Thursday, March 5, 2009

Emily/Victoria and John/Johnny

Biography movies will never die! Run for cover.

The NY Post blog PopWrap gave me a little chortle titling this premiere photo to your left "Emily Blunt: Boob Watch". If you were Emily Blunt wouldn't you stare at it, too? She's delicious and knows it.

It seems like years ago when we first started talking about her star vehicle bio The Young Victoria -- oh, it was -- and now the film is opening in the UK tomorrow and has an official site and everything but still no news about a US release. Surely there's an audience here of some limited release size. Why no distributor? Julian Fellowes, the Gosford Park screenwriter, is certainly excited about it. He quipped to a crowd on the promotional circuit that he told his agent
“If I don’t write it, you die.”
Here's the trailer. It does look a little, hmmm, lightweight... even lighter than The Duchess so maybe it only has a costume design nomination in it (Hi, Sandy Powell!) but you never know. "Don't judge a movie by its trailer," Nathaniel shouts to no one in particular. Nathaniel even ignores him.



There's also a new trailer to Public Enemies which is also not entirely enticing though Michael Mann films are so reliant on sustained mood and machismotic* grit that trailers are tricky. It occurs to me watching this and writing that Oscar post yesterday that Johnny Depp, who gained enormous fame and fortune creating indelibly weird originals, has actually done more than his share of real life impersonations. John Dillinger, the famous gangster he plays in this film, is his sixth biographical portrayal. Seventh if you count Hunter S Thompson's fictional alter ego in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.



It seems odd that this film's stacked supporting cast o' names isn't featured more prominently in the trailer. For example: If you have Channing Tatum in your movie, why the hell aren't you bragging about it?

* I made that word up. Sorry, but it seemed appropriate.
*