Posterized: How Many Hepburns Have You Seen?

We end our Katharine Hepburn theme week on The Great Kate's birthday, today! Katharine Hepburn made 43 motion pictures in her 62 years on the big screen. How many have you seen? I've collected the posters here of only her Oscar nominated roles, 12 of them in total, because 43 is too many for an episode of posterized. Let's get all the Hepburn/Oscar talk out of our systems. Starting now...

Two things are thrown into sharp focus when looking at that sprawling Oscar track record stretching from 1932 to 1981. First, that though only Meryl Streep has ever bested her for Most Lead Actress nomination (14 versus 12) at least a couple of Hepburn's nominated roles would probably have been considered "Supporting" by today's much looser non-definition of the category (i.e. anything goes). Second, though four Oscars is still the record for any actor, male or female, her reputation as an Oscar magnet is arguably over stated since AMPAS weirdly didn't become OBSESSED until after she'd passed the age by which they usually start ignoring great actresses! A full 2/3rds of her nominations came after she turned 40 and 75% of her wins were after the age of 60! This is rather shocking considering that only 8 Best Actress Oscars have been handed out to women over the age of 60. Three of those eight times the name being read out was "Katharine Hepburn".

10 more films and mucho Oscar history after the jump

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Posterized: Michael Bay

I can't believe I'm doing this. It feels so perverse. But with the Notorious B.A.Y.'s 10th movie dropping this weekend, why not? Pain and Gain is winning generally favorable pre-release buzz for its dumb brute yuks and for Michael Bay's understanding of his own "gifts". And people are even asking if he's an "auteur"... which, well I called him that really early on because he is. Auteur means "author" so anyone with a clear ownership of their filmography -- where you can see their fingerprints all over their work -- qualifies. It doesn't mean "Great Filmmaker" though that tends to be how people use it.

Besides, I'm genuinely curious if you Film Experiencers have seen his movies. I've often bristled at the notion that movie buffs and cinephiles are elitist snobs. From my personal experience its the multiplex masses who are the true elitists, since they're so unlikely to seek out movies that are outside the mainstream comfort zones. Most "film snobs" I know will see just about anything and can find worth in just about any genre. Have any Michael Bay fans seen a film by Michael Haneke, Jane Campion or Lars von Trier?

Anyway... 

How many of Michael Bay's nine GIANT movies have you seen?

Bad Boys (1995), The Rock (1995), Armageddon (1997)
Remember when you couldn't escape these blockbusters? Actually I escaped them. I only saw Armageddon in theaters from Bay's Noisy Nineties Breakthrough period. Because his films were always on cable at one point I think I have seen sizeable portions of the others.

Pearl Harbor (2001), Bad Boys II (2003), The Island (2005)
Remember when Pearl Harbor had Oscar buzz. Hee!
Remember how profoundly uncool it was of Michael Bay to blame Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson for The Island's box office failure? As if they were to blame for him getting his arguably worst reviews.

Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Michael Bay has been directing giant fucking robots (or the green screens where they will eventually be super-imposed) for the past half decade. Now he's got actors again, though he very wisely chose cartoonish ones.

How many of these blockbusters have you seen? I'm surprised to realize that I've seen only 3 in theaters though it feels like I've seen them all from their ubiquity. I do plan to see Pain & Gain. You?

Posterized: François Ozon

Glenn here. Given my penchant for poster goodness I figured I'd pick up Nathaniel's regular "posterized" feature. A fun series that can time to time shine a curious light on the way films are marketed and how certain actors or directors can find themselves in a so-called "marketing rut" where it's the same thing over and over. Think of a Will Smith movie and don't you just picture his smug mug staring out at you in mid-range closeup? Even that one about selling his organs to Rosario Dawson (or whatever Seven Pounds was about - I've sure as hell forgotten!)

This week I've chosen François Ozon - and he's having a helluva week. Not only is his latest (un/lucky number thirteen) film, In the House [Dans le maison], getting a release in America, but his next picture, Jeune et Jolie, was just chosen to compete for the Palme d'Or in Cannes. Well done, Mr. Ozon! Still, don't the words "A film by François Ozon" feel like they should carry more weight than they do. Perhaps, but his career is too all over the place to give him the title of auteur and his films frequently go theatrically unreleased in western countries without a major star (Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling for instance) at the center. 

Combien avez-vous vu?

Sitcom (1998) | Criminal Lovers (1999) | Water Drops of Burning Rocks (2000)

Okay, I have no idea what it's about but that poster for Ozon's debut, Sitcom, is fabulous. 

 Under the Sand (2000) | Swimming Pool (2003) | 8 Women (2002)

more after the jump 

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Posterized: Terrence Malick

Until only very recently Terrence Malick, born in the North but raised in the Southwest, was something like a ghost of the cinema. Gone but not forgotten but still not numbered amongst the living. Or he was, at the least, something like an Auteurist Brigadoon, emerging from the ether once every hundred years before vanishing again. But ever since The Tree of Life (2011) he's been working non-stop. I've no idea what changed for the man but the cinematic landscape is all the better for it. Or at least the prettier for it. The man does consecrate the natural world with his camera. 

To date Malick has made six features. How many have you seen? 

Badlands (1973) | Days of Heaven (1978) | The Thin Red Line (1998)

The New World (2005) | The Tree of Life (2011) | To The Wonder (2013)

His filmmography may jump to nine in no time. He has three movies that are supposedly done filming: Voyage of Time with narration by Brad Pitt & Emma Thompson;  Knight of Cups with Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman; and something still Untitled that used to be known as Lawless with those same three actors and more. I sometimes suspect that the latter two are the same movie and the shroud of secrecy that covers the Malick Mystique has only confused and multipied it in the minds of movie websites everywhere.  

Anyway, back to the now. Will you see To the Wonder despite the uncharacteristically negative reviews? And are those reviews worrisome since he's working at such an uncharacteristic Woody/Clint clip these days?

Posterized: Ryan Gosling

This, the Ryan Gosling edition of Posterized, has the cleanest trajectory of any I've done. It's like Young Hercules never put a foot wrong once he left minor teen success on tv for the movies at 20. It's just one steady climb up to superstardom: the showy debuts, the solidifying his rep years, the Oscar nominated and populist breakthroughs and then on to superstardom in 2011.

Hey girl, how many have you seen?

Young Hercules (1998-1999) | Remember the Titans (2000) |
The Believer (2001, Spirit Nom)
Who Was That?

15 More Films & The Gosling Ascendance after the jump...

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