50 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Tilda Swinton.

The fabulous Tilda Swinton is now a half century old young timeless -- old, young... these concepts are too limited when it comes to the greats. But fact: On November 5th, 1960 Tilda Swinton first came into the world. So a tribute is most definitely in order.

50 Appropriate Ways 
to Celebrate Swintonian Greatness

• Be a genius.
• Dye your hair white blonde... or bright red.
• Be colorful.
• Imagine you have deep Scottish roots.
• Create an eccentric personal film festival.
• Attend any film festival near you.
• Have tremendous commitment to your art. 
• Exhibit tremendous loyalty to your friends.
• Watch a Derek Jarman film immediately. (This should have been first. Just pretend you did it first.)

• Stand naked in front of the mirror with your goodies tucked. 
• Say "Same person. No different at all. Just a different sex"
• That's right. Watch ORLANDO (1993) again. It's so good.
• Break the fourth wall with Jimmy Sommerville blasting behind you as soundtrack.
• Clone yourself.
• Enjoy your own company.

• Pretend your children (or niece & nephews) are twins. Call them "Xavier" and "Honor" all day. 
• Invite a friend over and do a crazy photoshoot. You photograph so well! 
• Pose for a talented painter.
• Become a muse for multiple creative types: fashion, film, art, music. Anything!
• Experiment with an open relationship.
• Wear attention-grabbing shoes.

• Be enigmatic. 
• Boss someone who looks like George Clooney around. 
• Befriend Justin Bond. 
• Sweat it out in a bathroom stall or nervously rehearse a speech. 
• Cause trouble for someone who looks like Leonardo DiCaprio. 
• Watch I AM LOVE for IT IS CINEMA...
• ...then have sex outdoors with an Italian or a chef (bonus points for both)
• Invite people over to watch you sleep... for a whole week.

• Do the Laurel & Hardy dance from Way Out West.
• Wear your most avante-garde article of clothing.
• Embrace Female Perversions... whatever that may mean to you.
• Listen to Orbital's "The Box"

• Get real drunk and run your mouth constantly ...maybe wear a creepy black mask while doing so?
• Take a swim and pretend you've crossed the English channel.
• Seduce someone who looks like Ewan McGregor.
• Pretend to hate your cat and him/her "Aslan".

• Offer a young bratty boy some Turkish delight.
• Wear a shapeless baggy black dress to an important event.
• Don't wear makeup just because people expect you to.
• Pretend you've just won an Oscar. (You don't have to pretend that you deserved it. You sure did.) 

• Learn another language. 
• Be cultured. 
• Join the 8½ Foundation.
• Complain to everyone who will listen that Tilda should have won a second Oscar for Julia last year. 
• Remember that art is more important than money. (Only sell out temporarily in short doses... even when the offers come flooding in.)
• Be androgynous.
• And/or appreciate the androgynous in others. 

• "Do not fade. Do not grow old."
• Never lack for imagination.
• Be your own person. There is only one you.

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Sucker Punch"

This goes out to anyone who caught the Sucker Punch trailer and anyone who cares about women as action heroes. Which, as you know, The Film Experience does. Unfortunately caring about something and enjoying it in practice are two different things. In practice there are so many things that can go wrong...

The trailer begins with an abused girl fights back set-up (a blouse ripped off and a  button flying in slo-mo. Suggested rape as your opening gambit? Distasteful). Emily Browning is playing the lead role of "Baby Doll" and reading the summaries, I see something about a lobotomy? Is that why the performance looks so sleepy/blank? Not promising. But soon enough Abbie Cornish and Jena Malone appear and seem to be channeling the kind of badass bitch energy that films like this need as life blood. They're both good actresses and I'm especially curious to see Abbie let loose given that I've mostly seen her in heavy dramas, corseted or otherwise.

There's some sort of Matrix like plot where reality is not reality... but we're in Baby Doll's imagination instead which, as it turns out, is like a parodic version of the imagination of a teenage boy: in her alternate reality, she's a master swordswoman / hooker who fights giant samurais, robots, zombies, aircraft, and dragons. She's backed up by a whole army of interchangeable blonde sex workers with machine guns.

Who knew that hookers were criminally insane, that their imaginations were so similar to teen boys, or that their favorite movies were Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Beowulf and 300?

On the other hand...

You wants us to watch the über watchable CARLA GUGINO doing a funky accent while ruling over a posse of criminally insane burlesque backup dancers? I mean... hells yeah. Count me in... as long as the movie is so bad it's good and knows how absolutely stoopid it is. (Past history suggests, unfortunately, that Zach Snyder is way too earnest a filmmaker to do justice to the ridiculous content of his movies. And Dawn of the Dead showed such promise, damnit.)

Summaries of Sucker Punch's confusing "girl retreats into imaginary universe to escape her wicked father" storyline, suggest that Carla is one of the villains. But in the trailer, she seems to be playing Laurence Fishburne's "Morpheus"" to Browning's idiot cousin version of "Neo." I have a loftier film icon in mind for Carla's gifts: Can't someone give her her own Cristal (Showgirls) level "Goddess" role soon. Time is running out.  'She's gettin a little old for that whorey look.'

Are you a yes, no or maybe so? 

I'm leaning hell no unless I hear that the lively cast of supporting actresses are fun enough to redeem the non-entity central role -- if this trailer is indication (let's hope it's not) Browning has only three expressions in her arsenal: scared, constipated, braindead. Can the fun cast make any kind of impression amongst the visual chaos/violent excess of Zach Snyder's sexual fantasies Baby Doll's imagination?

Related articles: Watchmen review
Action Heroine blog-a-thon
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Cher Hits a Brick Wall

Over at Towleroad, I've done a brief review of 127 Hours.  I enjoyed a lot even if I don't think it's the masterpiece many are claiming. I also talk about the new dvd set Cher: The Film Collection. More on that collection later here at the blog. (I can't wait to watch these movies again.)

This is an actual cel phone snapshot from Soho here in NYC. They painted the Burlesque poster on a brick wall.
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Unsung Heroes: The Cinematography of In Bruges

Hi, everybody. This is Michael C here from Serious Film and this week I'm excited to be writing about one of my very favorite films of the last decade, one that improves dramatically which each repeated viewing. So lets get to the overlooked element of this largely overlooked gem.

One could argue that a lot of work was done for Eigil Bryld when director Martin McDonagh decided to shoot on location in the breathtakingly beautiful Belgian city of Bruges. But as cinematographer for In Bruges he couldn't be content to merely do justice to his gorgeous setting. The cliche is that a setting is like another character in a story, but in the case of this movie the city of Bruges features as prominently in the plot as it does in the title. Bryld succeeds in using the look of the movie to add depth and texture to the story, implying things left unsaid and underlining the film's themes in unforgettable fashion.

Take the character of Ken, played by Brendan Gleeson. While the other character's get showier emotions to play - Ray's guilt, Harry's explosive frustration - Ken's arc is an internal one, subtle enough that one could be forgiven for missing it altogether on first viewing. Over the course of the story Ken, a professional killer, is compelled to listen to the better angels of his nature and put his own life on the line in order to spare Ray. This transition is never stated explicitly. Instead it is communicated to the audience visually through the looks of peace that wash over Gleeson's face as Bruges envelops him in its hazy golden glow. In this shot Ken is on the outside looking in at a picture of perfect happiness that his occupation will never allow him to experience. 

Bryld's work here isn't just beautiful for its own sake. It's actually doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the story.

When it comes to the more explicit story, Bryld and McDonagh are able to frame the picturesque qualities of the "perfectly preserved medieval town" so that they are as inescapable as Ray's crushing Catholic guilt. The religious imagery and architecture are omnipresent. It could seem like overkill that the film's climax is literally staged in a Bosch painting of Judgment Day come to life, but the beauty of the scenes images so justifies the scene's existence on their own that any symbolism is able to hide in plain sight.

It's also worth noting that in addition to carrying the story's thematic weight, the camerawork of In Bruges also goes a long way towards delivering the funny. McDonagh and Bryld are great at composing shots of Gleeson and Farrell together to emphasize how mismatched they are with each other and how out of place they are in Bruges. The framing gets laughs on its own.

Bryld's filming of In Bruges gives the movies as memorable a picture of a place as we've had in recent years. His vision of Bruges could stand up to comparison with Robert Kraskers evocation of Vienna in The Third Man, which is pretty much the highest praise I have to give.

Open Thread (and brief announcement)

What's on your (cinematic) mind? We're always curious.

P.S. I'm working on behind the scenes stuff today. You may have noticed the "contributors" field expanding the past few days. I am taking my first ever real vacation starting next Tuesday. Nathaniel (c'est moi) will be offline actually (gasp!) for a week. I've never even tried that before. I'm so scared. A week without the internet? Aahhhh. When I get back I'll be completely rejuvenated and ready for the best season of Oscar coverage and year-end festivities ever. That's the plan at least.

Live Blog: The Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable 2010

The actual hour-long Hollywood Reporter video of the six actresses who grace their cover: Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, Hilary Swank, Natalie Portman and Helena Bonham-Carter. Here's how it breaks down if you don't have a full hour to watch (video at bottom of post). Unfortunately you can't "scroll" so the time stamps are useless as I type away.

0:01 Helena talks about first day-i-tis. Never thinks she can do it. I can't act!
1:30 Amy talks about being unemployed and feeling sorry for herself (interesting bit... both sad and funny) and the long time period where she considered giving up. But now that she's successful, what doesn't she like about her career?

Amy: I feel very vulnerable. I don't like it at all. You're very subject to other people's opinions. You know when it doesn't go well. 

Hilary: We know when it doesn't go well. We don't need to be beat over the head with it.

Oopsie!

5:00 Swank talks about trying and even if you fail, always try your hardest. Ah platitudes! I didn't get enough of 'em on election night.
6:48 Annette is asked about her input into making The Kids Are All Right more of a comedy than it originally started as...

Annette: I just didn't want it to be earnest. But she's (Lisa Cholodenko) also kind of too generous when she talks about me and my contributions.

9:00 Helena interrupts to talk about the vibrator scene (but says she hasn't seen the movie).
10:30 Hilary complains that she can't find good comedies. Uhnnh, you're not a comic actress. We're 10 minutes in and Nicole has said NOTHING. I need Nicki. But she was like this at the Margot at the Wedding press conference I attended, too. She is kind of robotic until directly addressed. I say that with the utmost love but it's like she's a robot until the movie camera is on or the press cameras are off. It's... odd.
12:00 Natalie Portman calls the Black Swan screenplay "a blueprint." and reveals that she and Darren Aronofsky have been planning to make the movie for the past 9 years (!) and credits Nicole with the following great career advice...

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Posterized: Rabbit Hole & The King's Speech. What Are They Telling Us?

If you've been wondering what happened to the Posterized series, it comes down to this: A month or so back, I had been reading the book The Art of Drew Struzan -- he's the artist who used to do all those painted posters for Spielberg films and the first Harry Potter and so on -- and while reading it is I was preparing a "posterized: ben affleck" article. Ben Affleck movies, as it turns out, have hatefully ugly posters (no offense Ben, you're a handsome fella). So I didn't finish it. Too disheartening. Have to rethink that series. We still like the idea of movie posters, just not the reality so often, so they shan't go without comment.

Let's look at a few relative newbies.

The more we think about The King's Speech, the more we worry for The Social Network. (Seriously.. We'll see what happens with the precursor awards. Will critics rally like they have lately for one film, or will the votes be divvied up between a few darlings?). Speech was the easiest Oscar call to make back in the first round of predictions (April 1st) since it's one of those movies: The kind that wouldn't exist at all if there weren't such things as gold statues to be won.

But what to make of the poster? One supposes it's adequately conveyed what it needed to. If it were a personal ad it would be like so:

Weinsteinian 3some Seeks AMPAS Swingers to Cuddle. We're serious-minded but totally not stuffy; We could be elitist (the royal We!) but we're populist at heart, like you!  If you enjoy endearing peculiarities and good-hearted companions, have a sherry and join us for exuberant conversation (some stammering) and light role-play (WW II reenactments!).

Will you date that movie or is that the most boring poster you've ever seen? And why do their faces all have differently light sources? Couldn't Colin, Helena and Geoffrey at least pose for the poster together? I mean, you had them all in the same room several times for weeks. Damn you, Photoshop!

The Rabbit Hole marketing team has a trickier sell. They've got a bigger star to work with (Nic') but they can't really sell it as a star vehicle since it's prestige drama and public reaction to her tends to be so divisive. I like what they've done, though. Though I write about the theater far more than any other movie blog, I'm not well versed with this particular play, so I only know that it's about a couple who've lost a toddler. But that tire is pretty haunting and easy to project feeling onto, even if you know nothing about the material. The rope is unsettling too in its noose-like way. But before you get too depressed, there's that pastel blue sky and transparent type suggesting spirituality rather than emotionally pornographic gloom. Smart move, yes?

Or is it too calming like those anti-depressant ads on TV. Abilify!

I'm including these two posters to illustrate the marked difference between posters that have actual creative joy/heft [only allowed in "teaser" form] and posters that someone created at their desk only because they are given paychecks to do so. Now, it may well be that, as movies, Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls is terrible whilst Peter Weir's The Way Back is great (This is surely the first time in the history of the world that anyone has ever compared Tyler Perry to Peter Weir: enjoy.) but if that's the case, their movie's one-sheets tell the exact opposite story.

Floating movie star heads may well be the bane of movie posters for the past three decades, but stripes have been torturing us for nearly as long, now. It's weird that Hollywood loves them; horizontal stripes make you look fat!

Look at This Party Favor I Made For You

If you'd like, you can embed it on your own blogs or sites or wherever by hitting "get widget". If you just click on the image directly from wherever you put it, it'll take you to the Film Experience's most recent Oscar-flavored articles. How about that? Public service and self promotion.






"Neato!" "Groovy!" "Cool Beans!" "Other Outmoded Exclamatory Phrase!"

Pass it on.

Olivia Williams, The Ghost Actress

I was late to the party on The Ghost Writer but as with any good film, the party is still raging once you get there. It's already one of my favorites of 2010. But back in March I should have been out there championing it as a clever, well executed thriller (if that's the genre you'd like to define it as).  I think it was Pierce Brosnan who kept me away. Since when does he make good movies? And since when is he good in them?

Brosnan is in deep doo-doo in The Ghost Writer. Cattrall and Williams are
out-of-focus behind him. Which is just how both their characters like it, thank you.

Finally, it was you (yes you!) that convinced me to see it. It was praised enough in comment threads to make me think I'd missed out... particularly in regards to Olivia Williams. She's an actress I'd never thought much about until the past few years and now, it's getting kind of hard to deny her her due.

I wrote up her terrific work in my "Best in Show" column for Tribeca Film. She really is something (in general and here in particular). She's such a sticky actress; she haunts.

First and Last, "I'm Not a Bit Surprised"

the first image and the last line of dialogue from a motion picture.

"I'm not a bit surprised."

Can you guess the movie?

White Trash Cameo Hameos Forever!

Since America proved tonight at the polls (yay democracy!) that we are all just one tiny step away from being uneducated white trash who vote against our own interests and functioning society -- seriously if there's no government, who will pick up the garbage, who will protect us if someone breaks into our homes, who will make sure our children aren't as idiotic as we are? --  I thought this might be an appropriate way to "celebrate"!

White Trash Cameos!

God bless Catherine at the Guardian for the word "hameo". Maybe she didn't invent the word (?) but I was unfamiliar and I will now use for-e-ver.

The article is inspired by the hot mess bliss of Juliette Lewis in Conviction and features a spot on appraisal of what Ms Lewis does for and to the film (I'm sorry my article on Lewis is so delayed). Catherine surveys memorable "hameos" and then asks readers for theirs. You must read the comments section. It's joy upon joy upon joy... a veritable stack of blueberry pancakes smothered in syrup (the hefty portions of bacon on the side are a given).

Weirdly Catherine cites Keanu Reeves in The Gift (which, if you've never seen it is like THE perfect embodiment of "erratically acted movie") as an, uh, problem. My favorite so-terrible-maybe-it's-good? performance in that 'Cate Blanchett is Totally Psychic!' movie actually belongs to none other than Hilary Swank (the defacto star of the movie that Lewis is currently stealing away).

In The Gift Swank plays, you guessed it, Poor White Trash. But she's doing it with this absurdly tinny/squeaky little girl voice. To this day, I can hear her bizarre line reading of "I was thinking baaaad thoughts." It's literally the only thing I remember from the movie. That and Katie Holmes's  Demi-Moore-like breast baring, which is to say: she got those babies out emphatically, as if her career depended on it.

What is it about playing white trash that makes actors go so bonkers? They always become cartoons.

"People heare bout what yer doin' and they laugh at yyyeeeewwww"

I'm going to DisneyLand!
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Six Actresses Walk Into a Room...

The Hollywood Reporter is proclaiming that "Awards Season Begins Now" but the cover is freaking me out. Did Nancy Meyers direct it? It's so beige.

Do Amy Adams, Nicole Kidman, Hilary Swank and Natalie Portman all suddenly have the same hairstylist & colorist these days? They're interchangeable. And with women that special, that's a big no-no. Kidman's styling bugs me the most. It's so Blair on Facts of Life.

Am I right?

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It's Election Day in the US. Which film director...

...did you vote for as Governor of Movies*? (Or Minister of Movies if you prefer)

I hope you chose carefully. They'll be bossing your cinema around for the next four years!

*Obviously, this is a write-in ballot situation only. I didn't see candidates listed anywhere in my voting guide.
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TV @ The Movies: "Glee" and "The Walking Dead"

What is the ideal format for talking about tv? I'm beginning to think it's Twitter since even in the days of next day recaps and the 'watch it on your own time' DVR reality, people often watch it in great masses, round about the same time -- only staggered with everyone in their own slightly skewed time zones. I'm on NESST (Nathaniel's Eastern Stop & Start Time). TV has never been the all immersive experience that the movies can be... so it makes sense that people are now tweeting as they're watching. TV is jerry-rigged to withstand distractions: housework, phone calls, commercials. Twitter and Facebook only amplify this and now everyone has become their own tv critic, ringleader, announcer, omniscient narrator, diarist. I always wish that the movies were this accessible to people to enjoy en masse but... sigh.

With deeper immersion comes less accessibility I suppose.

If she's growling and decomposing, shoot her! 

Anyway, Sunday night I opted not to tweet through AMC's much ballyhooed THE WALKING DEAD. I was curious before the series even began how they would work around television restrictions, only to realize that there are no restrictions. You can apparently show anything on non-premium cable during prime-time hours including little girls and grown men getting their brains blown out (in slo-mo!) and men getting their heads smashed to bits with baseball bats as long as nobody says the naughty "F" word or shows the naughty boobies, butts or dangly man-bits.

[Lots on GLEE & more WALKING DEAD after the jump]

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First and Last, England

The very first image and the last (pre closing credit sequence) image from a motion picture.

Another clue. The first and last lines of dialogue

first: "Come on boy."
last: "And I knew it was bound to involve  _______  ."

Can you guess the movie?
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Annette Bening, Queen of Santa Barbara

My loyal subjects,

Since I know each and every last one of you will want to stand and wave to our procession as we receive the "American Riviera Prize" for our invaluable contributions to the cinema, we wanted to give you ample warning. [We're told you don't have private jets (?) and will need to plan ahead?] The blessed event will happen on January 28th. It's a fitting prize since the American Riviera has long been known as the work and playground of Movie Royalty like ourselves.

Last year the Festival gave this honor to a woman who once worked for the mass transit system! Incredible but true: buses and trains. Now, I was both Queen of England and the American First Lady at the time, essentially ruling over the entire globe, but no matter; it's unkind to compare !

She makes us laugh, bless her!

The year before the delightful Ms. Bullock's win, the Santa Barbara Festival gave this prize to ... well, we'd rather not discuss that. It did not end well for that man at the final ball.

Signed,

Her Majesty Annette.

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Take Three: David Warner

Craig here with Take Three.

Today: David Warner

Heads, brains and faces, skewed or distorted, are the prominent concerns with today’s Take Three supporting actor David Warner: the lopping off, the removal of, and the obsessively creepy staring, respectively, are what it's all about. In The Omen, From Beyond the Grave and The Man with Two Brains Warner thrilled us in a delightful and devious manner. He's an ideal actor for Halloween season.


Take One: I'm starting with the Man in the Mirror

Double-dealing, in particular, was the name of the game in ‘The Gate Crasher’, the first segment of Kevin Connor’s 1973 Amicus portmanteau film From Beyond the Grave. Warner was Edward Charlton, who surely lived to regret the snagging of an ancient, dubiously prescient mirror from shopkeeper Peter Cushing at a cut-price cost. Warner plays Charlton as cocky and belligerent one minute, and fearfully seized up the next. He germanely conveys the icky terror of Charlton’s unique-antique situation. His slight and consistent facial twitches betraying his discomfort. You can practically feel the (assumed) beads of sweat snaking down his back whenever the séance-induced, Ripper-like spirit appears on "the other side". He’s the best filmic embodiment of why séances can be bad luck for all concerned.

Warner ensures that Charlton’s inherent nature is suspect; he takes duplicity and makes it his bitch. But really he was ultimately an unlucky chancer who simply picked the wrong shopkeep to fleece. All that’s left dangling at the end – the question suspiciously hanging over the film’s cycle of reflection-based entrapment – is: who did Charlton con next? Reproductions, replacements...ah, they can cost dearly.

The moral of the story: don’t be a selfish git. Or, to put it another way: never, ever mess with a Yorkshire-accented Peter Cushing.

Take Two:  Dial 666 for Warner

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First and Last, 4.47

The first actual image in the movie. Something is about to move slowly across the screen from the upper right hand corner

The first image after the credit sequence. Three people are in this room and there's a ton of noisy phone chatter.

Can't give you the last image because it's an über famous movie star.

Last lines of dialogue:

"You'll make it."
 "yeah."

Can you guess the movie?
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BIFA: The King's (Acceptance) Speech and Other Oscar Matters

You guys. I'm so not (quite) ready for this. It's only November 1st and in English language cinema we've already had at least three awards lineups outside of the film festivals: NY's Gotham Awards, Australia's AFI, and now BIFA... which translates to the British Independent Film Awards.

BIFA considers Oscar-buzzing Lesley Manville as "Supporting"

It will surprise virtually no one that the Oscar hopeful Brit films like The King's Speech (and all of its actors), Made in Dagenham and Another Year are in play for various prizes. It may surprise some that the indifferently received Never Let Me Go, the divisive Kick-Ass, and the largely undiscussed Brighton Rock received multiple nominations as well.

A complete list of nominees (with Oscar-adjacent comments) follows after the jump but I shan't clog the main page with these über long lists that each awards groups hands out.

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October. It's A Wrap.

Oh, 2010. We're just getting to know you and you're already approaching history's grave. Stay a little while longer please? Two months... give us two months. Here are a dozen Film Experience highlights from October in case you missed 'em.

Claremont & Hammerstein's "The Sound of Mutants"

Jake Gyllenhaal Speaks a revealing evening with the star. Quotes on his three key movies.
BPFTOI The popular series returned for a drive with Miss Daisy and the war heroes of The Best Years of Our Lives. This is one of my personal favorite eppys of the whole series.
Modern Maestros Robert closes off his provocative year-long series with an intense rundown of auteurs he didn't cover.
To "Snikt" or Not to "Snikt" on Darren Aronofsky and Wolverine 2
Hit Me With Your Best Shot concludes its first season with Mean Girls and Night of the Hunter.
A History of... Julie Andrews from magically gifted infant to Queen of Genovia

Oscar Scheduling I proposed an easy audience-friendly fix to boost ceremony ratings and make the public more excited about the Academy again. Alas, the powers that be don't listen and the big media dogs don't want things to change (too much revenue from the elongated season I suspect).
Foreign Film Beauty Pageant because we like pretty things
"Get Away From Ripley, You Bitches" JA ponders Sigourney Weaver and the Aliens franchise
The Dark Knight Rises Review Starter Kit Too snarky?
FYC Hell Alice in Uglyand and the Art of Self-Editing
Best Actor Babies is Jesse Eisenberg to young for Oscar's favor??

Tilda illustration by Sandro Kopp

Coming in November...

Elizabeth Taylor is "the slut of all time!", Clark Gable has a 'stache, Nathaniel goes to Iceland and Dustin Hoffman is "definitely not wearing any underpants".

We'll also have a few ginger moments with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton among others. What else is coming we're not sure. Things are complicated right now. We're transitioning. No, no, not like that... although November also includes the International Transgender Day of Remembrance so something on that, too.