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Entries in Gary Oldman (30)

Sunday
Sep022012

Review: "Lawless"

The article originally appeared in my column at Towleroad

A terrible performance... or a great one? You decide.

Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) doesn't believe the tall tales about the outlaw Bondurant Boys especially the ones about Forrest (Tom Hardy). Local Virginia legend has it that Forrest can't be killed, that he's immortal.  "Have you ever seen what a tommy gun does to 'immortal'?" Rakes sneers in a (successful) effort to terrorize the town's Forrest-fearing men into submission. Rakes then beats the youngest Bondurant brother Jack (Shia Labeouf) into a blubbering pulp. But, as it turns out, the Bondurant brothers are resilient enough to inspire tall tales. Forrest and his brothers make their living as moonshiners in this Depression-era Western and with Prohibition empowering organized crime, everyone is looking to be the top boss. The brothers value their autonomy but the guns are out and if an actual crime lord (Gary Oldman's "Floyd Banner") don't get them, then the even more crooked law enforcement (Pearce's Deputy) just might.

Such is the bloody conflict of John Hillcoat's Lawless, based on the historical novel "The Wettest County in the World" which was written by a grandson of the Bondurants (all childless during the movie) suggesting straightaway that at least one of them is going to make it out of the movie alive. Not that the film is shy about spoilers given its heavy handed foreshadowing and the past-tense narration. (You gotta Live to Tell).

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Feb032012

Oscar Symposium Day 3: Farewells and Futures

On Day 1 of the symposium we partied with the Best Picture field and considered Star Vehicles. On Day 2 we discussed movies that are hopelessly in love with themselves (to good and bad effect), the forever contentious Lead vs Support debate, the invisible arts of editing and screenwriting. We pick up there. Nathaniel was admitting he wasn't entirely comfortable falling for Margaret.... 

Nader & Simin: A SeparationNATHANIEL:  I've scraped my knees up on cold hard pavement. I too was caught up in #TeamMargaret excitement. I love it when critics remember that part of their job is to advocate for buried treasure rather than merely rubber stamping the critical darlings over and over again (Did Michelle Williams really need to hog the majority of critics awards for My Week With Marilyn, which is straight down the middle awards bait? They didn't see anything off the golden path that was worthy of praise?). But when I finally saw Margaret, I left somewhat dejected. There's a lot to love. But there is also just an awful lot. It plays, to me, like a series of brilliant pieces that haven't quite been shaped to fit the genius-level mosaic they're intended for. Or maybe I was just thrown by the length and those phone calls to daddy. Lonergan is a brilliant writer but a brilliant actor not so much.

And maybe I was still just high on A Separation (my choice for Best of the Year) which illuminates a bit of the same ground in terms of personal actions creating ripples that we can't possibly grasp the full reach of. And they both show us how flawed people (i.e. all of us) can get tangled up in very difficult moral, social, religious, political and ethical webs they probably helped spin.

KURT: I'm glad you brought up that comparison between A Separation and Margaret, because it's definitely something I was thinking about while watching the latter (in between all the reveling in how Lisa initiates an allegorical, post-9/11 war that's ultimately futile and only reaps money for people who don't deserve it). Though vastly different in structure (one drum-tight, one manic and sprawling), these two scripts hold a lot of similarities, and are, in my opinion, at the tip-top of the year's best.

I'm also glad that Mark brought up Margin Call and Tinker Tailor in the same thought bubble because I found myself linking those two in my head a lot as well. Both films are essentially corporate dramas with power players coping with crisis, and both teem with a kind of impenetrable language you really have to crack. I hail from the team that doesn't really buy all the "Speak to Me Like a Golden Retriever" crap, because A) I don't believe those folks would actually expositionally coddle each other, or need coddling, in that way, and B), as mentioned, the movie keeps promising through dialogue that it's clearing things up, when it's really just thickening its fog of jargon. I do believe Chandor took a highly commendable crack at presenting this world, and I don't know if I've seen anyone do it better in terms of writing (Oliver Stone certainly didn't), but there's a lot of pretense about those scenes that irks me. (I prefer his small details, like the gross arrogance the company shows by firing Tucci's head risk manager, and little shots like the one of Demi and Simon Baker in the elevator with the cleaning lady.)

...and we've reentered MI6 where we began!

As for Tinker Tailor, there isn't a lick of coddling, just a glimpse into a radically rarefied world, filled with so much code talk, names and lingo it's like Tolkien does MI6.

Symposium Wraps with Bridesmaids, eye candy and film futures after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Jan242012

Podcast: Instant Reactions. Oscar Nom' Morning

Oscar Nomination Morning has always been like Christmas day to me. I sleep restlessly. I wake early. I tear open my presents. When I first met Nick Davis ten years ago, we knew we were kindred spirits since it's also like that for him. In some ways it can be even more exciting than Oscar Night. More to celebrate / complain about. We lean celebratory as best we can here. Congratulations to you and you and you and you... and okay, you too.

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. If you haven't yet seen the nominations, we have a full chart.

podcast topics include but are not limited to... 

  • Oscar as Christmas. Troubled sleep.
  • "Man or Muppet?", Bret McKenzie and Original Song
  • Blockbusters and how they performed in their categories.
  • Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and War Horse overperformed while The Help underperformed
  • Echo chambers and their limitations ... especially in the various craft categories. 

 

  • Tilda Swinton's Oscar trajectories
  • NINE BEST PICTURES? Spreading the wealth.
  • Iron Lady's makeup and Harry Potter's nominations.
  • Brad Pitt happiness.
  • Congratulations to all the nominees... except you.
  • Actually we breeze through everything! 

Here's our instant reaction to the nominations!
I did no editing on this one so when you hear only silence that is Nick and I both furiously reading names on a screen rather than paying homage to The Artist.

Other New Oscar Posts
Here's an FYC for next year ;)  | Virgin Oscar Nominees | What would you say if you got an Oscar nom? |  Prediction Stats

Instant Reactions

Thursday
Jan192012

Jamie, Gary and Emile for Prada

Thanks to TFE reader Grace for pointing this out. While some Hollywood male stars were walking the red carpet at the Globes, still more were walking the red and black carpet for Prada.

Globe snubbee Gary Oldman, Emile Hirsch, Garret Hedlund, Tim Roth, Our Jamie Bell (what? we've claimed him... the extended TFE family I mean which of course includes Glenn, Jamie's #1 fan), Willem Dafoe and Adrien Brody. The stars come out for Prada.

Some of them are more comfortable doubling as male models and not necessarily the ones you'd think. But you can't be rich, famous, good looking and good at everything... now can you?

Monday
Dec052011

Which Annie Nominee Has Your Vote For Animated Feature?

The New York Film Critics Circle recently opted out of honoring a best animated feature (and unless I'm mistaken it was an afterthought win for Rango at the NBR since it wasn't in the first wave of articles). Will awards bodies lose their keys to this category since realizing Cars 2 was a lemon? If you stop to think about it for more than two seconds it's decidedly ungenerous at best and horribly offensive at worst. It sheds an unflattering light on the initiable embrace of the animated ghetto categories, suggesting they were only created to honor Pixar to begin with. Which is... rather shameful if you ask me. If the only reason you created a category was to honor Pixar, you shouldn't have created a category. Nobody gives out prizes for "Best Paramount Pictures Release of the Year", you know? Nobody gives out prizes for "Best Weinstein Co. Release of The Year" ["The Academy does!" cried the anonymous heckler. *rimshot*]

What? Rango wasn't good enough for a badge of honor?

So, even if this wasn't the single greatest year for animated film, if you're going to honor the medium, honor the medium. If you change your rules every year who will respect you? (That's a general warning to wishy washy committees, The Golden Satellites, and to the Oscar board of directors themselves who are weirdly starting to act like all their imitators these past few years by second guessing themselves constantly).

But, since the Annie Awards have been honoring animated work for 38 years -- long before Oscar or the critics groups ever thought to honor it --  they'll continute to do just that. They've selected ten "Best Picture" nominees for their 39th annual awards. And even if they felt the need to include Cars 2 to get there, at least they didn't cancel their ceremony when they realized it wasn't revving anyone's engines. I promise to brake break with the car puns no. So sorry!

Annie Awards Best Animated Feature Nominees

 

  • A Cat in Paris - Folimage
  • The Adventures of Tintin - Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall
  • Arrugas (Wrinkles) - Perro Verde Films, SL
  • Arthur Christmas - Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animation
  • Cars 2 - Pixar
  • Chico & Rita - Chico & Rita Distribution Limited
  • Kung Fu Panda 2 - Dreamworks Animation
  • Puss in Boost - Dreamworks Animation
  • Rango - Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present a Blind Wink/GK Films Production
  • Rio - Blue Sky Studios

 

And even if he isn't nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor, Gary Oldman could still win an Annie Award. He's up for best voice acting as "Lord Shen" from Kung Fu Panda 2.

Find this... 'panda'... and bring him to me.
FIND this 'Panda'. And bring him to me.
FIND THIS PANDA AND BRING HIM TO ME!!!"

A complete list of their nominations is after the jump if you'd like to dig deeper. (I was sad that this year they didn't include the info as to which animated characters the individual animators are being honored for designing or animating. If I recall correctly they used to specify which characters, just as in the voice acting honors.)

Click to read more ...