What are the expectations for Mildred Pierce?

I have so many things I want to say about this trailer. From when I first heard they were doing this, a lot of thoughts began to arise. Could Kate Winslet take on a role that Joan Crawford played so brilliantly AND won the oscar for (in 1945)? Of course, we are pretty much accustomed to Winslet being able to handle anything thrown her way...the same we expect from Meryl Streep and, to a lesser extent, Cate Blanchett. Those 3 rarely seem to disappoint, and with this and this coming out, I can only see the trend continuing.


But back to Kate. This is her first role since winning the Oscar for The Reader, which she totally deserved. The film, along with its book by Bernhard Schlink are, in my opinion, mind blowing and eye opening at the same time. Don't even get me started on the trailer, which is also one of my favorite ever. From Todd Haynes (director of Far from Heaven, starring Julianne Moore), we should expect a lot. He has 5 hours to turn adapt the book, almost 3 hours more than the original film did. We should, and rightfully so, be expecting a lot. The cast is rounded out by Evan Rachel Wood, Guy Pearce, and probably 2011 Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter). Although from what I can remember, Melissa's character doesn't play a huge role. I would have LOVED to see her play Ida Corwin, Mildred's confident and comedic partner.


Nonetheless, with this great cast and being broadcast on HBO, there will be a ton of expectations. Expected of course are an abundance of Emmy nominations and wins. Unless ERW trumps her, which will be difficult because HBO will almost certainly place her in the supporting category, Winslet should win the the trifecta of the Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe.


I also think this is a great career move by Winslet. She has won that elusive Oscar that took her 6 nomination to attain. The Emmy will pretty much be in the bag after this airs. Her next career move should be Broadway, which doesn't seem totally out of the cards at this point. Expect an announcement in the next few months that she will be starring in either a.) a revival of a classic Tennessee Williams play, or b.) a world premiere of some great British playwright (read: David Hare). Although Julianne Moore recently starred in one of Hare's plays on Broadway, The Vertical Hour, and totally bombed, Kate seems like a natural for the Broadway stage. I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next.


Until then, let's just keep watching the trailer AND this great "invitation to the set" until the miniseries premieres on HBO on March 27.


Credit: HBO

Can Natalie Portman do a musical?

For your Sunday viewing pleasure....

Thrillicious: 2008 SoBe Life Water Super Bowl Ad

In honor of Super Bowl weekend, I am posting the ad that I most remember from these past few years. As crazy as Naomi Campbell, no one can deny how glamorous she is. Out of any model I know, I would most want to interview her. What goes that mind of hers is anyone's guess. And the Daily Beast is right: "Conceptually this ad doesn’t quite hit the mark, but the overall message gets across: if you want to look like a supermodel, drink Sobe. And when the message gets through, dollars tend to follow."

Visual Effects Explained for Black Swan

I just think this video is so awesome. One of my favorite movies of the year, and it explains how the visual effects were for the film were done. I honestly though that Natalie Portman did MOST of the moves herself, so it is a bit disappointing to see that all they had to do was a head replacement. Although it is nice to see a film with a miniscule budget compared to other Hollywood films be able to do what they did.

And it still doesn't take away from Natalie's performance. Oscar winner? I think so!

Oscar Nominations..Do We Agree?

It's that time of year again. Oscar nominations..the time we await all year long. For the most part, nominations were business as usual. Black Swan, The Social Network, The King's Speech, and The Fighter. I think those four were the concensus for a while now as to which films would be nominated for Best Picture (although some might disagree). If the Academy still only nominated 5 films, I believe those four would definitely be in there. From there, things got somewhat tricky. True Grit seemed like the obvious choice for major oscar love. The Coen brothers, starring last year's Best Actor winner Jeff Bridges, alongside Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and new IT girl Hailee Steinfeld. Then the Globes snubbed it, and people were no longer sure what to think. What was going on? Then the film came out, it made $100+ million (and counting), and suddenly David Poland proclaimed he believed it was now the Oscar frontrunner. Blogger Sasha Stone "mocked," and Scott Feinberg "couldn't believed his eyes."

Well, I think Poland went a tad over-the-top in his prediction, but True Grit did end up getting 10 nominations, the second most nominations after the King's Speech with 12. I think its best shot at a major award belongs to Steinfeld in the Best Supporting Actress category. But even that category is a stacked race, with any of those ladies having the ability to walk away with gold. As long as we are talking about the Best Supporting Actress race, let's discuss the one issue I have with the race. People think Mila Kunis should have been nominated for Black Swan. Erroneous. Barbara Hershey's performance in that film as Natalie Portmnan's mother was nothing short of spectacular. She was so eary, so disturbing..almost like a modern day "Mommie Dearest" stage mother (I love me some Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford). Honestly, I really thought she would get a last minute nomination, a la Maggie Gylenhaal in Crazy Heart last year. But alas, Jacki Weaver got the last slot. I haven't yet seen Animal Kingdom, so I can't really say much as to how much she deserved it or not. But from what I have heard, she nails it.

Some other complaints? Black Swan not being nominated for Best Make-up and Best Costume Design? Comn Academy. No Ryan Gosling for Best Actor? Ryan and Michelle played off so well together--their story was one. If you nominate Michelle, how can you not nominate Ryan--even with how stacked the Actress race was. Speaking of Best Actress, I am still speechless as to how I Am Love has totally been off the radar. Tilda Swinton was absolutely awe-inspiring in that role, in which she learned to speak Italian with a Russian accent. I can't believe she did not launch more of a campaign, but from what I have heard about Tilda, not totally unexpected. And John Adam's score? I still listen to it on my iPod all the time.

Those are my initial complaints with this year's Oscar nominations. For your viewing pleasure, considering my love for Black Swan, I will leave you with a cool video in which the CG process for the film is explained and shown in a very cool way. Take a look.

What is so great about twitter?

I woke up this morning knowing full well the Golden Globe nominations had been announced a few hours earlier. I was too lazy to find the remote, and WAY too lazy to get up to get my laptop. Instead, i picked up my phone, clicked a few buttons, and voila, the golden globe nominations appeared. (In case you haven't seen them yet, they are here). The Golden Globes are never taken quite too seriously, in both film and television. I mean, I love Halle Berry as much as the next guy, but its fairly obvious at this point that she will NOT be getting an Oscar nomination for Frankie and Alice. In terms of television, just ask Angela Lansbury if she would trade in her six Golden Globes for one of the EIGHTEEN times she was nominated for an Emmy, and I don't think she would hesitate. Nevertheless, the Globes have always been this way though. Always choosing star wattage over the performance, which probably includes some pressure from the execs over at NBC to boost ratings and get stars on the red carpet (see Gwyneth Paltrow being nominated for Proof). Last year, interestingly, they went 4/5 in choosing the Best Actress nominees at the Oscars, with only Emily Blunt (who should have been nominated for The Young Victoria) not getting that coveted Oscar nomination. [Meryl Streep, who got the fifth slot at the Oscars, was in the Musical/Comedy category that year for Julie and Julia)].

As someone who loves film, loves reading about film and getting the latest updates on upcoming films, trailers, movie deals, etc, it's tough navigating the internet to find what you are looking for. And this is why twitter is so great. I have everything i need, right in a small newsfeed. Between Peter Knegt & Anne Thompson over at indieWIRE, Guy Lodge over at inContention, Scott Feinberg, resident film scholar Matt Mazur, or one of my all-time favorites, Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience, one of them will surely have what I need. If they don't, they probably retweeted it from someone else. I no longer have to stalk Apple Trailers, although sometimes I still will, as trailers are constantly being tweeted by different sources (usually i will see, for the most part, the same tweet over and over again). Twitter is also a great place to get free screening tickets, if that's the kind thing you are into and you like to save a few bucks (I know I do). Every single screener I have gotten tickets to this year (Love and Other Drugs, 127 Hours, The Fighter, Unstoppable, The Next Three Days) all came from someone tweeting an RSVP code. If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out Gofobo.

Twitter isn't just great for the film lover though. Following the New York Times, New York Post, CNN, Gawker, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, etc, I am rarely ever behind the eight ball (though it does happen). For instance, what did I do last night when my friend told me that Bobst library at NYU was on fire? I knew if I googled it no one would have anything on it yet. I searched on twitter, and found people tweeting things to the effect of: "ALERT: Someone threw a burning book into the Book Return receptacle at Bobst. FIIIIIIIIRE!" As I am writing this, I have now learned that the Kimmel Center at NYU has been evacuated due to fire as well. NYU kids love to do crazy shit, but two days in a row? Must be finals time.

And, for those of you still looking for that ultimate job, twitter has an app for that too (Funny? No? Ok, moving on). Seriously though, most companies have a twitter for their human resources department, in which they tweet when new jobs open up, where you can apply for them online, and even when their internship program begins accepting application.

Like I said, no matter who you are or what you are interesting in, you really should be on twitter.

Morning Glory

Hello all. I have no idea why, but after seeing Morning Glory today, I decided to blog about it. There are so many things that go right with this movie; unfortunately, there are also a few that go wrong. First of all, Rachel McAdams is nothing less than sensational as Becky Fuller (what a name, eh?). This is McAdam's first time really headlining a movie on her own and truly getting it right (although I did thoroughly enjoy Red Eye). She is funny, sincere, quirky, cute and you can't take your eyes off her. It's hard to imagine that she hasn't made it to that next level yet in her career. She's done romantic drama (The Notebook), thriller (Red Eye), Sci-Fi (The Time Traveler's Wife), adult drama (Married Life), romantic comedy (Wedding Crashers), teen comedy (Mean Girls) and even action (Sherlock Holmes), all to mostly good reviews. She has pretty much done it all in terms of film genre, but she has never made the growth she needs to make it to full-fledged movie star (a la Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie). Can she do it? Perhaps. She needs to find her niche, and stick to it. Julia and Angie pretty much found it, although they might diversity every now and then. She can perhaps take a pointer from Natalie Portman, who is finally getting the best reviews of her career as a haunted ballerina in Black Swan. With the right direction, we can hopefully expect greater things from McAdams in the future. She is still young, and has enough time to show us the real thing.

In terms of other actors, Diane Keaton was severely underused, though I cant really blame them considering what her film choice has been like lately (Perhaps a starring-role in the HBO comedy, TILDA?). Patrick Wilson is, well, Patrick Wilson. He is there to look pretty, and he has always played that role well, for the most part. He is another actor whom I am not exactly why he hasn't taken that next step in his career either. Not quite sure where he goes from here. He has to eventually get tired of playing these roles. At least that is the impression I get from interviews and other articles that I have read about him. Harrison Ford is funny and he plays off well with both Keaton and McAdams. I would love for him to go back to typical Harrison Ford fare though, which he seems to be doing with COWBOYS AND ALIENS, coming out in July 2011. Some nice work from Jeff Goldblum, who has been having a career resurgence of sorts, with both this and The Switch, which I haven't seen yet, but have heard great things about his role in that.

Overall, the film is less about a morning show (like Today and GMA, but less successful) than it is about a woman's career ambitions and struggles, with everything in between. As someone who has worked in production on a television show before, it is a great "behind the scenes"film in how it represents what its like to work on a show like that. Morning Glory succeeded in what it set out to do, and is entertaining, cute and enjoyable to the fullest extent.