Gotta Sing....
A few days ago I read over at A Socialite's Life that Hugh Jackman is talking to Bollywood producers about work. You know... I like Bollywood just fine, sometimes quite a lot more than that, and I don't mean this as a slight but Hollywood is a crappy crappy please if one of its biggest stars has to actually leave our movie industry for another to show off his skillset. Grrrr. And, also: grrrl. (I'm fuming). I guess Hollywood only wants him to Wolverine but he has so much more in him.
Where is his big screen musical? If ever a modern male star could be a big deal singing and dancing on the screen it's him. He was amazement in The Boy From Oz on Broadway and he was thisbig. I saw him from the last row of the house with my head touching the wall in the far left corner (truth), the worst seat I've ever had for a show, and I was totally mesmerized. I think seeing him blown up on the big screen doing that same thing might kill me. But I'd die happy.
Amy Adams is another huge bankable star whose musical talent is in danger of being wasted. Lois Lane? Really? A role that any feisty actress could do in her sleep and also another "girlfriend" part to the true star. You'd think after hit movies and multiple Oscar nominations, she could get another good leading role.
The only way I want to see Amy Adams, who is so dynamite in comedy (Enchanted) and dramedy (Junebug) and in the right dramatic role (The Fighter), in a superhero movie is if she's the superhero.
The rest of the negativity must be confined to the jump. Click ahead for more on superheroes, Batman's eventual reboot and that weary-limbed Natalie Portman dancing controversy.
...as much as I love superheroes I AM SO BORED WITH SUPER-POWERED MEN RIGHT NOW. Either give the women a chance to throw down with super-powered baddies or try new heroes out (Captain America and Thor, no matter the upcoming quality, are at least non-reboots/remakes. So: points for that.)
Zombie Batman by "endpoint76"Gotta Rant!
I would be more excited about Amy as Lois if I weren't gagging from the news that Warner Bros is already announcing plans to reboot Batman as soon as Christopher Nolan is done with is trilogy. My god. Are we really just drooling zombies, just ticket-purchasing drones? Are superheroes really our version of "BRRrrraaAiiiIiiinnns"? When will the madness end? Even if you consider the superhero genre the be all and end all, the thing George Méliès and D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin and all the rest were hoping for a century ago, maybe JUST MAYBE, it would be more healthy on just about every level -- not just as a moviegoer but as a human being -- to stay only one year in the future and not worry about what's going to happen five years now with the Bat when we're already (collectively) obessed with what's going on with the 2012 version, which you know there will be a hundred thousand more articles about by the time we have so much as an official teaser.
JESUS CHRIST! How much of the collective internet brain must be lobotomized to make room for the Bat symbol?
(And my Jesus Christ I mean Bruce Wayne. Obvs.)
P.S. I like Batman, I really do and always have, but this is ridiculous. He'll already have had 8 movies and 2 television series by 2012. How do people have so much patience for the same thing over and over again?
Gotta Dance!
Alternate Film Guide and Inside Movies and virtually every other site on the internet has been covering the controvery about Natalie Portman doing very little of her own dancing in Black Swan. The juicy part being that supposedly the dancing double was shushed-up during the Oscar campaign. And you may have wondered why I haven't said a word. Sasha at Award Daily asked "this is supposed to be important... why?" and I guess the reason I haven't said anything and the reason I am finally saying something is that I think the obvious problem with the story is being neglected. The problem is not that the studio hushed up the dancer. The problem is not that Natalie's head was grafted on to someone else's body. Movies are illusion, after all.
The problem, and it's not a movie-specific problem but definitely an awards problem, is that people vote on Oscars for stupid reasons and therefore studios feel the need to stress the wrong things and campaign in arguably dishonest ways; no actor should win an Oscar because of physical sacrifice or years of training to do something that is not acting. Just like they shouldn't win acting Oscars for pretending to be uglier than they are (the dread 'de-glam' trick). All of these are gilded tricks.
Dancing is only acting when the dancer is skilled enough that their physicality becomes super expressive; the very best dancers can act with their bodies. Neither is singing acting exactly unless the vocal technique and the acting are strong enough to be super expressive; the very best singer/actors can act through song (I'm not going to gripe about Liza Minnelli's Cabaret Oscar or Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl Oscar for example). But when an actor is dubbed (singing) or digitally replaced or doubled (dancing) they are not even doing the parts of those things that are arguably acting (the emotional/ psychological expressiveness).
This story wouldn't matter at all but for the fact that it's quite obvious that people do vote based on things like "she trained to become a prima ballerina in one year!" when really the only thing anybody with a voting ballot should have been concerned with is how well Portman acted the part. That's why it matters. I personally think she was terrific in the movie. But do I think she won the Oscar because she was terrific? Guess.
If you're not tired of the topic (I just thought I'd go there since I was already venting) you can sound off in the comments.