Yesterday morning, while running out to a screening and party for Al Pacino's awards run with The Humbling (more on that soon), what did I find on my doorstep but the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter, just casually dropped there. "Close call," I thought, imagining greedy scruple-free actressexual neighbors I haven't met, stealing it before I even knew it was there.
I threw it back in the apartment and dashed off and now I return to it, staring at its cover.You know how this works, herewith my immediate thoughts uncensored as they come.
Is it weird that I don't read the article (essentially clips from the roundtable) but just wait for the full video so I can hear it all?
I don't understand the set and art direction of this photo. Why is Reese behind a gold bar? Why isn't God herself reclined on that uncomfortably stiff chaise lounge chair while the other actresses fan and feed her? (Let the coronation begin!)
Is Amy Adams a silent partner in THR? Will she impale me with that crazy stiletto for spreading that rumor.
She's like Terminator Adams here. So severe! "Don't fuck with me fellas" Or rather "I'LL BE BACK" because you know she will next year (sigh)
This is her 4th roundtable in 5 years suggesting that someone at THR is either obsessed with her, has dirt on her, has zero imagination, or is weak-willed when it comes to standing up to Amy's formidable publicists/management.
Has anyone in the history of contemporary cinema -- aside from Meryl Streep -- ever been nominated with such ease each year? Weird that she missed for Enchanted in which she was so delightful considering a couple of her lesser nominations.
Vanity Fair, which started the now ubiquitous craze of groups of actors tossed together or photoshopped together for collectors issues, would never have featured the same star so often in five years... though they have had their momentary obsessive weaknesses for Trying to Make Someone Happen.
Yes yes yes I know it was sexist but Vanity Fair had much better photospreads when they put their ladies in slips, underwear, or cleavage gowns.
All six of these beautiful ladies look like they're going to a mandatory business meeting they don't really want to be at. The topic: their Oscar campaign press tours.
In fact, the only two women who look like they're wearing actual facial expressions, not frozen barely concealed grimaces, are the Wild girls. I mean that it appears as if the next frames would be different as their expressions actually changed. You know like a regular non-robot.
Reese wins the cutest outfit war.
At first I didn't think Laura Dern was going to happen in Supporting Actress but she's really working for it. And it's a specific kind of golden madness that she's only been nominated once with that über impressive character gallery of hers, you know? (Interview with her coming up soon)
Why is Patricia Arquette pointing at Hilary Swank ??? TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS !!! I must know. (Or did they just photoshop out a purse she was holding?)
Interview with Patricia coming soon, too. My god I'm so far behind. Transcription is a bitch. And I have like 6 more interviews in a row this weekend (psssst. Anna Kendrick!)
Hilary Swank should really not be on the floor in her assymetrical prom dress. It's white. Plus you don't know what's been on the floor at the THR office.
I can't explain it but I'm suddenly excited to see The Homesman.
Is Felicity Jones paying homage to Eddie Redmayne's upcoming trans film The Danish Girl by wearing a men's tux?
Felicity Jones is super nice in person. True story.
Now, about this header...
Can one of the glam gifts next year be diversity? Or at least variety! (No More Amy Adams. Love her as an actress but seriously enough is enough with this tradition)
Here's a quick list of actresses that THR could have had around the table this year since they made films and gave performances that have been talked about. Media coverage -- especially if someone is a long shot or can only hope for Globe Comedy or Indie Spirit attention -- is advocacy to an extent and advocacy is way cooler than prediction. Any one or two combo of these 25 women could have livened up the conversation, provided more diversity in terms of age, nationality, ethnicity, and position in Hollywood, and definitely offered fresher perspectives than the two ladies who've been here before (Swank & Adams).
- Gugu Mbatha-Raw
- Rosamund Pike
- Jessica Chastain
- Anna Kendrick
- Tilda Swinton
- Carmen Ejogo
- Scarlett Johansson
- Emily Blunt
- Jenny Slate
- Rene Russo
- Keira Knightley
- Jennifer Aniston
- Marion Cotillard
- Shailene Woodley
- Mia Wasikowska
- Emma Stone
- Tessa Thompson
What's more the final promise on the cover...
7 stars of awards season hit every hot button: nude photo hacks, Renee Zellweger's 'cruel' treatment and how you really fix Hollywood's female role problem.
...suggests with its choice of topics that this is just going to be one whiny first-world-top-1%-problems bitch fest (i.e. The Amy Adams Show!) when there are roughly 1000 topics that would be more interesting and more respectful and more actorly than plastic surgery and nude photo questions. These are top notch actresses. Please ask them questions about their craft and the cinema. Not stupid gossip rag questions.
How many of these ladies are getting Oscar nominations? Someone usually doesn't make it from these covers.
That's all. (Until the full video arrives)