Guillermo Del Toro tries being Bronte

Visually Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak is a big sumptuous meal. So visually full at all times that it masquerades a thin plot and uninteresting lead character and almosts gets away with fooling us into thinking it a great film. Jessica Chastain full on Mrs Danvers mode might be the best part. Read my full review at The Film Experience.

Vibes of Macbeth : A Most Violent Year Trailer

Hey Marion and Fassbender, you've got competition. The new trailer for A Most Violent Year has echoes of the ambition of a married couple that recalls Macbeth. So before we see that film version we get Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. Feast your eyes,





It's a great trailer selling the drama and the chemistry between the stars. And maybe after the sort of failure of her Oscar chances somewhat with both The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and Interstellar, Chastain might have found her vehicle for this year. Also I got a J C Chandor feeling in Original Screenplay.

Maybe 2014 is not going to be that underwhelming after all.

Luminous Jessica

Jessica Chastain looks so good in this trailer for The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby. I can't wait to see her front and center in an emotional drama. I know she'll make me feel it all deeply.

It has been a while since I saw a trailer for the first time on the big screen. Everything comes out online first. Usually I'm on my phone waiting for the endless trailers to end. Not this time. The minute Chastain's wondrous expressive face appeared on the big screen I snapped to attention. The camera really loves her. Just watch below so we can all fall in love again with this actress.

Most Anticipated : Miss Julie

Chastain as Julie

Yesterday we talked about Carol, today is Miss Julie's turn. Another woman centered movie that has me so excited with anticipation.

Pedigree
Liv Ullmann directs Jessica Chastain in a Strindberg adaptation. Just wow, a legit screen goddess directing one of the most exciting current actors in a movie adaptation of a classic play. Ullmann needs no introduction; Chastain can go from The Help to Zero Dark Thirty within a year so you know she's the definition of range. And the play is considered a classic. Colin Farrell and  Samantha Morton co-star.

What's It About
A tale fraught with sex, class struggle and power dynamics between the sexes. The titular character (Chastain) is drawn to a well travelled and well read servant (Farrell) in her father's household. That servant's fiance (Morton) is also part of the plot.


Why I'm Excited
Ullmann's collaboration with Cate Blanchett to interpret a classic - A Streetcar Named Desire - was a theatrical marvel. This is on film but still it's a collaboration worth getting excited about. Also Morton, who was so shafted in Her, is in this and it's been a while since we've seen this wonderful actor on screen.

Chastain with Farrell

Really?
Collin Farrell's casting gives me pause. He has never excited me on screen. In fact he was recently terrible in Saving Mr Banks. The movie was so much better when I watched a second time and fast forwarded through all his scenes. Still let's hope Chastain excites him and he rises to her level.

Most Memorable Movie Scenes of 2012

What makes a movie scene memorable? A recognized reflection; an image that moves you; a witty and smart line of dialogue. Sometimes you get all in one scene. Sometimes a scene encapsulates the movie or it can stand out separately and still be memorable.Sometimes it can be a performance or a piece of music that sticks in the mind. Here are few of my most memorable scenes from 2012 movies in no particular order.

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Setup: A mother, two daughters and a grandson sit down to have dinner. The mother tries to start a conversation. The daughters would rather not reveal anything honest. Years of resentment, avoidance, unhappiness, disappointment come crashing down.

Why: In one very economic scene the dynamics and history of this family are revealed. You understand tons about these characters. The scene reflects eloquently any family that sometimes is unable to connect.

HOLY MOTORS

Setup : It doesn't matter. There's a man, there's an accordion. Several other men with accordions appear. It becomes a parade.

Why : It's a jolting haunting beautiful scene in a movie full of very eccentric scenes. Even if you don't care much for the movie, this one sticks with you. Fanfuckingtastic!

RUST AND BONE

Setup : A woman recovering from losing her legs in a horrific accident tries to remember and heal. Katy Perry starts blaring.

Why : Because of the emotional punch Marion Cotillard throws at you. You feel it in your gut.

MAGIC MIKE

Setup : A few male strippers gather in a gym to workout. A seasoned stripper teaches the new kid a few moves.

Why : Because Matthew McConaughey looks fantastic and acts the hell out of the scene. Years of his sometimes charming, sometimes puzzling public persona has lead to this moment. He emerges a great character actor and a star for the ages.

ANNA KARENINA

Setup : A few members of the Russian aristocracy gather at the races. A horse falls down. A woman screams with concern for her lover. Her husband watches.

Why : It is unlike anything else we've seen at the movies this year. Joe Wright's choice to film the whole movie inside a theater comes to bright vivid life in this scene. He builds the tension; is Vronsky OK? What will Anna do? How will Karenin react? The visuals are sumptuous and the emotions heightened.

ZERO DARK THIRTY

Setup: Mission accomplished, time to leave the mission site. A lonely hunter boards a plane. Tears stream down her face.

Why : We don't know why Maya is crying. Is it relief? Is it sadness? Does she feel lost? Not knowing what to do next with her life? We don't know and the questions are what makes the scene moving and memorable.

THE SESSIONS

Setup : The sex therapist and her patient finish a session. As they are saying goodbye they both discover the emotional bond that grew between them. They decide to end the sessions. The therapist has a breakdown in her car.

Why : The emotional honesty of the scene. The way Helen Hunt plays it is moving and cathartic. You see all these feelings on her face as she starts crying alone in her car. She is at once happy, sad and grateful. Happy for her patient's breakthrough, sad because she will miss him in her life, grateful to have had the experience.



What were some of your most memorable scenes? Do you agree with these choices? I would love to hear from you.

On The Heiress and Jessica Chastain

Chastain as Catherine Sloper

Last night I saw the Broadway revival of The Heiress starring Jessica Chastain. In it she plays Catherine Sloper a spinterish dweller of Washington Square in New York in the 1850s. The play tells the story of her courtship by a handsome drifter and her father's opposition to said courtship. The parable is about whether Catherine is being courted for love or for her inheritance.

I was very excited to see The Heiress, mostly because it stars "'actor of the moment'' Chastain. I chose it as the one play to see this season. The 1948 film with Olivia De Havilland and Monty Clift is a devastating piece that shook me with its portrayal of familial cruelty.I was expecting another emotional roller-coaster. I guess with a setup like that I was bound to be disappointed.

But boy what a disappointment. Chastain was flat and unengaging when she needed to soar.First off she was miscast as the dowdy plain Catherine Sloper - her beauty could not be hidden behind the brown wig and 19th century costumes. She overcompensated by playing the awkward Sloper as too goofy, even getting close to physical comedy in the first act. Her voice did not project at all and came off timid and hesitant even at the end when the character is supposed to have grown and found strength. It's a pity because Catherine is a great part that if played well gives the audience a huge wallop of emotion. I kept imagining what Cate Blanchett could have done with it.

Strathairn and Ivey on opening night

The rest of the cast acquitted themselves well. David Strathairn started slow but found his groove quickly as Catherine's emotionally abusive father. Dan Stevens, of Downton Abbey, was serviceable. His American accent was good but I guess he concentrated too much on getting it right sometimes he forgot he had a part to play. The MVP was without a doubt Judith Ivey as Catherine's eccentric and romantic aunt who tries to bring the lovers together. She was everything Chastain wasn't - lively, present, funny, drawing and holding the audience's attention. If there was a star on that stage it was Ivey.

Finally Virginia Kull, an actress I have never heard of before, had a tiny part as the Slopers' maid. And boy did she make the best of it. Every little moment she had she made sure we were very aware of her. Her ambition to be noticed came through loud and clear. I loved her.I joked with my friends afterwards that if she was Chastain's understudy I bet she go ''all about Eve'" one night and make sure she gets to play the lead!

Crazy Early Oscar Predictions

A week before Christmas here is who I think will win Oscar in the acting categories. It's crazy and early but it looks this way to me now. Although I should not predict winners before nominations.

Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)

Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)

Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)

Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Oscar Season Bits & Pieces - Best Actress

Emmanuelle Riva

The Hollywood Reporter has released its annual Actress Round table which means that Oscar season is now in full swing. I always look forward to those because Best Actress is always my favourite category. This year looks to be a strong one; there are so many good movies already released and a couple of big mega movies just around the corner.

Let's dig by each category, the major ones of course. I'll provide my take and predictions. Let's start with  :

Best Actress - coming up Best Actor and  Best Supporting Actor
My vote goes to Emmanuelle Riva in Amour. What a performance : heartbreaking and full of moving melancholy and surprising strength. I hope she gets nominated. Going against her is that it's a foreign language film and even people who love it acknowledge that it is a difficult movie to sit through. It deals with inevitable decay, old age and death after all. Going for her is that everyone who sees the movie comes out marvelling at the performance.

Jennifer Lawrence

The pundits world would have you believe that Jennifer Lawrence is the front runner. I don't believe it. Don't get me wrong; I think Lawrence is the best thing about Silver Linings Playbook. I wanted to see more of her character; and therein lies the problem. It's a supporting role really. The story is Bradley Cooper's and she's there as his love interest. She's much better than him but because of how little she gets to do I don't think it's an Oscar winning performance. She has the big speech in her money scene and for that she'll be nominated. However even that speech's payoff is not emotional enough in my opinion. It kick starts the plot for the last third of the movie but does not affect the characters lives in a major way. I understand that Hollywood wants to reward her for The Hunger Games, she's young, hot and a box office draw. Still can't see this performance wining Best Actress.

Jessica Chastain

 I think this will be a match between Naomi Watts in The Impossible and Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty.Details of how big and central to the plot Chastain's role have just emerged. That got a lot of excitement. She has momentum from last year, not only for the nomination from The Help but for all the other movies she appeared in. Everyone acknowledges her as The Next Big Actress, set to join Meryl, Kate and Cate as a perennial Oscar nominee. Watts has lots of goodwill from her previous nomination plus she apparently gives a big emotional performance, suffers and cries a lot. Which she is fantastic at and why she was nominated for 21 Grams. A lot of people still talk about Mulholland Drive a decade after it was released, so lots of goodwill there. The problem with The Impossible is that the trailer is too manipulative, it dares you not to tear up. Is there a good movie behind that? Will people show up for suffering porn? If yes she will be unstoppable.

Marion Cotillard

Marion Cotillard is getting raves for Rust and Bone. I'll see it Friday, then I can make an informed decision. Although so far what I read seems to mixed with more praise going to her co-star  Matthias Schoenaerts. There is also young Quevenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild. She carries that unique lyrical movie on her little shoulders and for that she wil be rewarded. Keira Knightely is very good as Anna Karenina as she has been in her last few movies. But the response to that movie has been sharply divided. I loved it, it worked for me. 

Emayatzy Corinealdi

There are a few performances that are not getting much attention but are still amazing. Emayatzy Corinealdi gives a subtle piercing performance in Middle of Nowhere and announces herself as a major talent. Kirsten Dunst is all brittle edges and angry frustration in Bachelorette taking a highly unlikeable character , making her human while being very funny. And the most likeable celebrity presence on twitter, Melanie Lynskey,  gives a touching performance in Hello I Must Be Going. She made me palpably feel her disappointment and then her quiet resolve and tentative hope.

Predicted 5 : Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Emmanuelle Riva, Quevenzhane Wallis, Naomi Watts.

Who do you think will be nominated? Tell all in the comments.