Carpet Convo: New Years Eve & War Horse

Nathaniel: R‪eaders. Welcome back to red carpet convos... It's been forever since we did one which you may interpret as Nathaniel tripping on his heels or stars not bringing it to events or, more accurately, time management issues. But I was actually on a red carpet this week so I figured it was time to reboot the series. Let's start with the glitziest red carpet which was for New Year's Ev‬e. A carpet I was not on. 

Jose: But you should've been! At least to congratulate Lea Michele for not doing one of her obnoxious red carpet faces.

Nathaniel: ‪She seems to be going for some World Record for most photographed (2010-2011). Every time you see events like this the photographers seem to snap 100 photos of her to every 4 of anyone els‬‬e. You'd think she was the star of a TV phenom or something.

Lea, Hilary, Abby, Zac, 'chelle

I love ...but I have a thing for Broadway Babies. Always have. Other things I have a thing for: plunging necklines and champagne dresses on brunettes.

Jose: ‪I find her obnoxious but LOVE the dress and the hair. I think it's the first time where i have no objection whatsoever to how she looks. She often ‪looks too severe and constipated, this is perfect though. Makes me want to go drink with ‬her.

Nathaniel: Hilary wants to go with you guys. "Pick me!"

Jose: She's not invited. The two of them together would be too annoying. 

Nathaniel: But, awwww, she seems so... eager.

Jose: Well she should. Isn't she doing her "forgive me for loving dictators" tour right now?

Nathaniel: I must have the concert tee!

Jose: I'm surprised she didn't show up in a Captain America costume.

Nathaniel: That makes me want to put her in a Wonder Woman outfit. Photoshop Attack! If you wrap a golden lasso around Hilary Swank think of all the truths that would spill out. "I did not deserve my second Oscar" ... "I thought Amelia was boring, too!"... "____complete the sentence in the comments_____"...

Jose: OMG Is that Abigal Breslin? When did she start looking like Nia Vardalos?  I hate that she's all old now.

Nathaniel: What are you? a Hollywood executive? "Get her to a nursing home!" Jesus. She's only 15. Don't feel old, Jose. Young starlets grow up fast.

Jose: I'll want to tear my eyes out when she kisses someone in that movie! She's my Little Miss Sunshine. She shouldn't be kissing boys. I just want cute child stars to retire when they hit puberty. Unless they're Jodie Foster.

Pfeiffer, Tori Amos Tangent and War Horses of different colors (actually just one) after the jump. 

Click to read more ...

Meryl Soaring! Michelle Slumming?

By now I am quite used to the twin 80s blondes trajectories of "Meryl: still preeminent; Everyone Else: struggling." Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer are a decade apart in age so they're only conjoined in my own mind as the formative blondes of my cinephilia though they aren't directly correlative. Meryl's true contemporaries are the Close / Lange / Weaver / Weist / Sarandon / Field / Keaton super-pack (all born between '46 and '49... a vintage crop.)

But let's check in with both of my blondes very briefly today. 

Dan Zak, who is a very fine writer that I am acquainted with, wrote kind of a frosty profile of Pfeiffer when Chéri came out (which made note of her still robust online Pfandom -- guilty! -- though we ringleaders went unnamed) but he's made amends with this profile of Streep to coincide with her Kennedy Center Honors. It's a beauty.

There is nothing to say about her handshake, her mood, her carriage. She has no smell. Her eyes, obscured by modish rectangular glasses, seem dark and colorless — until she begins to recite a verse by 8th-century poet Wang Wei to prove a point about an artist’s individual voice.

“I seem to be alone on the empty mountain,” Streep says in her silvery contralto, shifting her posture as if bracing for a blast of high-altitude air.

She pauses...

Really good big piece with nice payoffs throughout, so read it.

On to Michelle. We hope that she's great in 2012's supernatural Dark Shadows (though given that it's a contemporary Burton film our expectations be low) and familial drama Welcome to People (but given that it's a directorial debut from Alex Kurtzman who has mostly written TV procedurals and action films, our expectations are none because the worth of debut efforts are impossible to guess at) but we've never expected that New Year's Eve was going to be anything other than a cash grab.

Michelle Pfeiffer venturing out for New Year's Eve premiere without her Armani black (gasp). It's Dolce & Gabbana this time.

Ultra Culture has a hilariously damning quote piece on "How the cast of New Year's Eve pick their projects" in which none of the stars tell the truth. Would it kill one of them to say "for the money"? I bet they'd even get some fun extra media attention for saying so. I keep forgetting that New Year's Eve is arriving. But the photo above reminded me of this series of tweets 'tween two British based critics and myself. (Ultra Culture doesn't know who I am but MaryAnn is an old friend.)

@UltraCulture New Year's Eve, incredibly, as bad as you'd expect.
@MaryAnnJohanson No, it's even worse.
@NathanielR at least tell me La Pfeiffer emerges unscathed. Wait... don't. NERVOUS
@MaryAnnJohanson Ummm...

Ah well, at least La Pfeiffer is looking predictably great on the red carpet.

"New Year's Eve" Countdown...

In 45 days Gary Marshall's all star New Year's Eve opens. We haven't talked about it at all. So now a quick correction. A spontaneous train-of-thought light reading of the film's poster, left-to-right / top-to-bottom

"from the director of Pretty Woman" uh, not so much a selling point with me but ooooh pictures...

Hey Halle. Are you wearing scrubs?... Mr. Demi...  "The Jessicas" all seem to be fading career-wise right? Weren't there three of them?... ♫ ohhwhooaaa we're ½way there-ere ooohwhoa livin' on a prayer ♪... STOP MAKING BAD MOVIES. JESUS [related]...

Carrie Bradshaw Back in The City.... who? ohright. Little Miss Sunshine ... Ugh, why must I be reminded me of the existence of Crash?... isn't it weird how people wanted her to win the Emmy so bad back when Sue Sylvester was unstoppable but then only 12 months later it was all about Claire Dunphy?... YES but why this movie, 'chelle, whyyyyyyyyyyyy?...

NO... Remember when he played whatshername's gay fiance in Spring Break? That movie is so fun-derrated.... Hector Elizondo [a.k.a Garry Marshall's fav' actor. Seriously he's in, like, all of them] ... SEXY GERMAN ALERT ... zzz...

<--- No thanks. It gives me a headache...
<--- Also gives me a headache...
omg I didn't recognize her. Who photoshopped these headshots? But they'll be no mistaking it's her once she's singing. Yay!... the luckiest boy in the world as he gets the movie's best co-star all to himself. Also I have such a hard time spelling his name. I don't know why but I'm always typing Ephron or Epfron or Zach Efron ...  which two is this? *smooch* 

... "Let the Countdown Begin". No, we're not going to be counting down, Garry. But yeah, we'll see your movie. You tricked us into it like so:

 Michelle Pfeiffer Til Schweiger Hilary Swank Robert DeNiro Sarah Jessica Parker Sofia Vergara

"New Year's Eve" Throws Pfeiffer in the Trash

The headline may be provocative but it's unfortunately (and literally) true. To my great distress veteran director Garry Marshall has decided to throw Michelle Pfeiffer in the garbage in a scene from the all star "comedy" New Year's Eve (2011). Here she is filming in NYC.

Sigh.

Honestly Mr. Marshall, this just seems like asking for trouble. If you make jokes involving movie stars and garbage, aren't you daring the reviews to write themselves? It's not like the star-studded lead-in Valentine's Day (2010) was a critical darling!

And if you're going to cast Michelle Pfeiffer why do you want her drabbed down? I hate it when they make her mousy. She looks better than this just walking around with her husband without a team of makeup artists handy. Mousy Michelle is not what audiences come to see. There better be a makeover moment later in the film.

New Year's Eve, which like its predecessors charts the intertwining lives of several couples and singles throughout a holiday, has a couple dozen stars in it including other big names like Hilary Swank, Julie Andrews, Halle Berry, Sarah Jessica Parker,  some TV biggies (Sofia Vergara, Lea Michele) and many more but apparently La Pfeiff is paired with a bike riding Zac Efron somehow (mother/son? fateful strangers?)

I can't decide whether I should be happy to see her onscreen again on December 9th or dread the very likely probability that she is adding another terrible movie to her weirdly haphazard filmography.

On that note the actress herself has generously demonstrated this How I Feel / How I Wish I Felt conundrum for me.

When thinking about this movie, which look best describes your mood: left or right?