Just Jared ~more Wolverine promo pics.
/Film Eddie Murphy as Richard Pryor? Bill Condon sure does love making biopics. Fully half of his feature filmography is biopics.
Yahoo by way of Awards Daily ~Clint Eastwood receives a prize from Cannes, 3 months before the festival begins. I promised to ease up on the Eastwood thing this year (my frustration with the collective need to bury him in trophies has not won me fans) but please allow me to express genuine non-snarky confusion here. I had no idea that film festivals gave prizes when they were not in session. Who juries that? Is this the same prize he received last May when he was there to promote Changeling (only delayed for its own ceremony?) or is this actually an additional career prize nine months later? I'm not trying to piss people off. I'm just confused that off season honors exist and that they honor the same people honored the previous summer.
Kenneth in the (212) and Crazy Days have wise things to say about this Rihanna / Chris Brown situation. Why is she back with him and why are other celebrities, blogs and infotainment shows so willing to promote misogyny and domestic abuse with these "misunderstanding" semantics? Domestic abuse is not excusable. Period.
The Big Picture ~ Will Watchmen flop outside of the community prepared to love it?
Glark ~"my hair is a bird" Ha!
And about that new Damn Yankees movie you may have been reading about elsewhere. The film will supposedly star Jake Gyllenhaal as 'Shoeless Joe Hardy' (an old man who, after making a pact with the devil, becomes a young superstar baseball player) and Jim Carrey as Mr. Applegate (i.e. The Devil). Don't get too excited about it. According to Everything I Know... there's not even a screenplay, a director or a "Lola" yet. Lola, Mr. Applegate's temptress assistant who develops genuine feelings for Joe, is the best role in the show and was immortalized by Bob Fosse's girl Gwen Verdon in the 1958 movie. She's got one of the musicals two real showstoppers which is called "Whatever Lola Wants" (see previous post). Mr. Applegate gets the other one (his only musical number) "Those Were the Good Old Days". Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson recently did the 'Shoeless Joe' thing here in NYC and, come to think of it, Jake Gyllenhaal is almost his perfect movie star counterpart. Both are a) tall dark and preternaturally handsome b) underappreciated due to their total gorgeousity c) almost too perfect for the Joe Hardy role in that Joe is kind of a dull character, a blank slate object of adoration for the media and the other characters. So if you're already a slightly generic fantasy object when you're coasting, you have to add a lot of notes to that role or it can fall flat. Shoeless Joe is very Benjamin Button actually. It's an old man gets young lead role but it's a very passive one and the least interesting character in the piece. Good luck Jakey!Now can someone in Hollywood please cast Cheyenne Jackson in a major motion picture? He's, in a word, awesome. Plus he already proved with United 93 that his acting skills and charisma transfer just fine to celluloid.
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28 comments:
Can someone in Hollywood cast Cheyenne Jackson in a major motion picture including his and Jake Gyllenhaal's characters making out? I would sell my soul to the devil to see it.
I love Cheyenne! one of the most gorgeous gays ever!
Nathaniel did you read this list about the 100 essential female performances? http://www.popmatters.com/pm/special/section/100-essential-female-film-performances/
interesting read for us actressexuals
love the recognition to some performances I love and rarely see on lists.
Eddie Murphy's going after that Oscar again! I knew there was more going on with him presenting to Jerry Lewis than the "Nutty Professor" connection or Condon and "Dreamgirls".
And yay for "Damn Yankees"! I hope they do it justice, since I don't think of either Jake Gyllenhaal or Jim Carrey as musical singers. They have to cast well for Lola though. Call your agent, Anne Hathaway! The "Brokeback Mountain" connection + Shirley's shout-out should at least get you an audition.
well Jake can sing if his SNL performance and his own sisters pipes (they share genetics) are indication.
Yes indeed, yeah for Jakey! Oh and Re: “Blame It” Music Video:
Jake and Forest… yum. The video needed more of these two.
Jamie and Ron?!?… eww, more so toward the latter. I’m just hoping Jamie distances himself from Tom Cruise as much as possible. Remember 2004-2005.
Re: Eastwood getting showered in more accolades:
Okay, dominating the US film industry appointed Oscars is one thing. But Cannes? That’s Bergman, Campion, and Van Sant’s turf (among others). NOT Eastwoods!
And while I try to avoid genuinely, fully and TRULY rooting against an individual for Oscar, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t find the complete Eastwood shutout to be utterly delicious.
Sorry, but I’m still a tad nauseous after seeing a major display for an Eastwood biography (the cover proclaimed him both one of the greatest directors AND actors of all time) in Barnes & Noble the other day.
Nat, I'm SO glad you posted the bits about the impending "Damn Yankees" remake. I was reading it at another site yesterday and their push to have Scarlett Johansson play Lola.
The audience was going with Penelope Cruz (which I'm sure you and your readers would love), Anne Hathaway (because she sang at the Oscars), Catherine Zeta Jones (umm..too old?) and Beyonce (which seems both wrong and uninspired). None of those really seemed "Lola" to me. I figured the readers here would have some other ideas that would be a bit more exciting.
There has to be someone who is a better fit, right?
I don't think Anne Hathaway would be a good choice for Lola.
Someone at EW's Popwatch suggested either Scarlett Jo or Beyonce.
Well... actually you need "young" for Lola. I'd say she should be somewhere inbetween Jake's age (28) and Jim's age (47). There needs to be a certain amount of weary jaded "acting" in her sex kitten persona and I think you need a few years on you for that. I'd say anywhere in the 30s would be ideal.
I actually wondered about Charlize Theron ... not because she can sing (can she?) but because she's a trained dancer and if you're going to follow Gwen Verdon you sure as hell better be able to control your body --and Lola uses it. If Theron can sing I think she'd be delicious.
Plus it has to be someone who is kind of sexually commanding but could be believably romantically /comically paired with both Jake G and Jim Carrey. It's a tough role.
I thought Jane Krakowski was fantastic in the part on stage but i understand she's more stage/tv than film.
Believe it or not, the best thing for the movie (and for the actress' career) would be to cast Amy Adams as Lola. There was something very wholesome and girl-next-door-ish about Gwen Verdon that meshed very well with the Fosse edginess. If the director-choreographer of the film has the goods, then Amy would be a great choice. And it never hurts to play a homewrecker after playing a nun.
RE: Eastwood.
That was a special Golden Palm for his career, an unusual thing for Cannes. Unlike Berlin and Venice, they don't give honorary prizes. As far as I can remember, only Ingmar Bergman received that award.
Ryan,
The French have been loving Clint since always. France has always been very kind to directors Americans are not wise enough to celebrate, like him, Verhoeven, James Gray, not to mention Jerry Lewis and Buster Keaton.
Paul... that's actually a great idea because it would be interesting to see Adams play sweetness as a mask rather than as a true self.
Milos Forman is the biopic master, I think. And his sometime collaborators Scott and Larry are the master biopic writers.
Cheyenne Jackson should totally be cast in a movie musical, I don't understand why casting agents aren't utilizing stage performers for musical adaptations.
Well, the problem with casting Cheyenne, of course, is that these big musical adaptations end up with pretty big budgets. Which means you have to sell tickets. And aside from our small group of loyal perverts, nobody really knows who he is. Jake (and, more accurately, Jim Carrey) will sell those tickets.
As for Lola, I like the idea of Charlize (if she can sing), and am willing to be persuaded on Amy Adams. Unfortunately, ScarJo (who I love, just not for this) seems like the studios' ideal choice for a vampy temptress. Because they're not big on imagination.
If you're talking about that time that Jake dressed up in drag in "SNL" to sing that "Dreamgirls" song, well, that's not a real indication that he really has singing chops. That was jokey parody. I'd want to see if he could really carry a tune and justify his involvement in an actual musical.
Anne Hathaway's a little too young for Lola, but Hollywood won't care, and she's hot at the moment. This would be such a great opportunity for Jane Krakowski if they'd be willing to give it to her. And then she could completely rub it in the faces of the people that wouldn't let her in the "Nine" film.
Lola 1
Lola 2
PAUL. you are so correct. i take back all other suggestions ;)
Cheyenne Jackson will never be a movie star for two sad but simple reasons:
1) He is an openly gay leading man. For some really dumb reason I feel like we're not ready for that.
2) His name is Cheyenne.
Also Christina Hendricks for Lola. If she can't sing, change the definition of singing.
How about Cheyenne Jackson as Lola to Jake's Joe? Call him Larry instead of Lola or whatever, and think of it as a re-imagining.
Sam, you cracked it. Just when I was about to suggest... well, I don't know who I was going to suggest. I hadn't figured that part out yet.
Dear Marshall - even though I agree with you on point 1, I hope you're wrong. Times are'a changin', equal marriage rights in the US are definitely in the future and with that general acceptance hopefully we can look forward to talented LGBT individuals like Mr. Jackson getting their just due.
your blog is soo good, i love jake gyllenhaal, my blog is about him, not speak very well english, but i tell you, you are in my favorites liks
kiss
http://myboygyllenhaal.blogspot.com
marshall -- i think this is TOTALLY a myth. and I think we've all been brainwashed to believe it and repeate it every time the issue comes up. The problem is noone in hollywood is ever brave enough to test it.
even with anne heche who had a romantic movie lead AFTER her relationship with ellen went public and the movie still did good business ($75 million --even though it wasn't any good!) people acted like she couldn't do romantic leads anymore. STUPID.
Rupert Everett has been believeable in straight roles and has been doing them on and off his whole career. Yes when he gets them they're usually in art house or small flicks. and yes he has also been difficult to work with so he couldn't test this prejudice in the ways everyone expected him to originally...
But i don't get the problem people have here.
Cheyenne Jackson is totally charismatic and he can act and he's in the perfect age range for what Hollywood likes for men (33 currently) and he's 6'3" muscle. He could even be an action star for crying out loud (not that he'd necessarily be into that but you never know).
argh.
Is Cheyenne's "problem" really his gayness or is it the old story that Hollywood has a blind spot when it comes to theater stars? (There was great hue and cry when Julie Andrews was passed over for Eliza, the role she originated, in the film version of My Fair Lady. Julie was one of the few stage-to-screen actors who cracked it, but then ironically was cast in Mary Martin's role in Sound of Music, and so forth. (Admittedly, Mary was a bit long in the tooth for the film version by this point.) Point being, stage stars have been passed over and ignored by Hollywood for decades, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. What gives?
1. The bifurication of theatre/film culture. Theatre's New York, Film is LA. The fact is to do both and do them well is incredibly difficult. Kristen Chenowith pulled it off, but she's not doing movies as much as television. In the UK, where everything is centralized to London it's much easier (so Judi Dench can go from Cranford to Madame de Sade with nary a breath).
2. The number of film performers that got their start onstage and continue to act in both is actually quite long: Laura Linney for example. Billy Crudup does both regularly. So does Ethan Hawke. Would you consider Hugh Jackman a stage star? He's been nominated for the Olivier and Tony Awards for his performances.
3. Theatre, in general, is increasingly marginalized in American Culture, where it used to be a totemic centerpiece.
4. The transformation of the "star" in general has hurt the crossover more than helped.
While it's not a movie, Cheyenne Jackson recently played a David Bowie-like glam rocker on TV's Life on Mars. In case you haven't seen it already, you can view it on ABC's website; it's the episode titled "Let All the Children Boogie."
arkaan... what about the "transformation of the star" do you mean?
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