates, or even distributors. Jason Reitman's latest film Men, Women & Children was roundly panned (his second miss in a row after last year's Labor Day), while Chris Rock brought a film he wrote and directed to Toronto called Top Five, which got great reviews and was won in a bidding war by Paramount for over $12 million (probably for a 2015 release). Another movie that did get a very good reaction from the festival was Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, a comedy with Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, but it's also unclear if that film will come out this year or next.
"The most hilarious Woody Allen film in years is directed by Noah Baumbach, with Ben Stiller as basically an updated version of the idealistic documentary filmmaker the Woodman played in 'Crimes and Misdemeanors.'" (New York Post)
"'While We're Young is a mostly enjoyable movie, but what it's trying for is wisdom, and that's a quality that Baumbach doesn't earn." (BBC.com)
So, from Telluride and Toronto (and Venice), I think what we're looking at so far in terms of major fall movies are Birdman, The Imitation Game and Foxcatcher, which continued to receive outstanding critical notices for Steve Carell and Channing Tatum as it bowed here in the states. Outside contenders could maybe include Wild and The Theory of Everything, but we'll see how it plays out, because there's still more to come as the fall season rolls on. Next up is the New York Film Fest (starting Sept 26th) where we'll get to hear about two highly anticipated films, David Fincher's Gone Girl and Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. Stay tuned.
FINAL POSTER: "The Hunger Games- Mockingjay, Part 1"
Well, here's the last poster for the movie's marketing campaign, the one that finally reveals Katniss as the people's hero. To be honest, my interest in The Hunger Games at this point comes down to my curiosity about how Jennifer Lawrence is going to handle all the inevitable questions about the celebrity nude scandal when she has to promote the movie in November. Laugh it off or ban interviewers from bringing it up? Take my advice Jen, the coolest thing to do would be to laugh it off and pretend like you don't care, because that's all they're going to want to ask you about.
Toronto Roundup #1: 'Theory of Everything' Excites in an Underwhelming Field
The first week of Toronto has been fairly underwhelming, with only a handful of talked about films emerging from the fest so far, while some of the more hyped entries have disappointed. In terms of Oscar contenders (fair or not, the fall festivals always serve as a starting point for critics to point out what's likely to last through winter), there seems to be some possibility for The Theory of Everything, the Stephen Hawking biopic, which was very well received by audiences there, and garnered buzz mostly for its two leads, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. I can't tell if this will be a major contender or not- while the audience reaction was great, the actual reviews have been more on the respectful side, ranging from mixed to positive. My guess right now would be that it's a play for the two actors mostly, in the vein of Dallas Buyers Club, but hey, that ended up getting in for Best Picture as well, so I guess we ought to at least keep our eye on it.
"Hawking's innovations and refusal to subscribe to outdated modes of thinking merely underscore the utter conventionality of his film biography." (The Wrap)
"A stirring and bittersweet love story, inflected with tasteful good humour..." (Variety)
"A solid, duly moving account of their complicated relationship, spanning roughly 25 years, and made with impeccable polish." (Hollywood Reporter)
Another standout seemed to be Jake Gyllenhaal's Nightcrawler, a dark thriller that drew comparisons to everything from Taxi Driver and Network to Drive (which I hated, so it doesn't exactly make me excited to see this). Most of the buzz also expressed that it probably won't be an awards contender though, aside from a possible screenplay nod, although Gyllenhaal was highly praised in the leading role.
"Gyllenhaal's performance is so dedicated, and Gilroy's world so determinedly realized that is forces its way to originality." (Observer UK)
"A fantastic, sleek and fun satire." (Film.com)
Now for the disappointments. Robert Downey Jr.'s The Judge turned out to be exactly what it was advertized as in those trailers. A sappy, overly sentimental tearjerker that already seems to be being written off by major critics, even as some remark that it could still be a hit with audiences (and the leads in RDJ and Robert Duvall praised overall). I couldn't really expect much, considering the director David Dobkin's best movie is Wedding Crashers.
"'Expendables 3' has fewer nauseating cliches than 'The Judge.'" (Film.com)
"An engrossing, unwieldy hurricane of a movie that plays like a small-town courtroom thriller by way of a testosterone-fueld remake of 'August: Osage County.'" (Variety)
Finally, St. Vincent, a vehicle for the great Bill Murray in his first starring role in a while, seemed to get another mixed-positive reaction (there's been lots of those this year) as Murray stars as a cranky old man who befriends a 12-year-old kid. It frankly sounds unbearable, but some think it could get enough attention to land Murray an Oscar nomination (his first since Lost in Translation). I sort of doubt it, because Best Actor is, as always, incredibly crowded and usually depends on the correlation between actor and picture- and this movie's coming nowhere near Best Picture. But it might be fun to check out for Bill Murray alone.
"Amusing enough as long as Bill Murray sticks to his mean and ornery act but ultimately reveals its true self as a film equivalent of the gooey 1971 Ray Stevens song 'Everything is Beautiful.'" (Hollywood Reporter)
"It plays out like a best-of album: safe, fun, but inessential if you're already familiar with the back catalogue." (Guardian)
I'll be back on Thursday with a second roundup that will examine some of the movies that came to Toronto but already played at Telluride, since I didn't get around to a summary of that three day fest from last week. Until then!
