AFI Memories: Emma Thompson's Shoes

If you want to know why I have had such a hard time sharing my adventures in Los Angeles in real time from the AFI festival which wrapped on Thursday, blame Emma Thompson. She killed me!

Emma the night I met her / Mary Poppins party decor

The truth is that I get far less starstruck these days than I did a handful of years ago when I first began interviewing celebrities regularly. But sometimes my inner child still spazzes out, and comes bouncing to the surface like a squealing fanboy. I know I'm supposed to be embarrassed by this but the truth is that it feels good.

Enthusiasm is a form of social courage"
-Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Guru 

I never want to be one of those jaded film critics who has seen it all and doesn't enjoy anything. So... back to that Saving Mr Banks party. After chatting with Colin Farrell I was introduced to Emma Thompson who is holding up really well at 54. She looks, I apologize in advance, practically perfect in every way. And as one of my formative actresses, I was quite taken aback to be face to face with her, sipping cocktails.

Small talk: we both love the decor at the party, little drawings from the making of Mary Poppins on each table and I pretend to lift one and shove it under my jacket. Eventually -- because I am me -- the conversation drifts to Howard's End (1992). I don't remember quite how we got there but Emma, politely sidestepped the questions about the past and, like a consummate pro, pulla  it back to a soundbite ready encapsulation of both my movie nostalgia AND the theme of her new film, in which the author P.L. Travers (Thompson) has a really difficult time parting with her fictional nanny Mary Poppins:

Sometimes you just have to let things go." 
-Emma Thompson 

And then Emma Freaking Thompson places her hand on my shoulder ...and I died. Using me for balance, she removes her shoes! As if on cue, her assistant materializes from nowhere to grab them. What should she do with them?

"Throw them away. They're garbage." Emma instructs.

"Speaking of letting things go!" I interject awkwardly, amused that the theme has been literalized. As it turns out Emma quite likes the shoes and it's not from lack of sentiment but practicality - she got cement on them across the street at her handprint ceremony. I help her find Colin Farrell for a smoke break and they're off, Emma weaving through the cocktail party in her stockings.

I love this shot of Emma via HitFix (wish it were bigger!)Half an hour later director John Lee Hancock introduces his cast at the front of the giant Chinese Theater. Emma, who apparently can't let a running motif go, removes her new pair of shoes while walking to take her bow, doing a little sideways hopping dance in the process. At this point, though, I'm happily back where I belong, munching on popcorn in my movie seat dreaming about movie stars. The movie begins in the clouds but I'm already there.

Previously at AFI:  "Harbringer of Hope" Colin Farrell, Agnes Varda's Cleo From 5 to 7, Anne Marie's Fest Part 1 and Part 2,

Tweet-Bits: Nathaniel & Niecy Nash share an awkward moment, Overheard in Movie Theater Lines pt 1, pt 2, and pt 3

AFI Fest 2013 - Part 1 Disney, Actresses, and Accidents

I would like to personally thank Anne Marie for being an awesome L.A. tour guide, personal GPS, and screening companion during my week long trip. Here's her first of two roundups from the festival that just wrapped. I'll have more to say myself over the weekend - Nathaniel

Walt courts Mrs Travers for the hand of Mary Poppins in cinematic marriage

Last week AFI invaded Hollywood Blvd for the 2013 AFI Fest, a free film festival presenting a handful of buzzworthy features and old classics. Though it may not be the largest festival in Los Angeles, it is one of the flashiest given the star-studded evening galas and tributes, and it made good use of the newly renovated and renamed TCL Chinese Theater. This, my first festival on the job, saw me running up and down Hollywood Blvd like a film-obsessed Alfred P. Doolittle yelling, “Get me to the Chinese on time!” By the time I’d wiped the glitter from my eyes and caught my breath, I’d seen 9-ish movies in 7 days. Not bad for a neophyte with a day job! Here’s what I saw:

Day 1: Saving Mr. Banks - A Disney movie about a Disney classic is going to be heartwarming and sweet in all the ways you’d expect. Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks have delightful chemistry. Considering how long we’ve been missing these two (am I the only one who feels like Emma Thompson’s been mostly absent since at least An Education?), having both Thompson and Hanks triumphantly return together in the same film is a Disney-manufactured miracle. Nathaniel actually chatted with Emma Thompson and Colin Farrell, so he can fill in the rest.

Day 2: August: Osage County - I saw the play in 2008, and I’m still wondering if that helped or hurt my viewing of the film. Tracy Letts blessedly adapted the play to the screen, so the biting language that made the original so good remains intact. There’s a definite nomination in store for him. Of course the most buzz surrounds the actresses: Meryl is Meryl is Meryl so enough said there. Continuing this year’s trend of strong performances from actresses I don’t usually like (the first being Sandra Bullock in Gravity), Julia Roberts gives her best performance in a long while. I think that fact is what might be overshadowing Margot Martindale buzz-wise, which is unfortunate because Martindale rips through her role like a tornado on the prairie.

Julianne & Juliette at the AFI premiere

As for the sisters: I was partial to Julianne Nicholson, while Nathaniel seemed to prefer Juliette Lewis. One thing on which we both agreed was that nobody does the film festival dress like Juliette. Hot. Damn.

Day 3 Part 1: Cleo From 5 to 7 - The Godmother of the New Wave Agnes Varda was AFI Fest’s honored icon this year. Here's more on her pre-screening interview. But I would like to take this opportunity to say again that Cleo From 5 to 7 remains a masterpiece. If you haven’t seen it already, watch it while you’re waiting for the rest of these movies to open.

Day 3 Part 2: Out of the Furnace - The second film by Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper is a relentlessly bleak portrait of the death of smalltown America. Christian Bale and Casey Affleck play two blue-collar brothers, one imprisoned for a mistake and the other out of the army and into illegally boxing for money. Both play their parts admirably (assisted by Zoe Saldana and Forrest Whitaker) but are overshadowed by the shockingly terrifying Woody Harrelson playing a sociopathic redneck. Harrelson’s performance, as well as haunting desaturated cinematography and gritty production design, made this a movie that stuck with its audience after the film ended.

Day 3 Part 3: When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism - A happy accident led me to this film by Romanian writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu. I stood in the wrong line, and was surprised to find myself watching a movie perfectly suited for people who are on their fourth movie in twenty-four hours. When Evening Falls… is a simple movie framed in unbroken master shots: a fictional director and his lead actress discuss nudity in film, eat together, have sex, and argue over a single wordless scene they’re supposed to shoot the next day. The motivations of the scene are so constantly debated back and forth - why would she eavesdrop coming out of the shower? why does she put on clothes? - that the audience is primed and waiting. Eventually, the much-debated action happens in reverse - the director steps out of the shower to eavesdrop on her - and the audience comes to its own conclusion. As concept films go, this is the simplest I’ve watched in a while, and I appreciated it for its simplicity.

Thus concluded the first half of AFI Fest. Old Hollywood and New in Part 2!

AFI: Colin Farrell, "Harbinger of Hope"

Even if this year's AFI Fest in Los Angeles proves to be entirely frontloaded -- I had such a ball on opening day with the Saving Mr Banks festivities --  the trip will have been worth it. My adventure began with an exclusive pre-screening cocktail party with the Saving Mr Banks team where I met Emma Th-- no, no, she gets her own post... I'm still processing that one! For now two quick tidbits about the men.

The men of SAVING MR BANKS (and Emma Thompson, its star)

Director John Lee Hancock, no longer The Rookie on his fourth picture, was standing tall and proud while we chatted over drinks. I don't mean that metaphorically but literally since he towered over me - so tall! Thoughnot intimidating, I must add, what with his warm smile, and alarmingly good manners. We were interrupted while he was telling a story which is so common at cocktail parties that you think nothing of it as the celebrity is whisked off to meet another well-wisher or member of the press. You certainly never expect to hear the ending of the anecdote but he sought me out later to finish it.

I couldn't resist asking The Blind Side director what he thought of Gravity. "My girl, Sandy!" he blurts out, the grin even grinnier. "I haven't seen it yet!" he adds with a touch of surprise and apology. He'll rectify that as soon as his press schedule for Saving Mr Banks lightens up. Next week, he hopes.

A few minutes later I had a brief chat with Colin Farrell, also in very good spirits but that's probably easy when your movie has Best Picture buzz. He plays the alcoholic father of the author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) in flashback, but it's a substantial role since the flashbacks run parallel to the A story of the making of Mary Poppins, a way of illuminating the author's deep personal attachment to her Poppins creations ("they're family") and why she's so hesistant to sell them to Walt Disney. In the Best Supporting Actor Oscar race Farrell is most likely to be overshadowed by Tom Hanks who gets the plum Disney role (or, as Hancock put it an hour later as he introduced his cast at the screening "an icon playing an icon") but I'm personally confident that one day Farrell will get the right role for the Academy to notice his gift (and not just his celebrity). I told him he'd make my list of Hollywood's Most Underappreciated to which he jokingly replied "I'd make my own list of most underappreciated!" 

We ended the conversation reminiscing about his surprise Golden Globe win for In Bruges (2008). I tell him that's one of those rare deserving moments in awards history that pundits and cinephiles like me point too with 'anything is possible!' optimism. "I'M A HARBINGER OF HOPE!" he volleys back.

Why is Rachel Griffiths So Stern?

Glenn here again. Last night I saw the new Australian horror flick, Patrick (a remake of the 1978 classic), and relished in seeing Rachel Griffiths again on the big screen. She was, however, very stern as nurse matron who's hiding secrets about the coma patient in room 15.

She will soon be on screens all over the world, albeit briefly, as the inspiration for "Mary Poppins". Again, very stern.

And now I read that the one and only Brenda Chenowith will be starring in an Australian TV movie about embattled former Prime Minister, and first female leader, Julia Gillard. The casting is actually incredibly smart since they both have very tightly pointed facial features. Still, given everything Gillard went through in her tenure you can be guaranteed that she'll be, you guessed it, stern. And knitting. Stern and knitting (Australian readers will understand that).

Griffiths has always excelled at prickliness both on and off the screen? Remember when she protested a casino opening by wearing nothing but body paint and a crown of thorns? It sure would be nice to see her work in something that's equal to her talents and that people will actually watch once more. Another Six Feet Under? Another Hilary & Jackie for which she was Oscar-nominated. Gosh, another Muriel's Wedding? We were just discussing another Aussie actress, Naomi Watts, and just like her, Griffiths is too talented to be hidden away in duds (that Camp series on NBC didn't really go anywhere, did it?), in movies that almost nobody sees, or in tiny cameos like Saving Mr Banks. What say you, dear readers?

LFF: Saving Mr. Banks

David brings you one of the first reviews from the London Film Festival's world premiere of this unseen Oscar tip. Will Disney add some more statues to his vast collection?

Emma Thompson is an exquisite crier. Friends, acquaintances and enemies still cite her strand of Love Actually as easily the film’s strongest aspect, and her reaction to her husband’s thoughtful but incorrect present as one of the actress’ finest moments. There’s something about the way the composed, somewhat remote attitude crumbles, drawn all over Thompson’s face, that makes it so sympathetic and wistfully beautiful to witness. And it’s due to this, partly, that Saving Mr. Banks is as successful as it is – the experienced, perceptive way both Thompson and co-star Tom Hanks have of selling their monologues and close-ups, which in less experienced hands could so easily have seemed hackneyed and manipulative.

John Lee Hancock’s tale of the negotiations between Walt Disney (Hanks) and Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers (Thompson) is pretty standard sentimental stuff, quickly establishing the hearty transatlantic binary between uptight Brit and liberal American. Travers insists on being called “Mrs. Travers”; Walt, his employees whisper to her, only works on a first name basis. Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith’s screenplay mines this for as many laughs as it can possibly produce. [More]

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