Do you hear the people sing?

Provided you have speakers on your computer, then yes. Hear them you do. Well not Hugh and Anne specifically...

I know I shouldn't be this excited for a movie. It will all end in tears!

The 'Link, Bitch' Project

You'd think The Film Experience would get more link love around the net considering how much generous we are with the linkage. Perhaps we're too easy? No one buys the cow when they can get the milk for free! (And other euphemisms for "too slutty")

Batman News Anne Hathaway thought she was up for Harley Quinn in The Dark Knight Rises only to find out it was... (gulp) Catwoman.
TMZ Producer of The Blair Witch Project declaring bankruptcy. I guess that even insane ROI doesn't last forever. Ten years max!
SuperPunch celebrates Alfred Hitchcock art at Gallery1988
The Sheila Variations discusses "private moments" onscreen via Richard Gere as that American Gigolo in the 1980s.
Boy Culture's Matthew Rettemund finally gets a photo op with Madonna. Dreams come true

Awards Daily Meryl Streep eyes bananas in Great Hope Springs. Fruity.
In Contention on the Django Unchained synopsis. Listen, I'm not even reading that though some of you will want to. I have the screenplay but I can't bring myself to read it. I LOVE being surprised and few directors surprise me more than QT
Little White Lies reviews Battleship

So yes, Battleship virtually begs you despise it, every frame haplessly offering more grist for your critical mill. 

BadAss Digest terrifying photo / gif from Prometheus. Only look if you dare.
Cineuropa Tim Roth to head Un Certain Regard jury at Cannes. Which role do you think he's still proudest of? Anyone who says "Lie to Me" must leave the premises immediately!

A Heart Full of Uh-Oh... Taylor Swift for "Les Misérables"

Last night while innocently checking Facebook, a reader forced me -- literally forced me -- to read unpleasant news, reaching through the screen, yanking my eyeballs out and plopping them right down on this news that Taylor Swift was joining the cast of Tom Hooper's Les Miserables as Eponine.

I said "Don't make me think about THAT!!!". I mean, I'd just shared my top ten list so I was still hooked up to an IV joy drip and he wanted me to focus on THAT. I couldn't do it! THAT would have to wait until tomorrow, I said.

But here we are in tomorrow and THAT is still whatever it is. So let's recap what's going on with the casting of the most important movie musical in the pipeline.

The Three Roles The Whole Thing Rests On
Jean Valjean.......................... Hugh Jackman
Inspector Javert .................... Russell Crowe
Fantine ................................  Anne Hathaway

We know that Jackman and Hathaway have spectacular golden age quality movie musical voices and that all three of these movie stars can really act. That's a crucial thing since Les Misérables is actually an epic weepie and not the more commonly seen musical comedy. If "Bring Him Home" (Valjean) and "I Dreamed a Dream" (Fantine) don't ruin you emotionally, Les Miz will lose 87% of its dramatic potency.

Crowe? Have we heard him sing outside of rock music? Hooper is supposedly NOT doing this musical in the typical way of pre-recording and then lipsynching / acting later on. Instead, or so we hear though it sounds complicated given the chaotic milieu of the story, that the actors will actually be singing while they act. This might make for an electric movie experience (I mean the source material is already great) but who knows.

the rest of the cast after the jump

Click to read more ...

Anne Hathaway Sings "She's Me Pal" to Meryl Streep

The Kennedy Center Honors were a good hagiographic time last night on CBS (unless you were expecting something different in which case... where ya been? This is how lifetime tributes are). Musical theater fans would have had to enjoyed that endless Parade of Amazement when they trotted out a healthy cross section of Broadway's best female voices for the Barbara Cook homage (Sutton, Rebecca, Kelli, Patti, Audra + Glenn Close doing "Losing My Mind" !) but as for me.... as for me...

I got both my musical theater kicks and my 80s nostalgia and my Streep Mania and a current actress obsession (Hi, Annie!) all rolled up in one gift as Hathaway repurposed Streep's most indelible moment from Ironweed* (1987) to serenade Streep herself.

The line "her heart is as big as a ham" is accompanied by the splits, marking Anne Hathaway once again as a true kindred spirit PERFORMER/actress -- both ladies woulda been in vaudeville if they'd been born 100 years ago.

A+

I love that Hathaway can make her eyes well up with tears totally on cue. Acting is magic. The complete video is below. Hathaway comes in at the 11:40 mark.

*Ironweed was a flop in its day and I know so few people who have seen it but I still remember sitting in the movie theater absolutely electrified / paralyzed when Meryl belted out that "He's Me Pal" number for Jack Nicholson. At the time Meryl's musical-theater chops were a complete shock! It's easily one of my favorite moments from her entire lauded filmography.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Dark Knight Rises"

It's our practice to break trailers down to their components which make us eager / annoyed / unsure. But for this sort of event we're aware we're supposed to be all YES, already in the (bat) tank. But let's break this down anyway. Batman would surely appreciate the importance of rituals and this is how we do.

The Greatest Logo in the History of Super Logos

YES

• That friction between Anne Hathaway's menacing whispers and that young choirboy's national anthem is perfect. But then Chris Nolan movies are always good with the sound.
• The chanting at the end is also hot: Best Sound Editing #2 here we come.
• Oooh Escher-like staircases inside. Where are we? Let's go to there.
• The brief glimpses of Inception players Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard are welcome. Because movie trailers are future movies invading our dreams, right? Come on in.
• Anne Hathaway's Hepburn hat. This is so girly for a Nolan movie. They better bring it with Catwoman. That's sacred ground!
• I'm fond of the trailer's and possibly the movies interest in vertical points of view rather than horizontal spaces. Batman should be vertiginious. He is Gotham City.
• It also makes me happy that he is fighting during light snow flurries for some reason.
• That collapsing football field is sick. Also reminds me of Sunnydale as sinkhole at the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And anything that reminds of Buffy...
• "Ward" the quarterback, eh? I hope that's a Dick Grayson/Robin injoke because these movies need a few jokes.

 

NO 

• Football? for a second I thought I was watching the wrong trailer.
• Ugh where is Aaron Eckhart?! I feel cheated.
• Um... Anne Hathaway doing Catwoman at a masked ball? Is this a Batman Returns homage? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. I love me some Hathaway but #PfeifferPforever. Don't risk direct comparison!

MAYBE SO 

• Christian Bale looks so haggard. Is this an intriguing aestethic choice or is he just bone tired from all the weight loss muscle gain flip-flopping of the past ten years?
• Speaking of weight loss/gain. Can someone give Tom Hardy a role where he is forced to lose the steroid look and the alien trapezius. He looks so much better human.
• Speaking of... what kind of voice is he doing? And will I be able to decipher the words under that mask. Covering up the best pair of male lips in the movies is such a crime!
• More politics with the Mayor and such zzz
• I'm not sure I trust Chris Nolan with political plotlines/metaphors. As I recall The Dark Knight was quite muddled in the messenging arena. And we REALLY don't need martyr heroes made of the 1% in the movies nor the 99% as angry crime mobs and that's kind of what the visuals and Catwoman's speech suggest, right? Is this Iron Lady 2: Right Wing Harder !? 

Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So?
This tweet from Matt Patches is a perfect joke about how wild people go for every glimpse of future event movies, particular movies by the blogosphere's favorite human person director Chris Nolan.

Hee.

So perhaps for this one we should just ask how much of a "Yes" you are?

And since we've got Oscar on the brain (tis the season) why don't we go there, too, in the comments. Batman Begins received one nomination (Cinematography) and The Dark Knight eight bids with two wins (Supporting Actor and Sound Editing). What's the ceiling for this one without the elevating force of Heath Ledger (RIP) but with the momentum of this franchise's epic epicness and ever expanding Nolan mania ?