Q&A: Disappointing Actresses, Mixed-Up Hunks, Subtitled Crickets

And now the return of the 'Ask Nathaniel/Q&A' series wherein you asked me questions and I pick two handfuls to answer. 

Disposable project on the line for Emily. Yes, another one.DAVID: Which actresses filmographies are you most disappointed in? I'm thinking in terms of actresses you admire and think are incredibly talented, but, for whatever reason, end up working in subpar films.

NATHANIEL: I think the popular answer here is Rachel McAdams but aside from Mean Girls I've never cared too much. The answer that came immediately to mind was Emily Blunt. It’s not that she’s making terrible films per se, it’s just that given how Oscar worthy she was in that plum comic part in Devil Wears Prada seven long years ago, and then how sexy she was in that blink and you’ll miss her bit in Charlie Wilson’s War soon thereafter, I expected her career to explode in the way, say, Carey Mulligan’s did post An Education or at least for her to be more direct competition for Anne Hathaway. I wonder why Blunt isn’t either in more demand or more interested in challenging herself. Maybe it's just bad luck. She seems to be working exclusively in indies that don't crossover, mainstream films that are quickly forgotten or headlining gigs which don't really work in some crucial way (Young Victoria, Adjustment Bureau). I’d love to see her really challenged either by a role or by an auteur. Will Into the Woods bring a happily ever after to that heat-losing career?

The second choice is Evan Rachel Wood who seemed to chuck what looked like incredible range and promise to the side for a long procession of Very Bad Girls. This was, in no small part thanks to her inarguable electricity in Thirteen (2003) but when you play variations on one theme too often you either become a superstar or people lose interest. I thought she was good in Ides of March (2011) but it isn't what she needed. What she needs is a total about face role.

JOHN T: The last foreign language film to clear $20 million was Pan's Labyrinth, almost seven years ago. What do you think it would take for a foreign language film to catch on in that way again?

Amy Adams, Oscar Tragedies, and a Beefcake Triple after the jump...

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Rite of Link

straight outta Cannes
Guardian wonders why Sofia Coppola is so obsessed with pole dancing. The pole is back for Bling Ring
MCN David Poland has several capsule thoughts on Cannes films. This is my favorite type of festival review since I find that festival environments are not good for full length reviews and yet people persist in lengthy split second reactions anyway. Let the movies marinate. But he hates the explicit gay sex drama Stranger by the Lake and thinks it wouldn't be in the festival it it were hetero explicit 
In Contention gives the same film fuller consideration
Apple Daily Tony Leung Chiu Wai -at Cannes for his wife's new film -- meets Ang Lee for dinner. Chinese press follows but the Lust, Caution pair are not reuniting any time soon (shame). Tony tells the reporters that he's seen Zhang Ziyi already, too.  
Ultra Culture lists ten selfless acts committed by the protagonist of Fruitvale Station. Just in the first hour! I was kind of worried about a lack of nuance in this buzzy tragic drama and if the character is a complete angel, I wonder if the movie will experience a huge critical backlash when it opens. Most interesting characters are not 100% anything. 

speaking of Michael B Jordan
...who is the lead in Fruitvale. You may not know this since I don't talk about TV much but I'm most definitely a fan. He's already done really sensitive affecting work in both Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. /Film  is revisiting the rumor that they want him for the Fantastic Four reboot as Human Torch. I'm usually all for color blind casting since it should be about who is the best actor for the job, you know? But there are some cases where it doesn't seem like a great idea and this, to me, is one of them. In fact, I'd pick The Fantastic Four dead last, along with like The Black Panther and Storm, as Marvel Universe roles that should be color-blind casted. One of the peculiarities of FF is its kind of dated nuclear family WASPy feel (I think director Peyton Reed's original concept ten years back about doing it as an early 60s retro-stylized thing would have been so interesting and right for the material). Since they went with Allison Williams as Sue Storm (I like her just fine but she seems as weird of a fit for Sue Storm as Jessica Alba was!) I have no understanding of what they're new concept is. Other than just "reboot and make money!"

Miscellania
Sundance Now revisits Disney's weird sorta wonderful Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) - those mid90s post Lion King/Aladdin movies are as underrated as that duo is overrated if you ask me
Guardian Antonio Banderas will headline the flick about the Chilean miners rescue. His career seems to be back on the upswing. Can we blame the reunion with Almodóvar?
CHUD is doing a series of 15 great actors who haven't starred in a comic book film and they started with Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Although really shouldn't that Mission: Impossible 3 movie kinda count?)  
Filmmaker Kurt talks with Julianne Moore, "cinema's modest chameleon"
New York Times congratulations to my friend Tom, who composes for musical theater (more on him right here
at TFE soon if...well, I'm not allowed to say just yet), who is now married. His engagment is commemorated with this cute NYT Video!  
/Film thinks a limited Christmas opening with a platform rollout in January for the Jason Reitman Kate Winslet Labor Day picture shows faith in the movie for the Oscars. Hmmm. to me the shy December openings with January rollouts are more hedging your bets than total confidence. If there's so much faith you go wide (see Django & Les Miz last year) to get the holiday money. 

Oh and don't forget...
Tomorrow night (and the following Wednesday night) are the last episodes of Hit Me With Your Best Shot before a hiatus in June. So if you've been meaning to join us, now's the time. Tomorrow night is Disney's experimental FANTASIA (1940) which were doing as sort of an offhand centennial tribute to Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" which turns 100 years old this month. So pick one image from the Rite of Spring section and your favorite from the movie as a whole. (Or one for each of its six musical sections if you're feeling into it). Next Wednesday is the brilliant Paul Newman as HUD (1963) which I want everyone to see it because it's one of the best movies of that decade. Even if you're not doing a "best shot" rent it so you can experience it in full before reading the articles.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "August: Osage County"

Oscar-teasing trailers are just like Oscar bait movies: they all come out at the same time. Can't there be a little breathing room? After Captain Phillips warned us that Tom Hanks (and Paul Greengrass) are ready to come roaring back... After Gravity teased us with visual effects so terrifying that the prospect of Sandra Bullock acting out existential despair (not something she's known for you must admit) already seems like The Must Event of the Year... After The Butler threw a Handful of Presidents & First Ladies , Oscar Winners, Ten History Lessons, and OpPRRRrraaAAHHHh in one trailer pot and stirred itself into an Oscar Bait Frenzy (or Parody)... came The Weinstein Co's major player: AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY.

The film stars 3 Oscar winners (Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper), 3 nominees (Juliette Lewis, Sam Shepard, Abigail Breslin), 1 underappreciated awesome fellow (Ewan McGregor), 1 recent Emmy winner (Martindale), 1 rising star Benedict Cumberbatch, 1 curiously resurgent Dermot Mulroney and 1 Misty Upham from Frozen River... so you know FYC ads will have to be five page spreads. The Hollywood Reporter's already counting the ad dollars because that's a lot of names to push. [more after the jump]

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Into The... Trainwreck?

For those of you who've had the pleasure of seeing Stephen Sondheim's classic Into the Woods (1986) on stage, you know that, like most of the great composer's once-prolific oeuvre, it is very particularly a Work of Theater. Some artists' skill sets transfer easily between stage, screen, television and literature and so on but others do not. Certain geniuses are so tied to a particular medium they become it; Stephen Sondheim IS Musical Theater. 

But musical theater is different from musical cinema. Naturally compromises will have to be made. The person doing the new compromising is Rob Marshall who Hollywood is still giving the musicals to, presumably because of the huge success of Chicago (2002) and not the floppery of Nine (2009). So yes, compromises must be made...  but they do not have to be made in casting. Many star actors -- if you're forced to cast that way -- have great singing voices. Les Misérables may have botched its casting of Javert (Ugh. Russell Crowe) but elsewhere Tom Hooper seemed to understand that beautiful melodic musical-friendly trained voices were required and could be found in big stars (Hathaway, Hackman, Seyfried) and rising ones (Tveit & Redmayne) and he cast accordingly... except for that bit about letting Helena Bonham-Carter "sing" again post-Sweeney Todd.

Unfortunately Hollywood loves to repeat its mistakes and somehow Sweeney Todd did NOT result in Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter being lifetime banned from future musicals ...

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Can you picture Jessica Chastain swinging on vines? Who else?

Though I think it's curious that the internet leaps so feverishly on to each casting wish as if it were reality, I feel we should discuss the latest speculative thing going around.

I made this. My apologies to Vogue Italia for repurposing their gorgeous image of Jessica

Yes, Jessica Chastain is "said to be the first choice for Jane" in that new Tarzan movie that might star Alexandar Skarsgård that I've talked about before to little interest from you. I think maybe you had to grow up with Tarzan movies playing in syndication on the TV to care? I did and come what may, I like Tarzan anything in an instant nostalgia kind of way.

But back to Jessica. Being first choice and being interested are two extremely different things and I'd be willing to bet she's "first choice" for about 70% (am I lowballing it?) of the screenplays out there with a female lead OR supporting role for a woman in her early to mid 30s. I mean think about it. Hollywood producers get VERY fixated on certain people despite there being an abundance of talent from which to choose. She's about to turn 36 but reads more like 30, don't you think? She is a) gorgeous b) a fine actor c) incredibly versatile d) obsessed over as the next big thing that isn't Jennifer Lawrence who she's not really competing for roles with anyway and e) she's probably cheaper to cast still (for maybe 5 more minutes) than the more established stars in her age bracket. The only reason I think this might happen despite it sounding ridiculous is that there is apparently three of her she finds time to do so much.

Chastain probably loves all of these actresses she's so generous of spirit

Can you picture Jessica Chastain swinging on vines in a loincloth? Would you like to? I think she'd be a dynamic visual match with Skarsgård but the Jane part can be such a wash if the screenplay isn't good. And as for her competition, this begs the question

Exactly who is her competition these days (not for "Jane" but in general)?

Headliners in her age bracket (ages 30-36) in alpha order
Blunt, Dunst, Hathaway, Gyllenhaal, McAdams, Portman, Williams... there are a ton of major stars now in their late 30s -- Theron, Adams, and many more -- but I just wanted to limit this or I'd be researching all day
Less famous and/or less prestigious (at the moment) but probably on long lists for the 30-36 age bracket
Atwell, Collins, Cornish, Garai, Green, Hall, Harris, Kruger, Marling, Miller, Munn, Pike, Rapace, Reilly, Sagnier, Saldana, and Riseborough

Chastain can't do every movie... even if there's three of her! Who would you love to see snatching up the opportunities she passes on? Which of her headline competitors would you like to take roles from and give to Jessica?