Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 6:22PM Hello, lovelies: Beau here, searching for distractions from the onslaught of crap coming our way in the next few months, and the fact that I still haven't seen Before Midnight. (insert vicious, hyperbolic rant here.) Luckily for me, the trailer for the new Coen Bros. is just the ticket.
YES:
Carey? Carey... are you in there?
Saturday, December 29, 2012 at 1:45AM The Scene: September* 2012, NYC. An industry screening and cocktail party for On the Road.
Kristen Stewart stood at the front of the crowded screening room in a white oversized dress shirt and black slacks. Director Walter Salles and co-star Garrett Hedlund stood beside her and she shifted nervously while they all spoke to the assembled Academy and Guild members and small pockets of press types like me. The "stop looking at me" vibe, already familiar from her many public appearances rippled outward. One wants celebrities to enjoy the rarified air they breathe, both because success is a beautiful coveted trophy and because careers in the public eye require being looked at to achieve any degree of it. I've written about my discomfort with her discomfort before in a piece that was provocatively called "Jodie Foster is Wrong: On the Mandatory Price of Fame." Yet, through the course of the evening I found myself reconsidering her particulars.
Kristen Stewart does her randiest (and maybe her best) work ever in "On the Road".
*Yes, this scene I've set took place in September.
I foolishly didn't write about the party immediately thereafter though it happened to be the first awards season get together of 2012 as "the Doyenne of Buzz" Peggy Siegal reminded us in welcome. Even then On the Road (The Movie) seemed to be as lost in time as its protagonists were on the map as they drove and drove, searching for connection, energy, sex, thrills, drugs, music -- anything that felt alive. I knew the film wouldn't open until the tail end of the year in limited release (possibly near you) and I wondered, as I often do, what I'm to do as a film blogger about movies that remain so elusive, movies with strange and distant release dates. Films, like movie stars, are invented to be looked at, but many of them hide despite the best efforts of publicists, filmmakers and journalists who are eager to embrace them and discuss them with moviegoers.
[I worried, even then, that this moody sweaty retro film would be utterly ignored in the crush of Shiny Noisy Awards-Baiting Behemoths. The Adult-Oriented Christmas Multiplex Glut is simply no place for a film that so pointedly craves wide open spaces and young hormonal surges. I'm mystified that the distributor (Sundance Selects) didn't choose to open this one somewhere between July and October, much more comfortable climates for its subject matter and appeal.]
Very briefly at the after-party I spoke with Kristen Stewart about the green splint on her finger which I had mistaken for an oversized piece of costume jewelry. She told me I wasn't the first and held it up, not for my benefit but for her own 'why do people keep mentioning that?' contemplation. I never learned how she'd hurt her finger and that's all we said to each other. But in the little circles that form themselves around The Talent at these industry parties, she seemed perfectly content, if still a bit restless, to be talking to other people in her profession. As I left the party I felt a little bad about my impatience with her celebrity unease because up close and impersonal, I suddenly saw it from a different and I assume clearer perspective. Kristen Stewart isn't, in spirit, a movie star but a rock star. Rock stars are allowed more antagonistic friction between themselves and the world. Sometimes they're even rewarded for it.
...all of those smashed-up guitars.
Hedlund & Stewart. True Lust Forever.
This is, quite obviously, why Stewart's previous best performance to date was as Joan Jett in The Runaways. And it has to be why she's so mesmerizing again as the untamed teenage bride "Marylou".
Stewart's fame far outstrips that of her male leads but for all her screen magnetism in this particular role, the true star of On the Road is Garret Hedlund as "Dean Moriarty" the object of nearly everyone's affection. Hedlund made his way through that same September party with an eager friendliness in amusing unintentional direct contrast to his co-star. It's remarkably easy to fall in deep like with him and in the film it's impossible not to fall in deep love. Were On the Road to be more widely seen, Hedlund's explosive sexuality as Dean coupled with the quality of his acting would make him an instant 'cast him in everything!' sensation. On the Road doesn't always work but Hedlund's star turn definitely does.
I recently screened the film a second time and left with the same impression. The same impression that the film wisely underlines. The classic book and this film version both conclude with a confessional mantra:
I think of Dean Moriarty. I think of Dean Moriarty. I think of Dean Moriarty."
I dare you to see the film and leave thinking of anything else.
previously
more Kristen Stewart
more Garrett Hedlund
Friday, September 14, 2012 at 6:00PM 
The Oscar chart updates were temporarily stalled by my thwarted Toronto plans so just fixin' things up now. Enjoy the updates while I jaunt off to Fire Island for a 24 hour getaway. I've just seen The Impossible -- more on that soon -- so I'm accidentally living a rather perverse combo: tsunami picture then beach getaway.
As always predictions are for entertainment purposes only. They should never be interpreted as endorsements though occassionally deserve has something to do with it.
BEST ACTOR
The big story here is a common one. There are enough buzzing performances to fill out an entire Golden Globe nominee pool, 10-wide, which means there are twice as many contenders as Oscar voters will be able to choose. Am I crazy to wonder if even Daniel Day-Lewis is safe for Lincoln? The trailer does not impress.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin makes huge gains as he's singled out in many Argo reactions. Ewan McGregor's wounded father in The Impossible also rises though I have to wonder if this isn't wishful thinking. He's one of the world's best and most endearing screen actors but he never quite wins Oscar hearts. Still, nomination-less or not, come what may... we will love him, until our dying day.
Finally, add Kiki's new man Garrett Hedlund to your For Your Consideration fields for On The Road. He's the focal point of the film's considerable libido which might work against him (this is one of the most sexually-charged performances since, say, Jude Law in The Talented Mr Ripley) but they're campaigning him as supporting which will definitely work for him given his enormous amount of screen time.
Garrett Hedlund is "On the Road" with cinematography by Eric Gautier
VISUALS & AURALS
Gains for TIFF buzzing Cloud Atlas, On the Road and The Impossible.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM SUBMISSIONS
You can add Romania's Beyond the Hills which is from Cristian Mungui, the director of the magnificent 4 Weeks 3 Months and 2 Days (better luck this time!) and Portugal's Blood of My Blood to the list of submitted contenders. May the best five films win nominations.
Which buzzing fall film are you desperate to get your eyeballs on? I chose the beach over The Master (perverse I know given the rarity of P.T. Anderson pictures) but I'll get to that one Sunday...
Friday, August 3, 2012 at 8:49PM PopBytes gives Kristen Stewart advice re: her custody battle with Robert Pattinson (they share a beautiful dog)
Kirsten Dunst shares Garrett Hedlund tempting a squirrel with his nuts! (We used to do this as a little kid -- until my sister got bit!)
My New Plaid Pants remembers delicious latent homo Michael Biehn in The Fan. The internet is a wonderful time-free zone where people can obsess on Biehn like it's 1982 whenever they damn well want!
Gawker on Demi Moore's long cinematic rough patch
The Playlist Nicole Kidman will play a small role in Lars von Trier's pornographic The Nymphomaniac (2013). Oh how I love them both. Please please please let this be as good as The Idiots.
Stale Popcorn Glenn reviews Cosmopolis and Step Up Revolution together because, duh, obvious double feature
i09 has the greatest unintentionally funny lines in genre films/tv. Love #8 and #1 so much.
In Contention Spike Lee to be honored in Venice
NY Times profiles the rising Ukrainian boy band of sorts, Kazaky, featured in Madonna's "Girl Gone Wild" video
Vanity Fair gives Olympian Ryan Lochte the Ryan Gosling 'Hey Girl' treatment
Slate Dana Stevens embraces her inner punk rocker while staring at the Sight & Sound List
Movie|Line I'm a bit confused by this article about Elizabeth Olson praising 50 Shades of Grey but then "no, no, no" about starring in it. I think we're missing a quote or a follow up question from the reporter!
Comic Book Movie Hugh Jackman on set as The Wolverine. Please please please let these be better than X-Men Origins: Wolv --oh never mind. It would be nigh impossible to be worse!
Finally... I think it's worth noting as a die hard fan of Bring It On (2000) -- which made my top ten list in its year and which I do not, in any way, consider a "guilty" pleasure, just a pleasure full stop -- that the stage musical version is upon us. My friend Tom liked it which gives me hope but I'm still leery. Screen to stage transfers are often very problematic and weirdly the number one thing they seem to get wrong seems very basic to me; super short scenes, of which movies are typically composed, are fussy and distracting on stage especially if they're constantly making adjustments to the sets or trying to keep up the manic visual pace of movies. Too many stage musicals pretend that you can just act the movie out on the stage but that's absolutely the worst way to go. I'm also worried because Bring It On's deserved reputation as one of the best high school comedies and best girly comedies has been utterly tarnished by a lengthy string of straight-up-terrible straight-to-video "sequels".
If any of you have seen it in previews, do share your reactions. Should I go?
