Lukewarm Off Presses: James Dean, Christopher Guest, Bryan Cranston

Three stories we're late mentioning but so what? Always eager to hear your thoughts...

Trumbo
Still no trailer but there's now a poster for Trumbo, the Hollywood blacklist drama starring Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren (as gossip icon Hedda Hopper). Cranston could be looking at the Triple Crown if he's Best Actor nominated since he already has the Tony and the Emmy. Will Oscar go wild for this? A word of caution for those predicting at home: People were going on and on about how much Hollywood loves movies about itself when Birdman won the Oscar last season but it's not entirely true. They sometimes nominate movies about movies but they don't tend to be the big winners. And Hollywood blacklist dramas are an infrequent subcategory unto themselves: Career (1959) won a few tech nominations but nothing in the top categories;  The Way We Were (1973) only won for music and didn't even make the Best Picture lineup which it absolutely deserved to be in; Guilty by Suspicion (1991) with Robert De Niro and The Bening and The Majestic (2001) starring Jim Carrey were both entirely ignored;  Good Night and Good Luck (2005) was popular with voters for nominations but lost each of its categories. 

Mascots
It's been nine freaking years since Christopher Guest's last mockumentary For Your Consideration (2006) which was, unfortunately his weakest comedy. But he's finally making something new! The movie will be for Netflix and it's about what it sounds like it's about. No cast announced yet but I think we can safely guess at least a handful of players. I NEED to see Parker Posey and Catherine O'Hara in big furry costumes, okay? I need it like I need oxygen. 

<-- The "Life" of James Dean
Bring Your Own "Yes No Maybe So" in the comments. James Dean has had biopics before but this one comes from Anton Corbijn who I think we should allow made a very fine music biopic on Ian Curtis of Joy Division called Control (2007). This ground, however, is amply covered previously -- except for its macro focus on a photoshoot the moment before Dean was famous. The film, which looks depressingly actress free from the trailer, stars Robert Pattinson, Ben Kingsley, the ubiquitous Joel Edgerton and Dane DeHaan as James Dean.

Ready? Go...

"Carol" is a tease

Just gorgeous. We'll Yes No Maybe So it with the full trailer but obviously we're all in. It's Todd Haynes. It's actressy. And the cinematography, by Edward Lachman who previously shot Far From Heaven, Mildred Pierce, and I'm Not There for Haynes, is suitably ravishing.

The song, for those who are curious, is Margaret Whiting's rendition of "My Foolish Heart". Add it to your every playlist in anticipation. Whiting was a famous singer in the 40s and 50s and even had her own television series in the 50s with her sister. Margaret provided Susan Hayward's singing voice in Valley of the Dolls (1967) as well.

YNMS: The Hateful Eight

David here digging into the trailer of the moment...

Or as the logo has it, The H8ful Eight. Which seems incongruous given both the Western setting and the classicism of the 70mm promotion at the end of the trailer, but that's Tarantino for you. He lives by his own rules.

Anyway, let's dig in to one of the year's most anticipated trailers, which gives us our first glimpse at the eighth/ninth film from one of cinema's most controversial auteurs.

The trailer, Jennifer Jason Leigh and more after the jump...

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Too Tired To Link

Gothamist the first look teaser at Martin Scorsese's new HBO series Vinyl starring Bobby Cannavale (just how many tv shows are going to be about the music business post Empire? it seems like there's at least 3 new ones on the way from reports. This, Baz's, and Lee Daniel's second). Speaking of...
Coming Soon Empire Season 2 has a teaser
i09 Agent Carter's villain in seaon 2 will be Madame Masque -- and get this... they're modelling her on movie siren Hedy Lamar! 

Playbill Shoshana Bean singing "The Wind Beneath My Wings" - she's starring in the pre Broadway stage musical adaptation of Beaches
Yahoo "Kirsten Dunst is tired, you guys"
THR What if Werner Herzog directed Ant-Man? HAHA
FSR 44 Fantastic Foursomes because the Fantastic Four aren't 
Signs and Sirens has a mean girl astrological note to Jennifer Aniston
Variety Josh Trank blames studio for Fantastic Four's abysmal reviews 
E! Awww, matching foot injuries for Kelly Ripa and Marc Consuelos 
Coming Soon Black Mass just got a bunch of character posters
Playbill talks to Mamie Gummer about working with her mother and her recent stage appearances 
THR What if Werner Herzog directed Ant-Man?! HAHAHA

He can lift things 100 times his body weight but what does this achieve but to increase his burden, his capacity for suffering?" 

Edward Norton Once Turned Green When You Made Him Angry...
He is also angry about Oscar turning green. I know I know. I did not say anything about Edward Norton's rant against the monetization of awards season at IndieWire and surely you expected me too. So here we go.

While there is definitely too much politicking / campaigning and Oscar might do well to cut off a few of its competitors at the knees with tighter rules about campaigning, do we really want to lose a great deal of the Oscar coverage in the world? Again, as a reminder, it's the only time of the year when the media pays attention to films made for adults. I believe that the media frenzy would die down if there were less money to be made. And then were would movie culture be? Superheroes, dumb comedies, franchises and summer blockbusters already hog movie culture for the rest of the year. It's nice to have four months where people think about dramas and dramedies and ambitious auteur vehicles and traditional star vehicles and such. (Some of us -- the craziest ones -- would still obsess without money to be made as we have always... but most outlets would reduce coverage on these films if there were less money in it).

That said, I do understand why actors get frustrated; It's a huge chunk of their year when they would surely rather be acting or vacationing on their private island or whatnot. But there are easy solutions to that one like not showing up at every event but picking and choosing key ones. Everyone seems too afraid to miss anything which is silly because there are only a few essentials. Everything else is like cumulative effect and going to 7 things instead of 10 won't kill people's interest in you or your film or your chances at winning gold. That's my belief at least. 

Yes No Maybe So
Here's the red band trailer to Deadpool. I don't have the strength for a YNMS but perhaps you do for the comments section? I think I've been burned by Ryan Reynolds too many times and anything originally born from that awful X-Men Origins Wolverine risks being inexcusable from conception but bless him/them/someone for that joke at Green Lantern's expense

YNMS: Miss You Already

Manuel here. It’s been a great couple of weeks for female-led films. We talked about Kate Winslet's The Dressmaker, Brie Larson’s upcoming Room, Judy Greer and Natasha Lyonne’s Addicted to Fresno, Julianne Moore and Ellen Page’s Freeheld, and now Miss You Already. I had to dive into TFE’s archives because I knew we’d discussed this Drew Barrymore/Toni Collette film before. Turns out I talked about Catherine Hardwicke’s film when a pic of a fully bald Toni went around last fall (she plays a woman who gets diagnosed with cancer). The trailer pretty much plays like a clip-reel of the entire film, but that shouldn't deter us from putting it through our patented Yes No Maybe So trailer evaluation after the jump...

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