Bob & Carol & Depp & Tilda
Wednesday, July 2, 2014 at 10:37AM The New Yorker on Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice by Paul Mazursky. I love that movie so much
NYT RIP the influential filmmaker Paul Mazursky (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, An Unmarried Woman, Enemies: A Love Story)
THR The Academy sues the estate of art director Joseph Wright. His family auctioned off his Oscar for My Gal Sal (1942) for $79,200. (God, imagine how much an Oscar for a famous movie or actor would get!) But auctioning off Oscars is a big big no-no. AMPAS freaks out every time.
Bryan Singer tweets a treament of X-Men: Apocalypse
Daily Mail Johnny Depp on the set of Black Mass. Lots of old age makeup
X-Finity Matt Bomer implies that his Montgomery Clift biopic is on indefinite delay
The Wire Joe talks that Eric/Jason sex scene on True Blood and what a failure the show has been in terms of the gay. Co-sign every word.
The Black Maria on the Hunger Games of the 70s, Roller Ball
The Dissolve in the greatest summer blockbusters
Comics Alliance revisits Batman to look at Vicki Vale, the 1989 version of "Strong Female Character". (I totally forgot Ms Vale was an acclaimed photojournalist - not that it matters)
The 1989 model had fluffier hair than her successors, but that’s really the only significant difference. She establishes her Totally Empowered cred early, makes eyes at the hero, then gets the hell out of the way... She ends the film in the hero’s arms, fulfilling her role as reward for his victory, with nary a whisper of the professional goals that drove her to him in the first place. She is pretty and in need of rescue and almost entirely in service to the male characters’ plot and characterization—but she gets to be vaguely spunky and is slapped with a typically male career, so it’s totally okay.
I can only imagine the interviews that took place upon the release of "Batman", touting her modernity, her break with the damsels of the past, her ineffable 1989-ness.
Towleroad Adore Delano continues to hit it hard in that tiny assured-media-interest window post RuPaul's Drag Race. Party!
Clothes on Film wonders what happens to contemporary costumes when the movie wraps. Featuring The Descendants, Brick and Silver Linings Playbook
Variety Tom Hardy reunites with Inception co-star Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant
Tilda = Best
Tilda Swinton has proclaimed that everyone should see Julia because Tilda has great taste. She's so extraordinary in that movie and she should've won her second Oscar for it. (Sorry Oscar nominees of 2009 but you just don't compare)
I made a film with Erick Zonca called JULIA of which I am extremely proud: in the United States it had a very small release by a great little and passionate distribution company called Magnolia.. but there was only so wide they could release it.. PLEASE look for that one.. it is something else.. and I LOVE it.
Her Reddit Q&A is often hilarious. Consider this response to whether or not she's a clone of David Bowie.
The laboratory gave me strict instructions to issue no comment
I'm so proud that I've been a fan of Tilda since Edward II (1991) so she's MINE. I am so proud to have given Tilda the gold medal right here for Julia. The Film Bitch Awards are awesome. *pats self on back* Should really watch that movie again.
Reader Comments (25)
Movies I'd cut from The Dissolve's list of "50 Greatest Summer Blockbusters." If he just said "summer hits" or "Best Summer Movies" I wouldn't cut any of these, but, for me, blockbuster implies a certain level of "built to be BIG"
#50 (Yep, another "this is way too small to deserve qualification")
#48 (A lot of effects ARE used, but, kind of like The Truman Show, the purpose of them is too small for cred as an out-and-out blockbuster.)
#44 (Again, not denying it's quality (there's a couple of these I'm not fans of, but this is more questioning on a strict mechanical/budget/use of budget level why a lot of these are called "blockbusters.")
#38 (horror)
#36 (horror-comedy)
#34 (horror)
#33 (Again: Not BIG enough.)
#31 (Also, again: Too small.)
#30 (It has the budget, but the entire story concept and what the budget is used on mean it's not really a "blockbuster")
#29 (Again, like the movie or not, but the Muppets are too small to qualify)
#25 (Horror)
#24 (Most animated movies would qualify, but the cheapo style of South Park tilts it as NOT A BLOCKBUSTER.)
#20 (NO. Even if you like the movie, there's NO way this is BIG enough for this list. The reason they're called blockbusters is that SMALL MOVIES CAN NEVER BE CALLED THAT.)
#19 (way too small, aside from scattered moments)
#12 (horror)
#5 (Yes, there's occasional big moments, but its still too small in terms of scale.)
#2 (yes, there's big MOMENTS, but it's mostly too small in scope and scale to mark it as a "Blockbuster" mode movie. Roger Rabbit, though? That was a dense movie about an examination of the big turning point in LA's development that was also funny that had a bevvy of tech showcase elements that make it fully deserve the label of Blockbuster.)
(Also, I'd switch Die Hard and Jaws, giving Jaws slight marks off AS A BLOCKBUSTER due to having any horror elements)
1, at minimum, that is bizarrely missing in this set of articles that leap to over praise films that are small in scope? Even though that is not what "blockbuster" does, or should, mean?
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
I also adored Tilda Swinton in Julia. She had a trio of back-to-back performances that deserved Oscar consideration (I Am Love, Julia and We Need to Talk about Kevin) in the late aughts. If she was the type to actually campaign for her work, maybe it would've happened for one of them, but at least we have the amazing roles to look back on.
I'm on the fence about her latest wacko role in Snowpiercer. Is it genius? Is it camp? Campy genius?
W.J. i'm on the fence about that too. I mean i love that it really is anime realness (i forget which commenter here said that but it's totally true with her hand gestures and excitability) but its also just SO stylized when literally none of the other performances are save for possibily Alison Pill but she has more of an excuse in the very specific context of her scene.
Volvagia -- i think they hew pretty close to general concepts about blockbusters myself. The only title that out and out confuses me is IRON GIANT. I mean it's a delicious movie but it came and went without a trace of notice that summer. Flopped and only discovered and praised to the skies later. I mean Blade Runner also wasn't a big hit but at least it caused a big stir in its year even though a lot of people hated it when it was first released.
Nat: I was talking more about "constructed to feel big and awesome" as the definition of blockbuster, not "ANYTHING that was released during the summer." The Iron Giant doesn't actually confuse me under that definition, but Clueless (#20)? Risky Business (#33)? Bull Durham (#44)? A Fish Called Wanda (#31)? The 40-Year-Old Virgin (#50)? Those are BLATANT COP-OUTS that reduce the word to "anything that was released during the summer." An actual "best of the summer movies built to feel big" would be cool to see, but due to the massive amount of "small" movies on the list (12/50), the list should be retitled and a new one should also be released that ACTUALLY fulfills that purpose.
Volvagia -- i'm guessing you're too young to know how big some of those movies were. they were major deals. Blockbusters didn't used to be solely for visual fx... it used to mean solely films that made a shit ton of money (once it was $100 million. Now of course that's way more common so the meaning seems to have changed to movies with lots of special effects) .Anyway... All 5 of those movies you're complaining about were huge-ass hits. Yes, even the baseball film about a horny middle aged woman.
I had Tilda and Michelle Monaghan (Trucker) as my number one and two picks, then everyone else for the best of 2008.
...even the baseball film about a horny middle aged woman.
I beg your pardon. Sarandon was in her early forties when Bull Durham was made.
"In your early 40s" was considered middle-aged in 1988. (In some circles today, it's considered OLD. But that's another story.)
3rtful-Middle age is definted as 35-54 by the U.S. Census, so Sarandon would have qualified if that's what the quibble is over.
I thought middle-age began in one's fifties. Now my thirties are ruined knowing the US Census sees me as middle-age beginning at thirty-five! Eww.
"I'm too old to be young and too young to be old." -- Evelyn Couch
The executor of Wright's estate must be a moron. You'd think that before auctioning off such a prized object he'd look into relative market value, at which point the family would discover that the AMPAS would make a living nightmare out of the sale, legally. There's such a slim chance of "getting away" with such a sale that no sensible person would try it, right?
And apart from the legal dramz, to do so also courts all this speculation and negative attention. They look like money grubbers with no respect for the deceased's legacy or the conventions of the industry. That's not even to quibble over whether 80K is a depressingly low figure to settle for.
It would all make more sense to me if this sale had happened under the table, too--but at a "reputable" auction company, in broad daylight?
3rtful -- i know right but whenever people want middle age to not apply to them i think of meryl & shirley in Postcards from the Edge, arguing.
Suzanne: Ma, I'm middle-aged.
Doris: Dear, *I'm* middle-aged.
Suzanne: Really. And how many one hundred and twenty year old women do *you* know?
Mazursky was such a terrific director. His passing makes me sad. He really captured the zeitgeist of the 70s like no other auteur. Love this passage from the New Yorker piece: "Mazursky’s exposed nerves and hypervulnerabilty show through his characters’ expansive chutzpah, worldly bonhomie, and relentless activity—and through his own." Perfect.
Time to rewatch Blume In Love.
If I had to pick a favorite actress, it would be Tilda. Love Julia! I am excited to hear she and Ralph Fiennes are going to be in the next Coen brothers film, too.
How is the Academy able to sue? The award was given before they made people sign the "right of first refusal" contracts, so it should still be allowed under the law (it's somewhat tacky, admittedly, but it's legal).
Julia is the film where Tilda Swinton played the unintentional kidnapper, right? I always get the plot mixed up with I Am Love until I remember I Am Love's title. Both were amazing performances.
John T -- you'd think it would be legal yes but apparently AMPAS makes people's lives hellish when they attempt it. And good on them, I say. They've been smart in the long run to have treated their institution and their statue as sacred -- it makes it feel more mythic.
Nathaniel R -- They're not allowed to complain about statuettes being sold when they freely throw statuettes on the mediocre.
Matt Bomer should play Tyrone Power....
Snowpiercer.- Saw it months ago without any previous knowledge and just because I love Tilda and Jamie Bell. I didn't like either. At times, it felt like Tilda was mocking Meryl in The Iron Lady.
Julia.- Memorable performance. I clearly remember that particular race and how discouraged we all felt about the lack of support, despite the existence of over 300 critic's groups.
My favorite Mazursky film is Moscow on the Hudson as it's also a favorite of my parents since they're immigrants and they could relate to the film plus they loved Robin Williams (when he used to be funny).
I saw "Batman" all the time when I was a little kid, so I remember that Vicki Vale screamed ALL THE TIME (to the point that my mom insisted that Basinger herself wasn't doing her own screaming). And yet, there's something to be said about the scene in which she decides to meet up with The Joker at the museum and throws water in his face, or when Bruce Wayne awkwardly tries to explain his double life to her and she glibly says, "Oh my god, you're married."
Much as I love Tilda in Julia, I was actually even more blown away by her work in I Am Love. So layered and precise and moment-to-moment-oh-my-god-i-cant-take-my-eyes-off-her! (The latter obviously applies to Julia too.) That dinner party (I adore the moment where she kisses her father-in-law's hand as he announces some uncomfortable news and her face freezes mid-kiss), the way she so convincingly and uncannily morphs from contently beige trophy housewife past her prime to voracious carnality, the way she combines both psychological insight and self-conscious iconicism in those let's-call-them-Vertigo sequences, the tension she builds just with her still face in that ending etc etc
I actually wonder if, had those two films were released in reverse order, maybe Tilda would've gotten a bit more awards attention for I Am Love - at least in in indie/blogger circles (which is the only awards attention that genuinely matters!)
I feel like after Julia, people had grown so accustomed to her genius that they could just watch her in I Am Love and think, 'oh right, it's just Tilda Swinton doing her usual impeccable thing but oh my god who's this Jennifer Lawrence!!'
PS. For the record, just in case the above comes off wrong, I have nothing but affection for J Lawrence.