Yes, No, Maybe So: "Rabbit Hole"

I probably need to start covering movies I'm not absolutely drooling for in this yes, no, maybe so trailer series. It gets hard to pick the "no" and "maybe" elements for a film like, say, this one here...



John Cameron Mitchell's RABBIT HOLE will hit theaters, albeit only a few of them we're guessing, on December 17th, a date obviously chosen with the perception that it will maximize Oscar prospects.

YES I am, for better or worse, what is known as a "fan" which is to say, once I love something, it tends to be intense (hair pulling excitement, joyful weeping... metaphorically speaking!) and it takes a lot for that love to die out . The word "fan" used to have both negative and positive connotations but now, I suppose, with the invention of the terms "fanboy" and "fangirl", the simpler word "fan" has lost some of its negative connotations.  So I'm okay. I'm still discerning. Unless you think I'm a closer to a Kidman "fanboy" in which case, well, yeah, maybe but shut up -- [hyperventilating, crying] She is awesome!

NO Grief as Major Theme is tricky to pull off. There are all sorts of movie potholes on that journey: pornographic actorly histrionics, pandering "everything happens for a reason!" sentimentality, monotony of tone, boredom of plot. Plus the best work in this genre is nearly impossible to live up to. The best grief dramas are always French (Ponette and Trois Coleurs: Bleu) or are one hour long and found in really unexpected places ("The Body"). But it could be I am just overly touchy on this subject because it cuts too close to the bone when it's sharp. When it's dull, it just makes an awful mess of an important and universal topic. I hope this one is sharp, even though that means it'll hurt more.

MAYBE SO Ever since I heard about the artistic teenager that becomes intermingled with the grieving family, I was curious about how John Cameron Mitchell, who proved a very visual director in his first two features (Shortbus and Hedwig and the Angry Inch), would work that in. I'm pleased to note that the marketing team has used it as a sort of guiding motif in the trailer. I love the linear drawing emphasizing the Academy Award titling, don't you? It somehow seems more playful -- and the Oscars should be cuz they're fun! -- than the boring title cards we usually get when studios want you to know that "A PRESTIGE MOVIE IS COMING!"

Even if this movie didn't have such great festival buzz and Best Actress hype, I would still be a YES as all three principle actors are people I either obsessively love (Kidman) have loved ever since I can remember and always will (Wiest) or generally quite like (Eckhart).

But maybe your reaction veers far off in some other direction? Are you a yes, no or a maybe so when it comes to Rabbit Hole and why?
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TIFF: A Glimpse of Rabbit Hole Enthusiasm To Come?

Nicole Kidman and hubby hit Toronto for the film festival. I haven't seen more than one true review yet, but she wore Prada. Just Jared has pics from the premiere.

As for the review(s)? Well it's mostly tweets at this point though I expect more reviews to emerge soon. Let's start negative and get positive.

Negative

• @ioncinema "Belly flop for JCM. Wish entry point into story was at the 10month point. Wish final scene was extended by 90 mins."
• @matt_mazur "Rabbit Hole was really mediocre. Kidman was great but the rest uninspired. Let down"

Positive

• The Playlist "honest and powerful"
• Deadline NY "Nicole Kidman making a major artistic comeback"
• @PeterKnegt of IndieWire says 'Bad buzz be damned. Quietly haunting and very affecting. Very strong and naturalistic work from Nicole Kidman'
• @Scott_Tobias "B+) Movie about loss of a child, on no sleep and a week away from my own kid? No way this wasn't going to wreck me."
  
• @juanmgc "Powerful. Remarkable. Kudos to John Cameron Mitchell for pulling Kidman and Eckhart's best performance of both their careers."
  

Juan is the only tweeter among the positive voices that I wasn't really familiar with. But I never trust "career best" statements from anyone until I've seen the film in question. That's a common heat of the moment statement and with Kidman, that would basically position it as a best of the decade contender just as the decade has begun. But at any rate this is good news (so far) and we share @GuyLodge's feelings... "Very excited about early praise for Kidman: that "best of her generation" claim I've doggedly stuck to needs new foundations."

Finally, here's a tweet adressed to me from friend of TFE Katey Rich


There's also a strangely lengthy non-commital post at Awards Daily about why they haven't covered it much. The rest of what I've seen is various tweets with "quotes" around them as if more people have reviewed it than I can find. Curious. Perhaps my coffee isn't strong enough this morning or I have forgotten how to type words into search engines. Next!

A couple of clips hit the net too. In the best of these (thanks for the tip Kaye), we get a peak at the tense relationship between mom (Dianne Wiest) and daughter (Nicole Kidman) in a bowling alley...



There's also another clip about a grief support group in which I kept getting distracted by Aaron Eckhart's superhero chin. He really is a cartoon. In a good way, mind.
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We Can't Wait: #4 RABBIT HOLE

Our We Can't Wait series continues as we discuss a film all of us want to see but know very little about...

Rabbit Hole
Directed by: John Cameron Mitchell
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Weist, Sandra Oh, Tammy Blanchard



Synopsis: Life for a happy couple (Kidman and Eckhart) is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.
Brought to you by: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Expected release date: TBA

Jose: Proving why she's the most constantly adventurous working actress, Nicole Kidman is back with one of her two big back to back projects (if The Danish Girl ever starts shooting of course...) which has her play a character that won Cynthia Nixon a Tony during the play's Broadway run.
Do you think this means Oscar attention for Nic or will it be her own Proof?

Craig: If truth be told, I would've actually liked to have seen Cynthia Nixon do it. I like Kidman (Margot! Birth!) but how much more of an interesting project would it have been had Nixon been given the role in the film. Of course, she's nowhere near as bankable as Kidman so it may never have been a consideration on the part of the film's backers or producers - and of course Kidman is one of the producers - but I'm keen to see Nixon really expose her drama chops on film in a big way. I really hope it's not a Proof for Kidman though - my fingers are crossed that that approach is avoided.

Robert: I don't think awards bait, and I don't thing big emotional weepie. I suppose someone more familiar with the play can fill me on whether the film should hit those marks.

David: My brain seems to have come up with a very limited way of seeing this film: if it starts racking up awards, I fear I'll hate it. It's as if I want it to fail miserably! But my favourite Kidman performances have always been the ones in her more challenging, offbeat movies - Dogville and Birth spring straight to mind, but I found more to appreciate in Fur than most seemed to - and it seems that the Kidman dramatics that I groove to are not the ones the awards bodies start weeping over.

Jason: ...Nicole, being sad. She's so wonderful at sad! Almost as wonderful as she is playing a bitch (Susanne Stone Moretto forever!), but since she seems to prefer the sad I'll take the sad.

Jose: I'm sure Kidman will be splendid but how excited are you about the rest of the cast?

Nathaniel: Even without JCM's strong vision behind the camera I would have been sold by the cast. Dianne Wiest takes over the grandmother role that Tyne Daley won acclaim for on Broadway and we can certainly always use more Wiest on the silver screen. I think she's one of the greatest living actresses and I'm eager to see her attack another meaty role onscreen.

David: Having Dianne Wiest in the cast boosts interest even higher - the movies have missed you, Dianne!

Jason: I didn't even know Dianne Wiest was in it! And that there jumps it up a couple of notches all on its own. She's spectacular. And Aaron Eckhart... I like to stare at Aaron Eckhart and his large strong hands. So all's good.


Will Eckhart's hands lend enough support to Kidman's sure to be devastating performance?

Jose: I'm also dying to see what Mitchell does with material that wasn't written by him; Shortbus and Hedwig were two of the most confrontational works of the '00s but they probably were very personal as well.

Robert: The wild card here is Mitchell. The "suburbanites in mourning" genre is one that's in danger of getting old fast, if it already hasn't. I don't know what he'll bring to the material, but I anticipate something unconventional. When I think John Cameron Mitchell I don't think mainstream. Here's hoping it does so while still maintaining that rebellious JCM touch.

Nathaniel: Mitchell should be able to work this visually into something far more expressive than just dour suburban drama. First of all there's the title metaphor and second, I believe the teenage character Jason (Miles Teller) is into drawing or comic books or some such (or am I creating a false memory?) and Mitchell has already promised a complete cinematic rendering so we might see animated flourishes? I'm guessing. He's used them in both of his other film to fine stylistic effect.

Jason: It really is all about JCM for me, working on material he didn't create - I don't have anything against his two previous films, mind you, I love both, but I'm curious to see what he does with something that seems on the surface so different.

Craig: Cameron Mitchell is such a solid talent, he's shown in Hedwig and Shortbus that he can spin from pathos to party in a heartbeat (and often do it in the same scene), but if this is an all-out drama I'd like to think he'll add something a bit more fresh to it to shake up the possible over-familiarity of the genre. From the very few stills I've seen, part of me does groan a little at the apparent heaviness of its heart-wrenching feel, but then I'm immediately perked up by the mere presence of Eckhart. But a still is a still - the movie itself could spark and fly off the handle!

David: I've only seen Shortbus but I'm afraid of his directorial identity being stripped by an awards hungry studio. He was a very interesting choice for Kidman to make, though, and I would trust that her as producer means she's made the choice for artistic reasons.

I know hardly anything about the source material, so I'm sure my head is imagining this all wrong, but I'd love a Lynchian vibe off this whole thing - a mess of dark emotions manifesting in weird and memorable imagery. I think it might just be the word "rabbit" though. The Rabbit Hole? Who knows what's down there.

Jose: With JCM's visuals and the polarizing reactions Kidman has been drawing from audiences and critics throughout the decade this at least is sure to be one of the year's most fascinating projects.

How about you readers, will you take the proverbial trip with them or is this something you'd never want to watch? Oh and did anyone who saw the play tell us a bit more about it? Do you think it'll translate well to the screen?

"We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond"
The "orphan" picks Nathaniel (Burlesque), JA (Love and Other Drugs), Jose (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Craig (What's Wrong With Virginia?), Robert (True Grit) and Dave (Brighton Rock); Team Film Experience Countdown #12 It's Kind of a Funny Story, #11 Sex & the City 2, #10 Scott Pilgrim vs the World, #9 Somewhere, #8 The Kids Are All Right, #7 The Illusionist, #6 Toy Story 3, #5 Inception, #4 Rabbit Hole, #3 Never Let Me Go, #2 Black Swan and #1 The Tree of Life.

Monologue - Beauty Queen

Jose here bringing you the Monday Monologue.

From the moment Erin Brockovich was released, in March of 2000, everyone knew that Julia Roberts would win an Oscar for it. There was nary a review that did not point out how fantastic she was, how she carried the burdens of a dramatic role so well (after practically creating the entire rom-com movement throughout the 90's) and how big her boobs looked.

But beyond the awards craze, the "she can act" novelty and the miniskirts, the truth is that Julia had created a character all her own. One that might've looked and sounded like Julia Roberts, but was all Erin Brockovich.

This is never as evident as in a small, intimate scene where Erin opens up to a man (her biker neighbor played by Aaron Eckhart) for the first time in years.

Are you gonna be something else that I have to survive?

she asks him after a mini breakdown (notice how she subtly implodes, instead of chewing the scenery).

She then goes on telling him about her one year stint as beauty queen.

So I get up on the stage, in the center of the stage and I have a big bouquet of flowers and I have my foot out like this and I say 'I will devote my entire reign as Miss Wichita to bringing an end to world hunger and to the creation of a peaceful Earth for every man, woman and child'.

The scene is directed by Steven Soderbergh as if he'd been possessed by Francois Truffaut or a kinder version of Godard, in how he lets the editing create cadences about what Erin isn't saying.
The scene plays out like Erin would remember it, once she was back fighting the evil corporations, being her good, old, potty mouthed self.

Roberts makes Erin laugh at herself and tell this anecdote as something silly to pass the time. But the bittersweet truth is that this might very well be her "I coulda been a contender" speech, something in her eyes is telling us that she wished she could've solved all the world's troubles, or her own for starters.

For the first time in the movie Erin becomes truly aware of her mortality and lost opportunities. And for the first time in her career Julia showed us why she's destined to become immortal.

The ReBirth (?) of Nicole Kidman

I'm trying not to place 2010's Rabbit Hole, the stage to screen story of a grieving family, on a pedestal of unrealistic expectations. Acclaimed plays can make brilliant movies but there are no assurances. They can be tricky beasts to cage in two dimensions. So I'm trying to lower my expectations but Nicole Kidman is not making it easy for me.

Aaron Eckhart co-stars in Rabbit Hole"The reason why I’m in the movie is
Nicole. If she wants to work with somebody, then that’s what happens"

First she offers the directorial job to the brilliant John Cameron Mitchell who I've loved since I saw him tear it up on stage as Hedwig when I first moved to New York. Now in the NY Times she brings up Birth, one of her very best, as comparison to Rabbit Hole.

When I first responded to [Rabbit Hole], it was because I read it, and it was about grief, which fascinates me,” she said. “Loss and love seem to be themes that run through my work.” This film is about “a marriage and the way that people fuse through pain, that you can either be pulled apart or you can come together. In the same way that ‘Birth,’ a film that I did, was about loss of the loved one who’s your partner in life, this is the most profound loss, and it’s the worst place to tread. And so my nature tends to be to explore something that I’m terrified of."

I love the modesty of "a film that I did"... not "a film that I killed in. I'm sometimes a genius" which is a more accurate statement, if you ask me.

Red Carpet: Amanda's Tip Money, Jennifer's Baby Food

A random sampling of actresses (and actor) that were out and about this week, as is our habit since this isn't a celebrity fashion blog but we do like to stargaze. From left to right: Mélanie Laurent, Amanda Seyfried, Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, Miss Piggy and Jennifer Aniston

photos reworked from Zimbio & Just Jared

Why do you suppose Amanda Seyfried has cash out?

I'm pretending that she's going to tip Mélanie and Christoph for their fine work in Inglourious Basterds. I certainly want to. I'm shoving $20s down their pants if I get the chance. The photo of Seyfried was actually snapped on the set of her new movie with Gael García Bernal (Letters to Juliet) so maybe she's saving the tip money... she must have seen Bad Education.

photo src

Meanwhile, Zeéeeee is waving to Mélanie but the French girl isn't waving back. I don't have a story beat in mind for that one but I think that's generally a smart move, pretending you didn't notice her. That said, I'm really bad at ignoring her, aren't I? For example, every one in the world skipped Miss Potter and I still tortured myself with it. New in Town sits on my DVD shelf even now (no, I did not purchase it) and how long will it be until I succumb? It's a sickness.

In other news, did you hear that Marc Jacobs furnished Miss Piggy with a new look? I love it. Miss Piggy is a national treasure and she's been out of the limelight for too long. I'd much rather hear about her cross-species love life than Jennifer Aniston's predictable romantic woes.

And speaking of...

Have you seen the trailer for Love Happens in which Jen breathes new life into dimpled, cleft widower Aaron Eckhart? They're both likeable performers but that movie looks like total baby food. It's simply flavored utterly predictable mush. The trailer is Hollywood making choo-choo noises, hoping you'll open wide for a spoon feeding.

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole and the Legacy Factor

Why is it so hard to stay in the present with the movies? The news cycle is constantly asking us to look ahead a year or two. Just barely came to grips with performances we might be loving in 2009 and already we have to think about Nicole Kidman's 2010? Alas, it can't be helped. When it comes to Nicole Kidman we can't look away.


She's taking over Cynthia Nixon's (Sex & The City) TONY winning role as the grieving mother in the hit play Rabbit Hole. Aaron Eckhart takes over for silver fox John Slattery (Mad Men) as the grief-stricken father. Emmy regular and TONY winner Tyne Daly was the third name actor in the Broadway production, playing the wife's mother. No word yet on which movie star will be getting her part. This is yet a further reminder that it's nearly impossible for actors to be cast in the screen versions of their stage successes, even when they're already known quantities. You only get lead movie roles if you're an 8 figure salaried movie star.

News about the transfer of the Pulitzer winning Rabbit Hole spread like wildfire Thursday. I'm not quite sure what prompted the sudden news surge since Nicole Kidman was booked for this film as early as January 2007 . Maybe it's that the whole thing is more real now with Aaron Eckhart in place and none other than TFE favorite John Cameron Mitchell (himself a Broadway vet) signed to direct.

<-- John Cameron Mitchell (right) with fellow firestarter Bruce LaBruce last year. John is 45 years old and he still looks like he's 25. I hate him.

It's that last bit that's most interesting. John Cameron Mitchell has made one widely acclaimed outré miracle (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and one divisive but still award winning outré picture (Shortbus). He has never directed someone else's material for the screen. It makes sense to employ him for a theatrical conversion since he understands the medium but why Rabbit Hole? It doesn't seem to fit into what we know of his sensibility. It's a relatively conventional story of a husband and wife whose child is accidentally killed. It won stellar reviews for its performances and its incisive look at grief but studies of grief aren't exactly untrodden ground at the movies and the material isn't out there in any way. Its detractors claimed it wasn't theatrical enough for the stage. It was more like a screenplay already.

I hope Mitchell has an interesting take on it. But even if it remains only a straightforward quality drama, good on Kidman. She can't be stopped. If there's a great or challenging director alive that she wouldn't crawl across beds of glass to work with, it's probably just because she hasn't heard of him/her yet. For all the heat she takes in the press for her box office returns being disproproportionate to her salary and her "weird" taste in unconventional projects (i.e. interesting failures or thorny near-masterworks), she'll have the last laugh. Most movie stars are beautiful and talented. Those things are givens. Few of them seem to understand the importance of working with auteurs. They concentrate instead on finding mainstream hits, franchises and middlebrow prestige pieces. Kidman has done that, too, sure. But the best thing about her is her willingness to throw herself down the artistic rabbit hole and into the wilds of auteurial visions. I'm a staunch defender of Kidman on this front. Think of Dogville, Birth, Eyes Wide Shut, Portrait of a Lady, Moulin Rouge! and even the ones that didn't work like Fur and Australia.

Auteur-loving Kidman, always plotting.

I'm of the opinion that stars that serve auteurs first and foremost have the best chance of being remembered once they're dead. Uma Thurman has had a continually rocky career. Will she be remembered in 50 years time? Absolutely! Playing muse for Tarantino seals the deal. Stars that don't challenge themselves by working with real auteurs tend to fade, no matter how blinding their spotlight currently is. Box office is mostly irrelevant to the legacy equation. Consider this current example: Julianne Moore. She started her acting career in the 80s but found her first substantial fame in 1995. Guess which movie people associate with her ascendance: Assassins which grossed $30 million or [safe] which grossed $512,000? That's what I'm talking about! And that's with only 14 years of distance. Imagine what happens to the collective cultural memory in 50 years time.

So... Nicole Kidman. Mega famous now. Mega famous forever. Add John Cameron Mitchell to her ever expanding list of auteur conquests. Cross your fingers that their collaboration makes Rabbit Hole really sing and sting on the screen.
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Now Playing: Alan Ball's Psyche, Wacky Personal Trainers and Batman Through January

L I M I T E D
Greetings From the Shore described as "part memoir, part fairytale" it's a coming of age story about pre-college days on the Jersey shore. Plans go awry.
Towelhead Alan Ball is everywhere. First, there's his new series on HBO (True Blood -previous post), second he's got this here story of an Arab American teenager getting intimate with the much older Aaron Eckhart -- but can you blame her... Aaron Eckhart! Those dimples. That chin). Two fine actresses, Toni Collette & Maria Bello, look on with concern. Most importantly, [*snort*] Ball is the subject of the new episode of Best Pictures From the Outside In.

W I D E
Burn After Reading If I told you how desperate I was to see this you would worry for my ability to make it through the day today without. Frances and Brad looks hi-lar-ious. Plus it's a Coen Bros comedy and with rare exceptions, those are super.
Proud American <--I'll let MaryAnn take this one. Righteous Kill PACINO. DENIRO. or Why Do People Still Care? or maybe they don't and mainstream media just thinks they do. We'll see. Wouldn't it be cool if there was just one year where TV and Movies weren't allowed to use cops as characters? What kind of new dramas would surface?
Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys -I still don't get why he gets a possessive before every movie. I mean not even M Night Shyamalan puts his name in the title and you know how they sell his name.
The Women The Bening co-stars. That's all I need to know. [see multiple previous posts for more on The Women (1939 and 2008)]

S H I F T I N G * S C R E E N S C A P E
Babylon A.D., lost over 1000 screens in only its 3rd weekend so if you've been wondering what Vin Diesel has been up to while "dating in Europe" you better run to the theater ;) Hamlet 2 is just about gone after only one month in theaters. Next week expect Pineapple Express, Disaster Movie, The Clone Wars, and many many other summery films to get a lot scarcer Someone has to make room for Kate Hudson romantic comedies, Samuel L Jackson thrillers and a reunited Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

But don't expect The Dark Knight to disappear. Looks like it'll be hanging around until its on DVD in December... and then, just one month later, it'll be back in theaters in January stumping for Oscar nominations. I love this quote from the Hollywood Reporter

"It's just a matter of bringing it back as a reminder for people," a source told the trade.

Yes. We were absolutely in danger of forgetting about it. It barely made a ripple.
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20:08 (Gotham City Zip Codes)

Screenshots from the 20th minute and 8th second of 2008 films.
I was missing my 20:07 series so I'm bringing it back in an altered form.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan). Released July 18th, 2008 to become the 2nd highest grossing film ever --or 35th if you adjust for inflation but the mainstream media doesn't like to adjust for that. That would force us to remember that the movies existed before we did [GASP] and were even more popular in olden times.

Is Wayne Manor in the city limits?

Curiosity Killed The Bat. The other day I decided to take a peak at one of those film piracy sites. A new co-worker kept bugging me to sample. I don't really believe in piracy and after briefly sampling the goodies I have to say that even if I had no qualms about it ethically (and I do --except when it comes to things like "fair use" and time frames for "public domain" which the major corporations are always trying to distort legally) shouldn't the quality of the image be sacrosanct?

If you watch a pirated version of The Dark Knight --which I didn't. Don't sue -- Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal look like this (left). Unless they're appearing in INLAND EMPIRE where smeary faces might actually be saying something about disintegration of identity, doppelgangers and psychological breakdowns (ummm wait. Maybe David Lynch should be directing Batman movies?) it seems a great disservice to both of them. On account of you know: pretty.

Pirated movies make all movies, no matter how expensive, look like early no-budget digital indies. They make all movie stars, no matter how gorgeous, look like someone's cousin acting for free for the very first time.

Harvey Dent's much ballyhooed Thesis quote also arrives in this scene

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain

It's a nifty line but I can't see that it's explored in any relevant way later in the movie (Two Face's transformation not being all that satisfying in execution... save for the technical make up and Batman's transformation being completely external and indirect: we're told that the public will think he's the villain after the credits have rolled). But mostly this scene bugs me for a nit picky reason: It introduces us to a busty Russian ballerina. Later there's that yacht shot wherein Bruce Wayne has taken her whole company of dancing girls out on his yacht... it's over in an instant but I could have sworn that yacht was filled with surgically enhanced bimbos from Central Casting rather than the traditional lithe tiny graceful anorexic ballerinas that we were supposed to be seeing. I'm not really into ballet. I've only been thrice in my life. But maybe that's three more times than Chris Nolan.
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Linkhart

Coming Soon liveblogs Terminator: Salvation panel @ Comic Con
<-- Golden Fiddle Aaron Eckhart fun facts and scans
Defamer Odd bit here. Sports pundit wants The Dark Knight's Aaron Eckhart campaigned for an Oscar and not Heath Ledger.
Just Jared Is Rosie getting a primetime variety show? Television hasn't had a true hit variety show in way too long. If all things are cyclical it's time for those to be popular again.
Anne Thompson more on True Blood the new HBO vampire series
Twitch it's official: Darren Aronofsky doing a Robocop picture. How very odd. Is there a part for Ellen Burstyn?
NY Post Hollywood beauties Tyrone Power and Robert Taylor on DVD

today's must read
Electronic Cerebectomy "Get F***ing Over It" I seriously love it when smart people get impatient with the world's stupidity. I love it love it love it. Everyone should let one of these loose now and again.

Microwaved Comic Con Bites

Some random bits to wrap up last weekend's "adventure" and I use the term lightly. If you missed anything we already talked about super women as cheap whores, The Incredible Hulk's collateral damage and enticing Wall•E footage.


* The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian panel didn't skimp on the film's stars but it did skimp on footage. We were shown only the trailer, twice...not that it mattered. The only way to watch it if you hope to suss out anything about how anybody looks or what's happening is to watch it on your PC or Mac and pause it every third frame. Edited with a blender it is although I always appreciate a good shot of a centaur. William Moseley who plays the big ego'ed Peter Pevensie (currently King of Narnia right? I barely remember that movie) is either a total natural or he's been very well groomed for the job of talking about headlining movies. He looked completely comfortable, was well spoken, and he even jumped up from his seat to hug a needy fan. I'm actually surprised he wasn't trampled to death by stampeding horny fangirls after that one. Peter Dinklage was also in top soundbite form.


And the poster doesn't lie. Prince Caspian (aka Ben Barnes) is this gorgeous in real life. If that's possible. Well done Mr & Mrs. Barnes. The Q & A with the fans was hilarious. There's obviously going to be a lot of slash fanfic about Peter and Caspian's "rivalry" --almost every question seemed to circle back to their boys-to-men tussling.

* Lightsaber toy technology has really come a long way. When I was a kid they were like huge plastic fake looking things that vaguely lit up. This was back in the mesozoic era.

* Why would anyone... and I do mean anyone... want a miniature sculpture of the vampires from 30 Days of Night? It comes complete with severed body parts and heads strewn about their feet. I mean it's totally gross AND the movie was terrible. Terrible. T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. I'm still mad about how inept that movie was considering the strong concept it sprung from. In truth I don't understand a lot of merchandise for movies. Although I deeply covet that Fargo snow globe from the 90s. And though I can't imagine springing for a life size anime statue of Princess Leia (previous post), I understand it. I mean, if I could buy a lifesize reclining Michelle Pfeiffer to keep on top of the piano, money would be no object (except for the piano part. How much $ do grands go for these days?)

* I love it when 'superheroes' seem totally bored.


You never see that in the movies and fighting evil probably gets old. All work being drudgery and whatnot.

* The much buzzed about unscheduled screening of a new The Dark Knight trailer was not as exciting as you've read elsewhere. It's a commercial for crying out loud and we've already seen a couple. I'm not trying to be the cranky hard-to-please type . I totally feel the thrill of the first teasers of anything... but once you've seen several clips and you're on the second full trailer? calm down! It's basically a lot of the same footage as the first trailer, remixed, with more about the plot thrown in (Ledger's Joker convincing crime bosses to kill Batman). There's also more Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes and the strong hint that she might be dying, or at least dropped like some Green Goblin/Gwen Stacey well-worn hero's nightmare. We also get our first moving images of Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. People were excited: 'OMG a guy in a suit!' He does get to utter what will surely be an important underlined line o' dialogue (if I know my Christopher Nolan) and it goes a little something like this

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Have I mentioned I enjoy a little Eckhart?

* I went to one panel on fan-made films that was kind of fun. They talked about Green Goblin's Last Stand (made all the way back in 1992 for only $400. Pretty cool/funny for 1992 ... long before the days of YouTube), Iron Fist: The Dragon Unleashed and the brilliant mashup Run Leia Run. Apparently others have now ripped off this idea for newer films but it's awesome if you're a fan of the über fun German movie Run Lola Run starring the wonderful Franka Potente.

* Sometimes fan costumes border on the obscene.


Civilians.. they just don't wear cups.

* We saw the teaser to Will Eisner's The Spirit --hardly a scoop as it was on YouTube that very day and The Spirit panelists assembled including lovely Eva Mendes (for whom the crowd whooped and whistled) all kissed comic-legend-turned-director Frank Miller's (Sin City/300) ass with precision and purpose. But I'm not convinced. Now I turn you over to the blog Forces of Good who express their Spirit concerns with greater pinpoint comedy than I can muster.

And now I must take a break from the spandex & tights crowd.


Only a 10 day break mind you. Iron Man will be rocketing into box office history very soon. I shall gladly part with a little green for Tony Stark's hot rod red.
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Now Playing: Clooney, Foster and plenty for the Francophiles

L I M I T E D
The Flight of the Red Balloon Hou Hsiao-Hsien makes gorgeous movies. Three Times...just lovely. This one stars the beloved Juliette Binoche and critics are loving as is the norm for Hsiao-Hsien.
Jellyfish (Meduzot) Another acclaimed foreigner, this one Israeli. It was one of the Ophir nominees (i.e. Israel's Best Pictures) but was passed over for the Oscar submission when they went with The Band's Visit (later disqualified) and then Beaufort which did become one of 2007's Foreign Film nominees.
Meet Bill A comedy starring Aaron Eckhart... also known as 'that guy who went to college with Nathaniel' (teehee). Supposedly this one will be going wide next month. Jessica Alba, Timothy Olyphant and Elizabeth Banks in supporting roles. In concept isn't it hard to see Eckhart as a man lacking in confidence? Not a timid wallflower actor.

Sex and Death 101 Winona Ryder and Simon Baker star in 'That Movie With A Truly Terrible Poster'
My Blueberry Nights The Weinsteins, jailer of countless films, are finally letting you see the new Wong Kar Wai picture. But will you? Norah Jones travels and encounters Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and other beauties on her way.
Tuya's Marriage Lots of foreign films to choose from this weekend. This one is set in Mongolia
Shine a Light Scorsese. The Stones. 'nuff said for those who love either
And finally...
Water Lilies was up for three French Oscars (the Cesars) last year, all in the "promising" categories. Best First Film for its director and the two young female were up for Most Promising Actress. Here's the young and hormonal trailer...



Foreign film trailers often leave out dialogue, as if those who would be interested would lose interest if they knew it was going to be subtitled. Um... However, since this is the way marketing of foreign pictures works, I much prefer the absence of any words to those lame narrated trailers where someone tries to sell you on how beautiful or heartwarming or miraculous a foreign film is, while all the while you're noticing that they're too scared to make you listen to [gasp!] A FOREIGN LANGUAGE!


W I D E
None of the wide releases are doing well critically on Rotten Tomatoes. Nothing is even in the 60 percentile range. Oops

<---- Nim's Island Jodie Foster does one for Charles and Kit. Abigail Breslin and Gerard Butler co-star in this family adventure film
The Ruins The new horror film based on a Scott Smith novel. He also wrote A Simple Plan. Presumably most of the young stars including X-Men's Ice Man, Tilda Swinton's gay son from The Deep End, and Donnie Darko's girlfriend die violent horrible deaths.
Leatherheads George Clooney, Renée Zellweger and that guy from The Office star in this period romantic comedy about footballers (the American kind).

We Can't Wait #9 The Dark Knight

Directed by Chris Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins )
Featuring Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Eric Roberts, Cillian Murphy, Anthony Michael Hall, Nestor Carbonnell, Michael Jai White, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger
Synopsis the further adventures of Batman, begun
Brought to you by Warner Bros & DC
Expected release date July 18th, 2008

Nathaniel: I count Batman Returns as my favorite entry in this multiple personality franchise but I understand... to a degree, why people got so hot and bothered about Batman Begins, the reboot.

In this new entry Christian Bale faces off against two villains: Harvey Dent/Two Face played by Aaron Eckhart, so far mostly missing from the brilliant ad campaign but we hear he is actually the chief foe; Heath Ledger plays The Joker and commands all the powers of the ad campaign (thus far)

Answer me these questions three...

1. Who is your favorite Batman thus far? (West. Keaton. Kilmer. Clooney. Bale?)
2. Which Batman character are you still hankering to see in a movie or do you think they've tapped out the rogues gallery since The Joker and Two Face are now on repeat?
3. If you wore a utility belt to the movies what gadget would you make sure it held?
   

MaryAnn: Favorite Batman? Tough one: it's a tossup between Keaton and Bale. My moviegoing utility belt would include a gag to shut up those people who talk reflexively during a movie: "Oh, look, he's got a gun!" "Oh, no, I hope he doesn't get hurt!"


Glenn: Batman Returns is most definitely my favourite, but I think Bale was my favourite Batman. Can't really explain why, I just preferred him is all.I can't exactly say I'm in the comic universe so I'm not sure what villains haven't been used. Michelle Pfeiffer could still fill in that Catwoman costume though surely, so bring her back!

I would like to ask a question though, if you don't mind. Is it just me or anybody else getting a bit sick of these big "summer" (they're winter for me) blockbusters going all dark on us? I worry for The Dark Knight because everytime I think about it I get big giant flashing warning bells in my brain. Warning bells that scream "SPIDER-MAN 3! SPIDER-MAN 3!" eep

MaryAnn: I like that the summer blockbusters have gone dark. Batman/Bruce Wayne is a dark character. I don't want to see the return of Adam West.


Gabriel: You're reading my mind, Glenn...sometimes I sit in a movie theatre and say "enough with the weak plot points and the hipster dark overtones!" (Sometime I'll have to tell you about the moment halfway through Cloverfield where I realized I might prefer to have my brain scooped out with an ice cream scoop than watch it all the way to the end.) But the Bat-Franchise is best when its dark...it's a tale of broken people trying to do great things, and that isn't a narrative that leans toward brightness...as Joel Schumacher proved when his candy-colored vision nearly destroyed this series. (Strangely enough, though, I think my favorite caped crusader might have been George Clooney. He's a natural born superhero. It's a shame he got saddled with the absolute worst of the Batman films.)

As a child, I was a Batman fan, but the truth is, I was a Joker fan, so I'm thrilled to see how Chris Nolan interprets comicdom's greatest psychopath. As for my utility belt for the movies: if there was an electromagnetic pulse that would render all text-messaging cell phones dead, I'd be in heaven.

Joe: So we're all ignoring the elephant in the room, then? Okay.

My favorite Batman changes with the time of day; sometimes I think we still haven't seen a truly perfect one. I think today I'm in a Val Kilmer mood, but tomorrow who knows? Not Adam West, though. I don't know if I'm totally sold on Christopher Nolan's version of Batman yet, but I'm willing to hear him pitch it again.

As for BatVillains, I have very little knowledge of the greater landscape of the comic books, but I'd maybe like to see someone take a run at the Riddler. Or perhaps another female villain that viewers can love to hate. Besides Katie Holmes.

As for my utility belt, it seems too easy to request any number of weapons to slice, bludgeon, and pepper spray theater loudmouths to death with, Maybe something that prevents people from showing up five minutes late with a group of seven who all want to sit next to each other? Something in a force-field orb of some sort.


Glenn: The "elephant in the room" will surely be discussed plenty more in the coming months - and I'm sure in the comments section of Nathaniel's blog - so I think for now it's best to play dressups with the batsuit (sans nipples, of course).

Gabriel: Since Joe sees some aversion in our conversation so far of Heath Ledger's untimely and sad passing, let's discuss it. Beyond it being a marketing challenge for The Dark Knight, I don't see it as a major problem artistically. In fact, people will probably elevate the performance to some degree...I'm guessing if critics have problems with the movie, they won't blame them on Ledger.

Go ahead and draw your weapons now: I wasn't as big a fan of Ledger's as some around these parts (Nathaniel and Joe both wrote beautiful elegies last month, extended over the course of multiple posts). And I wasn't emotionally devastated by his death (not the way I was for, say, Ossie Davis). And I didn't bond with Ledger in Brokeback Mountain (I think Gyllenhaal did the heavy lifting in that movie, personally. Insert midnight-in-the-tent joke here.) So when it comes to The Dark Knight, I'm not more or less excited now than I was a few months ago...I still think Ledger was a fine actor, and am intrigued to see what he'll do with this difficult, challenging character.

Joe: Well clearly it's not going to affect the film artistically since the film is completed. I guess I'm more interested in the mechanics of marketing film than most, but I'm also interested in the ways Ledger's death is going to affect the way we (the public) are going to consume the film. It's not the new Batman movie anymore, it's the Heath Ledger movie (even moreso than it was already going to be, given the marketing). I think seeing as it's Batman -- already a dark and moody character/aesthetic -- it won't be quite as jarring as it could be, but I know speaking for me personally it's going to be a challenge to separate the man from the movie when I go see it. And it's completely affected my enthusiasm for the film (this was way higher on my anticipated list a month ago).

MaryAnn: I was flipping around the TV last night and came across the 2005 Casanova, which I love. And I couldn't watch it: it was too sad seeing Heath Ledger. I hope I feel less like that come The Dark Knight, but I know it will be impossible for me to see this movie in quite the same way I would have were Ledger still alive...

Glenn: I think the more interesting piece of the marketing puzzle will arise when the cast take to the talkshow circuit. They'll certainly have Bale and Eckhart out there, and maybe Maggie Gyllenhaal (to erase the stink of Katie Holmes) and you just know what the very first question is going to be about. It's unignorable. I just hope they treat it with dignity. Unlike the Entertainment Tonights of this world which moved straight from dragging Ledger's name through the mud to discussing the exclusing images of Jessica Alba getting a juice!

Taking a cue from MaryAnn I think I'd like a utility belt gadget that could send an electronic pulse throughout cinemas so that people wouldn't be able to play with their god damned phones in the dark cinema. grrr!

Nathaniel: Your turn readers. Favorite man in the cowl? Favorite movie in the series? Your fantasy bat gadget? And which Bat enemy do you think they're really missing out on movie-fying?

<-- Sister Aloysius prays for your wicked soul if you haven't been reading the "we can't wait" countdown #1 Synecdoche, New York / #2 Burn After Reading / #3 Australia / #4 Milk / #5 Blindness / # 6 Doubt / #7 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / #8 Revolutionary Road / #9 The Dark Knight / #10 Sex & The City: The Movie / #11 The Lovely Bones / #12 Wall-E / #13 Stop-Loss / #14 The Women / #15 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince / Introduction / Orphans
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