New Trailer: 50 Shades of... Prada?

Manuel here offering an off-beat theory on that new 50 Shades of Gray trailer.

The worldwide phenomena got a Beyoncé-scored trailer that debuted during last week's Scandal which suggests the marketing team at least know who they're courting. "Haunted" really is a great trailer song & when paired with (intentionally?) campy dialogue like

My tastes are very... singular.
Enlighten me then...

it makes for quite the breathy, pulpy trailer, but am I the only one noticing that this trailer makes the film look like an oddly humorless gender-bending fan-fiction of The Devil Wears Prada?

Between the Runway-looking office reception, Jamie Dornan's teased "gird your loins" entrance, and Dakota Johnson's Andy Sachs-esque outfit, I half-expected Dornan's Gray to give us a sibilant monologue on cerulean fabrics. Alas, despite its gorgeous London skyline shots and a "getting ready to meet Mr Gray" setup scene that might as well be scored to KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See," this trailer doesn't seem to be aiming for the fun and flirty sensibility of that other best-selling novel adaptation. So many moody shots seem right at home in a horror flick (is he stalking her at a... hardware store?) suggest this film will try to battle its sudsy image by wearing a self-serious smoldering scowl. To be fair, Dornan wears those well (anyone else watch The Fall?) and despite an odd accent and a lack of his usually gorgeous facial hair, his Gray is sure to be the most ogled male film lead since the Magic Mike boys dropped trou. Of course, now I'll just keep imagining what Gray would've been in the hands of Streep; might that have netted her her fourth Oscar? I kid, though it does seem odd that this trailer would so openly (if unconsciously) crib images from that 2006 flick, or am I just imagining things?

Check out the full trailer below and tell me you weren't sad when there were no Emily Blunt or Stanley Tucci one-liners to buffer the self-seriousness of it all:

Enlighten me readers, does this new trailer whet your apetite enough to buy a ticket? Are these just words you're scrolling through in hopes I saved a shirtless Dornan shot at the end of the post?

"And Emily..."

(Great Moments in Screen Bitchery, #91, Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada)

Readers' Ranking: Streep's Oscar Noms, #5-1

We started this blogging experiment by asking readers to rank all the Streep Oscar Nominated performances they'd seen. Then we shared reader stories of how you first discovered Streep. I tabulated all the results, weighting the ballots so the readers who had seen the most films counted for more. Now we've reached the tippity top of Streep performances!  For what it's worth, the top six (including Kramer Vs. Kramer) were the clear winners of your collective hierarchy and numbers two through four were closely bunched together in your estimation, each threatening to take spot #2 with each new ballot that arrived, though eventually they settled into their current positions. 

STREEP'S OSCAR-NOMINATED PERFORMANCES RANKED 
According to Film Experience Readers  (We didn't include The Iron Lady since it's brand new)

16-11
Music of Heart, Ironweed, One True Thing, French Lt's Woman, Deer Hunter, Doubt
10-6
Julie & Julia, Out of Africa, Postcards, Cry in the Dark, Kramer vs Kramer

05. Adaptation (2002)
Role & Balloting: Streep's terrifically clever performance as a heightened version of Susan Orlean, the real life writer who wrote the non-fiction book The Orchid Thief that Nicolas Cage's fictional screenwriter (and Charlie Kaufman stand-in) tries to adapt into a movie in this twisty comedy [whew], is the one many fans point to as "this is what she needs to do more of!" This role was in first place on only 3% of ballots, less than any of the other films in the top six, but it was on nearly every ballot (widely seen) and usually in the upper half.

Who Won the Oscar: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago
Other Nominees in Guesstimate Order of AMPAS Love: Meryl (Adaptation), Julianne Moore (The Hours), Kathy Bates (About Schmidt) and Queen Latifah (Chicago)
The Dread Sixth Place Finish?:  It was Michelle Pfeiffer, SAG nominee, on the outside looking in for White Oleander. I still blame the Golden Globes for that one as they stalled her momentum by fawning over a miscast and dull Cameron Diaz for Gangs of New York. 

Reader Notes and Four More Greats after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Pig Wears Prada

The Pig Wears Prada... and probably has a huge dry cleaning billThree quick things this morning.

1) Guess who feels like a little piggy after Thanksgiving? I was doing okay until divvying up leftovers for guests and kept finding errant pieces of pie that just couldn't fit into tupperware that had to be eaten right then and there. By me. Couldn't let the whip cream go bad either.

poll by twiigs.com

2) Did anyone watch "A Very Gaga Thankgiving"?  Her voice sounded tremendous and the costumes were restrained elegant weirdness instead of standard not-ready-to-wear weirdness (points for mixing it up) but otherwise blech. Every song became a ballad (not every song should be a ballad) and almost no verse could be sung through without multiple stops for self-regarding monologues. The show felt like it lasted 3 hours and Gaga was jumping all kinds of sharks named Self-Seriousness and Absence of Perspective. Let us get this straight Gaga, you felt bullied at school because you a) had to sit at a table that wasn't the cool table off to side with your friends (ewww. who would ever want to eat with their friends?! Gross) and b) because people ridiculed your hair for being too beautiful? Unnhhnh.... 

3) For my weekly column @ Towleroad I've listed 10 great things about this particular Thanksgiving weekend and your movie options at home or at the multiplex. The Muppets got a general spot but after the fact I wished I'd mentioned that Miss Piggy looks hot in Prada but Emily Blunt's cameo only made me wish she'd find another role as worthy of her comic talents as the one she had in The Devil Wears Prada. 

Now it is time to eat breakfast. Breakfast called "Pie".