I was sad to hear Monday that fantasy artist Frank Frazetta had passed away. He died of complications from a stroke at 82. I grew up in a very pro-fantasy household so Frazetta was a name I knew fairly early. I was thrilled when I first saw Fire & Ice, a rototoscoped collaboration between Frazetta and rogue animator Ralph Bakshi (though years later I definitely took issue with the villain).
I loved watching those cartoons run and fight so realistically. It was as if their monotone, ink-outlined flesh were real. With the rise of CGI, rototoscoping made less sense. There's no reason not to use real actors for fantastical stories now. If you're going for realism that is.
Fire and Ice was a unique picture when it premiered and we'll never see its like again. I suspect that its closest film relative is Sin City, another picture from a lone wolf director that explicity used an artist's style as entire guiding aesthetic force. With Sin City, the artist even got co-director status. Fire and Ice flaunted it the most but it wasn't the only movie with a Frazetta connection. Frazetta designed movie posters, did comic books but most importantly his fleshy muscled/busty fantasy art (plentiful examples here) practically defined the modern look of the sword and sorcery genre (at least until The Lord of the Rings arrived) most famously, arguably with Conan. That property is currently getting a Schwarzenegger free reboot in 2011 but we're guessing it won't look that far removed from Frazetta's conception. You can see photos from the set here, here and here.
That's not the only upcoming movie that may owe Frazetta a large debt. There's also John Carter of Mars in 2012. That sci-fi/fantasy movie will star Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) and Lynn Collins (Wolverine) who both have the appropriately flawless bodies for their roles. Though the movie might well risk an R rating if they take Frazetta's barely clothing concepts too literally as aesthetic guide. The weird thing is that Mars is totally cold. Like freezing. Shouldn't they be dressed like eskimos?
Are you looking forward to either of these pictures or was Lord of the Rings you're only real fantasy fancy?
Salon "Superheroes Suck" a great piece on the problematic popular genre by Matt Zoller Seitz Atlantic "3 Things Glee Does Wrong" an excellent take on the chinks in Glee's delightful armor. Are you listening show runners? This is spot on i09 The villain of Iron Man 2 is Tony Stark. Discuss The Hollywood Reporter a porn biopic for Lindsay Lohan. This could either be the comeback of "yes I can act" or a very very bad move. Hard to tell
Film Freak Central "the perils of Dirk the Daring" wow. i was just thinking about this 80s cartoon videogame the other day. The Playlist first pic of Chloe Moretz as the vampire in the misbegotten remake Let Me In Deadline NY Kristen Wiig options Clown Girl. Sounds intriguing fourfour 'old people getting high' a gif wall from It's Complicated i09 production art and casting demands for John Carter of Mars
Finally,you really should read this heinous homophobic article on Newsweek about the inability of gay actors to sell straight roles. Yeah, I guess Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift and god knows how many othersnever gave any performances that were worth a damn.The article is mostly about today's out actors and it does them a terrible disservice. Where's the respect? Make sure to read the comments section though. The ever wonderful Kristen Chenoweth shows up to tell Newsweek what's what about her gay co-stars and gay actors in general.
It's that time again. A random selection of actresses that were out and about last week. You can always interpret "random" to mean: people Nathaniel wants to say something about.
Anna Paquin. Who knew when she was hyperventilating onstage at the '93 Oscars that she'd make good as an adult star, too? She never found a film role as magical as her debut (The Piano) but her career suddenly has new life, courtesy of the undead (True Blood). And she looks pretty good in a cheongsam too. That Globe win didn't convince Emmy to bite but they've long had a history of ignoring younger actresses (Claire Danes' immortal portrayal of "Angela Chase" didn't win) and snubbing women in genre shows altogether (Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy, Mary McDonnell's President Roslyn... Gillian Anderson's Agent Scully was the exception to the rule). Emmy prefers their women fully matured and working the procedurals as cops, doctors, detectives or lawyers. That's just the way it is.
Jamie Campbell Bower I loved hearing him sing in Sweeney Todd (even though it did make Depp & Bonham-Carter sound even shakier) but I assumed he'd disappear, the movies not always having suitable employment for 'a mere slip of a girlie boy' (Thank you Hedwig, the ever quotable). But employed he is. He's in the next Twilight film as a glittery bloodsucker and he has a key flashback role in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows two-parter as "Gellert Grindelwald". That's the wizard that Dumbledore was entangled with in his youth (in more ways than one apparently given the posthumous "outing"). Would that Rowling had had the guts to out Dumbledore while the books were still running.
Alfre Woodard Just didn't want you to forget about her. No movies on horizon. Only one TV film. I would totally watch a series w/ Woodard in the lead role (provided it wasn't a procedural). Who's with me?
Katharine Heigl She's beautiful and apparently tasty, too ---- >
Though I find Grey's Anatomy insufferable on multiple levels, Heigl's Izzie was the one among the dozens of completely obnoxious characters that I could get into. Not that Izzie wasn't obnoxious. But the performance was good and when performances are good who cares about whether or not the character has a pleasing personality? Heigl's transfer to bigger screens felt effortless too. So I guess I'm a little bit of an admirer if not quite a fan yet. The Ugly Truth will probably be a huge hit when it opens (people love that 'men are from mars / women are from venus' shtick) but the trailer indicates that the plot takes a detour into Cyrano de Bergerac-land with Gerard Butler playing Cyrano to Heigl's Christian as she tries to win her own Roxanne (Eric Winter) and that is beyond ridiculous. Why would KATHERINE HEIGL need help with that?
P.S. Hate the new hair. In my humble opinion only one person alive was ever meant to be equally beautiful with all the hair colors in the world and that person is Linda Evangelista.
Melissa Leo This is a paparazzi snap from the set of The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg. She's so "Flo" here [Tangent: Diane Ladd is awesome. Discuss]. I bet Melissa smiles this enthusiastically every day in this post Frozen River world. It must feel good to be suddenly in demand at 48. The Fighter is her 11th (11th!) film since the miracle year of 2008. You'll see her in Hilary Swank's Amelia follow-up Betty Anne Waters (more on that here) as well .
Lynn Collins I'm still trying to erase her complete blandness in X-Men Origins: Wolverine from mind. It's blocking my view of the rest of her career which seems more interesting: True Blood, The Merchant of Venice... "RC" in Bug (points for that). Besides, it's probably not fair to judge anyone solely on Wolverine. Even Hugh Jackman was less than Hugh Jackman, you know? Next up for Lynn: playing busty "Dejah Thoris" in John Carter of Mars. The clothes averse character and the eager actress I've paired to your left. On going naked for Allure, Collins proclaims...
Women with confidence in their bodies are the sexiest thing, so I put on my cape of courage and did it. It was quite liberating!
I know I've mentioned the film a few times already and it doesn't even start filming until 2010 but I used to stare at those Marsbook covers a lot as a child. I'm curious about the movie for multiple reasons not the least of which is Pixar's Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo and WALL•E) directing live action. *
Today's one-post-that-really-ought-to-be-two-posts's theme is gratuitous nudity.
Let's start with John Carter of Mars. My disappointment that the film would not be a Pixar animated effort (I was quite excited at the prospect of a 'toon that wasn't for little children and for Pixar to spread their current excellence into other genres) has been somewhat tempered knowing that Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) will be trying his hand at live action (interesting). I like Taylor Kitsch who'll be playing the titular role. Anybody who watches Friday Night Lights knows that there's a nice unforced depth to his acting that you couldn't really see in his cameo in Wolverine. Lynn Collins (also from Wolverine) will play his eventual betrothed Dejah Thoris. Coming Soon reports that Thomas Haden Church may be appearing in the film as well. Since the role is supposed to be very dramatic and Church is a "name" I'm assuming we're talking about a substantial role. Maybe it's Tars Tarkas, the four armed martian warrior who begins the narrative as John's enemy only to become his ally. We're early in pre-production still.
In most depictions of this famous pulp series both John Carter and Dejah are nude or wearing itty bitty teeny weeny strips of cloth. Now, I'm no master swordsman but I feel very safe in stating that it's probably not a good idea to sword fight naked. Only try that if you're a quasi immortal like John Carter. In the book when John Carter first arrives in Mars (transported mysteriously from the Civil War era south) he's completely starkers. One expects that the movie will find a way to cover the hero up throughout, Hollywood cameras being so frightened of nudity, even when the bodies they're looking at are as perfectly sculpted as Kitsch's.
Speaking of perfectly sculpted gratuitous nudity...
As you may have heard elsewhere on the net this weekend, a certain famous "hated" blog posted explicit pictures of Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk) that were taken in 2006. As one might expect a round of hypocritical judgments and holier than thou proclamations could be heard 'round the net. You see this reaction all the time: bad workplace decisions, bad parenting decisions, bad financial decisions, you name it... any mistake that is or becomes public is followed by faux horror and "what was he/she thinking?!?" as if the chorus of naysayers had never themselves and would never themselves experience a similar lapse in judgment or (in this case) experience a betrayal from a former friend.
I was disheartened to read the judgments... People were even putting Black's activist heroics in the past tense! Do people really think that gay marriage advocacy can't be performed by a person who has sex (GASP! and: um...who doesn't?). So I was happy to read on Pink is the New Blog that Dustin was honored this weekend in California for something else entirely and seems to be handling this invasion of privacy like a pro i.e. apologizing for the right detail and ignoring the rest. Well done. Move on.
P.S. First Diablo Cody and now Dustin Lance Black... since when do Oscar winning screenwriters become celebrities in their own right? And now it's happened in back to back years. Weird, that.
tuesday thursday top ten: for the listmaker in me and the listlover in you What follows is a reworking of a post originally published in 2007. It's two years later and you know what that means: Pixar has given us two more classics. UP brings their feature film count to ten. You know what Ten means: Top Ten Time!
Pixar by Preference
Cars (John Lasseter, 2006) 117 min. Pixar's only dud. Chief among its problems: the anthropomorphics were forced. Let me get this straight: Cars as bugs on windshields of cars as cars who act like humans and they even sleep in hotels for cars -- What? What? It's not quite Shark Tale in the realm of painful "they're just like us!" pandering but it's not 'good' either. I would give it a second chance except it's also Pixar's longest feature... too long by about 23 minutes. Thankfully, they seem to have reversed their bloated running time trending. It peaked here and began coming back down to 90 minute levels. Best character: n/a Oscar noms: 2 (Original Song and Animated Feature)
Good Movies
09A Bug's Life (Lasseter & Andrew Stanton, 1998) 96 min. Not as memorable as the other films but a solid entertainment. Best character: Heimlich "finally, I'm a beautiful butterfly!" Oscar noms: 1 (Score, Musical or Comedy)
08Finding Nemo (Stanton & Lee Unkrich, 2003) 100 min. Pixar's biggest hit and the appeal is obvious. It's consistently funny and it looks like a million billion bucks. And I'm not just talking about the color palette (fish were such a brilliant subject for an animated film) but the intermittently serene bliss of the uncluttered frame. Animated films tend to overstuff and err on the side of visual and narrative chaos, desperate that the littlest eyes in the audience might wander. Pixar is more confident than that (though I could've done without some of Nemo's lamer gags like "surfer" turtles. 'Whoa') Best character: Dory, possibly the best celebrity voice casting ever for a toon. In non-Pixar efforts the casting is usually only about the marquee value of the name. Pixar almost always does right by casting. It's character first. Ellen DeGeneres's whole comic persona serves the fish and not the other way around. Oscar noms: 4 (Animated Feature*, Score, Sound Editing, Original Screenplay)
Toy Story 2 (Lasseter, Unkrich and Ash Brannon, 1999) 92 min. The last time I made a Pixar list I asked if it was as great as some claim? But unfortunately I didn't seek an answer for myself. I loved its basic story concept but I don't remember it well. Best character: They're mostly holdovers but I do remember that that Barbie sequence was bananas. Oscar Noms: 1 (Score). 1999 was the year that prompted the Academy to create an animated feature category, which became an official category in 2001. The collective critical response to Toy Story 2, The Iron Giant and Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke which were all released stateside in 1999 was basically along the lines of 'these animated movies are as good as any live action movie'. AMPAS decision seemed like a good move at the time, but now the category has become a ghetto preventing films as rich and lauded as WALL•E from landing in the Best Picture category where they belong.
Very Good. Sometimes Great.
06Up(Pete Docter & Bob Peterson) 96 min. This ranking might be too high or too low. But the film is brand spanking new. I'll need time to settle with it... float back down to earth. I always feel high in the sky after a Pixar... even the ones that don't include helium balloons. Our Vodcast Review Best character: Carl Fredricksen. I love how square his face is, how it ages and how expressive it remains throughout the film, despite being as boxed up as his life in his old house. Oscar noms: We'll know in January 2010. I'm going to guess three (Score, Animated and one Sound categories)
Monsters, Inc. (Docter, Unkrich and Lee Silverman, 01) 92 min. One of the most underrated films of 2001, arguably the best cinematic year of the decade. How can this be underrated when it made hundreds of millions and people generally like it, you ask? Because they should love it. It's got all the Pixar strengths in abundance: inventive screenplay, memorable characters, complicated gags, glorious production design. Those people (including Academy voters) who thought Shrek was better? They're monsters! My screams when it lost the Oscar could power Monstropolis for a year. Best character: Boo Oscar noms: (Original Song*, Animated Feature, Score, Sound Editing)
04Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 07) 111 min. Left the movie theater with a huge smile on my face... interrupted only by an occassional shudder from the heebie-jeebies. You know, hundreds of rats... in a kitchen... touching food! Pixar is totally gourmet. You always feel that the films are crafted with great skill and love. They make a mint but it's plain as day that's not their soul purpose. It's not an assembly line. One hopes this anti fast-food approach eventually rubs off on the increasingly soulless direct to DVD Disney. Best character: Gusteau Oscar noms: 5 (Animated Feature*, Score, Sound, Sound Editing, Original Screenplay)
For the All Time Lists
03Toy Story (Lasseter, 95) 81 min. I'm not sure if it's the 99th best film of all time as the AFI claims but I'm glad animation is represented on that list. We were both excited to see it as we were ahead of the populace on the Pixar curve. I don't remember how I obtained it but I had a bootleg VHS tape of all of the Pixar shorts that had been made before they risked going into features. I had already converted my whole family to the cult of Pixar and even considered buying stock in the company went it first went up for sale even though I was a poor college student (Oh, to have done so). As long as I live I will never forget the first time I saw the film. I went with my brother. The moment that lifted it into a complete comedic classic was 'The Claw' My brother and I literally hurt from laughing. That's a good kind of pain. Best character: Buzz Lightyear Oscar noms: 3 (Score, Original Song, Screenplay... and a special Oscar for John Lasseter for making it all happen)
02The Incredibles (Bird, 2004) 115 min. From my top ten of 2004 review: "I saw The Incredibles three times within the month of its opening. And every time something else opened the following month that only looked sort of appealing I thought to myself. "Self, you can always go and see The Incredibles again" ... Gah. Pixar is so awesome. Group hug!
Best character: Elastigirl. She keeps this family together... and not just with those rubbery arms that can literally do so. Oscar noms: 4 (Sound Editing* Animated Feature*, Sound Mixing, Original Screenplay)
01 WALL•E (Stanton, 08) 98 minutes One of the best pictures in recent years from any medium or genre. Since it's still fresh in mind I'm guessing we've discussed it enough for awhile. I was wild for it as you know. See my annual awards for further proof. Best character: Read my ode to EVE here if you missed it. Oscar noms: 6 (Animated Feature*, Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Screenplay)
Next up for Pixar? I hope they don't spoil their status as "most consistent studio on the planet" but they're moving into two pictures a year now, instead of one. When Disney sped up in the mid 90s, things started going downhill.
2010: Toy Story 3 which will be directed by Lee Unkrich, who is finally getting his own movie after co-directing three of their giant hits. 2011:Newt about the last remaining male and female blue footed newts... who hate each other and Pixar's first fairy tale (moving into Disney's realm, eh?) The Bear and the Bow 2012: Brings a weird double feature: the one I'm least excited about, Cars 2, and the one I'm most excited about John Carter of Mars. The latter will be a real departure for the studio, a sci-fi adventure / adaptation that's not specifically aimed at children.UPDATE: Apparently Andrew Stanton is being essentially "loaned out" for this one and it won't be a proper Pixar film after all. Live action. Barsoomia is tracking the project closely.
Pixar shorts top ten, a bonus list. Here's my top ten.
For the Birds (Ralph Eggleston, 2000) 3 min. Oscar winner
One Man Band (Mark Andrews and Andrew Jimenez, 2005) 4 min. Oscar nominee
YourPixar Experience
Which was your first in theaters? Which film has shifted the most in your opinions about it over the years? How would you rate them on a scale of dud to all timers? Or are you, like Armond White, tired of hearing about their awesomeness? If so, how soon do you think a backlash will happen?
Oscars, Globes and Year in Review The Feinberg Files on Oscar's foreign film shortlist and that Gomorra snub Wall Street Journal good article on Slumdog's Co-Director and why she isn't getting any awards attention while Danny Boyle is drowning in it. (Thanks to David, for pointing it out) Everything Oscar Andy shares his own hypothetical ballot In Contention my favorite annual thing at IC, "top 10 shots" of the year MNPP "the golden trousers" actresses of 2008 -- way crazier than Oscar ballots MTV Movies Drew Barrymore's coiffure at the Globes. It's Ferrari's fault! Pop Matters top 20 female performances of '08
The Biz Coming Soon Samuel L Jackson might not reprise his Nick Fury role. Did Marvel notice that he's in every franchise and if you want your franchise to stand out... maybe no Sammy? This is along the same lines of if you have a suspicious/slimeball/annoying neighbor/coworker/troublemaker you don't really have to cast Stephen Tobolowsky or Danny Huston every time. Just a thought. Spread the wealth, Hollywood. There are more than 36 actors in the world looking for work. The Carpetbagger updates us on the SAG negotiations. Will there be a strike? Variety & MTV Andrew Stanton's (WALL•E) future project John Carter of Mars. Hells, yeah
DVD Flickers on Derek Jarman's fascinating Sebastiane. God, I haven't seen that movie in forever. Tilda Swinton would be proud if you put it on your rental queue. Hell on Frisco Bay is doing a cool roundup of top ten lists that are about revivals screened this past year "I only have two eyes 2008" -- some good rental ideas here.
Fire and Ice flaunted it the most but it wasn't the only movie with a Frazetta connection. Frazetta designed movie posters, did comic books but most importantly his fleshy muscled/busty fantasy art (plentiful examples here) practically defined the modern look of the sword and sorcery genre (at least until The Lord of the Rings arrived) most famously, arguably with Conan. That property is currently getting a Schwarzenegger free reboot in 2011 but we're guessing it won't look that far removed from Frazetta's conception. You can see photos from the set here, here and here.
