1. Click on over and bid farewell to the great Modern Fabulousity... it's not just print critics who have been saying 'adios' in depressing numbers. The blogosphere also regularly hemorrhages creative biggies like my friend Gabriel (i.e. ModFab) as people wear out from low financial/creative returns on high time/effort investments.
>sniffle<Best wishes to Gabriel in anything he next sets his eyes & talent on.
I'm a little too OCD to quit The Film Experience just yet but I understand the impulse and sympathize with the fatigue. Every year I fear this writer's life I desire isn't sustainable for another annum or maybe even that the blog prevents any progress in other writing arena$. It's confusing to know where to throw one's energies.
2. In happier news say "Hello Gorgeous" to the first of what we assume will be a few Australia trailers.I love the Wizard of Oz referencing in this teaser and damn does this thing look ... pretty.
Baz & Nicole (together!) are almost back!
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I just finished a post about the trailer for Australia on my own blog (and included a YouTube version).
Just gorgeous and that music is amazing. Do we know if that's part of the score or music from something else (common amongst early trailers).
Nicole cracking that whip is just great, :)
LOVE it.
yeah i'd love to hear comments. It doesn't look like he gave up the theatricality... just the RED CURTAIN ;)
Yeah, I worry for this thing's oscar prospects, outside of, like, cinematography. Even if it's great, I don't think the melding of theatrical flare/Bazmark with the "epic period romance" formula will go over with with the mainstream-friendly awards voter, or even mainstream critics. Plus there's the blatant Aussie-centric nature of the whole thing. I just anticipate a great big "HUH?" when it arrives in America. But I'm sure Aussieland will embrace it.
I could, of course, be wrong on all counts. But I'm guessing this gets a Marie-Antoinette-type reception. Maybe that means it'll win Best Pic from Nat? Who knows...
So it's Gone with the Wind meets The Princess Bride meets Shane meets Ten Canoes meets Dances with Wolves, filtered through Art Deco, with an extra dollop of Gladiator hand-on-the-wheat? Fine by me. Politically complicated, but fine by me.
1) The trailer gave me the chills
2) We truly appreciate your work on this blog. Kepp it up!!!!
*goosebumps*
I think this has what it takes...
Nick, and you didn't even mention The Wizard of Oz (the trailer even features Nicole going from black and white to colour while "in the air"). Could the Japanese war planes be the flying monkeys?
On what Adam said, I can see it kind of becoming... forgotten. In a sense. Critics won't give it their big prizes because when was the last time they ever did that for a movie on such a scale, but it's perhaps too "foreign" for mainstream audiences.
But, yeah, if nothing else, Australians will eat this up with a spoon. I mean, they're even mentioning the trailer on the hourly news updates throughout the day! Or, at least on some of the ones I've seen. Which is... odd to say the least.
That point at the 1 minute mark where the strings start their quick beats (whatever the technical name for that is) and Nicole is running past the soldiers just... wow.
Maraming Salamat,Nat!!
For the "Australia" trailer...Baz and Kidman again,yipee!!!! (where's Ewan?lol)
Yup. All of that meets The Wizard of Oz.
But Japanese planes = flying monkeys? Back to the "politically complicated" stuff.
I am crying... This looks awesome. I too have been worried about the reception the film will have but the Wizard of Oz parallel is a stroke of genius. It will imediately place the film into a frame of reference that is internationaly identifable. Baz is a genius.
This looks stunning. Not sure for its Oscar prospects, but then again most of my favorite films are never nominated.
Hugh...*sigh*
adam k --you might not be far off with the Marie Antoinette oscar reception. Because, as much as we may love Baz... Oscar sometimes rejects the follow up to big Oscar hits. they're fickle with everyone (mostly)
but i can't even think about my best picture yet. i only have 1 competitor so far and it's almost June. Yikes. (not that this year won't be back loaded. again. (sigh)
nick --do you mean to claim that Baz Luhrman is a mash-up artist. Radical! ;)
anon what does Maraming Salamat mean?
damn that trailer deactivated fast! I didn't get to see it! :o(
cristina --try clicking on the link. BIG POND VIDEO. the site is kind of wonky and it takes awhile to load for some reason but last time i checked you could still see the trailer there with the Nicky Kidman intro ;)
you can also watch it on apple, it's trailer C
anon what does Maraming Salamat mean?
"Thank you very much"
It's Filipino. You have fans here. :)
Back in the 80's/90's, I think we could have safely said that we've just seen the trailer to our next Best Picture, winner: English Patient meets Out Of Africa meets Titanic meets Dances With Wolves. But, like a Dad getting a compliment from his son, the Academy are enjoying feeling cool again post-Departed and No Country, so they're going to be afraid to give the award to a big, lavish, unapologetically sentimental epic.
However, I'm feeling good about this. Luhrmann is still popular with critics (especially since Moulin Rouge! had a pretty quick re-evaluation and is now considered a modern classic) and so I don't think we have to worry on that side of things, and it absolutely looks like my kind of film. I wasn't really looking forward to this film too much, but after that trailer, I can't wait. As soon as The Dark Knight comes out, I'm going to be counting down to November.
Yeah, I'm not worried in the least that I'll like it, but while Atonement (it's nearest similar title from last year) nearly missed out on a nod, that movie had a very high brow intellectual thing going against it. I know many didn't think it was a well-made movie, but I know others just thought it was too talky talky smarty-pants for them. I don't think Australia will have that particular problem.
And if Australia does fail with critics/awards bodies it will be for entirely different reasons that Marie Antoinette failed. Besides, that movie got the most sexist reviews I can ever recall for a movie that wasn't something like Sex and the City. "TOO MUCH PINK!!!!"
Also, about the Wizard of Oz thing, I think I read that there's actually a scene in Australia where Oz plays at an outdoor cinema so Kidman's character may very well just be telling the girl to story of The Wizard of Oz and they used that scene as a trailer framing device, not necessarily meaning it's being used as a framing device for the entire film.
Either way, I trust Baz. Notice the backdrop in that storytelling bit looks exactly like the backdrop in the final scene of Gone with the Wind?!
I've watched this trailer so much.
i cannot take kidman seriously any longer with her frozen botoxed face she doesn't act anymore she she just tries!!!!
I'm sorry guys, but the trailer didn't convince me, the film has an fantastic photography and an intersting Art Direction (oscar consideration), but maybe it's my adversion against Nicole Kidman (I never trust of her seriously again after Dogville) but I see her very cold and overracted in a position like: "Oh, I'm playing a lady and I want an Oscar". I don't know but if the film'll have a little success won't get principal nominations especially when other romantic epic films are coming out: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "The Young Victoria" are the best examples
The Young Victoria is going nowhere. You heard it here first.
I also saw the poster for "Miracle At St. Anna" somewhere online, and despite the fact that Spike Lee has insisted on still calling it a "joint" even though it's a serious WWII war film funded by Disney, I've got high hopes for it in the Oscar race.
In fact I check in some pages and "The Young Victoria" is in post-production and rumor has it that Warner Bros is still in the release of the film in November and one important fact: It's a Martin Scorsese production... So I don't know what do you said jack about your comment.+
By the way, I considerate too Miracle at st. Anna a big contender for Best Picture in this award season...
By the way, jack I think you angry about my comment of Australia, well, it's my opinion and I give reasons but maybe I'm wrong. Explain your reasons that you believe about "The Young Victoria is going nowhere". that's my facts that I believe in that film:
1. Julian Fellowes
2. Actresses Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson
3. Martin Scorsese: He's an special director and producer who always have from interesting to outstanding films...
4. I love first jean Marc Vallée film C.R.A.Z.Y.(Awfully snubbed by the Oscars)
5. A real interesting and historical presence (Yes, it's a queen but for many biographies that I read she was a strong historical presence)
i would be more up on Miracle at St Anna's if it wasn't Disney but basically they have to trip over an Oscar contender to get one. They don't really push strong candidates (outside of animation)
This trailer was absolutely fabulous. And I am 99.9% sure that the story telling is just used as a framing device in the teaser trailer- to set up a "Wizard of Oz" feel.
Jackman and Kidman both look great, from what was given on the trailer. I can't wait to see how this does critically and award-wise. It's been on my predictions list for a while now. Here's to hoping for Baz and Jackman's first nomination and of course picture and Kidman. =)
This movie will not be forgotten- the Academy will once again believe in epic love stories.
Film looks beautiful, and typically (for this director) hints at little below that beautiful surface. What a powerful exchange of trailer dialogue:
Nicole: 'We can't let them win.'
Hugh: 'We won't.
You can't make that sort of cheese up!
And the reference to Oz... how unusual for a major director of our time to try and import 'meaning' into his film by introducing subtext as text!
I remain...
- The Baz-Luhrman-hating-and-otherwise-opinionated-Australian
Oh, and just for reference, the music is a trailer-orchestrated medley of:
- Ennio Morricone's 'Ecstasy of Gold' from THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
&
- Patrick Doyle's 'St Crispin's Day' from HENRY V
David Hirschfelder is doing the music, which should be revenge on Craig Armstrong for getting THE GOLDEN AGE.
I just don't have a good feeling about The Young Victoria. Maybe it's because of Elizabeth 2 and The Other Boleyn Girl but I just don't think costume dramas are going to get anyone excited this year, not audiences, not the critics and not Oscar. The Duchess is going to have a similar fate. I can't imagine they'll do anything but disappear without a trace.
I don't think having Martin Scorsese as a producer is going to have anything to do with its success. It has five other credited producers, so who knows how hands on he has been or if he's going to be involved in the publicity at all or if anyone is even going to know he produced it. Ridley Scott produced The Assassination Of Jesse James, but they didn't advertise it as "a Ridley Scott production", no one even knew he had anything to do with it.
Loved it.
Even with Kidman's botoxed face, she remains one of the best actresses about today and one of the most honest, who actually reveals the real depths of the characters she is playing. Most actresses with their movable faces simply have that - their faces, there is very little emotional depth to them, nobody can say that of Kidman. If you go to the movies and expect only to read emotions on faces and for some reason, you don't see it on Kidman's face then that is not Kidman's problem.
If she did nothing better than Margot in Margot At The Wedding, I'd die well. When the trailer for MATW was released last year, everyone railed against Kidman as the weakest link with too much of a botoxed face but when the movie was released, it was her name and performance that was in the headlines and she achieved that with that botoxed face. That is Nicole Kidman.
Even now as a pregnant woman with people seeing her about, knowing that she cannot use botox and still pretty much looking the same way she has always done save for a few lines appearing and the added stress of pregnancy, they insist that she is botoxed.
Don't take her seriously, she just happens to be one of the few actresses to actually be contributing original female characters like Anna, Grace, Margot, Diane on the screen.
The botox brigade have become tiresome, if her botox face is causing you not to watch then find something else to occupy your time. Those of us that watch her and see the magic she creates without too much drama know the enjoyment we get from her.
And as usual, when this is released, I expect her name to be associated with another original female characterisation.
As for its Oscar chances, who knows? When MR! was making the rounds about to be released, no one thought much of it because it was too much, not to AMPAS's taste, too outside the box but it was a major winner during the award season, garnering nominations and awards all over the world.
As for its BO prospects in the Sates, maybe it will do well, maybe it won't, with movies like this it is hard to say but worldwide, I expect it to be a heavy hitter.
All it needs is hype, a lot of hype.
This is how a trailer should be cut, showing without revealing and trust Luhrmann to use a story telling device at the beginning, just wonderful. And I have to say that I was glad to see the Red Curtain look in the opening sequence of the teaser :).
botox botox botoxit makes your face immobile actors rely on their faces to let us know what they are thinking,tang wei would've stuggled to make an impact or holly hunter win an oscar with a face that didn't move and over inflated lips,put it this way she looks like a different person thus making it harder to take her seriously when shes ruining the one thing she needs to make her good at what she does.
i still think she's a great actress so i have to back up darkraven here. She's easily one of the most interesting actresses the cinema has had in the past couple of decades so let's enjoy that.
I do think her lips are looking odd and I do wish actresses wouldn't mess too much with their moneymaker but she was terrific in margot so let's stick by her
I never quite understand the "you act with your face" comments. I mean, sure, it's a part of it, but if it were the only part of it then Jennifer Hudson would be an Oscar winner.
:)
(I actually liked Hudson in Dreamgirls, but girl was broad!)
Michael, I have to respectfully disagree with you. Those lines were just beautiful. From those lines alone I could tell there would be intense emotions involved with "Australia." As for The Wizard of Oz referencing, you seem to be sitting alone on that side of the fence--- it was pretty brilliant.
And for those of you "worried" about Nicole Kidman- everyone said she was the weakest link in the trailers for Margot at the Wedding.. yet ended up getting the best reviews (and should have gotten an Oscar nomination.) Although she has made some poor film choices, she has really excelled in movies such as Birth, Fur, and Dogville.
i think since 2002 she is too tabloid!!!
she is an interesting actress but please nicole after the baby leave your lips,face,boobs and anything else alone/
She is too tabloid, who are you kidding? She was more tabloid before. Kidman has had reduced appearances in the tabloids since about 2004 and coverage on her is pretty non-existent. When was the last time she was a big story in the tabloids? When was the last time she was featured on ET, Extra day after day? She is a star and her name will be everywhere but she is also a brilliant actress who knows how to do her job.
The most exposed that Kidman gets is when she has a movie out, she is not all over the pages of a magazine like some of her peers.
You actually ask people what looks different about her and they can't point to anything other than her lips, so? does she look like a duck or a trout? Someone actually said her eyebrows were longer so she must have had something done. Another is that her skin is too tight so should we add Julianne Moore, Marcia Cross to the list then? This silliness has to stop. With everything laid at her feet that she has had done, she looks OK. She doesn't look like that Cat woman or Jessica Lange who looks to be working with two different surgeons at the same time. She looks so different that it is hard to take her seriously? what a joke.
You have some idiots who say her face hasn't moved since whenever, how on earth would they know? do they keep going to see her work despite spitting such venom about her "much immovable" face? Did anyone see Fur and the emotions that flickered across her face when she was dressing herself and plucked her eyebrows, did anyone not notice the breakdown scene when she was answering questions about what she actually did in the partnership with her husband? Some even suggested that her face hadn't moved since Dogville and so we have to ask, how on earth did she perform in Birth using not just her body but her face considering she barely had any dialogue. How on earth did she get those wrinkled skin in her forehead in The Golden Compass when she was handed the flyspies in front of the Magisterium? If her forehead and face was so solid, she shouldn't even be able to smile or speak.
And looking at the teaser for Australia in the little peek where she actually delivered a dialogue towards the end of the movie, how can anyone with a semblance of intelligence look at her face there and say that she is botoxed. I mean, excuse me if I call stupidity on it all.
I have a feeling 99% of the people who see pictures of her and yammer on about botox are conditioned to say so.
I am sorry NATHANIEL but I have had my fill of this stupidity.
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