Oscar Bait 2015 Alert: "Genius" With Kidman, Firth, and Law

Yes, dear concerned reader, I know I know. I'm supposed to be thinking about 2014 and who might be Oscar nominated 9 months from now. I'll get there. I will. But I can't let this latest dazzling dangling carrot of 2015 cinematic possibility pass without mention. Because a curious trend continues...

Thomas Wolfe, Aline Bernstein, and Max Perkins to be played by Law, Kidman, and Firth

We've already noted, with raised eyebrow, the shocking rapidity of Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth veritable obsession with working together. As previously mentioned they have THREE films together coming out this year. Add a fourth to the pipeline. They will co-star again in Genius which is based on the super acclaimed biography "Max Perkins: Editor Of Genius," by A Scott Berg.

The screenplay is by three time Oscar nominee John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator, Hugo) and the cast is similarly Oscar-favored. Two time nominee Jude Law, Kidman's Cold Mountain "husband" (I will marry yoooo) has taken over the incredibly juicy role of the novelist Thomas Wolfe (which means a viable shot at a Supporting Actor trophy for Jude Law even though the best guess is that he's actually co-lead) which was once to be played by Michael Fassbender. Oscar winner Colin Firth headlines playing the influential book editor Max Perkins and Oscar winning Kidman plays Wolfe's lover, the multihyphenate writer/costume/set designer Aline Bernstein. The film takes place in the 1920s/1930s literary scene so stay tuned. Who will they cast as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway? Both of those legends also have major roles in the book.

The big obvious question mark here is budget (can it get the lush period treatment it deserves?) and Michael Grandage in the director's chair. This is the 52 year old stage director's first feature gig behind the camera though he's acted in front of it before. 

Wanna read the book?

I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No (To Links)

HAPPY OKLAHOMA DAY! For serious that's what it is today so any of you reading from the Sooner state enjoy yourselves just a little bit more for the rest of us today

I'm just a girl who cain't say no,
I'm in a turrible fix I always say "come on, let's go"
Just when I outta say nix!

It's also Earth Day today and we'll celebrate when we look at Pocahontas for "Best Shot" tonight. Have you rescreened in yet to choose your shot. You've only got 6 more hours to get your link in. We'll post at 10 tonight

And now, the linkage...

Rope of Silicon David Cronenberg apparently wrote a book due out this fall and Viggo Mortensen loves it and the mad director also made a trailer for it involving a plastic surgeon and a naked woman
Allure's Nude Issue" has 4 actresses talking about their bodies while naked (Nia Long, Minnie Driver, Mrs Channing Tatum, and Kristen Bell). Shameless click-bait sure but also interesting interviews
The Black Brick Road of Oz a complex webcomic with partially animated visuals that seems to be retelling The Wizard of Oz through a twisted Alice in Wonderland kind of lens
New York Theater the Outer Critics Circle nominations are in which means the Tony nods are ever closer. Of the musicals that are Tony Eligible, they seem to like “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”, "Rocky" and Disney's “Aladdin” best. Their Off Broadway favorite is clearly "Fun Home" with Michael Cerveris

Coming Soon Rachel Weisz and Toni Collette to star in Miss You Already a British drama about friends falling out. Interesting combo of actresses, right?
Awards Daily Foxcatcher gets a release date of November 14th. Great choice, SPC
Pajiba wonders what happened to Alison Lohman. She hasn't made a movie in a long time
The Wire Archer will return to its spying roots next season after an experimental latest season
Vulture Whoa, I hadn't heard about this (because I don't watch ESPN) but on Monday's they're reairing those Battle of the Network Stars specials that were so popular in the 70s and 80s - a precursor to modern shows like Dancing With the Stars only populated with less has-beens and more stars that were actually popular at that moment showing off their athleticism
Empire pics from Denzel Washington as The Equalizer. Funny that his great actor cred can remain so intact when he keeps pissing away the years in all these C grade projects, right? I guess one Flight every few years or so we'll keep you in critical good graces. That's a lesson other male stars with Denzel's bad taste (and there are so many of them!) should have probably learned

Directors Fortnight at Cannes
In Contention Sundance hits Whiplash and Cold in July have been accepted
Playbill this is the first we're hearing of a movie called Pride but its set to debut at Cannes and has a pretty stellar cast Bill Nighy, Imedla Staunton, Paddy Considine and Dominic West among them. It's a true story about gay activists raising funds for striking miners in the UK in the 1980s.

Today's Watch
Nicole Kidman gets sassy with an ABC news reporter. Be prepared for your interview, kids

Posterized: His Majesty Colin Firth Makes a LOT of Movies

The King speaks. Often in motion pictures, in point of fact. Colin Firth has been a mainstay in British and Hollywood cinema since his terrific debut opposite Rupert Everett in the boy's school classic Another Country (1984). But it's not all stiff homoerotic upper-class Brit movies (though there's a fair share of that). He seems to have no ego whatsoever working in large ensembles, occasionally headlining, and (we assume) gets along with everyone given how often he returns to the same co-stars and directors (multiple films with Kidman and Everett and Egoyan and more). This year US audiences are getting not one not two but SIX Colin Firth films: Gambit (released a couple of years ago in the UK), Atom Egoyan's Devils Knot, Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight, and three (!!!) with Nicole Kidman: Paddington (he's the voice of the bear), the thriller Before I Sleep and the post-war drama The Railway Man which is in theaters now after a quiet festival bow last year.

 In the new film he plays a troubled WWII vet suffering from PTSD before there was a name for it. Jeremy Irvine plays Firth as a young man in his POW days and Nicole Kidman provides tough-love wifely support. Still, this is Firth's show through and through. He's quite good in it though I'll admit that the movie was a little tentative and basic for my tastes.

A temporary projection glitch in the screening at TIFF I attended (strangely the only film I didn't write about that I saw there) stopped the image just as Nicole Kidman entered in one of her only forceful scenes. A flock of gentlemen turned around to look at her and were then paralyzed for several minutes gawking at her. Which is exactly what happens to me whenever Nicole Kidman enters a movie. I haven't seen it acted out so literally since Ewan MacGregor and the patrons of the Moulin Rouge went slack-jawed in unison when she descended from the ceiling singing "Diamonds". 

But I digress.

We're here to talk Colin Firth. So anticlimactic now, right? Apologies to Mr Firth! How many of his movies have you seen? (Please tell me you've seen Another Country)

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Top Ten: Lars Von Trier's Actors

Jose here with your weekly top ten.

Visionary. Lunatic. Nazi. Enfant terrible. Misogynist. Genius. Poseur.

Lars Von Trier is called so many things that we often forget that he's a terrific director of actors. With his strange sense of humor and world views, his films are often as alienating as they are enlightening, but actors seem to die to work for him. He's led three of his actresses to wins at the Cannes Film Festival and has injected new life into the careers of actors like Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe and now Uma Thurman. Whether you're a fan of his films or not, his contributions to directing actors are incomparable. Now that both of his Nymphomaniac volumes are out in theaters (reviewed), it's a great time to look back

Ten Best Performance in Lars von Trier Films
(after the jump)

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Women's History Month: Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf

Our Women's History Month posts, celebrating real actresses as real women conclude with abstew on Virginia Woolf & The Hours.

Virginia Woolf

Born: Adeline Virginia Stephen was born January 25, 1882 to Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Duckworth Stephen in London, England. Her father was an author, historian, and critic while her mother was known for her beauty, even posing as a model for Pre-Raphaelite painters. 

stone-filled pockets and golden statues after the jump...

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