Precious Day

Precious hits theaters today, and we'll no doubt be seeing more of this man, Lee Daniels, from here on out. My boyfriend and I are going away for the weekend, so I have no idea if I'll catch it or not. If you get a chance to see the film this weekend, come back here and tell me what you thought!

Poll: What are Gabby Sidibe's chances of having a long film career?

A lot of talk has been going on this week about Gabourey Sidibe, the charming new actress starring in Precious. Lots of debate has gone on about whether or not her talent will outshine her obviously atypical looks (in cinema, anyway) and ensure a successful acting career in coming years. Let me know what you think in the sidebar poll.

(POLL RESULTS: In the wake of the trailer premiere for Clint Eastwood's Invictus, we talked about his best films so far this decade. Mystic River was the winner, with 55% of the vote, while Million Dollar Baby took second with 33%. 11% professed admiration for his latest, Gran Torino. Thanks for voting!)

I Heart Gabby

November 2009

I can't believe we're almost through with 2009. Only a little more than four months until the Oscars, so now we're getting into the heavy-hitter months of November and December. Lots of awards hopefuls are up to bat. Some will thrill us and some will disappoint.
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This coming weekend we'll see A Christmas Carol, an animated update on the classic tale from Robert Zemeckis and Jim Carrey. Precious, one of the most decorated films of the year so far, will finally be released after months on the festival circuit. Oprah and Tyler Perry should do wonders for this little movie, and my guess is it will be enormously successful once it goes wide.
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This weekend also brings the ensemble comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats.
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The 13th will see a few indie contenders in theaters: The Messenger, That Evening Sun and The Young Victoria. I've seen The Young Victoria, and personally I thought it was a little slow and I don't see much hope for it with AMPAS.
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On the 20th, the big November money-maker and guaranteed suck fest (pun entirely intentional) New Moon comes out. I cannot beg enough for everyone to just stay away from this nightmare. See Broken Embraces instead. It might not be the deepest of Almodovar's works, but I caught it earlier this month and fell in love.
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Then the next week we have two of my most anticipated films of the year, The Road and The Princess and the Frog. The Road isn't looking like the strongest of bets as far as awards are concerned, but I loved the novel and love Viggo Mortensen, so I'll be catching it anyway. The Princess and the Frog is Disney's return to 2D, and if successful could result in a resuscitation of the dying art that is hand-drawn animation. I'm praying that it's a critical and commercial success.
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Finally, on the 27th, there's a limited release of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, another mostly disappointing film I saw this month. Performances in that one range from fine to dreadful, so if I were you I'd wait for the DVD.
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What are you planning to see this month?

Precious Victories

Precious has become the first movie in history to win the Audience Award at both the Sundance and Toronto film festivals. My excitement for this movie just keeps building and building, and Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, and Adapted Screenplay are now all but guaranteed. Congratulations to everyone involved. We'll see you all at the Kodak Theater soon enough!

Ten Toronto Tidbits

The Toronto International Film Festival - where the Oscar season unofficially starts - has come to a close. This year wasn't really revolutionary. Most of the big hits already had a substantial amount of buzz going in. There were a few great bits to come out of the fest, though. Here are the ten headlines that I'm most excited about.

10. An Education still getting great reviews. Carey Mulligan is the one I'm most excited to see make the rounds this awards season.
9. Drew Barrymore can direct! Whip It debuts to positive reviews and is a commercial success. Not an awards contender, but it proves Barrymore is a fun new talent to watch behind the camera, and Ellen Page is one phenomenal young actress.
8. Chloe is greeted favorably. Amanda Seyfried is touted as an up-and-coming actress who is pleasantly surprising as a call girl hired to tempt a woman's philandering husband.
7. Mother & Child star Annette Bening is getting great reviews for her role as a woman who gave a child up for adoption when she was 14. Ten years after her acclaimed performance in American Beauty lost to Hilary Swank, and five years after her turn as Julia Lambert lost to Swank again, Bening could be up against her if she gets a nomination for Mother & Child and Swank scores a nod for Mira Nair's Amelia. If I were her I'd be packing heat at the Kodak, just in case.
6. Ricky Gervais's The Invention of Lying does well. I will always root for whatever Gervais does. Can someone please book this man to host the Oscars?
5. Up in the Air continues to bowl people over. I've got a good feeling about this one and director Jason Reitman. For some reason they're striking me as the film and director to beat, so far.
4. The Coens' A Serious Man was really the only featival takeoff. Lots of talk of the film being their most personal and best film to date.
3. Tom Ford's A Single Man, which recently won Colin Firth Best Actor in Venice, gets picked up by The Weinstein Company. Currently looking at a December 4th release date, it's looking to be the actor's first big awards vehicle.
2. Precious is not showing any signs of slowing down. It doesn't seem like anyone has a negative thing to say about it. While Mo'Nique drew most of the praise earlier this year at Sundance, it was Gabourey Sidibe stunning Toronto audiences. Both actresses now seem on track for Academy Award nominations next March.
1. Robert Duvall delivers another stunning performance in Get Low. His turn as a Tennessee hermit who throws his own funeral was the talk of the festival. The film hasn't found a distributor yet, but if it does we'll be looking at a Best Actor campaign for Duvall, which I'd love to see.

What were you most excited about in Toronto? What Toronto films are you most excited to catch this year? Any major disappointments?

TIFF: Precious

It seems Lee Daniels' Precious is not going to call it quits after conquering Sundance. This one looks like it'll be snatching up awards left and right all the way through the season.

Roger Ebert was among the first to weigh in on the film (out of Toronto, at least), and it seems he was as taken as everyone else:

"Precious, one of the best films of the autumn, is Lee Daniels' the story of a physically and mentally abused poor black girl from the ghetto, who summons the inner strength to fight back for her future. It contains two great performances, by Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, in the title role, and Mo'Nique as her pathetic mother. Sidibe is the life force personified. Mo'Nique has a closing monologue that reduced some of us to tears."

John Foote, who's covering TIFF for InContention again this year, did him one better:

"This is daring filmmaking because it is real, because we all know things like this happen everyday. Let’s hope the Academy is daring enough to nominate the effort and honor the artists involved. “Precious” is the year’s best film."

Strong words from both. Precious hits theaters stateside on November 6th, and as of right now I think both Sidibe and Mo'Nique are safe bets in Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. A Best Picture nod isn't a long shot either.

New Kids On the Block

This year is looking to be full of breakthrough performances from young actresses, with at least four potential star-making turns coming up in the next few months. Every year it seems like there are a few actors who break onto the awards scene and become the talk of the town. These four young women are all in line for a lot of attention for much talked about work in four very different festival hits.

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First is Abbie Cornish in Bright Star, the Jane Campion film about the poet John Keats and his romance with Fanny Brawne. Cornish has starred in a few other films - Candy with Heath Ledger and last year's Stop-Loss - but EW's Dave Karger says that this is her star-making role. The film's debut at Cannes garnered quite a bit of attention, with Variety stating Cornish delivered "an outstanding performance." The Hollywood Reporter sang her praises too:

"Cornish has the acting skill to match her striking beauty and she makes the small loving gestures that the British might call soppy both real and touching."

Campion directed both Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin to Oscar wins in 1993's incredible The Piano, and Barbara Hershey to a nomination in Portrait of a Lady. Cornish could be the fourth woman to make a trip to the Academy Awards with Campion, but she'll have some stiff competition. Bright Star's limited release is scheduled for September 18th.

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Katie Jarvis landed her role in Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank after a casting agent saw her having a heated argument with her boyfriend at a train station and asked her to audition. She plays Mia, a troubled and aggressive working-class teen with a passion for dance and her mother's new boyfriend.

Those who have seen the film have been wowed, especially by Jarvis' performance. Guy Lodge's review for In Contention said Jarvis brought "vivid physical charge to the character" and called her "an astute and fully-formed actress (not to mention a great dancer) in her own right".

Fish Tank tied for the Jury Prize at Cannes, and has US distribution with IFC Films, though no official US release date has been named. UK theaters will begin playing the film this Friday.

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Carey Mulligan in An Education has been the one to keep an eye on since Sundance. She plays Jenny, a young girl torn between a college education and a romance with a much older man who shows her the ways of the world. Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere has been ecstatically shouting her name from rooftops since he attended a screening if the film in January:

"I know that special old-soul-mixed-with-youthful-effervescence quality that you see in very few actors and actresses over the years, and trust me, Mulligan has it. A wondrously true and satisfying film has broken out of the Sundance '09 pack, and a brand-new actress with just the right face and just the right approach and precisely the right touch of sadness in the corners of her mouth has hit one out of the park."

Mulligan's performance and the film have been capturing the hearts of almost everyone who sees them all year, with Mulligan widely thought to be the one to beat in this year's Best Actress race. Something about her is charming and winning, and I have to admit this is the performance I'm most anxious to see this year. Look for it in theaters October 9th.

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Another Sundance hit, Precious, stars Gabourey Sidibe in the title role. Precious is an illiterate Harlem teen pregnant with her second child by her father. She endures physical and emotional abuse from her mother and endless, cruel bullying from her peers over her obesity.

Most of the talk has been of Mo'Nique and her brutal performance as a montrous mother and Mariah Carey's non-glamorous role as a social worker, but Sidibe has earned raves as well. From the Hollywood Reporter:

"As Precious, Sidibe is superb, allowing us to see the inner warmth and beauty of a young woman who, to her world's cruel eyes, might seem monstrous."

It's a brave first performance to be sure. Precious hits theaters November 6th.

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All four names are sure to be floating around quite a bit as we come into the awards season. As far as Oscars go, Jarvis is a long shot due to her film's obscurity, and Sidibe will have a rough time keeping up with Mo'Nique's powerhouse performance. Mulligan is supposedly good enough to be a lock, and Cornish's chances are bolstered by the genre strength of the doomed period romance.

Sight unseen, my money is on Mulligan and Cornish, who will be battling it out in the coming months for the impressive newcomer vote.

As I've said, I'm most interested in Carey Mulligan, who's been drawing comparisons to Audrey Hepburn (who had her own breakthrough with Roman Holiday) for months. Who are you most excited about? Are there any other newcomers on your radar?

Double Vision

Here are a few sets of posters for upcoming films and my take on which ones are the better efforts.


I really don't see the much of a point in this second poster. The only thing I think they've improved is the view we get of the island, which seems a bit clearer without all that rain getting in the way. But I like the color palette, fonts, and expression on Leo's face much better in the first take. They create a more ominous feeling, which fits the story well. Another note: I'm not a fan of the tagline at all. "Someone is missing" can't possibly the best they could come up with, can it?

Whoever is in charge of the marketing for Precious deserves a hefty pay raise. These two posters for the acclaimed urban drama, due November 6th, are some of the best I've seen all year. I prefer the first to the second, personally, since I think it shows the state of the main character's life a little better. The second looks a little too matronly. Both get points for not relying on the all-too-common "floating heads" imagery, though.

While there's definitely something a little off about the character placement in the first poster, I can't say I think the second looks much better. As a fan of symmetry, I find it way annoying that the suitcase isn't completely in the picture on the latter. I'm glad that they included a reference to Thank You For Smoking, though, since Juno isn't necessarily everyone's brand of comedy. It's appropriate also that Clooney is standing alone in the second, since a main point in the story is his character's lack of personal connections. I give the win to the second, by a hair.

Precious Trailer

This trailer for Precious, about a sixteen-year-old living a life in Harlem that no one would want, made its way online a couple of days ago and has me totally amped for the November 6th release date. The movie made waves and collected honors at Sundance in January, and looks like it might be strong enough to do the same at Cannes next weekend. Again, Mo'Nique is one to keep your eye on this year.

Read the Book First

A list of some of the books that will bear those "now a major motion picture" stickers later this year. This isn't all of them, by any means. Just the ones I'm particularly interested in. If you're like me, and you like to have read the book before you see the film adaptation, check out a few of these titles in the coming months.

Cheri, by Collette. June 26th.

Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, by Bryan Burrough. July 1st.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling. July 15th.

Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane. October 2nd.

The Informant, by Kurt Eichenwald. October 9th.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. October 16th.

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. October 16th.

Precious, based on the novel Push, by Sapphire. November 6th.

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. December 11th.