This Link Goes to 11
Friday, September 20, 2013 at 7:41AM Movie City News Gurus of Gold update post TIFF/Telluride
Mind of a Suspicious Kind Jordan on Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners
AV Club Joss Whedon airlifted in to punch up Thor: The Dark World. (awesome photoshop)
Deadline Matt Bomer set to play Montgomery Clift... hmmm. But I have to say this article sounds like it was written by someone who has a very vague inkling of Clift, like a Wikipedia inkling. Seriously read it. It reads that generic.
In Contention Cate Blanchett to make her directorial debut with The Dinner, based on Herman Koch's bestseller
/Film that Labor Day poster I was talking 'bout the other day finally made it online
Variety four people will be honored by the Cinematography guild including Kris Tapley. Congrats, Kris
Awards Daily the US trailer for Blue is the Warmest Colour
i09 8 ways to make a female led superhero movie work
Slant Magazine excellent piece on "the IMAX cancer" and the rerelease of The Wizard of Oz... only not the one you know.
Happy Nice Time People Embarassing Person Glenn Beck is really upset about the possible movie about Woodrow Wilson that Leonardo DiCaprio might possibly be starring in
Reader Comments (11)
Hadn't heard about the Leo/Wilson bio. I strikes me as a good fit and I love historical movies so I'm intrigued but I remember hearing about the old 20th Century Fox movie "Wilson" and the fact that it was a huge, notoriously expensive bomb on release. That was in the 40's and if the public wasn't interested then I wonder how it will fair now even with DiCaprio in the lead.
As far as that human dung heap Glenn Beck I didn't even bother to listen to what that miscreant said.
Just when I couldn't get more *over* Cate Blanchett, she decides to direct. What is the matter with these actresses?
@ Hayden W
She's doing what any artist should -> experiment
The Cate Blanchett news is pushing two opposing buttons for me. On one hand I'm always very happy to see women directing, but one the other ugh another actor directing.
In other conflicted news, re: female superhero: it would be RIDICULOUS if we lived in a world that would turn Ant Man into a movie but not Wonder Woman, but man am I over superheroes. If I could choose between no more superheroes for 20 years or a Wonder Woman movie, I genuinely don't know what I'd do.
And I'd be down for a Yes, No, Maybe So on that trailer.
I like Bomer as Monty. He looks the part and he's not a big star who'll distract you from who he's playing. But biopics are a tricky business. They have to be truthful about the subject, yet be creative in breaking free of the confines of the genre. Clift is a fascinating subject. I hope they don't muck it up.
I actually am against female artists experimenting.
Glenn Beck and I have that in common, possibly for different reasons.
@Hayden W--Huh? I hope there's a good reason, otherwise your comment just comes off as pretty sexist.
@ Hayden W
1) If you're trying to be funny, you're failing miserably, a Razzie is awarded right away;
2) if you're being serious, you can do humanity a favour and do you know what :)
3) there is no three
P.S. let's think of say... Diane Keaton - a great actress who also has ventured into directing.
"Unstrung Heroes" is quite a film, with a 70/100 Metascore, too;
And about Blanchett, the woman has been a theatre director and producer for the last 6 years, I'd bet she knows this and that about how to arrange things, stay true to a vision and last but not least, how to collaborate.
On i09's 8 Ways:
1. Though I think Hancock is completely embarassing and easily on the level of a Green Lantern or Catwoman (mostly for it's bizarrely pretentious last 20 minutes), 3 out of 4 ain't bad. This WOULD be a good option that would possibly shame Warner Bros or Disney into producing a film, but that's probably going to be Paramount or Universal stepping in wanting a piece of that pie again as opposed to Disney (Marvel) or Warner Bros (DC) trying to make something new.
2. Taking liberties. I'd say Marvel ultimately didn't make many that were important with Cap's origin (mostly just adding background the original comic assumed wasn't needed) or Thor's (all they really cut was the Donald Blake secret identity shenanigans and even that wasn't THAT BIG a part of Thor's deal). (I tried doing something radical like that just for "ace visibility". (Turning Stephanie Brown's Spoiler costume into an outpouring of being militantly asexual. (Including the addition of painted white, black and grey sheet metal underneath the purple cloak, the visual pretty much being a worn version of the asexual triangle. It was just weird conceptually.) Yeeeeeeeeeeeah. Do you see why I stopped!?) But I was so repulsed by what I was trying that I quickly stopped.)
3. Don't tell them to the end. (The only real way to do this would be with someone who's fairly obscure, even among casual readers of superhero comics (those who, if they did pick them up pre New 52, it's got Bat, Super, Justice League or Teen Titans in the title for DC or Spider-Man, Iron Man, Deadpool, Avengers or X-Men for Marvel). It would have to be someone fairly obscure on either side but still shy of being a "non entity". Maybe...Elsa Bloodstone for Marvel or...I don't know, DC's worse than Marvel with female characters that you'd be able to actually surprise the audience with "Ta-da. Superhero universe." (The interesting ones that aren't (visually, at least) tied to another iconography (Power Girl, Zatanna, Vixen) are pretty massive. And no, mentioning Power Girl wasn't meant as a pun.)
4. Team-up film: BIRDS OF PREY. Get a quality director (and Gail Simone to knead out a script) and the talented performers will (and this is meant as a pun) FLOCK.
5. Take a male vehicle and cast a woman in the lead. (Interesting. I doubt it would really work on the DC end (the films they've made, aside from Batman, with men in leads (Jonah Hex has the Pushing Daisies power?) have been pretty much braindead as well, lest we forget), but I think Marvel could gender flip Doctor Strange with decent results if Ms./Captain Marvel doesn't get off the ground.)
6. Don't put her in a costume at all. (I don't really like this, whether male or female. Sorry. Wolverine out of his iconic yellow and blue costume just doesn't FEEL like Wolverine, it feels like someone who just happens to have his power set. Make them better, certainly, but don't eliminate them like the old X-Men movies tried to. It makes the bad X-Men films a bit sappy and dull as opposed to full-blown awesomely cheesy and makes even the good ones a bit too visually monotonous.)
7. Make it a period piece. (No. Why even make one if you're just trying to push as few buttons as possible?)
8. Don't make it a romance. (Yes.)
@TB & Yavor—
To be honest, I wasn't trying to be uproariously funny OR sincerely sexist. I think you should think more highly of your fellow TFE readers than to believe for a second that I really don't believe that female artists should experiment. I can't imagine the energy it must require to read that and interpret it literally in this context.
Maybe I was trolling the humorless defenses of Blanchett against my initial comment, which I intended to lightly vent my disappointment at films directed by actresses like Jolie, Keaton, Huston, Foster, Barrymore, Madonna and others who might otherwise spend their creative currency. And conversely, my admiration for women like Susan Sarandon, Nicole Kidman, and other geniuses who reject the tired cliche of really wanting to direct.