HBO’s LGBT History: Remembering the Artist (2014)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

 For the past two weeks, we took an Oscar-themed break by looking back at the 1993 and 2003 acting races. We imagined a world where Ian McKellen and Lily Tomlin could have nabbed another nomination and wondered aloud if Jessica Lange could have earned nomination #7 had HBO films been released theatrically. This week, we're back to our normally scheduled history but there's still an Oscar winner involved: We're looking at Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro Sr., a documentary on the Taxi Driver actor's artist father.

The detours into hypothetical Oscar history were meant to remind us that HBO’s LGBT content has been consistently strong for over three decades now, at times dwarfing the mainstream fare that has found itself invited to the Oscars this past few years. But sometimes, as we’ll see this week, the HBO imprint is not enough to guarantee that the issue of sexuality will be given its due.

In Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr., directors Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir offer us, we’re told early, an attempt by Bobby De Niro to give his father the due that so eluded him in his lifetime (he died of prostate cancer complications in 1993). [More...]

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Dirty Grandpa Poster

Manuel here getting your week started with a poster that is hard to come to terms with.

Everything we know about this upcoming comedy comes courtesy of all the on-set shots of Efron which were deliciously skintastic. (JA has been dutifully (un)covering them at his blog.) There's also a trailer below, but the poster is more fascinating. How well-known is that Hoffman/Graduate shot among the young ones the film's tone is obviously courting. 

Or, perhaps it's an attempt at finding a middle ground between the Zefron fans and the De Niro fans? Are you at all excited about this very random pairing of inter-generational leading men?

Yes No Maybe So: Nobody Owes "Joy" Anything...

It's been amusing for months now to see Oscar pundits fall all over themselves declaring Joy and Jennifer Lawrence frontrunners sight unseen. Unbroken anyone? It's never smart to declare frontrunners sight unseen. But now that we're finally getting more of a peak at the actual movie --  though it's still anyone's guess as to the final quality and perceptions thereof -- It does have the making of an entertaining 2 hours at the movies. So bring Christmas on. Deck the halls. Etcetera.

The new trailer beautifully sequelizes the conceit of the teaser, in which Joy's grandmother (I think) lectured to her. Now Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) is the one imparting wisdom... to her daughter. Of the every-man-for-himself cynical variety but still. Yes No Maybe so breakdown after the jump... 

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Beige & Slate Blue: Nancy Myer's "The Intern"

Kyle Stevens, author of Mike Nichols: Sex, Language and the Reinvention of Psychological Realism is here to review Anne Hathaway's latest.

 The Intern follows 70-year-old and retired Ben, played by Robert de Niro (who has never seemed more like a Bobby). Having enjoyed a happy and prosperous life, Ben now finds himself so uninspired by endless leisure activities that he decides he deserves another go on the merry-go-round. He lands the film’s titular position at a women’s clothing startup created and run by Anne Hathaway’s Jules, who, we are told, is a difficult woman to work for despite all evidence to the contrary. Ben and Jules become friends, as Jules realizes that even an old be-suited, briefcased, handkerchief carrying man—the icon of conservative, 1950s patriarchy—may have worth. Disturbing as this is, especially at first, The Intern gives us a real man-woman friendship—that rarest of on-screen sights, even if it is here rendered “safe” by Ben’s age.

De Niro and Hathaway shine, particularly in a hotel scene that gives them time to plumb the depth of writer and director Nancy Meyers’ characters. Meyers is one of our best character writers, but The Intern’s frenzied workplace setting doesn’t afford us time to fall in love with her creations as we did in, say, Something’s Gotta Give (2003), where Meyers simply put the camera in front of Diane Keaton and let her go. [more...]

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What Is It With Ruth Madoff and Actresses?

You've already heard that Michelle Pfeiffer is finally planning to work again for an HBO movie called Wizard of Lies. So let's give the story its proper due.

Pfeiffer in The Family / Ruth Madoff

(I included the Pfeiff News in the last link roundup but the Pfans among you didn't deem that sufficient. (I heard from a pflummoxed pfew by e-mail). Look, stop demanding my bonafides! I have been devoted to La Pfeiff since 1985 in. real. time. I've followed her long enough to take each new probject with a full brick of salt until I see footage. She is so skittish about working.)

For the moment at least she is planning to play Ruth Madoff in Wizard of Lies with Robert De Niro in the leading role of fraudulent financier Bernie Madoff. Aside from cameos and voice work this will be her first TV role since just before superstardom hit in 87/88. In her last film The Family, DeNiro (who is 72) and she had teenage children but they're aging up this time around and delicious/undervalued Alessandro Nivola (who is 43) will play their son. Frankly I'd rather see Alessandro romantically paired with Pfeiffer than playing her biological! She's closer to his age than De Niros (by one year - hee - as she's 14 years older than Nivola and 15 years younger than De Niro - but it counts! Especially since she's so foxy. And especially because Nivola is even hotter (it sounds impossible but it's totally true) when paired with actresses that are older than he is - think Frances McDormand in Laurel Canyon, Embeth Davidtz in Junebug and Emily Mortimer in real life (his wife is just one year older - but for this argument it counts ;) 

But back to the Madoffs.

It's worth noting here that Ruth Madoff has already been played by Cate Blanchett (kinda) in Blue Jasmine, and BEFORE Pfeiffer she'll be played by Blythe Danner in the ABC miniseries Madoff (currently filming) so the disgraced rich lady is really getting around among the actresses. It is kind of an instant classic dream role in the Women Who Lie To Themselves™ subgenre.

Blythe Danner and Richard Dreyfuss in Madoff, coming to ABC in 2016.

If Pfeiffer actually goes through with it, we can hope for an Emmy but won't hold our breath. Despite her fame and acclaim, she has never been an awards magnet only picking up an odd trophy here and there (the BAFTA for Dangerous Liaisons, the Silver Bear for Love Field, and several coveted prizes for Fabulous Baker Boys including the Globe, the NBR, and the holy trinity of critics prizes -- NYFCC, LAFCA, NSFC -- before losing the Oscar for that role. ARGH x ∞).

But after both Blue Jasmine (2013) and ABC's Madoff (2016) will audiences and showbiz voters still be into this story for a third round in late 2016 or 2017?