Hugh Jackman is Sleeping. (And Other X-Men Memories)

Shhhhhh. It's a day of rest and Hugh Jackman is sleeping. Let him be.


Wait. Anna!? What are you doing?!? Don't tiptoe up to deadly people while they're having nightmares.


AakHHGGGgghHNnnHhh! ouch

Well, don't say we didn't warn you. Anna Paquin is always hovering carelessly around killers, isn't she? Whether they be clawed or fanged. The girl can't help it.

The X-Men movie franchise was launched 10 years ago in July 2000 and I watched it again last week with the intention of celebrating it with lots of prurient screencaps of Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romijn and some discussion about the casting for X-Men: First Class (2011) aka Muppet Mutant Babies or "it's time for yet another reboot" but the time got away from me, it did. But better late than never for a couple of observations.

In some ways the original X-Men is a tentative mediocre movie: the budget limitations are obvious, Halle Berry is as lost as you remembered (though Storm is a strangely minor character), and the central evil plot is just dumb. But in other ways it's undervalued.

It makes smart choices about narrowing its focus for a first film (centering on Wolverine & Rogue) and the one character it totally reimagines -- that'd be Mystique -- is a major success.


What's more director Bryan Singer actually makes use of the widescreen in his mise-en-scène sometimes. Too few filmmakers do, just shoving everything into the center of the frame or shooting everything in relentless close-up. Even action sequences are shot with a preference for close-ups these days (see Inception for an up-to-the-minute example) but, much like musical numbers, they're more memorable and coherent when they include whole bodies in the frame.
And even if some of Singer's tricks get a bit repetitive, such as the out of focus introduction of characters in the background, they're aesthetically pleasing.

X-Men was lensed by Newton Thomas Sigel, who is Singer's constant collaborator. This is my favorite shot in the whole movie, Wolverine lost in the X-Mansion, bewildered by the new sites.


Isn't that a beauty narratively speaking? And Jackmanically speaking?

P.S. The Film Experience will be back tomorrow with Craig's Take Three column. I'll personally be scarcer than usual in the next week (off-web deadlines) but there will still be daily postings. We'll figure it out. We just keep putting it out there even though we don't have the recuperative powers of Logan/Wolverine. We sure could use them.

Red Carpet: Blood Suckers and Beauties

It's that time again. A random selection of actresses that were out and about last week. You can always interpret "random" to mean: people Nathaniel wants to say something about.

pics reworked from originals at Zimbio and Just Jared

Anna Paquin.
Who knew when she was hyperventilating onstage at the '93 Oscars that she'd make good as an adult star, too? She never found a film role as magical as her debut (The Piano) but her career suddenly has new life, courtesy of the undead (True Blood). And she looks pretty good in a cheongsam too. That Globe win didn't convince Emmy to bite but they've long had a history of ignoring younger actresses (Claire Danes' immortal portrayal of "Angela Chase" didn't win) and snubbing women in genre shows altogether (Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy, Mary McDonnell's President Roslyn... Gillian Anderson's Agent Scully was the exception to the rule). Emmy prefers their women fully matured and working the procedurals as cops, doctors, detectives or lawyers. That's just the way it is.

Jamie Campbell Bower
I loved hearing him sing in Sweeney Todd (even though it did make Depp & Bonham-Carter sound even shakier) but I assumed he'd disappear, the movies not always having suitable employment for 'a mere slip of a girlie boy' (Thank you Hedwig, the ever quotable). But employed he is. He's in the next Twilight film as a glittery bloodsucker and he has a key flashback role in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows two-parter as "Gellert Grindelwald". That's the wizard that Dumbledore was entangled with in his youth (in more ways than one apparently given the posthumous "outing"). Would that Rowling had had the guts to out Dumbledore while the books were still running.

Alfre Woodard
Just didn't want you to forget about her. No movies on horizon. Only one TV film. I would totally watch a series w/ Woodard in the lead role (provided it wasn't a procedural). Who's with me?

Katharine Heigl
She's beautiful and apparently tasty, too ---- >

Though I find Grey's Anatomy insufferable on multiple levels, Heigl's Izzie was the one among the dozens of completely obnoxious characters that I could get into. Not that Izzie wasn't obnoxious. But the performance was good and when performances are good who cares about whether or not the character has a pleasing personality? Heigl's transfer to bigger screens felt effortless too. So I guess I'm a little bit of an admirer if not quite a fan yet. The Ugly Truth will probably be a huge hit when it opens (people love that 'men are from mars / women are from venus' shtick) but the trailer indicates that the plot takes a detour into Cyrano de Bergerac-land with Gerard Butler playing Cyrano to Heigl's Christian as she tries to win her own Roxanne (Eric Winter) and that is beyond ridiculous. Why would KATHERINE HEIGL need help with that?

P.S. Hate the new hair. In my humble opinion only one person alive was ever meant to be equally beautiful with all the hair colors in the world and that person is Linda Evangelista.

Melissa Leo
This is a paparazzi snap from the set of The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg. She's so "Flo" here [Tangent: Diane Ladd is awesome. Discuss]. I bet Melissa smiles this enthusiastically every day in this post Frozen River world. It must feel good to be suddenly in demand at 48. The Fighter is her 11th (11th!) film since the miracle year of 2008. You'll see her in Hilary Swank's Amelia follow-up Betty Anne Waters (more on that here) as well .

Lynn Collins
I'm still trying to erase her complete blandness in X-Men Origins: Wolverine from mind. It's blocking my view of the rest of her career which seems more interesting: True Blood, The Merchant of Venice... "RC" in Bug (points for that). Besides, it's probably not fair to judge anyone solely on Wolverine. Even Hugh Jackman was less than Hugh Jackman, you know? Next up for Lynn: playing busty "Dejah Thoris" in John Carter of Mars. The clothes averse character and the eager actress I've paired to your left. On going naked for Allure, Collins proclaims...

Women with confidence in their bodies are the sexiest thing, so I put on my cape of courage and did it. It was quite liberating!

I know I've mentioned the film a few times already and it doesn't even start filming until 2010 but I used to stare at those Mars book covers a lot as a child. I'm curious about the movie for multiple reasons not the least of which is Pixar's Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo and WALL•E) directing live action.
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True Bite

While some people were enjoying the sunshine last weekend I was holed up with Joe having a True Blood marathon (I'm not much for sunshine). Now, that it's on DVD have you caught up with it yet?


Art of the Title Sequence investigated its NSFW opening titles last year which I still can't get enough of. I couldn't ever fast forward. I love how the credits shove religiosity, carnality and base nature into a crammed pot, boil them down to their base essences (remarkably similar as it turns out!) and mix them into a trashy stew... just like the show. ♫ "I wanna do bad things to you" I'd only seen the first few episodes before and the show never got any less obvious about what some saw as its awkward / obvious political sexual metaphors but as it turns out it didn't need to. Good trash is good trash. Trash that has campy knowing fun with its awkward flailing at message and meaning? I'll take it. The second season starts June 14th.

<--- Robert Pattison on the set of New Moon

The vampire mythology has always readjusted itself to suit current preoccupations and we've definitely moved back into the realm of the romantic vampire. The romantic undead was missing for awhile -- see 2006's vampire blog-a-thon -- but he's returned defanged. The traditional romantic/erotic vampire has been replaced by the romantic/sexless vampire. Twilight bores me stiff, like rigor mortis stiff, but a lot of people of all ages love its weird asexuality... which... though I'm no social theorist, I'm guessing is a natural result of the past decade of purity rings, abstinence fever and attacks against sex-ed. But it's strange (to me at least) that the TeenBeat style sexuality isn't just for tweens and newly hormonal teens anymore.

The recent television upfronts have revealed that we'll be getting more Twilight style PG vampirism with The Vampire Diaries which is also about a beautiful high school girl falling for the mysterious undead classmate who initially resists her. How much do you have to change something to avoid lawsuits?



Not much apparently!

I assume that a lot of this teen vampire craze sprung from the influential and totally brilliant Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy may have also been a high schooler but you know what they say: some people mature faster than others.

Thank god there's True Blood for a randy bloody counterpoint to the wildly popular but anemic teenage vampire craze. For all the dreamy eyed romanticism of the Bill (Stephen Moyer) & Sookie (Anna Paquin) relationship on True Blood, it also feels just as sexually dangerous as it should. I mean loving the undead... that should be a little frightening, not just mushy. That scene late in the first season where Bill emerges from the earth and mounts an initially terrified Sookie? That was dirty... in both senses of the word.

Will True Blood get any cinematic company or will Twilight ripoffs completely take over in the next few years? Surburban Vampire has a huge list of upcoming undead titles and the answer seems to be neither. Most of the new vampire films seem to be horror or action related like...

• High Midnight -a period piece and vampire western which the always welcome Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist, Valkyrie) was initially rumored to be starring in as a vampire hunter.
  
• Daybreakers a scifi horror take which frankly sounds more like a zombie film. Most of the human race has gone bloodsucker. With Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke (who look quite clean and fresh for people fighting for their lives in a horror film.)
• Last Blood epic war between zombies vs. vampires with the vamps out to protect their food source, humans
  
• Dark Shadows in development (previously discussed here)
  

Now if only someone would make Lost Souls into a movie so we'd have a queer entry in the crowded vampiric canon.
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True Blood

How many of you tuned in to the debut of HBO's new Alan Ball series True Blood ?

First episodes aren't always predictive of entire series... so much of the rhythm, tone and even basic identity of television properties tends to emerge about halfway through the first season -- or even, in the case of many network series, the second season. So, one episode isn't much to go on but I liked True Blood's mix of interspecies fascination and fear (vampires have "come out of their coffins" before the series begins and they're already targets for sexual fantasies, violent exploitations, and all purpose scapegoating) as well as its heightened Southern white trash flare. It takes place in New Orleans and there's quite a bit of swampy heat in the production: and I'm not just talking about the sex scenes or the buff bodies of the flamboyant bawdy line cook "Lafayette" and local bad boy stud "Jason". I'm talking about the cinematography and the makeup and all the sweating. They're definitely trying to get their humid Big Easy vibe down. [trailer]

The cast, led by Anna Paquin as Sookie, seem to be having fun pushing the outer edges of their showy roles --particularly Rutina Wesley as her extremely short fuse best friend and Ryan Kwanten as Sookie's horny brother. So far the vampires, other than lead bloodsucker Stephen Moyer (dude, it's not polite to stare), don't have much of a presence but I'm sure that will change. Anna Paquin has as many uncomfortable facial tics as Claire Danes but for whatever reason I'm OK with that here... though it does lead me to wonder if there's something about very young 90s stars growing into adult actresses that makes them so extremely fussy/jittery in closeup. Does being stared at since you're a young teen cause one to be eternally uncomfortable in one's own skin or is this mere coincidence?


The only review I've read of True Blood at this point was in Entertainment Weekly. While their complaints seem valid, they also swerve towards the nitpicky... not that there's anything wrong with that (he adds quickly to avoid hypocrisy). But it gives me pause. EW has been sounding the trumpets for Twilight, the fall's other big screen vampire debut, for months and at ear shattering decible levels no less... all without any idea as to its quality. One hopes that when it does arrive they'll set aside their own drunk with power hype-machine tendencies and subject it to the same level of scrutiny.
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The Piano (1993)

A Reader Request (long time in coming --my apologies Scott!)
#9 Personal Canon: The Movies I Think About When I Think About the Movies

The menu on the 1999 DVD edition of The Piano is a hideously misleading photoshop tragedy. It’s garish, poorly composed and off putting. I won't even reprint it here to illustrate my point. It's too horrifying. I dare say I’ve never seen a poorer match between a menu and the film that follows. It’s the last less than exquisite image one will see once “play movie” is selected. If you’ve never seen the film before and you (like me) have been burdened with the unwitting purchase or rental of this particular edition, press the buttons quickly.

On to the beauty! There's so much of it...

Like mother, like daughter (Anna Paquin & Holly Hunter in The Piano)

I saw The Piano in Salt Lake City in November 1993 and I’ve never forgotten the experience. The movie held me in rapt attention from its first stirring images and Holly Hunter's high pitched but quiet delivery of one of the greatest opening monologues I'd ever heard

The voice you're hearing is not my speaking voice but my mind's voice...

I remember my best girlfriend’s hand gripping my arm during the most brutal sequence late in the movie. She was so upset she nearly bolted from her seat. I vividly remember exiting the theater after the credits rolled, both of us in a daze. We knew we’d seen something great but what exactly had we seen? Watching The Piano for the first time can feel like confronting a gorgeous but alien presence. It’s utterly transporting but also unfamiliar. Your rational mind will tell you that this shouldn’t be the case. But deeply sensual films are uncommon. What’s more, films shot through with feminine mystique, energies and point of view are arguably the rarest forms of cinema. The Piano stood womanly and defiant and far removed from other films that came before it and sadly, perhaps, has remained a foreign thing. It's still a rarity.

Jane Campion’s masterpiece, with its eerily beautiful New Zealand landscapes (before Lord of the Rings popularized the place for Hollywood) and bold femininity, felt otherworldly in 1993 but like all truly great art, it proved unusually accessible despite the challenging gauntlet it threw down. It was a major arthouse and critical success, loved by both the intelligentsia and the more middlebrow Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Before it closed its run it had won eight Oscar nominations, three statues, a sizeable box office gross for the time and a passionate enduring following.

The film begins with a curiously fuzzy image. The next cut reveals it as a POV shot: we’re looking through the fingers of Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) who is partially covering her eyes... from what we’re not sure. The camera doesn't stay subservient to Ada's point of view but rather begins to study her, this curious mute creature. Hunter's fascinating performance, incongruously both stony and expressive, demands it...

READ THE REST...
Return and discuss if you have something to say.

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Coming Soon #11: "Margaret"

Coming Soon But Not Soon Enough
#11 Margaret (Fox Searchlight. No release date announced yet.)

Margaret, the new film from missing-in-action writer/director Kenneth Lonergan may well be the most hotly anticipated film of 2006 for two sets of moviegoers: The first group is the rabid fans of the fine 2000 sibling drama You Can Count On Me. The second might be The Piano (1993) junkies (you know who they/you are) desperately waiting for Anna Paquin to play something other than a mutant or a Lolita-esque sex object for a change --just to see if she has any more greatness in her. It has to suck to peak at the precocious age of eleven, so let's hope she does. Have more greatness in her, I mean.

I must confess that when I first saw Lonergan's feature debut You Can Count On Me I didn't love it the way I do now. It was clear then that it was a solid drama and well written but it's lack of cinematic pizazz must have obscured it's greatness for me. I was a little surprised to see it on virtually every top ten list annnounced that year. But it definitely holds up well to repeat viewings and, more importantly, it grows more emotionally affecting in memory.

Margaret concerns a young woman who witnesses a traffic accident that sends her into an emotional tailspin. If Lonergan's second feature is anywhere close to as finely rendered and performed as his first, Paquin may finally be topping her uncanny brilliance as Holly Hunter's mischievous mouthpiece child in 1993. This is not to imply that Margaret is a one woman show. The large supporting cast includes Matt Damon (this is but one of three prestige dramas he's in this year. busy guy.), Mark Ruffalo, Keiran Culkin, Jean Reno, J Smith Cameron, Allison Janney, and Matthew Broderick.

tags: Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Margaret, drama, Mark Ruffalo

previous "coming soons": The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Zodiac, and Bug

X-Men 3,4,5,6,7: The Last Stand

I know I'm late on this. But in regards to the newest X-Men 3: The Last Stand trailer. Methinks they are biting off far more than they can chew. Far more than even the Blob could chew.

It certainly looks appealing for the comic geek and mutant fan within me. But trying to combine three or so epic storylines from the comics --a gene cure, Dark Phoenix, political pressure to smack down on mutants (which usually leads to something they call "Sentinels" though this trailer shows no signs that they've gone that far into the comic's lengthy mythology) gives me great pause. And adding what looks to be about 9 new characters --even if some of them are mere cameos. Really. You wanna do that?

I fear outright disaster. Pretty disaster but still...


Remember when Batman Returns in the interest of upping the ante introduced 3 villains (definitely one too many). It was so terrific visually and Keaton and Pfeiffer had such hot/weird chemistry but the movie was freaking cluttered plotwise. Yeah, that problem seems a given here: the interesting stuff getting shortshrift.

This is not NewYork X-Menanderplatz. They gotta fit this into 2 and a 1/2 hours, don't they? I worry but I pray they prove me wrong. I loved X2. I hope to love X3.

Which 20something Actress Are You?

I actually made this one. I kept taking the quizzes so why not create...

You scored as Anna Paquin. You were precocious as a child but you managed to steer clear of the attention-whore tendencies of those with early success and fawning. Good for you: You're happy in the ensemble.

Which 20-something Actress Are You?
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