Today’s roundup of Oscar news 'n' notes from around the web tries to catch up with Toronto after the festival’s first weekend. With what TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman calls “a glut of great, satisfying movies” to choose from, the first big question may be: Did everybody love “Up in the Air?”
The answer: well, yeah. Some more than others, and some a little begrudgingly, but yeah, pretty much everybody loved it. We may have a new frontrunner, which is not necessarily good news for Ivan Reitman and Paramount.
Roger Ebert? He loves it. (Chicago Sun-Times)
Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman? Loves it.
Jeff Wells, who’s found lots to love in Toronto? Loves it more than all the other things he loves. (Hollywood Elsewhere)
Tom O’Neil? He says George Clooney’s a best-actor shoo-in, and then adds that the best-picture, best-director and best-screenplay hopes for the movie depend on the “sexiness” of the writer/director. Ivan Reitman, he decides, is sexy enough. (Gold Derby)
Filmmaker.com says that the reason Toronto and Telluride festival-goers love “Up in the Air” so much is that they all go to festivals and fly around a lot and stay in hotels and identify with George Clooney’s character: “We are all a little bit that guy.” Just not the really really incredibly good looking bit.
And, seriously, there aren’t too many stars who work the press any better than Clooney. "I'd rather have a rectal examination on live TV by a fellow with cold hands than have a Facebook page…" The guy knows we eat that stuff up. (E! Online)
FYI: A George Clooney Facebook page.
John Foote says “Up in the Air” might be the best American movie of the year. But then he sees “Precious” and changes his mind. (In Contention)
Which means that yes, there are other movies in Toronto. There’s Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story,” for example. Glieberman likes “Capitalism” quite a bit…but not unreservedly. (Entertainment Weekly)
Wells on “Capitalism”: “I think it's brilliant and searing and the various nitpicking Moore critics can go to hell.” (Hollywood Elsewhere)
Wells also loves the Coen Brothers' “A Serious Man.” (Hollywood Elsewhere)
The Hollywood Reporter agrees that “A Serious Man” is "seriously funny." Critics love to do that repetition thing.
Variety, on the other hand, says that "A Serious Man" is “the kind of picture you get to make after you've won an Oscar.” That’s not exactly a compliment.
A Coen Brothers aficionado looks at the spiritual message of "A Serious Man." I wonder if she’s met Wells, who says, “Only a couple of tough Jewish filmmakers could make a film this despising and contemptuous of their own."
Not to be confused with “A Serious Man” is “A Single Man.”
