Villeneuve & Gyllenhaal: From Enemy to muse

Cinematic magic often occurs when an actor and director find their careers entwined and they're able to bring out the best in each other. Film history has been littered with Directors and their muses; Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, John Ford and John Wayne, Hitchcock had many, Woody Allen had his, too. Now it seems Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal are joining those ranks with their recently announced third collaboration The Son, based on the Jo Nesbo book. The moody thriller will follow Gyllenhaal as a heroin addicted prisoner who escapes to learn the truth about his father's suicide. Hopefully this also means we'll have another career best performance from Gyllenhaal. Following Nightcrawler, Zodiac, and both the Villeneuve pictures (Enemy, Prisoners), crime thrillers seem to fit Gyllenhaal like a glove...

While Prisoners was more palatable to audiences, Enemy felt far more like the unique stamp of an auteur and muse project. This brain bender offers the only thing better than Jake Gyllenhaal starring in a movie: two Jake Gyllenhaals starring in a movie. The puzzle of a man meeting his exact double is gripping, thought provoking, and one of the most underappreciated films of the last few years. The curious spider motif that recurrs throughout Enemy is an appropriate metaphor for the delicate web that Villeneuve and Gyllenhaal spin together. 

We'll have to wait awhile for The Son, though, as both men have very full slates with Villeneuve working on the Blade Runner sequel and finishing the Amy Adams sci-fi drama Story of Your Life. Gyllenhaal next stars in Nocturnal Animals from Tom Ford and he obviously has a taste for alternative acclaimed directors, since he's got roles in new Antoine Fuqua, David Gordon Green, and Joon-ho Bong projects as well. Gyllenhaalics rejoice.

Are you excited about this latest auteur & muse team? 

Beauty Break: Movie Stars in Uniform

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

We'll still be posting this weekend but it'll be a bit lighter daily until Tuesday morning. To celebrate this holiday commemorating those who've given their life in service to the country or who have passed on more generally, let's celebrate with beautiful movie stars in uniform but who are no longer with us after the jump...

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Girls Gone Wild -- Favorite Bad Girl Oscar Winners

Kieran, here. We've been celebrating Girls Gone Wild this month at The Film Experience. If you haven't already done so, make sure to check out Team Experience's wonderful relay-style Thelma & Louise 25th anniversary retrospective. 

As the month comes to a close, it felt fitting to take a look back at some of the Best Oscar-winning "bad girl" star turns. Here are 11 of the juiciest...

Honorable Mention:

Cristal Connors in Showgirls (Gina Gershon)

Should have been nominated. Very possibly should have won. Haters be damned.

Top Ten Oscar Winning Bad Girl Roles

10. Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (Tatum O'Neal - Best Supporting Actress 1973)

A charismatic yet unsentimental child performance that perfectly nails the tone of its film. The only complaint is that she wasn't promoted to lead Actress where (judging by that roster) she very well could have contended.

9. Barbara Grahame in I Want to Live! (Susan Hayward - Best Actress 1958)

Delightfully over-the-top and melodramatic. Barbara refuses to wear a nightgown while in prison for murder. She wants to "sleep raw!" 

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Tweetweek: Dumbo, Depp, Ghostbusters

It's a tie for Tweet of the week with the first win going to cartoonist Lucy Knisley for her sudden Mrs Jumbo tweet flurry... but there's more to come including Isabelle Huppert, Helen Hunt, Game of Thrones, Bridesmaids, and Michael Fassbender after the jump...

Tweet of the Week Part 1 

Is Dumbo's mom a Disney princess? Is she the first wrongfully imprisoned princess, persecuted for mental illness? IS SHE THE BEST ONE!?

— Lucy Knisley (@LucyKnisley) May 23, 2016

Elephant gestation is 2 yrs. If I had to be pregnant for 2 yrs, I'd want a flying baby and a princess title AT THE VERY LEAST. #FreeMrsJumbo

— Lucy Knisley (@LucyKnisley) May 23, 2016

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Posterized: Tye Sheridan

They grow up so fast *sniffle*. Tye Sheridan, the child actor revelation from Terence Malick's The Tree of Life (quite a debut) and Mud is already 19 years old and in major demand. What accounts for his mutant super power of aging rapidly is that Tree of Life actually began shooting when Tye was just 11. Malick takes forever in post production, don'cha know. Male stars don't tend to really come into their A list own until their late 20s or early 30s. DiCaprio is the grand exception to the rule but usually the ones that break out in their late teens or early 20s more commonly have career trajectories, like, oh, Chris O'Donnell. That's partially because the juicy roles for men tend to be the ones that require a 30 or 40something actor.  So it's anyone's guess as to whether or not Sheridan can build on his rather solid first five years in the movies. Are you that anyone? Care to take a guess?

While Sheridan isn't the star of X-Men Apocalypse -- the movies are STILL obsessed with making it all about Magneto, Xavier, Wolverine, and Mystique (sigh) even though we've seen that dynamic five times already (fwiw Wolverine is reduced to a cameo this time but he takes over the movie for a couple of minutes). If the franchise can ever reach for the ensemble magnificence of its source material, Sheridan would be in a great position to collect more than just a paycheck as Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, one of the most enduring and important characters in the books. (He's also onscreens right now in Last Days in the Desert which stars Ewan McGregor as both Jesus and Satan.)

How many of his 10 pictures to date have you seen? 

Next up for Sheridan, if it gets distribution, is Detour (reviewed at Tribeca), presumably more X-Men features as well as more leading roles including Friday's Child,  the crime aftermath drama Grass Stains, the Iraq war soldier drama The Yellow Birds (which he co-leads with Alden Ehrenreich), and Spielberg's sci-fi flick Ready Player One. 2017 could be the star-making year for him if two of those break out strong.

Podcast: Cannes 1996 Revisit

Nathaniel, Nick, and Joe revisit the Cannes film festival of 1996 (you might wanna quickly check that lineup & those prizes before listening) and the Best Actress race that started there. We also recommend other 1996 goodies that you may or may not have seen... or thought of in years.

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Intro, Juries, and Crash's audacity prize
03:00 Best Actress: McDormand (Fargo) vs Blethyn (Secrets & Lies) vs Watson (Breaking the Waves)
10:09 Goodbye South Goodbye, The Eighth Day, Pillow Book, and Microcosmos
17:50 Trainspotting, Flirting With Disaster, A Self Made Hero, Lone Star, and Love Serenade
30:07 David Cronenberg's Crash
37:45 We each recommend a few more 1996 titles from Bound to The Long Kiss Goodnight

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments. Which 1996 picture have you still not seen? Who got your Best Actress vote that year?

tfw when you're turned on by car crashes

Articles We Mention
• 5 Contentious Cannes Juries 
• Nick's Annual Cannes Project 
• Nick on Cronenberg's Crash 

Cannes 1996. Recommendations