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Congratulations to the newlyweds, Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig! You may have heard that they pulled off the impossible feat of keeping a double-star wedding under wraps until entire days after the nuptials. They were married on Wednesday June 22nd.
Secret weddings are the best. Without the prying paparazzi lenses we are free to imagine the whole thing. So this is what The Film Experience officially believes they were wearing when they tied the knot.
WHY NOT?
The couple may prove ubiquitous for the remainder of the year. Consider...
JULY & AUGUST In Rachel's next film --which seems like it's been "about to open" for years though now -- she plays The Whistleblower and some Best Actress whispers have emerged. Daniel Craig's next, Cowboys & Aliens, arrives first in July butis not garnering any Best Actor whispers for either alien of cowboy life forms.
SEPTEMBER The newlyweds started dating after working together (as fictional spouses) in Dream House from Jim Sheridan (In America). Naomi Watts and Martin Csokas co-star in a thriller about a seemingly idyllic house with a nightmarish history.
Dream House (2011)
DECEMBER The year will end with a possible Oscar campaign for Weisz (though she's already a winner from The Constant Gardener) and a possible blockbuster for Craig by way of David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. May he have more luck with the (comparatively) dull "Mikael Blomkvist" part than Michael Nyqvist had.
This is one of the nights, a history maker, as New York legalized same sex marriage. It's a win-win for everyone... it's just that some people don't know it yet. Eventually they'll make movies about this and everyone will watch and think "Duh! Of course" and imagine themselves fighting the good fight with the protagonists and shake their heads at the small minded antagonists. Ah, those "safely in the past" message movies. But it's all part of the predictable beauty of social progress. Eventually everyone ends up on the same side (which is why one should always cross first and help with the bridge building.)
In the past decade of the movies, we've seen some beautiful transformative and realistic depictions of gay love onscreen. We love to dream about fictional couples here at the Film Experience but the beauty of what's happened tonight in New York is what it will mean for the dreams of real couples, just living their lives together day in and day out.
Much love to all. Happy Pride Weekend!
P.S. The Empire State Building is rainbow tonight -- previously scheduled for Pride but I can't see it due to all the fog. Here's a photo. Sunday's parade is going to be insane.
Have you all been enjoying our sudden obsession with theme weeks, first Moulin Rouge! and now X-Men?
Next week and probably for the rest of June -- it being, well, June -- we'll have a very loose wedding theme (Don't worry if you're not so romantic. Normal blogging shall continue as well). That'll kick off with Wednesday's night's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" episode celebrating Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) on its 25th anniversary. I haven't seen that one in well over a decade so I'm very curious. Have you seen it more recently?
Who are your favorite cinematic brides?
Which onscreen weddings do you think about the most?
Serious Film's Michael C. here for this episode of Yes, No, Maybe So wherein we make a snap judgment on BRIDESMAIDS, Hollywood’s attempt to give female audiences a Hangover of their very own.
Women certainly have some balance coming to them. In road trip comedies they’re usually lucky to get the role of the humorless, castrating wife/girlfriend. If they’re not lucky they play the stripper, who in Vegas films stands a decent chance of ending up in a shallow grave in the desert.
Bridesmaids also represents star/co-writer Kristen Wiig’s stab at big screen stardom because she can’t go on forever being SNL’s last line of defense against total un-watchability, and God knows MacGruber didn’t do it for her. Simply put Wiig is appointed Maid of Honor by Maya Rudolph making her responsible for sending her friend off in style, which in this case entails rounding up her colorful band of bridesmaids to go to Vegas for a bachelorette party. ROAD TRIP!!!
The main draw here is clearly the cast, which is one big bag of “Yes!” I can’t spot a weak link. In addition to Wiig there is Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, and The Office’s Ellie Kemper, who couldn’t be more adorable if she was manufactured by Hello Kitty. I’m especially pleased to see Reno 911’s stellar Wendi Mclendon Covey get such a high profile gig. Her reactions to Kemper’s “princess theme” and McCarthy’s “female fight club” ideas are the funniest part of the trailer. Another reason to be psyched: it is directed by Midas Touch TV director Paul Feig. His credits read like a roll call of the greatest shows of the last decade, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, Mad Men, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock. I feel obligated to buy a ticket out of gratitude alone.
I have long-standing rule of avoiding movies that have trailers in which curse words are replaced by sound effects so that’s strike one there. On a more substantive note, the movie looks like it leans pretty heavily on broadly drawn types – the jaded one, the ditz, the butch one. Also, is it too much too ask that women get one movie that doesn’t center on a wedding? Seriously, if you went by Hollywood comedies you would think single women do nothing with their evenings but tip back glasses of white wine in order to stave off thoughts of suicide because all their friends are getting married to orthodontists and cranking out horrible children. I’m offended on your behalf, ladies.
Of course, there is a good chance Wiig is as annoyed as I am with the culture's wedding obsession and is dragging the material out in order to give it the send up it richly deserves. It’s so hard to tell with trailers. That fact that this one is a few notches shy of uproarious could be a sign that it showed only the most trailer-friendly, punched-by-Mike-Tyson type jokes instead of funnier character beats. It could also be a sign that the better jokes simply aren’t there. I’m pretty on the fence about this one.
Oh, wait…Is that Jon Hamm there at the end? Okay, I’m in. What can I say? I think he is a comic genius trapped in a Rock Hudson body. Poor guy. What say you? You would think this collection of talent would have to do something worth checking out, but then that's what I said before I sat through Date Night.
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 9:09AM 
Dream House (2011)
