Yes No Maybe So: Cinderella (2015)

Disney has been on such a billion dollar roll lately by returning to their roots and trusting in princesses and classic children's literature that we're now getting a live action Cinderella. The trailer dropped today. Are we a Yes, No or Maybe You?

Let's try this trailer on for size after the poster (I'm concerned her head might start spinning around Exorcist style, that neck is seriously uncomfortably swivelled) and the jump...

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Fun Fact: Celebrities Spend Way More Time Promoting Movies Then Making Them

Case Study #215,031. Cate Blanchett still on the Blue Jasmine tour 15 months after the US premiere with a screening at the Zurich Film Festival this week. 

(Remember how satisfying it was when she won the Oscar in March? Easily the most deserving Best Actress win in at least a decade.)

Stage Door: "King Lear" in the Park

Shakespeare in the Park shutters for another year this Sunday August 17th, so you only have a couple more chances to see King Lear. I can't claim that King Lear is one of my favorite plays and as far as interpretations of it go, nobody is ever going to beat Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985), you know?

The Bening and John Lithgow star in "King Lear" in Central Park

John Lithgow headlines and is quite strong as the rapidly declining hot-tempered looneytunes King who stupidly gives everything away to his two eldest daughters (Annette Bening and Jessica Hecht) while shunning the youngest who truly loves him. Lithgow is having a good year; I urge all of you to see his excellent work in Love is Strange when it opens later this month. I had entirely forgotten about the B story in King Lear which is like a reflection of the A story, in which another father is (literally) blinded when it comes to his sons. I didn't fully love this production where much of it was good but few things excellent. Oddly, I was most drawn to the actors I was least familiar with like Jessica Collins as Cordelia, Eric Sheffer Stevens as Edmund, and Steven Boyer as Fool. Most disappointing for me was The Bening. You know that she is my beloved but her lines were spoken without a lot of discernable emotional content (one review claimed "learned phonetically" which I thought was terribly mean but it's not her finest hour). She does memorably fire up in the final act once her loins are ah stirred by the bastard troublemaker Edmund. 

I love the tradition of Shakespeare in the Park but I wish they would go back to the time when they did more non-Shakespeare things in this summer event series like Mother Courage and Hair and Into the Woods and whatnot. This summer they only did the Bard. You know what play would be excellent to see outdoors? Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana.

WHAT OTHER PLAYS DO YOU THINK WOULD BE GREAT IN AN OUTDOOR SETTING?

P.S. What about Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert in The Maids?

You're probably wondering why I haven't written about "The Maids" starring Huppert, Blanchett and rising actress Elizabeth Debicki (remember that wonderful first impression she made in The Great Gatsby?) and that's because I didn't get tickets. Above my price range but Shakespeare in the Park is free which is definitely within my price range! Here's a collection of reviews to read if you're interested. I've talked to two friends who've seen it and they both felt exactly the same: Debicki was best in show. How's that for a surprise... and a career-maker, at least on stage.

Live from Comic Con: Batman, Wonder Woman, Galadriel

Anne Marie here, sleep deprived and dazed after a night camping out to cover the big studio announcements for you. Folks, my group camped in line for fifteen hours to get into Hall H, and we still barely got into the back of the hall. Over 6,000 geeks camped out to see what Warner Bros, Legendary Pictures, and Marvel have to offer, so the studios are going to have to work hard to meet or exceed expectations. Here's what happened.

Cate Blanchett, Channing Tatum and more after the jump...

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An Awards Aftermath Question For All

The annual Women in Film gala, which is held today always celebrates several names but the big prize is the Crystal Award and Amy Adams will present it to Cate Blanchett for "Excellence in Film". A few months later Matthew McConaughey might well be honored with an Emmy for True Detective but even if he doesn't win that he'll be collecting will the American Cinematheque prize in October. And future fall honors aside, he was just handed another trophy by Spike TV last week as their "Guy of the Year"

In short, Oscar's Homecoming King and Queen are not yet done being showered with praise and tributes. We just saw an illustration of this afterglow effect with Bryan Cranston's Tony win for "All The Way". Did he win because he was the best in the category or because it's all the rage to honor him given the super duper success of that protracted final season of "Breaking Bad"? Wouldn't he immediately be the favorite to win the Oscar this next season if he had a substantial role in a movie, solely from all this goodwill. 

McConaughey, Blanchett, and Cranston aren't done collecting trophies this year

Right or wrong, and the debate will forever rage, the Oscar is viewed as the pinnacle of showbiz prizes. So what's with grabbing more trophies as you ski-lift down from that peak? Aren't they redundant? Why do organizations feel the need to rubber stamp Oscar's choices instead of starting the drums for someone else. Aren't they afraid of viewer fatigue or sloppy seconds?

And, a better question, why do the actors go for it? They all seem so exhausted after awards season that you'd think they'd hide away for a few months thereafter instead of doing more monkey dances for more trophies that don't mean a great deal in the long run.

I'm curious to hear theories.