Breaking: Oh Jimmy! Daniel Craig Returns as 007 in "Spectre"

It wouldn't be accurate to call James Bond the mother the father of all franchises since serialized storytelling was with us since the very beginning of the recorded image. Nevertheless it does sometimes feel like James Bond pioneered the art of staying in the game. It maybe even influenced the rebooting craze long before it had a name with its continual cosmetic surgery; can you imagine how expensive it is to make Timothy Dalton look like Pierce Brosnan and then like Daniel Craig?

Daniel Craig is among the sexiest mofos on the planet but perhaps this is why he looks so beat up all the time? Either that or because people have been torturing him onscreen from the very beginning.

Case in point: This is not an image from the new Bond film but from the Cate Blanchett film Elizabeth (1998)

The new Bond film which begins production in 4 days and arrives in theaters on November 2015 is the 24th official entry in the series (though there are a two apocryphal films as well) and will be called Spectre. It's worth noting that this is, like Skyfall, a very short title. The shortest Bond titles (though not running times) since Dr. No (1962) which kicked off the whole series! Sam Smith will be doing the theme song.

Sadly, the casting doesn't seem very imaginative since Christoph Waltz is among the villians (i'm sorry but I'm done with him post Big Eyes. His range is shrinking which is quite an overachievement since he already won two Oscars for the same performance!) 

The cast in order of TFE's current levels of fandom...
Daniel Craig as Bond, James Bond (returning)
Ralph Fiennes as M (returning)
Lea Seydoux as Madeleine Swann (new)
Ben Whishaw as Q (returning)
Naomie Harris as Moneypenny (returning)
Andrew Scott as Denbigh (new)
Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra (new)
David Bautista as Mr Hinx (new)
Rory Kinnear as Tanner (recurring)
Christoph Waltz as Oberhauser (new)

Do you think Lea's AMAZING entrance in Ghost Protocol inspired her future Bond Girl femme fatale role (say yes, that's rhetorical)

Do you see every Bond film or wait for the general cultural response?  Given Skyfall's historic gross and Oscar over-performance (doubling the entire franchises's Oscar tally!) do you think they're in for another zeitgeist hit and awards contender. Or do you think this one is bound to be a bit of a letdown?

Interview: Toa Fraser and the 'Cool Runnings' of the foreign language race.

Glenn here. If you had ever wondered what a pre-colonial New Zealand western may look like, Toa Fraser's The Dead Lands just may be it. The film's story of revenge taken by a Maori chieftain's son after the slaughter of his tribe and family is very typical fodder for the western genre, but with its use of indigenous languages (a language that itself has been slaughtered throughout history) mixed with local mythology and lore, the film proves an entirely unique proposition. It's only the third foreign language submission in the small island nation's history, and the first to be set before white settlement. I spoke to the director last week, just a few days before his film received the biggest haul of nominations at the New Zealand Film Awards. The Dead Lands received 14 nominations and will face stiff competition from the inspirational chess drama The Dark Horse with 13. We talked about about the festival circuit, Oscar campaigning, being the underdog, historic authenticity, costuming and more.

 You have recently played at Toronto and London film festivals, and now you're a submission for the Oscar, how have these last few months of yours been taking this film around the world.

It's been amazing. We only finished the movie a few weeks before we went to Toronto and I had only seen it once in its entirety before we screened it at Toronto so it was kind of a high stakes game. We had, I think, six cast members come to Toronto and be a part of the experience, so it was a great premiere and we were very happy with the way that it was received. We were very grateful. And then to get back to London for the festival was also great. We had a great big group of Maori come down to the show and stand proudly at the side of the stage without telling us they were coming. They all had a great time. And then back to New Zealand for the premiere there, so it's been a bit of a whirlwind, but I am very proud of the movie and love talking about it. Good times.

Have you by any chance been given any education on campaigning techniques when it comes to the Oscar? Is it a big deal in New Zealand or do you take it stride?

We are the Cool Runnings of the foreign language race [laughs]. You know, I think we're only the third ever from New Zealand…

Yeah, it is, after The Orator (2011) and White Lies (2013).

Yeah, and we're up against some formidable and very established industries that make movies in languages other than English. So, we under no pretense we have… we're the underdog in this game, but in terms of strategy? No. I understand there are very strict rules and so I'm anxious not to suck up. We're from New Zealand, we're very play by the rules types.

More on Peter O'Toole, costumes, and action choreograhy after the jump...

James Rolleston, Lawrence Makoare and Toa Fraser on the set of 'The Dead Lands'

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The Babadook, Russell Crowe and Mia Wasikowska Score at "Aussie Oscars"

Glenn here again to look at the AACTA Awards - aka the "Australian Oscars" - which announced their annual nominations last night. Lots of big names spread across the field and some welcome nods to smaller films.

It was an expectedly big day for Russell Crowe's directorial debut, The Winter Diviner. While ol' Rusty may be miffed (justifiable? I'm not sure, I have not seen his film yet) that he missed out on a directing nomination, he surely can't be disappointed for too long since his film is scattered all over the nominations. In fact, with eight, the WWI drama received the second-biggest haul of the day. Somewhat less expected, however, was the film that leads the nomination tally: Predestination. A period-set sci-fi thriller from the Spierig Brothers (Daybreakers) that stars Ethan Hawke as a time-traveller whose life intersects with a mysterious man whose story spans time, space, fate, terrorism, love and even gender. Thankfully that refreshing lack of genre bias extended to six nods for The Babadook and The Rover. Meanwhile, more traditional dramas like Tracks, The Railway Man and Australia's foreign language entry Charlie's Country also fared very well.

Here are the nominations.

Best Film

• THE BABADOOK (haiku review)
• CHARLIE'S COUNTRY (review)
• PREDESTINATION
• THE RAILWAY MAN (TIFF experience)
• TRACKS (review)
• THE WATER DIVINER

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A Year with Kate: The Man Upstairs (1992)

Episode 49 of 52: In which Katharine Hepburn, octogenarian and Academy Award-winning legend, wrestles a convict and wins.

“You’re too old not to be interesting,” Ryan O’Neal tells Katharine Hepburn midway through The Man Upstairs. As the 1980s rolled into the 1990s, that certainly turned out to be the case for Kate. The formerly private star was now the subject of documentaries, interviews, and the 1990 Kennedy Centers Honors. When she released her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life in 1992, it would have been fair to say that Kate was the busiest recluse in the business.

By this time, there had been so many biographies, interviews, and fictionalizations of her life--of which The Man Upstairs would prove to be another example--so Katharine Hepburn’s autobiography was her chance to set her life in stone once and for all. Told in Hepburn’s typical forthright, conversational style, Me: Stories From My Life may not be the most linear (or truthful) autobiography, but it is a fascinating character study nonetheless.

With all of this energy being put into the performance of being Katharine Hepburn (in book form and the accompanying TV special All About Me), Kate had precious little to devote to actual film projects, which may explain the underwhelming quality of The Man Upstairs. Our own Kate plays Victoria, a misanthrope living alone with only her maid and relations for company. Her life is shaken when an inept escaped convict named Mooney (Ryan O’Neal) takes up not-so-secret residence in her attic.

Kate takes great joy throughout the movie in alternately snapping and smiling at her costars. (She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her efforts.) O’Neal matches her in energy, but his oily charms slide into a whine too often. Because this is a holiday TV movie, the convict and the hermit become bosom friends, and he teaches her the true meaning of Christmas. The film is overall pretty formulaic, but it does give 85-year-old Kate the opportunity to smack 51-year-old Ryan O’Neal with her cane and wrestle a gun away from him. It’s the little things that make these movies, y'know?

And stay down!

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Team FYC: Carrie Coon for Best Supporting Actress

Editor's Note: We're featuring individually chosen FYC's for various longshots in the Oscar race. We'll never repeat a film or a category so we hope you enjoy the variety of picks. And if you're lucky enough to be an AMPAS, HFPA, SAG, Critics Group voter, take note! Here's Margaret on Gone Girl. 

David Fincher's Gone Girl has been praised, and deservedly so, for excellence in casting its leads. Certainly Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck are immensely successful in their chilling game of spousal one-upmanship, both turning in career-best performances. But looking a little further down the call sheet, some of the best work is being done by arguably the least known in the cast. Carrie Coon, Chicago-based stage actress and recent Tony nominee (for playing Honey in the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), made her film debut in Gone Girl, but blends in so seamlessly you'd never guess.

Carrie Coon plays Margo Dunne, twin sister of Ben Affleck's Nick. Frank, wry, and loyal to a fault, she quickly becomes the heart of the movie as the central couple reveal themselves to be less and less reliable. Margo functions effectively as an audience stand-in, but she's much more than that. Coon's lived-in, effortless rapport with Affleck creates a believable and affectionate sibling relationship that emphasizes the ambiguity, and keeps Nick from being too easy a villain. Her pointed observations and bluntness are a steady source of humor, welcome in Fincher's grim universe, and essential in keeping the movie from tipping too far into the unpleasant. Not even the source novel's pickiest devotees could find anything wanting in her performance. She's perfect. 

Carrie Coon's Margo Dunne has neither the narrative heft of near co-leads like Rene Russo in Nightcrawler or Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year, nor the scene-grabbing outre of Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer, but her contributions to Gone Girl are no less potent. She makes everyone with whom she shares a scene better, and she makes the movie as a whole better; it's a true supporting performance.

Previously in Team FYC
Visual FX, Under the Skin
Cinematography, The Homesman