Nicole Kidman & Snow Flower

Australia beauty Nicole Kidman just hit a NYC screening of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Was she there to see co-star Hugh Jackman's cameo? (The restraint that the Snow Flower marketing team has is incredible; they don't show him in the trailer at all!) 

Incidentally this is not "Snow Flower" in the picture with Nic but the actress Li Bingbing who plays "Nina / Lily" in the film which makes me giggle. I suddenly pictured her starring in a fictionalized version of the making of Black Swan as both Mila & Natalie!

Yes, No, Maybe So: "John Carter"

With Hollywood searching madly for the next franchise and the next one after that -- which can mean billions upon billions of dollars even when you stop trying (Deathly Hallows Pt 1, Pirates part whichever, Etcetera) -- so why not John Carter of Mars. He's the other oft-naked hero from Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. If Tarzan could generate millions upon millions for decades upon decades, why not this other guy?

Taylor Kitsch is THE PRINCE OF PERSIA JOHN CARTER.

So on March 9th, 2012 John Carter arrives on Mars... albeit without Mars in his franchise title. Weirdness. After a decade of ever-lenghtening film titles, Hollywood has decided to go short again. The Invention of Hugo Cabret becomes the boring "Hugo" and John Carter of Mars becomes the boring "John Carter". Hopefully the movies bearing these names aren't similarly reductive.

Let's break down the trailer with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. How badly do we want this one?

Writers never tire of naming their messiahs JC  - SUBTLE! -- but we're curious about this "John Carter" fellow and his director, too. After five years of heavy glowering and heavy drinking and sensitive soulfulness on Friday Night Lights will Taylor Kitsch's charisma transfer to the big screen. That cameo in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (let us never speak of that fi---oh, damnit!!!) was eyegrabbing but will he be able to carry an entire movie? The other huge question mark here in terms of transferring is Finding Nemo / WALL•E director Andrew Stanton. How well will his gift transfer to live action (a similar challenge awaits Brad Bird in Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol) . We're ready to find out.

Like many fans of Pixar, we hoped for a huge genre leap for Pixar when this was first announced; why shouldn't the great animated studio do a dramatic sci-fi action flick with their insane technological wizardy? Alas the only thing that appears to be animated here are the super tall multi-limbed martians. And if this trailer is any indication they stick out like... well... animated characters in live-action filmmaking often do. That last line reading is curiously disheartening too.

When I saw you I believed it was a sign that something new could come into this world.

...because, you see, this movie doesn't look "new" at all. It doesn't look like some great new hope coming to our movie world. It looks like every other movie! You've got costumes that give you Prince of Persia or Zardoz flashbacks, you've got animated superhero leaps in the desert that recall Hulk's big jumping bean moment or maybe something from that Immortals trailer. Mars doesn't look otherworldly really unless by other worlds you mean Tattooine. And why are John Carter and his love interest (Lynn Collins) wearing so many clothes? We knew they couldn't be starkers like they often are in the book, but why so much material even covering their midriffs? On the other hand this trailer is very short and perhaps they're saving the provocative or eye-candy imagery for the movie itself and maybe it'll all be magic in context.

We're a maybe so for the source material, the director/star double risk, and the off chance that the movie is a helluva lot weirder than this generic peak. But we're starting to worry about leaning full on "no".

You?

Emmy Nominations 2011: Friday Night Lights (FINALLY) and More...

We'll start with the biggies: Drama, Comedy and Lead Actresses. Yes, that is the Big Four -- well, to the Film Experience it is!

Best Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
Friday Night Lights *my vote because it's the last season and because I'm so mad at Mad Men for not returning this summer.*
Game of Thrones
The Good Wife
Mad Men

Aside from the way-better-late-than-never inclusion of Friday Night Lights, finally elevated to "Best" status in its fifth and final season, despite always having been better than the other nominees, save Mad Men, the newbie is HBO's Game of Thrones. We've discussed it a few times (in short: I'm less impressed than most though it has its moments). But still can we get crazy drunk and jubilant for Friday Night Lights?

Who will win? Can Mad Men do it again or will The Good Wife which is obviously beloved by the acting community take its first "best series" win?

Best Comedy Series
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
Glee
Modern Family
The Office
Parks and Recreation *my vote*

Bummed that Nurse Jackie or Raising Hope aren't cited. Hasn't The Office outstayed its welcome and doesn't The Big Bang Theory have a laughtrack? Ugh. This category could have been so beautifully modern? If it doesn't I apologize. But what a relief that Two and Half Men isn't stinking up the category anymore. Who will win? My guess is that the consistently hilarious Modern Family continues its reign though if we're voting for Most Improved, Parks and Recreation takes all; what a season.

Comedy Lead Actress
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Laura Linney, The Big C
Melissa McCarthy, Mike and Molly
Martha Plimpton, Raising Hope
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation *my vote*

Was The United States of Tara not eligible? Nomination I'm happiest about: Martha Plimpton in Raising Hope. I've been a fan of Martha Plimpton since the mid 80s and am so happy to see her having such a great decade lately what with the Broadway stardom and now the TV hilarity. Plus her twitter feed is love.

Who will win? I love Tina Fey as much as the rest of the world except that she does not deserve to keep winning acting prizes. Let's spread the wealth Emmy.

Drama Lead Actress
Kathy Bates, Harry's Law
Connie Britton, Friday Night Lights *my vote*
Mirielle Enos, The Killing
Mariska Hargitay, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Julianne Marguiles, The Good Wife
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men

Apologies to our Annie Wilkes but what, pray tell,  is the often great Kathy Bates doing here? I have literally never been more bored by her than on this very show as if she was heavily medicated or too sleepy to act. I tried twice though it didn't help that the show was plain old stale, like a series we might have seen 12 years ago but not now with the impressive elevation of TV drama over the past decade. Hooray for Britton who really ought to win this for five unimproveably naturalistic years on FNL. I'm trying to make peace with the fact that next time someone casts her in something it's bound to be a character-less procedural but I'm having a hard time. I will miss Tammy Taylor way too much. Who will win? It's obviously Marguiles, right?

But wait there's more...

Click to read more ...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "ALIENS"

For the penultimate episode of Hit Me With Your Best Shot's second season (the finale is Rebel Without a Cause next Wednesday, join us) we're venturing into the Alien franchise, Aliens (1986) to be specific for its 25th anniversary (this coming Monday). We'll be spilling some acid blood, ducking into airshafts, doubting synthetic humans, and flame-throwing with Lt. Ellen Ripley a few times this week to celebrate. Yay, theme weeks!

Teamwork. How many action movies actually cheer for it?

Though Sigourney Weaver's iconic "Ripley" is the the franchise's true star (H.R. Giger's alien beasties are formidable but only runners-up; you know that's true!), one of the most commendable things you can say for Aliens (1986) is that James Cameron understands the importance of a strong ensemble and the value of teamwork. Many blockbuster franchises spin around one seemingly indestructable protagonist and though that's true here as well, the team around the good lieutenant never gets short-shrift. There's a brilliantly paired set of shots midway through the picture when Hicks and Ripley have just lost adopted daughter surrogate "Newt". Hicks rescues Ripley, dragging her to safety and then she rescues him in return when alien blood splatters on his chest plate and she drags him to their next destination.

Cameron has often been lauded for promoting women to lead duties in action pictures, but isn't it really only that he tends to balance the masculine and feminine throughout, rather than the far more common and totally lopsided cinematic impulse (i.e. heroic "doer" men and the decorative women that are there to be rescued or supportive or both). What's more, Cameron's action heroines are never just men in drag -- note this great shot of Private Vasquez (Cameron regular Jenette Goldstein) prepping her huge gun for war. It's hard not to miss her large breasts, especially since the shot begins with a closeup of them and they aren't taped down (Contrary to Mr. Lucas's famous edict, there will be jiggling in outerspace).  Earlier in the picture a fellow marine asks Vasquez if she's ever been mistaken for a man. Her simple inverted quip "No, have you?"

Best Shot
But given Ripley's place in the sci-fi and action pantheon it's fitting that the film peaks with its most female-centric setpiece: Ripley with her new child ("Newt") in her arms enters the lair of the Queen alien who is surrounded by her children; the room is littered with her violent egged babies, like sentient grenades just waiting for their pins to be pulled. Ripley begins to back away, after what amounts to a face/off and stand down with the Queen until one egg hatches and she realizes what she must do.

This shot, one of the most iconic close-ups of 80s cinema and maybe all of film history, is the climax of the mostly silent standoff between this franchise's two queens, underscored less by movie music than by their mutual heavy breathing. It's all in the steamy exhaustion, Ripley's heroic impulses, and that Oscar worthy head tilt from Sigourney Weaver.

10 Fellow Colonists

• The Red-Headed Invasion hands,  reaching out, touching you
• Tom Clift The moment when Ripley becomes.
• Okinawa Assault it's all in the art direction
• Film Actually 'the shit hits the fan moment' ...nightmares!
• Movies Kick Ass mommy metaphors
• Dark Eye Socket "payback time"
• Intifada "sharp sense vs. tantrums"
• Awards Nazi it still gives me shivers
• Awww, the Movies mother and child
• Oncoming Hope Ripley as Gaia 

The Sickness

JA from MNPP here, foolishly wading for the briefest of moments into everyone-around-here-but-mine’s forte – that is, the Oscar discussion. I was just looking at the newly released poster for the “cancer comedy” 50/50, seen there to the right, and I couldn’t help but immediately wonder why Joseph Gordon-Levitt doesn't seem to be a blip on the radar when it comes to the conversation regarding the 2011 Best Actor race. Granted it’s awfully early so pretty much anybody’s blip is a hazy blip, but we’ve got an actor here who’s been getting more respected and loved with each passing year… and he’s playing the Terminal Illness card!

Of course there are a couple factors standing in 50/50’s way of serious attention It’s a comedy, for one. It’s a comedy about terminal illness co-starring Seth Rogen to be more specific, and one wonders how long a shadow of ickiness Judd Apatow’s Funny People casts. Once upon a time someone must’ve contended that Adam Sandler had a shot at an Oscar nomination before that movie came out, I’d wager. But JGL’s no Adam Sandler, thank goodness.

Sure the trailer’s jokey but you can tell there’s some dramatic meat there for Joe to chew on all the same. It’s not like AMPAS has proven they don’t have a weakness for the ocassional melodramatic dramedy about disease, hello approximately one thousand golden boys for Terms of Endearment. Granted director Jonathan "The Wackness" Levine's not exactly at the same point in his career as James Brooks was, of course. But Anjelica Huston's in it! She's insta-cred, right? (How I wish that were true - then Wes Anderson would be drowning in Oscars.)

"It's an honor just to be nomin... nevermind."

Is JGL just too young? I know Nat’s crunched the scientific data before (while wearing a lab coat and standing over a couple bubbling beakers, I like to imagine) and Best Actor usually goes to the older gentleman – ingénues are strictly Best Actress, dang it! But Joe would look so pretty cradling that statue! Natalie Portman who?