Campaign Cocktails: Youth & Spotlight

oh it's just me and Jane. just an average Thursday night.More adventures from Oscar's holiday festive campaign trail. This time the Oscar frontrunner (Spotlight) and an Oscar possibility too many people are sleeping on (Youth)...

Should Jane Fonda ever tell you you have good tastes in movies, it'll get you drunker than whatever cocktail is in your hand. My personal guarantee to you! If, hypothetically speaking, you're a self-proclaimed actressexual cinephile Oscar pundit (ahem) and two of your favorite movies of all time happen to be They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969) and  Klute (1971), and Jane Fonda says this aloud to you, you might feel a little like you've peaked.  Is this real life...?

The 77 year-old American icon, along with her Youth co-stars Paul Dano and Michael Caine were the glitziest guests of Fox Searchlight's holiday party in New York City last week. (If the star's of the company's buzziest contender Brooklyn were at the sprawling extravaganty catered party at the Park Hyatt  -- truffle shavings? why not! --  I unfortunately didn't spot them).

True legends aren't often as accessible as Jane Fonda was at this particular party, gladly taking selfies with multiple fans and chatting about her movies and Youth, too. Many people have referred to Fonda's work in Youth as a "cameo" including probably myself at one point or another and while that might be factually true it's not spiritually true. You'll hear everything from 4 minutes to 9 minutes about her screentime depending on who you're talking to but screentime is rarely an accurate barometer of impact. Youth spends so much time obsessing on her character, the Fonda-like "Brenda Morel" (not coincidentally also a multiple Oscar winning bonafide legend who has recently made a new home in television) that when she arrives it's with the power of a rumbling fault line, tectonically shifting the movie's entire landscape. Youth as a film experience is basically pre-Fonda and post-Fonda in the telling. I fully expect her to be nominated and have for months now.

Paul Dano is the only actor in Youth that is not working some strange voodoo of their own persona fused with character work. He's playing a full fledged movie star best known for a franchise he despises... and though I expected Keitel to be winning the traction as Supporting Actor, it appears that some people are in Dano's corner. He was in good spirits at the party, and possibly filled with spirits from the open bar (sorry, that was me - I'm projecting)  Dano keeps being paired with estimable superstars or genuine acting powerhouses: Day-Lewis, Jackman, De Niro, Caine, Fonda (though he doesn't share scenes with the latter). I asked him if this trend was disconcerting or intimidating for him on set? 'Are you kidding me?' he answered, excited. 'I love it. I hope it'll make me better.' I won't spoil one of Youth's most disturbing surprises which involves Dano's actor character preparing for a new role but I asked him about that soon to be infamous scene. As it turns out he filmed it on his 30th birthday which is now, he admits,  'the weirdest birthday of my life.' 

Thomas McCarthy and Michael Keaton... (photo from the internet, not this particular event)

Less celebrity hobnobbing occurred at the last party I attended in Los Angeles which happened to be for  Spotlight (you know how sometimes you're shy and sometimes you're extroverted? Same) but the "light supper" event was well-attended and the town's love for the movie was palpable. Writer-director Thomas McCarthy was surrounded by well wishers, a nice mix of Academy members (former 80s Best Actress nominee spotted!) and journos the whole night. I did say a brief hello to Michael Keaton who I had met a couple of times during his Birdman run last season. "Welcome to Round Two!" I said stupidly. Was he ready for all this again, so soon? He assured me it felt much different this time -- the pressure was off since it wasn't so focused on him. It's too soon to say if the  "all supporting" Oscar campaign for Spotlight will pay off with the acting branch, but I personally think it was the right call. It's the very definition of an Ensemble Picture. Can anyone beat that team for SAG's upcoming top prize? 

Podcast: Room, Brooklyn, Spotlight

Nathaniel and Nick are back, after an unexpected podcast hiatus, to catch up before the Thanksgiving holiday. 

43 minutes 
00:01 Intros, Carol's opening, Hateful 8 gossip
04:30 Split feeling on Room
11:19 Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn
20:06 Complicated platform releases, audience confusion, and dismissed "flops" of October including Truth
32:25 Delayed reaction to Black Mass
34:40 Spotlight's conflicts, arc, quality

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments won't you?

Brooklyn, Spotlight, Room

Box Office: Katniss Reigns (Softly) While Spotlight Gains

[Whistles Katniss theme]

As expected Katniss and her unmerry band of rebels dominated the weekend box office as The Hunger Games franchise finally wrapped up. Though this is the softest opening yet for the franchise it's not soft enough to end Hollywood's love of splitting final chapters into two for no good narrative reason so the trend will obviously continue for now. (sigh). I personally have no real ill will for this franchise  (it's okay but I bowed out after the second film -- just too dull for my personal tastes) but The Film Experience does have official stance ill will for franchise decisions that no reasonable trustworthy person could ever claim were based on anything other than milking more money from fans. "Event" showbiz is fun but the first priority really should be to the generous fan bases of serial cinema -- Hollywood owes fans good storytelling, not padding to take more of their paycheck once you've hooked them. You're not drug dealers, movie studios, you're showmen! Putting on a great show needs to be your priority. Hopefully the upcoming slate of finale splitting franchises fail in much more embarrassing / decisive ways so -- Hollywood deserves the wrist-slapping.

BOX OFFICE
(Nov 20th-22nd)
01 Hunger Games 4 (4,175 screens) $101 new Hunger Games & Oscar
02 Spectre (3,659 screens) $14.6 (cum. $153.7) Review
03 Peanuts Movie (3,671 screens) $12.8 (cum. $98.9)
04 The Night Before (2,960 screens) $10.1 new
05 Secret in Their Eyes (2,392 screens) $6.6 new
06 Love the Coopers (2,603 screens) $3.9 (cum. $14.8) 
07 The Martian (2,086 screens) $3.7 (cum. $213) Podcast
08 Spotlight (598 screens) $3.6 (cum. 5.8) First Impression
09 The 33 (2,452 screens) $2.2 (cum. $9.9)
10 Bridge of Spies (1,532 screens) $1.9 (cum. $65.1) Review, Tom Hanks
11 Goosebumps (1,787 screens) $1.7 (cum. $76) First Impression
12 Brooklyn (113 screens) $1.1 (cum. $2.1) Review, Saoirse & Best Actress
13 Hotel Transylvania 2 (828 screens) $.7 (cum. $166.4) on director Genndy Tartakovsky
14 Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (283 screens) $.6 (cum. $3.9)
15 Suffragette (517 screens) $.5 (cum. $3.5) Carey's Performance, Review

Among the limited releases Spotlight and Brooklyn had the strongest per screen totals. Hopefully they'll stay strong in wider release since at heart they're quite accessible entertainments and it's infinitely depressing that anything non-genre that aims for adult audiences and quality these days is automatically viewed as "specialized" in its appeal. Room, a much trickier sell than either of those premise-wise is having a tougher time expanding but if the A24 Best Picture hopeful can hold out until top ten lists and awards noms give it some extra juice it should do well. It's already gathered a reasonable $2.8 million in its first month or so in release.

In extremely miniscule release Todd Haynes's latest masterpiece Carol earned a robust quarter million on just 4 screens... though in rather frustrating news it seems to be sticking to its originally aborted release date (opposite Star Wars) in terms of when it will show up in a lot of sizeable markets and won't be in some other smaller markets until Christmas day and beyond. In short: we're not sure when to schedule our proposed Carol week since it's going to take forever for many of you to see it. We feel your pain; you don't deserve the torturous wait.

What did you see this weekend? 
I had a homebody weekend looking at screeners for Black Mass (for the first time), Truth (again), and the first half of Jessica Jones (Netflix).

Special Report: Spirit Awards Preview/Predictions

?????The Spirit Award nominations are announced a week from today. Here's special guest and our podcast cohort Joe Reid to preview/predict the nominations.

The 2015 Film Independent Spirit Awards will announce their nominations next Tuesday, the earliest full slate of nominations (the Gothams can call me when they get supporting categories) and for many the clearest opening bell for awards season. After them, the critics awards start rolling in, then the Golden Globe nominations, and by then we're off to the races. I have always found the Spirits to be the most difficult to predict and the most fun. Partly because they happen so early in the season but also partly because the qualifications are always just a bit mysterious.

A reminder, per the Spirits' rules and regs: to qualify, a film must be an American film made for under $20 million, and have either been released in theaters in 2015 or played one of six major U.S. festivals (Sundance, Los Angeles, New Directors/New Films, New York, Telluride, Toronto). Of course, even with those rules, there are splittable hairs. 

predictions after the jump

Click to read more ...

Oscar Charts: All Categories Updated!

Spotlight or Martian? Rooney or Alicia? Brie or Saoirse? Joy or The Revenant or Hateful Eight among the unseen? If we're asking these questions we're playing into awards season narratives that are already in place. And not "narratives" that belong to the Oscar stories of the movies themselves -- i.e. the narratives that matter -- but the plotting that's emerging from the thundering din of The Movie Internet where we all conjecture about things we haven't seen or presumed precursor momentum that has yet to take place for months on end. Welcome Awards Season!

The Martian has planted a lot of Oscar seeds. Will they be ripe for harvest?

So at The Film Experience we like to focus on nomination conjecture and not wins. That's how our charts our arranged, not by likelihood of win. One "race" at a time, thank you. Please to enjoy the new charts which were all updated earlier this week. TFE is currently predicting The Martian to lead the nomination tally with 10 and Bridge of Spies to surprise as your second in charge with Spotlight and The Revenant in hot pursuit for Third Most Nominated. Though it's breaking our heart to predict only 4 nominations each and in none of the top categories for Carol and Mad Max Fury Road, that's what we're doing. Is this to inocculate us against disappointment later on? Ding! Ding! Ding! You're so smart, readers.

The new Gurus of Gold charts in the top 6 categories are also up. General consensus is clear in some places (Spotlight and The Martian) and totally foggy in others. I see I'm more bullish on the actors from Youth and Room and the overall prospects of The Danish Girl and Sicario than other pundits and more doubtful about the films that have yet to emerge. The Gurus excitement about Joan Allen in Room is causing some second guessing chez moi. As you know yours truly (Nathaniel R) thought the role wasn't meaty / showcased enough but she keeps propping up in conversations. Maybe it's because people miss her so much ... as well they should. 

Investigate the Charts and report back in the comments!
PICTURE and  DIRECTOR (big movement for The Martian and Ridley Scott), ACTRESS (gains for Lily & Saoirse), ACTOR (gains for Hanks & Damon), SUPPORTING ACTRESS (gains for Rachel McAdam who I believe will be hanging on tight to those Best Pic coattails), SUPPORTING ACTOR (Mark Rylance nearing "locked" status), SCREENPLAYS (Bridge of Spies is saying it's an original despite the same title as a book on the same subject), VISUALS (Mmmmm eye candy), SOUND, and shakeup eligibility for ANIMATED FILMS, DOCUMENTARIES and SHORTS