Beauty Break: Juliette Binoche

I received a few notes about the new banner delighting that I had accidentally paired The English Patient stars Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes. I wish I could say "accidentally" but in truth it was! I couldn't find a photo of Juliette Binoche with her fingers in her mouth, but I didn't want to leave her out. File under: Too wonderful to ignore.

If you haven't yet seen her latest acting de triomphe (sorry), save Certified Copy to your DVD queues. Her performance is an inspiration. Hollywood's flirtation with her seems to have ended once they replaced her with a younger model (Hi, Marion) since, you know, only one French actress at a time can be the girl they must cast in every movie but their loss: if anything the 47 year old actress is a stronger screen performer than ever. There's an argument to be made with Flight of the Red Balloon, Summer Hours (previous post) and Certified Copy arriving in such short succcession that that mid 90s career explosion was mere warm up.

More photos [mildly NSFW] after the jump

Click to read more ...

Beauty Break: Tang Wei & Takeshi

Tang Wei! We're just so happy the Lust, Caution star is working again. Here she is in Cannes for her Wu Xia (2011) photoshoot.

Photographed by Andreaz Rentz for Getty

She also walked the red carpet and hit the parties with another of our favorite Asian actors, Takeshi Kaneshiro.

He's the man Hollywood SHOULD be calling if they really want to skew older for the live action version of Akira as all of the casting reports indicate that they do.

46 year-old Keanu Reeves recently turned down the lead role in the live-action version of the classic anime. We've already griped about the casting, but mostly due to the white washing. That they're ignoring the film being about teenagers doesn't bother us as much since it's so rare that Hollywood decides to go older instead of younger. Takeshi is half Japanese, a decade younger than Keanu, has movie star appeal, and looks superb in action sequences (see House of Flying Daggers among others) so why not him?