This & That: Pop Songs, Oscar Campaigns, Carnage Poster

Bill Pullman's new roleAV Club is success spoiling AMC? More rumors and commentary on the increasingly troubled network of Mad Men and Breaking Bad.
Macleans also reacts to this 'blame Mad Men' meme going around
i09 expresses shock that Bill Pullman is so amazing as a creepy motivational speaker/murderer on Torchwood: Miracle Day. I haven't seen it yet because we don't get Starz but Bill Pullman can do anything. Why are people surprised? Oh, right. Nobody goes to the theater. Pullman's performance on Broadway in The Goat: Or, Who Is Sylvia? is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen, I kid you not. (pun!) The movie roles obviously didn't challenge him enough.

The Hairpin has an interview with Kate Beaton who writes what may be my favorite webcomic "Hark, A Vagrant!"
Cinema Blend I was just talking about Patrick Wilson to a friend last night and bingo: today there's news that he's joined the cast of Ridley Scott's Prometheus. I should talk about actors who don't get enough good parts every night before I sleep so they'll be cast the next morning.
Inside Movies A story that the web will undoubtedly love: Andrew Garfield on the size of Spider-Man's package.

Oooh, lookie. It's the first poster for Roman Polanski's Carnage.

That's a weird loud poster but at least it's interesting. The moody faces are kind of an interesting way to get at the play's rollercoaster tonal shifts and convey that it's an actor's piece.

The Campaigning Begins
Gold Derby is already claiming the Best Actor Oscar for Leonardo DiCaprio in J Edgar. We'll see. Believe it or not he's still kind of young to win an Oscar. They make the men wait, you know. Different rules for men. Although I suppose it helps that he didn't turn out as elfin gorgeous as he looked like he might back in the days of his youth. Oscar likes his women drop dead gorgeous but doesn't like his men too purty. Just ask Paul Newman how long he had to wait. Or Brad Pitt who still hasn't won.
IndieWire Glenn Close to receive the lifetime achievement award at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Festival honors of the career variety are a standard stop on the way to would be Oscar glory. 
Just Jared just posted this promotional pic of Michelle Williams for My Week With Marilyn but labelled it a "still". If it's really a still in the proper sense than the movie is taking some adventurous chances with its look. 

For Laughs... Movie|Line is listing four reimaginings of princess movies that it never wants to see.

And in other news... True Blood has been renewed for a fifth season. Yay! Get caught up on The Film Experience commentary. 

Best Song of the 1980s?

Music makes the people come together.... yeah  ♪
Critical Condition's Ultimate Pop Song Tournament has come down to the final four: Madonna's "Like a Prayer" (89), Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" (84), Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (82) and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" (81) This has been such fun for the past few weeks and it also just goes to show you how classic the 1980s are in the cultural canon since songs from other decades were eligible. You already know who I voted for, duh. Go and vote yourselves. May your favorite win... unless it's different than mine.
Boy Culture conjecture about Madonna's upcoming schedule
Examiner DC This is a good piece on the music industry's ability to keep the public interested in the classics, and the film industry's inability to do the same. A provocative mystery, that, right?

Toronto & Venice Lineups: Full of Contenders & Sleepers

Robert here (of Distant Relatives) with some thoughts on the lineups for the Toronto and Venice International Film Festivals which were announced Wednesday morning. And Oh Canada (and Viva Italia!) are they impressive.

Let's begin with Venice since it's up first.

VENICE
First up, the many films that will be vying for awards and spots on prestigious top 10 lists at the end of the year. I mention them first because while there's much to anticipate about them all, there's not too much left to say. They've staked their claim and now we must wait for word to start rolling in. So we can see if Roman Polanski's late career semi-resurgence can continue with the impressive cast of Carnage, or whether Steven Soderberg's Contagion can live up to that buzzy trailer. Meanwhile David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method sets out to prove that just because he doesn't make movies with gynelogical tools that look like alien lifeforms anymore, he's still a master of psychosexual pathos. George Clooney's The Ides of March will try to be more than Primary Colors redux and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (from Let the Right One In's Tomas Alfredson) may finally get Gary Oldman some recognition in the form of little statues. And of course Madonna reinvents herself yet again, this time as feature film director with W.E.

Meanwhile I feel like the lineup has reminded me of how many films have fallen under the radar so far this year. Did you know Jonathan Demme has made a post-Katrina documentary entitled I'm Carolyn Parker? Underachiever James Franco has found time to direct a film about Sal Mineo called Sal. Todd Solondz is back at it with the romance Dark Horse, which I'm sure will be more fun for the whole family. Further representing the ladies are Marry Harron who jumps into the vampire fray with The Moth Diaries, Andrea Arnold who gives us a new version of Wuthering Heights, and Marjane Satrapi of Persepolis fame who, with co-director Vincent Paronnaud presents her sophomore effort Chicken With Plums.

If that weren't enough there's Shame, Steve McQueen's follow up to 2008's Hunger which pairs Michael Fassbender with Cary Mulligan. If you liked 2007's sweetly sad The Band's Visit, director Eran Kolirin presents The Exchange. And if you liked last years not-so-sweetly sad Dogtooth, Giorgios Lanthimos is back with Alps. Plus new films from Philippe Garrel, Abel Ferrera, William Friedkin and more. Exhausting. The full list is available for your perusal at The Guardian.

TORONTO
Now on to TIFF, the official unofficial start of award season. Along with some films from Venice that will be here too (The Ides of March, The Dangerous Method, W.E.), we'll get our first look at "Sad Clooney" in Alexander Payne's The Descendants, "Angry Woody" in Oren Moverman's Rampart, and "Mathy Brad" in Bennett Miller's Moneyball. Rodrigo Garcia's Albert Nobbs rings the bell on the Glenn Close/Meryl Streep steel cage Oscar match we're all looking forward to and/or feeling conflicted about. Meanwhile Francis Ford Coppola continues the "we hope this one will be his big comeback" era of his career with Twixt.

Of course, Toronto could be comeback central. Fernando Meirelles is premeiring 360 in an attempt to put Blindness out of sight. Lasse Hallstrom is back (actually I can't remember if he went anywhere or if we all stopped paying attention). Anyway if he has his way the title Salmon Fishing in the Yemen will be on all of our lips. Also did you know that Roland Emmerich has apparently grown tired of destroying the world and made a film about Shakespeare called Anonymous... seriously. And his subtler and more stylish French counterpart Luc Besson has maybe put thrillers on hold for The Lady.

The list seemingly never ends, but I must. So I'll finish off with two films you might be anticipating if you enjoyed 2004's My Summer of Love and 2007's Away From Her. Pawel Pawlikoski is back with The Woman in the Fifth and Sarah Polley returns to the director's chair for Take This Waltz. As usual there's still plenty more and The Guardian has that list too.

Once your head has stopped spinning with the promise of a busy end of the year sound off. Which of these are you looking most forward to? Which are you having trouble getting worked up for?

Oscar Whispers: Marilyn & Madonna

I've recently had two brief conversations with people who have seen My Week With Marilyn and Madonna's W.E. respectively. I was happy to have the conversations so closely together because it's always fun to pair Madonna with Marilyn and one doesn't get the opportunity so much anymore. Plus, aren't we all just itchy to see some real Oscar players emerge?

Left to Right: Michelle as Marilyn, Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark (lead), Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller, and Dominic Cooper as Milton Greene

Bear in mind that these are singular tossed off opinions and the only opinions that matter in the Oscar race are the ones from the Opinion Makers within the voting ranks (the Julias, the Beattys, the Spielbergs you know the type), and any opinons marked "General Consensus" which take their time to form. The films are also far from release so they probably saw cuts that weren't final.

The friend who saw My Week With Marilyn was pretty cool on it, finding Michelle Williams difficult to adjust to as the blonde bombshell at first but eventually just fine. The film itself was judged to be lightweight. (Though one man's lightweight is another man's "frothy and charming", don'cha know? See: billions of examples through history... and Oscar history) Kenneth Branagh was singled out for praise for a showy spin as Sir Laurence Olivier. That may be worth noting since we all know that Branagh is a big ham and who better to receive that honey-glazed THESPIAN treatment than pompous Olivier?

But what of Judi Dench, I asked? "Better in Jane Eyre" was the only opinion I wrangled there.

Madonna is hands on with Andrea Riseborough's look on "W.E."The reader who saw Madonna's W.E., which looks at the famous affair of Wallis Simpson and Prince through the eyes of a modern woman in an unhappy marriage, really liked the film but she hopes it gets a new ending. High praise went to the costumes (which we'd already suspected would happen since Arianne Phillips is involved), William Orbit's score (interesting! You'll remember that the composer worked on Madonna's greatest CD "Ray of Light"), and Andrea Riseborough as Wallis Simpson who was deemed 'award-worthy' without any qualifiers.

To my surprise she referred to Riseborough as "supporting". I think I had assumed that like Julie & Julia, the obvious recent predecessor in 'two time frames at once, joined by the modern woman's obsession' that it would essentially be a two-hander with Abbie Cornish (in the present) and Riseborough (in the past) both having lead roles. Maybe it is. Everyone seems to have very different ideas these days about what "lead" and "supporting" means.

It's not much. Just some whispering but it's fun to fantasize about future Oscar players while we wait... and wait... and wait. Only 215 days until nominations! Hee.

"Dick Tracy" Q&A with Warren Beatty

Alex (BBats) here, doing a lil’ scouting in LA. Oh my oh my!

BBats and Beatty! This past weekend, I had the pleasure to revisit Dick Tracy (1990) on the big screen courtesy of the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival.  The film hasn’t aged a day due to that rich pulp style that seeps through every set piece, costume, matte painting, and actor.  The main draw was a Q & A with Warren Beatty after the film! Now, I was battling the flu and taking notes as fast as I could, so keep that in mind and I wouldn’t say anything below was a direct quote.

Beatty stood in the wings as the film’s end credits rolled. Big applause for the film followed and I saw a big smile grow across his face. The moderator brought him out to thunderous ovation (duh). He seemed a little cagey and very careful in selecting his words; this Q & A was for the Los Angeles Times, he pointed out, and would be in print the very next day.

Hit the jump for some Beatty, Dick, and a lil' Bening action!

On Stephen Sondheim
'He did great stuff for this…I’m such a fan of Sondheim’s. Everytime I see one of his shows, I just fall apart on the first song.'

On the film itself
'I’m disgusting because I really do like it a lot.'

Beatty had been attached to the propertry since 1976. The moderator asked why he chose Dick Tracy. Beatty said that he didn’t want to do some picture where everything got blasted around, and that Dick Tracy was this guy who had been around forever and wanted to start a family. He paused and said he thought of it as a gentle picture. (Aside: I love when people call movies "pictures". Super classy.)

This next part is so funny, let's get it right by quoting directly from the Los Angeles Times.

 “Little by little I found myself caught up enough in it to actually go and make a movie about it, because it was hard for me. … I always think of making a movie like vomiting. I don’t like to vomit, but I get to the point where I think, ‘I’d better go ahead and do this, and I’ll feel better.’” 

Everyone  rolled with laughter. The vomiting reference also maybe gives us a little glimpse as to why he hasn’t directed a film since Bulworth (1998). But back to the Q & A.

His desk needs a bucket.

Beatty began to compliment everyone in the cast and the moderator honed in on certain performances and how he cast the roles. Interestingly, Beatty compared the casting process to writing. When you cast someone it's an instant rewrite, even if you don’t change a word.

Madonna sings "MORE" in Dick Tracy and you know you want more, too: Bening, Pacino. Hoffman, Oscars and Dick Tracy sequel nuggets after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Madonna's "W.E." In the Hunt For Oscar

...That's the only possible reason that the Weinstein Company would be interested in distributing her original movie about a woman obsessed with those King's Speech supporting characters, right? Insiders have called it "smart and stylish" and claimed that Andrea Riseborough is Oscar worthy in it.

Abbie Cornish and Andrea Riseborough in 'W.E.'

Perhaps the Weinstein's will do some magic sleight of hand and try to sell it as a revisit. "If you loved the King's Speech, you'll love..."

Please don't be fooled by W.E.'s simply HIDEOUS movie poster, which is floating around the net. This movie could well be very good. Please to remember that The King's Speech also had an absurdly ugly photoshopped teaser poster, too.  W.E. stars Abbie Cornish (in contemporary time) and Andrea Riseborough as Wallis Simpson in ye olden King's Speech times. No word yet on the release date but if we know our Weinsteins it'll be between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.

Even if the movie hits AMPAS's sweet spot, the woman behind the film could still be an easy snub. In fact, Madonna has never been Oscar-nominated despite writing the following classic movie songs, nearly all of them better than some of the Oscar nominees in their years.

Madonna in Charge.

"Crazy For You" -VisionQuest (1985)
"Into the Groove" -Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
"Who's That Girl" and "Causing a Commotion" and "Look of Love" -Who's That Girl (1987)
"Live to Tell" -At Close Range (1986)
"This Used to Be My Playground" - A League of Their Own (1992)
"I'll Remember" - With Honors (1993)
"Beautiful Stranger" - Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
"Die Another Day" - Die Another Day (2002)

Arianne & MadonnaThe Academy's music branch hates her but since they have legendarily horrid taste and confounding voting practices, we can't let it bother us too much.

As is usually the case with tricky-to-gauge period pieces, W.E.'s best Oscar bet is probably in Costume Design. Arianne Phillips (pictured left with Maddy) who has worked with the icon quite often and done sensational work on previous films like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The People Vs Larry Flynt, 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line (Oscar nominated) is doing the costumes.

Stay tuned...