Cinema Hype

Cinema Hype: Mr. Bardem, it’s an honor to meet you. Congratulations on your Academy Award win.

Javier Bardem: No. Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. …You may come closer to me for the interview. Please. I would like to shake your hand.

CH: No! I mean, thank you. Sir. I’d just…I’d prefer to stay on this side of the room, if you don’t mind.

JB: Sir, please. Let me shake your hand.

CH: I…uh…okay. Let me just… Oh! That’s some handshake you’ve got there.

JB: I drink a lot of milk.

CH: Right. Milk. Of course you do. Not that, you know, uh, never mind. Now, Mr. Bardem—

JB: Please, call me Javier.

CH: —Javier, then. Tell me. How did you prepare for the role of Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men?

JB: How does one prepare to play a man who has no soul, no empathy for others? It is a choice, an act of will. Each morning I looked in the mirror and said to myself, “Javi,”—for that is how mi mama called me—”Javi, kill Josh Brolin.” Over and over. “Kill Josh Brolin. Kill Josh Brolin.” And I was transformed. The strong brow and the rugged good looks became unacceptable to me. Because of Josh Brolin, I found my rage.

CH: Did you and Mr. Brolin get along well offscreen?

JB: Well, this is the life of the method actor—”Good morning, Javier,” he would say to me each morning. And each morning I looked at him and said, “I am going to kill you, Josh Brolin.”

CH: That sounds like an intense filming experience. But now you’re going to tell me that you made up after filming wrapped, and you’re great friends. Is that correct?

JB: No.

CH: Oh.

JB: Next question.

CH: Can you tell me about your experiences working with the Coen brothers?

JB: No. No, I cannot. The dialogue of Joel and Ethan Coen is brutal, like a knife. A serrated knife, so that the wound they inflict will not heal. They are like a .44 to the forehead, only less civilized. They are like…something I cannot place. Like…

CH: …a cattle stunner?

JB: Yes! That’s it! Thank you.

CH: Mr.—Javier, you used to be a member of the Spanish national rugby squad. How has that experience influenced your work as an actor?

JB: Well. Rugby is not a sport for the sissies, it is true. [laughs] But the violence of Anton Chigurh is not the violence of the rugby pitch. Anton kills because he enjoys it and because he believes he has no choice. Yes, I can crush a man’s bones to powder with the strength of my little finger. It is true. But the crack of a collarbone or the crunch of collapsing cartilage is simply a part of the game. An excuse. Anton needs no excuses. When I hunt Josh Brolin, I —or Anton, if you prefer—will puncture his skull like a doomed steer as his brown eyes meet mine.

CH: Right. Well. Javier, I thank you for your time, but I think we’re, uh, all out. Please don’t hurt me.

JB: Excuse me?

CH: Oh, I said, “He’s so wordy.” But not you. Josh Brolin, of course.

JB: …Right. Now, before I go, may I borrow a quarter for the drink machine?

(Note: This is a work of fiction. Please don’t sue.)

Academy Awards, Oscars, Javier Bardem, Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men, Josh Brolin

Doesn’t it seem suitable that the Academy Awards are always on a Sunday? After all, this isn’t the Grammys, settling for any old weeknight broadcast; Oscar Sunday is like a high holy day of the cinematic year, complete with decorations, little gold statues, and special clothes. With the writers’ strike over, this year’s ceremony feels a little extra fancy, a little more exciting—not necessarily because the nominees are especially surprising or especially deserving (though maybe they are; there were some pretty good movies out in 2007), but because it’s happening at all.

Here at CHHQ, since we won’t actually be on the red carpet (clearly an oversight, but whatever; we’re forgiving) we’re just looking forward to the chance to put our feet up, eat some Cheetos, and pretend to critique the year’s best films (with righteous indignation as appropriate) while actually critiquing the clothes on our favorite celebrities. Sue us, okay? We’re only human. And it’s not like we haven’t given some thought to the nominees. This year, we’re splitting our prediction post into sections: people now; movies later. Here are the official CH bets for Sunday’s ceremony:

Best Actor in a Leading Role

George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Who we like: Let’s go with…Mortensen, for being a bit of a dark horse and for offering an excellent performance. Naked.
Who will probably win: Day-Lewis, with that intense-eye thing he does. Whatever. We’re still in a fight after Gangs of New York.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Who we like: Marion Cotillard
Who will probably win: This is a tough one. Normally I’d go with Blanchett, but I think voters will save her for her other nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category. Linney and Christie don’t seem likely. Which leaves Cotillard and Page; Page might sneak in a win if the voters are feeling their indie oats, but otherwise it’s probably going to be Cotillard.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Who we like: Casey Affleck, because he has potential and because we love the title of his movie.
Who will probably win: Rough crowd, man. A vote against Hoffman seems risky, but we’re going to say Bardem.

Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There.
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Who we like: Saoirse Ronan, for being the perfect caught-up, guilty, oblivious Briony Tallis.
Who will probably win: Blanchett, because she’s there.

Coming soon: Thoughts and predictions on the non-casting categories! Keep your eyes peeled. (Ew.)

Academy Awards, Oscars, Oscar nominees

The U.S. primary elections aren’t a movie—not in the literal sense, anyway—but it seems to the CH staff that maybe they should be. We’ve got record voter turnout, a small field of candidates who seem like people who might actually be able to run the country, people dropping out right and left, and a big prize at the end. So maybe it’s more like The Amazing Race than anything else, but we digress. The point is: excitement! No matter which side you’re eyeing for November, things are happening in and for these fifty states.

But don’t you ever wish you could design a presidential candidate? Someone who looks like Mitt Romney, for example, without the sense that he might try to sell you a watch out of his trenchcoat? A candidate with Barack Obama’s rhetorical skills and the gravitas of General Patton? That’s the fun that casting directors get to have all the time: name an actor; make him or her President. So, readers, who would you pick?

Michael Douglas has already inhabited the fictional White House once, and the camera loves him (apparently, I’ve heard, because he has a head the size of Nevada). Bill Pullman seems a little like the John Edwards of the group—not a bad guy, but not exactly a Kennedy either—but he did give a rousing speech before heading off to alien war in Independence Day, so he can’t be all bad.

If America were looking for a movie president, who would you put on the ballot? Check out our picks:

Patrick Dempsey: Could win on hair appeal alone. We’d almost advise him to wait four years, but by Inauguration, he’ll be as old as JFK was when he took office. Fair game!
Allison Janney: If living in a country run by Allison Janney is wrong, I don’t want to be right. So smart! So funny! So tall! So electable! Plus, she already played the world’s coolest Chief of Staff.
George Clooney: Oh, like he wouldn’t win. You know you’d vote for him.
Arnold Scharzenegger: Kidding. No, really. KIDDING.

And, to close, a short PSA: If you live in one of the 24 states having primaries this Tuesday, and you’re eligible, please vote! Whatever you have to say, make your voice heard.

movie presidents, president of the united states, patrick dempsey, allison janney, george clooney, arnold schwarzenegger, barack obama, mitt romney, john edwards

Do you ever get the sense that some actors win awards for who they are, and not necessarily for what they do?

In re-reading my last post, I realized that my thoughts on Cate Blanchett seemed a little…I don’t know, catty? And I don’t mean them to be; Blanchett’s obviously talented and consistent in her work. I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve to be nominated awards, or that she doesn’t deserve to win.

What bothers me is the proportion of number of performances to number of performances nominated for awards: Blanchett appeared in two movies in 2007 and was Oscar-nominated for both of them. And, you know, maybe she’s just that good. Maybe she deserves to win a major award for every time she shows up on camera. But consider the possibility that Academy voters choose her because she’s there and she’s Cate Blanchett, and what else are you going to do but nominate her?

Blanchett is, of course, not the only actor in this situation. She’s not even the only actor in this year’s Oscar field who gets nominated every time she leaves the house: the entire Best Actor category feels like a bit of a standardized ballot. Likewise, Jodie Foster and her series of increasingly unappealing Strong Female Movies and Meryl Streep for just being herself and being brilliant. They can’t help it. They have strong bodies of work, and tend to have won major awards before, and then they can’t not be on the list, either because Academy voters aren’t looking for alternatives, or because they somehow believe these actors will track them down and hit them over the head with their statuettes from previous years. Nobody at CH is willing to say which, though we have a healthy respect for those sharp little wings.

Anyway. What we really want to say is: Cate, it’s nothing personal. Couldn’t you just make something really bad? We won’t tell. And trust us, it’ll help your average.

Cate Blanchett, Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, Oscar nominees, Academy Awards, Oscars

Wow. Now here’s a particularly shocking piece of news:

Heath Ledger found dead in his SoHo apartment.

Ledger was considered one of the most promising young actors in Hollywood, having been nominated for an Academy Award for Brokeback Mountain (which he might actually have won, had Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Capote performance not been in the race as well) and cast as the Joker in this summer’s Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

Sad. He’ll be missed.

Heath Ledger, celebrity death

I just finished watching In Her Shoes, which I’d requisitioned from Netflix after finishing the book over New Year’s in the desert. Most of my deep thoughts on this movie fall somewhere in the “where can I get a wedding dress like that?” range, but there is one really very serious thing I’d like to talk about:

In what kind of universe is Mark Feuerstein not worthy of being a girl’s first choice?

I get that Simon Stein is a winner in the end, and that we’re supposed to believe that Rose is just too wrapped up in her own misery to notice. But do you look at this guy:

and think “Wow, he’s not really cute enough to get a date”? I just don’t think that’s a universe in which I can exist.

Mark Feuerstein, In Her Shoes, Toni Colette, Jennifer Weiner

I couldn’t do it, you guys. It was all just a shadow of its former self: no red carpet, no “this is like the Oscars only way less stuffy” comments, no Joan and Melissa Rivers asking inappropriate and possibly drunken questions on the red carpet. Just Mary Hart, a TelePrompter, and imaginary tumbleweeds drifting by in the background. I wanted to watch the announcement of the Golden Globe winners, but I couldn’t. The lack of sequins and organza was just too depressing.

A look through the nomination list—the actual awards—is actually pretty heartening: there were some Good Things (TM Martha) going on in 2007, on the big screen and the small. Atonement; Julie Christie (winning the most cliched field out of the bunch); Daniel Day-Lewis; Johnny Depp; Cate Blanchett; Sweeney Todd; No Country for Old Men; Ratatouille. Most of the winners aren’t that surprising (Blanchett wins, I think, just for existing at all), but they aren’t usually the only obvious choice, either. Who’s going to tell the
Coen brothers they don’t deserve a screenwriting award? Come on.

And so I say: three cheers for awards, for giving credit where credit is due, and for giving a few people recognition for a job they’re currently not allowed to do at a ceremony they can’t write for. Next year let’s let those writers get up onstage in their not-as-glamorous outfits (writers always look so bewildered at these things) and take a real bow, shall we? You can even invite Mary Hart if it’ll make you feel better.

Golden Globe Awards, Golden Globes, HPFA, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd, Atonement, Julie Christie, Coen brothers, No Country for Old Men, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Cate Blanchett, Ratatouille, Mary Hart

When you’re a little kid, people like to tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right. They’re right, I suppose, if we’re doing moral math. I can’t think of a time when a wrong plus another wrong yielded a right, though I admit I don’t really go around classifying events as “wrongs” and “rights.” Sadly, now that I’m all grown up (heh), I’m also finding that I may have been lied to. Turns out that two rights may not add up to a right, either. For example:

Right #1: Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell. This is one of my favorite books of the past few years, something I picked up as light reading that somehow managed to attach itself to my psyche. It’s nonfiction: sometime around the turn of the century, a melodramatic, vegetarian executive assistant named Julie Powell decided, for no real reason, to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, and keep a blog about it. The book deal came later, and what we get includes snippets of the blog, but mostly behind-the-scenes commentary from Powell’s tiny Brooklyn apartment. It’s funny and snarky, and there’s a whole chapter about aspic (which, when you think about it, is an endlessly hilarious word, not to mention concept), and it’s just…well, it’s great. It’s a Right.

Right #2: Amy Adams. I’m not sure whether I’ve given proper space to my recent affection for Adams. I loved her commitment to adorability in Enchanted—she might well have won the Golden Globe for her performance, had the show, you know, gone on—but I mostly like her because I look at her filmography and think that anyone who starts out with Drop Dead Gorgeous and gets broken up with on a booze cruise on The Office must be the kind of girl I’d like to hang out with. She is also a Right.

So why am I so wary about the recent news that Amy Adams is set to play Julie Powell in the film of Julie and Julia? I think it’s because, in my mind, Julie Powell may actually be the Anti-Adams. Or, rather, she’s the Anti-Adams-on-screen. She’s nerdy and moody and she and her husband like to eat pizza with jalapeno and bacon while watching Buffy. Her biggest celebrity crush is David Strathairn. Sometimes, she’s not very nice. Other times, she’s downright awful. She’s the kind of girl some of us turn out to be, once we realize that we won’t be making a profession of looking like a Disney princess, and so it stings a little to see the role played by someone who has made a profession of looking like a Disney princess. It’s the kind of casting that makes me excited for Adams, who could probably stand a job where she gets to be something other than 100% adorable (and, frankly, it kind of makes me like her even more), but it makes me a little sad for the rest of us, who hold out hope that sometimes just writing, or cooking, or writing about cooking, or doing whatever it is that we do, makes us a little bit of a supermodel/rockstar, even if we’re doing it in some tiny kitchen somewhere.

(On another note, though: Residual sadness aside, such a dream team! Adams, Meryl Streep, and Stanley Tucci; written by Nora Ephron! The heart, it pounds!)

Julie and Julia, Julie/Julia Project, Amy Adams, Julie Powell, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Nora Ephron

Look, nobody at CHHQ is trying to say that Amy Adams is anything but a legitimately talented actress. The woman was nominated for an Oscar (for Junebug, for those of you who are asking, and we know you are), for goodness’ sake! She was on The Office AND she was in Drop Dead Gorgeous, both of which indicate that she is a serious human being. All we’re trying to say is that maybe Adams was actually brought into this world for the purpose of playing a live-action Disney princess. After seeing Enchanted, it certainly seems that way.

The best thing and the worst thing about Enchanted is that it’s exactly the movie it claims to be: a little bit funny, cuter than cute, and a send-up of Disney films while actually being a Disney film (sneaky!). The hidden depths are about as “hidden” and “deep” as the far end of a swimming pool, but nobody claimed much more than that. And most of the funny parts are included in the trailer, which is disappointing, but that’s not to say there’s nothing left to enjoy.

Mostly, there’s Adams. She is–how you say?–as cute as a button. She’s also totally committed to being as cute as a button; her aura of total sincerity and naivete doesn’t flag for a moment, and she somehow makes it work so that she’s unbelievable to the adults onscreen but not annoying to the adults in the audience. She also does all of her own singing, holding her own perfectly among a vocally intimidating cast (including co-star James Marsden, Singing Hottie Extraordinaire; Idina Menzel, from the original casts of Rent and Wicked; and a whole host of past Disney-princess vocalists hidden in the animated supporting cast), totally works a purple ball gown, and learns to think instead of sing. We approve.

The rest of the movie is pretty standard, the kind of thing all little girls and a surprising number of big girls will like. It is, after all, a fairy tale, where the male leads are good-looking, the dresses are floaty, and everybody except the witch with the cleavage and the platform shoes has a happy ending. Pleasingly (and wisely for the Disney folks; we smart girls can be pretty noisy when provoked), brains and pragmatism are given their fair share of the limelight; Adams’s character Pollyannas her way around Manhattan but also learns a little about the world outside herself, and even the smart, practical Other Woman (Menzel) wraps things up happily. But most people won’t be packing showings of Enchanted in search of social commentary, and that’s fine. If you go, just sit back and enjoy, and believe that everyone lives happily ever after. That’s kind of the point.

Enchanted, Amy Adams, Idina Menzel, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Disney

So, we’ve all seen Good Will Hunting, right? And there’s Matt Damon and there’s Ben Affleck, and they’re both all cute and loyal and wunderkind-like, and they wander the streets of South Boston. Remember? Now, think about the background of that movie. There’s Minnie Driver, sure, and then there’s this curly-headed guy following the guys around, talk talk talking. All the time, talking. And the truth is, he’s annoying. Really annoying.

And now? He’s our next up-and-coming ACK-tor. Casey Affleck, come on down!

We at CHHQ aren’t entirely sure how Casey–Affleck the Younger–made the jump to Dramatic It Guy. A glance at his trusty IMDB profile reveals fine uncredited performances in both of the first two American Piemovies, which probably, you know, garnered him some attention from some truly high-quality directors. He was the (again, annoying but also kind of hilarious) younger Mormon brother in the Ocean’s Eleven series. He wandered in the desert with Matt Damon in Gerry, which by all accounts could be used to bore unreliable information out of foreign terrorists. That’s kind of it. And now…he’s Robert Ford in the excellently-named The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford AND the star of Gone Baby Gone, the new Dennis Lehane adaptation. Didn’t a few people win Oscars the last time they adapted Lehane? Let us check our trusty notes. Oh, right. Anyway, we hear he’s quite good in both of these movies, all intense-like, but somehow he’ll always be the scrawny guy piping up in the background to us.

Congratulations, though, Casey.

Casey Affleck, Good Will Hunting, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Gone Baby Gone, Dennis Lehane

Real Women Have Curves is not a surprising movie. Ana, a high school senior in East Los Angeles, feels pulled towards a life outside of her family and her neighborhood, but lacks the resources and support to actually get there. In the end, she works in her sister’s sweatshop for the rest of her life, gains zero respect for the women in her family, never falls in love, and remains trapped below an educational and economic glass ceiling based on the inherent drawbacks of the capitalist economy. The end.

Kidding.

The first part is true, of course, and we at CH bet you can guess a thing or two about how everything plays out. But a fairly obvious ending doesn’t make the journey any less pleasant, and anyway, the revelation of America Ferrera’s first movie is no small thing. We’ve been fans of Ferrera’s since she sobbed at Bradley Whitford (who shouldn’t be anybody’s father, because he’s Josh Lyman and that’s that) over the phone in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants–no offense to the rest of the sisterhood, but she routinely acts circles around them, even Amber Tamblyn, of whom we are also fond–but she carries this movie, dramatic substance and all, without even breaking a sweat. It seems risky, in retrospect, for a film to rest on the shoulders of an “and introducing…”-type actor, but she’s so graceful and so uninhibited onscreen that, in practice, we can’t imagine things going any other way. We’ve never been surprised at Ferrera’s awards-show dominance in the last year, and from now on we’ll only be surprised when she doesn’t end up on the dais.

Now can she come over for a sleepover? We’ll make popcorn!

Real Women Have Curves, Netflix, America Ferrerra

So, it seems that the ‘verse is all a-chatter about Jennifer Hudson joining the cast of the Sex and the City movie. Now, based purely on her awards-show persona, I’m all about Jennifer Hudson, and wouldn’t mind being her friend and having sleepovers where we talk about boys and braid each other’s hair. (America Ferrera and Jennifer Garner can come, too. Come on over, girls! I’ll make cupcakes!) But it seems to the staff here at CH that nobody’s really getting to the heart of the matter: Who wants to watch a Sex and the City movie in the first place?

I mean, I like the SatC girls as much as the next person, as long as the next person is somebody who likes the SatC girls a whole lot. Sure, their (okay, Carrie’s) outfits are part of the comedy, and nobody in my neck of the woods lives quite that much of a Manolo-and-martini-obsessed existence, but isn’t that half the fun and half the point? What I’m trying to say is that I am pro-Sex and the City. But isn’t the story kind of…over? I loved the finale. I loved the journeys the characters had taken, I loved the tiny joys and little ironies of how everything worked out. And I’m just not sure I need one (?) last, discrete, two-hour episode.

On the other hand, it might be a little like getting together for one last brunch with some old friends, and I can’t knock that.

Jennifer Hudson, Sex and the City, Jennifer Garner, America Ferrera, Sex and the City movie

A conversation with myself regarding the new Iron Man trailer:

“Ooh, something new from Marvel. You know, I’m really pleased that they’ve taken to making their own movies. If you want something done right, and all that.�

“Yes, I know. So….this is….?�

“I dunno. But oh, look, Robert Downey, Jr.! You love Robert Downey, Jr.!�

“You know me so well.�

“…because, yes, he is/was a drug addict, but he’s such a good actor, and he seems like he’s always trying to get it together. And, you know, Heart and Souls, which is so underrated, and Only You, and then he was Larry on Ally McBeal–“

“I miss that show.�

“–well, of course. And then there’s Good Night and Good Luck and Wonder Boys and Zodiac, and you know you love the way he delivers his lines. He’s so…sardonic, you know? And oh, look, he’s doing it now!â€?

“This actually looks really good. I love wry, dry comic-book movies. Especially when they get all political.�

“Wait, what’s happening here? He…gets captured and now he has a suit? Oh, now, I think we all know that the “suit” superheroes aren’t as cool as the “I have powers from within so ha ha ha” superheroes. I mean, look at Batman. He’s good, and all, but really he just has a nice tool belt.”

“This trailer is kind of going downhill. Don’t leave us, Robert Downey, Jr.! Or we might have to pick just one of your names!”

“Well, May 2008. Looks like we have plenty of time to decide.”

“Yeah.”

Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.

So, Sydney White, huh?

A retelling of Snow White, set at a modern-day university? Where there are seven male roommates and one girl, and there’s supposedly some handsome prince? Sounds pretty crappy. What is it with modern-day fairy tales, anyway? Why can’t we just live with stories set Long Ago and Far Away? What’s wrong with fantasy? Are our imaginations so atrophied that we won’t even venture out into the well-trodden paths of the cultural storytelling convention? Why can’t we have more Stardusts and fewer Ella Enchanteds? I’m on a roll now, and I think I might be a little offende–

–wait. Did you say Amanda Bynes?

I’m in.

(Also: Danny Strong! Ha!)

Amanda Bynes, Danny Strong, Sydney White

Do I really need
a good reason to love what
The Rock is cooking?

I was trolling the deepest, darkest alleys of the film blog world when I saw a fun casting announcement: Dwayne Johnson, formerly known as The Rock, will appear in the upcoming remake of Escape From Witch Mountain. I should probably have strong feelings about this movie and any ill-conceived remaking that might take place. I know that my family watched it when I was little, and the nostalgia factor for early-1980s kids’ movies is strong in this one. But really? All I saw was, “The Rock will appear in blah blah blah. That’s because–brace yourself–I love The Rock.

I know that Dwayne Johnson makes a lot of bad movies. But. He used to be a professional wrestler! A really famous professional wrestler! His signature move was called “The People’s Elbow,” because nobody’s a populist like a scripted wrestler’s a populist. He was named after a geologic feature, and he spoke in the third person. (Confession: I nearly did an English thesis on the rhetoric of the WWF. Who doesn’t love wrestling speeches? I could go on and on.) And, the best part: he spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2000, while still wrestling full time! What is not to love here?

So, no. I cannot promise that I won’t see Escape from Witch Mountain, or The Game Plan, or anything else he does, because…he’s just my favorite well-spoken former wrestler with an inanimate object for a name, okay? You got a problem with that? Know your role! Don’t be a jabroni.

Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, Escape from Witch Mountain, WWF