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Entries in Rebecca Hall (24)

Tuesday
Jan262016

Sundance Buzz Pt 2: Certain Women, The Intervention, Christine, More...

Robert Redford wanted this Sundance season to be about diversity of voices and young voices, too. We covered some of that in the last buzz installment but this here's installment of buzz is mostly about women. Well, and Logan Lerman. He's one of many stars hoping to up their game and thus career by way of indie drama success. That is a quick way to up your cred as an actor -- look what it's done for Kristen Stewart recently -- but its weird that it works so well to keep careers going since box office is so rarely part of the equation. At least for festival pick-ups in the increasingly fragmented post-festival market. Do you go video on demand, streaming, theaters, or some weird ass combo of both?

The trick for actors is being great in a movie and also lucking out and having that movie around you be up to your level or at least accessible enough to provide you a nice showcase. 

Christine, Certain Women, and more female led films after the jump... 

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Friday
Aug142015

Review: The Gift 


Jose
here. In between making appearances in what seems to be every single movie being made, Joel Edgerton has been doing his homework and studying the creepy thrillers of Michael Haneke and Roman Polanski, since he emulates both auteurs’ styles in his directorial debut The Gift. The film stars Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall as Simon and Robyn, a married couple who have just moved into their new home in Los Angeles when they run into Gordo (played by multitasker Edgerton who also wrote the screenplay), a former high school classmate of Simon’s who wishes to befriend them, but lacks the social skills to figure out that Simon isn’t interested in welcoming into his life.

We learn that back in high school, Gordon went by the nickname Weirdo and was the constant target of pranks made by Simon and his friends. Suggesting that we never really leave our high school roles behind, we see how Gordo turned into a self-loathing underachiever, while Simon became a successful executive who married the most beautiful girl in town - a former bookworm - and made a career for himself by bullying people in the corporate world. As strange things begin to happen in Simon and Robyn’s home, we are led to believe that maybe Gordon is seeking payback for the psychological torture he endured at Simon’s hands, and yet there is also a more perverse feeling of karmic retribution that at times makes us root for the sociopathic underdog. If he is a sociopath to begin with…

Edgerton’s film is filled with so many nuances that we are never truly sure of who is playing who. He manipulates the very same genre conventions he’s borrowing from, and instead of presenting Gordo as the perpetrator, he makes us wonder if by assuming the “odd dude” is the villain, we’re not becoming bullies ourselves. Combining elements from Gaslight, Funny Games, Repulsion and Caché, Edgerton weaves a stylish thriller that poses complex questions about human behavior without ever taking itself too seriously. There are scares galore, countless steamy shower scenes with damsels in distress, and more asshole-y behavior from Bateman’s character than you can imagine, and yet the movie feels fresh in its delivery. Like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle if Keyser Soze had been the babysitter, The Gift playfully evokes some of the most beloved contemporary thrillers, not all of which are great films, but most of which prove to become irresistible on repeat viewings. Who knew Edgerton had this in him? 

 

Monday
Mar042013

Conversations with Link People

Two must reads
Monkey See a terrific insightful piece on the current state of the Romantic Comedy and what's wrong with it. Hint: It's not the common complaint that there aren't enough believable obstacles in modern romance. The most surprising bit -- but I totally was sold on it -- was how today's internet sport of actress-hating (see what's happening with Hathaway and what often happens) is part of the problem.
Antagony & Ecstacy picks the ten best Oscar winning performances in each of the categories. I've only previously done this with Supporting Actress and boy was that a hard list to make. Tim quadruples that challenge here.

More Stories to Visit/Discuss 
Huffington Post Jamie Lee Curtis speaks out against Seth MacFarlane's Oscar hosting in a new opinion piece
Towleroad Tom Cullen (Weekend) will be joining Downton Abbey. They do have to replenish the cast since everyone is f'in leaving. I don't get it. That show is hugely acclaimed and it can't be a big time commitment.
Awards Daily will the Olympics push the Oscars to March in 2014? Most people believe so but I wonder if Oscar might try January and really make the precursors wet themselves with fear. 
Empire Jesse L Martin, who has an a-ma-zing voice (he sang in both Rent and Ally McBeal) will play Marvin Gaye in a biopic
Studio Briefing Netflix ships its 4th billion disc. I'm so sad that this service will one day end. It's still the easiest way to get a great movie from a huge selection encompassing all eras... true cinephiles should not wish for its demise despite it becoming a media punching bag.
/Film a potential big get for Rebecca Hall who has landed the female lead opposite Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany in Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence. I say "potential" because it'll only be a big deal if Pfister is better with female characters than his frequent boss Chris Nolan
Exploding Kinetoscope takes up a real challenge. Figuring out what exactly is wrong with Buffy season seven by focusing on its best loved episode "Conversations with Dead People"
NPR looks back at the wider and wider screens in the 50s with the DVD release of This Is Cinerama 

Sunday
Oct162011

London: "The Awakening", A Conversation

Editor's Note: As a special treat for our London Film Festival coverage, I asked our correspondents Craig and David to share conversations about the movies that they happen to see together. Today, The Awakening, a new British horror movie. One of them likes it a bit more than the other, but they agree that Imelda Staunton's delicious supporting turn keeps you fully awake...

I know this place and I don't hold with any ghostly nonsense."
-Imelda Staunton as "Maud Hill" in The Awakening.

Craig: A 1920s lady ghostbuster? Spooky mansions? Antique trip-wire traps and knitted-character dollhouse terror? And a twitchy Imelda Staunton as a housekeeper in period garb, topped with some fusty-dusty wig work?? I was fine and dandy with this one despite its flaws. It follows a somewhat shopworn, well-haunted pattern of housebound horrors quite fashionable in recent years (The Orphanage, The Others etc). Director Nick Murphy makes a few attempts at reminding us that The Haunting and The Innocents were key influences, too. It has one or two ripe, scoff-worthy moments but, on balance, it does contain some sneaky jumps and nocturnal bumps that – from the jittered reaction in the press screening – nobody could say they predicted. It has at its centre a solid enough feisty turn from a well-cast Rebecca Hall, too. This is scary movie territory that I’m gleefully at home with, so perhaps I can acknowledge its successes more readily than its few failings? It contains both, but I was never bored.

David: Aye, it's a fair enough yarn, but I can't really join you in the enthusiastic corner. There are a few jumps, but none of the sustained tension and ghostly atmospherics of a film like The Others. Bizarrely, the film charges up the haunted terror quickly, and it blows like a fuse halfway through, on a narrative passage that is effectively filmed but lacking in much power, since it's come around so soon. Afterwards, the characters are suddenly laying on wild emotional extremes, putting more weight on the relationships of the few lingering characters than seems comprehensible, as if we've been excluded from something. Naturally, we have; but pulling off a twist ending like these films usually do, requires a level of general believability beforehand, with just a sense of something being off.

The period details are exquisite - I have no idea how realistic - and all the equipment Hall's character carefully sets up is quite the kick. What I don't think it comes close to pulling off is the tortured soldier sideline, and not just because Dominic West continues being unfortunately stiff and awkward in every role on this side of the pond. And I have to cry wolf on Rebecca Hall, too, I'm afraid. For me, there was no steel there, no conviction, just a weak and crumbling voice and a pale figure. When her façade broke, I saw little difference. The major thing convincing me that this was a confident, modern woman was the fact that she wore trousers.

Sherlock Holmesian women and loopy hysteric performances after the jump...

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