Live-Blog: Oscar Bound Actress Roundtable

We've been waiting for this full video of The Hollywood Reporter's Actress Roundtable for weeks (included at bottom of this post). Last year we had fun live-blogging / discussing it, so... "again!".

This year THR assembled from left to right in couch seating: best actress hopefuls Viola Davis, Charlize Theron, Glenn Close, Michelle Williams and best supporting actress hopefuls Octavia Spencer and Carey Mulligan. The directors (we're still waiting on their full video) were on stools. Is this a subconcious move on THR's part? Putting directors on pedestals and actresses on a (casting) couch where they have to worry about how they cross and uncross their bare legs? 

00:01 Damn, starting with a toughie, asking them about performances of their own they were disappointed in. Let's watch the actresses dodge the question! This one goes to Octavia who has the least amount of work to watch, career-wise. She doesn't. She actually sounds kind of grumpy.

02:30 Michelle Williams says she watches some of her work. Naturally she won't name names but implies that she doesn't watch it if she thinks it's not going to be good. Hmmm. When is Michelle not good? But claims she's never had a bad relationship with a character.

I like being directed. I like not being in charge.

And then a cute bit about finally learning to use her computer to research Marilyn. Apparently YouTube helped that performance along. It's not just for bad karaoke and funny cat videos!

06:00 Carey Mulligan describe her Shame character as "kind of a mess..." admits she didn't do much research beyond the very basics of why cutters hurt themselves. Says that self-destructiveness of characters does not bother her off the set.

No, no, no. It's nice. It's quite cathartic; have a good cry, have a good scream, then go home and go to bed.

We love this but it probably won't win her ballot points. Don't they want to think you suffered for it?

08:00 A question about back story as follow up. Of course. Why does everyone need to know everything about backstory all the time. This make-a me crazy. If Tim Burton had made Shame, there would have been a half hour long gothic flashback to describe exactly what happened to the Shame siblings when they were precocious but gloomy kids. Who needs it? You're supposed to engage with movies and interpret them... not have them happen at you like brick walls with cemented feeling.

Carey is so cute as she struggles with this question though. She also has a laugh when talking about how much she fears taking her clothes off to be "sexy". That said, she didn't have trouble with the nudity after absorbing the character -- Steve McQueen had her look at the photography of Francesca Woodman -- and understanding her as someone "who wants to be seen."

10:50 Charlize has a potty mouth.

 ...which makes Octavia laugh. In trying to recover from dropping the F bomb Charlize then says "oh shit. sorry." LOL.

Charlize's sexual education, Viola Davis's lips and Glenn Close's eyes after the jump

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Mulligan and the Great DiCapsby

True Story: Last night I was walking to a birthday party with a movie-mad friend of mine and we passed a girl with badly bleached short platinum hair. She was wearing a showy vintage coat and her face was squinching up on the verge of drama queen tears. We turned to each other in jinxy double take: 'Carey Mulligan: Shame live in New York, New York!'

It wasn't Mulligan but the look was so spot on it could have been the Halloween parade.

Maybe you had to be there.

But you don't have to be there to enjoy this photo from the set of The Great Gatsby. Normally when an actress turns ubiquitous we get worried (nobody is right for every role) but after her hot mess spin as Sissy in Shame, so different than anything we've seen her do, maybe she can do anything.

Not that "Daisy", another 180˚will be easy to pull off.

I've always loved this description of her voice (the novel is short on physical descriptions but wonderfully evocative in terms of character).

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it ... high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl. 

More photos and such after the jump...

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"Shame" on the Ratings System?

Anyone familiar with the basic history of the MPAA ratings board could have predicted it before seeing the movie. Anyone familiar with the concept and players of Shame, Steve McQueen's NYC-based drama about a sex addict (Michael Fassbender) and his self-destructive sister (Carey Mulligan) could have predicted its eventual NC-17 rating without seeing it. It's official now. I predicted this was coming the moment I first heard they were making the movie -- McQueen's previous picture Hunger didn't pull any punches so why would he, uh, pull any thrusting? -- but this shot of Michael Fassbender, naked, haunted and corpselike in his own bed -- I believe it is the film's first shot though perhaps my memory is tricking me? - confirmed it for me.

You see, it's always about the power of the images and what they suggest. Sexually, I mean. Show the ratings board any brutality and they won't flinch... or at least they haven't much at all since Natural Born Killers (1994) which initally received an NC-17 for its violent content. (If I recall correctly, Oliver Stone only had to edit out a comic point-of-view shot through a gaping gun shot wound to get the R)

The MPAA, those watchdogs of American consumerism will always allow you the freedom to be a bad parent and take your kids to see nightmarish violence. How many beheadings have we seen in recent R rated films? Every week on The Walking Dead (basic cable, no parental supervision required) you can see multiple face stabbings, beheadings, shootings, and limbs torn asunder. How many torture porn movies have bad parents been allowed to haul their young'uns too? But show the ratings board any "strong" sexuality and America's ancient puritanic DNA will start their blood boiling.

Which is not to say that I don't approve of Shame's official NC-17 rating. I think it's an appropriate rating. There's no reason why someone under 17, unless they were unusually mature for their age or suffering from their own addiction (the Oscar kind. We've all been there: "i must see all films with Oscar buzz!") would have an intense desire to see it or would get much out of it.  The problem lies not in the NC-17 rating itself; it's perfectly acceptable, even worthwhile, to have an "adult's only" rating. The problem is in the MPAA's puritanism about the rating, the way they wield it, and in American puritanism surrounding sexuality in general.

Here, from the MPAA's own site are the official descriptions of what constitutes R and NC-17 ratings.

Note that the NC-17...

does not mean "obscene or pornographic".... and should not be construed as a negative judgment."

and that it says that the rating...

can be based on violence, sex, abberational behavior or drug abuse"

When was the last time a movie was ever given an NC-17 rating for anything other than sex?

Abberational behavior, as the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated made clear, is a catch-all phrase that basically also means "sex" but particularly of the homosexual persuasion or of that other grotesque affront to patriarchal cultural values: a woman's pleasure. That must see documentary made a very compelling case that for a film to win an R rating, a woman must NOT be seen enjoying herself too much. Closeups of a woman's face in an orgasmic state (no nudity possible in those shots unless she's got really strange anatomy) have often led to NC-17 ratings. This is especially true if the man is in a subservient position (note the frequency of NC-17 decisions where cunninlingus is involved  -- hi Blue Valentine!. Edit out a woman's face -- or, better yet, chop off her head in the first place-- and you'll never have to worry about an NC-17. 

Enter Shame. It's an interesting case because even if Steve McQueen were willing to edit down to an "R" there is no pleasure that could be edited out. The film is about sexual addiction and most movies about addiction skimp on the pleasure principle. I suppose you'd have to remove the "aberrational" behavior from Shame for an R. And given how loosely the MPAA defines that, it would become a short film... or at the very least a much shorter film since you'd have to edit out the entire darkly operatic sexual abandonment finale and probably all shots of Michael Fassbender's ginormous wang.

When NC-17s were first given filmmakers complained that it meant that there film wouldn't be seen. Many newspapers refused to run ads (punitive) and many theater chains refused to exhibit them (punitive) which is a shame considering the rating...

should not be construed as a negative judgment."

But again... the problem is not the rating, which is a perfectly valid one in this movies case. It's that that other ratings mean so little and this rating means only sex.

Each week I'm alarmed to see on TV what you could only see in R rated movies in the 80s. The Walking Dead and just about every procedural would have (easily) been rated R for violence just 30 years ago. Now we ingest violence like oxygen. If the R means nothing... why does the NC-17 still have such stigma? Why is American culture still so mortified by things it sees in the mirror every day and enjoys using regularly (I've never seen you naked but I'm guessing you have either a penis or a vagina, and that you've occasionally used / enjoyed it) and still so wildly accepting of something that most of us would never ever want anyone we love to encounter in real life (beheadings, massacres, shootings)? Even more troubling, why are we so flippant about bombarding young children with violence and so terrified that they might catch a glimpse of the sexuality that awaits them when they themselves become adults? 

You can ask these questions until you turn blue and there are never any suitable answers... or at least no forthcoming solutions. Perhaps we're just self-destructive as a species, in love with things that only harm us and afraid of things that can actually bring us joy.

I think we owe it to Steve McQueen and future filmmakers to pay for Shame in the theaters. And I hope the Academy voters realize they owe it to future filmmakers to give NC-17 a real fighting chance. Artists need to have the option of creating art for other adults and adults need art that is specifically for them. Man cannot live on Disney alone. And contrary to the handwringing doomsday scenarios of all articles on the NC-17 rating, it isn't actually the kiss of death financially. Several films released with NC-17 or as "unrated" have done fairly well for themselves given the narrow arthouse margins they were already going to be working within.

Some stats to send you on your violence-loving, sex-hating way. (sorry to confuse you with the MPAA and John Q Public.)

Top Grossing NC-17 Films in US Release
1. Showgirls (1995) $20 million
2. Henry & June (1990) $11 million 
3. The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover (1990) $7.7
4. Bad Education (2004) $5.2 million  
5. Lust Caution (2007) $4.6  

Oscar Nominations For NC-17 Films
Henry & June (1990) best cinematography

and yes... I believe that's it. Just one nomination for all NC-17 films. Does Oscar disrespect the rating even more than the MPAA? Can Shame be the game changer the industry and the Oscars need when it comes to filmmaking for adults?

Who's That Girl? It's Nicole Beharie

Kurt here. Considering the overall deficit of good roles for great black actresses (an issue to which this site is no stranger), moviegoers really can't be too hard on Nicole Beharie for offering them such rare and infrequent peeks at her remarkable talent. Still, watching those peeks (and they're watchable indeed), it's easy to send "grrrs" in this petite, 26-year-old beauty's direction, as she's thus far only appeared in five movies, two of them not even on the big screen. Why must she deprive us so? Her phone has to at least be ringing a little bit, and it can't just be about her selectivity, as the titles she's appeared in, on the whole, aren't exactly of the street-cred variety. So, what, then, has she been doing?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. My first exposure to Beharie was in early 2009, in a little film called American Violet, which screened at that year's Philadelphia Film Festival and had a very limited theatrical run. To be frank, the movie is glorified Lifetime rubbish, focusing on a real-life single mom who fought back against a corrupt system after being wrongfully charged with drug-dealing in a persecuted Texas housing project (wah-wah). But Beharie is knock-you-out stellar in the lead role, and she easily made my personal Best Actress top five. Since then the Juilliard grad has been toiling away on various projects that are slowly making their way to screens. Some may have caught her in the Precious wannabe Sins of the Mother (which, incidentally, was developed for Lifetime), while others may have seen her work in the football movie The Express, but she's also starring in at least four as-yet-to-be-released films, including everyone's favorite fleshy hype-magnet, Shame.

Beharie in 'American Violet'

In the Steve McQueen sex-addiction drama, Beharie plays Marianne, a co-worker of the lead nympho, Brandon (Michael Fassbender). She offers him a shot at pure, normal intimacy. Beharie doesn't upstage Fassbender or Carey Mulligan (it's not that kind of role), but she brings more than what you'd normally expect from such a character (SPOILER ALERT: she is introduced for the very purpose of being dismissed). Her ability to be extraordinarily sexy in a heated makeout session (which may just be the mixed-bag movie's most well-choreographed scene) is hypnotic, as much a small feat of physicality as in-the-moment focus.

With Fassy in 'Shame'Compared to her character in American Violet (a headlining part Beharie has said she doesn't expect to land again), the sidelined Marianne is rather thankless. But nothing but good can come from the fact that Beharie is starring in a movie that anyone who gives a hoot about film is absolutely going to see. It's bound to give her profile a long-overdue boost.

Beharie flicks on the horizon include the sports drama The Last Fall, and the afro-centric Small of Her Back and Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day. Jot those titles down. Beharie will likely be reason enough to see them.

London Film Fest: "360" and "Shame"

Dave here with my first report from the London Film Festival, which Craig introduced you to on Thursday. We'll start with the Opening Night Gala.

Jude Law and Rachel Weisz as unfaithful marrieds.

Fernando Meirelles' 360 seems a fitting selection to open a film festival, sold as a "dynamic and moving roundelay" that takes us across the spectrum of people on the globe. But this is globalization for the West; just forget, for two hours, that Asia and Africa and Australia exist and that people might have sex there too. Peter Morgan's script works like a daisy chain, flimsily linking together a collection of character shells who spread out across Europe and America, reverberating off one another. Mirka (Lucia Siposova) ventures into prostitution to the disapproval of her sister Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova); Michael (Jude Law) is her first client, whose wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) is having an affair with Rui (Juliano Cazarre), whose girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) has uncovered his lies and sets off back to Brazil, meeting John (Anthony Hopkins) on the plane...You get the idea.

Evidently, this is a film about how globalization has connected people across the globe, a decision from one changing the life of another, six degrees of separation, etcetera etcetera. It takes a delicate hand to make a daisy chain, and Peter Morgan is entirely too thick fingered and clumsy, forcing coincidence and connection between characters he forgets to give any identity to. Oddly sprightly culturally specific music crudely emphasizes the differing nationalities. Occasional split screens hilariously exaggerate the narrative parallels. Crafty editing connections verge on the farcical. Rachel Weisz is given a bad wig, Anthony Hopkins a bad monologue, and Ben Foster a luridly filmed introduction thanks to his character's sex offender status.

more 360° and Steve McQueen's Shame after the jump

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