Mia Wasikowska is "Piercing"

Murtada here. With her duties as Alice over, Mia Wasikowska is turning to smaller indies. Announced this week is Piercing, a psychological thriller from director Nicolas Pesce (The Eyes of My Mother). Wasikowska plays a prostitute who tassles with a family man client intent on murder. That part is played by Girls and James White star, Christopher Abbott. This film is so indie it flew under the radar while it was in production. The announcement mentions that it is already completed. Also complete is her other indie Damsel in which she reunites with her Maps to the Stars co-star Robert Pattinson. Directed by David Zellner (Kumiko the Treasure Hunter), little is known about the plot except that it’s a period western.

When Wasikowska appeared on the cover of the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue 4 years ago, alongside Rooney Mara, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain, we thought she’d be the one to nab the most Oscar nominations from the quartet. Yet here we are and she has yet to get her first. It’s funny how these things work. We are glad to see her working with up and coming promising directors and in what sounds on paper to be challenging work.

To these eyes, her best performance remains Jane Eyre (2011). We return time and time again to this clip. Watch Jane’s spirit shine as she asserts her strength and her right to love. Mia mesmerizes.

It's Oscar month, so for which performance do you think Wasikowska should've been nominated?

NYFF: The Lost City of Z

Here's Jason reporting from NYFF on the Closing Night film from James Gray.

Most of us aren't fortunate enough to have our lives live themselves in a perfect three-act structure. "Here I was born, and there I died," says the ghostly Madelaine in Vertigo, with an entire lifetime intuited by a comma - that's just second-act stuff, after all. Colonel Percival "Percy" Fawcett -- the real-world explorer whose explorations formed the basis first for David Grann's book The Lost City of Z and now the movie from The Immigrant director James Gray -- made three trips into the Amazonian jungle searching for his El Dorado, lending his life-story the perfect apparatus for yarn-spinning. A beginning, a wandering middle, and something approaching an end...

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YNMS: The Lost City of Z

Laurence here. Many people were disappointed by the way James Gray's The Immigrant went mostly unnoticed beyond critics' groups. From the story to the stars, it seemed like a fairly strong prospect to garner Gray some mainstream awards attention, but the Weinsteins never seemed confident in it. Now Gray is making a decidedly more bombastic play to voting members with his new film, The Lost City of Z. This time he's paired up with Jennifer Aniston's former production company, Plan B, which has become very good at producing Best Picture nominees.

Based on David Grann's non-fiction bestseller of the same title, The Lost City of Z stars Charlie Hunnam as Percy Fawcett, a British explorer in the 1920s who led an expedition to the Amazon rainforest in search of a mysterious lost city. Grann's book chronicles the numerous attempts over the years to follow Fawcett's footsteps, with evidence emerging in 2005 that the city perhaps did, in some form, exist. The film seems to primarily function as a biopic of Fawcett, whose obsession with Z's existence led him to the heart of darkness. 

Let's break down the now hard-to-find trailer after the jump...

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Curio: Lloyd Stratton Ilustration

Alexa here with your weekly art break. In my regular perusal of the amazing artwork showcased in Little White Lies, I immediately noticed the work of Lloyd Stratton. He crafts incredibly detailed, often pointillist illustrations with pencil or a Pigma micron pen, sometimes adding digital elements, but oftentimes not.  His images of works in progress, documented on his Instagram, are just as amazing as his final pieces.  Here is a selection of some of his illustrations of actors and filmmakers.  He inspires me to doodle more...

Work in progress of Rob Pattinson in Life

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Unlikely Couple: Robert Pattinson and Claire Denis

Here's Murtada with the week's most interesting casting news.

Robert Pattinson is starring in Claire Denis’ next movie. Are we being punked? No. Actually to judge from his last few choices it's just another day, another auteur. He’s becoming a top director magnet and has been using his bankability to make interesting choices. He’s confirmed as the lead of Denis’ untitled first English language film. The story is set in space in a “future that seems like the present” with Pattinson reportedly playing an astronaut.

 This particular project is intriguing beyond Pattinson. Denis of course is reason enough to be excited. Her last movie Bastards (2013) may have been less heralded than usual but it was a provocative visceral experience. Collaborating with her on the screenplay is novelist Zadie Smith (On Beauty, White Teeth) whose books have always been cinematic and full of fallible compelling characters. Smith writing her first screenplay? Now that’s exciting!

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