With Venice just now getting underway, we might already have our latest Oscar contender with Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’.  The early reviews are mostly of the positive nature (and so is the word of mouth, but with only limited reviews available now, we’ll have to take what we can get), coming from Variety here, Todd McCarthy and indieWire here, an absolute rave from Obsessed with Film here, another from my colleague Guy Lodge here , a mixed review from The Hollywood Reporter here, and finally Screen Daily’s review here.  It seems that Natalie Portman (and to a lesser extent, Aronofsky) has hit this one out of the park, so expect many an Oscar prediction to change this week.  It’s far too early to know if the buzz will last, but it’s good to know that one of the best filmmakers out there is at the top of his game.

-Thoughts on Black Swan’s Oscar chances?

Via this in The Hollywood Reporter:

If the NFL adds two games to its regular season, as some expect it will, the Academy Awards may have to get moved back to a Monday.

The annual highlight of the Hollywood schedule used to take place on Mondays until 1999 when it was moved to Sundays.

An expansion by the football league from 16 to 18 games starting with the 2012-2013 is pretty much a done deal, and the season is likely to simply get pushed later into February, according to Variety. “It’s obviously something we’re keeping a close eye on,” Bruce Davis, executive director for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences told the paper, adding it will explore various options.

-Thoughts on this potential move?

From The Playlist:

Producer Joni Levin has announced that Peter Weir’s “The Way Back,” which she and husband Keith Levin produced, will be hitting theaters this December for a limited, presumably Oscar-qualifying release before going wide early next year on January 21.

The film stars Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Mark Strong and Saoirse Ronan, and centers on a group of seven prisoners who escape a Siberian labor camp in 1940 and attempt to trek thousands of miles across hostile terrain to India and their freedom. Harris plays an American inmate, Farrell a bad-boy Russian, Sturgess a Polish prisoner and Ronan a young Russian on the run who meets up with the fugitives.

While it had been touted as a potential Cannes feature, the pic has been noticeably absent on all festival fronts with another film making similar plays — some nature film by someone named Malick or something — probably doing Weir a world of good by taking all the pressure and hype. That said, Levin has now seemingly unveiled the film’s planned unspooling through her personal Facebook page. (more…)

Perhaps paving the way for him to take over from Tom Cruise at some point, according to Deadline:

So Paramount Pictures won’t be screen-testing any young actors to star opposite Tom Cruise after all. I’ve learned that the studio has just chosen Jeremy Renner to infuse new blood in its Mission: Impossible franchise. Renner is the Oscar-nominated star of The Hurt Locker and will star alongside Cruise in the fourth installment of the franchise that will begin production in the fall as a reboot. Brad Bird is directing and Cruise is producing with JJ Abrams.

Paramount has struggled to find the right co-star to play the operative opposite Cruise. One factor was  selecting an actor who could potentially carry the series on his own down the line, should Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character not continue to be the emphasis. While Cruise is expected to return for a fifth installment, production chief Adam Goodman wanted a guy who could grow into a leading man in his own right. The studio boss was interested in actors like Tom Hardy and Chris Pine, but they were booked. So the studio planned to test a group of young actors later this week, and Deadline spent all Tuesday going back and forth with the studio over candidates Kevin Zegers, Christopher Egan and Anthony Mackie (the latter of whom starred with Renner in The Hurt Locker). But it was clear that Paramount wasn’t sure what it was going to do. Those tests have been canceled now (Mackie, another seasoned actor poised for a breakout, ultimately pulled himself out of the running and didn’t sign a test deal.) Goodman, sources said, felt Renner’s “has a Daniel Craig quality” and the heft to carry the franchise. Interesting that, rather than trying to create a star by going with a young unknown, Paramount instead has placed its bet on a 39-year old actor who has been around for years. (more…)

This week, there’s a bit of an uptick in the quality of the DVD output.  It’s still not the best week we’ve ever seen, but there’s two very solid choices to grab in stores.  The quality comes from across the pond, but more on that in a bit.  For my PICK OF THE WEEK, I decided to go with the best movie (or movies, if you will) that also functions as by far the best value we’ve had in a while.  It’s:

Red Riding Trilogy

Three movies (Red Riding 1974, Red Riding 1980, and Red Riding 1983) packaged as one (and meant to be seen as one long epic), this English crime saga is very deliberately paced, but rewarding to those who put in the time.  Each time period has a distinct look, and the feel of the film is a perfect mesh of bleakness and grittiness without becoming overwhelmingly depressing.  This flick (or flicks) requires patience, but it’s well worth the time, in my opinion.  All three movies come priced as if they’re one film, so if nothing else…you’ll be getting your money’s worth with this.  Even if one or two of the films was decidedly weak (and they’re not, they’re excellent companion pieces), it’d still be worth it. (more…)