Tim's Toons: Oz well that ends well

Tim here. By now, you've undoubtedly all heard the biggest news of the summer movie season so far: there’s a conspiracy by Big Hollywood to bury the little cartoon indie that could, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return.

“Legends of which, now?” I can already hear some of you asking.

Exactly the point!  As producer-fundraiser Greg Centineo so sagely put it:

We’re nobodies in this industry. And we stepped into a deep, deep ocean with some very, very big sharks. Some of those mainstream critics have not just trashed the movie, but literally tried to crush it… You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out something is wrong there.”

Damn straight!

It's a well-established fact that critics and audiences tend to agree about 100% of everything, and the movies with the best reviews always make the most money. Surely only a shadowy cabal of self-sabotaging distributors and bought-and-paid for critics could be responsible for the film’s box office failure, and I am disgusted that you might even think it’'s because a handful of con artists fleeced a whole bunch of rich idiots out of their investments on a movie whose reported $70 million budget is clearly nowhere to be seen onscreen, obvious even from the trailer.

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27 Dresses (2014, Cannes)

Adele, Julianne, Fonda, Zhang HuiwenSarah Gadon, The Swankster, Jess, Marion Cotillard
Eva Green, Alice Braga, The Sparking Diamond, Chiara MastroianniSophia Loren, Juli (again), Gong Li, Our Reigning "Best Actress"
Nicole's BFF, Salma, Amelie/Audrey, Amber HeardAishwaryai Rai, Blake Lively, Marion (again), Léa SeydouxChristina Hendricks, Zhang Ziyi, and Deneuve

 27 Dresses (2014), premiered at Cannes. This has been a co-production of The United States, China, Canada, Australia, England, India, Mexico, Brazil, and France.

Mm Mm Oh Oh... I'm All Linked Up

Towleroad Harvey Milk stamp unveiling live at 3PM today!
John August's screenwriting podcast talks to the professionals about writing superheroes, masculinity and rebooting past franchises. Featuring: Conan the Barbarian, Captain America and Batman among others
The AV Club suggests that the only appropriate director for the Elvis biopic is... David Lynch?

It’s an almost biblical rags-to-riches tale infused with elements of horror, farce, and even science fiction, and while many have tried to bring it to the screen, there’s yet to be a definitive biopic.

Verité looks back at naughty precode gem Jewel Robbery (1932) with William Powell and Kay Francis
Gawker more 'celebrities reading mean tweets about themselves' feat. Julia, McConaughey, and Emma Stone 
Madonnarama V magazine features Katy Perry and Madonna in conversation for their summer spectacular
In Contention I forgot to mention The Search in my Cannes collection last night, so here's Guy Lodge on that reported misfire from the team behind The Artist
Extra Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt promise that their reunion will be "experimental and raw"... though that means so many different things to different people. I think she basically means low-budget and human-oriented
Empire for a limited time you can listen to the original score of the original Godzilla (1954) by Akira Ifukube

Two Essentials
Are you a struggling actor? Bitter Gertrude's "Why You Didn't Get Cast" is a must read about the casting and the audition process and building a career in a competitive field. I used to work in Human Resources and I would tell my friends these same things many times about non-showbiz job hunts.

Remember that absurd moment when Tom Cruise jumped up and down on that couch on Oprah? Amy Nicholson in a great long read over at LA Weekly  called "How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise, Our Last Real Movie Star," posits that it didn't happen. Not in the way we remember it at all. A provocative read even if you don't believe that Cruise was our 'last real movie star' (which I do not, while conceding that movie stars that large are rare beasts.)

Throwback Thursday FYC: Diahann Carroll in Claudine (1974)

The Film Experience time travels so consistently between the now, the future, the distant past and the recent past that Throwback Thursday, that grand internet tradition, hasn't meant much. But then I chanced upon this old FYC and a lightbulb appeared reflecting off my bald head "Throwback Thursday... The Oscar Campaigns"

Diahann Carroll in Claudine (1974)

click to enlarge

Diahann, deglamming to play a welfare mother in Harlem as MANY of the critical blurbs highlights, lost the Oscar to Ellen Burstyn in one of the all time greatest Best Actress rosters. The blurbs are interesting time capsules, both in the tell tale signs of 'this is still what people like for "bests" and in uniquely "holy hell" ways. Consider this provocative bit from the Gannett Syndicate:

...the first three dimensional portrait of a black woman."

I'm sure that Diana Ross and Cicely Tyson, both nominated two years prior would not approve! But it just goes to show you how deeply entrenched the problems were (and sadly still are) for actresses of color in terms of which films get made and what kind of roles are offered. The movies have made some progress, yes, but that we're still fighting this fight when we've got actresses as gifted as Viola, Lupita, Audra McDonald, Anika, Adepero, Kimberly Elise, and Emeyatzy Corinealdi available to us is, shall we say, maddening. 

Have you seen Claudine? Unfortunately it's on "very long wait" status at Netflix. (sigh)

Cannes Tidbits: Mommy, Foxcatcher, Two Days One Night, Lost River

And here is where the internet punishes me for being so woefully behind on my Oscar predictions. I had been planning to predict Channing Tatum for Best Supporting Actor since January... and I would have done so and people would have scoffed only to be blown away a mere month later by my prophetic gift when the Foxcatcher reviews hit at Cannes. 

Channing Tatum & Steve Carell headline. Will any movie ever campaign two leads again?

No matter that Chan is, by most accounts, the lead. You know how Oscar do with two-lead/same-gender movies - they cheat!

Foxcatcher isn't the only movie greeted with raves the past couple of days. In fact, it seems like with each day of the festival (which ends Sunday) we have a new Palme D'Or frontrunner. If you believe everything you read on Twitter, for example the winner is clearly going to be Two Days and One Night With Mr Turner & Foxcatcher's Mommy in Timbuktu. I've heard more than one critics proclaim Marion Cotillard the obvious winner of best actress for her leading role in Two Days One Night but haven't they been paying attention at past Cannes ceremonies? She's always the "sure thing" at that festival and she has yet to win. So try not to jinx her, s'il vous plait.

Not every movie is going to win a prize. Atom Egoyan's Captives was widely panned but seemed to quickly dissipate from the converation. Ryan Gosling's Lost River doesn't look like it's going to be so lucky. There's a certain level of joyful snark and target practice that only emerges from critics when a major star is involved in a project so that one appears to be the biggest punching pag since Grace of Monaco on opening night. [The No Duh Lesson: People care about Ryan Gosling and Nicole Kidman. They do not care about Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively]

After the jump a collection of Cannes tweets about Xavier Dolan's Mommy (and a few other movies) that have raised my eyebrows enough to share them.

 

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