Catwoman and Marie Antoinette Would Just HATE Each Other

Shortly after writing about The Dark Knight Rises I got all frustrated remembering how audiences are ignoring the bracing terrific French drama Farewell My Queen so I couldn't resist doodling about them together. Enjoy!

That arthouse drama about The Terror would make for an eye opening double feature for fanboys, an educational footnote if you will, for Chris Nolan's awkward political metaphors about the unruly 99% and how hard they are on those put upon benevolent 1%ers!

Speaking of bags upon bags of money and who's got it... this weekend's box office charts.

Box Office Fifteen
01 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES $64 (Cum. $289) Review
02 ICE AGE 4 $13.3 (cum. $114.8)
03 THE WATCH $13 *new*
04 STEP UP REVOLUTION $11.8 *new*
05 TED $7.3 (cum $193.6)
06 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN $6.8 (cum $242) Review
07 BRAVE $4.2 (cum. $217.2)
08 MAGIC MIKE $2.5 (cum. $107.5) Review
09 SAVAGES $1.7 (cum. $43.8) 
10 MOONRISE KINGDOM $1.3 (cum. $38.3) 

11 MADEA'S WITNESS PROTECTION $2.5 (cum. $62.7) 
12 TO ROME WITH LOVE $4.2 (cum. $12.9) Review
13 BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD $2.5 (cum. $4.1) 
14 MADAGASCAR 3 $4.2 (cum. $209.5)
15 THE AVENGERS $2.5 (cum. $616) Review

Just outside the top 15, French import and international feel good hit The Intouchables is really rising. It's about to hit $5 million in the US and still expanding. Outside of TDKR, the most crowded theaters (i.e. per screen average) were for two indies in very limited theatrical release: NC-17 rated Killer Joe (with Matthew McConaughey and Gina Gershon based on the Tracy Letts play) and Ruby Sparks with Paul Dano as a writer and Zoe Kazan as his creation. 

What did you watch this weekend? Besides The Olympics of course. 

Review: "Farewell My Queen"

An abridged version of this review originally appeared in my column at Towleroad 

There are numerous reasons why the Marie Antoinette story has fascinated artists and storytellers for centuries now. From the Court's commitment to theatrical flamboyance with a blind eye to the consequent suffering of the masses (modern pop culture echos were seen as recently as The Hunger Games this spring), to the complexity of the Queen's intimate lonely gilded cage tragedy played against the backdrop of a vast messy violent history. One could argue that the now mythic story is super relevant all over again in this era of rampant socioeconomic injustice and the angry gap between the 1 and 99%. 

Benoît Jacquot clues you in early that he means to tell the famous story differently in the just released French import  Farewell My Queen. For one, it's told "backstage" through the stressful lives of the servants. Consider it the French Revolution: Downton Abbey Edition... without Maggie Smith or the jokes.

The German actress Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) plays the troubled big-spending transplanted queen, Léa Seydoux (Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol), the film's actual lead, is her bosomy devoted servant Madame Laborde, and Virginia Ledoyen (8 Women) is the Queen's Object of Affection, the Duchess de Polignac. The French people were so unhappy with this rumored affair that the ostensibly powerless Duchess was fairly high on the list of the 286 heads demanded for the guillotine! [More...]

Click to read more ...

Complete the Sentences. My Favorite French....

My favorite French movie is _________________ because ___________________ .  My favorite French actress is _____________ and she should _________________ .

You know what to do in the comments!

France is on my brain for five reasons today.

1. It's Bastille Day! Happy Bastille Day.

Tweet of the Day

2. The Tour de France is on

3. I saw Farewell My Queen (just opening in select cities) last night and it was happily excellent with a surprisingly strong lead performance from Léa Seydoux (Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Midnight in Paris) as a favored servant of the infamous Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger, also compelling). Here's my review. Go see it if it's in your city.

NOT your average fussy costume drama

4. Speaking of ladies of Versailles, the very buzzy documentary Queen of Versailles opens next week and I hear it's a must see though I haven't musted myself all the way to any screenings yet. [Please to note: "Queen of Versailles" in this case is aspirational and takes place in Orlando, Florida]

5. France is often on my mind because they produce at least one irreplaceable movie star queen a decade (Moreau, Adjani, Huppert, Deneuve, Binoche, etcetera) and usually a dozen other amazing ladies-in-waiting, too. Vive la France!

My tweet conversations last night after seeing the movie with Will, Joe, and Andrew ... (why aren't you following me? us?)

NOW... March toward the comments and stage your own revolution for a favorite film and actress before someone gets beheaded.

This & That (And A Bit More On *That*)

Woodcutting Fool David Lynch carved
Go Fug Yourself on Reese Witherspoon (and child) in France
MUBI's Notebook lists favorite Cannes films of 2012 (the winner being way down the list)
Film School Rejects Why blockbusters need to get their third act together. Heartily agree with much of this.
TV|Line Smash will lose two of its major male characters in Season 2. Does this mean Dennis & Bobby get more screen time? (I know it doesn't but my wishful thinking can be noisy and demand sentences all its own.)

AV Club wins the Best Snarky Headline of the Week (*not a real award) with this beauty... "Malin Akerman is playing Debbie Harry, who is also blonde."
Pajiba Most Versatile Bruce Willis
No Film School Most Fascinating Michael Haneke 
Coming Soon new Les Miserables photos. Apparently the trailer arrives today as well. We'll hear the people sing tonight in a Yes No Maybe So post.
Rope of Silicon Batmobiles  

Splitsider the Joss Whedon Roseann episodes
Playbill free outdoor staging of the hilarious stage adaptation of Xanadu will play Park Slope Brooklyn this summer
Acidemic on reality-warping multiple viewings of three 'comedies of remarriage' The Lady Eve, Bringing Up Baby and Bell Book and Candle 
My New Plaid Pants The Exorcist for TV via Martha Marcy May Marlene director?!?
La Daily Musto international beauties Léa Seydoux and Diane Kruger go sapphic for a  lesbian Marie Antoinette film called Farewell My Queen.

KISS HER! 

The Release Date Shuffle: Michael Haneke's Amour will be opening (and thus Oscar qualifying) on December 19th a bit earlier than Haneke's previous feature White Ribbon which did one of those awful New Year's Eve weekend releases in time for Oscar; G.I. Joe: Retaliation's shocking pushback to 2013 is prompting specalutation about how bad it might be. Last second release shifts for wannabe blockbusters are rare as they're expensive to open... and I promise that's the last time we group G.I. Joe with Michael Haneke in a paragraph; The Life of Pi arrives one month early so you can gobble it up for Thanksgiving instead of unwrapping it at Christmas time which is the inverse of what happened with the new Barbra Streisand picture, The Guilt Trip; And finally yes... yes... Cuaron's Gravity, our most anticipated this year, is now our most anticipated of 2013 (sniffle) which means that we've got to update those Oscar predictions. I know I know. Don't rush me! (This weekend?)

A Personal Note: I thought a link list was in order to get back up to speed (as much as one can in a day)... I generally cull the links through a process of trying to keep up to speed with What's Going On even though "news items" are only like ¼ of the links shared. 

But I couldn't let this return to blogging (glad to be crawling back -- we should be back in full swing by Thursday night) go without a hearty thank you to all of you, the readers, who sent such kind words on facebook, by email or right here on the blog after my father passed away. I spent a week in Utah with my mom and siblings and there were tears and memories and even laughter, too. My mom demanded a correction from my memoir post though. The photo that I love of my parents was taken before they were married. Hey, I wasn't there - honest mistake. She told me an amazing personal story about it and, as it turns out, it's her single favorite picture of the two of them. Now, I ♥ the photo even more.

Kiki, the Runway Bride

Here comes the bride, all dressed depressed in white ♬

Should the Apocalypse ever need to take wife, it couldn't do better than to kneel before one Kirsten Dunst and beg for her hand in unholy matrimony. Isn't she aesthetically effective and spectacularly depressing in a wedding gown?! Two of her signature characters, Justine in Melancholia and Marie Antoinette in Marie Antoinette march toward certain doom in their white and ivory splendor. 

I was thinking about Dunst for four reasons today. 

1. It's Marie Antoinette's 256th birthday today. Eat cake.
2. I was just reading that she'll reteam with Orlando Bloom, her Elizabethtown co-star for, sort of in the Roger Donaldson's new interlocking stories thriller Cities. I believe she'll be involved with Clive Owen's character in the film, a NYC hedge fund manager. But the Elizabethtown connection is worrisome only in that that film seemed to lead to the sudden downward spiral of her career, Bloom's career, and director Cameron Crowe's career who disappeared thereafter. (But he'll be back soon with We Bought a Zoo.)
3. That coincidentally nervous-making news aside, she's been making all the right moves career-wise lately and I couldn't be more pleased. She's such a fine actress.
4. Melancholia opens on the 11th, expands on the 18th and I have something special planned for it that I think you'll enjoy. Something more interactive than you're accustomed to in movie reviews. My review will arrive late next week... and I hope you'll see the movie first chance you get. It's very very sticky.

So... Kirsten Dunst: Does she make you hear wedding bells?