And they’re off

The Toronto International Film Festival draws to a close this weekend: the deals have been made, the reviews have been filed. And now speculation can start on who the frontrunners are in this year’s Oscar race (remember, the statues aren’t handed out until February 27).

The biggest buzz didn’t come from any of the festivals but from early screenings of The Social Network, David Fincher’s film about how some say Facebook was founded. It will open the New York Film Festival this coming week before being released nationwide. Early online reviews are raving (it was screened to bloggers before the traditional critics) and the Oscar talk ranges from Best Picture (for which it is sure to be a major contender) to Best Supporting Actor for Justin Timberlake (less likely, but an intriguing possibility). The only bump in the road ahead could be that computer-challenged Academy members can’t relate to this portrayal of millenials, even though the story told seems to be a timeless one.

James Franco in 127 Hours

Two of the films that made the biggest impression in Venice and Toronto also have their problems when it comes to the Oscars. 127 Hours is Danny Boyle’s follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire (which won 8 Academy Awards) and has been very favorably received in Toronto. It tells the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) who gets trapped in an isolated canyon after a boulder falls on his arm. Franco has to carry this movie (think Tom Hanks in Cast Away) and does so by delivering a “knock-out performance” (JoBlo). But here’s the snag: the film contains a gruesome scene where Ralston takes the ultimate measure to escape (not difficult to guess which one) which may scare off some Academy members (medics were apparently required at one of the screenings). The other Oscar contender with a complication is Black Swan: Natalie Portman seems a shoo-in for a Best Actress nomination, but the film has some kinkier aspects that may not appeal to all Academy members.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole

Luckily, there were also some more traditional films making waves in Toronto: The King’s Speech and Rabbit Hole stand out. I reported on the former last week. Deadline now calls The King’s Speech “a real crowd pleaser” that “should play right into Academy’s lap”. Rabbit Hole has been noted mostly for Nicole Kidman’s performance. She plays a mother dealing with the accidental death of her 4-year-old son (Aaron Eckhart plays the husband, also garnering praise). And if you think there is a movie like this one every awards season, read this Cinematical review.

A bit more towards the dark horse end of the spectrum, we have films like Biutiful, Hereafter, The Town and of course Somewhere. Even though the latter won the Golden Lion in Venice, it hasn’t been seen by enough people to create a real buzz (it skipped Toronto). Ben Affleck’s The Town tops the box-office this weekend and got good reviews, but may be a bit too violent. The talk in Toronto surrounding Hereafter – Clint Eastwood’s movie starring Matt Damon as a psychic – has not been particularly positive, but the Academy will find it difficult to overlook Clint. And Biutiful has Javier Bardem going for it, who already won the (tied) award for Best Actor in Cannes. The subject matter of the film – a man involved in illegal business learns that he might be dying of cancer – may be a bit too dark to make it a real contender for anything other than Best Actor.

Finally, Deadline reports that a deal was also closed in Toronto for Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, about the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination. The film will be saved for next year’s Oscar race with a release in the Spring of 2011. Apparently this year’s race is already getting too crowded.

Intriguing movie premises

Despite what you might have heard, not every release out of Hollywood has to have a numeral in its title or a comic book fan base. This week saw news of a number of interesting new premises for movies. The one that probably takes the cake in terms of quaintness is A Late Quartet. Variety reports this week that Ethan Hawke has joined the cast and describes the premise of this movie as follows:

The story centers on a quartet whose members have performed together for 25 years and have to adjust to one of them retiring due to Parkinson’s disease.Hawke will portray the second violinist whose desire for more solos leads him to have an affair with his jogging partner, leaving him remorseful and saddened by the state of his marriage.

Going in the complete opposite direction to find original ideas is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, based on Seth Grahame-Smith‘s follow-up to his mash-up novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (that was in the news last week). It is a retelling of Lincoln’s life story that unveils his real passion: the brutal elimination of all vampires. Grahame-Smith has written a screenplay and it was reported by Empire this week that Timur Bekmambetov is set to start shooting it this winter.

On the high-concept sci-fi front we have I’m.mortal, from Gattaca writer/director Andrew Niccol. The film is about a society in which your aging gene turns off at the age of 25, after which you must buy and bank time. If you are rich enough, you can live forever. But if you run out of time, you are engineered to die automatically. MTV has some casting news about the film this week and /Film worries that it may not be so high-concept after all with a premise and leads (Amanda Seyfried and Justin Timberlake) that could be very much directed at a twenty-something crowd.

Staying with sci-fi, we also have Gravity by writer/director Alfonso Cuaron, which looks like a Cast Away in space: after a mishap while repairing the Hubble telescope, an astronaut must fight her way back to Earth. It cannot be very original if you can use another movie to summarize the plot, so let’s assume I am not doing Alfonso Cuaron (and his son Jonas, who co-wrote the script) justice. THR reports that the female lead is currently being fought over. By the way, Danny Boyle’s eagerly awaited 127 Hours has a similar premise (replace “outer space” with “isolated canyon in Utah”). /Film has the details about that film’s premiere dates (just weeks away).

Then there is a premise that is not so much intriguing as it is misguided: Battleship. Universal is apparently going to spend $200 million to base a movie on the game where you try to sink your opponent’s fleet by guessing how they have arranged their ships. While you let that sink in (pun not intended), I can add that it stars Rihanna in her first feature acting role. Apparently the concept that is taken from the game is that of a naval battle where opponents cannot see who they are attacking. Aliens are thrown in the mix to make it interesting. JoBlo reports that the plug was almost pulled on this project but that filming will actually start in a week or two. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess on set of One Day

Last but not least, I finished David Nicholls’ One Day this weekend. A wonderful book that I highly recommend (read John O’Connell’s excellent review in The Times) with quite an intriguing premise of its own: Emma and Dexter have a college fling on July 15, 1988 and we revisit them every year on that same date over the next twenty years. I was happy to see that the adaptation (Nicholl’s own screenplay) is already shooting, under the direction of Lone Sherfig. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess star as Emma and Dexter (not so sure about the former, but I’ll keep an open mind). Just Jared has some on set photos of the shoot in Edinburgh. The scene looks like the book’s coda, where Emma meets Dexter’s parents for the first time. A late 2011 release is expected for this one.