LastKingOfScotland Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Despite the fact that my family members should have owned stock in Dan Brown's bibliography given how much of it they read, and of course the rest of the world devoted years to discussing the historical possibilities of his fiction, I never read The Da Vinci Code. Quite frankly, I'm not much of a reader, owing primarily to the amount of time I spend writing, but the last book I curled up with was one about the diminishing intelligence of the American people, although for the life of me I can't remember what it was called.

In any case, I had no particular feelings about the fact that Ron Howard was adapting Brown's best seller into a feature film, with the possible exception of my superficial determination that Tom Hanks' hair was simply terrible. But when I didn't have to review or cover it professionally, I decided not only that I would save my money for something more worthwhile (I mean, Poseidon came out two weeks prior), but that The Da Vinci Code was going to be a movie that I would never, ever see.

I guess now that the great Chess master Bobby Fischer has passed into the great chessboard in the sky earlier this month, it's open season on biopics. Variety reports that Last King of Scotland director, Kevin MacDonald, has signed to direct Bobby Fischer Goes to War. The film will be a drama based around Fischer's famous match against Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship. Spassky was a seven time Champion and was ranked as one of the top ten players in the world from the 1950's to the 1980's.

Fischer was born in 1943, and by the time he was 15, he was one of the most celebrated players of chess and a Grandmaster. He remains the only American born player to ever win the World Chess Championship. Perhaps, he is most famous for the mystery surrounding his life. As the years passed, Fischer bounced from Hungary, Germany, the Philippines and Japan. At the time of his death he was an Icelandic citizen who had become more and more isolated due to anti-American and anti-Semitic comments that he had made in the press.

The script is based on David Edmonds and John Eidinow's book of the same name. Shawn Slovo (Catch a Fire) has already been tapped to write the script and the story will put the chess match into the context of the real contest that emerged between the Americans and their Cold War combatants. So far there is no word on the cast, or more importantly who will be playing the bizarre Fischer. Production on Bobby Fischer Goes to War will commence later this year, so stay tuned for any updates that come our way.

After a series of impressive smaller roles in projects like HBO's Band of Brothers and The Chronicles of Narnia, Glasgow-born actor James McAvoy first demonstrated his leading-man potential on a broader canvas in The Last King of Scotland -- and while co-star Forrest Whitaker's turn as Idi Amin garnered raves, McAvoy's centered performance earned him quiet but sincere praise. Now, in Atonement, McAvoy's at the heart of one of the year's most buzzed-about films -- and bracing himself for a different kind of attention when the megabudget, big-action comic-book adaptation Wanted hits screens in summer 2008, where he'll be playing opposite Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. McAvoy spoke with a roundtable of journalists in San Francisco (McAvoy on arriving in San Francisco: "It's nice; you don't have that immediate foreboding of work, like you do when you land in L.A. Whenever I land in L.A., I don't feel like I've come to America; I feel like I'm just coming to work. But I come into San Francisco, and I'm like "Hey, man! Alright!") about Atonement, the acting challenges in one of the year's most intricate films, Britain's obsession with class and how Wanted might change his 'working-class' life; Cinematical's questions are indicated.

Cinematical: After seeing Last King of Scotland and Becoming Jane -- and even, to a certain extent, The Chronicles of Narnia -- for a while, you seemed to have this sideline in playing who knew exactly how bad they were; who were conspicuously aware of their own failings. Was it a relief, with Atonement, to jump into something a bit more straight-forward?

James McAvoy: The exact opposite; it wasn't a relief in any way. I find great comfort and I find myself in very comfortable artistic territory when I play people with internal conflict; when I play people who are arseholes, or pricks and kind of know it, or they know they're doing something bad. And in this role (in Atonement), I wasn't able to do any of that. Basically, every character I've ever played, I've based entirely on internal conflict. And I love doing that, because I think it's very human. And I found this character (Robbie) ... he wasn't particularly representative of the human race, because he's so good, and he has so little conflict in him. And I didn't really recognize him as a member of the human race to begin with. And I think that that's fair to say, because he is a slightly idealized human figure; and that's necessary, because the story's a tragedy. And there are so many flawed characters in it, and I think that to make a tragedy work, you have to have bad things happen to good people. And if all the protagonists are so flawed, you've got to have one that is particularly unflawed to make it a tragedy. He becomes flawed; he becomes someone much more suicidal, and I think therefore much more representative of the human race. But for the first half of the film, it wasn't a relief; it was a worry of mine that I wasn't going to be able to portray him in an interesting fashion.

The only award Casino Royale picked up Sunday at the British Academy Awards (BAFTAs) was for Best Sound. It was nominated in nine categories -- ten if you count the publicly voted Rising Star Award, which did go to Casino Royale actress Eva Green. But it would have been very shocking if the 007 movie had beaten The Queen for the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film. Oh wait; The Queen didn't win it either. Surprisingly, The Last King of Scotland won Best British Film, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay (for Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen) and, of course, Best Actor for Forest Whitaker. The Queen did win for Best Film, though, and also took the obvious prize for Best Actress for Helen Mirren.

Some of the other unexpected wins were Paul Greengrass for the David Lean Award for Direction and Alan Arkin for Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine, which won for Best Original Screenplay. Other prizes went to Pan's Labyrinth for Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Makeup & Hair and Best Costume Design, Children of Men for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design and Babel for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music. For the most part, the British Academy disagreed with last week's London Film Critics Circle Awards, which gave added honors to specifically British performers like Emily Blunt, Toby Jones, Michael Caine and Leslie Philips. However, Casino Royale fared badly with the critics' choices too.

The Online Film Critics Society (of which Cinematical's own Scott Weinberg is a member) have spoken, and named their picks for the best films, performances and more of 2006. A recent arrival to the critic's boards awards season, the OFCS has been known for slightly off-center picks that often speak to very different sensibility than print and broadcast critics. As if to demonstrate this very point, a brief persual of the nominees and winners (designated in bold) after the jump will reveal that the OFCS has recognized a broad and fascinating slate of films in 2006 -- including Best Picture honors for United 93, plus individual wins for Oscar dark-horses like Borat, The Fountain, A Scanner Darkly and Children of Men. ...

So, the Los Angeles film critics have chimed in with their early-season (yet year-end) movie picks for the year of 2006, and the results are, meh, not bad / not great (If it's me you're asking). There were a few surprise picks, most notably Sacha "Borat" Baron Cohen's mention for Best Actor, although the comedian must be content to share the award with co-recipient Forest Whitaker for his work in The Last King of Scotland. Most of the other picks are fairly standard (Eastwood, Frears, Greengrass, etc.) but certainly solid choices across the board.

Plus I'm thrilled they gave two pieces of praise to Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, because it's my very favorite movie of 2006. Here's the big list:

Picture: Letters From Iwo Jima // Runner-Up: The Queen

Director: Paul Greengrass, United 93 // Runner-Up: Clint Eastwood, Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima

Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat & Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (tie)

Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen // Runner-Up: Penelope Cruz, Volver

Supporting Actor: Michael Sheen, The Queen // Runner-Up: Sergi Lopez, Pan's Labyrinth (ooh, good pick!)

Supporting Actress: Luminita Gheorghiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu // Runner-Up: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Screenplay: Peter Morgan, The Queen // Runner-Up: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Children of Men // Runner-Up: Tom Stern, Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima

Production Design: Eugenio Caballero, Pan's Labyrinth // Runner-Up: Jim Clay & Geoffrey Kirkland, Children of Men

For the rest of the winners -- music, foreign language, documentary, animation, etc. -- check out Variety's Award Central 2007 blog. I figure they're the ones who first published the list, so they deserve the traffic. (Expect a lot more critics' list as December trudges on!)

It was gone for a while -- but now, it's back -- Coming Distractions, Cinematical's weekly podcast! This week's special guest is Time Out New York Film Critic David Fear, and David and myself talk about Jesus Camp, The Last King of Scotland, Shortbus and many others -- as well as the New York Film Festival, the difference between cretins and Spartans and much, much more. You can listen to the entire podcast by just downloading it here -- and let us know what you'd most like to hear in the Podcast in the future!

(Music credits: "Overdose," Dumb.)