Oh to have the New York Times arts budget. They've asked 14 actors to recreate classic character types in 1 minute segments and the results are at turns breathtakingly gorgeous (Natalie Portman), funny (James Franco), exciting (Javier Bardem), questionable (Jesse Eisenberg?) and sometimes plain old garden variety awesome (Tilda Swinton's Falconetti?) Yes please.
Tilda Swinton
Noomi Rapace
Anthony Mackie
But my favorite might be Jennifer Lawrence's screaming victim.
Watch all 14 here (also starring Vincent Cassell, Chloë Moretz, Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall and Lesley Manville.) It'll only take you 14 minutes!
id My New Plaid Pants Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen onscreen together. For David Cronenberg? And they're playing psychoanalyst giants/friends/rivals Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung? Please let this be as masterfully sick as Dead Ringers! This is the best movie news since The Hurt Locker's Best Picture win. It's even better news than that if the movie is great.
The Playlist Two new Wizard of Oz movie projects and neither of them are Wicked? Okay worst movie news of week. Coming Soon Lone Scherfig (An Education) is moving on from Carey Mulligan and on to Anne Hathaway (!) The movie is a romance called One Day (co-starring Jim Sturgess). MTV Amanda Seyfried will be The Girl With The Red Riding Hood for teen-girl angst obsessed Catherine Hardwicke (thirteen, Twilight).
ego Flaunt Magazine has a feature interview with Vincent Cassell, he of the Monica Bellucci loving, good French movie-making and Eastern Promises closeted Viggo-lust. Regarding the latter: Isn't everyone gay for Viggo... or shouldn't they be?
I bring this up primarily because I always look at Flaunt Magazine in the book stores (pretty pictures!) and I never buy. So I felt a sudden pang of guilt when I got the press release on this new issue. And no, I have no idea why there's an albino peacock on the cover instead of Vincent Cassel. But I like this bit on French cinema
“Things are very different in France,” muses Cassel. “In Hollywood there’s politics; young actors have to do big, stupid movies to eventually be a box office figure and have access to great directors, stuff like that. But in France the market is a little different. In a minute, you know everybody, so you stick to what you like because, otherwise, you won’t be able to come back to it.”
You can see American actors struggling with this all the time. See Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman's frequent trips into films they aren't suited for in order to maintain their fame levels and enormously salaries within the drama-hating reality of the American box-office. Antagony & Ecstasy "in the spirit of whiny, unconstructive criticism" names the 10 worst best picture winners The Awl Apple's subconcious / conscious take-over of the movies and especially Sex & The City
super-ego LA Times Variety lets its best known critics go. Such a different world than it used to be. Pretty soon PR departments will be the only paid opinion-makers... which is something I'm sure The Corporate Machine always wanted. Film Essent defends Jason Reitman post-Up in the Air Oscar loss /Film Clint Eastwood is now the director for that Dustin Lance Black scripted J Edgar Hoover biopic. What a strange combo?!?!
Celebrating cinematic folk, born on this day 11/23. Get out your kazoos.
Franco, Maxwell and Harpo. Half of the fun of building these posts is these completely nonsensical groupings!
1859 Billy the Kid, outlaw. I've always thought it a mystery as to exactly why people routinely idolize characters whom they would never want to meet in real life. Murderers, criminals, thieves, (especially gangsters)... they all get the silver screen pedestal treatment. Billy has been portrayed dozens of times and Val Kilmer, Emilio Estevez, Kris Kristofferson, Buster Crabbe and Paul Newman have all done the job. 1888 Harpo Marx I'm embarrassed to say this but I can never remember which Marx Bros is which. When I watch 30s comedies, I almost always select a screwball romance. 1892 Erté artist over whom wee Nathaniel obsessed, wanting a whole animated movie to spring forth from his theatrical illustrations of ladies in elaborate headdresses and fab gowns. 1913 Michael Gough, I know that people like Chris Nolan's Batman approach (a movie star in every role!) but to me, Gough will always be "Alfred Pennyworth". Take that Michael Caine! 1924 Anita Linda, award-winning Filipino actress 1941 Franco Nero, Mr. Vanessa Redgrave and sexy Sir Lancelot in Camelot (1967) "♪ ♫ If ever I would leave you..."
I absolutely love this, don't you? One of the dreamiest numbers ever
1944 Joe Eszterhas self assured writer of oft terrible but usually hugely entertaining and vulgar screenplays: Flashdance, The Jagged Edge, Showgirls and the Sharon Stone box set. How does he do it? 1944 James Toback writer and director, not always simultaneously. Films include: Bugsy, Tyson and a Robert Downey Jr double feature (Two Girls and a Guy, The Pick-Up Artist) 1948 Bruce Vilanch Emmy winner, Oscar joke writer, strange character 1959 Maxwell Caulfield, La Pfeiffer's 'Cooo-oooo-ooo-ool Rider' 1959 Dominique Dunne, youngactress who was murdered the same year her career took off with several TV gigs and the smash hit Poltergeist (she was the teen daughter) 1966 Vincent Cassel Mr. Monica Bellucci. He's very busy between American supporting roles (Eastern Promises, Oceans 13, Black Swan) and French stardom (Public Enemy No. 1, Irreversible ...a bit more on that one here) 1970 Oded Fehr, Israeli actor. Busiest in American television but you'll occassionally spot him onscreen in films like The Mummy 1970 Danny Hoch, actor/monologuist 1992 Miley Cyrus, ubiquitous gazillionaire
Finally, today marks the kickoff a week long blog-a-thon in honor of the immortal Boris Karloff, who brought so many imaginative film characters and movie monsters to life. Today is the 122nd anniversary of his birth. What would horror cinema be "Karloff the Uncanny", the man who brought Frankenstein (1931) and the Mummy (1932) to life? Though he's best remembered for those films of the early 30s -- he made a ton of them -- his career spanned from silent short films all the way to 70s horror pictures and one particularly memorable voice gig. He's the star of the 1966 animated TV classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
I like to think that this is the only part of the horrifically vile Irreversible (2002). It's a short film about sweet lovemaking and the marital bliss of one of cinema's sexiest couples, Monica Bellucci & Vincent Cassel. That's it, a beautiful short film!!! I pretend whenever possible that the rest of the movie did not attempt to show itself to me.
Tangent: Shower curtains in movies are always so sparkly clean. No mold, no stains, nothing. You can totally kiss through them without once thinking 'god, i totally need to clean this bathroom!' ...hypothetically speaking. My bathroom is impeccable. Um...
Occasionally my pretending fails me. I recognizable the structural potency (to an extent) of Irréversible but I will never ever ever ever ever subject myself to it again. Never ever.
Weirdly, I have never seen any of the other collaborations between the Bellucci-Cassels (and there's quite a few). Cassel will next be seen in the portugese film Á Deriva (Adrift) and the Andrew Niccol's next project The Cross which stars Orlando Bloom... but I'm most eager to see what David Cronenberg will do with Cassel's closeted self-deluding "Kirill" in the Eastern Promises sequel.
We'll see Bellucci in the ensemble cast of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee this year. After Pippa, she reunites with director Guisseppe Tornatore. He fawned over her beauty in Malena (2000) to such an extent that the film won a cinematography nomination for its DP Lajos Koltai. Koltai isn't joining the Bellucci/Tornatore reunion, though. Enrico Lucidi got the DP duties on Tornatore's latest, Baaria -La Porta del vento. Such a thankless task, pointing cameras at Bellucci ;)
Bellucci and Cassel celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary this year. The knot, still tied. Here they are at the Cesar Awards (France's Oscars) earlier this year. I can't stop looking at pictures of them, today. They're regulars: Vincent has been nominated 4 times, winning once and Bellucci was nominated once for their first film together L'Appartement.
One of the most satisfying things in all of filmdom is watching a great director find a signature muse. These matches made in celluloid heaven yield such riches. Von Sternberg discovered and claimed Marlene Dietrich. Johns Ford and Wayne made many movies together. Scorsese had DeNiro (and now he’s trying to recapture that with DiCaprio, bless him). For a brief and glorious time greedy Julianne Moore had both PT Anderson and Todd Haynes to sing her praises. Woody Allen had Louise and then Diane and then Mia and Dianne on the side and now, possibly Scarlett Johansson. Uma Thurman, rather famously, has Quentin Tarantino wrapped around her little finger big toe (If QT would stop dilly dallying between projects there’d probably be more filmic evidence).
I could go on but I should get to the point. After only two films together, David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortenson are making a strong bid for that director/muse pantheon...
You can also catch Into the Wild, Sean Penn's Oscarable (?) adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller. Or, if early Oscar bids aren't your cuppa --and if they aren't did you take a wrong turn getting here or something ;) --there's always Good Luck Chuck, The Jane Austen Book Club, or Milla Jovovich's Paycheck ... whichever gets you in that moviegoing mood. *
Franco, Maxwell and Harpo. Half of the fun of building these posts
Finally, today marks the kickoff a week long blog-a-thon in honor of the immortal Boris Karloff, who brought so many imaginative film characters and movie monsters to life. Today is the 122nd anniversary of his birth. What would horror cinema be "Karloff the Uncanny", the man who brought Frankenstein (1931) and the Mummy (1932) to life? Though he's best remembered for those films of the early 30s -- he made a ton of them -- his career spanned from silent short films all the way to 70s horror pictures and one particularly memorable voice gig. He's the star of the 1966 animated TV classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Occasionally my pretending fails me. I recognizable the structural potency (to an extent) of Irréversible but I will never ever ever ever ever subject myself to it again. Never ever.
One of the most satisfying things in all of filmdom is watching a great director find a signature muse. These matches made in celluloid heaven yield such riches. Von Sternberg discovered and claimed Marlene Dietrich. Johns Ford and Wayne made many movies together. Scorsese had DeNiro (and now he’s trying to recapture that with DiCaprio, bless him). For a brief and glorious time greedy Julianne Moore had both PT Anderson and Todd Haynes to sing her praises. Woody Allen had Louise and then Diane and then Mia and Dianne on the side and now, possibly Scarlett Johansson. Uma Thurman, rather famously, has Quentin Tarantino wrapped around her 
Cronenberg + Viggo obsessed though I currently be, there are other movies opening today. Chief among them is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford the long awaited western starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck as the title characters (and in that order). Pitt won the prize for best actor in Venice. Can he convert that into an Oscar run for Best Actor?
