Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Red Carpet: Yo, Adrien. It's Marion and Maid Marian

Time for our weekly stream of consciousness trip to the red carpet to visit with random celebrities who've been walking it.

First up are two Hogwarts franchise girls. Sartorial madwoman Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix LeStrange) and the delightfully batty Miriam Margoyles (Professor Pomona Sprout) came out for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince premiere. Helena gets a few wickedly cackling scenes in the new picture but Miriam goes entirely missing. Oh well. Next time, Miriam. What is it with out lesbian actresses that they are all so endlessly adorable? I mean Jane Lynch + Miriam Margoyles + Lily Tomlin + Fiona Shaw... it doesn't get much better than them. They're always an audience treat. But back to Helena. Sometimes I try to time travel back to the late 80s and imagine this current fate for Lucy Honeychurch (sharing a home and hairdresser with Tim Burton) and I'll tell you... it's hard to fathom. Who saw this onscreen/offscreen persona coming for Merchant/Ivory's favorite dress up doll?


Adrien Brody chose to wear a blue cardigan without a shirt to some fashion event which upset the Fug girls quite a lot. Adrien is clearly proud of the sculpted body he's been sporting ever since he played a stripper in Summer of Sam (1999) -- good Spike Lee joint, that. My theory is that Brody shows it off as much as he does because he achieved his greatest fame without the bod, all emaciated for his Oscar winning role in The Pianist (2002). It's just a kindly reminder. He doesn't want us to forget.

Cate Blanchett attended an Armani show looking diva fine. Don't all freak out at once but I saw this photo and experienced a brief moment of temporary amnesia in which I actually thought "I miss you Cate!" forgetting that I was so glad to be having a one year break from The Ubiquitous One. Perhaps this short hiatus will bode well for her return as Maid Marian next year in Robin Hood. Maybe I'll fall back in love? Here's a photo of her in costume [via].

Speaking of Maid Marian... this past month's celebrity death parade was really upsetting to me and I've been thinking about 93 year-old Olivia deHavilland nearly every day. I wish her the best of health. No, that's not enough. I wish her Gandalf-like longevity. I want the Golden Age Maid Marian to hit the red carpet premiere of Robin Hood and have a photo op with the latest in the long line of actresses who've followed her in the role.

Sophie Okonedo came out for the UK premiere of Skin in which she plays the black daughter of white parents in Apartheid-era South Africa. It's been on the festival circuit for a year but there's still no word yet on whether or not it's ever coming to the States.

Look, it's Marion Cotillard and her mama! (up top far right) How cute are they? You'd think Cotillard would be exhausted by the endless premieres of Public Enemies around the globe but she's also showing up at fashion shows and doing commercials and short films and she's got three more movies on the way including Nine (see many previous posts). I fear we're talking about Blanchett level stamina here. J'en ai peur.

Marion Cotillard est très occupée. Photos from May 4th ~ July 6th
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23 comments:

John T said...

Both Olivia and Joan are still with us-two of the last remaining headliner stars of the 1940's.

DJ said...

Marion looks so gorgeous! The first pick of her plus the one in the mint-colored dress are my favorites.

Am I the only one who isn't excited about Cate being in Robin Hood? She never has great romantic chemistry with her leading men, and she seems to posh for the role.

FilmFreak said...

I agree DJ. I like Blanchett but I don't see liking her in this role. My pick would have been Natasha Richardson, but sadly that will never be.

FilmFreak said...

I should have included that Russell Crowe would never be my pick to play Robin Hood. But I don't know who I would replace him with...

Billy Held An Oscar said...

I read that Olivia was working on her autobiography.

Any release date ?!?!

There are so few left from that era. Sad.

countrycat said...

The pic of Marion in the very center, that's a dress I love on her.

FilmFreak, if she were still here Natasha feels to me a bit too old for the role, but it seems the filmmakers aren't exactly going with youth time time around either. I do agree though she would have been lovely in a version of RH somewhere in her career. I read her mother Vanessa pulled out of RH after her death, so its interesting you brought her up.

My suggestions for Robin Hood (I'd dump Crowe too) just off the top of my head...Ewan MacGregor or Paul Bettany. Crowe seems to me to be lacking a jovial quality that Robin Hood has, at least in my head. A sense of humor that comes across onscreen. Another choice if they ever took the unthinkable approach of casting an unknown (at least here in the US)...Richard Armitage. Great actor and gorgeous. Funny too, check out the "Vicar of Dibley".

Michael B. said...

No Emma Watson from the Harry Potter premiere?!!? For shame Nathaniel! Who doesn't love a girl who looks gorgeous on the red carpet (and on the big screen) and is super smart?

NATHANIEL R said...

18 she was always holding a huge umbrella in the photos so i opted not.

billy wow. a dehavilland memoir at this point. that'd be quite the read. so few have been alive that long through hollywood.

duncan said...

Mais ton français est très bon, Nathaniel.

Bientôt tu pourras écrire tes critiques de film dans la langue de Molière, petit coquin.

Joe Shetina said...

I wonder what Olivia would have to say about Joan! Or those terrible disaster movies she did lol.

john said...

Marion and Cate look great as ever.
Nathaniel, beleive it or not I think Cate got tired of her ubiquity too, in a couple of interviews recently she's expressed a 'been there done that' attitude, particularly in relation to the award circuit and the sucessive oscar noms.
It's interesting that her Marion looks a bit plain, but the scabbard conjures similarities with her Indiana Jones character.
Did you see her sat next to Megan Fox of all people!

Wayne B said...

I don't know why but I find the V-neck/bandanna kind of hot on Brody..
Billy - That'd be incredible, would love to read her thoughts on the making of GWTW.

Billy Held An Oscar said...

RE : de Havilland autobiography

check out the last paragraph .....

http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/deHavilland/dehav-bio.htm

Derreck said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Derreck said...

Jane Lynch is a lesbian? huh. did not know that. well, i learned something new today.

I love the sleazy man-whore look on Brody.

and i find myself growing to like Marion Cotillard more and more as time passes. I can't explain it. She has a sort of magnetism about her. By the time as NINE comes along, i'll probably be loooking forward to seeing her in it. (But not more than Nicole Kidman. just because.)

Ben said...

I think that the Merchant Ivory period of Helena Bonham Carter's career weirdly prefigured her transformation post-Fight Club. In A Room With A View, Howard's End she was playing the free independent spirits, characters that seemed almost out of synch with their own world (which was one of Forster's specialities). In particular, her performance in Wings Of The Dove is sublime. Complicated, vindictive, lost and totally believable...I'm fairly certain that Brad Pitt says on the director's commentary for Fight Club that he recommended her to David Fincher after seeing her in that movie. Either way I love her and would be interested to see her return to period drama. She's too old now, but once upon a time she'd have been perfect in Middlemarch but I suppose we'll get Keira Knightley now.

Katey said...

Why did Sophie Okonedo opt to wear a nightgown on the red carpet?

And Marion Cotillard's mama is proof positive that beauty like that only comes from good genes. What a catch, the both of them!

NATHANIEL R said...

Ben good point actually. And the dress up doll notion (merchant/ivory) actually isn't that far removed from how Burton seems to be treating her either.

Katey Ha. the Fug Girls think it's less a nightgown than a hospital gown. She escaped.

john i know. that pic of her and megan fox. such an incongruous duo.

I just linked the fug girls like 3 times in this post and comment block. i'm really not on their payroll. i swear. and that's not even where i got the photos.

Janice said...

Cate definitely needs a sandwich- a thick ham sandwich with real mayonaisse. (Calories are your friend!)

Anonymous said...

Brody looks so hot it's hard to think straight. No wonder girls from GoFugYourself hate it - they can't think straight. I can't think STRAIGHT, too, and I love it.

Kenny S. said...

Cate is coming back to conquer the world! Marion's looking stunning for her press tour. I'll have to get around to seeing "Public Enemies" at some point. The reviews haven't been too enticing, but I gotta support my girl regardless.

PotLuck said...

I swear, it's only b/c of "The Pianist" that I even deal with Adrien Brody anymore. A cardigan with no shirt underneath and a BANDANA around his neck? Please, stop the madness, Adrien. We get it, you're an artist and us mere mortals don't quite get you or your brilliance. But really. The Fug girls nailed that one.

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