If The Film Experience were its own media empire the first thing we would do is some sort of annual gallery of celebrities a la Vanity Fair or the New York Times. For this year's New York Times video gallery ["Vamps, Crooks and Killers" (photos) "Touch of Evil" (video)] the Times has famous actors playing famous film baddies or villainous archetypes. We've mentioned we love this actors as actors business muchly before. It always thrills.
Here's Glenn Close as Theda Bara the vamp and Viola Davis as Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) for appetizers.
The Close image reminds us that Glenn has always been thisclose to being a cartoon character who just happens to be made of flesh and blood. That's how most iconic film stars and characters come across... at least after decades in the pop cultural air, though it didn't take Close that long to achieve it.
Doesn't the Nurse Viola Davis Ratched immediately make you want to see her in a villainous role? It hadn't even occurred to me before but it'd be super scary to watch her soulfulness curdle in some choice role. I bet she'd be great. On her performance in this video she says...
I tried to channel all the parts of myself that are probably not pretty. That are not necessarily nice."
Rooney Mara, Michael Shannon, Kirsten Dunst, Brad Pitt and Mia Wasikowska, after the jump...
Rooney Mara doing "A Clockwork Orange"
Kirsten as a siren (love the apple) and Brad Pitt as a mad man
Oh how I wish they had really surprised us and in the middle of this series of unexpected star/role pairings they had fucked with expectations and recast Brad & Kirsten together to reprise their vampires! Wouldn't that have been attention grabbing?!
Brad Pitt is labelled as Mad Man and he says he's channelling Peter Lorre and Kramer from Seinfeld but isn't this more Eraserhead?
The best thing about these galleries each year is that they allow us to see stars in a different light than we're accustomed to, like Viola up top. Last year I was surprised by which videos were my favorites and this year I'm surprised again. I wasn't really thinking "I can't wait to see Michael Shannon / Mia Wasikowska" but they're maybe my favorit pieces from the stars gathered.
Shannon is going full on Gordon Gekko (Wall Street) and I love that even his paperwork is, if you'll excuse the pun, hopping mad. My favorite, though, is Mia Wasikowska's homewrecker. Wasikowska has been ascending pretty rapidly and though her performances are sometimes just smashingly good (Jane Eyre, The Kids Are All Right) they're sometimes underworked or misses (Alice in Wonderland, Albert Nobbs) so I've been worried about her consistency. But she just aces this casually destructive narcissistic femme fatale. Totally sexy! Who knew?
The gallery also includes Jessica Chastain as a firestarter, Gary Oldman as a creepy dummy, Jean Dujardin as a hothead, Ryan Gosling as The Invisible Man, and George Clooney as Captain Bligh (Mutiny on the Bounty) and Adepere Oduye from Pariah recreating a famous Bonnie Parker bit (Bonnie & Clyde).
Go watch.
Which is your favorite?