Silverstone and Suvari

Kieran, here. It was recently announced that Alicia Silverstone and Mena Suvari will headline TV Land’s new comedy pilot “American Women”. The project, produced by John Wells (“Shameless”) is set in the 1970s against the tumultuous and backdrop of the sexual revolution.  Silverstone and Suvari will play best friends navigating marriage, divorce and motherhood.

Alicia Silverstone and Mena Suvari’s careers have sort of mirrored each other’s, which makes the almost the perfect pair of actresses to headline a vehicle. Both came out of the 90s, with charismatic turns in a high profile role that put them on the map (Clueless and American Beauty, respectively). Sadly, neither actress was able to find a film to match the attention and success of their star-making vehicles, though both have continued to work since their breakthroughs (Suvari more so). 

Suvari, billed as the true lead of “American Women” especially could do a lot to change the perception of her and truly give her a front-and-center showcase for her talents. Though mileage varies for everyone where all things American Beauty are concerned (who’s MVP? how poorly or not does the film age?) Suvari absolutely nailed her BAFTA-nominated role (seriously. Look it up) as the flinty, deeply insecure suburban teenager, Angela.

And what of TV Land? It’s true that the network hardly conjures thoughts of quality and prestige television.  However, the same could have been said just two short years ago about Lifetime before “UnReal”. Word is TV Land has been looking for a project for some time that will change the face of their network in a similar fashion. In this early stage where we know very little, “American Women” seems promising enough. Plus, it’d be great to see these two actresses get an interesting second act to their careers.

Are you excited for “American Women”?

Watch Out, Titanic.... Here Comes Passengers

Or so says its director. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) tried to build up hype for his December release starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt:

Every generation has its love story. I feel like this is it. 

There are certainly similarities with Titanic. Passengers is about two, well passengers, aboard a spaceship who accidentally wake up from an iduced time suspension, 90 years into a 120 year trip. Everyone else on board is still asleep when they discover that the ship is in danger. They try to save themselves and everyone else while falling in love. Sound familiar?

Lawrence and Pratt are arguably the two biggest movie stars in their age groups, so a commercial hit is expected. But will they capture the zeitgeist like Kate and Leo? Tyldum certainly hopes so. We will find out on December 21.

Does Passengers give you blockbuster vibes? What is your definitive love story? 

Half Century Halle (and other anniversaries)

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz...

1040 King Duncan is killed in battle and King Macbeth succeeds him. Shakespeare fictionalizes everything later for Macbeth. So many theatrical productions and movies follow. Out damn spot!
1932 The 1932 Summer Olympics end. This is the Olympic year when gorgeous Buster Crabbe became a gold medalist (pictured left). Hollywood then snatched him right up for movie serials and action adventure franchises including Tarzan The Fearless
1945 Japan surrenders during WW II (the six year war will last only two more weeks.) but movie makers all over the world have never stopped telling the war's infinite stories. On that same day Steve Martin is born in Waco Texas. It only takes him another 68 years to get the Oscar he totally deserved
 

1946 Two actor birthdays: Blacksploitation actor Antonio Fargas who became "Huggybear" on TV's popular Starksy & Hutch and Susan Saint James TV of McMillan & Wife with Rock Hudson in the 1970s and Kate & Allie with Jane Curtin in the 1980s
1959 Marcia Gay Harden materializes in LaJolla California, presumably already perfect 
1963 Emmanuelle Béart, Manon of the Spring herself, and 8 time César nominee is born in France. On the same day in Los Angeles Clifford Odets dies from stomach cancer. Many luminaries of stage and screen visit beforehand. He came to fame as a highly political playwright (four of his works became movies: Golden Boy, Clash By Night, The Big Knife, and The Country Girl). He was also fond of the actresses: married to Luise Rainer during her back-to-back Oscar wins and also took up with Frances Farmer -- he's played by Jeffrey DeMunn in the 1982 biopic Frances.
1965 Jane Fonda marries director/producer Roger Vadim. Together they cook up Barbarella (1968) which lasts forever unlike the marriage

When you look at your page and you realize there are now half a million peeps here to hang with you... ❤️🍾🎉 excited to be creating with you guys. Thank you!!

A photo posted by Halle Berry (@halleberry) on Jul 4, 2016 at 1:17pm PDT

Halle Berry Instagrammed this a month ago. 50 is apparently the new 30 for the extraordinarily beautiful people.

1966 Superstar Halle Berry is born in Cleveland. Becomes the first African-American Miss World contestant twenty years later. Hits the movies 5 years after that with Spike Lee's Jungle Fever  as auspicious debut. Happy half century to the Best Actress winner.
1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show gets its world premiere in London. It's the longest running film in theaters since it still shows regularly at many moviehouses around the world for weekly midnight screenings.
1980 Dorothy Stratten, a nude centerfold, is murdered by her boyfriend. The story was adapted to screen starring Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts by the genius Bob Fosse in Star '80 (1983), the influential artist's last film. 
1983 Mila Kunis is born in the Ukraine of the Soviet Union. Moves to Los Angeles seven years later and by the age of 11 she's already on TV
1987 Can't Buy Me Love opens in movie theaters. No one could possibly expect that nerdy Dempsey would reemerge years later into a sexy mature leading man that everyone called "McDreamy"

1992 Single White Female opens in movie theaters
1998 How Stella Got Her Groove Back starring Angela Bassett who still had hers (before she lost it and got it back heyyyy) hit movie theaters
2004 The cinematographer Neal Fredericks of sleeper phenomenon The Blair Witch Project (1999) dies suddenly in a plane crash on location for a film
2009 District 9 opens in the US, becomes a huge hit, and even goes on to Oscar nominations including Best Picture in one of the most surprising Oscar years ever (since no one knew when the year began that they'd shift to 10 Best Picture nominees and the studios definitely hadn't prepared for it.)

Review: Meryl Streep as "Florence Foster Jenkins"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

It takes a gifted singer to sing this horribly. Every other note is wrong. No phrasing goes unmangled by shortness of breath. No lovely moment meant to soar cannot be shattered by a flat ear-piercing decibel. The central conceit of Stephen Frears new comedy Florence Foster Jenkins is that Florence, a considerably wealthy patron of the arts played by Meryl Streep, lives for music but is ghastly at it. The inside joke, given the casting, is that we all know La Streep can sing with the best of them. She followed the "is there nothing she can't do?" revelation of Ironweed's tragic showstopper "He's Me Pal" (1987, Oscar-Nominated) with transcendent country crooner feeling in Postcards From the Edge (1990, Oscar-Nominated), and just kept on singing whenever a movie gave her the opportunity all the way up through last year's Ricki and the Flash which was practically a concert film there were so many scenes of Streep at the mic, rocking out.

Florence Foster Jenkins doesn't rock out. Florence is not that kind of girl and Florence, also, is not the kind of movie...

Click to read more ...

RIP Kenny Baker (1934 - 2016)

Kenny Baker, the actor inside R2-D2 in each of the Star Wars films, has passed away at 81. Share your favorite R2-D2 moments and insights in the comments.