Review: Oblivion

David here, with a review of this week's biggest super-massive release, Oblivion, while Nathaniel's off in Nashville.

"Seconds left on the clock. So Hubie throws a Hail Mary. Touchdown!" He may be seventy years in the future, and one of only two humans currently living on planet Earth (maybe), but Tom Cruise is still Just Like You. Cruise’s Jack just a regular Joe who likes baseball, Conway Twitty and younger women. Not only has he got one back at base – Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) is his partner on their mission monitoring the planet and repairing the drones roving the barren planet – but he’s got one in his head. Images of the world that was haunt him, as he dreams constantly about Julia (Olga Kurylenko) atop the Empire State Building. When the woman herself crash lands on the planet, impossibly replicated from his dreams, Jack’s uncomplicated life starts to disintegrate.

Oblivion’s title promises the vast grandeur of the most epic blockbusters – the mononymic title booms out of the dark to a blast of noise that’s somewhere between the Inception meme and the THX blast on the aggressive-noise scale. More...

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Interview: Oscar Nominee Arianne Phillips

It's long been my goal to up the visibility of the craft of costume design here at The Film Experience. So when the W.E. team was making the press rounds, I jumped at the chance to talk with Arianne Phillips, who has long been a designer I admire both for her technical and visual invention and for her uncanny ability to hit the pop cultural bullseye with instantly memorable looks whether she's designing for musicians (including longtime collaborator Madonna) or for actors. Her film career took off with the one-two comic book punch of The Crow (1994) and Tank Girl (1995). And it's continued to fascinate through Hedwig and the Angry Inch and on to her first Oscar nomination for Walk the Line (2005).

Arianne Phillips in front of her W.E. costumes. Photo via Society News

She received her second nomination last month for W.E. (2011) which has an absurd amount of use for her skills. In my mind they really ought to have done away with typical star "billing" and listed Arianna Phillips up top. No disrespect intended to Abbie Cornish and Andrea Riseborough, who lead the picture through its double-sided narrative.

Years before W.E. materialized Phillips has been living her own double-sided career "by design". Arianne speaks with a mixture of confidence, sincerity and appreciated bluntness: she agrees that costume designers don't get enough credit calling it an "a gorllina in the room. It's such an annoyance" but she corrects my slight misunderstanding about her past collaborations with musicians. She freelances as a stylist and editor for print photography, concerts and music videos. She doesn't dress stars for events.

a recent Madonna/Riseborough photoshoot styled by Arianne

I do videos and album covers, mostly narrative based: fantasy, illusion and character. It's very connected to film. You're creating the fantasy of who that person is.
-Arianne Phillips on her second career as a fashion editor and stylist.

Continue for... Madonna, Larry Flynt, Biopic & Concert Tour Challenges

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A Quick Exchange With "W.E."'s Andrea Riseborough

I don't normally attend roundtable interviews since there's little you can do about every other article on the person having the exact same quotes but to finally meet Madonna (on the W.E. campaign trail) it was worth it. When we were done with the Queen, Andrea Riseborough breezed into the room. It's been pretty clear on the promotional trail that Andrea and Madonna get along famously. (Andrea describes their relationship as "artistically complicit.") She's one of those actresses that totally seizes your attention onscreen, but you might actually walk right by her on the street without noticing her. She's a tiny slip of a thing who comes fully alive on the screen through some sort of magical alchemy with the camera.

Andrea and Madonna, artistically and sartorially complicit at the Globes

Not that she isn't engaging in person. The thirty-year old rising star was erudite, thoughtful and talked a mile a minute, each question setting off a flurry runaway train of thought. Upon entering the room a reporter bizarrely asked her who she was wearing though no red carpet was anywhere in sight. Riseborough, rolling with the odd start, spun her head a bit as she took her seat.

"You almost made me do that thing in Death Becomes Her where she turns her head around," she said bemused. (Alberto Ferretti if you must know.)

She talked a lot about the film's aesthetic, Wallis Simpson's own aesthetic, humorously blaming Wallis for being one of those women who forced actresses into near androgyny with expectations of rail-thinness. "'You can't be too rich or too thin' was such an honest statement but also she was sending her own frivolity up. But also she had terrible stomach ulcers. Work with what you got. Make the absolute best of what is there. Because really you can work a lot. And at times she had very little. She looked virtually anorexic. She was ill really. So she made it chic. She was very pragmatic in that way."

After the jump: Andrea on the Oscar nominated costumes and answering my question about dancing FOR Madonna...

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I Met Madonna. And Other "W.E." Stories

As some of you may recall from a couple of breathless tweets, I met Madonna two months ago at a W.E. press event though we weren't allowed to publish the pieces until this week. I was invited by way of my columnist gig at Towleroad so I wrote that up now that W.E. in in theaters, well past its Oscar-qualifying run (which netted it a nomination for Most Costumes). Here's a snippet:

She repeats all of our names back to us. Madonna saying your name back to you is a strangely surreal experience, both utterly mundane and impossible. 

She has entered 'The (Mostly) Gay Room' as its been dubbed to discuss her new film W.E., since most of the journalists are with gay publications. "Cool." is her monosyllabic response. She's promised we'll put her in a good mood for the rest of the day. "Let's start with levity," she says though it sounds more hopeful than bossy.  We're all squished round a table with recorders on. 

[read the full article]

In regards to those recording devices. If you had yours on before Madonna entered the room, you could hypothetically listen to Madonna saying your name over and over again on loop once you got home. HYPOTHETICALLY. I mean, who would do that? [ahem]

More including W.E. thoughts and Madge's new video...

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Prediction Updates: Lead and Supporting Actress

Oscar obsessives around the web, including myself, have been hung up on the Glenn Close vs. Meryl Streep Best Actress '80s Rematch! narrative for quite awhile now with Albert Nobbs and The Iron Lady still without real movie trailers to give the already popular media angle extra flavor. Less often discussed, and it's been nagging me for awhile now, is which young actress the Oscars will glom onto this year. Best Actress is often, statistically speaking, a beauty pageant who's who of hot 20 and 30something stars. This is not to say that the main race can't be between two 60-something ladies (it can if their names are Close & Streep) but we already know that that won't be the whole story even if it does turn out to be The Story.

There are three more slots to consider and more than that if you include the possibility that Close or Streep might not happen, if you include the precursor awards (which have room for more players) and the Supporting Actress category which has slightly more diverse preferences but which is still a sucker for a new "it" girl.

Which young beauties will be competing for gold? There isn't room for all of them.

Fresh Faces.
Which will Oscar get a Mulligan / Lawrence style insta-crush on?
ROONEY MARA, 26, with sociopathic edge and punk styling in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
FELICITY JONES, 27, doing young romance drama in Sundance hit Like Crazy.
ELIZABETH OLSEN, 22, winning acclaim as cult member in Martha Marcy May Marlene and probably winning credit for being talented younger sibling of the gajillionaire Olsen twin sisters.
MIA WASIKOWSKA, 21, proving she can carry a film and also be excellent while doing so in Jane Eyre.
ANDREA RISEBOROUGH, 29, soon to be winning "best in show" attention for W.E. 
JESSICA CHASTAIN, 30, seemingly in every other movie released in 2011 and hardly recognizable from one to the next.  

Already Stars.
Oscar's sweet spot for Best Actress wins is late 20s to early 30s. 
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, 26, serving mental patient realness in A Dangerous Method.
KIRSTEN DUNST, 29, undoubtedly memorably victimized in Von Trier's Melancholia.
MICHELLE WILLIAMS, 30, doing biopic iconography for My Week With Marilyn and romance for Take This Waltz 
EMMA STONE, 22, who won't get nominated for The Help but the enthusiasm about her career this year is totally hogging some of the spotlight that the other hopefuls are going to need. 

Who do you think will be showered with love and media attention 'round the holidays this year? Who will come up wanting? Which of the newbies will ever have careers as big as the "already stars"? Share your projections / wild prophesies in the comments.

Best Actress chart | Best Supporting Actress chart