Sony Classics Brings Us Eleanor Coppola's "Paris..."

One of the films we've been hearing positive word of mouth out of the glut of TIFF is Eleanor Coppola's Paris Can Wait. Eleanor famously documented her husband Francis Ford Coppola's literal hell shooting Apocalypse Now with Hearts of Darkness, and followed with more behind the scenes documentaries after. Paris is her first narrative film and Sony Pictures Classics just picked it up for distribution. At 80 years old, this first feature from the director will be something to celebrate!

If not TIFF Oscar bait, the film sounds like a lighthearted, mouth watering trip across France: Diane Lane stars as a dispassionately married woman who takes a French road trip with a business associate of her husband to reinvigorate her life. Alec Baldwin and Arnaud Viard are her costars, but we hear the cuisine brings the real romance. Food porn and Diane Lane in Europe sounds like exactly the thing we'll need to cleanse our Oscar palette come spring!

While we, ahem, Wait, what's your favorite food porn or European trip on film?

Movie v Its Ensemble

Spoilers Ahead - Many of you have surely taken in the large spectacle clashing of Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for either popcorn fun or schadenfreude curiosity after the critical drubbing. Even the film’s fans and apologists have to admit that substantial missteps were made.

One of the most gruesome of the film’s plentiful sins is how it hangs its enviable cast completely out to dry. This is a cast of Oscar winners, legends, and future greats (poor Scoot McNairy!) giving it their all, but still completely out to sea. The luckiest are the ones that are still used too sparingly: Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane don’t have time to make a mark, despite giving the grim actioner its only laughs.

But the film has a huge actor problem. There are many moments of its cast being underserved, undervalued, or placed into outright embarrassing situations. And there’s one glaring example I just can’t get past...

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Red Carpet: BAFTA PreParty, Sci-Tech, and WGA

Eight beauties for you this afternoon as we get closer and closer to Oscar and more and more awards are handed out. We'll know the BAFTA winners in a few hours (though they still don't televise it live making it hard to take seriously in this day and age) but here are four women from the pre-party.

Sandy Powell (just interviewed!), Dakota Johnson, Cate Blanchett, and Bel Powley. Was the dress code black and white? 

Olivia Munn co-hosted the Academy's Sci-Tech Awards. Meanwhile at the WGA Awards, Adepero Oduye (gorgeous in yellow!) showed up to support The Big Short, Gina Gershon, and Diane Lane were also out on the red carpet. Olivia's busy but these other three deserve bigger roles than they've been getting -- they've got the talent and the charisma for them. Hopefully the guild members, all writers after all, will be inspired by their presence to create richer roles for them or actresses like them. 

WGA WINNERS
Original SPOTLIGHT
Adapted THE BIG SHORT
Documentary GOING CLEAR
Television FARGO

We've every reason to expect that Original and Adapted will tilt the same way at the Oscars on the 28th but what do you think is running second in both races? We're guessing Inside Out (Original)  in distant second and Room (Adapted) a closer second.

HBO’s LGBT History: Cinema Verite (2011)

Last week we reminisced about Vito Russo with two related docs: the essential The Celluloid Closet and the 2011 HBO doc Vito. This week we turn from a pivotal figure in silver screen LGBT history to a pivotal one for the small screen. I’m talking, of course, of Lance Loud, who famously came out in An American Family in 1973 when the Loud family became the subject of a PBS docuseries, what many deem to be one of the first reality shows in American TV. Directed by Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, Cinema Verite (watch on HBOGo) follows the behind-the-scenes drama behind that infamous and breakthrough program.

For Americans, as we saw last week, many of the images they saw of homosexuals on movie screens were outright stereotypes. But they really paled in comparison to the images they were getting from the media. In 1967, CBS aired The Homosexuals an episode of CBS Reports. Here’s a sampling of Mike Wallace’s voice-over in the show:

“The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one–chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits.”

That by 1973 audiences got to see Lance Loud being openly gay and accepted within his family was a huge step forward (even if, given the time period, his homosexuality was used to further vilify the Louds in the press). More... 

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YNMS: Holly Hunter vs. Superman: Dawn of Wonder Woman

It would be a lie to say that The Film Experience has been anxiously awaiting the latest trailer from Zach Snyder. But life can surprise you and the newly released Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice promo literally begins with this image of Oscar Winning Diva Holly Hunter!

Today is a day for truth."

And her line reading is so over-the-top IMPORTANT that I want it on a Vine loop. Like Jessica Lange screaming "Knotty Pine" or something. Is it too much to ask that Holly's Senator is like Cristal/Showgirls self aware of what kind of movie she is in?

For now we are free to imagine that this movie is actually an action drama about Senator Holly Hunter's vendetta against Superman wherein she cosplays Wonder Woman (briefly glimpsed though it's never clear who she is fighting in her cutaways) to lay waste to him. Featuring Oscar nominees Diane Lane and Amy Adams! (Those grim self-important steroid warriors are just there to sell tickets to fanboys and muscle-queens!)

So let's Yes No and Maybe So it this thing (okay the real thing - sigh) after the jump...

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