Yes, No, Maybe So: Haywire

Jose here with a new edition of Yes, No, Maybe So. Just a few days ago we brought you the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Contagion and now here's the trailer for Haywire, a movie he will release a mere four months later. Apparently the whole retirement thing just helped to crank the creative juices inside him...

YES. Once again, that cast!

How did he handle two casts with these people? Can you imagine working with Fassy, Ewan, Gwynnie, Kate, Marion and Channing in the same year? Maybe they are the ones who are more like "can you imagine working with Soderbergh?".

Keep on reading for more awesome Soderbergh-ness...

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You Can Ring Tatum's Bell

These photos from the UK premiere of The Eagle this week (my review) suggest that maybe Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell ought to film a buddy comedy next. Would you see it? Or do you wish The Eagle had just been a comedy instead?

Peter Pan is a Metaphor, Hollywood

Early this morning I was reading Katey's piece on Cinema Blend telling us that Sony was going forward with a movie called Pan, a Channing Tatum Peter Pan origin story of sorts and I just kept (figuratively) scratching my head and other sources confirm this is happening. Katey and I are of like minds on this one as we both like Tatum more than you'd think ...and more than perhaps is reasonable *ahem*. But the project just makes zero sense on paper. Or at least on paper in simple high concept form.

What to make of it all? Can't we leave Peter Pan to little boy actors? Though I feel like this should go without saying maybe Hollywood needs a little schooling. "The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up" is a conceptual metaphor. Peter Pan is not a literal story. Yes, it's about men who can't leave boyhood behind but that's the emotional gist. It's not literal. Peter Pan can but should NEVER be played by full grown men. Maybe my resistance to this is all that deep scarring from the hideous Hook twenty years ago. Christ that movie was awful. While Channing Tatum is a good ten years younger than Robin Williams was for Steven Spielberg's nadir, 30 is still too old to play Pan. Just when Hollywood had finally dropped the habit of having mature women play the flying boy do we have to have mature men take over?

I mean even back when Channing Tatum was a male model and several lbs leaner he was still way too, um, how to put this... carnal for Pan, you know? Unless they're making an entirely different movie than we think they're making!

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The Linkozoic Era

I didn't really intend for this linklist to be so long but the internet kept handing me enjoyable things this morning. Thank you internets.

Stale Popcorn "Olivia Newton-John swinging from a chandelier" This Aussie comedy just went to the top of my wish list.
My New Plaid Pants JA expresses jealousy, warnings and commendations for Amanda Seyfriend's uh, active, Hollywood dating.
IndieWire Deneuve gets a standing ovation at the premiere of Potiche in NYC.

Right here i had an article which talked about the dinosaur-rumor in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011) but it's been taken down. But here is a still of Brad Pitt in the movie anyway!

Brad Pitt in "The Tree of Life"

Boy Culture William Orbit thinks Madonna's W.E. is really good.
Playbill Kathleen Turner to host the Drama League awards
Coming Soon Dreamworks Animation schedule until 2014. Heavy on the sequels, duh. Between this and Pixar's sequel heavy slate, I feel certain that the second golden age of animation will soon end. Only originality can keep a golden age going.

I saw this on Blog Stage and had to share it. Nicole Kidman at 16 (!!!) promoting BMX Bandits. I love how she's so matter-of-fact about the actors not being good enough to do their own stunts.

Nicole Kidman on Young Talent Time from Severin Films on Vimeo.

Film Doctor 8 notes on Rango
i09 on scifi television and the mythical "Summer Glau Curse"
Towleroad Eeek. Blade Runner's replicants are not so far away. Here's a mechanical clone of a guy in Denmark
Alt Film Guide picks up the baton I'm always a-carrying. What the hell does Oscar have against giving actresses Honorary Oscars?
Go Fug Yourself readers votes are in and the single Best and Worst dressed at the Oscars is revealed. Their best is my worst! But their worst wasn't even at the Oscars so I feel like it's cheating.

Finally...

Daily Mail I love this story. The baby of one of The King's Speech producers dropped his Oscar. Hee. A film critic is born?

"Chan" Tatum

Do any of you read GQ? I can't say that I read any magazine religiously anymore (my how things change) but I read this cover story. It's one of those celebrity profiles that makes you wonder why the star's personality offscreen doesn't transfer more to the silver screen.

One of the problems with The Eagle (full review) I think is that Channing Tatum is so serious in it that there's not a lot of tones to vary the star turn. Except, that is, for the tail end in which he cracks a smile and it suddenly feels like a different movie entirely. And one set in 2011 no less. But my point is that he sounds funny and loose and uninhibited in person -- here and elsewhere -- if not quite "wild" as the cover suggests and those things don't seem to be transferring to his performances.

I'm hoping some director can tap into this other engaging fun side of him in a future performance. But unless a male actor is a genius and adds lots of colors on their own to their performances, Hollywood rarely asks for the kind of emotive range from them that it regularly expects of the women. So for now masculine good looks and the ability to hold the camera will have to do.

Maybe his team is keeping him to buttoned up? I don't mean that literally since he still takes his shirt off with generous frequency. On his stripper past for example he says.

"I had wanted to tell people. I'm not ashamed of it. I don't regret one thing. I'm not a person who hides shit."

I'm not sure his people will be pleased with the copious alcohol imbibing in the article, but his delight in giving the journalist plenty of crazed details to work with is pretty funny. As is his virtual boasting at the article's end that the interviewer is not going to find a celebrity to top him any time soon.

More photos here.  I totally want this striped shirt so the advertisement (aka the photoshoot) worked its consumerist magic.