Is Jeremy Irons Put 'Out to Pasture' as Pennyworth?

[Editors Note: I am pleased to welcome new contributor Diana Drumm to The Film Experience. The benefit of fresh voices? They often have subjects to opine on that we haven't run into the ground already here at TFE. Like this consideration of Jeremy Irons, late in his career. Enjoy! - Nathaniel]

Last week, the internet announced, buzzed and trounced the news of Jesse Eisenberg signing on to play Lex Luthor in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman. (Insert maniacal mastermind Mark Zuckerberg joke.) Less buzzed about, but part of the same announcement, Jeremy Irons is set to play Alfred Pennyworth. Seriously. Jeremy “Scar is an unknowing introduction to masochism” Irons. Brushing aside millenial Disney hang-ups, Jeremy Irons is a glorious figure of bygone British manhood and Alfred Pennyworth is... A different sort of bygone British manhood. 

Lithe yet powerful, languid yet vital, vulnerable yet undeniably masculine. As an actor, Irons’s performances take on a seductive quality, with an earnest veneer covering an implicit rascaliness or vice versa or a muddled mix of both. With a bewildered look as powerful as a forceful growl, he (his innate talent, his RSC work, his Oscar) is being wasted.

Not that he’s the first thesp to be called in as a ringer for a blockbuster (or that this is his first time on the merry-go-round -- Eragon, Beautiful Creatures, etc.)...

Click to read more ...

The Year of the Hero. And Other Links

The Wrap all time lows for unemployment for women in the movie biz. what the what now?
Veteran Fan Girl on Frozen's groundbreaking depiction of mental illness (depression) in a Disney Princess movie 
Variety Johnny Depp might be our Doctor Strange. Which would be awesome news if it weren't 2014 and his eccentricities didn't yet feel like a factory-produced cans of name brand Quirk

Terry Richardson for some reason the internet seems surprised today that Jared Leto posed mostly naked for this controversial photographer. Doesn't the internet know that they're friends and this happens pretty regularly? C'mon internet, catch up
The Wire an Oscar completist's prayer: please don't nominated these movies
BuzzFeed why Emma Thompson was the best part of the Golden Globes 
Awards Daily final Oscar predictions 
MNPP a fun retro poster for the new horror flick Cooties 
Pajiba provocatively predicts the biggest flops of 2014 from Pompeii to Transcendence to Jupiter Ascending without calling it predictions 
Vulture speaking of provocations... David O. Russell really put his foot in it comparing Jennifer Lawrence's Hunger Games contract to 12 Years a Slave 

...and by now you may have heard that Oscar has picked his theme!

like my photoshop?

They've announced that the 2013 Oscars (WE'RE SUPPOSED TO CALL IT BY ITS FILM YEAR. EVEN OSCAR KNOWS THIS THOUGH SOME WEBSITES DON'T!) to be held on March 2nd, 2014 will be "The Year of the Hero". This sounds like another lame ploy to win the demographic that just doesn't care about them since it's not like they're going to nominate Man of Steel or Thor or Iron Man 3 for anything (okay maybe Iron Man 3) and it's not like anyone wants them to, either! (Besides Marvel and Warner Bros) Can't it be enough that other demographics care about the Oscars?

If they mean this in a less lame way than a "please love us, fanboys!" ploy, then this is good news for Captain Phillips, which is basically the only film in the running that plays like a hero's journey. A more appropriate theme for this year in cinema might be the Year of the Survivor with Gravity, All is Lost, The Butler, Nebraska, and 12 Years a Slave and more factoring in but I guess that doesn't have as much of a kick to it since surviving is kind of exhausting and nobody producing the Oscars probably wants you to think about exhaustion until, like, the 180 minute mark on Oscar night.

Waiting For Link Man

efilmcritic Erik Childress's wonderful annual list of Blurb Whores of the Year
THR August Osage County wins big at the Capri festival in Italy, winning four prizes. Harvey Weinstein and Chris Cooper were also honored at the festival. In non Weinstein awards they honored 12 Years a Slave, Saving Mr Banks, and The Great Beauty as well as Valeria Golino (remember her?) as European actress of the year
EW Downton Abbey on the cover. Can't wait for its return this weekend
Variety 3 time Oscar winning producer Saul Zaentz (Amadeus, Cuckoo's Nest and The English Patient) has passed away
i09 Disney Princess themed lingerie from Japan! 

MNPP vicious but true takedown of Ron Howard's Rush
Cinema Blend The Rock for a new iteration of Green Lantern? There are worse ideas, casting-wise I suppose but DC movies are so hopeless!
The Guardian finds that The Wolf of Wall Street uses the naughty F word 506 times, which "breaks down to Scorsese giving 2.81 fucks a minute." LOL. But who spent the three hours counting? That's what I want to know.
USA Today Character actor Joseph Ruskin (Prizzi's Honor, The Magnificent Seven) has passed away
The Wire as we move into the dumping ground of each film year (that'd be new January releases, not platformed holdovers) Joe Reid looks back at ten January releases that didn't suck
Vanity Fair funny Proust questionnaire with T Bone Burnett whose latest movie music work I can't stop listening to. That'd be Inside Llewyn Davis

Hitchcock with Barbara Harris on "Family Plot"Finally...
My friend Matthew Rettenmund who writes Boy Culture has compiled a list of all of Hitchcock's leading ladies who are still alive. (Make sure to note the punny captions). I found this list of ten surprising even though I recently made that oldest 100 screen actors of note list. He's right though that at least two of the major leading ladies (Doris Day & Julie Andrews) don't seem like Hitchcock heroines at all. I forget every time that they headlined one. Those moments were just so atypical in their careers, don't you think? 

Previewing the animated features of 2014

Tim here. It’s the last edition of my weekly animation essay for 2013, which would ordinarily be the best time for a year-in-review piece. However, the year has been so rough for animation (remember Escape from Planet Earth? Are you happy about that fact?) that it seemed better just to quickly move beyond it and pretend it didn’t happen. Let us instead look with clear eyes and hopeful hearts to the future, and take a quick preview of the animated features that will be scattered throughout 2014. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but if I missed anything big, feel free to point it out in comments.

Films to maybe hold out hope for:

-The Lego Movie (February 7). The concept, and the cameos by DC superheroes, scream “branding exercise”, but with Phil Lord and Chris Miller on-hand as writers and directors, there’s reason to be hopeful. The duo has gone 2-for-2 so far with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, and that’s not a track record to idly dismiss. Besides, the trailer reveals that its laziest sins (a “Chosen One” narrative, celebrity voice cast) looks to be applied with a more playfully ironic touch than usual. And the random sense of humor looks different from the usual family fare, at any rate: the bit with Wonder Woman’s invisible jet gets me every time.

Dragons, Boxtrolls and more after the jump

Click to read more ...

Late Night Link

The Wrap the new triangular Oscar logo
French Films About Trains "Category is: 2013 Realness" 
i09 Paul Rudd to play Hank Pym aka Ant Man in the future Marvel movie for Edgar Wright
Digital Spy... and Edgar Wright shares his ten favorites of 2013 (and Short Term 12 is on it so I love him even more now)

Cinema Blend Hugh Jackman to play the villain in the new Peter Pan film for Joe Wright... but he's not Captain Hook
Deep Cuts the best music scenes in movies this year
Film School Rejects 3 films getting Oscar rereleases and 3 that deserve to get the same treatment
Variety 'how American Hustle conned the critics' a scathing review of... um... either the movie or its reviews. 
Vanity Fair David O. Russell's last minute decision to cast Jennifer Lawrence
Vulture Taylor Kitsch on The Normal Heart, Lone Survivor and his resistance to doing a Friday Night Lights movie
Cinema Blend Superman heirs still seeking back the rights. So much drama with superman. (Shouldn't he be in the public domain soon anyway? Damn corporate America and its perversion of copyright laws!) 

National Film Registry
Finally, the Library of Congress announced the 25 new titles they're adding to their list of culturally important films. The honor is mostly symbolic since nothing actually happens to the films in question. It doesn't grant them funding for cleaning of their negatives or restoration or guarantee a Blu-Ray release or any some such but it's still a lovely tradition. Mary Poppins is included this year which only prompted "that wasn't already in there?!?" from me followed by a 'well, that's suspiciously good timing for its 50th anniversary Blu-Ray release and the Oscar campaign of Saving Mr Banks." But I love Mary Poppins (here is evidence) so i'm thrilled.

The 25 Films:  Bless Their Little Hearts (1984), Brandy in the Wilderness (1969), Cicero March (1966), Daughter of Dawn (1920), Decasia (2002), Ella Cinders (1926), Forbidden Planet (1956), Gilda (1946), The Hole (1962), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), King of Jazz (1930), The Lunch Date (1989), The Magnificent Seven (1960), Martha Graham Early Dance film (1931-44), Mary Poppins (1964), Men & Dust (1940), Midnight (1939), Notes on the Port of St. Francis (1951), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Quiet Man (1952),The Right Stuff (1983), Roger & Me (1989), A Virtuous Vamp (1919), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), and Wild Boys of the Road (1933)

Which ones that you haven't seen are you most curious about? I'm thinking I should finally get around to The Quiet Man because Maureen O'Hara. And though I've seen it already I should probably revisit / write up The Right Stuff because it's so good and people just don't talk about it enough.