Meryl Sings "Cold One" - A Best Original Song Contender

[Editors Note: In the neverending soap opera of Nathaniel's lifelong on again/off again romance with Meryl Streep, they are in love again at the moment. Just thought you'd like to know.]

Everything about this clip is promising. Streep's raspy voice, that low-key estranged but still domestic comfort vibe, the fluffy dogs, it's matter-of-fact history "...a long time ago". People didn't seem thrilled by the trailer to Ricki and The Flash but but with Jonathan Demme behind the camera and behind the script, there will surely be moments to savor regardless of whatever it does or doesn't amount to as a film.

Jenny Lewis wrote original songs for the film including this one. Do we have our first Oscar contender in that category? (I updated that speculative chart to include this tune as well as the two Southpaw songs by Eminem.) 

Yes No Maybe So: "My Old Lady"

Here's Andrew Kendall on a trailer I didn't get to! I've thrown my back out and I thank the team for this weekend's content for your amusement. I should be back in regular form soon - Nathaniel R

That it took an entire week for Yes No Maybe So to appear for upcoming British dramedy My Old Lady shouldn’t be seen as a sign of disinterest, or indicative of the trailer's merit. Although, on suggesting it for this series I pointed out to Nathaniel that Israel Horovitz's quiet European dramedy might not be one many are immediately passionate about. In the glut of trailers released in the past week, the modest My Old Lady seems to have been lost in the midst. Although I generally I tend to avoid trailers, I was curious to see how Horovitz would adapt his drawing-room play, which I'm fond of, to the screen.

Here's the trailer. The Yes No Maybe So breakdown featuring Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas is after the jump...

Click to read more ...

We Can't Wait Addendum: "The Last of Robin Hood"

In January we did a countdown of 2014 movies we were most looking forward to. With the distribution news that The Last of Robin Hood, an Errol Flynn bio of sorts with Kevin Kline will be released I feel the need to give it a shout out.

Errol Flynn keeps entering my consciousness when I least expect him lately. I was talking to Diana (currently in LA with Anne Marie to report on the TCM Film Festival for y'all right her) the other day over dinner and she brought him up. She loves the swashbuckling movie star and enjoyed the film at TIFF. I was also at a very chic event celebrating the photography of George Hurrell and there was a huge absolutely stunning portrait of Errol Flynn mixed with several perfect Joan Crawfords.

So when I read the news today, I became properly stoked at last. I love the poster's clever arrowhead riff (pictured left top) on that most boring of poster tropes, one visual stripe per star. I was once friendly with the film's directors (though we've lost touch). And, out of curiousity, I looked up a picture of Errol with his inappropriately young girlfriend at the end of his life and my jaw dropped...

Kevin Kline and Dakota Fanning couldn't be better casting, could they? 

The Complete List of "We Can't Wait" Titles in case you missed them.
We'll be following all these titles closely this year! 
01 Carol (TBA)
02 The Grand Budapest Hotel (March)
03 Foxcatcher (TBA)
04 Under the Skin (April)
05 Inherent Vice (TBA)
06 Into the Woods (Christmas)
07 Snowpiercer (TBA)
08 Nymphomaniac (March)
09 Boyhood (July)
10 Big Eyes  (TBA)
11 The Last 5 Years (TBA)
12 Gone Girl (Oct)
13 Begin Again (TBA)
14 Veronica Mars (March)

Runner Up Films

Happy Mothers Day! (What's the Last Movie You Took Your Mother To?)

Did you call your mother yet? I was just talking to mine. Before we hung up, apropos of nothing, she says...

I was watching Turner Classic Movies this week. Sometimes I think of you when I watch."

Which... well, from my mother that's like a huge bouquet of flowers and hugs since she isn't super verbally affectionate. When pressed about which movie(s) she couldn't remember. "You know... that actress"

Was it... Barbara Stanwyck? I asked, trying to help with the first name that popped into my mind. "No. But I've seen lots of her movies. I didn't used to like her but now I do." 

Her current obsession is The Pirates of Penzance (1983) with 'that great new actor Kevin Kline' (new, mom?). She has apparently been buying up his filmography on VHS at garage sales and also likes French Kiss (1995) "except for the awful language!" Last time I visited she wanted to see Snow White and the Huntsman and then closed her eyes for half the movie.

What peculiar movie tastes does your mom have? What's the last movie you took her to?

Thirteen Links About Eleven Things

Antagony & Ecstasy remembers Whit Stilllman's great comedy Metropolitan (1990)
Monkey See Kevin Kline and a puppy because... well... Kevin Kline and a puppy!
Empire Ben Kingsley will provide the mustache twirling for Iron Man 3
Telegraph Tim Robey sees an expo reel from Ridley Scott's Prometheus 
MNPP who wore it best? 'cubist memory disintegration' with Colin Farrel & Jake Gyllenhaal

Movie|Line sums up all the "will Gary Ross direct The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire?" serialized drama that's been syndicated all over the internet. I've ignored it until this recap because who has time for meaningless speculation that reverses itself each day?
World of Wonder "The Hunger GAYmes"
Coming Soon Woody Harrelson joining the cast of Out of the Furnace (the new film from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper) as the villain
Cinema Blend still more Woody news. He's signed on for a cable series with his BFF Matthew McConaughey that sounds like a prestigey version of Cold Case. Why? His film career is going so well at the moment... stranger still is that Cary Fukunaga who has directed two terrific movies (Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre) and needs to keep stoking the early fires of his screen career has signed on to direct it.

The Mary Sue Tim Burton may be lining up another stop motion movie Night of the Living
24 Frames no full frontal this time for Jason Segel in Five Year Engagement
Flavorwire has an interesting list of the best platonic boy/girl friendships on tv. It is an underexplored realm.
Playbill Margaret obsessives take note. Kenneth Lonergan's next play "Medieval Play" opens in May. It's a story of two French knights described thusly.

A story of friendship, love, noble feats of arms, indiscriminate brutality, the progressive refinement of medieval table manners and the general decline of the chivalric ideal at the onset of the Great Papal Schism of 1378.

So in other words he's going to keep shoving as many ideas as possible into his narratives.