Little movies we're looking forward to

Hi, it's Tim. Such a great time to be a cinephile, the end of summer. Venice is in full bloom, Toronto is so close you can almost taste it, and we can finally start talking about awards hopefuls in categories other than Visual Effects and Sound Editing.

But not right now. We all know the upcoming films that we’re supposed to be excited about for their artistry (Her), their awards prospects (August: Osage County) or both (Gravity). And we all know the movies that we’re probably going to end up seeing even though there’s no reason to be excited at all (The Hobbit: Get Your Smaug On). What I’d like to talk about for the moment is all the little stuff that nobody cares about, or at least not very loudly: films that aren’t going to make much of a ripple at the awards shows, on the critics’ lists, or at the box-office, but that I, personally, am looking forward to anyway. For the filmgoer cannot live on prestige alone.

September 13: The Family
To be fair, readers of The Film Experience have better reason to be aware of this movie than the population at large, since it stars Michelle Pfeiffer as the wife of a Robert De Niro’s ex-mobster in witness protection. Even so, the film is stuck with such a lousy release date that openly begs for us to overlook it in favor of TV coming back, TIFF wrapping up on the very same weekend. It’s an uncaring date for a movie that looks like it has to deserve more than that: Pfeiffer, De Niro, and Tommy Lee Jones are all three actors worth getting excited about, and the trailers have a broad sense of humor that nevertheless seems playful more than just dumb and hammy. To be fair, nothing in Luc Besson’s career suggests that he’s a good fit for the style of comedy that the film would appear to possess, but as a palate-cleansing lark before awards season starts in earnest, his unsubtle instincts could be just about right.

October 11: Machete Kills
Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, spun out of a one-off joke in Grindhouse, was junk. Absolutely tawdry, tacky junk, with pointless violence and naked Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Alba body doubles and all. It’s also totally hilarious in its over-the-top absurdity, and while there’s certainly not one blessed thing that’s respectable about looking forward to see more of the same cartoon slapstick violence and politically nuts plotting, I am looking forward to it anyway. Few filmmakers can reliably do the “deliberately stupid to be energetic and funny” thing, and Rodriguez has proven through the years to be one of the very best at it, and whatever else is true, his mindless action-comedy should be a nice change of pace surrounded by such deeply serious films as Captain Phillips, All Is Lost, and 12 Years a Slave.

November 15: Faust
A mere two years after winning the Golden Lion at Venice, Aleksandr Sokurov’s take on the famous German legend of a scientist making a deal with the devil finally shows up in North American theaters, though I don’t imagine that anyone living outside of the biggest cities will have any chance in hell of actually seeing it that way. A pity; a most grievous pity. Sokurov (whose best-known film, Russian Ark, is also his least typical) is an unsparingly severe art house kind of filmmaker, but everything he makes is the best kind of ordeal, pushing us right up close to human beings in the grips of intense emotion. Coming off of three stories about real-life men destroyed by their grasp for power, the tetralogy-capping Faust is exactly the kind of unique take on a deliberately clear-cut plot that has made all of the director’s work some of the most brilliant and challenging in current world cinema.

November 27: Oldboy
My initial hope was to pick one movie from each remaining month of the year, but there’s not anything in there that we can plausibly call “little”, unless I want to try and sell you on the idea that I’m some kind of savvy insider for looking forward to Inside Llewyn Davis. Instead, let’s go with the Thanksgiving release of a most peculiar mix of director and subject – so peculiar that it must be worth looking forward to, whether the final results are any good or not. Spike Lee remaking a notoriously dark South Korean action movie? And with Josh Brolin? It’s hard not to have your curiosity at least slightly piqued by that, and for all that he’s prone to getting into self-serving spats that don’t do anybody good, Lee is too gifted a filmmaker to ever write him off in advance. Frankly, if we had to have an American Oldboy, I’m deeply grateful that it was made by somebody with the visual instincts and ambition of Lee, rather than just a talented fanboy who’d undoubtedly make a flavorless carbon copy?

Now it’s your turn. What unheralded fall/winter releases are you looking forward to?

Where My Girls At? Blonde Edition

Let's check in with some of our favorite ladies to see what they're up to, shall we? When I daydream I sometimes imagine Actresses sitting near piles of scripts in eeny-meeny-miney-mo fashion though some of them have larger stacks then others.

AMANDA & CHARLIZE
Amanda is on my brain because she had the good taste and self awareness to agree with the world very recently that Mean Girls is still her best performance. She'll next be seen in the porn drama Lovelace, which might have some legal trouble brewing. After that she has a lot of movies lined up but the one I'm curious about at the moment is the western comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Seth MacFarlane managed to nab two of the most beautiful and busiest actresses in Hollywood for the film. While he was super annoying as an Oscar host it's important to remember that his last effort Ted was more hilarious than we were expecting and in more varied ways than its high-concept synopsis suggested. "Western Comedy" doesn't generally scream "great roles for the ladies" and the plot synopsis doesn't help in determining whether Charlize Theron and Amanda Seyfried will have anything of note to do:

A cowardly farmer seeks the help of a gunslinger's wife to help him win back the woman who left him.

That could mean that they're both "the girl" aka...just there to be pretty and maybe sassy/badass but basically just facilitate the man's journey and his heterosexuality. But let's hope the roles are fun even if they're non-dimensional since both Charlize & Amanda have wicked comic timing.

AMANDA'S MAMMA MIA MOMMY
First Truth: I not-so secretly wish Meryl Streep, The Undisputed Queen of American Cinema, would step down from her throne for a two-year hiatus aso I could be REALLY excited about seeing her again the way I was in 2002-2003 when she surged back to artistic dominance with not one not two but three of the best performances of her career back to back to back. Second Truth: Even though I feel this way I rarely miss a Streep movie, so I'll be there for Into the Osage County Woods but I must admit that I am considerably less excited to hear about the two films she'll follow those up with.

She'll be reteaming with Robert DeNiro for the fourth time for the adaptation of the novel The Good House. The stars were romantically paired in The Deer Hunter (1978, beloved and best-picture winning) and Falling in Love (1984, modest but worth it for, well, the modesty of Streep just playing a normal woman) but I honestly can't remember their roles in Marvin's Room (1996) which is the last time they shared the screen. The last time I remember thinking about Marvin's Room was in 1997 when I was puzzled on nomination morning that Diane Keaton snagged a nod for it.

Meryl is also in talks to join Jeff Bridges in the adaptation of the dystopian novel The Giver as "the society’s Chief Elder, an authoritative and antagonistic woman who assigns the young their tasks".  [Temper Tantrum] Sounds like a perfect role for Michelle Pfeiffer. I realize it's useless to hold on to the now 24 year old dream that that Fabulous Baker Boy and his Susie Diamond would one day reunite onscreen. If they never do they're dumb and I hate them. [/Temper Tantrum]

SPEAKING OF...
Meanwhile La Pfeiffer has nothing in the immediate future after this year's The Family but here's her new character poster.

"___ is One Bad Mother" sounds like a tagline for a Julianne Moore flick.  

Michelle might co-star with Tim Robbins in Man Under about a couple thrust into the art world. I would be VERY excited about this one since Robbins is a good director and all three of his previous films have the smartness going for them which is, frankly, something Michelle's filmography could use. But Robbins hasn't actually directed a feature in over 12 years so who knows if financing will come together before the famously skittish Pfeiffer bolts. 

how did i miss Kate being honored at Buckingham Palace last year?We end with...

KATE THE GREAT
Things went silent for Kate Winslet on the big screen post-Oscar win (The Reader, 2008) but she's back at Christmas with Labor Day and after that, something infinitely more exciting on paper: The Dressmaker with the one and only Judy Davis (who really ought to get a few of the roles that Streep/Mirren/Dench get if you ask me). The pairing of two world class actresses piques interest but this description from director Jocelyn Moorhouse is everything:

the tale of love, revenge and 1950s haute couture... “Unforgiven with a sewing machine.”

I'll just be over here mopping up gray matter because my mind is blown.

Yes, No, Maybe So? "Malavita"... Which is Now "The Family"

It's not every month, hell, it's not every year when we get the trailer to a new Michelle Pfeiffer movie so naturally we have to talk about Malavita again. Or, I guess, The Family as it's been rechristened before release. It's always a pity when a movie ditches a really specific title for one that could work for thousands of movies and thus stakes no claim on personality whatsoever.

Perhaps the trailer itself has personality. Let's watch and discuss.

[watches]

Okay. Only watch that if you're the kind of person who doesn't care about spoilers. IF you are this kind of person i envy you because the movie studios don't care about them either - they love shovin' them into trailers. I get the sense you're basically seeing the whole movie here.  But we gotta break it down anyway as we do because...

LA PFEIFFER IS BACK

YES

• Michelle Pfeiffer saying "merci"
• This might be funny. It's kinda tough to tell in the trailer because so much of comedy depends on good editing and trailers never have a sense of that since they're cutting entirely different scenes and dialogue together for their specific 2 minute effect
• The return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Married to the Mob accent "we're not in Brooklyn anymore"
• Michelle Pfeiffer driving that car with those sunglasses
• Tommy Lee Jones has been on a real roll lately. Does this end the party or continue it?
• and Michelle Pfeiffer as fire starter. Bring it bitch. 

NO

• After Silver Linings Playbook, I'd like to believe that Robert DeNiro is back to acting rather than cashing in but a mob comedy is probably not the place to believe that.
• Whenever trailers show this much of the wink-wink laughs and action, I worry about "those are all the best parts" and there's a lot of ways in which this might be super offensive (xenophobia, "hurting people is hilarious!" immaturity and so on) rather than funny. 

MAYBE SO

 

• Luc Besson, in the director's seat, isn't totally reliable.
• The casting of the kids looks great visually but Dianna Agron coasts a lot on her looks and when you're playing Pfeiffer's daughter... well, she better take it up a notch. Pfeiffer never did that and good lord she could have coasted for decades with the ones she got.
• Also: Can you believe my restraint that I only used one photo of Pfeiffer to illustrate this?

Here's the trailer if you don't mind spoilers.

Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So?

Meow. It's Michelle Pfeiffer's Birthday!

To celebrate the 55th birthday of the one and only I thought we'd resurrect an old post about her Catwoman performance. If she's got nine lives so should this post. Please to enjoy...

Tim Burton's Batman Returns, the best Batman film (you heard me... throw down!) is now 15 21 years old and still one of the best comic book films. The movie didn't change cinema or its genre or significantly alter any careers. But it did send yours truly and millions of other Pfeiffer inclined moviegoers into a pfrenzy, arguably marking the apex of La Pfeiffer's cinematic reign. She was still in Oscar chasing mode (Love Field) and the full fledged move from heavy dramatic lifting into light mainstream fare (One Fine Day) and then blink and you'll miss her erratic appearances (Dark Shadows) was years away.

Ten Best Catwoman Line Deliveries
All the dialogue rocks but these are my favorite Pfeifferian readings

10 "Life's a bitch. Now, so am I"
Blockbusters love to shove quips on the public, in the hopes of catchphrase afterlife. This one’s pretty basic but Michelle sells it with true believer zeal.

9 more purring quips after the jump

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Top Ten: Non-Nominated Best Supporting Actresses, 1980s Division

Whew. That title is a mouthful. I know you already know what I mean though, you golden fiends. This very impromptu post is brought to you by a recent Tribeca revival screening of Martin Scorsese's indelible King of Comedy (1983) and this Movie Line interview with Sandra Bernhard herself -- to whom I'm dedicating the list -- who couldn't make it but definitely helped make the movie what it is. My one and only back and forth conversation with Sandra -- over Twitter, the sometimes leveler -- involved how freaking robbed she was for an Oscar nomination for that movie. I couldn't believe I was talking to her but I was not the least bit in doubt that she'd agree with me.

10 Best Non-Nominated Supporting Actress Performances of the 1980s

Honorable Mentions: I think Rosanna Arquette's "Surrender Dorothy" bit in After Hours was quite memorable though the rest of the movie has long since faded; I cherish Martha Plimpton in just about anything but mostly Shy People (1987) and Running on Empty (1988) back in her vibrant teenage River Phoenix-adjacent days.

I Apologize To: Kathy Baker in Street Smart, Mona Washbourne in Stevie (1981), Vanessa Redgrave in Prick up Your Ears and Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places who all won devoted fans for those performances in their respective years (and some awards buzz though not enough for Oscar) but, believe it or not, I haven't seen any of those movies!

10 Bridget Fonda, Scandal (1989)
and nine more divas after the jump...

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