Mulligan and the Great DiCapsby

True Story: Last night I was walking to a birthday party with a movie-mad friend of mine and we passed a girl with badly bleached short platinum hair. She was wearing a showy vintage coat and her face was squinching up on the verge of drama queen tears. We turned to each other in jinxy double take: 'Carey Mulligan: Shame live in New York, New York!'

It wasn't Mulligan but the look was so spot on it could have been the Halloween parade.

Maybe you had to be there.

But you don't have to be there to enjoy this photo from the set of The Great Gatsby. Normally when an actress turns ubiquitous we get worried (nobody is right for every role) but after her hot mess spin as Sissy in Shame, so different than anything we've seen her do, maybe she can do anything.

Not that "Daisy", another 180˚will be easy to pull off.

I've always loved this description of her voice (the novel is short on physical descriptions but wonderfully evocative in terms of character).

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it ... high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl. 

More photos and such after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Mirror Mirror"

We've never really imagined visually acclaimed director Tarsem Singh as the Evil Queen type but the release of the trailer to his next flick Mirror Mirror (included at the bottom of this post) so quickly on the heels of Rupert Sanders Snow White and the Huntsmen trailer (previously discussed) changes that immediately. Suddenly it's remarkably easy -- nay required! -- to imagine Tarsem all fussy, bejewelled and panicky with sweat in front of his own magic mirror when it declares Snow White and the Hunstman the fairest of all new Snow White projects. That's admittedly a small 50/50 type achievement, but still... 

Breathe deeply and put The Fall on loop in your home theater, Tarsem! Movie magic is temperamental even for the most skilled visual magicians.

But it's time for our Yes, No, Maybe So breakdown. As we do in this series, let's start positive...

YES...

• As in The Social Network, Armie Hammer seems more than perfectly cast as upper crust... in this case upper upper crust as in the royal family, as in Prince Charming.
• Birch trees are pretty and there seem to be a lot of them in this movie.
• Lily C... Ju... the se... the cos...vi... oh fuck it, let's move on. 

NO...

"Snap!" to quote Thor on Nurse Jacket. 'We don't say that anymore."

• Julia Roberts used to be so great at comedy. But it might just be true that if you rest, you rust.
• That "I believe I believe I believe in love" musical number is strangely off putting. Was it the smug way Snow White already thinks she's the fairest of them all with her dance move? Was it the Bollywood influence without really committing to Bollywood?
• Why does the whole thing look lower budget than even the cheeztacular Once Upon a Time on television?
• Why does the sound drop out for each Julia Roberts moment like an awkward silent laugh track?
• Being banished to the woods isn't very scary when the woods look like the soundstage adjacent to the soundstage you were just banished from.
• Why is Nathan Lane in this?
• Why did they release a trailer when the images aren't color corrected and they didn't even fix the green screen backdrop in the "you're not as pathetic as I thought" scene?
• Why is the dialogue so anachronistically modern?
• Why is Julia shouting all of her lines. Wouldn't the highlighting and underlining of 50% of each sentence be enough for a line delivery?
• "Snow White? Snow Who? Snow Way" 
• I think instead of Seven Dwarves they've given us Seven Jar Jar Binkses. *shudder*
• No, Julia... I don't think there's a happy ending coming your way here.
• "Say Hello to My Little Friend" ... seriously? SERIOUSLY?!? What is this Shrek only without animation and with hoarier lame pop culture jokes? 

MAYBE SO...

• If you're going to risk being laughed at, by all means wear swan dresses! Really go for it. Should your swan be pooping out your leading lady instead of casually draped around her a la Björk? WHY NOT!? Go for it Eiko Ishioka! Your cuckoo bravery is inspiring. We love you. 
• The Fall is awesome and maybe it looked like shit at some point during production? 

The atrocity in full is embedded below... Are you a No, No or Maybe No? Sound off in the comments.

Theadora Van Runkle (1929-2011)

Take off those berets and fedoras and pay your respects. The great costume designer Theadora Van Runkle, a three time Oscar nominee, passed away this past Friday of lung cancer at 83 years of age [src]. For those who don't immediately connect her name to her movies, know that her work was seismic. 

Her most famous creations were actually those done on her very first feature Bonnie & Clyde (1967). She was able to do the picture only after Warren Beatty and the costume designers guild president screamed at each other for half an hour (she was not a guild member then) according to Mark Harris's invaluable tome Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and The Birth of New Hollywood.  She had never done a film and at one tense point admitted to Warren Beatty that she had no idea what she was doing. 

After Beatty vetoed her first period-specific ideas, she came up with the now legendary out of time ensembles that nodded to both the 1930s (when the story takes place) and contemporary 60s French New Wave that the project had always hoped to emulate (Beatty had originally wanted François Truffaut himself to direct).

You see people who are great beauties and never get anywhere. This was style."
-Theadora Van Runkle on Dunaway as Bonnie. 

Van Runkle even claims that she was the one who brought the unknown Faye Dunaway to Beatty & director Arthur Penn's attention. "There's the girl you should cast!" though there are competing legends as to how Dunaway first came up in the long search for the girl.

Because of the tight budget, many of the costumes worn by other characters weren't actually Van Runkle's designs but costuming the titular pair was enough to win her a permanent place in movie history and her first Oscar nomination. She was later nominated for both The Godfather Part Two (1974) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).

Those Oscar nominated movies were hardly the only memorable gigs. Other showy movies included the infamously delirious transgendered farce Myra Breckenridge (1970), the ill-fated Mame (1974), the post-war romantic drama New York New York (1977) and the bawdy gaudy musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).

I'll always have a special place in my heart for her work on Peggy Sue Got Married. I love that too-shiny / too-tight gown that Peggy Sue is proud she can still fit into at her 25th reunion. Like Bonnie, Peggy Sue is straddling two eras, this time literally; a lovely mirage of the past clinging to a totally contemporary soul.

Good night and thank you, Theadora.

Kiera vs. Dakota: Who Will Make the Greater Artist's Muse?

With all the projects in development in the world drawn from an infinite number of topics, it's always curious to note how many of them inexplicably arise simultaneously on the same topics. Thompson in Hollywood reports that Keira Knightley is considering the lead role in Untouched (2013?) which is a romantic triangle biopic on the artist muse Effie Gray and her relationship to two men, the art critic John Ruskin and his protégé the painter Everett Millais. She married them both during her lifetime, though only the second marriage was consummated. 

But get this... Dakota Fanning is also playing this role in a competing feature called simply Effie (2012?) written by everyone's favorite Acting/Screenwriting Double Oscar Winner Emma Thompson. While we'd love to see more movies written by Thompson as well as meatier roles for Dakota Fanning (especially since Elle Fanning fever threatens to consume Hollywood), Keira has actual experience as an artist's muse. She's currently filming Anna Karenina, her third feature as Joe Wright's muse (He's only made four features prior to this so by the time Anna Karenina arrives, Keira will have starred in 60% of his filmography; they be tight.)

Effie (2012). Costumes by two time Oscar nominee Ruth Myers<-- Here is Dakota Fanning in costume as Effie. That's Greg Wise (Emma Thompson's real life man and Kate Winslet's heart-breaker in Sense & Sensibility) as her first husband, the art critic John Ruskin. Their marriage was famously unconsummated before she left him for his protege Millais (Tom Sturridge) which caused all sort of social drama in Victorian England.

Millais painted both Effie and her sister Sophie and other family members frequently. There's no word on IMDb about who plays "Sophie" or even if she's in the film but is it too much to ask for Elle Fanning in a surprise uncredited appearance?

Keira or Dakota?
Make your case in the comments.

Or did your eyes glaze over at "Emma Thompson"? Yes yes, we know. We were just saying. She's really all that matters in most movie conversations that involve her. Happily she also acts in Effie. Yay!

Feinberg & Friends

Scott Feinberg started a podcast at the Hollywood Reporter a month back. Each week he has a different guest and it's yours truly this week. I haven't listened to it but, then, I was there during the recording so that should count. (I have the same mundane problem as most of the verbal world in that I hate hearing my own voice. Editing my own podcast --returning soon-- is enough torture in that department.)

We're discussing Best Picture, Costume Design, actresses who bare it all for the gold man, the double-supporting-actress nomination, and category placements for Carnage (everyone has officially gone supporting!) among other quick topics. Have a listen...

Thank you to Scott at the Hollywood Reporter for the conversation. We always love to talk Oscar.