Among Empire‘s gallery of iconic movie role portraits, this shot struck me more than any other. What, honestly, was your first reaction to it? Your second reaction, most likely, was that Daniel Radcliffe is wearing the most complex, adult-seeming, wised-up expression among the three. But initially…?
The N.Y. Times has posted an amusing, very clever little video piece about how David Carr has handed the Carpetbagger reins to Melena Ryzik. Refresh Content’s Nick Dawson graciously sent the embed code along [which I had to remove due to an automatic launch function], and yet the fact remains that somebody in the Times pipeline is refusing to make the code easily available.
It would be one thing if the piece was easily findable on YouTube, but it’s not…if it’s there at all. I’d prefer to grab a YouTube code because the one Dawson sent me automatically launches the video whenever a reader refreshes the HE page.
I called the Times a few times and left messages…nothing. An embed code is not going to re-direct traffic to someone else’s site, and yet the Times — increasingly isolated in its mule-like refusal to roll with the 21st Century swing of things — refuses to let dumb guys like me (i.e., who can’t figure how to capture the code inside the guts of the Times website) access their codes and post their videos.
Can someone from the Times at least send me a code that won’t automatically launch the video?
The week’s least intriguing Avatar article comes from Vanity Fair‘s usually engaging Julian Sancton, who interviews the guy hired to crate the Na’vi language — i.e., Paul Frommer, Professor of Clinical Management Communication at U.S.C.
Sanction: “How would you greet someone who called you on the phone in Na’vi, if there were such things as phones on Pandora?” Frommer: “I would say, ‘Kaltxi. Ngaru lu fpom srak?’ Which is kind of, ‘Hello, how are you?'” The piece includes a sound file of Frommer saying this.
Movieline‘s Kyle Buchanan: “You have your ingenue (Carey Mulligan), your unknown (Gabby Sidibe), and you have Meryl Streep doing a character role, but The Blind Side‘s Sandra Bullock brings star power, and she’s never been nominated for Best Actress. My question to you is, do you think she deserves it?
Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale: “I actually do. It’s a very difficult role in the first place. There’s the accent, the swagger, the tenderness, and a benign sort of dogma that she gently tosses around, making it Christian catnip without alienating the secular audience, which is all this film wants to do in the first place. Moreover, she makes everyone around her better.”
In other words, the Academy actors branch needs to nominate Bullock because (a) it’s good for ratings and therefore good for business — no matter how they feel about The Blind Side — because a Bullock nomination will lure the hinterlanders, and (b) because actors who really get it aren’t the ones who hog the spotlight but make the film work as best they can, any way they can. As Meryl Streep said last night at the Gotham Awards, “Every actor in a supporting actor.”
Good things about today’s Spirit Awards nominations: (a) A Serious Man will get a special Robert Altman award (and not a Best Picture nomination?); (b) Sin Nombre was nominated for Best Picture, and Cary Fukunaga was nominated for Best Director; (c) Greg Mottola‘s Adventureland screenplay was nominated; (d) Tom Ford‘s A Single Man was nominated for Best First Feature (and is almost guaranteed to win in this category — trust me); (e) Big Fan and Humpday were nominated for the John Cassaevetes Award (i.e., best feature made for under $500,000); (f) Sacha Gervasi‘s Anvil! The Story of Anvil was nominated for Best Doc (and will almost certainly win).
Curious/weird things: (a) The Cove wasn’t nominated for Best Doc….what?; (b) Congrats to Ginsberg-Libby for scoring the p.r. gig but why, I’m wondering, did the Spirits jettison Mark Pogachefsky‘s MPRM after so many years of sterling service?; (c) The Hurt Locker is missing because it was nominated last year, and that happened because somebody on the team submitted it — go figure; (d) Yes, of course — A Serious Man lead Michael Stuhlbarg should have been nominated for Best Actor (and I’m starting to realize why people are cool to his performance — it’s because his character doesn’t stand up and get angry and fight against God’s wrath, and because he doesn’t make a move on the hot pot-smoking lady next door); (e) That Evening Sun‘s Hal Holbrook was denied a Best Actor nomination..why?
“Epic..incredible honor…meansa great deal to me,” etc. Obviously, Kathryn Bigelow‘s remarks at the podium last night upon receiving a Gotham Film Awards tribute trophy sound a little echo-y. That’s hand-held Canon Elph video for you. I was sitting at table #6, struggling to keep the camera rock still, an un-sampled fish and pasta dinner to my left.
“The evidence is indisputable, writes Vanity Fair‘s Leslie Bennetts, “that Meryl Streep, at age 60, has become the industry’s new box-office queen.” Absolutely, yes…for over-35s who go to the movies. Educated couples, singles, women in groups, etc. It’s a different story with most of the under-25 Eloi, of course. They know Streep as the white-haired bitch in The Devil Wears Prada, I would presume, but she’s not of their own and therefore a “meh” in terms of marquee value.
The Eloi are not just another age group — they’re another species.
But yes, of course — Streep matters big-time with older viewers. The mostly grotesque Mamma Mia!, Bennetts reminds, has grossed $601 million worldwide. Prada has earned $324 million around the world. This year Julie & Julia has tallied $121 million. And everyone knows that It’s Complicated is going to clean up.
Streep “broke the glass ceiling of an older woman being a big star — it has never, never happened before,” says director Mike Nichols.
