The Adjustment Bureau which co-stars Matt Damon is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's science fiction short story, Adjustment Team. The film is written and directed by George Nolfi who also wrote The Bourne Ultimatum and Ocean's Twelve. Damon plays David Norris, a congressman who falls fo a ballet dancer named Elise Sellas (Blunt). Their affair is affected by mysterious forces keeping the lovers apart. Emily Blunt talked to MTV during a break from shooting in New York City:
"It's like a modern love story, but it's got an ominous sci-fi backdrop to it...It's going to be exciting and disconcerting and strange, which is what I like about [Dick's] work. It's very cool and clever. It's got a really tight script."
"The term soulmates is used so casually, but in this case, in this film, it is true," Blunt explained. "They are sort of destined to be together and they fight fate to be together."
"Matt's thrilled because this time it's me who's been thrust into the month of training, because I play a dancer in it, which is kind of arduous training seeing as I've never bloody danced before. And Matt is actually thrilled that for the first time it's me who has to do that kind of thing and he's got off scot free."
"I really would love to do a movie where I kick ass!" she laughed. "I'm not doing any wire work or anything [in 'Adjustment Bureau'], so I'm bitterly disappointed!"
Blunt also discussed her role as Queen Victoria. She pointed out what we've known for years. All British actresses have to do a period piece:
"You have to don the bonnet at some point, otherwise you're simply not a British actress," she declared to MTV News.
Across the pond, Victoria as a historical figure is known as something of a downer. After all, she spent a decade in self-imposed exile, mourning the death of her hubby Albert. "That was my impression of her – that she was repressed and in mourning and never smiled and waddled around with that dour-faced expression and a hanky on her head," laughed Blunt.
"I loved that no one had seen that side to her – that young, passionate, fiery side," Blunt explained. "I was very surprised by the love story, which really did happen. When I read her diaries, I realized this wasn't just Hollywood sensationalizing this woman's life. It really was a meeting of souls when she met Albert."
...the actress approached Victoria as a woman first and a monarch second. She hopes viewers will do the same. "There are not that many people who know what's it like to be a queen, but I think everyone knows about falling in love for the first time," she said. "Everyone knows about a dysfunctional family. It's a really intimate portrait of her private life and what's it like for a girl who has a job and she feels in way over her head."
The Young Victoria focuses on Victoria's years as a princess, her romance with Albert, and her struggle with royal life after becoming queen at 18. The film though, is more love story than royal thriller. It breezes along from Victoria's pampered beginning to a happily-ever-after ending.
It's a fluffy costume drama, but some of the performances are quite good, including the one from Rupert Friend, whose Prince Albert is the real star of the whole show. Blunt carries the film quite well with a lot of grace and innocence. It difficult to make an audience feel sorry for a princess who has everything, but Blunt pulls it off. It's in her eyes, I think. Mark Strong, who plays the villain, is great as well, but he hovers in the background for too long to be a real threat to anybody.
I suppose it makes more historical sense for the film to be lighter fare - by the time Victoria became queen, monarchs had almost no political power. When the film treads into dark territory, most of that scene is pure fantasy that never took place.
The Young Victoria opens in limited release in the US on December 18 and goes wide a week later.
Based on Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel, A Single Man "depicts one day in the life of George, a gay middle-aged Englishman who works as a college professor in Los Angeles and whose lover, Jim, has recently died." [Wiki] The film, directed by Tom Ford had its world premier earlier today in Venice.
Should Tom Ford have stuck to designing his impeccable Gucci suits? Not if “A Single Man’ is anything to go by. The screenplay – which Ford co-wrote, produced and directed – could win more than the Best Dressed award at the Venice Film Festival. That’s already in the bag for sure – from the moment Colin Firth strides onto the screen in Ford’s trademark black, his 50-something professor character George is turned out like an Italian billionaire. We follow a day in the life of George, some months after the death of his gay partner of sixteen years. It’s set in LA but Firth doesn’t do American – instead he’s the perfect stereotype of an English gentleman, silently devastated by his loss.
Ford should be praised for making a film which isn’t just pleasing to the eye – gay or straight, George’s predicament speaks straight to the soul. The only problem is, his surroundings are so perfect you’ll be mourning his sorrow one moment, and coveting his lampshades the next.
But just as you’re tempted to dismiss the film as a gorgeous vanity exercise, it reveals a keen beating heart beneath the decor — and the match of Ford’s precise sensibility to Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 literary examination of the effect of grief on an overly compartmentalized life begins to make perfect sense.
In a graceful, meticulous performance that easily ranks as his finest screen work to date — and merits serious awards consideration — Colin Firth plays George, a British academic living in Los Angeles who finds his life slowing to an impasse as he struggles to recover from the death of his lover Jim (Matthew Goode). As he bides his time with increasingly indifferent teaching and melancholy get-togethers with his boozy friend and neighbor Charley (a tart, affecting miniature from Julianne Moore), the film follows George through a single day, wherein a key life decision gradually veers off-course.
It’s a spare, moving narrative of only-connecting, through which Ford initiates larger enquiries into sexuality, loneliness and etiquette: it’s easy to read Firth’s intriguingly opaque characterization as a mirror for Ford’s own personal and social insecurities.
...it’s a work of emotional honesty and authenticity which announces the arrival of a serious filmmaking talent. There will be critics who will be unable to get past the director’s background, but rest assured: Tom Ford is the real deal.
Isherwood’s novel...unfolds predominantly through an interior monologue, a device which is notoriously tricky to transfer to the big screen without resorting to pages of cumbersome voice-over. Ford sidesteps this by keeping the narration to a minimum and instead giving us vivid little glimpses into George’s bruised psyche with some well-chosen flashbacks.
In the role of George, Colin Firth gives one of the finest, most affecting performances of his career.
The film's new stylish trailer (via ONTD!) is below.
The 3-minute long, epic trailer has absolutely no dialogue (none of that horrid voice over stuff, thank God), but the score is amazing - it kind of distracts from how disjointed the trailer actually is. The biopic, starring Chow Yun-Fat as the famed Chinese scholar and philosopher is backed by the Chinese government and cost $22 million (150 million Chinese yuan). The biopic will screen this year to commemorate the People's Republic of China's 60th anniversary and Confucius' 2,560th birthday.
A Single Man is the story of George Falconer (Firth), a 52-year old British college professor who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner, Jim (Goode). George dwells on the past and cannot see his future as we follow him through a single day, where a series of events and encounters, ultimately leads him to decide if there is a meaning to life after Jim. George is consoled by his closest friend Charley (Moore) a 48-year old beauty who is wrestling with her own questions about the future. A young student of George’s, Kenny, (Nicholas Hoult) who is coming to terms with his true nature, stalks his professor as he feels in him a kindred spirit. [IONCINEMA.com via ONTD!]
A Single Man is in the TIFF and Venice lineup, so we'll have word on it after it premiers in Venice next Friday on September 11.
Someone needs to tell the folks who designed Variety's screening schedule that Carey Mulligan isn't the lead actress in Jane Campion's Bright Star. Whoops:
It might be easy to confuse British actress Carey Mulligan and Australian actress, Abbie Cornish - as EW points out they're both attractive twenty-somethings who might be Oscar nominated for Best Actress come January. And both their films are from female directors. But maybe we should get their names under the right films - Carey Mulligan is the lead in Lone Scherfig's An Education while Abbie Cornish is the lead in Campion's Bright Star. Let's hope they don't make these kinds of mistakes when they announce the winners during awards season.
A Spanish language trailer for Agora had been released recently and now FirstShowing points us to an English language full-length trailer from the film's official website. The film, directed by Alejandro Amenábar was screened at Cannes and will also screen at the Toronto Film Festival in September. There is no distributor for the film yet. A synopsis and the Spanish trailer (via Awards Daily) are posted below:
A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria. [IMDb]
The entire universe has uploaded the trailers and the new glossy photos, so I'll join in starting with Avatar. Some are inevitably disappointed (gee, could it be because folks hyped the shit out of this based on scant concept art photos and the presence of an overrated James Cameron?), but I'm not. People expected realistic looking aliens because the film's special effects are ten years in the making. But we have some photographic evidence that shows the thing looks like an animated film created by Pixar. Images from the first Toy Story looked more real than previously released photos and the images from the new trailer. This is not to bash Pixar - they're great at what they do, but their animated kid-stuff looks better than the footage from a film that's supposed to completely revolutionize cinema.
I'm not disappointed mainly because I have not been excited about this film at all. I hate most of James Cameron's films, and I'm wary of hype. But, while I'm not excited by the trailer, I don't want to see the film any less than I previously did. That's kind of a big deal. Avatar day is tomorrow so I expect more unfettered hype or disappointment.
Finding a decent embed of the trailer has been hard, but the good people at FirstShowing are cool enough to provide us with one. Be sure to head on over to Apple to watch the HD trailer.
Avatar is the story of an ex-Marine on the planet Pandora who, as an Avatar - a human mind in an alien body - finds himself in a desperate fight for his survival and that of the indigenous beings called Na'vi.
Avatar is both written and directed by Oscar winning visionary filmmaker James Cameron, of Piranha II, The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, and Titanic previously. He has been developing the technology to make this movie for the last 10 years. 20th Century Fox is bringing James Cameron's Avatar to both IMAX and regular theaters in 3D around the world on December 18th.
The other big trailer unveil was for The Wolfman, which I've been pretty excited about. The trailer (via Awards Daily) does not disappoint and it's hard not to be impressed by the cast Joe Johnston managed to get. Some of my favorite actors are in this thing: Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins, and of course, BenicioDelToro. It looks like it will actually be scary, especially when you consider that Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker co-wrote The Wolfman script. I should probably tone down the excitement because this could turn out to suck, but BeniciodelToro has that affect on me.
The first ten characters have been revealed, so now, we move on to the next ten. The list was narrowed down from more than 600 characters to 100, and it was pretty tough because I set no real ground rules for exclusion.
90 - Selene (Kate Beckinsale) the Underworld film series - Before her turn as a death dealing vampire, Kate Beckinsale was seen as a lovely, modest English rose. Enter Selene. Frosty demeanor, leather corset, crystal blue eyes, and machine pistols with silver bullets. She possesses superhuman strength, agility, and you wouldn't want her to sink her teeth in to you. Or would you? Like Trinity before her, Selene is one of the most recognizable tough chicks of modern cinema.
I thought it was great. I must say, I really do seriously always have loved action movies. When you get sent a great script for an action movie, and want to play the boys part.... You know, because normally... it's like in Die Hard. I don't want to be sitting on an airplane making phone calls. I want to be blowing up the elevator shaft!
And that doesn't happen very often. And when it does happen, that the female is the lead of the film, and it's an American movie and it's a bit camp... and I've always wanted to do something like La Femme Nikita.
89 - Christian (Ewan McGregor) Moulin Rouge! - Ewan McGregor never got an Oscar nomination for playing the idealistic young writer. He should have. He was thankfully, at least nominated for a Golden Globe.
McGregor managed to pull of the lovestruck, forlorn, but determined Christian without turning him into a sap. There haven't been many truly romantic male characters over the past few years, but for some reason whenever I mention Ewan McGregor, someone always gets that far away look in their eyes, sighs longingly, and mentions loving him in Moulin Rouge!.
...I’ve never done anything like it... There’s never been anything like it. The opportunity to sing and dance and be part of a company like that; it felt like we were in the circus. It was an extraordinary experience going to work every day – the colour and the music and crazy Baz [Luhrmann]. It was fantastic! I’d do it all again tomorrow. I’d be quite happy to make Moulin Rouge II.
88 - Mei (Zhang Ziyi) House of Flying Daggers - Mei is a divine blind dancer and courtesan at the decline of China's Tang Dynasty. But, there is more to Mei. She's a mystery. And when one thinks everything about her is revealed, there is still more to learn - even at the very end.
Zhang Ziyi...the lady shines brightest. Fierce in a battle with eight soldiers, coquettish as she bathes before the enrapt Jin, Zhang is charisma incarnate. She is already nearing American stardom, playing the lead in Memoirs of a Geisha. You can bet she will reveal a new kind of star quality, even as the dazzling Daggers shows Hollywood how to make an action film with depth and pizazz.
87 - Young Gangster/Gangster 55 (Paul Bettany/Malcolm McDowell) Gangster No. 1 - Most moviegoers don't remember the explosive gangster from 2000's Gangster No. 1 - the character is given no name in the film which only grossed approximately $30,000 in the United States. Most moviegoers haven't watched the film about the rise of a violent English gangster, but for those who have, he may be one of the most terrifying figures in modern film.
With the exception of a few Patrick Batemans, Jokers, Beatrix Kiddos, and Anton Chigurhs, no other character can match up to his love of violence. He's the the type of man who will torture his victims for hours with an axe, or coldly watch a woman as her throat is cut. He's the type of man who will narrate every detail of his crimes - from the suit he wore to the type of car parked beside his - over twenty years after they take place.
Owen Gleiberman from EW once explained what made The Gangster so menacing:
Gangster No. 1 is a canny, derivative, wildly gruesome portrait of a London sociopath who's the scariest of sadists, in part because he's also a very courtly one. Malcolm McDowell, with menacing close-cropped hair, plays this elegant monster in the smugness of middle age, but the heart of the film is set in the late '60s, when he's a ruthless young climber embodied, in a mesmerizing performance, by Paul Bettany...
Pale blond, with a shark bite of a smile and barely visible eyebrows that give him the look of a feral alien, Bettany plays the sort of fellow for whom crime isn't a means but an end. The crazier you think he's going to get, the quicker he ups the ante to the next level of artful viciousness. Bettany is presented as a real-life version of the droogs in ''A Clockwork Orange.''
86 - Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts) Mulholland Drive - Naomi Watts portrayed two starkly different, but equally memorable characters in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive . As Betty, Watts plays a talented aspiring actress. She is optimistic, wide-eyed, and innocent. She is disgustingly cheerful. By the middle of the film, Watts is playing Diane Selwyn - Betty's polar opposite. Diane is unfulfilled and utterly defeated. Are Betty and Diane one and the same - Diane being the "real" entity while Betty is her dream self, or projection? Is each woman one half of the same coin? Or two parallels of alternate realities? It's hard to say. But that's the beauty of the characters.
A New York Times review gives us an introduction to Betty and Diane:
...Betty (Naomi Watts), a blond ingénue...has just arrived in Los Angeles...the apartment belongs to Betty's aunt, who works in the film business and has lent it to her niece while she's away on location. Betty, who traveled from Deep River, Ontario, is a likably gushy caricature of a naïve Hollywood hopeful and, as it turns out, a fine actress.
...Ms. Watts portrays Diane, a hardened, strung-out vixen who suggests what Betty might become after living in Hollywood too long. Or might Diane be real and Betty be a fantasy projection of what she might have been?
85 - Tracy Freeland (Evan Rachel Wood) Thirteen - In looking back at the decade, Tracy Freeland may be the most realistic example of what it was like to be a teenager at the start of the 21st century. Really, it's a film for the adults, and not the children. Tracy starts off as a model student, but as the film unfolds she's transformed into a shoplifting, wrist cutting, drug abusing wreck of a girl. What makes Tracy even more memorable is that Thirteen is autobiographical, and based the film's co-writer, and supporting actress Nikki Reed. Knowing that many of Tracy's actions actually happened, combined with Woods' exceptional performance, and you get a very sobering look at teenage life.
Tracy snuffs her humanity as an act of revolt, and that's the power -- and terror -- of Evan Rachel Wood's performance. This young actress, best known for her work on ''Once and Again,'' looks like a junior-high Nicole Kidman, and she performs with a radiant fire. She makes Tracy defiant, cunning, morose, gleeful, and frightened, all at the same time; she's like a wobbly colt who grows up in an instant by harnessing her rage.
Evan Rachel Wood had this to say about her experiences on the film:
"It didn't shock me how real it was and that finally somebody had written something like that...[I had to] zone out and really separate myself from the character and remember that it was just acting...those cutting scenes were really, really difficult because when somebody does that, it's something that's really private which you do by yourself, and you're also at your most vulnerable point. So to do that in front of a lot of people is really difficult...I really, really, really, really wanted to shake if off, so by the end of the film I was just completely ready...at the beginning...she's having fun but you also see her hit rock bottom and you see everything blow up in her face. It should just be a kind of warning."
84 - Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann) The Pianist - He only appears in The Pianist for a few minutes. Towards the end. Kretschmann doesn't give a flashy performance. He's nearly as subtle and silent as the film's hero, Władysław Szpilman. Captain Hosenfeld's entire story couldn't possibly have been told in The Pianist. That would have been a different story altogether, but it's one worth knowing. It's a story with a final chapter that was only just completed: in November of 2008, Yad Vashem recognized Wilhelm Hosenfeld as Righteous Among the Nations.
...at the press conference in Cannes, he [Polanski] said, "There was this German actor who read my script like a telephone book. Like a menu. And I thought it was unbelievable." When we started shooting, he comes up behind me, first shot we do, and he says, "You do exactly what you did in casting." I said, "But I didn't act." He said, "Exactly." He was very obsessed with not acting, and being real. You can see it in the film. I think the big power of the film is that you don't have the feeling you're watching actors acting.
...We know he really existed. He was was a teacher originally, then he was a soldier. He saved numerous lives, and he died, like it says in film...There was also, in the book, a diary of him, and you could read it all.
...The scene where Szpilman plays the piano, that was the one scene where I could express the character, because for the rest of the time, he does what he does. He's not talking about it. He just does what has to be done. This is the only scene where you can give the audience an idea how he functions...It was eight and a half minutes, and [Polanski] shot it through. In my mind I tried to go through a whole lifetime of the highest highs and the lowest lows. [Polanski] did one take, and then he said, "That's it." I was actually prepared to start working at that point, but he said, "That's it." He refused to do another take.
83 - Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) Bend It Like Beckham - In Bend It Like Beckham, Nagra plays a spirited young woman who defies her traditional parents. She is a rebel with a cause.
This review explains why Jess is such an appealing character:
Kudos go to writer/director Gurinder Chadha and the startlingly accomplished performances of a young and largely unknown cast, led by luminous newcomer Parminder Nagra.
The camera loves Nagra, and the audience can't help but root for her character, Jess, a sensible teen, loving daughter and passionate athlete. Jess's traditional Sikh Punjabi family would like nothing more than to host Jess' big, fat Indian wedding.
Her role in the film was so influential that Nagra beat football players like Luis Figo and Ronaldo and won FIFA's International Football Personality of the Year Presidential Award in 2002. She was the first woman, and so far, the only actress to win the award.
82 - Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) Apocalypto - Brave, skilled, and desperate, Jaguar Paw is more than just a character - he's a force of nature.
There are times when Jaguar Paw must do things that are unbelievably violent just to survive. He knows that if he dies, his family will die with him. Towards the beginning of the film, his father tells him not to be afraid. But somewhere underneath his fevered desperation, he has to be afraid: the world as he knows it has been obliterated, and his mentor his gone. In Jaguar Paw's world he must face an army and an empire to survive.
81 - Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) Million Dollar Baby - For some reason I've never been able to quite shake Maggie from my mind.
She's a character who should have given up on her dreams long ago. She's a woman trying to compete in what is traditionally a man's sport, she's too old, and almost totally inexperienced. In many ways she's as tough outside of the boxing ring as she is in it.
Hilary Swank, who famously put on 17 pounds of muscle for the role, could have turned Maggie into a sentimental character. What she does instead is to create an intense, earnest, character with depth and soul. This is why she won the Oscar. Swank has many detractors, especially since she now has two Oscars, but I say she deserved both of the awards she got.
Hilary Swank is astonishing as Maggie. Every note is true. She reduces Maggie to a fierce intensity. Consider the scene where she and Scrap sit at a lunch counter, and Scrap tells how he lost the sight in one eye, how Frankie blames himself for not throwing in the towel. It is an important scene for Freeman, but I want you to observe how Swank has Maggie do absolutely nothing but listen. No "reactions," no little nods, no body language except perfect stillness, deep attention and an unwavering gaze.
There are 80 more characters on the list, so if you haven't seen your favorite characters yet, there's still a chance they might make it. If you want a character to make it to the list you can leave a comment and they could end up on the list.
Be sure to check out part 1 of the list in case you missed it.
I'm now old enough to actually remember when a decade began, so like many movie buffs, I've likely watched at least a thousand films over the last 9 and-a-half years. I read somewhere that we have to slog through so many terrible and mediocre films so that our children don't have to. We have to watch them all, keep the classics, throw away the disappointments, and steer our children towards what is best from the past.
With this decade winding down, we're all going to reflect. Film-wise I thought I would begin my reflection with the characters that made getting through so many films worthwhile. The list was narrowed down from over 600 to 100 characters and I tried to incorporate as much criteria as I possibly could - box office, critical acclaim, some of the characters readers voted for, and my own personal tastes. Over the course of several weeks I'll post the top 100.
100 - William Forrester (Sean Connery) Finding Forrester - William Forrester, a reclusive Pulitzer Prize winning writer, may not only be one of Sean Connery's last roles, but I think it may end up being one of his most remembered.
Forrester is one of those characters in film history who is remembered more for a line uttered in a trailer than for what he actually does throughout a film. The quote "You're the man now, dog," was so absurd that it inevitably became an Internet meme and spawned a website. I suppose we only parody what we truly love.
But at first, Forrester is a character who is difficult to love; he's cranky, emotionally withdrawn - he's probably past his prime. Somehow he becomes someone with more courage and emotional depth than he could have hoped for, and by the end of Finding Forrester, he becomes an inspirational figure.
99 - John Givings (Michael Shannon) Revolutionary Road - For a character that drives so much of the story forward, John Givings appears onscreen for a mere 8 minutes in 2 scenes. At least 14 other actors have been Oscar nominated for equal or less screen time, but none in recent memory have done it with the understated power of Michael Shannon.
Givings is introduced as mentally disturbed genius, having undergone treatment in a mental institution. He has none of the social graces any of the other characters in Revolutionary Road have. He is one of the more horrifying characters one can encounter simply because, he does not lie. Not to himself. And not to the people around him. He will a spade a spade, and he calls a doomed marriage exactly what it is.
98 - Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) Lost in Translation- Aimless, lonely, but undeniably sexy, Charlotte became the poster-girl for many lost, restless, confused twenty-somethings after mid 2003. Scarlett Johansson played her so convincingly it was easy to forget that the actress at 18, was at least half a decade younger than the character she was portraying. And while what Charlotte goes through is tumultuous - now that I'm about the same age I finally understand it to be quite painful - Johansson was wise enough to see the humor in Charlotte's quarter-life crisis:
I think that she [Sofia Coppola] found the idea of this very preppie girl, married and well-off, having a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty-four, very interesting, and funny. Ironically funny...She wanted [her] to be cool-her version of cool...The character always had long blonde hair, and that was to separate her from the Japanese...the relationship with Giovanni [Ribisi] is similar in the sense that they're both busy. He's busy and focused, and she's floating around not really knowing what she wants, and he doesn't get that.
The aimless, angst ridden twenty-something has been duplicated numerous times on film, but none feel quite as authentic as Johansson's Charlotte. I suppose very few ever will.
97 - Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) Hotel Rwanda - Maybe every decade gets an unforgettable film hero who actually existed: Atticus Finch in the 1960s and Oskar Schindler in the 1990s. I once thought, that even though Rusesabagina made an impact on me and a few of the people around me, his inspiring story would probably never find a wider audience. Maybe I was wrong.
The man is named Paul Rusesabagina, and he is played by Don Cheadle as a man of quiet, steady competence in a time of chaos. This is not the kind of man the camera silhouettes against mountaintops, but the kind of man who knows how things work in the real world, who uses his skills of bribery, flattery, apology and deception to save these lives who have come into his care.
96 - María Álvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno) Maria Full of Grace - There is a quiet determination to María. There is almost a saintliness to her, but there is a recklessness there too. She is seventeen after all. In recent films the teenagers have all blended together into one shrill, narcissistic, overindulgent nightmare. I can't guarantee there there will be many teen aged characters on this list in the weeks to come, but most of them will have something in common with María.
We've probably all heard the term "drug mule" before and perhaps been somewhat aware of the process by which these women are used to transport drugs out of Colombia and into America. Maybe you've seen a 60 Minutes special or a report on the nightly news. Maria Full of Grace tells the story of a young Colombian girl named Maria. She is struggling in a poor Colombian town. When she loses her job and finds out she is also pregnant, a friend introduces her to a new way to make money. No matter what you may have read or watched on the news about Colombian "mules," I'd wager that most Americans will walk out of this film with an entirely new understanding of the horrible lengths these women go to and the desperation involved in putting their lives on the line for the chance to escape Colombia or put food on the table for their families...
"I read the script and I was so proud that an American was not stereotyping Colombia. He never showed a gun. He never showed, like, bloody Maria's face. He never did those types of things, and for me it was incredible... There's more about Colombia and what Josh did was an incredible job and I'm so proud that he did it. That's why a lot of Colombians are so grateful [to] him, because he just put his eyes on Colombia and made an incredible movie.
95 - Lady Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) The Lord of the Rings trilogy - Galadriel was chosen to narrate the prologue for the films - in a realm where many of the inhabitants are impossibly old, Galadriel is one of the oldest among them. She was alive when the One Ring was forged. Of course she was chosen to tell us about it. Galadriel's scene with Frodo shows the audience and Frodo just how powerful the One Ring truly is.
If a character as old, powerful, and good as Galadriel has a hard time fighting its power, then the ring has an even darker force than we, or Frodo imagined:
...Galadriel is the Morning Star of her people. She embodies the beauty of the dawn, bringing light to conquer darkness. She is infused with wisdom, and...her character...gives her great beauty. In the moment when she is transformed by desire for the Ring, she metamorphoses into a woman `tall beyond measuring, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful'. Then she becomes again, Galadriel - `a slender elf woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.' Lovely, yes, but not `beautiful beyond enduring.' A woman to inspire love in the previously fearful Gimli, but not the perfection of an air brushed Hollywood star.
To be able to show this transformation, Jackson needed an actress of character and great skill, and one whose beauty could inspire admiration and love in men who are in themselves of deep character and Honor. Cate, who did the same thing in creating an Elizabeth who lived up to the passions inspired by the great Queen, was just the right choice.
94 - Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) Zoolander - His real last name is Moogberg, he invented the piano key necktie, and despite being utterly ridiculous, his hilarious master plan is truly evil. Mugatu goes in search of a dimwitted male model who can be brainwashed into assassinating the Prime Minister of Malaysia and thus, keep child labor cheap for the fashion industry.
Like many movie villains, Mugatu also gets some of the most memorable lines from the film. My sister and I quote Zoolander a lot - many of the quotes are Mugatu's:
"Let me show you Derelicte. It is a fashion, a way of life inspired by the very homeless, the vagrants, the crack whores that make this wonderful city so unique."
"Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look, for Christ's sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They're the same face! Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! I invented the piano key necktie, I invented it!"
"Todd! Are you not aware that I get farty and bloated with a foamy latte?"
93 - Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews) The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement - While some characters, like Queen Clarisse's granddaughter, Mia Thermopolis think with their hearts - Clarisse undoubtedly thinks with her head. She remains reserved throughout most of the first film, but becomes noticeably less so in the sequel.
In the first film, it's tough to determine if Queen Clarisse is so self-restrained because it comes naturally to her, or if it comes with the nature of being royalty. She rarely makes emotional choices, which, to her sixteen year old granddaughter may seem harsh. Over the course of the first Princess Diaries, however, she finds it increasingly difficult to choose between what's best for the monarchy and what's best for her grandchild. Despite this, she's the ultimate movie heroine, because as a public figure, she acts exactly the same way in public as she does in private. She treats the servants the same way she treats heads of state. Her quiet grace isn't an act, which is part of the reason why she's a very well liked character.
In the film's sequel, she is still as gracious and elegant as she has always been, but she is more open, more fun. While her granddaughter Mia is maturing, on the inside, Queen Clarisse is becoming younger. As she sees her power passing to an heir, her self-restraint fades slowly, revealing that a large part of who she is, has been molded by the nature of her job as Queen.
What should have been a two-dimensional royal, Julie Andrews made into a subtle and layered character, which is what makes Queen Renaldi so memorable.
I've talked about McCoy at length already, so I'll shamelessly leave you with my impression of him from earlier in the year:
McCoy was without fail, Captain Kirk’s closest confidante, and in some cases, more of a sibling than merely a friend. McCoy was Kirk’s conscience, and his being Kirk’s voice of reason was no accident – his divorce left him world weary, and at times dangerously over-emotional, giving way to moments of irrationality. With J.J. Abrams’ reboot most of this is clear within the first few minutes of his and Kirk’s meeting aboard a ship. While Kirk is calm about their flight – McCoy is the polar opposite, and rattles off a list of horrifying, potential deaths in space ("One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in 13 seconds").
It’s a near perfect match with DeForest Kelly’s McCoy, and everything from the rhythm of how Urban speaks to even his hand gestures are spot on.
91 - Jadis, the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - It's fitting that memorable female characters created by close friends C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would be among the first ten characters of this list. It's purely coincidental and not intentional. While Tolkein's White Lady, Galadriel, is flawed but good, Lewis' White Witch is the embodiment of pure evil. We have Tilda Swinton to thank for perfectly recreating the villain that haunted our childhood nightmares. I've learned over the years that children immediately understand White Witch, while the adults are not usually as perceptive. Tilda Swinton probably knew that when she said this in a 2005 interview:
“The studio couldn’t understand that someone evil would not have black hair,” she said. “They told me, ‘She has to be beautiful.’ I said: ‘The witch will be beautiful; the key is no makeup. After all, she’s the White Witch; her face should be bare.’ And I think, eventually, they saw my point. She’s very scary. I’m fully at peace with the idea that children who see this film will be backing away from me for the rest of my life.”
Swinton had more to say about the White Witch, and her effect on children:
Rather than playing up, it was more a question of playing down. Both Andrew [Adamson, the director] and I shared very early on that neither of us had had been convinced by the cackling, shouting, hot-under-the-collar witches that we'd been exposed to as children. They hadn't frightened us. It occurred to me that since this is not a human witch, this is the epitome of all evil. It's like a free pass with any kind of nonsense you can come up with. It doesn't have to add up. What children, in fact all of us at any age, find frightening is unreliability and emotional coldness. The idea that you can't affect someone, that you can't see where they're coming from and can change tact at any moment.
Well folks, that's the first 10. There will be 90 more characters over the coming weeks so if you haven't seen your choices yet, maybe they'll be listed higher. Who would you like to see on the list?
This might be the best news I've heard all day. The Associated Press announced that Russell Crowe is in the early stages of negotiations to play sea captain Jack Aubrey in a new Master and Commander film.
According to Crowe there are still negotiations taking place over the rights of the novels and the script will be based mainly on the eleventh book of the late Patrick O'Brian's 20 novel series - The Reverse of the Medal. All 20 books are set during the Napoleonic Wars. Apparently, the script has already been penned, but discussions are still at an early stage. The Reverse of the Medal, which was published in 1986, is partially set in the Caribbean (fingers crossed that they shoot somewhere near where I live). I really loved the original Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and I've sort of been expecting (or maybe hoping for) another film. I admittedly didn't love it the first time I saw it in theaters, but I fell in love with it after I got to see it again. I've probably seen it six times by now, and hopefully Paul Bettany is cast because he was the best thing about the film. It has become one of my favorite films of 2003, and I think it's about time they made another one.
The Adjustment Bureau which co-stars Matt Damon is loosely based on Philip K. Dick's science fiction short story, Adjustment Team. The film is written and directed by George Nolfi who also wrote The Bourne Ultimatum and Ocean's Twelve. Damon plays David Norris, a congressman who falls fo a ballet dancer named Elise Sellas (Blunt). Their affair is affected by mysterious forces keeping the lovers apart. Emily Blunt talked to MTV during a break from shooting in New York City:
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