Judi Dench and the Buxom Strumpet

When I was writing my review of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides I was researching on IMDb and came across this...


Ignoring the incompetence of IMDb's predictive search function and somehow not seeing the "(2012)" beside the title, I had instead just assumed it was one of those British TV movies from the late '80s or '90s (perhaps from the makers of The Darling Buds of May) before either of the two were big names internationally. I had no idea that it was actually an upcoming movie about zombies! Apart from Dench and Anderson it will also star Ian McKellen.

I guess Dench didn't want her Jane Eyre co-stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender to have all the horror movie fun with that vampire movie they're making with Tilda Swinton and Jim Jarmusch.

Speaking of Marisa Tomei...: Some Words About the Oscars

At one point of yesterday's 83rd Academy Awards Marisa Tomei strolled out on stage to present that part of the ceremony where they discuss the "sciences" part of "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". A segment that usually ranks just behind the bit where the Academy president and the TV executive spiel suppurlatives at each other for the benefit of nobody but themselves. Anyway, Tomei walked out and my viewing guest goes "Speaking of Marisa Tomei," to which I replied "You don't hear that very often!"

The story proceeded into one about In the Bedroom, which is neither here nor there, but it says a lot that, for me, one of the most memorable retorts of the night came not from the ceremony itself, but from the banter between friends. "Banter between friends", that sure is a line that Oscar producers could learn from for as much fun as the opening skit with hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway walking through various Best Picture nominees - curiously, however, several were left off - the rest of the show simply looked as if Franco and Hathaway had barely spent an hour or two getting to know each and other and learn each others styles and performing rhythms. Maybe James was too busy napping with cats or installing a light show in an Upper West Side apartment for the benefit of nobody but himself, but it was like he only just got the script as the ceremony began. This was a first take performance and it's telling that their best moment was the filmed introduction where they got to act.


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It must be said - and almost everybody and their dog has done so already, or will do so soon - that Franco was a nonentity on the night and that Hathaway, clearly noticing that neither Franco nor the crowd were particularly into it, over-compensated. But, it wasn't just Franco's strange blank expression punctuating the awards - that was, however, during the few times that he managed waltz out on stage between spliffs - that felt decidedly uncharismatic. The crowd itself was just not present last night. Perhaps it's exhaustion after the seemingly neverending awards season, or perhaps they were as bored with the winners as the rest of us, but when the only true standing ovation they gave was for Billy Crystal? Aaron Sorkin's win for Best Adapted Screenplay was met with peculiar silence. Wins for Natalie Portman and Christian Bale - acting honours that most were truly excited about despite their inevitability - didn't seem to register much excitement in the crowd.

Add to all of that a bland set that had neither the intimacy of the 2009 Hugh Jackman ceremony (still the best one of the last chunk of years) or the grandness of other years gone by. The newfangled "classic cinema" backdrops began nicely, if awkwardly staged, with Gone with the Wind, but Justin Timberlake's Shrek-ifying of the set a brief time later was just plain odd. It seemed to be a concept that the producers ditched after not too long, which made sense given the schizophrenic nature of the show. Before the awards night it had been said that the ceremony would ditch the montages that are a constant source of frustration with viewers (a "salute to animation" featuring more Space Chimps than is acceptable), but we still got a needless Billy Crystal standup routine as an intro to a needless Bob Hope clip package, which was all just a big roundabout way of introducing Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law to present Best Visual Effects. At least Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin looked amazing in their matching white tuxedos with white bowties. Shame that they edited out their dance and lip lock!

Or how about having Hilary Swank walk out to introduce Kathryn Bigelow? Isn't that what Franco and Hathaway were there for? And, as an aside, I found it quite irritating that they trotted Bigelow out and yet still made no mention of the fact that two female directors had films up for Best Picture (Debra Granik and Lisa Cholodenko). Similarly, Halle Berry's emotional eulogy to Leena Horne felt more token than anything else. Are Halle Berry and Hilary Swank really the best Hollywood stars the producers could mustre? Where were Denzel Washington, Liam Neeson, Will Smith, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Marion Cotillard, Keira Knightley, Angelina Jolie and so on? Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman were as "Hollywood's Biggest Stars!" as it got. Hell, it's been a couple of years now where Jack Nicholson hasn't been in the front row and it's actually quite disappointing!

Still, if they were so desperate for these to be the "young, hip Oscars" where were the likes of Mia Wasikowksa? The young ator who starred in a Best Picture nominee (The Kids are All Right) and a billion dollar-earning Tim Burton hit. What about Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Jamie Bell or Rooney Mara, all of whom have big hits behind them and bigger hits ahead of them? Are they keeping the Harry Potter stars locked up over there in England or are they just waiting to parade them out next year when the eighth and final instalment makes a last ditch effort for Oscar gold? Thank heavens for small mercies at the lack of Miley Cyrus, Robert Pattinson - although James Franco, at times, looked a little Edward Cullen - and Justin Bieber, or whatever other "teen sensations" this years' producer thought the kids would want to see.

As for the awards themselves? Well, we all knew The King's Speech was destined for Best Picture glory, but I still don't think I quite understand Tom Hooper's win for Best Director. The film didn't sweep the technical categories like I had predicted, instead only taking home four trophies. Thankfully The Social Network won three excellent awards (Adapted Screenplay, Original Score and Editing), but Inception showed Academy voters still can't get a handle on what "sound mixing" and "sound editing" actually mean with its haul of four statues. Wins for The Lost Thing (Animated Short), Toy Story 3 (Animated Feature), Inside Job (Documentary Feature) and In a Better World (Foreign Language Film) were all richly deserved, which is more that can be said for Alice in Wonderland's baffling two wins for Costume and Art Direction. huh?


As sad as I was for Jacki Weaver missing out, at least Melissa Leo's speech - f-bombs, continued campaigning and insane yelling included - sure was... memorable, yeah? I did okay with my predictions, but I continue to find myself going against my better judgement when it comes to people like Weaver and David Fincher. I got 15 correct from the predictions I listed here at the blog, however I did submit predictions a week or two earlier for an Oscar viewing party I was attending and on those I correctly predicted Inside Job's win, so we'll say I got 16 and be done with it, yeah?

All in all, I can't say I was too impressed with yesterday's show. I don't think it was as shoddily produced as last year's diabolical "WTF?"-worthy ceremony, but it was so dull and flat. On one hand I blame the people involved - the producers, the writers, James Franco - but, on the other hand I blame all the other award shows that are so desperate to be Oscar harbingers that as the end of February rolls around it's all a bit been there done that with the winners. The Oscars can easily be fixed, it will just take the right people to do it.

Let's end this with a gif from the amazing Clem Bastow's rundown of the evening. The only thing better than this moment was that incredible reaction shot of the Coen brothers looking disinterested by Oprah's Best Documentary introduction. I also loved that Michelle Williams brought along Busy Phillips as her guest. Dawson's Creek and Cougar Town represent!

Well Played, Poster: Jane Eyre

Earlier this year the Mark Romanek adaptation of Never Let Me Go released a poster that a lot of people on the internet collectively wet their pants over. I did not. I never posted about it at the time, but over at InContention I wrote: "As a movie poster this makes a great book cover. Not sure how this at all sells a movie of any kind of anybody though. Who’ll see that and go 'yes, let’s see that movie.'" I still feel that way, and judging by the film's scant American box office not many others were all that interested in seeing the movie that's supposedly about a couple of children running down a pier. Maybe they were running towards something that the poster was simply unable to convey? I don't know.

Moving on though, today comes a poster for Jane Eyre, the latest adaptation of which comes from Cary Fukunaga. He made a splash last year with Sin Nombre, but that Mexico-set film never received a release in Australia so I have nothing to go on. The advertising materials I have seen for it certainly suggest a very different film to his sophomore effort.


There are several things that I love about this poster, which was just released through Focus' Facebook page. I like how they're not shying away from the fact that it's a period film with girly costumes and dainty hair stylings and yet haven't shied away from making a visually stylish design. Films such as The King's Speech, The Young Victoria, Changeling and so forth could learn a thing or two about not forsaking personality and design in the face of stifling period detailing.

I do think the poster looks like a book cover - in case you were wondering why I brought up that Never Let Me Go story - that could feature the sticker "Now a Major Motion Picture starring Mia Wasikowska", but a book cover that can still work as a movie poster due to its visuals and cinematic scope. I think the colours are gorgeous and colours we so rarely see on a poster, they immediately make me think of the colour palette than Fukunaga will be using to show the moors of the British isle.

Most of all, however, I love that look of Mia Wasikowska's face. It makes me suspect there's a lot going on within her and makes me anticipate what she will do with the character. I find it interesting that the release date is March of next year, which is hardly the time of year where you expect a prestigious literary adaptation with period costumes. In fact, Wasikowska has this in March and Restless (poster and trailer here) for Gus Van Sant in January. She's giving me Nicole Kidman vibes right now, working with quite auteur and artistically arresting directors that (judging from their release dates) don't quite fit into the model of what Oscar-bait prestige films.

I must say though, it's this part of the poster would probably have sold me on the project anyway.


Isn't that an amazing cast?

Mia and Her Coat Want You to Watch Their Movie

Last week we saw the newly released trailer for Gus Van Sant's latest film, the young quirky romance Restless. We now get a look at the poster and they have justifiably used the image of the film's stars - Mia Wasikowksa and Henry Hopper - surrounded by a chalk outline. I made note that, in the trailer, that image was particularly striking so I'm glad they went with it. As a poster it easily could've descended into twee madness, but I actually think that tagline ("who do you live for") steers it away from quirk and more into sweetness. The tagline reminds me of Lost in Translation, actually, which had a very similar "vibe" about it. Don't you think?

[insert Young and the Restless joke here]

A new Gus Van Sant movie is something that will always pique my interest and Restless is no different. The plot and the blueprint of the trailer reads like a checklist of quirk, but this territory of damaged young people feels like a much more natural fit for Van Sant than, say, Sam Mendes, and judging from the trailer it appears that he has held himself back quite nicely from truly embracing the quirk and, especially with the Asian ghost man character, is treating the material with a bit more soberness than we've come to expect from "independent cinema" these days. Even the image to the left doesn't fill me with bile in this situation as it normally would.

Mia Wasikowska just appears to keep getting better, doesn't she? She'll be unfortunately shafted from any Oscar talk for her role in The Kids Are All Right and since this film is a January release it's fare to say it won't be getting any awards attention in a year's time, but it's this sort of work that will set her up for a great career. And the sight of Mia in that leopard print coat and bright red gloves is just divine, is it not?