The Only Upside of 3D That I Can See...

... is that we get great movies back in theaters where they're meant to be seen. If it takes a 3D conversion, well that's what it takes.

Next year, the only animated picture ever nominated for Best Picture in a field of five films -- don't you love the qualifier? -- Beauty and the Beast will arrive in the January graveyard. That's the month usually reserved for slow-ass expansions of Oscar nominees and terrible Nic Cage movies. Later in the year Titanic arrives for the centennial of the infamous watery disaster. That's good news: 2012 is guaranteed to have at least two great movies. (Yep, I love both of them.)

Given that many of the biggest hits of all time are epically romantic, why is Hollywood making so few romantic movies?

Remember early in the year when articles started popping up suggesting that 3D would be shortlived (as it's always been in the past) since its market share was starting to ebb after all the 2009  Avatar excitement and the perfectly timed hideous 2010 cash-in of Eyesore in Wonderland ? Good times. Yet the statistics, which suggested that the novelty appeal was wearing off and many people would prefer to go back to 2D, were too optimistically misleading. The further along we march post Avatar, the more the industry invests in 3D with an eye towards the next thing "Holograms!" and the the less likely it seems that it will ever be leaving us.

Which makes me sad. I hate the glasses. I hate the fussiness of it. I really enjoyed Hugo EXCEPT for the 3D. It's done very very well (that team of filmmakers is top-notch) and looks beautiful but who needs all those dog noses and hands shoved in their faces? If I want "immersive" entertainment experiences, I'll just pick a good movie to see. The good ones are always immersive, no glasses required. 

Even in films where 3D feels conceptually right somehow, like in Pina where you can understand the spatial relations of the choreography or in Hugo where the 3D plays into the idea of film artists experimenting with a new technological medium I have never once thought "Oh, I'm so glad this wasn't in 2D!" But It's looking like it's here to say. Major film artists like Herzog, Scorsese and Cameron and so on are beating the artistic drum for it and the studios are happy with the short-sighted extra bucks they can charge for it. I say shortsighted because if they keep raising the prices, they price themselves out of relevancy and further cement TV as the opiate of the masses, far and away more popular than film; don't think the price points aren't a major part of that.

How long before we have to split the cinematography Oscar categories like they used to have to with black and white vs. color until black and white I mean 2D is totally gone? Sigh.

So while I shed my little psychic tears about the death of my favorite medium as it becomes something else entirely -- I love holograms but I don't really think of them as "movies". Can't we have both? -- I take comfort that I'm not alone and that I have one bright side. It's an obvious bright side now that Belle and the Beast will soon be spinning in ballrooms and Jack & Rose will be falling in love above and below deck again. Presumably more grand entertainments will follow. Encore!

Mulligan and the Great DiCapsby

True Story: Last night I was walking to a birthday party with a movie-mad friend of mine and we passed a girl with badly bleached short platinum hair. She was wearing a showy vintage coat and her face was squinching up on the verge of drama queen tears. We turned to each other in jinxy double take: 'Carey Mulligan: Shame live in New York, New York!'

It wasn't Mulligan but the look was so spot on it could have been the Halloween parade.

Maybe you had to be there.

But you don't have to be there to enjoy this photo from the set of The Great Gatsby. Normally when an actress turns ubiquitous we get worried (nobody is right for every role) but after her hot mess spin as Sissy in Shame, so different than anything we've seen her do, maybe she can do anything.

Not that "Daisy", another 180˚will be easy to pull off.

I've always loved this description of her voice (the novel is short on physical descriptions but wonderfully evocative in terms of character).

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money — that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it ... high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl. 

More photos and such after the jump...

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Snow White & the Huntsman"

Once upon a time there lived a blogger named Nathaniel R who feared all fairy tale reinventions after the gaudiest of poison apples that was Eyesore in Wonderland left him for dead, comatose. But then on the magical day of November the 10th, this trailer for Snow White & The Huntsmen arrived and woke him with something like true love's kiss.

Or is it another trap? Is this another gaudy brain-dead horror malevolently enchanted with a Prince Charming disguise? Dare Nathaniel dream of a happy ending?

YES

• It's never a bad idea to remind us of Madonna's "Frozen" (♥) and that raven form explosion did the trick for an opening and closing gambit.
• Though the title name checks only Snow White (Kristen Stewart) and The Huntsmen (Chris Hemsworth), the trailer promises that this is totally The Evil Queen Show. And we can live with that since Charlize Theron is delicious.
• "Beauty is my power" ...that creepy yet restrained image of the queen bathed in milk (?) rather than something more cliché like a pool of blood after her opening kill... is so "pop" (think Annie Leibovitz photoshoots) but also has a mysteriously disturbing simplicity. Is the whole movie going to be this visually smart? 
• My god this movie looks so beautiful. Let's see... [IMDb check] ZOMG, it's Greig Fraser on DP duty. No wonder. Remember what he did for Bright Star? He's our new favorite. And... oh... Colleen Atwood on costumes? Really? They look amazing but atypically less than alarmingly busy and fussed over (thank god) than what she concocts lately for Tim Burton.
• Did we mention that we love Charlize Theron?
• Did we mention that we love Charlize best when she embraces her inner outer beauty? When she does she's monstrously good.

No & Maybe So AFTER THE JUMP...

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Kiera vs. Dakota: Who Will Make the Greater Artist's Muse?

With all the projects in development in the world drawn from an infinite number of topics, it's always curious to note how many of them inexplicably arise simultaneously on the same topics. Thompson in Hollywood reports that Keira Knightley is considering the lead role in Untouched (2013?) which is a romantic triangle biopic on the artist muse Effie Gray and her relationship to two men, the art critic John Ruskin and his protégé the painter Everett Millais. She married them both during her lifetime, though only the second marriage was consummated. 

But get this... Dakota Fanning is also playing this role in a competing feature called simply Effie (2012?) written by everyone's favorite Acting/Screenwriting Double Oscar Winner Emma Thompson. While we'd love to see more movies written by Thompson as well as meatier roles for Dakota Fanning (especially since Elle Fanning fever threatens to consume Hollywood), Keira has actual experience as an artist's muse. She's currently filming Anna Karenina, her third feature as Joe Wright's muse (He's only made four features prior to this so by the time Anna Karenina arrives, Keira will have starred in 60% of his filmography; they be tight.)

Effie (2012). Costumes by two time Oscar nominee Ruth Myers<-- Here is Dakota Fanning in costume as Effie. That's Greg Wise (Emma Thompson's real life man and Kate Winslet's heart-breaker in Sense & Sensibility) as her first husband, the art critic John Ruskin. Their marriage was famously unconsummated before she left him for his protege Millais (Tom Sturridge) which caused all sort of social drama in Victorian England.

Millais painted both Effie and her sister Sophie and other family members frequently. There's no word on IMDb about who plays "Sophie" or even if she's in the film but is it too much to ask for Elle Fanning in a surprise uncredited appearance?

Keira or Dakota?
Make your case in the comments.

Or did your eyes glaze over at "Emma Thompson"? Yes yes, we know. We were just saying. She's really all that matters in most movie conversations that involve her. Happily she also acts in Effie. Yay!

Nicole's Perpetual Elephant Love Medley

As if Nicole Kidman hadn't done enough for the mystique of elephants! Ten years ago in Moulin Rouge! (see previous posts) she famously lived, loved, and playfully sang on top of a giant bejewelled 'phant. Now she'll be interacting with the real thing on the silver screen. In early 2012 she'll be heading to Africa to film My Wild Life, a drama about the work of elephants advocate and conservationist Dame Daphne Sheldrick. Phillip Noyce (Salt, The Quiet American) will direct. Sheldrick's autobiography will be published in the spring and by this time next year (or thereabouts), if all goes according to plan, we'll see Nicole Kidman reenacting her adventures just in time for next year's Oscar race.

We assume that the bulk of the film will take place between 1955 and 1976 when Sheldrick (who was in her 20s and 30s at the time) and her husband were the co-wardens of Kenya's Tsavo National Park. Sheldrick became an expert on rearing wild animals particularly elephants and rhinos. According to The Hollywood Reporter the film has been gestating for longer than elephants themselves do (22 months if you need to know) and in previous incarnations Julia Roberts and Kate Winslet were both interested in playing Sheldrick. 

David and Daphe Sheldrick. No word yet on who will play David.I believe Sigourney Weaver was the last actress to get an animal husbandry biopic / Oscar nomination (Gorillas in the Mist, 1988)? It can't be too frequent an occurrence given that we don't see too many of those on the big screen. Even animal husbandry with super powers (Aquaman) never makes it to the big screen.

It occurs to me: the family Elephantidae must have secured good representation in Hollywood ten years back. Ever since Nicole & Ewan's "Elephant Love Medley" they've been getting bigger and bigger roles starting with key supporting parts in action movies (The Lord of the Rings and Ong Bank franchises). Lately they've taken to starring in documentaries (One Lucky Elephant - see previous post) and ampliying and romanticizing the charms of their leading ladies (Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, Reese Witherspoon in Water For Elephants). 

P.S. Here's a fun take on Moulin Rouge's "Elephant Love Medley" with the original songs dubbed in.

P.P.S. There really ought to have been a special Oscar for the song scoring / arranging / adaptation of Moulin Rouge!