The Diary of Peggy Siegal

High Powered Publicist Peggy Siegal's has just released her Cannes Diary at the Huffington Post. Better three weeks late than never. Peggy throws great Oscar shindigs here in NYC where much handshaking and FYC vote counting happened right before my very eyes last season (remember that party for The Help I wrote about? - that was one of my favorite pieces last year).

Can't wait for the festivities to begin again! For Peggy of course they already have.

Peggy @ Cannes with Michel Hazanavicius & James Woods

My favorite days of the name-dropping diary (Frank Langella would be proud) both happen to be Thursdays.

May 17th. Jacques Audiard's screening of Rust and Bone at the Palais is packed. Marion Cotillard portrays a marine-park trainer who loses her legs to a killer whale. Stop. It's a love story. A street fighter, played by Belgian Matthias Schoenaerts, literally sweeps her off her digitally-erased feet and I promise you, she is walking into the Oscars this year in a Dior Haute Couture.

Peggy promises! Translation: Take note.

Hey, it's not a bad bet. Even if Rust & Bone proves to outré for the bulk of AMPAS voters there's always Cotillard's other juicy lead role in the tentatively titled Low Life in which she plays a reluctant immigrant prostitute. If The Weinstein Company opts to give that one an Oscar qualifying 2012 release. (Oscar voters do love the world's oldest profession.) 

Kidman and Cotillard, both Oscar winners, won fresh buzz at Cannes last month. Will they snag their fourth and second nominations respectively?

Thursday May 24th is my favorite entry. It begins like so.

Lee Daniels shows the The Paperboy. Nicole Kidman is a trailer park Brigitte Bardot. Zac Efron, all grown up, lusts after Nicole wearing underpants. Matthew McConaughey is a hunky gay journalist and John Cusack is the crazy inmate on death-row in this erotic thriller set in1960s Florida.

Lee unabashedly announces at the press conference that his deep understanding of the nutty and violent characters are taken from his personal experience. As he says, "I know these people. My brother is in jail for 18 years for murder." He had Nicole interview seven real women who have long-term relationships with men in jail, adding insight to her stunning performance.

Arriving on Lady Joy, Denise Rich's 170-foot yacht, appropriately disheveled but always chic, Denise whisks me off to her stateroom and instructs her professional hair and make-up staff to fluff me up.

Famous love birds Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are staying on the boat and have just come up from their bedroom for lunch. Kim and I stare at each other's makeup as I sit as close as possible without invading her space. Her skin is like butter. She is quite beautiful.

I rant about every film I have seen. It's a tad too early for Kanye and Kim to digest all this information. Soft-spoken Kanye tells me about his short art film Cruel Summer. Filmed in Qatar, the short is inspired by theRomeo and Juliet-esque classic Middle Eastern tale Antar and Abla.

David Geffen sends the "Rising Sun's" tender, which is larger than my New York Park Avenue apartment to pick me up for lunch. At 453-feet, I board the sixth largest yacht in the world built by Larry Ellison for over $200 million and redesigned by Geffen. From sea level, I climb four flights to greet David. I have three words for him, "Not big enough."

Lunch is with Keith Urban and Wendi Murdoch on an outdoor deck. Again I rant about every film but to a more astute reception. David tells me he never leaves the boat. Would you, if you had a basketball court on board?

On the tender back to shore Keith tells me Nicole and he are moving to the South of France in September for three months while she films Grace of Monaco, a drama about thesp-turned-princess Grace Kelly.

My head is spinning from trying to imagine Kim Kardashian conversing about art movies though I have no trouble imagining the follow up with Keith Urban - he is married to our Nicole after all. But that's Cannes for you - an improbable mix of Household Name Celebrities Famous Just Because They're Famous who might never have set foot in an arthouse in their lives and films made by Household Names if your household happens to be composed entirely of cinephiles. (In which case, can I come over for dinner?)

Believe it or not, this is but a tiny sample. It's a must read. Poor Clive Owen even gets stuck in an elevator with fans for 20 minutes! 

P.S. Yes, I'll update the Oscar charts soon.

Complete the Sentence. Everyone Should Watch...

Everyone should watch ______________ immediately because ________________ . If you haven't seen it _______________.

Identical Twin Cousins?

more twins!

Oscar Snub? Supporting Actress 1987

Witches of Eastwick 25th anniversary week ends this weekend. I intended to do much more but we'll see what little can be conjured still.

Cherries, Oatmeal, Satan and her weak husband just make her sick!

Film Experience Trivia: Veronica Cartwright was the star of the very first episode of Craig's "Take Three" series right here (well, at the old location) in 2010. He spotlighted her work in three genre pieces (Alien in which she was originally cast as Ripley (!!!) , Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Witches of Eastwick) concluding that she is the sci-fi-horror scream queen. On Witches:

Cartwright's skill at creating profoundly memorable characters is none more evident than in Witches: you see the very bile rise up in Felicia's face; she vehemently means every word in her religious rants, summoning up as she does some kind of wicked, wrathful acting goddess. With cherry-scented vomit (or even hospital oatmeal) smeared ungainly across her mouth, and spitting hellfire sermons at everyone who'll listen, Cartwright was unafraid to eschew vanity to maintain supporting performance perfection. If the "Alien" lead was stolen away, a Best Supporting Actress nod was more so here. Remote-control fruit-based possession doesn't get any classier than this.

...she exited the film way too soon. 

There were surely people at the time who thought she over reached but when you're the god-fearing counterpart to Jack Nicholson's Devil, you have to go big.

SO, LET'S TALK OSCAR 1987. Here's how the year shook out for Best Supporting Actresses but did you agree with their choices?  

The Oscar List

I saw Moonstruck for the first time in 2 decades last year. My god it holds up. Dukakis, Cher, the screenplay, Nicolas Cage even? All fantastic.

• Norma Aleandro, Gaby: A True Story
• Anne Archer, Fatal Attraction
• Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck (WINNER)
• Anne Ramsey, Throw Momma From the Train
• Ann Sothern, The Whales of August

The Globe List
the same list but for the following

• Ann Sothern, The Whales of August
• Vanessa Redgrave, Prick Up Your Ears ( also won the prestigious NYFCC Prize)

Vanessa, like Shirley Maclaine, is an oft-nominated Oscar caliber performer who also happens to have a surprisingly large list of snubs (despite the oft-nominated part) suggesting that if they don't love her work in a given year, they don't feel welcoming.

Martha Plimpton in a very unsettling scene in "Shy People". Good movie that's hard to find now.The Indie Spirit List

• Karen Allen, The Glass Menagerie
• Kathy Baker, Street Smart (also won the NSFC Prize)
• Anjelica Huston, The Dead (WINNER)
• Martha Plimpton, Shy People
• Ann Sothern, The Whales of August

I haven't seen Street Smart or The Whales of August but I remember liking the other three performances quite a lot. Sometimes I think I should watch The Dead again as an adult because I'm pretty sure I didn't fully understand it as a teen. I'm always hoping (in vain) that Martha Plimpton's current fame as a dramatic stage star and Emmy nominated comedic lead on Raising Hope will remind people of what a fresh compelling presence she was on the big screen in the 1980s. So talented that one.

The BAFTA List

• Maria Aitken, A Fish Called Wanda
• Anne Archer, Fatal Attraction
• Judi Dench, A Handful of Dust (WINNER, Oscar eligible the following year but wasn't nominated)
• Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck

Though I've seen all of these films I'll admit to trouble recalling Aitken and Dench's work in those films. But I haven't seen them in 20 years so...

Other Key But Less Kudo'ed Supporting Actresses in 1987

the scene to end all scenes for foot fetishist everywhere. Maggie Han and Joan Chen in THE LAST EMPEROR (1987)

• Veronica Cartwright, The Witches of Eastwick (Saturn Nominee)
• Joan Chen, The Last Emperor
• Paulina Poriskova, Anna
• Margaret Whitton, The Secret of My Succe$s
• Dianne Wiest, The Lost Boys and September 
• Sean Young, No Way Out 

Sean Young's current reputation as a Crazy Person is a bit unfortunate considering that in the '80s (when properly utilized) she was just on fire.

In other retrospective news... I'm never eager to call Oscar "racist" the way so many pundits do. The truth is that they can only choose from what's put in front of them in any given year. Roles for actors of color have never been as juicy nor as abundant as those offered white actors in English language fare and when they get plum opportunities they usually win attention. That said, if there's a "racial" issue with Oscar it's one that doesn't get any attention. For whatever reason, Oscar rarely ever nominates Asian actresses for anything even when they achieve international stardom or headline blockbusters of the arthouse or the multiplex (think Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh) -- both of which are achievements that get European foreign-language actresses nominated on occasion. They don't even notice Asian actress when they're key players in movies that voters can't otherwise get enough of (Joan Chen right here or Ziyi in Crouching Tiger) I'm not saying Chen should have been nominated -- I haven't seen the movie in way too long -- but wouldn't she have been in other circumstances considering that she plays a drug-addled royal in a Best Picture winner?

WHAT WOULD YOUR NOMINEE LIST LOOK LIKE?
Do you like Cartwright in Witches or do you wish she (and Jack) would tone it down? Which performances do you most wish you'd seen from 1987 that won attention? 

The Lord of the Links: The Return of the Link

whoa. no link roundups in forever. time to catch up on movie news and/or must see web droppings

Yahoo Movies Fine Thelma Adams piece on Prometheus' "foreign object" sequence. [shudder]
24 Frames Noomi Rapace and Sigourney Weavers' Alien franchise screen tests
IndieWire six life saving tips for cinematographers from the great Darius Khondji (Se7en, Evita, Midnight in Paris, and more...)
Empire Penelope Cruz will star in her fifth Pedro Almodóvar movie Fleeting Lovers (title may change) which starts shooting this summer. Yay! Double Yay! All About My Mother star Cecilia Roth is also in the cast.
YouTube if there's anything I hate about YouTube it's the ability to name your videos "official". But this "Official" Les Miserable trailer starring (gulp) Katie Holmes is kind of a good prank... I mean Nightmare!
In Contention production designer J Michael Riva (Django Unchained, The Color Purple) has passed away at 63.

Awards Daily Singin' in the Rain is getting a 60th anniversary rerelease on July 12th. Just in time for the Gene Kelly Centennial. And yes, if I can manage it here at the Film Experience July and August will house a big Gene Kelly retrospective right here at the Film Experience. He's up there with Montgomery Clift in my favorite (male) movie star charts after all.
Life of Pi the tiger growls memorably for the first time on the official website. Also he looks amazing.
Movie|Line Better three years late than never. Xavier Dolan's award winning debut film (and Canadian Oscar submission in its year) I Killed My Mother is FINALLY getting a US theatrical release. 
Guardian hears that The Avengers might get a three hour version for theatrical rerelease this fall. Considering Joss Whedon's comments on the deleted material (indulgent, killing the rhythm) and his own feelings about different versions of the same story (no) perhaps this is a very bad idea.
Queerty the red band ass abundant Magic Mike trailer.

filmmaking tips
IndieWire six life saving tips for cinematographers from the great Darius Khondji (Se7en, Evita, Midnight in Paris, and more...) 
Movie|Line twenty-two pieces of storytelling advice from a Pixar artist
LA Times offers up awards show tips for the Oscars (hey, that's sorta filmmaking tips) via the Tony Awards though I will continue to hate everyone and especially every writer who suggests very publicly that we don't need to see Costume Designers winning their prizes. A pox on all your craft-hating houses!

casting news we don't have much to say about but we should probably share anyway...

Greer takes over for Buckley in the Carrie remake

• Jean Dujardin is in talks to join Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street
• Amy Ryan and Dane DeHaan may join an upcoming non-documentary take on West Memphis Three currently starring Colin Firth and Allesandro Nivola (my god how many movies will this story inspire by 2020?)
• John Madden's "Exotic Marigold" follow up is a comedy called Murder Mystery and may star Charlize Theron
• Judy Greer (recently interviewed right here) wins the gym teacher role in Carrie, previously played by the great Betty Buckley. I only wish I weren't so dreading the movie.

off cinema
Gawker an alligator eating a croc? 
Sound Cloud she may have lost the Tony but Jayne Houdyshell keeps giving it from Follies. She rerecorded "Broadway Baby" as a solo for a compilation. It's wonderful! 
Cinema Blend an amusing piece about that George Bush head on spike story from Game of Thrones 

Zachary Quinto, Claire Danes, Chris Rock, The Fanning Sisters... and that's just a tiny sample.Finally...

 Have you seen the Paramount Pictures celebration? They gathered 116 stars together -- NOT photoshopped, actually there -- for a Centennial Photo.

The photo is so big you have to scroll to get the whole thing on your computer. You can mouse over it to enlarge see who's in the shot but without doing so I spotted George Clooney, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Takei, Julianne Moore, Meryl, Mark & Marty, Jane Fonda and Eddie Murphy straightaway. Watching the video gives you a closer look at the star networking. Watching stars mingle is the best part of starry events... though they never share enough.

It makes you wonder who knows each other and who doesn't. And who really does or doesn't want to be talking to whom. Did the stars who haven't had a good role in decades bee-line to the directors present (Lynch, Fincher, Scorsese, etcetera) or have they given up but for anniversary shindigs to honor their past glories? All I know for sure is that photo events like this make me happy.