Link Grams
Friday, April 12, 2013 at 9:16PM Today's Must Read
New Yorker Screenwriter Alan Zweibel on his two run-ins with Roger Ebert (who gave him his worst review)
More Links
In Contention Melissa Leo's gone Hollywood. Are the new films beneath the LEOgend's skill set?
Open Culture Alfred Hitchcock masterclass on film editing
Cartoon Brew Disney destroys its hand drawn animation division. Honestly I'm shocked that this only happened now. It's been so long since they were in the hand drawn business. (Sigh)
The Playlist Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell, and Anthony Hopkins in a movie about FBI agents with psychic abilities. Sounds terrible.
And Four For You, Glen Coco!
Hollywood.com has an empirical breakdown of the seven women of Mean Girls and who is doing best for themselves 9 years later. I almost didn't link though because of the weird lapses in facts just to praise Rachel McAdams. Yes, Hollywood.com, she has also had flops. And more than one of them.
i09 on why the western/sci-fi mashup is such a hard sell for audiences
MovieLine wonders why there's no remake of Near Dark (1987) in the works. Ugh. So glad there isn't! There's no topping Bill Paxton's "finger lickin' good" vamp.
Entertainment Weekly Matt Damon's new physique for Elysium
Reader Comments (15)
Yeah, the author of the Mean Girls piece totally is a weird fanboy of Rachel McAdams. I like her, too, but let's not forget she also made Morning Glory and The Lucky Ones. Are we still talking about these films? No. And not many people are.
Cute story about Ebert.
I was at a midnight showing of Mean Girls last night, a 'quote along' and my friend and I were arguing on whose post Mean Girls career is better, I think McAdams edges out Syfried marginally because of the directors she has worked with since (Allen, Malick)
I support Guy Lodge's demand. Melissa Leo is always so interesting to watch.
The amount of goodwill McAdams continues to have based on one film (!) released almost ten years ago (!) is so strange when people are usually ready to tear down actresses after the slightest career missteps. It's a refreshing change from the usual nastiness, but where is it coming from? Her career is mediocre for what it is and terrible compared to what people expected from her after Mean Girls. Other actresses would be ridiculed for it, but with McAdams it seems like people will still expect her to break out any time now in twenty years.
Leo is a great actress, I remember watching "Flight" and losing a bit of interest by the time the huge WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HIM scene was approaching and then Melissa appeared and literally ate the scene up. Such a flawless, dry, perfectionist she created but full of the sinister ambition behind the devotion. It was one of the best things about "Flight".
Rax -- absolutely 100% agreed. I don't get it at all... but you're right refreshing change to give someone so many chances. I just wish other actresses were left alone in that way.
Yavor -- hmmm. i got nothing from her in Flight. Especially after all that build up to her cameo.
I wonder if people's generosity with Rachel McAdams comes from a lot of viewers coming to her box office flops on home video. It's easier to be forgiving about Morning Glory or The Time Traveller's Wife on a Sunday afternoon at home than it would be had you actually paid to see them in the cinema. Personally, I think she's fantastic given the right role (I'm an ardent defender of both The Family Stone and Red Eye as nifty re-calibrations of formats we've seen before), but I'm aware my desire for her to catch her 'big break' is wishful thinking on my part!
McAdams had star quality in The Notebook. She has never really gotten to that level since. No reason she is stuck in Sparks-world while Gosling has moved to art house. Red Eye was good if unremarkable but competent Wes Craven. The Family Stone was a movie where she was pretty unlikable and apparently a lot of stuff of her made the cutting room floor which did her no favors as the character went missing during the movie's progression.
Melissa Leo is hard working and she is pretty much just taking as many roles as she can since her re-introduction in Frozen River. Her work in Treme has always been solid but nobody watches it even though she and Khandi Alexander slay in the David Simon female protagonist role. I remember hearing her talk about the time she left Homicide and stopped working for a good period where there was a mutual agreement that she had to leave for reasons not disclosed but she remained grateful that David Simon let her work on his next projects again. Still, I wish she took better roles. That matriarch role in Silver Linings Playbook had her name on it.
Rachel reminds me a lot of Amy Adams... what reason is there for people to dislike her? Pretty benign and neither one gives off a Ms. Perfect vibe that seems to have sunk Anne Hathaway's public image.
I am so curious to know how well-off Lacey Chabert is... she seems to work a lot despite not being in good stuff. That voice-over work has to pay well. The biggest shock is Amanda Seyfried though. I wouldn't have thought she would rise as fast as she did, but I'm glad because she's hella fun.
Lindsay still eclipses all of them, fame-wise.
Bia that part of the Hollywood.com article about Lacey really irked me, she is still getting work as an actor and trust me for any actor that's enough voice over work pays well too. Plus she was great in Party of Five AND Mean Girls that's enough to cement her icon status for me. :)
Rachel McAdams could be bigger if she wants to, but I have a feeling that sometimes she's just using movies for income. It's like she'd rather hang out in Toronto than claw her way and get plum roles. Which is a decision I respect since her CV isn't THAT awful.
I'm still wondering why Rachel McAdams took such a huge break right when she was so hot. She could've been right on the A-List. I mean, she made a pretty successful comeback and she's still working but she dropped off the face of the earth for a couple of years.
Rachel still looks quite fine in To the Wonder and Midnight in Paris. She chose the commerce before the art, pure and simple. Even the good choices with Midnight in Paris had her stuck in a surprisingly poorly-written, shrillish Woody Allen female character and Malick movies are a coin-flip in how much screen-time an actor gets (I think even Jessica Chastain mentioned in passing a year ago that she did film scenes for To The Wonder but she definitely had a feeling none of her scenes would make it into the movie- she was right).
State of Play was her last real serious gravitas dramatic role and that is a pretty commercial movie that nobody really saw. She also made little impression in the Sherlock Holmes movie though I would like to think that is because almost none of the female characters were given any dimension in the script.
The news on no more Disney's hand-drawn animation are so sad (although expected)...
It's incredible how they have forgotten the creativity and have destroyed such artistic heritage.