Sleeping Beauty or Sleeping Gaudy?

In the past few days you may have heard that Elle Fanning is in talks to play Sleeping Beauty and you may have wondered why I haven't said a word. All things Sleeping Beauty send me into instant hyper sleep until I have the strength to deal.

As often confessed, I am an über fan of Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959) which is easily among their tippity-top achievements as a studio and my personal favorite (at least of their pre-Lil'Mermaid history). A live action Maleficent could go wrong in about a million ways even though it will meet animation halfway by starring everyone's favorite Cartoon Movie Star* Angelina Jolie.

*since she can't be real she must have been drawn that way.

It's always a bit strange to watch the way Hollywood gloms on to certain actresses and right now it seems like if you aren't Chloe or Elle you simply don't exist to them in the teen bracket. But if it has to be one of them, yes please 1000 times on Fanning. The strange thing about the internet's / entertainment world's fascination with Elle Fanning is her absence of any distinct persona. I bet you can describe Dakota Fanning and even Saoirse Ronan and definitely Chloe Moretz's personalities (or your projections of them) right this second but try telling us who Elle Fanning is (outside of "Dakota's little sister") without using the generic term of  "fashionista" which describes 87% of all young actresses with substantial income / fame.

We'll wait.  [more after the jump]

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Cast This! Rob Marshall and "Into the Woods"

As frightening... as bewildering... as wrong as it is to say after a decade of breakthroughs (Moulin Rouge!), critical triumphs (Dancer in the Dark, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and box office hits (Chicago, Dreamgirls, Hairspray) and problematic but Oscar nominated efforts (Nine, Sweeney Todd, Phantom of the Opera) ... the movie musical is still in trouble. It probably will be until another Vincente Minnelli or Bob Fosse arrives on the scene, someone who understands and breathes and trusts the very cinematic language of the musical. Until then we'll get bored directors detouring or novices who think it might be "fun" to try one... or Rob Marshall.

Will no young director challenge Rob Marshall as King of the Musicals?

Stage turned film director Rob Marshall was initially seen as something of a savior of the form when Chicago (2002) became a smash hit and Best Picture winner. It had been 34 years since a movie musical had had that honor. But his musical follow up Nine (2009) proved a massive flop and a target of critical derision. Though I thought it was better than it got credit for being (how could it not be given the vitriol?) in tandem with Chicago it revealed too little range and an inherent distrust of the form he had been handed, without competition, to rule; the music in both films emerged on sound stages as hallucinations or performative fantasy. His two subsequent non-musicals (Memoirs of a Geisha and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) were much worse, with listless dramatics and overstuffed weightless business for plot. Nevertheless, Hollywood logic prevails. Disney, looking at the colossal gross of On Stranger Tides, has obviously forgiven Marshall for Nine's red ink and rewarded him with the reigns of the film version of a bonafide masterpiece, Stephen Sondheim's twisted fairy tale classic Into the Woods. Never mind that I could have directed On Stranger Tides (it would have been all about the mermaids and they would have drowned Captain Jack in the first half hour) and it would still have been a top grosser. In Hollywood you get credit for blockbuster grosses even if you are obviously replaceable since anyone helming a long running franchise will produce a similar size hit. Audiences are lemmings when it comes to those big franchises. 

So though I weep that Into the Woods isn't getting a world class auteur, and I shudder most of all to think of those glorious songs sung by people who can't handle the intricacies of the music -- Marshall casts for stardom first even if they can't sing and Sondheim obviously writes only for great singers who can act -- we should try and stay positive. Let's play...

Bernadette Peters leads the cast of the original INTO THE WOODS (1987)

CAST THIS!

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Kiera vs. Dakota: Who Will Make the Greater Artist's Muse?

With all the projects in development in the world drawn from an infinite number of topics, it's always curious to note how many of them inexplicably arise simultaneously on the same topics. Thompson in Hollywood reports that Keira Knightley is considering the lead role in Untouched (2013?) which is a romantic triangle biopic on the artist muse Effie Gray and her relationship to two men, the art critic John Ruskin and his protégé the painter Everett Millais. She married them both during her lifetime, though only the second marriage was consummated. 

But get this... Dakota Fanning is also playing this role in a competing feature called simply Effie (2012?) written by everyone's favorite Acting/Screenwriting Double Oscar Winner Emma Thompson. While we'd love to see more movies written by Thompson as well as meatier roles for Dakota Fanning (especially since Elle Fanning fever threatens to consume Hollywood), Keira has actual experience as an artist's muse. She's currently filming Anna Karenina, her third feature as Joe Wright's muse (He's only made four features prior to this so by the time Anna Karenina arrives, Keira will have starred in 60% of his filmography; they be tight.)

Effie (2012). Costumes by two time Oscar nominee Ruth Myers<-- Here is Dakota Fanning in costume as Effie. That's Greg Wise (Emma Thompson's real life man and Kate Winslet's heart-breaker in Sense & Sensibility) as her first husband, the art critic John Ruskin. Their marriage was famously unconsummated before she left him for his protege Millais (Tom Sturridge) which caused all sort of social drama in Victorian England.

Millais painted both Effie and her sister Sophie and other family members frequently. There's no word on IMDb about who plays "Sophie" or even if she's in the film but is it too much to ask for Elle Fanning in a surprise uncredited appearance?

Keira or Dakota?
Make your case in the comments.

Or did your eyes glaze over at "Emma Thompson"? Yes yes, we know. We were just saying. She's really all that matters in most movie conversations that involve her. Happily she also acts in Effie. Yay!

Happy Birthday Peter Jackson!

In seems fitting yet not too obvious that Peter Jackson's birthday would be on Halloween. Imagine the costume fun one could cull from his films alone? 

Since today is his half century mark, we couldn't not tip our pointy Gandalf hats to the man. Whether you're counting down the days until he returns to The Shire with The Hobbit films or wishing he'd move away from Tolkien and on to greener other pastures, it's worth checking in on the official Hobbit blog from month to month (though they sadly haven't had a production video since July and those were fun.) 

Do you think The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: There and Back Again (2013) will continue the Rings Oscar streak? Perhaps you're more doubtful like me... even if The Hobbit films are great won't AMPAS voters feel that 11 Oscars in February 2004 was more than enough?

I would rank his films like so.

1. Heavenly Creatures (1994) -check out Melanie Lynskey's memoirs and our "Hit Me..." blog party if you're a fan of this brilliant hysteria.
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
5. King Kong (2005)
6. The Frighteners (1996) ...a revisit is definitely in order. Would I like it more or less?)
7. Meet the Feebles (1989)
8. Forgotten Silver (1995)
9. The Lovely Bones (2009)
   
   P.S. I have not seen Bad Taste (1987) or Dead Alive (1992) but I'm quite certain I'd prefer them to The Lovely Bones.

You?

"A Star is Born"... or, will be *after* the Star's baby is born.

Beyoncé announced her pregnancy at MTV's VMAs last night. I switched channels after Gaga's drag king opening number so the news got to me secondhand.

There be film fallout. The fourth feature film version of A Star is Born (2013? 2014?) is now delayed for at least nine months as Beyoncé gestates and welcomes her first child into the world. The musical, meant to be Clint Eastwood's post J Edgar project, had hoped to go before the cameras early in 2012 and with the speed that Eastwood tends to work we would have probably seen it as a Christmas 2012 release.

But now that Beyoncé is pregnant (and considering also that Leonardo DiCaprio has turned down the male lead role), this won't be happening just yet. The Beyoncé/Jay-Z babe will be born first.

Oscar-obsessives should keep a close eye on this one -- the film, not the babe. While the project seems ridiculous on the surface for both "another one?" superfluity and Eastwood + Beyoncé odd-coupledom, A Star is Born is a durable cultural object. It's always a major morphing showcase for the gifts of its leading lady. The first three incarnations resulted in 17 Oscar nominations and 3 Oscars all told including bids for Best Actress for both Janet Gaynor (1937) and Judy Garland (1954) and a Best Original Song Oscar for Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen" (1976).

Will we see Beyoncé as a Best Actress nominee in 2013 or 2014... or will she have to "settle" for a Best Song Oscar?