Friday October 6, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 40 |
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Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
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Fall is the season Oscar hopefuls begin to show their colors |
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| Fall is the season Oscar hopefuls begin to show their colors | ||
| by Lorelei Quenzer
- SGN A&E Writer
With apologies to Andy Williams, this is the most wonderful time of the year: the time Oscar hopefuls emerge from the summer doldrums. Here are previews of a few of the films I'm looking forward to this fall. October 13: Infamous Infamous is that other movie about Truman Capote and his crime novel, In Cold Blood. This time the cast includes Toby Jones as Capote, Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, and Daniel Craig, the new James Bond, as the killer Perry Smith. It's been said that, with Infamous, the sexual tension between Smith and Capote is more palpable here than in the intellectual cat-and-mouse play of last year's film. There's also a plethora of A-listers making appearances as Capote's friends, like Sigourney Weaver as society diva Babe Paley, Gwyneth Paltrow as Peggy Lee - singing, no less - and director Peter Bogdanovich as the humorist Bennett Cerf. This version is based on George Plimpton's 1998 portrait of the Gay writer, in which he interviewed one hundred people, drawing from the memories of both Capote's friends and his enemies. Oscar buzz: Actor (Toby Jones), Supporting Actress (Sandra Bullock and Sigourney Weaver), Adapted Screenplay. October 27: Running With Scissors You think your family is dysfunctional? Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) has you beat, hands down. His father (Alec Baldwin) is an alcoholic, but you would be too, if you had to deal with his mother (Annette Bening). She's borderline psychotic, with delusions that her husband is trying to kill her, first by suffocating her creativity, then by stabbing her in her sleep. Her narcissism knows no bounds, pulling Augusten from school so he can put her hair in rollers. When the shit hits the marital fan Mommy places Augusten in the care of her therapist, the questionable Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), who has a habit of adopting his patients' children. Based on the memoir of Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors is more drama than comedy, feeling like a cross between The Royal Tenenbaums and American Beauty.. Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Evan Rachel Wood and Jill Clayburgh round out the remarkable family Finch. Oscar buzz: Film, Director, Actress (Annette Bening), Supporting Actor (Brian Cox), Adapted Screenplay. October 27: Little Children By all accounts, Little Children is a prime Oscar contender in all of the major categories. The film centers on a group of young marrieds whose lives are defined by their relationship to their children; their paths intersect on the playgrounds, town pools and streets of their small community. There's a Bisexual feminist (Kate Winslet) who is now an unhappy mother married to a man addicted to internet porn. There's the former Prom King (Patrick Wilson) who is feeling the pressure from his wife (Jennifer Connelly) to quit being a househusband and get on with a career. He's also really feeling the Bi-feminist, if you catch my drift. Then there's Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley), a pedophile who has moved into this uptight suburban neighborhood. Based on Tom Perrotta's searing novel. Little Children examines the dark psychological depths of the corner kiddie pool. Oscar buzz: Film, Director, Actor (Patrick Wilson), Actress (Kate Winslet), Supporting Actor (Jackie E. Haley), Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly), Adapted Screenplay. November 3: Babel I shouldn't have to say more than five words to get you in the movie theater for Babel: directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. His first film, Amores perros, was one of 2000's best, and even I have to admit that, despite my personal dislike of Sean Penn, 21 Grams (2003) was quite a piece of work. This film may get Iñárritu that mainstream recognition; enough so I no longer have to put parentheses after his name to tell you what else he's done. Babel begins with the tragedy of a married couple on vacation in Morocco. There's also a nanny illegally crossing into Mexico with two American children, and a teenage Japanese rebel whose father is sought by the police in Tokyo. As with Iñárritu's other work, these lives intersect in unexpected ways, hurtling them towards a shared destiny. This is not going to be a happy movie (she said with glee). Oscar buzz: Film, Director, Actor (Brad Pitt), Supporting Actor (Gael García Bernal), Supporting Actress (Cate Blanchett and Rinko Kikuchi), Original Screenplay. November 10: Stranger Than Fiction This might be Will Ferrell's year. Not only is he in one of the year's funniest comedies, but he's got a semi-straight role in Stranger Than Fiction. Ferrell is Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who begins to hear a voice narrating his life. Too bad that voice keeps telling him that he's going to die. Emma Thompson is novelist Kay Eiffel. She's writing a book about an IRS auditor named Harold Crick. She's just having a few problems working out how her main character is going to die. It sounds like pure Charlie Kaufmann, but Stranger Than Fiction is by Marc Forrester, he of Finding Neverland fame. With a cool supporting cast of characters, including Queen Latifah, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kristin Chenoweth and Dustin Hoffman, this might be the comedy to push Thank You For Smoking out of contention. Oscar buzz: Film, Director, Actor (Will Ferrell), Supporting Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Original Screenplay. November 22: Volver Volver is Pedro Almodóvar's latest paean to indomitable women. Sisters Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas) are struggling to make ends meet. Raimunda, who has a good-for-nothing husband and a teenaged daughter, is working several jobs; Sole, whose husband left long ago, is running an illegal, undeclared hair salon. When their aunt Paula dies, Sole wants Raimunda to go to the funeral with her, but Raimunda can't: she's just found her husband dead in the kitchen. There's a great big knife sticking out of his chest. Sole attends solo, and when she gets back to Madrid she hears a noise coming from her trunk. A woman calls to be let out; she claims to be her mother. Trouble is, Sole's mother died in a fire many years ago. But it is indeed Abuela Irene (Carmen Maura), Sole and Raimunda's mother, who, having been a comfort to her sister Paula until Paula's death, has some business to finish with her daughters. Oscar buzz: Director, Actress (Penélope Cruz), Supporting Actress (Carmen Maura), Original Screenplay. December 15: The History Boys Based on the Tony Award-winning play by Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George III), The History Boys tells the story of an unruly class of 8 bright, funny students who are pursuing an undergraduate position at Oxford or Cambridge universities. No boy from the school has ever been accepted before, and the headmaster (Clive Merrison) is determined that this year will be different. He's hired a young teacher, Tom Irwin (Stephen Campbell-Moore), to help them stand out from the other applicants. But the History teacher (Frances de la Tour) isn't interested in fancy showmanship, and the Harley-riding English master (Richard Griffiths, of the Harry Potter series) believes in education for its own sake. The boys' journey becomes as much about how education works as it is about where education leads. The English boarding school scenario is rife with Gay fodder: Richard Griffith's professor has a fondness for groping boys who ride pillion on his motorcycle, and one of the lads is discovering his sexuality. Oscar buzz: Supporting Actor (Richard Griffiths), Supporting Actress (Frances de la Tour), Adapted Screenplay. |
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International Readers |
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