At their best, the photos in Annie Leibovitz’s 2010 Hollywood photo gallery capture feelings between the movie directors and their stars. This one of Quentin Tarantino and straight man Christoph Waltz—who will get an Oscar, even if his boss does not—-is my favorite.
Here’s Vanity Fair’s behind-the-scenes video:
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, Meryl Streep, Hollywood, Media on February 3, 2010 at 5:31pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Seven movies have made the short list of the Academy Visual Effects branch. They will vote for the final three nominated films on January 21 at the annual bake-off, where 15-minute reels of each film are screened for the VFX voters. I’m always at Sundance for this; I’d love to go one day.
The films are:
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“Star Trek”
“Terminator Salvation”
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
“2012”
The three nominees will be announced on February 2, and the winner (Avatar, hello) on March 7. What will the nominees be? Avatar, Revenge of the Fallen, 2012? It’s competitive! Star Trek could get in there. And Half-Blood Prince was magnificent, but will probably be taken for granted. I’m glad District 9 was appreciated for its seamless CG character animation within a live-action environment: what Jackson, Blomkamp & Co. did on a modest budget is competitive with the monster budgets of the other VFX. But it probably won’t make the final three.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, J.J. Abrams, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Franchises, Avatar, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Transformers, Genres, Action, Sci-fi on January 6, 2010 at 11:17am PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Where are we, after the record-breaking holiday? There were many winners.
B.O. juggernaut Avatar —the fifth movie of all time to pass the $1 billion mark worldwide, with a record third-weekend gross—lifted many boats, as 3D and IMAX shows turned moviegoers away around the country. 3D proceeds accounted for about 75% of Avatar‘s North American returns. (One IMAX theater sold out 58 consecutive showings.) Filmgoers shut out of the Pandora adventure went to see other films instead.
James Cameron promised a spectacular cinema-changing experience and delivered the biggest must-see film since his last, Titanic, 12 years ago. Given Avatar‘s staggering $300-million-plus cost—those eye-popping all-CG environments, 50% of the movie, did not come cheap—the director said that the film would have to play to everyone, male and female, between 8 and 80, and so it did (even if some folks on the right perceive a leftist ant-militarist message). Repeat viewings are the primary reason why the movie is keeping such a torrid pace. Cameron knows the magic formula: adventure + romance + VFX= blockbuster.
But it’s not that simple, or everyone would be able to do it. After Titanic, Cameron bided his time, put in years of R & D on challenging 3D underwater sub expeditions, and pounced when he thought the technology was ready. He picked the VFX house that could deliver what he needed: Weta, led by Peter Jackson and Joe Letteri. What Cameron was seeking with performance capture was the humanity of the actors’ performances leeching through the CGI; he also wanted mobility for his cameras, so he that he could see his work in CG environments in real time. It made a huge difference in the immediacy and fluidity of the filmmaking. The studios are all checking out which films they should make in 3D. (Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood would have been too costly to change over.)
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Critics Groups, Oscars, Box Office, Winter, Directors, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Robert Downey, Jr. , Sandra Bullock, Tobey Maguire on January 5, 2010 at 6:00am PST | Permalink | Comments (8)
People in Hollywood tend to put film directors up on pedestals, and as far as Avatar is concerned, Jim Cameron deserves to be up there. I’m calling nine Oscar nominations for Avatar. But its one sure-shot win will be Peter Jackson and Joe Letteri’s Weta Digital team for Avatar‘s visual effects. What they accomplished in the The Lords of the Rings trilogy and King Kong changed the way movies are made. And so does Avatar, which will have a huge impact on movie FX to come, from Tintin to Gemini Man. Nothing, it seems, will be impossible to put on film anymore.
While I interviewed Letteri on the phone in Wellywood for my Popular Mechanics Avatar feature, Letteri blew into L.A. to see the movie for the first time. I grabbed him for this four-part flip cam interview, more on the jump.
Part One - Avatar advances
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Franchises, Avatar, Genres, Sci-fi, Video, Interviews on December 23, 2009 at 3:16pm PST | Permalink | Comments (4)
The Lovely Bones presented a fascinating challenge for a movie adaptation of a book. But finally, the realities of commercial filmmaking may have been unmanageable in this case—-much as they were with John Hillcoat’s film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. What works on the page and in our imagination, no matter how harsh, can be too much to handle on the screen.
Peter Jackson and his producing, writing and life partner Fran Walsh talk about the narrative difficulties of adapting Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones into a film. I interviewed him by flip cam (on the jump) and her by phone. “No other medium can enter the imagination of a character like film,” says Walsh, “but few films do that. The last thing I want to see at the movies is a version of my reality. I don’t want to see art imitating life.”
Clearly, going in, Jackson, Walsh and Philippa Boyens were trying to make the best movie they could from material they loved. Boyens first read the book, passed it to Walsh, who passed it to her husband, who wanted to make it. They eventually grabbed the film rights in 2006 after the BBC let them go (Lynn Ramsay was developing that film). Jackson wanted to develop the project as an independent without interference. They sold the finished script to DreamWorks.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Directors, Peter Jackson, Genres, Drama, Writers, Screenwriters on December 14, 2009 at 3:06pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Broadcast Film Critics Movie Awards nominations in a whopping 25 categories are dominated by Inglourious Basterds and Nine, with ten nominations each, followed by Avatar, with nine and The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air with eight and The Lovely Bones with six. While not every category will match up with the ultimate Oscar nominations (some have six slots), this list of ten best picture nominees could be close to the final Oscar list—no District 9, The Lovely Bones, Star Trek or The Last Station (which got savaged by At the Movies).
The largest film critics association in North America, the BFCA boasts 235 voting members, and includes not only radio and television but online critics. The LAFCA, by contrast, which has many underemployed members (and will soon lose established print critics David Ansen and Scott Foundas) has refused to add such popular online critics as Hitfix’s Drew McWeeney and CHUD’s Devin Faraci.
Inglourious Basterds grabbed noms for best picture, supporting actor, ensemble, director, original screenplay, cinematography, art direction, editing, costume design and action movie, while Nine‘s noms were for best picture, supporting actress, ensemble, cinematography, art direction, editing, costume design, makeup, sound and song.
The ceremony will be broadcast live from the Hollywood Palladium on VH1 on January 15 at 9 PM ET/PT. The full list of nominees is on the jump.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Critics Groups, Directors, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Headliners, George Clooney, Writers, Critics on December 14, 2009 at 2:29am PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
One Oscar long-shot is South African actor Sharlto Copley, who made an astonishingly assured acting debut in District 9, written and directed by his old friend Neill Blomkamp. Historically, the Academy has been biased against science-fiction. (I assess the Peter Jackson-backed film’s Oscar chances.) But the film played well at a recent Screen Actors Guild screening, where I conducted a Q & A with Copley:
1. How did you get to know Neill Blomkamp?
He actually went to the same high school as me, but I was out and had started a production company. The art teacher, a friend, saw the sci-fi and 3-D animation he was doing in a computer graphics program. And I had a company that had higher-end equipment than he had at the time. It started through a mutual love of movies and a certain kind of creative sensibility.
2. How did you come together to make the 2005 short Alive in Joburg that lead to District 9?
We were only friends in South Africa for about two or three years, then his parents immigrated over to Vancouver, so he went on his own trajectory over there. I started a consortium of companies: a TV channel, a talent agency, a production company, and a big visual effects house. So I ended up producing for him every time he came to South Africa and wanted to shoot something. He called me and told me, ‘I’ve got this crazy idea of doing some aliens in a sort of African third world township environment.’ And I produced that for him at the time.
3. And you did a cameo?
Yes, as a sniper. A much cooler character than Wikus.
4. So you studied acting in college?
I didn’t go to college. I started my career right away as a filmmaker/businessman in South Africa. I studied through a correspondence course at Trinity College of London.
5. Did you do theater in high school?
I did a lot of writing, directing, theatre, a lot of acting in my own stuff, from about 11 till maybe 18 or 19. I did a lot of performing in my own pieces. You know, I was making films. So for a short time in high school I sort of considered acting, but in that process I decided I wouldn’t act, I would be a writer/director/producer/businessperson. So when this came up, it was just a really really big surprise.
Read More
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Peter Jackson, Genres, Sci-fi on December 5, 2009 at 7:13pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Kris Tapley and I discuss the week’s frenetic doings: National Board of Review, parties for The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart and The Lovely Bones, and the upcoming sci-fi monster Avatar.
MTV has posted last week’s MTV live stream with Avatar’s James Cameron, Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington; here’s Time’s Avatar takeout By Rebecca Winters Keegan, who has also written a Cameron bio, The Futurist.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Independents, Summit, Weinsteins, Studios, Paramount, Fox Searchlight on December 5, 2009 at 4:30pm PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
Friday I interviewed It’s Complicated writer-director Nancy Meyers by phone, Hurt Locker‘s Jeremy Renner by Flip Cam, and went to a Paramount Lovely Bones cocktail party at the Four Seasons. There I talked to Stanley Tucci and photographed him with Peter Jackson, who I will talk to later this weekend. Then I ran off to the International Documentary Awards, which were taking place at the same time as the first screening of Avatar (Arrggh) for the Hollywood Foreign Press. Word on the street at the IDA party: Avatar‘s a 161-minute movie with fab visual effects and adolescent story. I won’t see it until the 10th, alas.
The announcement of the IDA winners was posted online at 8 PM PST, just as the ceremony was beginning. The big winner was Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which won both music and best feature awards (the full list of winners is at indieWIRE.com), but did not make the Oscar short list. “We are living proof that dreams do come true,” said drummer Rob Reiner.
Here’s my impromptu low-light interview with Anvil:
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by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Peter Jackson, Studios, Paramount on December 5, 2009 at 12:36am PST | Permalink | Comments (9)
In Contention‘s Kris Tapley and I have actually seen most of the Oscar movies now, and even though we’re not supposed to write about all of them yet, we do talk about the sexy musical Nine, Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and the mixed reaction to Peter Jackson‘s The Lovely Bones. We also get into the rising fortunes of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and the marketing behind the last movie to be unveiled in coming weeks, James Cameron’s Avatar.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Headliners, Matt Damon on November 28, 2009 at 8:25am PST | Permalink | Comments (5)
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