Yes, No, Maybe So: "J. Edgar"

That vibration you're feeling on the ground, that telltale rippling disturbance in your glass, is the clomping arrival of one of 2011's (presumed) Oscar behemoths, Clint Eastwood's biopic of FBI man J Edgar Hoover called J Edgar [official site].

Don't wilt like a little flower. Be strong."

Which means we have to get down to our yes, no, maybe so breakdown of things that make us want to buy a ticket, run away screaming, or mull it over before committing. As a founding member of the oft reviled and totally misunderstood* 'Clint Eastwood is Overrated Club' I realize my breakdown will already be broken for some. But I do approach each trailer with as open a mind as I can muster given my general leanings. In this case everyone knows (and I'd never deny) that I vew cradle-to-grave biopics as the mustiest of all film genres; they aren't inherently cinematic with their staccato 'greatest hits' survey of life since movies are always strongest when they capture something seismic in miniature about a character, story, time, or theme that suggests rather than illustrates a major life beyond two hours.

YES

Is that legal?"

• Ummm... welll... oh, okay. Got one. The font of the logo is excellent with those flamboyant J and G curls in the otherwise Serious Man signature.
• Like everyone else I'm curious to see how well the actors handle the "alleged gays" material.
• Maybe Armie Hammer has a lightness of tone that will help it. Though he looks vaguely brainless when he puppy smiles directly at Mr. Hoover, the "is that legal?" line has hints of mischief and love of life.
• The shot of the John Dillinger death mask reminds us that plot point, already cinematized on its own, has plenty of juice should they squeeze.

The trailer in question and more commentary after the jump

Click to read more ...

"A Star is Born"... or, will be *after* the Star's baby is born.

Beyoncé announced her pregnancy at MTV's VMAs last night. I switched channels after Gaga's drag king opening number so the news got to me secondhand.

There be film fallout. The fourth feature film version of A Star is Born (2013? 2014?) is now delayed for at least nine months as Beyoncé gestates and welcomes her first child into the world. The musical, meant to be Clint Eastwood's post J Edgar project, had hoped to go before the cameras early in 2012 and with the speed that Eastwood tends to work we would have probably seen it as a Christmas 2012 release.

But now that Beyoncé is pregnant (and considering also that Leonardo DiCaprio has turned down the male lead role), this won't be happening just yet. The Beyoncé/Jay-Z babe will be born first.

Oscar-obsessives should keep a close eye on this one -- the film, not the babe. While the project seems ridiculous on the surface for both "another one?" superfluity and Eastwood + Beyoncé odd-coupledom, A Star is Born is a durable cultural object. It's always a major morphing showcase for the gifts of its leading lady. The first three incarnations resulted in 17 Oscar nominations and 3 Oscars all told including bids for Best Actress for both Janet Gaynor (1937) and Judy Garland (1954) and a Best Original Song Oscar for Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen" (1976).

Will we see Beyoncé as a Best Actress nominee in 2013 or 2014... or will she have to "settle" for a Best Song Oscar?

Curio: Happy 81st Clint

Alexa here.  Clint Eastwood turns 81 today, and while last year was a big birthday, once you hit 80 every year deserves to be commemorated, right? Personally I can't wait to see his upcoming J. Edgar with Leo in the title role. In the meantime, here are some indie poster designs celebrating a few of Clint's classics.

Dirty Harry poster for Alamo Drafthouse’s 2010 Rolling Roadshow Tour, by Olly Moss

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Ben Whitesell

Unforgiven and Gran Torino, after the jump...

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Top Ten Triple: Time Tables 'Tween Movies

Generally speaking a human infant can be produced in nine months. Baby elephants take two years. But when it comes to directors birthing their next celluloid or digitial babies, the time tables from conception to birth remain a calendrical mystery. Outside of Woody Allen, who brings an infant film into the world each and every year and Clint Eastwood, who often has twins, there's just no telling!

It's so hard to please movie buffs

We're thinking about this because Darren Aronofsky is lining up his post Black Swan project and Serious Film was just rejoicing over the news that P.T. Anderson is back to work. His thinly veiled Scientology film, formerly titled "The Master" has a June start date. Michael is like Goldilocks on the topic of time between pictures and we are too -- it's hard to satisfy us! -- but the Robert Altman / Martin Scorsese time table, a film every two or so years, is deemed "just right".

Michael writes:

Sure that makes them more vulnerable to the occasional dud, but it also opens them up to all the interesting follies and surprise discoveries that wind up being as treasured as their major masterpieces. Marty would never had produced anything as odd and discomfiting as King of Comedy if he has been moving at the glacial pace of a Terrence Malick, and the cinematic landscape would have been poorer for it.'

Can he get an amen?

We're limiting the following lists to living filmmakers / post-studio time frame because everyone was more regular when films ruled the world (prior to tv) and were assembled with greater efficiency. So for today's lists, let's look at the slowpokes, inbetweeners and quickies. These are not exact lists -- imagine trying to research every director in the world and we've also extracted shorts, tv films and documentaries -- but lists of commonly discussed feature filmmakers and a few of our favorites thrown in for good measure. 

DISCLAIMER: We're fully aware that financial backing is a factor in speed but have to ignore it for the purposes of this article. Also, we're aware that release dates don't always reflect timetables but you try looking up start of filming dates versus release date disparity on thousands of movies.

also: eating, sleeping, thinking, applying sunscreen.

SLOWPOKES
Listed from the very slowest to quickest among the slow. One is forced to imagine that the following filmmakers actually hibernate inbetween films. Only intense hunger pains ever reawaken them. This list is dedicated to Spike Jonze (who has only made 3 features since he started movies and they're all brilliant. But three is no kind of legacy: Commit!) and to Jonathan Glazer who we can only assume is having problems with financing. He's only made 2 films, both of them wonderful, in the past 10 years. His next feature is supposedly Under the Skin (2014) which would arrive a full decade after Birth, one of the most brilliant films of the Aughts.

1. Terrence Malick
   Quickest: 5 years between Badlands and Days of Heaven.
   Slowest: 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line.
   Rough Breakdown: One film every seven and ½ years (5 films thus far)
2. Baz Luhrmann
   Quickest: 4 years between Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet
   Slowest: 7 years between Moulin Rouge and Australia
   Rough Breakdown: One film every four years and 9 months (4 films thus far)
3. David Lynch
   
   Bob, Dale Cooper and Lynch in the prolific Twin Peaks years.Quickest: He's managed one year gaps on occasion
   Slowest:

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Clint Eastwood & Beyoncé. A Match Made In...

This might just be the strangest thing you read all week.

Clint Eastwood, currently working on FBI biopic J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover and Armie Hammer as his lover and star employee, will be chasing that unlikely project with... wait for it...

A STAR IS BORN with Beyoncé. According to Deadline it's a go and they may even start shooting the third musical version of this story before the end of the year. There are so many things one might say to this news including.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo"

or perhaps

"the earth is doomed" which is what I tweeted.

Maybe "Streisand is gonna be pissed" which is what I went with for my upcoming Towleroad column.

Stars Are Born in the 30s (Gaynor) the 50s (Garland) and 70s (Streisand)

I've never understood why anyone would want to remake A Star is Born (including Babs in the 70s), given that Judy Garland's 1954 performance is so unassailably ginormous and mythical and awesome and Oscar winning (damnit!). But mostly, I'm scratching my head about conservative manly "get off my lawn" Clint Eastwood doing two gay-appeal projects back to back. First he's training his Oscarbait eyes on a closeted cross-dresser and then he's turning klieg lights on an actual show queen?

Finally, aside from Eastwood's "what the hell will this be like?" involvement it feels rather redundant and not just because we've already had three film versions. Won't watching Beyoncé do A Star is Born be like watching a two hour extended remix of "Listen" from Dreamgirls.

That's the whole emotional arc and story right there.