Who's That Girl? It's Nicole Beharie

Kurt here. Considering the overall deficit of good roles for great black actresses (an issue to which this site is no stranger), moviegoers really can't be too hard on Nicole Beharie for offering them such rare and infrequent peeks at her remarkable talent. Still, watching those peeks (and they're watchable indeed), it's easy to send "grrrs" in this petite, 26-year-old beauty's direction, as she's thus far only appeared in five movies, two of them not even on the big screen. Why must she deprive us so? Her phone has to at least be ringing a little bit, and it can't just be about her selectivity, as the titles she's appeared in, on the whole, aren't exactly of the street-cred variety. So, what, then, has she been doing?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. My first exposure to Beharie was in early 2009, in a little film called American Violet, which screened at that year's Philadelphia Film Festival and had a very limited theatrical run. To be frank, the movie is glorified Lifetime rubbish, focusing on a real-life single mom who fought back against a corrupt system after being wrongfully charged with drug-dealing in a persecuted Texas housing project (wah-wah). But Beharie is knock-you-out stellar in the lead role, and she easily made my personal Best Actress top five. Since then the Juilliard grad has been toiling away on various projects that are slowly making their way to screens. Some may have caught her in the Precious wannabe Sins of the Mother (which, incidentally, was developed for Lifetime), while others may have seen her work in the football movie The Express, but she's also starring in at least four as-yet-to-be-released films, including everyone's favorite fleshy hype-magnet, Shame.

Beharie in 'American Violet'

In the Steve McQueen sex-addiction drama, Beharie plays Marianne, a co-worker of the lead nympho, Brandon (Michael Fassbender). She offers him a shot at pure, normal intimacy. Beharie doesn't upstage Fassbender or Carey Mulligan (it's not that kind of role), but she brings more than what you'd normally expect from such a character (SPOILER ALERT: she is introduced for the very purpose of being dismissed). Her ability to be extraordinarily sexy in a heated makeout session (which may just be the mixed-bag movie's most well-choreographed scene) is hypnotic, as much a small feat of physicality as in-the-moment focus.

With Fassy in 'Shame'Compared to her character in American Violet (a headlining part Beharie has said she doesn't expect to land again), the sidelined Marianne is rather thankless. But nothing but good can come from the fact that Beharie is starring in a movie that anyone who gives a hoot about film is absolutely going to see. It's bound to give her profile a long-overdue boost.

Beharie flicks on the horizon include the sports drama The Last Fall, and the afro-centric Small of Her Back and Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day. Jot those titles down. Beharie will likely be reason enough to see them.

Ask Nathaniel...

It's that time again. Each week I choose 10-12 questions to answer. (No, I can't answer them all... I just choose the ones that spark an answer. Not everything does!) If you feel compelled to ask perhaps I'll feel compelled to answer? [Please note: This week there is a ban on Meryl Streep questions. She hogs this column as much as she hogs Oscar nominations ;) ]

Ask away!

TV @ The Movies: "Supernatural" ♥ Nicole Kidman?

Don't misunderstand . I don't actually watch Supernatural but you know how some nights you're bone-tired and whatever is on is what you end up half-watching. (I think my TV must have been on the CW due to Ringer). I always perk up when TV shows reference movies and wonder what possessed the writers. 

Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) discussing witches

In the episode the supernatural hunting brothers are investigating mysterious murders connected to this guy Don (played by James Marsters) and his wife (played by another Buffy alum Charisma Carpenter... so it's like Spike & Cordelia got married. Ewwww!)

Dean: So the scorned wife is into the dark stuff.
Sam: And Don's just in the dark.
Dean: Hmmm. it's kind of like Bewitched. You know Don is Darren and doesn't even know it. Lot of laughs 'till you cheat on your wife.

Sam: A Bewitched reference? Really?
Dean: [Lustfully] Dude. Nicole Kidman was in the remake. Redhead. Hellooooo.

This is the first time I've ever heard the BEWITCHED (2005) referenced in a positive way anywhere in my life !!! 

Beauty Break: Rose, Uma, Michelle & Tilda

Thanks to reader Emmanuel for sending me this photo...

Rose Huntington-Whiteley, Uma Thurman, Michelle Yeoh and Tilda Swinton this week in Milan. What a photo, eh? This was taken at a launch party for the Vertu’s ‘Constellation’ smart phone. I thank the smart phone for requiring this much collective gorgeousity for its debut.

Though she's clearly the odd girl out here, what with three bonafide screen goddesses on the coach, I don't have the heart to photoshop Rose out (but, yes, I was tempted). She got such a severe beating for Transformers: Dark of the Moon and please... we've seen much worse when it comes to models acting! You know I'm right. People were just ready to pounce because she replaced Megan Fox and because it's Transformers which only requires that the girlfriend be fuckable.

More photos after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Yes, No, Maybe So: "In the Land of Blood and Honey"

A few readers have expressed dismay that I never talk about Angelina Jolie's directorial debut. There have even been suggestions that I have it in for Angelina. If by "in" you mean LOVE HER, than yes, I most definitely have it in for her. She once walked right past me and made eye contact (in a non-professional setting -- i.e. i wasn't reporting on anything and she wasn't promoting anything)  and I absolutely treasure the memory. The reasons for not covering her film before are several but dull and almost all of them boil down to two things:

1. This is not the kind of blog that fawns endlessly on every detail of pre production and filming and multiple marketing events before a movie is released. The Film Experience prefers actual movies -- even old ones (gasp!) -- to theoretical and future movies, as out of fashion as that may be on the internet. 

2. I really didn't expect it to come out this year!

I never plan to change my ways on #1 but I have totally been proven wrong about #2 so let's do a Yes No Maybe So 

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY

YES

• Looks sensitively directed, shot, edited*, scored ** and acted (from both of the leads. Some of those looks just break your heart). Sensitivity is something such films need in abundance lest they hit the atrocity notes too hard. War films -- particularly modern war films -- tend to wallow so much in the atrocity that it's almost desensitizing in addition to being just fucking depressing. Our capacity for violence is worrisome as is the capacity for watching it and than just going about your daily business like it's nothing.
  
  * it's impossible to tell anything about a films editing from a trailer. We know this but it's still easy to pretend that trailers have all the  same qualities as their movies.
  
  ** it's usually impossible to tell anything about the way a film is scored, too... since most trailers don't use their final score. But the temp music they were using was good.

NO 

• n/a

MAYBE SO

• The dialogue is very straightforward, with characters speaking themes and situations aloud. That's not always inappropriate in heightened settings like war where subtext generally becomes text,  everything being stripped down to its most primal parts... but will it be too on the nose?
• The trailer works well with its pinpoint focus on the Lover as the Other but it hits the note repeatedly. This begs the question of what else there is to the movie and can a once passionate love affair, destroyed by fear and suspicion, be enough to sustain the whole narrative?

"In the Land of Blood and Honey"

Are you a yes no or maybe so? My mind flashed briefly to Shot Through the Heart that Linus Roache television movie: anyone remember that one?

Do you see Oscar potential here? I'm doubtful mostly (and cynically) due to the lack of Hollywood glamour on screen and the lack of American characters. Many well meaning foreign war films are made each year and Oscar rarely takes notice.

What would you like Angelina Jolie to do for an encore?