Podcast: A Look Back... and Forward. (What Movies Should Inspire Future Films?)

new podcast!
In part two of the conversation which began with Django Unchained and random final Oscar hunches, we hear about four actors that Joe Reid plans to snub, revisit looooooong Best Pictures that Katey Rich hasn't seen (The Last Emperor anyone?), listen to Nick detailing Viola Davis' future, and learn why Nathaniel hopes Hitchcock will inspire more films like it... even though most people thought it was terrible. [44 Minutes. With Nathaniel, Nick, Katey, and Joe.]

Topics include:

• Sixth spot snubs: Jennifer Ehle?
• Most recent Best Pics that we've each missed from The Green Mile to The English Patient 
• Susan Sarandon circa 1975
• Second-Guessing: Anna Karenina, Take This Waltz, Moonrise Kingdom
• 2012 Movies We Hope Inspire Future Movies from Magic Mike to... 21 Jump Street. (Hey, it was Channing Tatum's Year)
• Queen of Versailles repurposed. Make your own movie! 
• The Fog & Fatigue of Awards

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. Join in the conversation by commenting! 

2012 Inspirations. Future Movies and Retro Glories

Where My Girls At? Susan, Tilda, Uma, Sir Ian

The Man Who Loved Actresses Too Much. That's the title of my forthcoming memoirs. Because I love too many actresses I often lose track of their upcoming film projects so let's look at some recent casting notices (by recent I mean I'm sorry I didn't mention them earlier this month!) involving ladies I, and hopefully you, love. 

Susan Sarandon, currently co-starring in Cloud Atlas, has been working consistently since her career peak (1988 through 1995) but her parts haven't been so great or the films have left one wanting. Can The Last of Robin Hood reinvigorate her career or spark passion in her fanbase again? The Hollywood bio film is from the indie directing team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (full disclosure: I used to be friendly with Glatzer) who previously made The Fluffer and Quinceanera. It's about Errol Flynn's (Kevin Kline) affair with a 17 year old actress at the end of his life who he first seduced when she was all of 15. Sarandon will play the young actress's stage mother. Here's why I'm hopeful - the mother Sarandon will play actually wrote a book about this love affair called "The Big Love" so her role could be substantial -- though I'm unclear as to whether this film is based on that or wholly original.

Julianne Moore is a screen queen I never lose track of, per se, but sometimes the projects disappear! Does Being Flynn really exist? Did Shelter? What happened to that period-noir-detective-with-addiction-issues series she was going to star in for HBO? Given the populist genre of her next project, it's less likely to disappear. She's about to reteam with Liam Neeson as screen husband for the thriller Non-Stop. Neeson is an US Air Marshall and they're fighting a mysterious enemy who is texting him. Oh please let it be Amanda Seyfried! #AwkwardChloeReunioin

The ginger goddess will also co-star in Dan Fogelman's directorial debut, a dramedy called Imagine.  Fogelman's credits include writing one of Julianne Moore's best screen jokes for Crazy Stupid Love, well, and the rest of the movie, too. The film stars Al Pacino as a former rock star who discovers he has an adult son (played by Jeremy Renner). Julianne Moore will play the hotel manager where Pacino lives. 

Uma Thurman needs a strong director -- nothing wrong with that if you're great when you get 'em -- and she's had a rough go of it, screen-wise since the Kill Bill series. Wising up now, she's joining Lars Von Trier's increasingly star-studded "porno" Nyphomaniac.  There's no word on what her role will entail (though most believe it's the same role that Nicole Kidman vacated) but it's not the title role. That would be Charlotte Rampling, who isn't shy about onscreen eroticism (see: The Night Porter or Under the Sand). update: LOL. My wishful thinking substituted Charlottes Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is a von Trier favorite (Antichrist, Melancholia). Uma doesn't trade on her own erotic appeal nearly as often but she should. Beyond Tarantino's oeuvre I'd argue that her best performance is in the very libidinous Henry & June. To this day I'm still certain she caused the NC-17 even though she (mostly) kept her clothes on.

Uma's been low key enough lately that I blinked and missed the news that she had her new baby in July and named her "Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson"! Take that, Gwyneth.

Tilda Swinton is supposedly filming the new Terry Gilliam film The Zero Theorem right about now. The film is about a computer genius (Christoph Waltz) seeking the answer to whether life has meaning or not. I can solve the puzzle for him. Tilda Swinton exists and that is an inexplicable miracle so life obviously has meaning. The meaning being TILDA.

Sir Ian McKellen, who we'll soon see reprise his Oscar-nominated Gandalf role, is the star of the most hilarious news you'll read all week: Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi will be co-starring in a British sitcom about two senior gays living together called "Vicious Old Queens". This seems like it couldn't be true but it is, hunty, it is! The title and stars alone make it a must-see but -- even better -- British series tend to be short which still leaves plenty of time for the drama queens to make their film appearances, too. If the show is half as good as the casting and title, we all win.

Are you excited about any of these projects?

Which actress have you recently lost track of?

Red Carpet Convos: Hungry Premieres

After a brief glamour break post-Oscar it's time to walk the red again as 2012 heats up. To kick off a new season of Red Carpet Convos, I nabbed Guy Lodge for a moment before we were both due to jet off to previous appointments. Let's discuss the Hunger Games premiere looks and other recent premiere looks.

Nathaniel: Hi Guy, we haven't talked since ‪I don't know when ... Oscars? And Jennifer Lawrence is already Best Actress campaigning at the premiere for Hunger Games.‬ What else can a gold dress mean?

Guy: ‪I was about to say -- she's clearly taken a leaf from Meryl‬. Are those figures all in proportion? Looks like you've given Lil' Josh Hutcherson a boost.

Cato, Effie, Peeta, Katniss and Gale

Nathaniel: H‪ee. I didn't meant to give Josh a boost as remove the high heels from Katniss and Effie but I think I did push it a little. You know on set they'll give him boxes to stand on or some such.

Guy:  ‪Aha! Either way, he still ends up as his own pocketable action figure.‬

Nathaniel: He comes from a long proud tradition of short leading men. Although it's trending away from the pocket-sized hunks with people like the Hemsworth boys and Alexander Ludwig (far left) and so on.‬

Guy:  ‪Which Hemsworth boy is this? I can't keep up. I only learned to distinguish Thor Hemsworth from the other Chrisses last year.‬

Nathaniel: ‪This is Liam to the far right.‬ Who also auditioned for Thor if I recall.

Guy:  ‪Looking very junior copywriter at Sterling Cooper, which is always a good thing‬

Nathaniel: Mmmm Sterling Cooper. If I didn't love Hiddlesloki so much i would suggest that maybe it would have been cool to cast actual brothers as Loki and Thor.‬

Guy:  ‪I'm amazed they resisted!‬

Nathaniel:  ‪but wait. WRONG FRANCHISE. back to Hunger Games. Have you read it?‬ (Guy's answer and more conversation after the jump)

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Curio: Happy Birthday Susan

Alexa here.  I have an abiding love for Susan Sarandon, who turns 65 today. It's great to see her going strong, supporting Wall Street protesters and getting Sister Helen Prejean to preside over her daughter's wedding.  While I'm still waiting to find some killer indie poster designs of my favorite Susan films (The Hunger, White Palace), here are some fun curios from around the internet celebrating the beauty with the planet-sized eyes.

Janet and Brad paper dolls, available here.

Rolling Roadshow Thelma and Louise poster by Kelly Thorn.

Hot magazine and cool portrait after the jump

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TIFF: "Jeff...," "Hysteria", "Take Shelter" and "Amy George."

[Editor's Note: Apologies from Nathaniel, I've been under the weather and Paolo, who has been so dependable at sending capsules and reviews our way, now has a log jam of them. So many movies to discuss. Enjoy. TIFF wraps this weekend. -Nathaniel R]

Paolo here, discovering that HYSTERIA, a film about inventing the vibrator, isn't based on the recent Broadway play "In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play" although they tackle the same subject. However, some scenes here still look like you might see them in a stage play, set in offices of upper middle class Londoners. These are  perfectly designed offices, with the requisite deep trendy colours of today's period films. The character played by the unrecognizable Rupert Everett is an electricity geek. A generator occupies his office, a Rube Goldberg like thing connected to a feather duster. However, protagonist Mortimer Granville (a composite of three actual doctors played by Hugh Dancy) sees something else in this feather duster.

The comedy in the film is repetitive; how many 'strong hands' jokes can one take even if Jonathan Pryce, playing Mortimer's boss Dalrymple, delivers them so capably? Dalrymple's daughter Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal) enters the plot, a welcome break from the 'paroxysms' of Mortimer's clients. Her story line gets dramatic when her East End connections land her in prison but there isn't enough of a struggle to convince us that something bad might truly happen to her. Gyllenhall plays Charlotte with an optimism rarely seen in her darker films. She's also required to speak in a West End English accent alongside real English actors but she's not enough to elevate this film into a genuine crowd pleaser.

HICK, based on Andrea Portes' novel, is a movie set in the middle of nowhere and ends up there, despite the wishes of a thirteen year old girl named Luli (Chloe Moretz). Luli is very knowledgeable of her  provenance, her mother Tammy (Juliette Lewis) giving birth to her in a bar. Her father's no different, the kind of guy who drives into playground monkey bars without hiding the bottle of whiskey in his hand. She decides to run away to Las Vegas even if she's too young to be part of the workforce. The film from this point forward becomes a road movie,  taking place inside cars or at pit stops.

Chloe's child acress 'rite of passage', Take Shelter Oscar buzz, and endless potato boiling after the jump.

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