New Photos from "Theory of Everything" & "Big Eyes"

Three new stills for movies about complicated marriages among brilliant people. Expect trailers very shortly. First up is Theory of Everything coming November 7th and based on Jane Hawking's autobiography "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen"

A few thoughts I had... uncensored as they come to me. 

• Felicity Jones always makes me think of Like Crazy & The Tempest. I did not fall. Unless you mean like crazy annoyed with her. Can she suddenly be fascinating in this?
• This might easily fall into the stock "supportive wife" role syndrome (not that Oscar will mind. But we might) even if it is from her perspective?
• Is Eddie Redmayne the best-looking gawky nerdstar ever? There's something about him that shouldn't really work as a leading man onscreen and yet he sure does... work it. You know?
• ♥ Marius 
• I'm glad this isn't named after the book... people might be expecting a sci-fi time travel flick
• Golden light is shorthand for romantic aura / nostalgia

The other new stills are from Tim Burton's Big Eyes, coming Christmas Day starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz as the Keanes. The wife did the big eye paintings and the husband got credit for them. 

 • Whenever they show actors painting or drawing onscreen I am INSTANTLY looking to see if they're actually doing anything... kind of the way when an actor plays piano I stare intensely at the hands and dread the cut to closeup of their hands when the actor is replaced by a person who can do that thing. It annoys me that I do this, trust, but I can't help it.
• Closeups of actors hands...it's never them! Remember when Robin Bartlett told me she didn't scribble that note to Leo in Shutter Island.
• There's almost nothing I dislike more aesthetically (from disappointment rather than unattractiveness) than when redheads go blonde for movies. I want them ALWAYS ginger.

• Love the red light in this picture. The cinematography is by 4 time Oscar nominee Bruno Delbonnel in case you were wondering.
• I want this to be good so badly. But the odds... I'm just going to whisper Ed Wood over and over to myself and hope for the best
• Big Eyes would also be a good name for a documentary exploring the physiogonomy of actors since so many of them have unnaturally ginormous orbs. All the better to expose the inner humanity of their characters.
• I got a new computer! *

My new computer is so big I could trap Jeff Bridges in it for decades

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) August 4, 2014

What does this have to do with Big Eyes, you ask? Well, I'm slightly traumatized because even though it's gorgeously super-sized most of my old programs don't work anymore because it's so new, so I'm trying to come up with solutions so i can manipulate images and the Oscar charts again. IF photoshop was working I would be manipulating this image right now so that it showed them fighting over Christoph Waltz's two Oscars instead of a painting. He only deserved one of them, so surely he should give ONE to Amy who has way more range.

It's only right! 

* I know I already said this this morning but the excitement overfloweth. It's been like seven years since I got a new desktop!

Lee Pace Plays Hard To Get For a Day

Remember when Lee Pace and Amy Adams played the romantic leads in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) ? Every once in a blue moon I flash back to that movie because Lee Pace is so dreamy and Amy sings so sweetly.

But things are rocky between them at first.

Amy: Kiss Me?

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Batman & Superman: The Complete Series & Body-ody-ody

na na na na na na na na ♬ ♬ ♬

Warner Bros has announced that all 120 Episodes of the camp 60s Batman series are coming to DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time in November. This is awesome news (so many stars were in that show) but what about consumer choices? May I please order Batman: The Incomplete Series with only the Batgirl & Catwoman episodes at a discounted price? That's how I watched the show as a child. If the Batgirl cutout above didn't come swinging into frame during that nananananana theme song (as she did in episodes in which she appeared) I sometimes just turned off the TV and ran outside to play. True story!

My preferred Catwoman FWIW was Julie Newmar.... though as an adult my appreciation for Eartha Kitt in other venues rose dramatically so I'm curious if I would like her rendition of Catwoman more now?

Anyway it's all remastered. Look at how much the colors pop!

 

In other superhero news, the first still of Henry Cavill as Superman from The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Heroes in Love: Batman vs. Superman has been released. He stands erect, ready for any threat beyond the Kryptonite of Amy Adams' sheer indifference (Love her but my god that was terrible casting. Newsflash Hollywood: no actor is right for everything... even when they're at their most popular)

I just hope Henry Cavill's trainer has concentrated on his lower body a little more this year. I know we were all supposed to drool over the body-ody-ody in round one but I found it weirdly and displeasingly top heavy, like at any moment he might fall over from the girth of that Super Torso atop those Only Human legs.  

"Big Eyes" Sneak

Tim Burton with Lisa Marie and her comissioned portraitEarly test screenings of Big Eyes have started, Tim Burton's Christmas movie and the word is very positive.

The film stars Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz as an infamous pair of artists... of sorts. Margaret Keane was the artist but it was Walter Keane who got the credit for the well known paintings of sad children with ginormous eyes. In fact, as "Sage" points out in the test screening review at Head Over Feels in a great piece of trivia I was hardly aware of, Burton is a long time fan and commissioned a portrait of Lisa Marie, his former muse, who once cut such an indelible figure in his movies. (I think she's best in Ed Wood and Mars Attacks!)

Anyway, you should read the post if you're interested since there's a lot of Oscar talk (Amy= sure thing / Christoph = probable category fraud) but I like this part:

The story of the Keanes is so bananas that there’s nothing to do but keep it and the ’50s themselves center stage. Burton’s stylistic touches are there and all the more effective for their restraint. We first meet Margaret as she and her daughter are frantically packing up to escape, we assume, her first husband. She piles her things into a big boat of a pastel car and drives it down her calm, colorful, and symmetrical suburban street – very Edward Scissorhands. Vancouver streets are transformed into a swinging, San Francisco drag. Margaret pushes her shopping cart through cartoonishly perfect grocery store aisles. She locks herself away in her studio to paint in secret, like a princess in a tower. The costumes and styling are truly breathtaking...Burton adds touch of the fantastical that I won’t give away; it works and does nothing to downplay the drama of Margaret’s real story.

Hearing words like "a touch of" and "restraint" is really weird in this era of Burton films. Perhaps I should pick back up that BurtonJuice retrospective I started but only just barely before abandoning?

When I was in Boston in May worrying about my then half completed Oscar charts,  I ended up eating brunch with friends in a tiny charming restaurant that had a Keane print ("The Waif") on the wall. I immediately thought "I should tweet this for Big Eyes omen/countdown sake" but forgot.

(The girl in the foreground is one of my best friend's sisters. But I apologize to the oblivious strangers behind her but they were in the shot!)

Do you think Big Eyes is Burton's Oscar ticket or another Big Fish with large holiday hype and some ardent fans but no Oscar love? 

Cannes Beauties: Jane Judges, Nicole Headlines, Amy Sells

We'll be hearing from Diana, our woman on the ground in Cannes, soon for her take on Grace of Monaco. Since I'm starting to feel human again (yay!) I'm back at the computer and hoping to be full speed by Friday. So let's check out the festival's first day. 

1. Jane Campion, Gender, and Juries
First a Red Carpet Lineup. Who wins your best dressed vote from the ladies of the jury? (And isn't it special that they all have such different styles?)

Coppola (USA), Yeon (South Korea), Campion (New Zealand), Hatami (Iran), and Bouqet (France)Lelia, Sofia & Jane

Campion, an outspoken feminist and infrequent filmmaker (let's get that new film rolling!) responded to questions about the lack of female films at the festival (which is famously very resistant to new voices, often inviting the same "masters" each time they make a movie... so we're talking lots of old men).

It does feel very undemocratic. We don’t get our share of representation. It always seems to be a surprise for the world when a woman does come out [as a success].”

Thankfully women are well represented on the jury and for the opening film you got two movie goddesses (Grace Kelly & Nicole Kidman) for the price of one... though most critics wanted their money back even though they saw the movie for free.

Nicole Kidman & Amy Adams & Lots of Photos after the jump...

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