Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

by Murtada Elfadl

What if that one thing that you cared about and that you built your life’s work around was gutted away from you violently? Can you recover? How do you cope in the days and years that follow? These are some of the questions that Richard Linklater is trying to answer with his adaptation of the Maria Semple novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

Bernadette (Cate Blanchett) is a harried mom (to Emma Nelson’s 15 year old Bee) and wife (to Billy Crudup’s Elgie) in Seattle. She spends her days in her big semi-rundown house trying to manage the small details of her family’s life, but mostly running away from facing the minutiae and drudgery of those tasks by composing long email and text messages to her virtual assistant Manjula. But Bernadette’s life wasn’t always so banal and she wasn’t in perpetual war with everyone she meets (Kristin Wiig plays her nemesis and next door neighbor). She used to be a genius architect with lots of promise until she suffered a major career setback that she couldn’t recover from. 

If you are a fan of the novel you might not recognize what you liked about it from this adaptation...

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Five Underrated Edward Norton Performances for his 50th

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Norton directs and co-stars with Bruce Willis in "Motherless Brooklyn"If you had asked me fifteen years ago who my favorite actor was, I surely would have said Edward Norton, though I’m not sure he’s worked enough since then to continue to hold that status. (My other choice of the time, Kevin Spacey, also bears reevaluation... for other reasons). With Edward Norton turning 50 today paired with the recent announcement that Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn, which he wrote and directed and stars in, will be closing out this year’s New York Film Festival, it’s the perfect time to take a look back at his career.

His feature film debut in 1996 in Primal Fear demonstrated an incredible ability to shift back and forth between different personas, earning him an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of an altar boy on trial for a brutal murder. Two years later, he scored a second Oscar bid for a more staggering and gradual shift in worldview as a reformed neo-Nazi trying to prevent his younger brother from going down the same path in American History X. It took sixteen years for Norton to return to the Oscar lineup, this time in Best Picture winner Birdman as an actor who, by many accounts, is closest to what Norton is actually like on set, with a penchant for attempting to exert control even if he’s not actually the one in charge... 

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"Out Stealing Horses" wins Norway's Top Film Prizes

by Nathaniel R

Out Stealing Horses

You may recall that when we posted our April Foolish Oscar predictions we suggested that the Norwegian film Out Stealing Horses could well compete for the Best International Film Oscar. That was a blind call based solely on its pedigree (a lush adaptation of a best-seller with a known director) since a) we hadn't seen the picture, b) Norway hadn't submitted it, and c) there weren't many industry reactions yet. Those things are still true save the latter which is now emphatically untrue. It's obviously well liked since it just took the top prize at Norway's annual Amanda Awards. Early critical reaction via Berlinale in February was also positive. 

More about the Amanda Awards and that film after the jump...

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Let Them All Link

• Salon The Marvelous Mrs Maisel's Emmy campaign disrupts Los Angeles with 1959-era prices 
• The Atlantic's "friendship files" talks to three thirtysomething women who all cosplay Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow 
• Slate comparing the starpower of 2019's Little Women to the starpower (back in the day) of the 1994 cast - Saoirse vs Winona and more. Really fun article but the part on Sarandon and Dern is a major misread of the mid-90s. Sarandon was at the very peak of her fame in 1994, headlining a sleeper blockbuster (The Client) and building yet more momentum to win her inevitable Oscar win the following year. She should have bested Dern (who we loooove, don't get us wrong).

 After the jump The Godfather, Faye Dunaway's trouble, Steven Soderbergh's secret movie, Mulan trouble, Kristin Chenoweth's breakout and more...

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Captain America vs. Captain America

Can Marvel Studio's finally win the Best Visual Effects Oscar at the Oscars via Avengers: Endgame? Or will The Lion King's photo-realism or something as yet unseen take the prize? Here's a video of the making of the Captain America vs Captain America fight.

That fight was definitely the highlight of the movie for us, especially given its perfect punchline...

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