Beauty Break: The Best of Colin Farrell

Colin Farrell turned 36 years hot today and after a tumultuous career that saw him win major celebrity status well in advance of anyong seeing his actual Acting, he finally seems to have settled into life as a reasonably famous, reasonably scandal-free (unlike before), well employed and consistently delivering screen presence in films both big and small.

Photographed by Tom Munro

The two things he doesn't totally have yet are a reputation as a great actor (though he's certainly a good one) or a bankable star. He'll take another shot at both of those missing ingredients this year with Seven Psychopaths (which reunites him with writer/director Martin McDonagh who yanked an Oscar-nom worthy performance out of him in In Bruges) and the sci-fi remake Total Recall (in the Arnold Schwarzenegger role).

Regarding the latter, the last time the Irish actor headlined an 80s remake audiences ignored him. Will he fare better this time? We'll find out in August almost exactly a year after Fright Night bowed and was promptly staked.

Five Favorite Farrells and Five Favorite Fotos after the jump...

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May. It's a Wrap

For reasons beyond my control, May was a tremendously difficult month and the least active in The Film Experience's long history of daily postings. But it wasn't without highlights. If you've been drifting away, [cue Keira's chokey Atonement voice] "come back..." because June will be hopping.

Ten Highlights from the Month... 

Cast out your inner monster!

Annette Bening as Myra Langtry Still on the Grift
Tilda, Candied still the most peerlessly iconoclastic actress
Thoughts I Had... while staring at Tom Cruise's W Cover
The Exorcist and Nothingness Beau's fascinating guest post

Maleficent Now with more... Mike Leigh?
Tennis in the Movies - a top ten list 
Raise the Red Lantern - my favorite installment of this month's "Best Shots" 
Smash - that "bombshell" finale 

Most Eyeballs: The Avengers Reviewed.
Most Discussed: "Goodbye Dad." Thanks for all your support out there in the dark. 

COMING IN JUNE: Witches of Eastwick week for its 25th anniversary, the completion of the 2011 Film Bitch Awards (I know I know), Updated Oscar Predictions (very soon), Gina Gershon, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The next Reader Ranking project, Pixar's Brave, The Parent Trap and Dead Ringers and other twin movies, Prometheus, Snow White and the Hunstman, Ally Sheedy, True Blood Season 5, and the premiere of something I've been cooking up forever called "Actressland".

And finally, I'll take it all off for Male Strippers Magic Mike week (Kidding! This isn't horror month.) 

What are your plans for June? Other than visiting The Film Experience thrice a day. That goes without saying, duh.

Twins: Isabella & Isotta Ingrid

We're celebrating twins while we're in Gemini

Did you know that Isabella Rossellini had a twin sister? They aren't identical but she does. The legendary screen goddess Ingrid Bergman had four children, the first Pia arrived with her first marriage to Peter Lindstrom. After her scandalous affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini (which sank her career in the US for a good long while -- her third Oscar was seen, to some extent, as Hollywood's forgiveness) she moved to Italy, and had son Roberto Rossellini folllowed by daughters Isabella and Isotta Ingrid.

The Rossellini kids in 1959: Isabella, Roberto and Isotta Ingrid

Do you think Isotta Ingrid is as fascinated by animal sex* (Green Porno forever!) as her sister Isabella? Well, Isotta is in Academia, so... maybe.  

a more recent picture of the twins and more after the jump.

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Les Miserables"

Q: You know what I always wanted for Christmas?
A: A miserabilist musical epic about whores, convicts, slum lords, revolutionaries and starving street urchins in 19th century France.

Thanks, Santa!

And thanks, Baby Jesus! Even though your dad was not as forgiving as Fantine (Anne Hathaway) dreamed. Les Misérables trailer and discussion after the jump

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The Bling Ring?

Hey, why didn't anyone tell me there was a new Sofia Coppola movie on the horizon? Or did I just forgot. Nevertheless... The Bling Ring is coming and its 'stars' are walking right at'cha.

Taissa Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Katie Chang & Claire Alys Julien "The Bling Ring"

Well... not exactly. Sofia Coppola is the star this time out since this band of moneyed kids is an ensemble and none of them have the hefty screen presence (yet) of a Kirsten Dunst or a Scarlett Johansson. And besides, even in the starriest of circumstances Sofia is at least the top billed co-star of all or her movies, having such a distinct auteur voice.

The Bling Ring is the name of the thieving group (above) who burglarize celebrity homes. Expect starry cameos, including our beloved Kiki (who previously headlined Coppola's Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides), Paris Hilton and possibly Lindsay Lohan and Orlando 'Legolas' Bloom among them.  No word about Scarlett Johansson but if both Scarjo and Kiki lent their dreamy girl star wattage The Bling Ring may well be the apotheosis of Coppola.

Sofia  has been accused of not stretching enough safely ensconced in her sheltered moneyed world of discontent. First there was the hazy teenage girls trapped and scrutinized by the gaze of others (Her The Godfather Part III experience via The Virgin Suicides. You can see it, right?) then the girl in the orbit of real celebrities who hangs out bored and unloved and disconnected in hotel rooms (Lost in Translation) then the moneyed girl born into great privilege, accussed of narcissism and disconnected from everyday living (Marie Antoinette) and finally a star driving around in circles, vaguely aware that they need to find new roads to travel (Somewhere). If you're inclined to project whole interior lives onto the unknowable rich and famous -- and frankly, who isn't? -- well, Coppola will make it easy for you.

But the synopsis of The Bling Ring sounds like newish terrain, albeit still adjacent to the world she knows all too well.