10th Anniversary: Joan Allen, Family Struggles, and 'The Upside of Anger'

a special anniversary tribute from Adam Armstrong

Are you close with your father?”

This was asked of me recently at a social gathering for a graduate school program I may attend in the fall. Not knowing how to respond, or rather, unwilling to respond honestly, I answered by saying, “Yes, you could say so.”

This is the scenario people who come from a family in which the dynamic has been disrupted from a parent abandoning the unit loathe, yet know all too well its inevitability in conversation.

So does The Upside of Anger, which is celebrating its tenth year in release. The film chronicles the means by which a family copes and moves forward with their lives after the patriarch has left them, presumptuously thought to have run off with his younger secretary to live in Sweden. The family, one all too relatable in this modern familial climate of increasing divorce rates, is comprised of a bitter mother and her brood of children, all of whom in some way fail to meet her and each other’s expectations. [more...]

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Day of Rest (feat. Evan Rachel Wood)

Shhhhhhhhhhh. I'm sleeping in today. I promise my bed is more comfortable than the on that Evan Rachel Wood is cavorting on in this old photoshoot (I believe it was from Flaunt Magazine?).

Happy Ides of March day. Remember how good she was in that?

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Little Miss Cat Lady, Avatar Land, and Other Links

Coming Soon Quentin Tarantino is doing another western (The Hateful Eight) with Christoph Waltz. Sad face. Was hoping he'd try new genres with new stars. 
Film Doctor Her and the intimacy machine
The Guardian a questionnaire for A:OC's Abigail Breslin. Turns out that Little Miss Sunshine herself is a crazy cat lady. Yay! 

Carpetbagger Suzanne Vega is the latest musician to come out with having issues about the portrayal of the music scene in Inside Llewyn Davis
MNPP another fan of Scarlett Johansson's sensational work in Don Jon -- I tell you people... it's so embarrassing that this performance didn't get any Oscar traction!
Just Jared check out Evan Rachel Wood's singing pipes. Wowza. There's another actress to cast in movie musicals

Predictable Sequel News of the Moment
Cinema Blend Terminator Genesis which is already on two strikes (first you don't reboot a series based on time travel which already allows do-overs without pretending originals didn't happen / second they already practiced exceptionally uninteresting casting by getting TV girl badass to play movie girl badass) is now looking for the male lead. I hated the latest Die Hard but Jai Courtney is super nice to look at so can I root for him?
/Film Avatar Land  begins construction in Florida. James Cameron is helping design it because, you know, anything to slow down his filmmaking. I am only interested in going to a land like this if they really amp up virtual technology and you get to be actually inside the body of a huge blue alien with great abs and have hot virtual sex with hair braids

I feel like you could charge a lot of money for that. The park plans an opening to coincide with the Avatar sequels in 2016/2017... or if I know James Cameron, 2019/2020.

Unpredictable Sequel News of the Moment
Did you hear they're making a sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? The whole cast (except Tom Wilkinson *sniffle*) will return and Richard Gere and David Strathairn will join them.

Today's Watch
If you haven't yet seen Todrick Hall's Mean Girls parody, Mean Boyz. It's tres gay

My favorite bit is the "small pizza" punchline. Yours?

Sisters of the Forest

JA from MNPP here. We all know what happened the last time a girl named Nell wandered into the woods - no good can come from it! I kid, I kid - I know there are vehement Nell defenders out there, and I've no doubt you're all up in this actressexual's haven, so I'll step off.

I only use that Jodie Foster film as a sideways stepping stone to address today's news that Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood have signed up to star in Into the Forest, an adaptation of Jean Hegland's book about a pair of sisters (named Nell, a-ha, and Eva), one a ballet dancer and the other a student (I don't think I'll ever figure out which actress is playing which role!), who are forced into survival mode together when society comes crashing down around them in the not distant future. Have any of you read the book? I have not but it sounds right up my alley and I think I will go pick myself up a copy right this second. What do you think about Page and Wood playing sisters? Patricia Rozem, who previously made the womanly entertainments Grey Gardens and Mansfield Park, is directing.

Q&A: Disappointing Actresses, Mixed-Up Hunks, Subtitled Crickets

And now the return of the 'Ask Nathaniel/Q&A' series wherein you asked me questions and I pick two handfuls to answer. 

Disposable project on the line for Emily. Yes, another one.DAVID: Which actresses filmographies are you most disappointed in? I'm thinking in terms of actresses you admire and think are incredibly talented, but, for whatever reason, end up working in subpar films.

NATHANIEL: I think the popular answer here is Rachel McAdams but aside from Mean Girls I've never cared too much. The answer that came immediately to mind was Emily Blunt. It’s not that she’s making terrible films per se, it’s just that given how Oscar worthy she was in that plum comic part in Devil Wears Prada seven long years ago, and then how sexy she was in that blink and you’ll miss her bit in Charlie Wilson’s War soon thereafter, I expected her career to explode in the way, say, Carey Mulligan’s did post An Education or at least for her to be more direct competition for Anne Hathaway. I wonder why Blunt isn’t either in more demand or more interested in challenging herself. Maybe it's just bad luck. She seems to be working exclusively in indies that don't crossover, mainstream films that are quickly forgotten or headlining gigs which don't really work in some crucial way (Young Victoria, Adjustment Bureau). I’d love to see her really challenged either by a role or by an auteur. Will Into the Woods bring a happily ever after to that heat-losing career?

The second choice is Evan Rachel Wood who seemed to chuck what looked like incredible range and promise to the side for a long procession of Very Bad Girls. This was, in no small part thanks to her inarguable electricity in Thirteen (2003) but when you play variations on one theme too often you either become a superstar or people lose interest. I thought she was good in Ides of March (2011) but it isn't what she needed. What she needs is a total about face role.

JOHN T: The last foreign language film to clear $20 million was Pan's Labyrinth, almost seven years ago. What do you think it would take for a foreign language film to catch on in that way again?

Amy Adams, Oscar Tragedies, and a Beefcake Triple after the jump...

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