Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Gaudy?

In the past few days you may have heard that Elle Fanning is in talks to play Sleeping Beauty and you may have wondered why I haven't said a word. All things Sleeping Beauty send me into instant hyper sleep until I have the strength to deal.

As often confessed, I am an über fan of Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959) which is easily among their tippity-top achievements as a studio and my personal favorite (at least of their pre-Lil'Mermaid history). A live action Maleficent could go wrong in about a million ways even though it will meet animation halfway by starring everyone's favorite Cartoon Movie Star* Angelina Jolie.

*since she can't be real she must have been drawn that way.

It's always a bit strange to watch the way Hollywood gloms on to certain actresses and right now it seems like if you aren't Chloe or Elle you simply don't exist to them in the teen bracket. But if it has to be one of them, yes please 1000 times on Fanning. The strange thing about the internet's / entertainment world's fascination with Elle Fanning is her absence of any distinct persona. I bet you can describe Dakota Fanning and even Saoirse Ronan and definitely Chloe Moretz's personalities (or your projections of them) right this second but try telling us who Elle Fanning is (outside of "Dakota's little sister") without using the generic term of  "fashionista" which describes 87% of all young actresses with substantial income / fame.

We'll wait.  [more after the jump]

Click to read more ...

The Art Direction I Live In

I always try to finish the "Oscar Categories" of my own Film Bitch Awards before the Oscar nominations. I was racing to the deadline, panting heavily, sweating profusely and then I collapsed. I am now crawling towards the finish line. If anything can revive me it's eye candy! So here are my nominees for Art Direction and Cinematography. I would post Costumes too but I'm still arguing with myself over 8 films. (So many worthy efforts!) 

But while I have your eyeballs, I want to talk about one film in particular. Film is a visual medium so you'd think it would be a given that filmmakers would convey their themes and moods and characters visually. But many of them don't, relying on dialogue as exposition or voiceover profundities or leaning heavily on the gifts of their actors to get themes and nuances across. In other words, we have too few Pedro Almodóvars behind the camera.

In the two stills above from The Skin I Live In (which went without any Oscar nominations and was not submitted by Spain for Best Foreign Film) you can see how visually rich and how carefully planned every beat in an Almodóvar film is [MORE AFTER THE JUMP]

Click to read more ...

The Lady of the Link

Off Oscar. Should You Need a Break
Boy Culture attends Madonna's royal premiere here in NYC for W.E.  
David Bordwell "a guide to the perplexed" for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Stale Popcorn We need to talk about "Katniss". Good question: What is it with archery these days? 
THR Two Beauty and the Beast related projects coming. Because in Hollywood there always must be double dipping on the limited idea pool. 

Okay. Back to Oscar. Stop Slacking!
Tom and Lorenzo on Jennifer Lawrence's unfortunate morning as the nominee announcer.
Ultra Culture on the best typography among the Best Pic Nominees. Love this.
Towleroad "Hot Movie Moment" from one of my favorite Best Pictures Wings (1927) the first one!
Indiewire The Oscars are moving to electronic voting in 2013. Cue: thousands of articles about whether or not This. Changes. Things. Oscarologists are so excitable.

In Contention looks at the Art Direction category
Examiner plays an "Oscar Replacement" game for the nominations 
Carpetbagger on Glenn Close and her makeup and wig team for Albert Nobbs 
MNPP A rarity: JA sounding off on the Oscars. Yay. He's one of the only blogging voices we love that have virtually no interest in them. (No interest in the Oscars? I know. I know. Difficult to comprehend.)   

Finally... a sad goodbye to British actor Nicol Williamson (1936-2012), my very first "Merlin" (though I've lost track of how many actors I've seen as the sorcerer since).

Mirren and Williamson owning Excalibur (1981)

Daily MUBI has the roundups of obits for the Excalibur (1981) actor. My most vivid memories of that film, aside from the Lancelot nudity (gasp) was the Merlin/Morgana Le Fay rapport. I was way too young to know that Helen Mirren and Williamson had... history. 

FYC Best Supporting Actress Michelle Pfeiffer

Too early?

In all seriousness though, the only thing we know for certain about the 2012/13 Oscars is that Dark Shadows will be up for Costumes (Colleen Atwood) and Art Direction (Rick Heinrichs). The Burton Factory can usually bank on those honors. I'd also personally like to thank Ms. Atwood ahead of time for La Pfeiff's plunging neckline with fancy Medieval cross necklace. Love.

Sorry! As you were. Back to the 2011/2012 Oscars for 33 more days. Every Oscar chart is updated.

Great Art Direction... According to Art Directors

Just as soon as we reached the end of the Critical Pile-Up, we hit Guild Mania. Awards season is a chain leading us to Oscar. Like SAG, the various guilds don't have as much overlap with Oscar as people think. Generally speaking the size of the Academy (just under 6,000 last I heard) wouldn't even fill one of the guilds and that includes all types and not just one profession. But it's still quite interesting to see what various artists think of their peers -- it's especially interesting when they look beyond Oscar buzz, which they sadly do less of than they should.

So what did the production designers get excited about this year... at least enough to scribble it's name on a ballot? Let's see...

I'm sorry but how PERFECT is that painting for Celia Foote's home?

PERIOD FILM
THE ARTIST Laurence Bennett
HUGO Dante Ferretti
THE HELP Mark Ricker
ANONYMOUS Sebastian Krawinkel
TINKER TAYLOR SOLDIER SPY Maria Djurkovic

This is the category people tend to get most excited about given that it's the one that most closely corresponds to Oscar's way of thinking. Some are already griping that War Horse missed the list but doesn't the cozy pretty storybook look scream "fantasy" rather than "period" -- perhaps they couldn't choose where to put it? Even the barb wire battleground looks less flesh-tearing tangible than gothically spooky movie fantastical. I understand what the film is going for but the choice sometimes feel odd -- especially all the coy looking away at the horrors of war, though that's a directorial thing and has nothing to do with the sets.

On the other hand it's not like Hugo and Anonymous prefer realism to fantasy and they're present so let's move on. 

Nice to see Djurkovic score here as her consistent but rangey interiors work is the absolute best think about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy -- all those sad beige boxed-in prisons stuffed with information, from cubicles to shafts to bedrooms to libraries to board rooms.

Great Looking Period Films They Didn't Nominate: 
A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, The Tree of Life, and W.E. 

Good luck finding what you're looking for in the haystacks of information in "Tinker Tailor"

Fantasy and Contemporary Films after the jump...

Click to read more ...