On the Set with Nicole and Naomi

Murtada with a bit of news about BFFs Nic and Naomi.

Remember when Nicole Kidman worked with John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) in Rabbit Hole (2010)? Of course you do. It was the last time she put her considerable talent in a movie that completely worked. Yes Oscar noticed but more importantly she won the Film Bitch best actress award.

They're working together again right now. The movie is called How to Talk to Girls at Parties and is about an alien who visits Earth, landing in the London suburb of Croydon during 1970s punk era. And what has excited us most about this picture of Kidman is the costume, of course. Nicole looks like a character from Velvet Goldmine! It's not a coincidence. The costumes are by Haynes favorite Sandy Powell and this marks the first time ever she’s designed for Kidman. Can you believe it?

Also starring are Elle Fanning - obviously an actressexual since she’s just finished working with The Bening - Ruth Wilson, the wonderful Joanna Scanlan and last year Tony’s winner for best actor Alex Sharp in the lead role.

Meanwhile Nicole’s best friend is working with her baby daddy (her term not ours, we assume jokingly) Liev Schreiber on his passion project The Bleeder. This is a biopic of boxer Chuck Wepner who is the real life  inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa. Apparently Schreiber has been trying to get this story to the screen for years, so naturally he enlisted his Oscar nominated partner. 

Watts is playing Wepner’s wife, Linda. Let’s hope it is more than the usual stock female part in sports movies. The director is Philippe Falaradeau (Monsieur Lazhar, The Big Lie) and the cast includes Elisabeth Moss and Ron Perlman. Schreiber has been hiding his hair in recent public appearances --- we suspect an altered hairline. Just google Chuck Wepner and you’ll know why.

Don't you wish Watts & Kidman were working together?  Let's fantasy cast them in the comments!

The Bening to the Rescue!

Murtada here. 2015 is a banner year for actresexuals. From Clouds of Sils Maria in the spring, to the summer of prickly older ladies (Lily, Blythe and Meryl) and through to this month’s Brooklyn and Carol, we were spoiled. Looking forward to 2016 though, it is looking barren. It might just be early days as the release calendar hasn’t taken full shape yet.

But fear not actressexuals, Annette Bening’s coming to rescue us all from more stories about men and the obsession with their legacy and position in the world (ahem Steve Jobs!). Here she is, in glorious ratty overalls on the set of 20th Century Women. Mike Mills' long awaited follow-up to Beginners is a casting dream with lead roles for The Bening, Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning. Bening is Dorothea Fields, a mother raising her teenage son, Jamie, in Southern California in the summer of 1979. Also in Jamie’s life are a sophisticated photographer (Gerwig) and his teenage friend (Fanning). Mills based the characters on women he knew growing up.

And what’s with those blue overalls? And she’s not looking too happy. Hopefully that means there’s lots of drama to deal with. Mills after all made a poignant and beautiful story in Beginners, another movie he based on his personal experiences. That led to Christopher Plummer winning an Oscar. Could he work his magic for The Bening as well?

Are you excited for 20th Century Women? What other 2016 releases do you think can continue the actressexuals bliss we are having now?

TIFF's Red Carpet, Much Improved

Jose here, with a new life mission: make someone as happy as Kate Winslet looked at the premiere of The Dressmaker.

 The Oscar winner was the epitome of radiance as she walked the red carpet in a stunning Badgley Mischka design. Official reports say she was blowing kisses to the crowd, signing autographs and putting on her best face for her fans, however I choose to believe she was smiling because she saw how improved the looks were at the festival by the time she arrived. See the looks after the jump. 

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Let's Go Down The Rabbit Hole Again

Jason from MNPP here with the latest dispatch from Kidmanville (Nicoleopolis?) - the Aussie goddess is set for a Rabbit Hole reunion! No she's not playing Galactus in the next Fantastic Four movie (although do stop and imagine that for a hot second, by all means) -- she's re-teaming with director John Cameron Mitchell on his next project, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's short story How To Talk To Girls At Parties (out of his 2006 collection Fragile Things). Which is maybe even better than the Galactus thing.

I won't wade into plot details because I hate having too much of that ruined for me beforehand; you can read that at the link if you like. But I will say it's a science-fiction love-story set in London in the 70s, and that also attached to the film (as if we need anybody else) are Elle Fanning & Alex Sharp.

"Alex who?," you ask? He was the lead actor in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, for which he snatched a Tony this year. He is quite good, they say!

Delighted to be teaming w/ John Cameron Mitchell on his glam-punk alien love story HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES 👽 pic.twitter.com/1ACyL6J9JA

— A24 (@A24) September 15, 2015

(Also of note: indie musicians Nico Muhly, Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu and Matmos are doing the music!)

The film will begin shooting in November and hopefully they'll shoot & edit & release it in time for this year's Oscars, so Nicole can pick up another statue of her own. She's totally overdue her second (and her third!) at this point, don't you think?

Women's Pictures - Sofia Coppola's Somewhere

Anne Marie's Sofia Coppola chapter of 'Women's Pictures' has reached its finale. Next month: Agnes Varda!

Sofia Coppola month has been enlightening. I don't know that we've tackled a director as polarizing as Ms. Coppola on Women's Pictures to date, and I've enjoyed reading the varied reactions readers have had to her films. For that reason, and because of the more prominent autobiographical inspirations, the final movie of Sofia Coppola month is Somewhere, the often-overlooked 2010 dramedy.

Somewhere distills the themes Coppola has employed throughout her career, putting them in service of a story that rings clearly from the writer/director's personal experience. After all, before she was Sofia Coppola, Academy Award winning screenwriter and respected director, she was Sofia Coppola, daughter of famed auteur Francis Ford Coppola. She had a firsthand account of how major celebrity can free a person and also trap him, and those contradictions resonate through her entire ouvre. In Somewhere, Coppola gives us a glimpse into the monotony of celebrity that is mostly devoid of easy sentiment. Whether you want that glimpse or not determines how likely you are to enjoy slow-paced movies about wealthy stars having existential crises. To bastardize a line from an old classic: with (films about) the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

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