The Freshlink 15

<--- USA Today Zoinks. It's the first official pics of Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. ♥
Journalistic Skepticism Luke reviews the entire 1990s in Best Actress. I'd do this myself if I didn't have 141 other ongoing movie projects to worry about. I'm overscheduled, I am. [Sigh]
The Big Picture M. Night Shyamalan thinks that the cynical view of his career (that his movies are getting worse and worse) will be "eradicated" by history. Even more alarming: he says he would kill himself if he thought his movies were getting worse. Oh M. Night. Self awareness and self critique is necessary to growth as an artist. If you think you're incapable of bad work, you're bound to do bad work.
Some Came Running Ellen Page is an early riser.
Towleroad I'm incredibly disappointed in writer/director Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex, Happy Endings) and his comments on gay actors playing straight "distracting." He wins some points by using straights playing gays as his prime examples of this off-sexuality distraction (I mean, if you're going to be stupid about what acting is, be stupid in both directions! Thanks) but his own words are so hypocritical since he always has gay characters in his movies and always hires straight actors to play them. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies and the gay community is certainly proof of that in the movie business.
Lazy Circle on The Atlantic's piece on celebrity scandal, tougher on women (like Lindsay Lohan) than men (Mel Gibson). I can't get behind any piece (The Atlantic's) that calls Elizabeth Taylor a joke, though. La Liz is legendary. Those who laugh at her have very little understanding of her epic wing in Hollywood's mansion.
I Need My Fix shares a Goop item, a heartfelt piece from Bryce Dallas Howard on post-partum depression
Serious Film Come back Charlie Kauffman


off cinema
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing on event television and a real life event. A must read.
Playbill Barack Obama's tribute to Broadway. Love the Mel Brooks quote that musicals "blow the dust off your soul."
Backstage|Blogstage Maybe the all things Mad Men fever has finally jumped the shark... or at least driven over someone's foot with a lawnmower. Of of my favorite recurring bit players has posed for Playboy recreating old 60s pinups.
Movie|Line Have you been reading the Emmy Spotlight here? It's fun. I had totally forgotten about that Gossip Girl themed 30 Rock episode. When I die I want to leave something in my will for Jane Krakowski because she's given me so much raucous laughter in my life.

daily Inception freakout
EW's Owen Gleiberman says he doesn't "get" Inception. And then proceeds to describe it in thorough detail indicating that he totally got it but just didn't like it very much. Yet his constant "I didn't get it" apologetic refrains invite everyone -- sometimes literally -- to disregard his points. Who does Owen Gleiberman think he is? A Democratic politician. Find your backbone!
FourFour Rich (who hated the movie) has a conversation with a friend (who loved it). It's all very interesting but even Rich, who is totz brilliant, falls for the "didn't get it" hedging, before saying lots of smart things indicating that he got it.


I still sorta like the movie (I initially gave it a B and this intermittently glowing review) but the things I did dislike about it such as the entire character of Ariadne (Ellen Page), the literal mindedness of a dream movie, and the direction/editing of some of the action sequences keep bothering me and the things I liked about it (the 'man as builder' vertical aesthetic, the team dynamic, the zero gravity bits, the f/x, the Tom Hardy) aren't totally compensating.

My point is this: I'm glad that someone made a movie that is inspiring this much discussion but I will yet be driven mad by the dynamic of weird hyperbole vs. embarassed apologies embedded in seemingly all Inception conversations. I am sending Nolan my next therapy bill.

Finally
Have you tried this "35 Movies in 2 Minutes" short? It's whimsic-hypnotic but I have to admit I didn't even get half of them on the first run through. Try it.

35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

Dream a Little Massive Dream with Nolan

Summer isn't generally the season of auteur flicks and INCEPTION is the exception that proves the rule. It stands out. If it's not the best mainstream movie of the summer (Toy Story 3 already won the title), it wins the prize for most ambitious. Christopher Nolan first won critical adulation with Memento (2000) and he's proven remarkably consistent ever since. His bulky busy movies are always about men with personal demons in conflict with other men with personal demons (female characters are mere window dressing) who have to navigate an often mind-bending narrative while wearing what amounts to a pop psychology exoskeleton. (See also: The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Insomnia.)

Inception is a tough film to describe and occasionally to follow. The multi-layered plot involves a team of dream infiltrators who are hired by corporations to steal ideas, the theory being that once you know something, it can always be found in your mind. The sci-fi premise is complicated as is the business of dream theft. Whole teams with specific roles and skill sets are required. You have to have "The Point Man" (Joseph Gordon Levitt) for logistics, "The Extractor" (Leonardo DiCaprio) to steal the idea, "The Architect"(Ellen Page) to design the dream world in maze like fashion (for reasons best left to discover in the movie), "The Forger" (Tom Hardy) who can shape shift within the dream for strategic purposes and still more players, too. A lot of explanation is required to understand the complex set of rules governing this artificial dream world but thankfully it's fascinating enough to mitigate the annoyance of the near constant intrusion of expository dialogue. One would immediately welcome a sequel that could dispense with all the explanations to get straight to the big visuals and suspense...

Tom Hardy has a big gun as Inception's MVP

Read the rest of my review @ Towleroad.

We'll surely talk more about the movie as more of you see it over the weekend.

And we'll also have to delve into Oscar dreams and critical nightmares. But see the movie first. In its corner: it's totally worthy of discussion which is why the discussion-killing 'my opinion is awesome and all others are wrong' rhetoric around the web is so extra sad. This type of coverage, which is ironically attempting to raise the film up, is actually doing it a great disservice since Nolan offers plenty to discuss and argue about.
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Seventeen Years, Several Inches

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JA from MNPP here, with a fun factoid for y'all: Seventeen years ago on this day Lorena Bobbitt took matters into her own hands... and by "matters" I mean "her husband's penis" and by "her own hands" I mean "her own hands holding a carving knife." The rest is infamous tabloid history - the throwing of the severed member out a car window, the trial, the adult film Frankenpenis... sordid, so very sordid.

But an anniversary is a time to celebrate, not to judge, so here in its dubious honor are my five favorite castration scenes - favorite is such a relative term here, by the way - from films since the Bobbitt incident happened in 1993. (Actually strangely enough all these films are from the past 5 years.) Enjoy, with or without your hands protecting your nethers (I recommend with).


Sin City - Hartigan (Bruce Willis) literally rips The Yellow Bastard (Nick Stahl)'s yellow bastard-stick off with his bare hands. Manliness!


Hard Candy - Pretty people like Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson should not partake in antics as confoundedly cruel as this exercise proves. Just be pretty, people! A peck of pickled peckers Ellen Page has picked.


Hostel: Part II - The sequel that everybody loves to hate to the original film that everybody loves to hate basically ends its female-sided saga with an explicit castration gag. You know what they say - make 'em leave the theater with a laugh! Ha ha ugh.


Teeth - It's true! Vagina dentata! Vagina dentata! Vagina dentata! (Sidenote: the wonderful character actor Josh Pais, seen there above about to utter those memorable lines, just had a birthday on Monday! Everybody wish him a long healthy manhood.)


Antichrist - A little something for the ladies! Lars Von Trier's always got a little something for the ladies. If by "something" I mean "everything awful ever thought, captured so prettily," and obviously I mean just that. Heady times...
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Ellen Page: Will Inception and Freeheld Allow Her To Shine?

Regular readers may have gleaned that I have a growing fondness for Ellen Page. The fondness isn't overtly displayed but that's basically a matter of caution. Young obviously talented stars can have inexplicably short careers and young obviously untalented stars can have inexplicably long ones and you just never can tell. That's why it's safer to love actresses of a certain age and depth of filmography. If you can survive a good dozen years in the Hollywood rapids with all the tossing about, you're probably in it for as long as you have the stamina for it.

Too often Page is connected with Juno (2007), her starmaking role, and because that film is so divisive, she tends to be. Once the fog of Juno dissipates (let's give it one more year) people will probably wake up to the fact that she isn't that pregnant smartass. She was just very smart about how to walk in her shoes and find her voice.

If more people had seen Whip It (2009) they'd already know that Juno was neither fluke nor prison. Page can carry a film and shift to accommodate a different character without any visible strain. That's the mark of a confident charismatic actor, if not always a sure sign of inevitable A List stardom.

I don't think anyone fully knows Page's screen persona yet... including Ellen Page. That's an exciting thing -- particularly since Ellen herself seems eager to experiment with her image -- provided Hollywood comes through with roles that challenge her and tease that star identity out. As a movie star isn't she still in larva stage?

It's one of the reasons I think about her with caution. I have no idea who advised her to be that spokesperson for Cisco but a ubiquitous endorsement deal near the beginning of your acting career seems like a decision made with only short term goals in mind. Endorsements can raise your profile but they don't do a lot for conceptions about your gifts (if anything they detract) and they definitely don't increase audience affection. Commercials, especially those which air frequently, tend to bring irritation. Will anyone ever look at Justin Long and not think of "I'm a Mac". And isn't it a crying shame that people are far more likely to think of T-Mobile when they think of Catherine Zeta-Jones than they are to think of the Oscar winning role that directly preceded that deal? By all means make money with your celebrity but big noisy endorsement deals aren't a good idea unless you're wrapping up your movie stardom.

Page is one of several members of Young Hollywood's elite that people have held up as a casting possibility for David Fincher's version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2012). Varying reports tell us 'no, he'll go with an unknown' or 'it's definitely Carey Mulligan' or 'Kristen Stewart for the box office!' or what have you. Those rumors will keep rotating until some lucky girl signs the contract. Though I'd love to see Ellen try her hand at action, I doubt that that coveted role will land in her lap.


Next up for Ellen is Chris Nolan's Inception (pictured above). Page's role looks fairly large but I doubt it will be anything like a game changer. The cast is huge, Nolan tends to focus on the men in his movies and her role -- again just judging on promotional materials -- doesn't seem particularly interesting. I suspect she's the audience proxy... i.e. a structural device more than a character. You know the kind. Complicated stories with deeper than usual mythologies or concepts often require an outsider character to help the audience along. You can find countless examples in film or television of this template. The outsider is brought into a world they don't understand and the insiders (everyone else) explain and show the world/situation/plot to them and in so doing explain and show it to the audience watching. Whether or not the film lives up to expectations, what it will do for her career is an entirely different question.

But never mind all that because she's just signed on for Freeheld. That should keep our imaginations about her cinematic future occupied for now.

Freeheld is the true story of Laurel, a veteran detective who died of cancer. After diagnosis and with the knowledge of how little time she had left, she attempted to transfer her earned pension over to her life partner Stacie. Her elected officials wouldn't allow for it. So began a heated contemporary civil rights struggle in New Jersey. Sadly, the story will surely still resonate by the time the film arrives, whenever that will be, because such a vocal conservative portion of Americans still support discriminatory practices against their fellow citizens.

The real Laurel and Stacie in Freeheld (2007)

Page will play Stacie, the mechanic girlfriend. It's an interesting choice for the actress given the rumors that have swirled around her own sexuality. Page's arguably butch energy could be fascinating in this fresh context. She's done thrillers, sports films, scifi and comedies. A dramatic political movie with a romantic anchor sounds, if artistically successful, like a sure bet to help audiences and Hollywood to see her with fresh eyes. It could even be an Oscar film. The Academy loves a good social issues movie and the documentary won the industry's top prize.

Ron Nyswaner is writing the screenplay. While he's most famous for writing Philadelphia (for which he was Oscar nominated) we can only hope that he'll get at something deeper and less two dimensional than an Issue Movie. It's always hard to know if any movie's screenplay has been undermined or abetted by the other elements: acting, directing and executive decisions can significantly alter any screenplay. But I'm hoping that the relationship heart of this film will be a lot closer in quality to another film he wrote, The Painted Veil. That film, roundly ignored in the annual glut of December releases in its year, succeeded in churning up complicated emotions and true depth of feeling.

There's no word yet on which actress will play the Laurel role but one assumes it'll be hotly contested. At the very least she'll need great chemistry with Page. Laurel was nearly 50 years old when she died (Stacie was younger) and there's plentiful 40-50something actresses that'd be wise to start fighting for it. And besides... what woman wouldn't want to wrap her legs around Ellen Page in friendship?

How does Ellen Page strike you as an actress or star? Which older actress would you love to see paired with her? And if you've seen the Freeheld documentary (unfortunately I haven't), please speak up.
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Top Ten: Actresses For the New Decade

Tuesday Top Ten: for the list maker in me and the list lover in you

We spend a lot of time with the older ladies here at TFE -- the working legends as the case may be. So for a change of pace, some quality time with the young and still-rising. What follows is a list of the ten whose next decade on screen we're most intrigued to watch develop. The cut off for this list was 33 years of age because starting right about there... well, that's a HUGE time for actresses (many win Oscars or give career defining performances at 33/34). Let's look at the actresses who haven't reached that important time yet.

10 Actresses (Under 33) Whose Next Decade We Eagerly Await

disclaimer: This list includes English language actresses only since American distribution of foreign films is so problematic. It can be hard to follow full careers but we could definitely use more Ludivine Sagnier (30), Tang Wei (30) and Ok-bin Kim (23) in our lives.

runners up: Abbie Cornish (27) must prove that Bright Star wasn't a fluke; Anna Kendrick (24) needs to do a musical comedy; Saoirse Ronan (15) we actually expect she'll be more crucial to the decade after this; Zooey Deschanel (30) needs to branch out from or subvert that Whimsical Love Interest rut; Kerry Washington (32) it's not too late Hollywood -- CAST HER NOW!; Zoe Saldana (31) will that double blockbuster year lead to anything substantial?; Maggie Gyllenhaal (32) if and only if she recaptures that Happy Endings/Secretary edge; Keira Knightley (25) but only if she wows in a modern piece soon; Mia Wasikowska (20) a flavor of the year or in the for the long haul?; Romola Garai (27) did we see the depth we thought we saw in Atonement? It's hard to tell; Perversely, we're excluding An Education's Carey Mulligan (24) from the following list because we laid it on a little thick about her future the other day. *backing away slowly*


10 AMANDA SEYFRIED (24)
Gets more beautiful every year. How is this possible? And she's still a few years away from the age of "canonical beauty" and still a decade away from the peak years of Actressing.
Trouble spot: Coasting on beauty. With her beauty that'll be tempting. (See: Mamma Mia!)
What we'd love to see: The return of her Mean Girls comedic timing. But until then, an erotic thriller Chloe sounds like a smart diversion.

9 ARI GRAYNOR (27)
After stealing Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist out from under its adorable leads with the power of pure hilarity, she wowed from the sidelines of Whip It and then stole entire chunks of Holy Rollers, too. With all this Grand Theft Movie, someone really ought to hand her a lead role and let her fight off hungry supporting players instead of the other way around.
Trouble spot: They haven't really made movies about funny girls in quite a long while. Hollywood wants its Romantic Comedy leads more Cute than Gut-Busting and the girls in male driven comedy are just window dressing rather than comediennes in their own right. She needs her own What's Up, Doc? But they don't make those!
What we'd love to see: A lead role, period. Or a killer "funny" supporting role in a serious movie, like the one Anna Kendrick landed for Up in the Air.

8 ELLEN PAGE (23)
People are fond of hating on Juno so if you're one of those types, direct your hate her way. See, if she hadn't been so damn good in it, nobody but nobody would've cared. Whip It proved again that she's more than capable of carrying and elevating a film. We worry about Inception ...by which we mean her part in it (Chris Nolan is great at many things... but hasn't shown any particular skill with actresses) and we worry that Page won't have the fortitude to be herself (if you don't like dresses don't girlie it up for the red carpet... pants never hurt the stardom of Hepburn or Dietrich) and being yourself is really the only way to make a concrete and lasting mark.
Trouble spot: Ubiquitous endorsement deal. Those are great for bank but bad for acting careers (see: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Scarlett Johansson)
What we'd love to see: An auteur using her as muse.



7 NATALIE PORTMAN (28)
I almost left Queen Amidala off of this list on the grounds that we might have seen it all already. She's already been in our lives for 15 years. But then, taking a look at her upcoming filmography which includes Darren Aronofsky's cool-sounding ballet thriller Black Swan and the potentially awesome / potentially disastrous Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2011) Natalie looks to be taking her share of risks. She may be ruling the screen far better than she ever ruled her tiny corner of the Empire.
Trouble spot: Tends to bore in f/x epics. Keeps doing them. Thor is also on the way.
What we'd love to see: Black Swan. Right. Now.

6 DAKOTA FANNING (16)
In truth there aren't a lot of good roles out there for teenagers. Plus, Dakota doesn't seem all that likely as a candidate for high school comedies. But even at 6 she seemed preternaturally wise so was there ever any danger that she couldn't transition from child to adult star? That said, is she trying to transition too soon with her work in The Runaways (sex scenes, drug use, etcetera)? Whatever, she's completely watchable in it. And you have to be completely watchable for long-term stardom.
Trouble spot: Natural ability isn't everything and if she coasts on it rather than pushes herself to mature as an actor...
What we'd love to see: A mother/daughter drama with a formidable actress as co-star.


5 ROSAMUND PIKE (31)
"Books?" Pike was doing so much for An Education's decadent trajectory as the dim adoptive sister type "Helen" and she was doing it so very differently than she did the lovely sister act in Pride & Prejudice that we want to see how far her versatility goes.
Trouble spot: People who do great work in thankless roles, don't always get thanked (hence the adjective).
What we'd love to see: Joe Wright dump Keira Knightley as muse and focus on Rosamund. (Are they ever getting married or are they kaput? I can't keep up with these things)

4 MICHELLE WILLIAMS (29)
She's made such a potent dramatic mark in cinema that people barely mention Dawson's Creek anymore. Which is quite a feat if you think about it. She's terrific in the upcoming marital disintegration drama Blue Valentine (2010) she but that probably doesn't surprise you to hear after the tears she wrung as an emotionally paralyzed wife in Brokeback Mountain (2005) and a lost drifter in Wendy & Lucy (2008).
Trouble spot: Being seen as relentlessly dour and one-note given the heavy filmography.
What we'd love to see: A spiky comedy as palate cleanser. We know she can do it (see Dick, 1999)

3 EMILY BLUNT (27)
Is she a great work-in-progress or a limited beauty? She can play earnest period (The Young Victoria), brutal comedy (The Devil Wears Prada) and dangerous sexuality (Summer of Love) with nearly equal aplomb. But can she do more than one thing at once? All the greats can and that's exactly what's missing in her filmography: the signature role that brings all her parts together with a big starry ka-boom!
Trouble spot: Potential overexposure. She survived The Wolfman just fine (no really, she did) but did she need to do it in the first place? Not every role is right for the hot actress of the moment and you don't want to end up like Scarlett Johansson (renowned for beauty and suddenly not respected much as an actress despite some early displays of skill)
What we'd love to see: Her turn as The Black Widow in Iron... oh, damn!

2 REBECCA HALL (27)
A lot of the actresses on this list have been hot for some time. At least of few of them will have peaked by now, dashing our hopes at a richer decade to come. Not so with Rebecca who was so sympathetic in The Prestige, so humorously put-out in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, so arm candy in Frost/Nixon and so self-effacing in Please Give. In short, we literally can't imagine that she's already peaked.
Trouble spot: No defined persona. That can be an asset but sometimes casting directors want you to stay in your box.
What we'd love to see: Anything.


1 ANNE HATHAWAY (27)
We love. Simple as that. And more every year, too.
Trouble spots: As if.
What we'd love to see: Everything she'd like to show us. And definitely another performance as masterful as that Rachel Getting Married turn.
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What's your list look like? Loving actresses is for everyone so share it and comment on this one. You know what to do.
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Yes, No, Maybe So: Inception and Knight and Day

Rather than ignore trailers in 2010, The Film Experience is joining the conversation. But we're not falling for that OMG! IT'LL BE AWESOME trap. It's all about managing expectations since any film could be great or terrible and most are somewhere inbetween.



Inception, opening July 16th, is Chris Nolan's follow up to The Dark Knight starring Leonardo DiCaprio as some sort of idea thief, Ellen Page as some sort of telep -- well, her mind or her imagination is involved somehow (it's confusing. Yay!). When I met Joseph Gordon-Levitt last month I asked him who most of his scenes were with and he wouldn't say a word. Not a word. They're hiding details. Good for them.


Yes. The city curving up on itself is an interesting image but if I have to pick the one moment in the trailer that gets to me in a charged "I want to see this!"way is that backwards seated dive into a bathtub with the incongruous overlay of all that girlie "WAKE ME UP!" shrieking. Chills.

That and Leo drowning brings back happy memories.


No. Why are 78% of all action movies filmed with minor variations on the steel blue palette. For decades now. Filters come in all colors.


Maybe So. I love my mind to be blown as much as the next person, but that's harder and harder for filmmakers to do in this age of give-the-whole-movie-away pre-release buildup. I love that this trailer doesn't over explain (or even explain) the movie. But it's only the second teaser. I suspect there'll be at least 3 more, each more expository than the last. Can they keep the mystery intact enough to blow our minds? The trailer is skillfully tipping and turning its images in the promise that the movie will be dizzying.




Knight and Day, which opens in time for the 4th of July box office party stars Tom Cruise as a dangerously glib killing machine and Cameron Diaz as a confused woman who doesn't seem to know him but is continually thrust into his comic action messes.


Yes*. Seeing Cameron Diaz screaming in a dangerously swerving car within a trailer for a Tom Cruise movie reminds me of the only thing I liked about the disastrous Vanilla Sky (2000): Cameron Diaz screaming while dangerously swerving her car right off the road... with Tom Cruise in it. I think her histrionics in that earlier movie were skillfully modulated.

*I'm stretching. This trailer. Yikes.


No. Ambidextrous gun slinging is as tired a movie cliche as "cool guys don't look at explosions" both are "this is kickass!" shortcuts. And I, for one, ain't having it no mo'. Where is the filmmaker willing to think up a new "this is kickass!" action movie trope? Loved Avatar but a thrilling leaping off a cliff onto the back of a flying dragon isn't going to transfer so well to other movies.


Maybe So. Four or five years ago if Peter Sarsgaard invited me to jump in a car, I'd totally be all "SHOTGUN!" Now, I'm hesitant since he only plays creepy guys. On the other hand, Carey Mulligan just took him up on it and look what she got: a trip to Paris and mucho Oscar buzz.

So...

...jump in the car?

What's your verdict?
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Katey and Nathaniel Don't Have Funny Skating Names

So, it turns out Katey has actually been to the Roller Derby so she knows of what she speaks when it comes to Drew Barrymore's Whip It. Katey is so cool.

Now I've already reviewed Whip It but Katey and I hadn't seen each other in way too long (long boring offline story) so we laced up and skated from Brooklyn (Katey) and Harlem (Nathaniel) and met in the middle. That last part isn't strictly true but you can pretend that is is since we wore protective gear.



Whip It ! Y'all were so suspiciously quiet when the review hit. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

Whip It Real Good

Whip It is based on a novel about a young girl who joins the roller derby.
Whip It is not based on the classic Devo tune. But still...♫ "Whip It good!"

Girl Fight! Don't worry. Drew even uses herself as comic punching bag

For her fictional novel turned movie, writer Shauna Cross drew from her own experiences as derby girl "Maggie Mayhem" and imagined what it would have been like to discover this alternative grrrl world as a young woman. So Whip It introduces us to Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), a sad eyed highschooler who is eager to get out of BoDeen Texas and into the big city. In this particular case that's Austin, Texas, which just happens to be the spot where roller derby resurrected itself a decade ago. Bliss doesn't share her mom's (Marcia Gay Harden) tenacious dream of beauty pageants. She doesn't even exactly share her best friend's (Alia Shawkat) college plans. Bliss is basically a dreamer without a dream, until a serendipitous sighting of derby girls passing out homemade competition flyers sparks a fire inside of her.

Bliss hungrily learns everything about this new world of self-made skating "stars" like Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore) and undefeated derby champ Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). With their oversized personalities and theatrical names, it's rather easy to view all of this as an elaborate drag competition on skates...

Read the rest of my review at Towleroad
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Whip It Kiss It

Drew & Ellen K-I-S-S-I-N-G (from Marie Claire)

Nitflicky calls this the "photo of the day" but I'm more inclined to say "photo of the week" ...month?. For reals. It only makes me love Drew and Ellen more. I'm practically a straight man when it comes to girls kissing. More, please.

That said, the cover of the magazine is the typically boring airbrushed / heavily made up star portraiture. For a split second in this kissing photo (not the cover) I thought Ellen was Keira Knightley. I'll give you a moment to imagine Keira and Drew snogging.

stop it!

I'm not sure what it is exactly but I h-a-t-e seeing Ellen Page done up like any other young actress. I always feel like she wants to be makeup free and wearing pants. Did I read her pants-favoritism in an interview or am I projecting? Not every starlet needs to look the same. If you want to wear pants, wear pants. Think Katharine Hepburn and just go for it. Even on the red carpet. There are worse icons to take notes from. It seems like it's been a long time since we had a young female star who refused the typical red carpet looks.

Break free, Ellen, break free! Next time you're at an awards show, I want slacks! Or even a full suit.

<-- More cuteness from the derby girls

I'm so excited to see Whip It, I have an absurd and possibly fatalistic desire to roller skate to the theater on opening night. I blame this stupid desire on loving Xanadu during my formative years.

Xanadu can be blamed for any number of things.
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Leo, Ellen and Cillian

Is it just me or is it hard to picture these two acting together onscreen? What is it about Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page that give me that ole' oil and water feeling? They seem to be kindred spirits of drably dressed boredom in this photo so perhaps I'm wrong. Speculate with me in the comments...

via lots more photos here

The movie in question is Inception, due for a teaser trailer any second now, which is Christopher Nolan's sci-fi follow up to The Dark Knight. For all I know -- the plot is closely guarded -- they're playing brother and sister. Unlike James Cameron, who seemed spooked after Titanic, Nolan is just getting back to work. That's always the best move when you've just made a game changer. Get your follow up out of the way and bring your career back down to earth... even if you're still breathing rarefied air while touching ground.

Batman does not appear in the generically titled Inception but the cast is plum. Rising stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard (as DiCaprio's wife apparently) the enduring if never foregrounded Lukas Haas and Nolan/Batman holdovers Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe. I'm glad to see Nolan sticking by Murphy in particular who we assumed, back in 2003 when he carried 28 Days Later with such magnetism, was going to be a much bigger star by now. At the very least, he's always entirely watchable.

WHIP IT! Trailer

Yet another example of how I don't understand movie marketing at all.



I lurve this concept for a movie but the trailer feels too generic. Like a lukewarm "find yourself!" comedy. Even if it is lukewarm (it might be), you're supposed to disguise that. The way they disguise everything and sell the wrong movie constantly. Like that trailer for The Road (which is 100% ridiculous since big action setpieces and thrills is not the tone of the movie whatsoever. People will be so angry when they're watching it.)

And why the missed opportunity to have like character freeze frames and make it look raucously entertaining / funny like "Drew Barrymore is 'Smashley Simpson!'" etcetera. For the millionth time I find myself perplexed that movies spend so much money on reasonably famous people (rather than unknowns for scale) and then never mention that they're in the movie?! Eve? Juliette Lewis? Kristen Wiig? Marcia Gay Harden? You don't wanna mention their names? Weirdness.

But I still can't wait to see it.

Drag Me To Link

off-cinema
Getty Drew Barrymore and Emmy Rossum attend the reject Prop 8 rallies. I think this is the most animated I've ever seen Emmy Rossum's face. It can only mean one thing: supporting gay rights makes you a better actress!
Gawker Wikipedia cracks down on Team Scientology
Pretty on the Outside imagines a Playbill for the new Hugh Jackman / Daniel Craig Broadway outing.
World of Wonder and Gawker finally other people besides me are beginning to talk some sense about celeb du jour Adam Lambert's dumb coyness. I seriously have been annoyed at the way the gay community has been kissing his ass for months.
Just Jared Jude Law hones his Hamlet. Oh, I wish I could see it. And I'm totally sick of Hamlet.

cinema
The Rocchi Files Open Letter to Pixar (great stuff)
Lou Romano production art development for UP. Just beautiful
The Celebrity Truth Steven Spielberg's Tintin movie, with Jamie Bell in the lead is now scheduled for Christmas time 2011. Unfortunately it's a motion capture thing. Hopefully Jamie Bell will look more human than Tom Hanks did in that Polar movie
AfterEllen the hottest sporty women in sports movies or some such. Thumbs up on the high rank for "Missy Pantone" in Bring It On. But then I'm always up for Eliza Dushku.
i09 Spider-Man 4 to focus more tightly on Peter Parker
Cinematical fun piece on horror replacement actors to celebrate Alison Lohman's role in Drag Me To Hell which, as you may know, was originally Ellen Page's.

And finally, just for fun... here's a sampling of the variety of things people -- complete strangers , I just did a title search -- are tweeting about Drag Me To Hell.

Hard Candy 2

more at twiigs.com...

Scrabble People

I'm heading out to see Smart People. If you're talking "wide" releases I'm a totally star-driven ticket buyer and I love SJP and Dennis Quaid. Thomas Hayden Church and Ellen Page are fine. I'm not super hopeful but whatevs. Defamer said it best about the advertisements for Smart People

...which, judging from the preview, looks too dumb for smart people and too boring for dumb people

Exactly. But I'll go. In fact the poster reminded me that I was late making my moves on my latest games of Scrabulous on Facebook. I can't stop.

I love Scrabble, l-o-v-e. I don't care if you think that makes me nerdy. I'm actually better @ Boggle but Scrabble is more social as word-freak board games go. So here is a board I whipped up for Smart People's release. I tried to use every letter and only words that you could actually use in Scrabble and that reminded me of the movie or the stars involved...

I did end up cheating a bit. You can't really use "Meathead" in Scrabble but it described Thomas Hayden Church too well to pass up. Any sexual words that look out of place you can attribute to my impure thoughts regarding Dennis Quaid. What? Like you wouldn't.

Okay okay, nitpickers. I didn't use all the letters.


You try making words out of that.
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Why Can't I Wrap My Links Around a Blog in Friendship?

Circus Hour "an interview with Kate Hudson's ass"
The Reeler takes a good hard look at Jason Statham and his dramatic gifts. No, really
Go Fug Yourself ponders Sarah Polley at the Genie Awards
Just Jared Kate Winslet on the set of The Reader
My New Plaid Pants discovers his phantom limbs jazz hands and confesses to loving Bob Fosse. No shame in that Mister
Village Voice Michael Musto does Marilyn post Lindsay doing Marilyn.
popbytes shares the terrible news: a remake of Rosemary's Baby. Exactly what is there to improve upon? Nothing! Steer clear Hollywood
Voucher Ankles has a report about the Flix Club going out of business in Utah. I'm normally a nice guy but this story, which I'm sure was devastating for the people involved put a big smile on my face. Maybe because I've never forgiven certain theaters in Utah for editing movies I went to see when I lived there. The way I see it, if you're an uptight religious conservative you just have to accept the disadvantages that come with that, like lack of arts and culture. You shouldn't have access to things that you have to mutilate to enjoy, you know? You just shouldn't be watching it. Stick to children's movies.

Ellen Page on SNL (havin' fun with those rumors)
Pssst. Amy Adams hosts and Vampire Weekend is the musical guest on March 8th.
I guess I'll have to start watching again. God, it's been years.

Kenneth in the (212) shows new Vanity Fair photos of funny ladies as tabloid stars
Nova/Slim even Madonna's crap is good "4 minutes to save the world"
SNL even Ellen Page joins in on the Diablo Cody backlash? Too bad for Tony Gilroy that it didn't happen sooner ;)
Topless Robot hands it to the "12 Smuggest Pricks in Hollywood"
The Cinetrix discovers the Film Sound site and likes it. I need to check that out. Sounds thorough
...... and Emma Thompson returns to us in Brideshead Revisited


Amen. [src and src]

Fashions & Split-Screen Madness

<--- Anne Hathaway applauds with joyous relief --the film year is finally over. Is she thinking "I'm gonna own this place next year as a nominee!!!"?

'Finis'

You wish. But we're almost done. In fact I am done... but I guess we're not done until you've read and commented. It's the back 'n' forth beauty o' the web.

Oscar Review is Complete
Page 1 Oscar Hangover (in case you haven't read it yet)
Page 2 (NEW) Fashions: The Good, The Bad and the Neither
Page 3 (NEW) Split-Screen Madness. Loving those 'win or lose' actress boxes.
also a new poll --who is least likely to return to the Oscars?

Return and gab in the comments. That's how we do. It's the last Oscar post for the 07/08 race so celebrate accordingly in the comments. And remember, The Film Experience is year round (it just gets rather Oscar whipped from Dec-Feb)




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