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St. Petersburg Diary: It’s Too Early to Start Narrowing the Oscar race

October 1, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Stolen Kisses: Anne Dorval and Antoine-Olivier Pilon in Xavier Dolan's Momm;

Stolen Kisses: Anne Dorval and Antoine-Olivier Pilon in Xavier Dolan’s ‘Mommy’

It was a crisp night in St. Petersburg as the city’s First International Media Forum had its gala opening with Xavier Dolan’s explosive mother-son drama, Mommy. The Cannes jury prize winner relates the tumultuous relationship between a sexy widow (Anne Dorval) and her troubled teen (Antoine-Olivier Dolan). Seeing it for the second time among a festive chattering audience at the city’s Old Stock Exchange that couldn’t quite sit still, I was taken again by the movie’s emotional power — it’s both freshly contemporary and Bergmanesque. I wept. Again.

Recently, while talking to Jessica Chastain about Bergman’s muse, Liv Ulmmann and Chastain’s Miss Julie director. Jessica described Ullmann as having no bones. In other words, she was all feeling, open to every possible emotion dark or light — which doesn’t make her fearless only brave. This echoed for me while watching Mommy, because the performances are so volatile and yet grounded in the real world. Both Dorval and Pilon change minute to minute, dancing to raging, hope to despair, violent to tender. You have to be extremely open to embrace this kind of movie. It’s scenes from a mother-son relationship that we haven’t seen before.

The magnitude of the performances reminded me of the single principal I have to live by this early in the Oscar race: before Thanksgiving is a time to expand contenders, to seek out those performances and movies that may not be obvious candidates but that deliver Oscar power. Let’s not ghettoize Mommy as a Best Foreign Language Film contender even if it is Canada’s selection; let’s bring those brilliant performances forward.

While my Gold Derby colleague Pete Hammond argues persuasively that the Best Actor race should be expanded from five to ten, I think we should be looking even farther afield than Michael Keaton, Eddie Redmayne or Benedict Cumberbatch. Let’s throw Pilon in the mix. From mugging at the mirror in an homage to Home Alone to dancing seductively with his Mum and a middle-aged neighbor to exploding in intimate violence, this is a performance to watch and register.

And, in a year where Best Actress is looking a little thin, we’re calling on Quebec-native Dorval to join the fringe French speakers — Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night) and Juliette Binoche (Clouds of Sils Maria, which is also playing in St. Petersburg as well as the New York Film Festival) — to power into awards season playing thoroughly modern women of the world beyond Hollywood.

Pilon power.

Pilon power.

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Dolan, best actor, Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard, Oscar Race, SPIMF, Xavier Dolan

Countdown to TIFF – 12 Days – Movie Trailer “The Sessions”

August 25, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

When I first received info about The Sundance Film Festival last year, there was a movie description that sounded like an Onion parody of the festival: a Bay Area man in an iron lung wants to lose his virginity before he dies and hires a sexual surrogate to make that happen. It was called “The Surrogate.” Then the buzz came: John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone”) makes the movie in the lead role. Helen Hunt bares all as the surrogate. Crowds laughing and crying. Having seen the film, I can say that Hawkes is a shoe-in for a best actor Oscar nomination. No question. No money risked in betting. I am not a viewer that likes my emotions manipulated, so although the film, now retitled “The Sessions,” is a crowd-pleaser, i didn’t join in on the group weep at the end. Maybe I just wasn’t going to give the movie the satisfaction. So I’m not with those that say Hunt will get an Oscar nom, or that the movie is unquestionably bound for a best picture or best adapted screenplay nod (it’s based on a personal essay by poet and polio survivor Mark O’Brien), but Hawkes excels at the kind of role that earned Daniel Day Lewis an Oscar in “My Left Foot” in 1990.

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: best actor, handicapped sex, Helen Hunt, John Hawkes, Oscar Race, Oscars 2013, Sundance Film Festival, The Sessions, The Surrogate, TIFF, Winter's Bone

TIFF Countdown 16 Days – Movie Trailer “Cloud Atlas”

August 21, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

When I recently interviewed Susan Sarandon about her indie film “Robot & Frank,” I was more curious about the upcoming sci-fi epic “CLoud Atlas” from Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski’s. The directors’ enthusiasm is contagious and Sarandon’s snippet of narration intrigued me: “our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.” So it’s about karma, Sarandon explained, as opposed to reincarnation. Given that, I’m a little worried about a movie that pairs Halle Berry and Tom Hanks over centuries and across the barriers of gender and race. And even more disturbing thought that came out in my discussion with the actress: if you have an embattled relationship with your sister in this life and don’t resolve it, you could end up being married to her in your next life. Now that’s a horror movie! As for “Cloud Atlas,” the trailer puts it on my must-see at TIFF list:

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: Cloud Atlas, Film Festival, Oscar Race, Oscars, The Wachowski's, TIFF, Tom Hanks, Tom Tykwer

Oscars 2012: Best Actor First Look

September 15, 2011 By Thelma 1 Comment

OK, we’re just out of Toronto (at least I am). It’s a crap shoot as to who will make the best actor shortlist — but it’s not as much of a crap shoot as it was a week ago. This is going to be one very hot race. So, let’s start off with the shoe-in:

1. George Clooney, The Descendants

2. Brad Pitt, Tree of Life or Moneyball

3. Jean Dujardin, The Artist

4. Woody Harrelson, Rampart

Woody Harrelson,Robin Wright,Cynthia Nixon,Ben Foster,Oren Moverman,James Ellroy,Hot sex,The Messenger

5. Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar

And don’t forget:

6. Michael Fassbender, Shame

7. Gerard Butler, Machine Gun Preacher

8. Dominic Cooper, The Devil’s DoubleDominic Cooper,The Devil's Double,Best Actor,Oscars 2012

9. Paul Giamatti, Win Win

10. Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

11. Ryan Gosling, Drive or The des of March

12. Tom Hardy, Warrior

 

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Brad Pitt, Dominic Cooper, Drive, Gary Oldman, George Clooney, Gerard Butler, J. Edgar, Jean Dujardin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Machine Gun Preacher, Michael Fassbender, Moneyball, Oscar Race, Oscars 2012, Paul Giamatti, Rampart, Ryan Gosling, Shame, Soldier, Spy, Tailor, The Artist, The Descendants, The Devil's Double, The Ides of March, TIFF11, Tinker, Tom Hardy, Toronto International Film Festival, Tree of Life, Warrior, Win Win, Woody Harrelson

Vincent Cassel on A Dangerous Method

September 13, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Vincent Cassel,David Cronenberg,A Dangerous Method,Michael Fassbender,Viggo Mortensen,Keira Knightley

Cassel on Otto-pilot

Cassel is irrepressible as Otto Gross, a Freud-Jung fellow traveler whose motto was: “never repress any thing.”

Last year, in the ramp up for Oscar season, Black Swan star Cassel joined me at NYC’s Mercer Hotel. While discussing his then-current movie, he gave me a preview of coming attractions — and whet my appetite for David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, which I finally saw — and loved — at this week at TIFF11. Here’s an excerpt of that interview:

TA Tell me about the David Cronenberg movie. It’s about the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, right?

VC Freud, Jung and I’m Otto

TA Who was Otto?

VC He was actually…he would have been the spiritual son of Freud and Jung. He was really really bright except that the guy was insane, more than they were.

TA They were obsessive. Otto Gross was insane?

VC No, he was really like pushing the boundaries in terms of psychotherapy at the time, but the thing was that he was a cocaine addict, a really strong one. He was having sex with, literally every body. He was having kids every where. His motto was to never repress any thing. He was really living it. so at some point freud sent him to Jung, saying to Jung I would like to cure this guy. He knew that Otto would push Jung further

TA Did he, according to the movie, or in actuality?

VC Yes. In the film, Viggo Mortensen is Freud and Michael Fassbender is Jung.

TA That’s an intense group.

VC You know what It’s funny because it was a lot of fun

TA Does Cronenberg take himself pretty seriously, or no?

VC No, no. He’s experienced. He’s very subtle. He’s a lot of fun — a lot of people don’t know that watching the movies. I think he’s very elegant. I don’t think he takes himself seriously. He’s one of the directors who still reinvents himself and he’s sixty.

TA Did you have scenes with Keira Knightley, who plays Sabina Spielrein, who plays Jung’s Russian Jewish patient and lover?

VC I didn’t have any thing to do with her unfortunately. They were really happy with what she was doing. Insane!

Tomorrow I’ll continue my festival coverage with my chat with Keira Knightley at the Sony Pictures Classic dinner in Toronto…

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: A Dangerous Method, Black Swan, Carl Jung, cocaine addiction, David Cronenberg, Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Oscar Race, Otto Gross, repression, sexualtiy, Sigmund Freud, TIFF11, Toronto International Film Festival, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel

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