Bibbidi Bobbidi Booyah

JA from MNPP here - having had their way with the Snow White story (to great financial success one time, and notsomuch the other), Hollywood is setting its sights upon her downtrodden floor-scrubbing slash mouse-touching sister-princess next - Cinderella is going to be turned into a live-action whirylgig by the director Mark Romanek, from a script by Chris Weitz.

I'm a big fan of Romanek's (I am not one of the poor unfortunate souls who found Never Let Me Go anything less than terribly impressive, but I've loved him way back to his videos for Nine Inch nails) and while I'd rather he not get sucked back into the big Hollywood machinery again (trying to make a movie out of Wolf Man wasted several years of possible output from him)... well, I can't say no to the cast that's circling this thing, now can I? Cate Blanchett is talks to play the Wicked Stepmother, while there are three girls mentioned by Variety as being up for the role of the glass-slipper gal, including Saoirsie Ronan - Hanna reunion!

Hanna was basically a fairy tale itself - Red Riding Hood with head-shots. So much that I can't help but fill out Cinderella's cast with all of Hanna's featured players. Eric Bana as the King! (As long as this King goes swimming in his long-johns too, of course.) Olivia Williams as the Fairy Godmother! Michelle Dockery and Jessica Barden as the Evil Stepsisters! Tom Hollander and his co-thugs as the mice! Okay this really needs to happen, I have convinced myself.

NYFCC Loves Sally & Matthew & Zero Dark Thirty

The New York Film Critics Circle, the oldest critics organizations founded in 1935 has 35 members. Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York is the current chair and today they announced their winners, with a strong showing for Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln. Will the other groups to come talk back or merely parrot their choices? And on and on until Oscar.

♫ ladies of Tampa... New York City ♪

FILM Zero Dark Thirty
DIRECTOR Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty
ACTRESS Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea
ACTOR Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Sally Field, Lincoln
SUPPORTING ACTOR Matthew McConaughey for Bernie & Magic Mike
ANIMATED FILM Frankenweenie
DOCUMENTARY The Central Park Five
FOREIGN FILM Amour
FIRST FILM David France for How to Survive a Plague 
SCREENPLAY Tony Kushner for Lincoln
CINEMATOGRAPHY Greig Fraser for Zero Dark Thirty 

Do you approve of their choices? (Other than Zero Dark Thirty which you probably haven't seen yet.)

I understand the appeal of giving people awards for multiple films in a stealler year but I'm not sure what Matthew McConaughey did in Bernie in particular to merit diluting his Magic Mike performances with a share. This seems highly uneccesary. The most surprising choice (thus far) is Sally Field, an obvious Oscar hopeful but I didn't expect the critics orgs to rally for her... unless it's one of those years where they're just sticking close to the Oscar buzz titles.

Kerry Washington Covers Vibe

The one and only Kerry Washington is front and center on the cover of this month's Vibe, flanked by Django Unchained co-stars Leo & Jamie.

You can read the whole cover story @ Vibe. But I did want to throw this bit about politics and a cute video of the photo shoot out there for discussion...

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In Case You Missed the European Film Awards...

...which you probably did. 

Jose here, happy to report that Michael Haneke's extraordinary Amour was the big winner at the European Film Awards held in Malta, winning the awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Jean-Louis Tringtinant) and Best Actress (Emmanuelle Riva) leaving the film one award shy of having earned the "big five", something that's never happened in the EFA's twenty five year history.

Following the film in wins were Shame and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which swept the technical awards with two each. Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt won the award for Best Screenplay and Helen Mirren received the award for Achievement in World Cinema.

One thing I've always loved about the European Film Awards is how "odd" they are. People in America, used to the glitzy PC-ness of the Oscars and the Golden Globes, would be shocked to see how "real" and even careless their European counterparts are. This after all is the same awards show where I first saw Tahar Rahim's penis and enjoyed reactions of David Kross as he was caught playing with his iPhone.

I screencapped my favorite moments of this year's ceremony for all of you: 

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Complete the Sentence. If I Were A Casting Director...

I'd consider __________ , ___________,  and _______________ for every film. They're underappreciated and have so much more to show us if they get the right parts.