DVDs. The greatest film I...

...almost never saw, or is it? Paolo here again. I'd normally be the first person to watch a movie that features attractive men wearing fedoras and Emily Blunt doing contemporary dance, but fate had other plans. But between The Adjustment Bureau's theatrical release and now, it was a movie that had a minor 'bucket list effect' on me. 

In one of its DVD extras 'Leaping through New York,' writer/director George Nolfi praises the city as an all around "magical place". But the film's visual version of New York is underwhelming and dour, since we mostly see colours like blue and grey and it seemingly takes place in perpetual dawn or autumn. That's how I felt the first time, although repeated viewings made me appreciate how the sunlight would hit on the upper half of the city's Metropolis-like art deco skyscrapers.

New York, as this film depicts is, makes its citizens feel anomic. We get this feeling specifically through the way the titular adjusters are depicted within the shots, as when four mid-level adjusters look out from a rooftop to countless windows in front of them. That image is essentially repeated when two adjusters Harry (Anthony Mackie) and Richardson (John Slattery) look out a window inside the bureau. A high angle long shot of the bureau's library before we see Harry thinking about one of his cases, David (Matt Damon) offers a similar feeling. The city is an overwhelmingly large frame for an internal and masculine struggle, as Harry becomes wary of how his job affects others. But maybe the film dwarfs the adjusters to highlight a part of their function, to have the least ripple effects, as invisible, microscopic, unnoticed.

David and his star crossed lover Elise (Blunt) are also lonely people without family...

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"The Link! The Link!"

My New Plaid Pants Meet Brienne, who'll be very important on Game of Thrones. Eventually.
Critical Condition asks what it will take to get Ewan McGregor an Oscar nomination? We've been asking this for years. He ought to have at least two by now (Moulin Rouge! and Trainspotting)
Tom Shone makes a sound ExPat confession about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Heh.
Frankly My Dear remembers Richard Linklater's Slacker for its 20th.
Pajiba Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) will play Hervé "the plane! the plane!" Villechaize in the biographical My Dinner With Hervé. Like Pajiba I don't see a resemblance at all but Dinklage is a great actor so we wish him all the best in the role.
Sunset Gun recommends Over the Edge with Matt Dillon as a great time capsule and timeless rebellion teen film. I haven't seen this one but I'm now intrigued.
PopMatters I'm not going anywhere near Zookeeper but I'm finding the reviews somewhat interesting in a staring through thick glass kind of way. This one wonders which voice actor has the worst job in the film. That's a good question! 

Several blogs have been noting the revision of the Straw Dogs poster -- the original version is to your right where Alexander Skarsgård is mysteriously inside of or ramming into James Marsden's eye (ouch!) rather than reflected in his glasses. Poster design is so half-assed these days, right? It looks much better (to your left) now all black and white and reflected. BUT while they were revising shouldn't they have come up with their own design rather than just recreating the original poster from the 70s Dustin Hoffman film?

Poster design is just so frustrating in Hollywood. The internet reminds us every single day --  and usually several times an hour -- that there are abundant graphic artists out there with the talent to make this another golden age of movie poster design and it just never quite happens. Hollywood, which runs on images, doesn't trust the visual literacy of its clients.

Maybe they shouldn't. I mean I'm sure you've all heard someone look at the rare illustrated movie poster and say "is that a cartoon?" but it's still sad-making.

Baby Magneto and Other Links

Flickr the set of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is growing.
IndieWire seems there are two Jeff Buckley biopics in the works and the Penn Badgley version is not the one with the Buckley estate blessing.
Austin Translation "The Iron Grill" funny illustration to celebrate yesterday's finale of Game of Thrones (did you watch?)
I Need My Fix new Jason Statham movie The Killer Elite looks like every other Jason Statham movie.
Awards Daily just days after we covered that Dick Tracy event, in which Beatty said a sequel is in the works, comes news that the legend has another film nearly ready to start production. I'll believe these two films when I see them. But I loooooove my Beatty so I'm hoping both pan out.
vitorugo "Erik's first..." HAHA!

Illustration by Victor Hugo

Classic! (There's too much iron in his diaper.). Don't you now wish that Pixar had made X-Men First Class Mutant Babies instead of Matthew Vaughn?

OffCinema
Diesel Sweeties "The Herald of Deliciousness" one for you cat owners out there.
AV Club Meredith Blake is reviewing the first season of The Real World. you know back when it was trailblazing, experimental and "real" feeling ...and kind of awesome. MTV immediately fucked it up the following season but there's always season 1. It's kind of random that this review is happening but also awesome.
Raja "Diamond Crowned Queen" for you RuPaul's Drag Race fans

Biopic Request: Boy George For His 50th

On this, the day of Boy George's 50th birthday, we propose a biopic. After all, Hollywood is quite fond of musician biopics what with their formulaic three act story beats: rise from talent-individuality-chutzpah, fall from drugs and debauchery, miniature or major comebacks as the performer finds themselves again.

So why is it that someone as fab and movie-character ready as Boy George doesn't have his own biopic? He's already written all of the wittiest lines for some future screenwriter, being one of the quippiest of '80s icons. He's already conjured the movie's most memorable costumes. He's already even provided a rough draft blueprint with his own autobiographical musical, Taboo (2004).

Now, Taboo was historically not a success on Broadway but we chalk this up to its difficult developmental period, clashing egos and press animosity (sometimes the media just turns on something and there's only a war zone from there). It's not that the show wasn't entertaining enough to be a success. It was actually a fierce show, just an intermittently clumsy overstuffed one. But my oh my the music was good. In addition to Boy George's own discography (formidable, duh) he wrote new songs for the bifurcated musical, which managed to be two biopics in one by juxtaposing Boy's rise with the life of performance artist Leigh Bowery .

The pop star did star in his own biopic but he cheekily played Leigh Bowery instead, so here's a press clip below of the show and his title track performance. [Note: I meant to write about the documentary about this very lively Broadway season Showbusiness: The Road to Broadway (2007) which also charts behemoths Wicked and Avenue Q and the wondrous Caroline or Change but the DVD didn't arrive in time, damnit.]

I remember sitting in the audience in a very cramped Broadway house. The tourist to my left turned towards me at intermission.: "IT'S OVER?!?!?" she said, panicking, clearly new to seeing live theater and there for Boy George himself (she was wearing an old Culture Club t-shirt). I pulled her back from the edge "there's more Boy to come."

For all of Boy George's personal problems, he's a smart enough star to understand his own rise and fall. There's a heartbreaking number in the show called "Out of Fashion" and, yes, Boy George still is. But in this Age of Gaga, maybe pop culture out to rediscover the gonzo theatrical originals that paved the way? There's a long line of "what will they look like next?" superstars before her: Bowie, Boy, Madonna, etcetera...

For extro-music here's Boy's video from pop culture / Oscar milestone The Crying Game (1992).

(That would've have so won the Oscar for Best Original Song had it not been a cover of an oldie.) I haven't seen The Crying Game in far too long, how about you?

The Harvey Girl.

 Jose here with one for all of you Streep obsessives.... which is, hmmm, 88% of TFE readers? Last week The Weinstein Company acquired distribution rights for Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher movie The Iron Lady. Apparently Harvey Weinstein was so impressed with Meryl (duh?) that he just had to have this movie.

What does this mean in terms of Oscar? Meryl probably has it in the bag. Consider: Back in the glory days of Miramax, Meryl was nominated for Music of the Heart (one of the most forgettable performances in her oeuvre) and people like Émilie Dequenne, Julia Roberts, Cecilia Roth and Nicole Kidman were snubbed. Meryl had no chance of winning that year but still...

Fast forward nine years and Meryl was back to represent Miramax with Doubt. Difference is that by then, the company had nothing to do with the Weinsteins and Harvey was hard at work getting Kate Winslet her Oscar. Meryl was inarguably the runner-up that calendar year but it would be interesting to think how things might have gone, had Harvey been pushing Meryl and not Kate. Let's not forget that back in 01, Miramax (under Harvey) won Jim Broadbent an Oscar for Iris, in the year of Gandalf and Don Logan.

Harvey Weinstein is as much of an Oscar obsessive as we are and 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of Meryl Streep's first Best Actress nomination (The French Lieutenant's Woman). Will he be using this as an angle in his campaign?

Related:
Current Best Actress Chart (next update when Cannes concludes)
Streep Posts and Old Streep Posts