A clip from A Single Man

This is the first time I've seen footage from the film (excluding the trailer). It's a black and white flashback scene with Matthew Goode and Colin Firth:

A Single, Serious, Solitary Man

This year we have Tom Ford's A Single Man, the Coen's A Serious Man, and Michael Douglas in Solitary Man. Confused yet? A Single Man has the very attractive cast, A Serious Man has the unknown cast, and Solitary Man...well that has Michael Douglas. If things go well for all three come awards season there's going to be a hell of a lot of confusion on those voting ballots. And just imagine the confusion when they announce the winners - I can just see the embarrassing blunders.

Anyway, considering all the chatter, I figured I would add more confusion and share some interviews and reviews.



Director Tom Ford discusses A Single Man with Indiewire’s Peter Gnegt (via AD):

“No matter how much you love something, there are those moments where you think, ‘shit, maybe I’m just way out on a limb and other people aren’t going to feel this way’,” Tom Ford said yesterday regarding his film “A Single Man.” “But then after the screening in Venice, we had a standing ovation for ten minutes. And it was amazing. It was very emotional, and it was just like a great release of ‘yes, it spoke to other people.’”

Ford optioned the novel from Don Bachardy, the deceased Isherwood’s longtime lover. Barchardy was somewhat hesitant given that “A Single Man” was Isherwood’s favorite book, and something very personal to himself as well (the character of Jim is largely based on him). And even though Ford chose to take significant (and necessary) creative liberties with the original work, Barchardy is quite pleased with the final product.

“I know what I want to say in fashion,” Ford said, “and I have said it over the years but I had to really stop and think: Why does anybody want to see a Tom Ford movie? Who needs another movie? What do I have to say? So finding something that had a message that I felt was important was really the most imperative thing. I read a lot of scripts. I had optioned a couple books I was working on adapting. And still nothing felt quite right. Until one day I was driving to my office and I realized I was thinking about this character George in ‘A Single Man’ - which I had read in my early twenties when I was living in Los Angeles.”

Tom Ford and star Colin Firth also answered questions at the Single Man press conference in Toronto a few days ago.


I realized that I haven't discussed the Coen's A Serious Man nearly as much as I've wanted - Richard Corliss from Time ends his review with this (also via AD):

As Fate keeps stomping him, he embraces Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. What he tells his class about the theory — "Even if you can't figure it out, you're still responsible for it on the midterm" — applies, in spades, to his crumbling life. And yet for most of the movie he hangs in there, behaving honorably, seeking the wisdom of his ancestors, trying to observe the Jewish concept of Hashem. "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you," says Elie Wiesel's Rashi. To absorb God's body blows, this disquieting, haunting movie says, is to be fully alive. To do otherwise could kill you.

Can't say I'm a huge Coen Bros. fan, and of the films they've crafted, I tend to like the ones nobody remembers or cares for. So, I'm naturally wary of the heaps of praise it's gotten so far.



And finally, John Foote from In Contention talks about Michael Douglas who he feels is the only good thing about Solitary Man:

He’s back this year with “Solitary Man” (*), and I am happy to report he is terrific in the film, playing the sort of role he is very good at, and that no doubt challenges him as an actor, because Douglas makes it very clear these days that he needs something very special to get him out of his house. However Douglas is the ONLY good thing in the film.

There is nothing particularly strong about the film visually, so it is left to Douglas to entertain us, and he manages to do that. It’s one of those films like “Street Smart,” a weak film with a brilliant Morgan Freeman performance. And the supporting cast has so little to do, one wonders why they even bothered to make the film? Only Danny DeVito seems to have a character that can really relate to Douglas, and that is stretching it.

Here we have a brilliant, daring performance from Douglas in a film that is a genuine chore to sit through. As much as I like him, I am not sure I could get through this one again. Pity.

The word from Toronto: The Weinstein Company buys A Single Man

After last week's impressive showing at the Venice Film Festival and Colin Firth's best actor win, the excitement around Tom Ford's A Single Man went way up right before its Toronto debut.

According to indieWIRE, the film found a distributor after its first screening. Harvey Weinstein's The Weinstein Company bought the American and German rights to the film managing to out bid Focus Features. It's the first high profile purchase of the Toronto International Film Festival.

TWC is set to release the film sometime this year, so I guess that throws it into the awards race, especially considering Colin Firth's much talked about performance.

The word from Venice: rave reviews for A Single Man

Based on Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel, A Single Man "depicts one day in the life of George, a gay middle-aged Englishman who works as a college professor in Los Angeles and whose lover, Jim, has recently died." [Wiki] The film, directed by Tom Ford had its world premier earlier today in Venice.

Emma Pritchard Jones from Grazia:

Should Tom Ford have stuck to designing his impeccable Gucci suits? Not if “A Single Man’ is anything to go by. The screenplay – which Ford co-wrote, produced and directed – could win more than the Best Dressed award at the Venice Film Festival. That’s already in the bag for sure – from the moment Colin Firth strides onto the screen in Ford’s trademark black, his 50-something professor character George is turned out like an Italian billionaire. We follow a day in the life of George, some months after the death of his gay partner of sixteen years. It’s set in LA but Firth doesn’t do American – instead he’s the perfect stereotype of an English gentleman, silently devastated by his loss.

Ford should be praised for making a film which isn’t just pleasing to the eye – gay or straight, George’s predicament speaks straight to the soul. The only problem is, his surroundings are so perfect you’ll be mourning his sorrow one moment, and coveting his lampshades the next.

In Contention's Guy Lodge says this is Colin Firth's "finest screen work to date":

But just as you’re tempted to dismiss the film as a gorgeous vanity exercise, it reveals a keen beating heart beneath the decor — and the match of Ford’s precise sensibility to Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 literary examination of the effect of grief on an overly compartmentalized life begins to make perfect sense.

In a graceful, meticulous performance that easily ranks as his finest screen work to date — and merits serious awards consideration — Colin Firth plays George, a British academic living in Los Angeles who finds his life slowing to an impasse as he struggles to recover from the death of his lover Jim (Matthew Goode). As he bides his time with increasingly indifferent teaching and melancholy get-togethers with his boozy friend and neighbor Charley (a tart, affecting miniature from Julianne Moore), the film follows George through a single day, wherein a key life decision gradually veers off-course.

It’s a spare, moving narrative of only-connecting, through which Ford initiates larger enquiries into sexuality, loneliness and etiquette: it’s easy to read Firth’s intriguingly opaque characterization as a mirror for Ford’s own personal and social insecurities.

Wendy Ide from Times Online praises Tom Ford:

...it’s a work of emotional honesty and authenticity which announces the arrival of a serious filmmaking talent. There will be critics who will be unable to get past the director’s background, but rest assured: Tom Ford is the real deal.

Isherwood’s novel...unfolds predominantly through an interior monologue, a device which is notoriously tricky to transfer to the big screen without resorting to pages of cumbersome voice-over. Ford sidesteps this by keeping the narration to a minimum and instead giving us vivid little glimpses into George’s bruised psyche with some well-chosen flashbacks.

In the role of George, Colin Firth gives one of the finest, most affecting performances of his career.

The film's new stylish trailer (via ONTD!) is below.

New trailer for Confucius biopic + 1st photos from A Single Man

The 3-minute long, epic trailer has absolutely no dialogue (none of that horrid voice over stuff, thank God), but the score is amazing - it kind of distracts from how disjointed the trailer actually is. The biopic, starring Chow Yun-Fat as the famed Chinese scholar and philosopher is backed by the Chinese government and cost $22 million (150 million Chinese yuan). The biopic will screen this year to commemorate the People's Republic of China's 60th anniversary and Confucius' 2,560th birthday.

Tom Ford's A Single Man stars Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, and Ginnifer Goodwin.

A Single Man is the story of George Falconer (Firth), a 52-year old British college professor who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner, Jim (Goode). George dwells on the past and cannot see his future as we follow him through a single day, where a series of events and encounters, ultimately leads him to decide if there is a meaning to life after Jim. George is consoled by his closest friend Charley (Moore) a 48-year old beauty who is wrestling with her own questions about the future. A young student of George’s, Kenny, (Nicholas Hoult) who is coming to terms with his true nature, stalks his professor as he feels in him a kindred spirit. [IONCINEMA.com via ONTD!]

A Single Man is in the TIFF and Venice lineup, so we'll have word on it after it premiers in Venice next Friday on September 11.