Do you have a favorite horse in the Costume Design race? Sandy Powell (The Young Victoria) and Colleen Atwood (Nine) are facing off yet again. They both have 8 nominations and 2 wins behind them. The elaborate rags of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and two movies with self-made fashionistas as protagonists (Coco Before Chanel and Bright Star) are also in the running. I've whipped up a gallery for your edification. So, why don't you take a looksie and then vote in the poll. And if you love this sort of thing (and you should!) you can also see my personal ballot (and medalists).
I'm assuming that The Young Victoria will take the Oscar because, the beauty of its costume aside for a moment, Royalty Porn nearly always triumphs in this category. Royalty Porn is to this category what psycho killers are to Supporting Actor and what longsuffering girlfriend/spouse is to Supporting Actress and what DeGlam is for Best Actress (though not so much this year). In other words, it's their drug of choice.
P.S. An interview with my favorite working costume designer is coming up soon!
P.P.S. New readers choice polls require your attention, too: Director, Original Score, Cinematography. You can see how the collective polls for the major categories are shaping up right here ...and there's only a few days left to vote on all of them.
Just woke from a dream in which Christopher Plummer had been placed into a medically induced coma merely to "rest up" for his dual Oscar campaign (lead for Parnassus, supporting for The Last Station). Subconscious, you are so very weird.
Whenever I wake from a dream involving the health of a celebrity, I rush immediately to the news feeds to make sure the celebrity is okay, no matter how unbelievable the dream is. Hey, they feel real when your eyes first take in the light. Do you double check when you wake up?
For what it's worth, the top news items were three: the AFI fest's upcoming tribute, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassusopened in the UK and the 79 year old thespian will be performing The Tempest at Stratford next year. The latter makes a neat coincidence: the same year we'll see him performing the classic "Prospero" role onstage his Station co-star Helen Mirren will be performing the same role, gender-flipped, for Julie Taymor's film version.
As for the campaign, I imagine that the Doctor Parnassus half will be stillborn. The picture just wouldn't support that major of a nomination unless his career tributes take on an unusually robust life. I was really rooting for the picture and loved the opening scene or three... but it just doesn't cohere or showcase Plummer enough. So those hopes for an Oscar rest on The Last Station. I hope to see it tomorrow and I'm crossing my fingers that he's deserving. After 176 film and television roles, some of them quite acclaimed, it's way past time for a first nomination. *
My brain and heart are 3,990 miles away. If you have several minutes to spare you might want to check out this video of the Cannes ceremony. If you speak French you'll have more fun but even if you don't the montage of films showing at Cannes (14 - 22 minute mark) is still intriguing.You can see brief cuts from Bright Star, Emmanuelle Devos in L'Origine (Je l'adore), Broken Embraces, Spring Fever and many more including a bit from Heath Ledger in the The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus "Do you dream? Or should I say 'Can you put a price on your dreams?' "
A little kid in a Michael Haneke movie?!? Poor kid. What horrific, psychologically distorting fate awates him?
Cannes over the weekend... for those of you who've been offline Roger Ebert "fings ain't wot they used t'be" - lovely piece Bright Star scrapbook. Jane Campion has such an eye IFC Daily Strong response to Mother, from The Host director Bong Joon-ho
LA Times Doctor Parnassus still waiting for buyer. The last film of Heath Ledger and a f***ing Terry Gilliam movie with major stars and they don't want it? I will always love the cinema as an artform but as a business it sometimes seems like a malevolent soul crushing destroyer In Contention joins the chorus singing that Cannes competition lineups need to be riskier than just 'insert 20 famous auteurs' Getty Tilda Swinton & Agnès Varda of the avant-garde IndieWire Lars Von Trier does it again with Antichrist. Boos and applause at the premiere Spoutblog Lars Von Trier does it again for Antichrist. Quotable egomania
I am the best filmmaker in the world
I know it's too much to ask that all directors be as brilliant as Lars Von Trier. But why can't they all be this entertaining?
Cheeky Dafoe, 'the best filmmaker in the world' (?) and sweet Charlotte Gainsbourg
too much Cannes? These posts have never been to France. PopWrap Shia Labeouf overshares with Playboy Topless RobotStar Trek = Star Wars. It's Benji Button = Gump all over again Lazy Eye Theater Remembering Royal Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums BoingBoing Twitter graph -- how topics get played out. hee *
Remember when Tom Waits was actually a part time actor and not just a world class musician? Good times... especially the Lily Tomlin coupling in Short Cuts and the bug eating in Dracula.
One of my favorite film books, With Nails: The Film Diaires of Richard E Grant, has a few bits on Waits. Grant, like Waits, was a frequent supporting player in interesting / storied movies of the early 90s and he lived to write about it.
The cast of Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Draculagathersat the Coppola estate for a week long bonding / rehearsal session before filming. Gary Oldman looks sad and tells Grant that his 11 month marriage to Uma Thurman (Grant's co-star from Henry & June) is over -- he wonders if he'll be one of those people who marries a lot. The actor/diarist notices that Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves are "sibling-close" and he's amused by Keanu who has decide to call everyone by their second names "Laura Ryder, Leonard Oldman, Phillip Hopkins". Tom Waits arrives a day later, pulling the focus.
Tom Waits. How can I not introduce him to these pages without falling into the cheesy showbizzy-sleaze-shpeak of a lone motel lounge act compère - hit the snare drum, smash a cymbal, bang a drum and wind up with 'LADIES - AND - GENTLEMEN - THE - IN - HOLE - THE - WALL - BAR - AND - SNAKEPIT - SALOON - PROUD - 'N' - PRIVILEGED - TO - PRESENT - FOR - YOUR - ENTERTAINMENT - AND - YES! - GODDAMMITT!! - EDUCATION - TONITE - THE - ONE - AND - THE - ONLY - MR - LONELINESS - OF - A - LONG - DISTANCE - SONGWRITER - HIMSELF - IN - THE - FLESH - IN - THIS - HERE - LOUNGE - LADIES - 'N' - GENTLEMEN - LET'S - PUT - OUR - HANDS - TOGETHER - AND - GIVE - IT - UP - FOR - (gasping for breath) - MISTAH!!! TOM!!!!!!! WAITS !!!!!!!!!!' Everyone else is in smatterings of designer casuals. Mistah Waits arrives straight off an old record cover in a '64 open-topped Cadillac, with fins, with a funnel of dust trailing down the dirt road. The gravel voice gets out some howdy-doodys and his clothes and hair are crumple-sculpted to him. Doesn't seem to have a straight bone in his bearing and kills me off with his cool by growling out a compliment for Withnail. Out the side of his mouth. Like we might be being spied on by the bailiffs. Him, rolling tobacco and reefer. Winona and I are 'We've got all your recordings, Tom!!' To which he just heh-hehs.
I just noticed that Mistah Waits is in the cast list of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassuswhich I'm more and more excited about. [previously excitement] Danger! Danger! One should never ever get excited about movies that only have release dates scheduled in Romania and the Czech Republic.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus clockwise from top left: Christopher Plummer as "Doctor Parnassus", Heath Ledger (and Johnny Depp and Jude Law and Colin Farrell) as "Tony", Tom Waits as "Mr. Nick" (some sources refer to this character as "The Devil"), your auteur Terry Gilliam, Lily Cole as the Doctor's daughter and Andrew Garfield as "Anton".
Lionsgate is going to be handling the film's UK release but I can't understand why nothing is set for the US? You'd think someone in a suit would remember that for all of Gilliam's recent film completion / box office troubles, it wasn't always this way (think Twelve Monkeys and The Fisher King... though I realize that Hollywood memories don't stretch back that far. Weren't movies silent and in black and white back then?). Plus there's the free publicity of being Heath Ledger's last film and having three A-Listers sub for his incomplete scenes and those Cannes rumors. Can we get this thing on the schedule already? Even if it's no masterpiece it'll surely be worth gawking at.
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