Beauty Break: Smoking Kills (Glamorously)

Confessions, multiple: I have never been a smoker, I've been thrilled and proud of my friends whenever they've kicked the habit, I have never once missed the days when bars / restaurants allowed smoking...

... but I miss smoking in the movies. 

Rock Hudson blowing smoke rings

Fifty years ago this very day the Surgeon General first deemed it hazardous to your health and over the next fifty years it's slowly faded from the movies. Nowadays when you see smoking onscreen, it's nearly always to signify "rebellious character" or "villain" or is shot through some sharp retro-commentary filters: see everything about everyone in Mad Men or David Straitharn's whole act in Goodnight, and Good Luck. 

I know smoking is wrong. I know it kills. I hate the way it smells. But those tendrils of smoke on screen or a movie star's lips around a cigarette look so damn sexy. Here's proof...

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Podcast: Pre-Nom Party, Bring Your Own Dream Date

Confetti gun - it's the final pre-nomination podcast episode of the season with Nathaniel, Nick, Katey and Joe. This installment, recorded last week but airing now due to jammed schedules is not a "prediction" session. That would be rendered meaningless come Thursday morn. Instead we've opted for a rambling festive discussion of general Oscar feelings... all the feelings. This podcast is dedicated with love and fan-fic to Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange chief among many others*

00:01 Intro + Golden Globe prep
03:00 Imaginary couples via Charlize + Sean rumors
10:00 Supporting Actor plus James Franco
14:00 Actress Lockdown vs. Actor Free-For-All
19:00 Cinematography/Costumes: Gravity, Grandmaster, Her, The Invisible Woman, Great Gatsby and more...
24:30 Out of the Furnace tangent
26:00 Original Score: Hans Zimmer, Desplat, Newman, Arcade Fire
32:00 Foreign Finalists but why no Gloria? >sniffle<
36:00 Documentary: Blackfish & Tim's Vermeer hate, 20 Feet From Stardom love
46:00 Dream dates for red carpets
51:00 Bye-eeeeee

*you know how we do with the actresses

You can listen to the podcast right here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes. 

P.S. Here's the skit that Joe refers to wherein Gwyneth Paltrow poked fun at Sharon Stone.

Pre Nom Party. Bring Your Own Dream Date

"All is Lost" For Oscar Noms?

One of the biggest question marks this season is what became of All is Lost's Oscar heat?

Was it the box office (okay but unnoteworthy)? The relatively laidback Robert Redford campaign when hard sells are the norm? Or was it merely that the movie is a quiet contemplative type fellow in a sea of noisy exuberant life-of-the-party types? Or was it that other quiet contemplative loner with which critics are far more enamored (That other guy goes, oddly enough, by Her)?

There is still a chance that All is Lost could pull a few nominations out of its hat this Thursday morning but with none of the recent guilds going its way, and very little in the way of critics awards, all might be truly lost. Which seems strange given the early heat it had for Best Actor and the nominations it probably deserves like the sound categories. I know it's not an original notion to compare it to Gravity in terms of theme and plot but the similarities don't end there. In both cases, the sound is inarguably crucial to the movie's success. Here's a veritable FYC ad for its Sound Mixing and Sound Editing...

Do you think the film will come up empty-handed on Nomination Morning or surprise with Redford and other stray nod? 

Review: 'The Legend of Hercules'

Glenn here with a look at a new release that will not be troubling Oscar in 12 months.

Hercules, son of Zeus, was gay. Or at the very least bisexual. He had to be if Renny Harlin’s The Legend of Hercules is anything to go by. Those ancient Greeks weren’t exactly shy about it, so in that regard it’s a shame Harlin’s oiled-up reboot of the Hercules mythology didn’t go further with the homoeroticism that is inherent in the material of pretty much any Hercules production (Disney animation excluded). As Daniel Walber writes at film.com, “the [sword and sandal] genre lives and breathes through the muscled bodies of often scantily-clad actors.” Ain’t that the truth. And in The Legend of Hercules there are buff, barely-clothed bods galore. And beards. Lots of beards, too. I wasn't complaining.

The Legend of Hercules places former Twilight star Kellan Lutz front and centre after a small part as Poseidon in Tarsem Singh’s equally flesh-obsessed Immortals so any genuine exploration of homosexuality between sparring partners was a no go. Still, judging from how close Harlin situates his male actors faces from one another – and the stone cold fact that Lutz has more romantic chemistry with the ridiculous handsome Australian actor Liam McIntyre than his so-called love interest Gaia Weiss – it’s impossible not to see it. And then there’s the gay BDSM lair, the mud-wrestling, and the limp-wristed villain played by Liam Garrison… if this film were actually fun we could have been looking at a new camp classic.

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The Pryor Life

JA from MNPP here again, taking a look at the news that no less than Lee Daniels is about to sign on to directthe long-gestating bio-pic of the comedian and actor and genius Richard Pryor.

Apparently Bill Condon almost made it a couple of years ago, but I guess that's fallen through since here we are. I was really looking forward to Daniels making his interracial gay action movie, possibly to star Alex Pettyfer, but I'm not exactly surprised that producers aren't throwing money at that.

And not only do we have a director, but we have a trio of names that're rumored to be up to play the troubled, brilliant comedian. Eddie Murphy, who's been considered for the role for as long as they've been thinking about making the movie really, is still in the mix, although if they want to focus on Pryor's life in his 20s and 30s that seems a bit of a stretch, doesn't it? Eddie Murphy is 52 years old.

Of course also in the mix is Damon Wayans, who's actually a year older than Murphy so what do I know. (Condon was considering using Damon's brother Marlon, and he makes more sense to me.) But I guess they've got that CG they used in the third X-Men movie to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen look young, they can just spend millions and millions of dollars using that. (I hesitate to even mention make-up since I thought the make-up Daniels used to age people in The Butler was just awful.)

I personally find the third name in contention the most appealing - Michael B. Jordan, hot off a great performance in Fruitvale Station, and buzzy as all get out. I don't see why Daniels doesn't consider David Oyelowo too though - he was my favorite thing in The Butler (granted, I didn't like The Butler).

So who would you cast? And what do you think about Daniels tackling not just Pryor but another bio-pic largely set in the Sixties and Seventies so soon?