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 ?

Ryan & Anne ... Sitting in a Tree...

Two of our best recent additions to the A List of Movie Stardom share a birthday, so let's sing a collective off pitched "happy birthday" for Ryan Gosling and Anne Hathaway today, turning 31 and 29. Given Ryan Gosling's absurdly potent chemistry with virtually all female co-stars, and his and Anne's mutual "photoshopped" bodies (seriously?), we're pretty certain that Hathaway is already stripping and running for the bedroom set if anyone offers them a movie together...

Gosling and Other Drugs

Isn't it weird that Hollywood hasn't thought to pair them?

If Ryan keeps up his current pace and doesn't quit the movies to make babies as he threatened earlier this year he'll soon have co-starred with virtually every important age-appropriate actress. By this time in 2013 we'll have seen him with rising Rooney Mara (Lawless) and reunited with Emma Stone (Gangster Squad). And he's already worked magic with McAdams, Wood, Mulligan, Dunst, and Williams!

poll by twiigs.com

 I recently suggested that I thought he'd look great with Andrea Riseborough (or TV stars Deborah Ann Woll or Katee Sackhoff if anyone would ever give them the big screen role they deserve.) but readers countered with some man-on-man suggestions. And since Gosling's enviable range hasn't yet dropped him into a gay role, what's your favorite reader suggestion there? 

poll by twiigs.com

Anne Hathaway hasn't been paired as frequently with opposite sex peers who share her star wattage with the notable exceptions of Gyllenhaal (twice), McAvoy, and Christian Bale next year (at least we assume the Bat and the Cat are still going to be scrappy sex partners, though who knows! Nolan's films do tend to swerve asexual.)

Who would you love to see Anne Hathaway paired with once she's out of the cat suit?

P.S. Today would have been Grace Kelly's 82nd birthday. We were just discussing the casting of her upcoming biopic.

P.P.S. Easy ways to kill time today on tumblr: Fuck Yeah, Anne Hathaway, Ryan Gosling vs. Puppies, Feminist Ryan Gosling. 

I Googled "Les Miz Songs" For A Title To This Post

... so pretend it's called "I Dreamed A Dream... of Music!" or something thereabouts. Be creative, in the wake of my early morning total lack thereof. JA from MNPP here. As I made horrifically clear to everyone back when we played “Make Me Watch A Musical” a couple of years ago, I have… well, it’s more than a blind spot, more like a black hole when it comes to movie musicals. It’s been awhile since then and I haven’t much improved my standing with the genre, either. I’ve seen several of the Busby Berkley musicals and I really enjoyed them (Team Blondell! Ruby Keeler can suck an egg!), but then I suffered though – suffered being the operative word – Funny Girl to see who this Barbra Streisand character everybody talks about is all about and wow, not for me! I say this not to offend you Barbolytes (Streisfans? Babsilonians?) but to make it clear how Byzantine my pathologies towards the genre are. There’s no rhyme or reason. 

Which is why I find myself writing this post today. A couple of years ago, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway lit up the stage at the Oscars, and me along with most of the rest of you lit up alongside it. What a hoot! And now they’re reuniting to make a musical, which is totally something I would watch.  They have charisma that captivates me. The musical is Les Misérables, to be exact. My familiarity with Les Miz can be summed up by this post here. That’s the honest truth. Totally clueless. I’ve never even read Hugo’s book. The French Revolution is involved? Maybe somebody steals some bread? I don't know.

So I want a lesson. I’m asking you musical lovers to tell me what I need to know going into this. Gimme "The Gospel of Les Miz According To TFE Readers." How right or wrong is Hugh Jackman for the part he’s playing? How about Russell Crowe? And lovely Anne, can she be a Fantine, whatever the hell that is? Who could you see playing the parts better? And what about all the other roles, who would you cast? What are they going to have to do to adapt the source into a successful movie? I don’t know! I am asking you!



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Hark! a Vagrant, my favorite web comic, begins a Wuthering Heights adaptation just in time for the revival of Brontë Sisters fever in the film world. P.S. what's that about exactly? The renewed fever I mean. I know what Wuthering Heights is about ;)

Bizarre Caption Alert!
I'd seen the new Anne Hathaway as Catwoman photo a few times around the net and didn't think to share it (you've already seen it no doubt) but for whatever reason I actually read the caption at Daily Mail...

Um... Catwoman was famous before most of us were alive and before La Pfeiffer was even a tween. Just sayin'. (Don't think Julie Newmar or the ghost of Eartha Kitt would be pleased.)