Introducing... Jodie Foster

With the Cecil B. DeMiller tribute coming at the Golden Globes and her 50th birthday hitting this coming Monday, we're celebrating the one and only Jodie Foster.

Jodie Foster is one of only a tiny handful of full fledged child stars to become even more legendary as an adult movie star. She remains the modern era's gold standard for making the transition but who could've predicted it in 1972 when she made her first feature Napoleon & Samantha. She's not really the star (that'd be Johnny Whitaker as Napoleon) but the film had the foresight to open with her face and that distinctive voice. 

She gets the movie's very first shot and line. 

Ouch, I bumped my knee!

Auspicious beginnings! 

a totally docile animal actor. Johnny & Jodie climb all over this big cat, pull its tail, shove their hands in its mouthNapoleon, tells her to shush with a "who cares about your stupid knee?" Turns out moviegoers around the globe would  -- the stupid knee and all the rest of her, too!

Napoleon and Samantha is a really weird watch in 2012. Just about the only recognizable  thing about it is its Disney Fixation with orphanhood (that fixation is still with us) but everything is truly foreign, dated or bizarre: a retiring circus performer Napoleon meets in the woods; a lion who only drinks milk and that barely anybody seems freaked out about when they meet; Michael Douglas as a kind-hearted hippie goat farmer with a political science degree (don't ask); a chase scene with Douglas stunt double in a Bad Grandma Michael Douglas wig and porn-ready music scoring; an escaped mental patient in the woods (!); It's a weird weird movie disguised as an innocuous family one.

But the time capsule treats of seeing an intermittently bored baby Jodie trying to remember her lines (this is not her finest hour) and watching Michael Douglas all twenty-something young and hippie sexy...

... not to mention the unintentionally hilarious visual juxtaposition of Jodie's butch gait in little girl dresses with Michael Douglas hippie fey exuberance, made it oh so worthwhile! I meant to just grab an image but I couldn't turn the damn thing off. 

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" Is Coming... Eventually

The follow up to the unexpectedly well-liked and thus strangely Oscar-ignored 2011 blockbuster Rise of The Planet of the Apes, has supposedly released its first teaser image. That's according to many websites none of which seem to directly link to the supposedly official page or when they do it's the "Rise" page from 2011 which does not include this image. (All I can find are fanmade pages for "Dawn" which are unofficial and have, at this writing, not posted this image). It's all very suspect since this image is from a piece by Albert Watson from 1992. But it's a Monkey with a Gun and people were just talking about Tarzan so one thing swings to another? 

I guess people are excited about Memorial Day 2014 already!

What excellent timing.

P.S. That monkey is totally going to run out of bullets by the time this thing rolls around in 557 days!

one thing I forgot to mention about that "Oz" trailer...

I'm so surprised this thing didn't pop up in my nightmares last night. Maybe tonight?

Looks Like Rain! Aronofksy's "Noah" is Coming

The publicity for Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014) -- the first big name biblical epic since, what, The Passion of the Christ? -- is a light drizzle now. Here's the first photo from the set tweeted Wednesday by Darren Aronofsky himself who writes:

I dreamt about this since I was 13. And now it's a reality. Genesis 6:14

So that scripture in case you don't have a Bible (no judgments) is along these lines 'Make yourself an arc with ribs of cypress: cover it with reeds and coat it inside and out with pitch.'

Jennifer Connelly wearing one of her Noah's Ark co-starsMore Noah news
Anthony Hopkins was recently announced in the role of super-ancient Methusaleh who (SPOILER ALERT) dies right before the Flood. Maybe he can borrow Guy Pearce or Cate Blanchett's impossibly old old-age makeup from Prometheus or Benjamin Button.

Russell Crowe plays Noah and Jennifer Connelly as his wife (making this a double reunion for her with her A Beautiful Mind co-star and her Requiem for a Dream director). The cast also includes Emma Watson (zzz), Logan Lerman, two animals of every kind and Ray Winstone as the "villain". Does this mean Winstone plays God? Cause, let's be real, isn't God the villain in the Noah's Ark scenario? 

The publicity drizzle will presumably soon be a flood. It gets like that for filmmakers after they have their first smash crossover hit. In Aronofsky's case that was Black Swan. And what better way to follow up a hallucinatory fucked up ballerina nightmare and Best Picture nominee than with a biblical epic involving mad prophets, animals, and Oscar winning actors?

If you were filling Aronofsky's ark which two animals (or actors) would you start with?

Lifeboat of Pi

Despite having not read "Life of Pi" in its previsual form -- I know I know --  I found myself unduly excited this morning seeing this image from the Ang Lee adaptation. Is it because I love cats? Unfilmable books? Ang Lee? All about the above? ☑

24 Frames has an article about it involving a Scorsese/Lee conversation about Lee's 3D learning curve. Here's the image.

Despite his belief in the format, Lee was open about his struggle to adapt to the technology. While filming "Life of Pi," he said, the 3-D cameras were cumbersome, and he compared working with them to "operating a refrigerator." 

I gotta be honest with you. I love Marty Scorsese almost as much as any random film buff but his current incarnation as "Mr. 3D" may lead to divorce. Irreconciliable Differences. I preferred Marty when his cause was film preservation. 3D just takes me out of movies, ironically flattening their visual interest for me. It feels like a straight jacket to me or rather, a toothpick propping my eyes open, forcing me to see things I don't want to see. Maybe I need to use my own imagination to add the depth, I don't know. I just hate it. I keep trying to love it because powerful and great filmmakers like Scorsese and James Cameron (a hero of young me and I still love his movies) will never give up till all movies require glasses.

But 3D just makes the movies less magical for me. Sniffle. I adore Titanic and seeing it in 3D just made it... smaller. It no longer felt like THE MOVIEST OF MOVIES but just "a movie".

I'm only tolerating 3D because I have to. 

Someone toss me a Lifeboat. Life of Pi needs less 3D and more Tallulah! Can I get an amen?

Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT OF PI

Have any of you read the book? I understand that young "Pi", an Indian boy, finds himself on a boat after a shipwrech with only a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger. Since only Pi and Shere Khan are in the official image I'm assuming the tiger ate the other animals already?

If I were to be shipwrecked on a boat with four animals those maybe aren't the four animals I'd choose. I'd think I'd go straight herbivore across the board. Not that you can choose in a shipwreck.

But if I had to go with famous movie animals...

Life of NathanielR

Someone to entertain, someone to protect, and someone who might rescue me and look great doing it.

And there's no way it'd be anything but a 2-D picture.

Don't leave me floating in this ocean all alone... Which movie animals could you handle a shipwreck with and have you resigned yourself to movie glasses forever?