April Showers: Edward Norton x 2

Hope you've enjoyed the April Showers series. There are SO many films we could have covered. (Tangent: I'm dying to know, for example, when the first shower sequence ever filmed was. The earliest I personally know of is Marilyn Monroe in Niagara (1953) which I meant to write about. Oops. But there has to be something earlier, right? I've searched but can't find any definitive info.)

Though I hate to end on a disturbing note I haven't been able to get Edward Norton out of my mind recently so we have to look back at American History X (1998).

Edward Norton as "Derek" in American History X

I'm not sure how Mr. Norton became lodged in my brain recently but if I had to guess it'd be the combo of Mark Ruffalo taking over the Hulk (they just started filming The Avengers) and a random flashback to The Painted Veil. Then at some point last week I said to myself "Edward Norton was Ryan Gosling before Ryan Gosling was Ryan Gosling" i.e. the actor that everyone thought was The Actor of His Generation, The Future. And then I really couldn't get him out of my head.

Norton famously gained much of his Great Actor reputation from American History X (1998), and won a longshot Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In the film he plays Derek, a loathsome racist who, after realizing his world view is full of shit while serving time in prison, tries to turn his life around before his younger brother follows his same dark path. It's disturbing to note how much acting cred can come from playing racist skinheads; Russell Crowe (Romper Stomper) and Ryan Gosling (The Believer) had similar artistic breakthroughs.

I've never known quite what to make of American History X -- it's one of those films like, say, Natural Born Killers, that seems to struggle with its own theme merely by addressing it. If you keep visualizing something awful through strong visuals and hugely charismatic acting, aren't you actually glorifying what you're supposed to be condemning? So this post is also a call for your opinions. I'm just curious how readers feel about the movie because it's one of those key late 90s Oscar players that I don't believe we've ever discussed. (I was in the Sir Ian McKellen camp that year but I was enormously pleased that Norton managed a nomination.)

As Derek begins to form a tentative friendship with a black prisoner, his neonazi counterparts turn violently against him. Showers are always bad news in prison movies. More after the jump [NSFW]

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Vilanch & Musto: Crystal or Jackman?

Comedy writer Bruce Vilanch and the Village Voice's Michael Musto are such enduring sidebar figures of popular culture that it was kind of right somehow to read them conversing in the Village Voice. They talk comedy, James Franco, Cher, racist carnival barkers (that's Donald Trump if you haven't been paying attention), and more. But mostly it's about the Oscars.

Here's a tidbit.

Musto: Who will host next year's Oscars?

Vilanch: I think there might be a revival of Billy Crystal. It was such a success. They were so happy to see him that even as we speak, they're sending a gold wagon to his house: "Please come back!" My guess is they'll go back to a comedian—maybe just one person, so you don't have to worry about servicing two. I'd like not even a comic but a Renaissance person like Hugh Jackman. Or someone may surface. It's Charlie Sheen's time!

I'm with Vilanch on this one. Would love to see Jackman back. You?

Julianne Moore, You Betcha!

Look, it's Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin ☛

I fear my immense warm love for Julianne colliding with my enormous cool hatred of Palin will cause inner tornadoes! Isn't that how it works? Or perhaps these two poles of feeling will just cancel each other out until I feel absolutely nothing while watching Game Change.

Sarah Palin has so many catch phrases and behavioral quirks that it's difficult to imagine someone portraying her without resorting to caricature mimicry but good luck, Julianne.

The cast for Game Change, which we had some fun casting ourselves, is coming together. Julianne's partner in endless Oscar losses Ed Harris, will lose the presidency with her as John McCain. But what about her kids? Relatively unknown Kevin Bigley will play Track and Melissa Farman (Temple Grandin) will play Bristol. No word on the Obamas, Clintons or Edwards yet but production starts next week. This is from Recount's writer (Buffy alum Danny Strong) and director (Jay Roach)so if you liked that one...

Are you more or less excited for this project now gazing upon this photo? Do Emmy Awards await?

Sally Field is First Lady Mary Todd "Lincoln"

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2013?) is one of those movies that I always forget about due to its long long gestation period. I swear I've been hearing about it as long as Jodie Foster's Flora Plum or Jodie Foster's Leni Reifenstahl or a few of Terrence Malick's movies before they surfaced. Will it ever get made? Probably. This is Spielberg we're talking about and he's familiar with the green light. The biopic is now one small step closer to filming. Deadline reports that Sally Field is in as our seventeenth* First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

Spielberg says that Sally Field was always his first choice. I don't believe or disbelieve this exactly but I find it amusing that virtually every casting announcement for any movie (not specifically this one) comes with "they were our first choice all along" which simply can't be true 90% of the time we hear it else there would be very few auditions or screen tests ever held and precious little for casting directors to do other than fill up the bit roles and very little for management and representation to do other than negotiate.

At first the news felt odd and easily snarkable like "Sally Field co-starring with Daniel Day-Lewis? She's moving up in the world!" but then I quickly remembered that people -- apparently even myself. For shame -- are always underestimating her talent, probably because she's a "cute" actress as it were, and has been for her entire career. But I've seen enough of her work to know I shouldn't underestimate her. She's already proven herself on stage (she was a-ma-zing in a difficult role in The Goat or Who is Sylvia?), small screen (Emmys) and big screen (Oscars). She's one of those talents that "transfers" as it were. Plus: Daniel Day-Lewis isn't the only one with two Oscars in this marriage.

If you read up on Mary Todd Lincoln you'll find she was a pretty interesting woman with a very dramatic life: Her own family was torn up by the Civil War as she came from a border state, she outlived nearly all of her children, she was plagued by headaches and erratic behavior which some historians believe indicates that she was a manic depressive or bipolar). You have to wonder why some First Ladies don't get their own biopics.

The most peculiar thing about the casting is probably their age difference. Sally Field is 11 years older than Daniel Day-Lewis and we don't often see casting flip the gender/age disparity equation; Mary was 10 years younger than Abraham.

Here is the trailer to  Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) which netted Raymond Massey and Oscar nomination for Best Actor (Ruth Gordon was not nominated as Mary Todd). John Ford's Young Lincoln (1939) the year before was only Oscar nominated for the screenplay.

No movie about Lincoln has been an Oscar powerhouse but you never know with that cast and director.

But First...
Spielberg's Lincoln is long enough away that perhaps we should be talking about Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012) instead. Itopens in 14 months and stars Meryl Streep's future son-in-law Benjamin Walker as Honest Abe. He's apparently cornered the market on blood splattered presidents. His breakthrough role was in the play "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" on Broadway (for which he turned down a role in X-Men: First Class) and all I can say about him is you're in for such a treat when you see him on the big screen. Major charisma he has. Big stardom awaits.

Benjamin Walker heads the cast of "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson"

*Abraham Lincoln was the 16th US President but Mary Todd was actually the 17th First Lady since President #10 John Tyler remarried while in office after the death of his first wife.

Cast This! "Game Change" w/ Julianne Moore

The news of Julianne Moore's casting as Sarah Palin in HBO's Game Change, adapted from the best-selling tell-all about the 2008 Presidential Race, is spreading like wildfire. I haven't read a single piece on it yet (other than the opinion-free news bit from The Hollywood Reporter) but one imagines many Tina Fey references will be popping up. How can anyone outdo that particular crucifixion by spiritiually dead-on mimicry? Perhaps Juli has been considering the role for sometime and asked for pointers on the set of 30 Rock?

Here at the Film Experience we try never to think of Sarah Palin, a true blight on American culture (though perhaps the celebrity we most deserve as Americans given our national habit of treasuring stupidity). Given their diametrically opposed politics, we can only imagine Julianne Moore weeping when thinking of the Politertainer in real life. Though Julianne Moore's whole screen persona tilts toward the weepy so...

Speaking of weeping.

Here at The Film Experience we regularly weep knowing that the surest way for the truly great and imaginative screen actors (like Moore herself) to win prizes is to eschew their own imaginative gift for character creation and hone their technical ability to mimic other famous people instead. But since that's the world we live in, perhaps Julianne can finally win some hardware? At least a Globe? Though she's one of modern cinema's most acclaimed performers she's actually unpracticed at the art of acceptance speeches. Though she won an Daytime Emmy before hitting the movies, since she achieved fame she's won virtually nothing apart from untelevised critics prizes or "special" you're awesome type of career honors -- like the recent Hasty Puddings situation. Apart from a rare "Ensemble" or shared prize she has never won: an Oscar, a Golden Globe, Cannes, SAG, BAFTA, or a Primetime Emmy. She hasn't even managed an MTV tub o' popcorn or even a Saturn win! Her biggest "gets" were the Volvi cup in Venice, the Spirit Award and the "Critics Choice" all for  Far From Heaven (2002). And regarding the latter, had the BFCA been the organization in size, shape and tone that they are now back then, she wouldn't have even won that! And I say that as a (frustrated) voting member.

What do you make of this news? Excited to see her try mimicry for a change?

CAST THIS
Since Julianne Moore is the only star announced thus far that leaves four major power couple roles uncast? Who would you have as (clockwise from top left: John & Elizabeth Edwards, Bill & Hilary, John and Cindy McCain, and Michelle and Barack Obama. And oops I forgot Joe Biden in the photo.

Who would YOU place in the other roles?