Yes, No, Maybe So: Saving Mr. Banks

Glenn here looking at the trailer to the long-awaited sequel to Oscar-winner Finding Neverland!

Tom Hanks as Disney and Emma Thompson as P.L.Travers in "Saving Mr Banks"

Okay, so Saving Mr. Banks isn't a sequel, but it's certainly a kin to Marc Forster's Peter Pan origin story from 2004. I wasn't a fan of that movie, but given we've recently been discussing Johnny Depp's descent into fulltime caricature, maybe we should relish Finding Neverland as one of his few roles of the last decade that didn't rely on kooky make-up and broad physical comedy. For whatever reason I'm surprised Disney didn't try and get Depp on board to play a bumbling Dick Van Dyke in this behind the Hollywood scenes feelgood drama. Instead they went with relative unknown Kris Kyer who actually has a history as a Dick Van Dyke impersonator. Whatta world! [more...]

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Woody Allen to be Jacki Weaver's (Third Time) Lucky Charm?

Glenn here to discuss one of his favourite topics: the career rejuvination of Jacki Weaver!

When Weaver scored a seemingly improbable Oscar nomination a few years back for Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom (a nomination I predicted an equally improbable year in advance), most expected the diminutive Aussie to crawl off back home with her pride, some glamorous memories and little else. The rest, however, as we all know, went much differently. She hasn't been working anywhere near as much the lady that bested her to the statue - that'd be Melissa Leo who's accepted everything in her path - but she's been afforded the chance to work with some great auteurs and got a second nomination earlier this year to boot. More...

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"I'd like to thank the Academy..."

...for uploading this video of the 1994 costume Academy Award presentation when I asked them to. Here's how it began...

I had found myself in one of those YouTube wormholes of watching Oscar clips at 3am. I am sure we've all been there. I've watched them all so many times that I honestly don't know why I keep going back - especially since rights issues force The Academy's YouTube channel to delete the acting nominee clips (boo! hiss!) Alas, like a masochist I just keep going back. Don't we all?

Nevertheless, I am always frustrated at the selection of videos that The Academy choose to upload. I always want to watch costume designers, art directors, special effects artists, and so on. I like hearing the applause for left-of-centre selections. I think it's fun to see how the writers and presenters represented these categories and people. So, in a joking fashion I tweeted The Academy stating that, gosh, I really just want to see the 1994 costume design category.

AND THEY UPLOADED IT. FOR ME!

"Ask and you shall receive", so they say. And quickly, too. Well, who can say no to The Academy uploading a video just because you ask? This is inarguably one of my favourite Oscar moments and I was so sad when the original video got taken down years ago, but now it's here again for us to watch and marvel whenever we feel like. Watching it now and I still grin from ear to ear when Sharon Stone (a rare Oscar presenter who surely doesn't feel like the telecast's dodgy writing is beneath her) announces a low-budget Australian movie about drag queens as the winner of an Academy Award. When winner Lizzy Gardiner gets on the stage in a dress made of American Express credit cards. When lovably weird Lizzy shoves her co-winner aside: "Shut up, it's my turn!" When they joke about going to "cry with some dignity" and "get a drink." Who can deny it was an amazing moment and now it's there to watch again and again.

"And the Oscar... goes to... And the Oscar goes to Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." - Sharon Stone.

The video has already been viewed some 1300 times in just a matter of days, so there are clearly plenty of people out there that want this stuff. Are they all Film Experience readers?If you could ask The Academy to upload one category from what year, which would it be? Maybe they'll read this and upload it for you! And don't forget to watch the Priscilla video over and over again. Maybe then we'll get more like it.

Cyndi and the EGOT

Glenn here talking Tony. The Tonys, of course. More specifically Cyndi Lauper at them.

There were many things from last night's show worth discussing - that opening number, the Smash cast all seated plum in the front row, Megan Hilty's performance in the ode to axed TV series with Andrew Rannells (The New Normal) and Laura Benanti (Go On), Cicely Tyson's ruffle dress, the terrible Bring It On performance, the incredible Pippin performance - but one of the most interesting is, I think, Cyndi Lauper now being just an Oscar away from finishing off the prestigious EGOT.

Ever since winning the Best New Artist Grammy in 1985 the careers of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna have been intrinsically linked. Madonna wasn't nominated for the Grammy (can you believe?), but these two fiercely iconic 1980s superstars have always felt like competing examples of the fortunes of '80s superstars. While it's generally accepted that Lauper's career as a top 40 artist ended far too soon just as Madonna's was soaring, Cyndi hasn't been laying low all these years. In between her Grammy in 1985 (and 1988), she has continued to record and tour and in 1995 won an Emmy Award for her guest stint on Mad About You, performed in The Threepenny Opera to critical acclaim (but no Tony attention), and been a fierce feminist and advocate of the LGBT community. Add in last night's sparkly Tony for scoring the stage adaptation of Kinky Boots (we've all forgotten how bland the movie is, right? I think that's for the best - check out Nathaniel's review of the stage show to see why) and she has no reason to be disappointed with now it all turned out. Now she has but one statue to go before completing the EGOT. Can she do it and solidify a place as an all time great? Because the mountains of cash she continue to reaps from "Time After Time" and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" just aren't satisfying enough, clearly. Madonna who?

Dear Madonna: I love you forever. Please be my friend. 

Unlike Madonna, Cyndi has never appeared all that interested in Hollywood. Oh sure, she attempted a crossover career with Vibes, but the toxic reaction to that Jeff Goldblum flick set inside a Chinatown laundry and South American jungle (?!?) from 1988 probably turned her off future endeavours. That film did, however, bring us one of Cyndi's most under-appreciated hits (it went top ten in Australia and New Zealand so we can call it a hit even if it was a flop everywhere else), "Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China)". Just one of many songs from the mini-phenomena of the 1980s that went in a vaguely racist direction of reappropriated Asian culture into wacky pop melodies that utilised a lot of gongs and pipes and one presumes there was a Chinese fisherman's hat somewhere in there that was a horrifically misjudged fashion statement. Like the urban sombrero. Cyndi's song is fantastic, "Oriental Boy" by The Flirts is not.

Cyndi's only other foray into feature film songwriting (unless I'm missing something - am I?) was "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" from The Goonies in 1985. A dinky pop ditty that sounds exactly like one would expect from an up-and-coming singer on the soundtrack to the teenage adventure film. I'm not as big a fan of the song as many others, and apparently Cyndi herself hates it, too. The more you know. I'd still prefer it as an Oscar nominee over anything from White Nights though.

Grammy, Emmy, and now Tony. Is Oscar next for Cyndi?

Other than that Cyndi has steered clear of recording tunes for soundtracks. Why, I'm not so sure? Still, if Cyndi is keen on completing the EGOT now would be the time to strike. In doing so she would become the first since Scott Rudin in 2007 (his Oscar for producing No Country for Old Men sealed that deal). She's clearly popular with awards bodies and nobody has a bad word to say about her. Plus the Academy's music branch would surely appreciate the fact that she hasn't appeared desperate for it like her chief '80s rival. And even though they might like to appear otherwise, they're not totally against giving the award to big celebrity songwriter these days (Adele says hi). If she ever does win, Dolly Parton's famously friendly persona may finally crack. What does she have to do to win one of those golden bad boys?

Chin up ladies, Jane can split her second Oscar between you.

I Left My Film Festival in San Francisco

Glenn here with a report from the recently concluded 56th San Francisco Film Festival. I travelled to the Golden Gate city and sat on the FIPRESCI jury, judging a roster of eleven films from first and second-time directors. Given the attention given to FIPRESCI – The International Federation of Film Critics, or Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique if you want to be European about it – I wasn’t allowed to discuss the films as the festival progressed (can’t let the pundits in on what we’re going to reward now, can we?), but now we can take short looks at each of the competition titles.

Youth
Directed by Justine Malle (yes, Louis Malles daughter), and starring Esther Garrel (daughter of Philippe; sister of ubiquitous French star Louis Garrel) and with a title as definitive as Youth (there should be an "!" there just for effect), Malle’s debut has the weight of baggage. Appropriate then given it’s about a young woman dealing with first love, sex, parties, exams, an ill womanising filmmaking father, and wine. So much wine. From the very opening scene Malle does a fine job of establishing this young girl torn between the city life with her mother and the country life of her father. Her train trips back and forth are very literal back-and-forths with her personality as she tries to decide what she wants. And that includes one of her classmates, Benjamin (Émile Bertherat that my notes proclaim has “DREAMBOAT HAIR!”) The film has some pertinent things to say about young women and society’s view of them – a stranger sees her crying over her dying father and asks “is it about a boy?” I enjoyed it a lot, even if it did feel somewhat like a film I’ve seen before.

10 more films (some maddening, some great), one strange cat, one possible Oscar submission after the jump...

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