The trailer for Women in Trouble (via The Movie Blog) looks like the film has just as much tragedy as it does comedy. Which I didn't expect. I think it's worth it just for Josh Brolin's hilarious accent:
A serpentine day in the life of ten seemingly disparate women: a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender, a pair of call girls, etc. All of them with one crucial thing in common. Trouble.
I don't usually like being fooled, but this is the exception. That whole Beyonce as Wonder Woman story? Total crap. Why do I never believe the real stories, but always fall for the BS? Anyway, the whole thing was a hoax. Which is mildly amusing, and brings me a sense of relief. Carry on.
It was bound to happen. According to RopeofSilicon The Weinstein Company has officially pushed Nine from November 25 to a limited release on December 18 in New York and LA. The film goes into wide release on Christmas Day. Earlier rumors that the film would get pushed to next year were obviously off, but the move isn't surprising.
I don't think the move helps Nine's chances. It would originally have had to deal with The Road (another Weinstein Oscar hopeful), The Princess and the Frog (limited release), Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Me and Orson Welles. New Moon, which is a guaranteed hit is set to open on November 20, so perhaps Nine is being moved to be saved from that.
Now Nine has to contend with A Single Man, which has now been set to open wide on Christmas Day, Avatar (December 18), Sherlock Holmes, The Young Victoria, It's Complicated, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I haven't even mentioned the opening of Invictus or The Lovely Bones which open a week before Nine's new limited release. On paper this looks like a terrible idea, but I'm not really great at predicting box office and its effect on awards season.
Along with this news Nine - the Movie (via ONTD!) points us to the November cover of Vogue with the women of Nine.
Well, this is disappointing. According to Comic Book Movie Beyonce might be considered to play Wonder Woman. I suppose it would be "bold" to cast a black Wonder Woman (something Get the Big Picture points out Beyonce has said). But now that I think of it, should anyone be surprised that Wonder Woman might not be white? The TV version of Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, is Hispanic - her mother was Mexican-American.
Anyway, I wish I was making the Beyonce part up:
Just got back from a press conference tonight with Beyonce and she spoke of a few upcoming movie projects. The last on her list was Wonder Woman!
Yes, Wonder Woman! She said she has to meet up with the writers and directors in a couple months and things will start to pick up by mid-2010 for a late 2011 release. She said the writers were Stuart Beatti and David Elliot, the guys that wrote GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and the director was John Moore, the guy that directed Max Payne.
Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody play a husband and wife research team who achieve fame by splicing human DNA with the DNA of different animals to create a new creature. In the process they ignore their society's ethical and legal boundaries. The scientists name their creature "Dren", which is initially a deformed female infant, however, rapidly develops into a beautiful but deadly winged human-chimera. [Wiki]
According to /Film Splice may be re-titled Hybrid and may not get a theatrical release at all, which is disappointing because I love sci-fi and Adrien Brody. Guess we'll have to look out for the DVD. Movie clip and cast interviews below:
Via ONTD!:
In this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly (via MTV), reporters were on the set of 36 movies and TV shows, including the set of Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways. Kristen Stewart is pictured with director Floria Sigismondi above in a photo from the EW issue.
Joan Jett is reportedly always on the set scaring the heck out of Stewart:
...watching Kristen and her fellow "New Moon" costar Dakota Fanning channel her and her '70s girl group was an unusual experience for the music legend. "It's really hard to put exact words on it beyond saying it’s surreal,” Joan explained.There are also some kick ass photos of Kristen Stewart from Interview magazine. Some are posted below, but you can check out the rest courtesy of ONTD!
To help Kristen with her portrayal, Joan gave her tapes of herself talking and singing at the age of 14, which Kristen spent weeks listening to.
“I’m sure it was a strange pressure [on Kristen],” Joan said of her constant presence on set. “She was kind of intimidated by it, but by the same token she wanted me there.”
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!"
"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 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. I'll be posting the rest of this list over the course of several weeks. Here's part 5 for you:
60 - Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) Hairspray - Tracy Turnblad is one of those characters you genuinely root for. She's a kid with passion - she's completely dance obsessed; she's sunny and optimistic, but not annoyingly so. Like so many teenagers she is an idealist, and unlike most of the adults around her completely ahead of her time ("People who are different, their time is coming!").
On the character of Tracy:
Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), the heroine of Hairspray, is a sweetly perky high school girl with a pasty coif that flips up on each side, a grin as bright as an electric billboard, and a mood so bubblicious she's like the teenybopper Shirley Temple of 1962 Baltimore. When Tracy, who can barely focus in class, goes to audition for The Corny Collins Show, the local afternoon TV bandstand around which her life revolves, she swings, twitches, and rocks her body with jubilant abandon. This makes for a rather startling image, given Tracy's undeniably bounteous physique. Yet when she does the twist, the frug, or the mashed potato, flinging her arms back and forth, her butt twitching furiously in a tight plaid skirt, she's not just a great hoofer — she's dirty-dancing on air. In her very heftiness, she makes you feel the mad, cool acrobatic joy of each unhinged gyration.59 - Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) Legally Blonde, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde - How do you get the audience on your side if you play a character who literally has it all? It probably helps if you're a charming, lovable actress, like Reese Witherspoon. Elle Woods is the gorgeous, popular, blond president of a sorority, who decides, after being dumped by her boyfriend, to enroll into Harvard Law School to win him back.
I wanted there to be some kind of positive message for women. Too much of our focus in society is devoted to superficial impressions about people. Appearances come first, and we don't often go beyond that in judging people which is a terrible thing.
Look at Elle. At the beginning, she works hard to get into Harvard Law School so she can impress her boyfriend and win him back. Then she becomes much more conscious of her own identity and begins asserting herself under very competitive conditions with her fellow law students. She fights for the respect of her peers and her teachers. At the beginning of the film, she has no goals other than to get married and lead a pampered, privileged life. But she evolves into a determined young woman eager to pursue her ambitions. She overcomes the stereotypes associated with being an attractive blonde.
I think that's a pretty good message that the film sends out. That you can be the way you are, look the way you want, and still achieve your goals if you work at them.
They built like... a mound of sand bags that was shaped like the back end of that elephant, and they had... the arrows in it. So I actually climbed up the arrows, did that sequence and then they had wires and ropes to swing along the side of it. And then, you know, I slashed the thing, so I did the slash, and then there was like... a winch with a rope to pull me up, up and then I fall on top of the sand bags with all the guys. So they put in the elephant afterwards basically.
This is a good role for DiCaprio: Since he's playing a wily punk on the right side of the law, it's fitting that his boyishness hasn't yet quite jelled into manhood. And as he's forced to wade deeper and deeper into his secret life, we can see how much it takes out of him: His heart is so heavy it seems to weigh down even his narrow, wiry body.More on DiCaprio:
...DiCaprio is outstanding as the audience's main point of emotional contact, a man gravely at risk every moment of his life (one minor issue is an uncertainty over how much time the main action encompasses). In his third collaboration with Scorsese, DiCaprio has rarely been this vital, energized or passionate.
It's really nerve wracking, for one. Because obviously Danny Boyle's in the room, and things like that. I really wanted it. It was the first time in my life I had wanted something so bad. I remember doing one audition, and at the end of it Danny gave me this kind of talk, it was one of those talks like he was letting you down. Then after that I went with my mom to have a pizza, and it was the most sour-tasting pizza in the world. I felt like crying. Then I got a call two weeks later like something like, and it was Gail Stevens, the casting director, going 'They want you to go to India for a week, to join everyone on locations.'
All hail Helen Mirren, who delivers a master class in acting in The Queen. Having just won an Emmy for playing Elizabeth I, who ruled England from 1558 to 1603, Mirren is in line for a curtsy from Oscar for digging deep into the role of Elizabeth II, the queen since 1952.
...the real triumph of the film is the dignity it finally allows the queen. Bred to serve since girlhood, she has dedicated herself to a life Diana rejected. And yet as the queen walks past the mountain of flowers the people have left at the palace and reads the notes of love to Diana - and the insults to Her Majesty - Mirren lets us see the confusion and hurt in Elizabeth's eyes. It's Blair who has forced her back to London to mourn Diana publicly, much against her private nature. In a tart reference to Blair's current career reversals, the script has the queen tell him that "one day, quite suddenly, the same thing will happen to you."
Ray Charles' music didn't depend on dope, and in an odd way Jamie Foxx's performance reminds us that we knew that all along. Those strange bodily movements of Charles', the way his right leg dusted the floor by the side of his piano bench as if looking for purchase, the way he embraced himself in response to applause as if he were hugging the audience to him, the way he held his head back and moved his torso from side to side as if he were about to levitate, are less drug-induced than the body language of a man to whom sound was the most concrete thing: Foxx's Ray undulates to caress the currents of sound rising around him, like musical notes in a cartoon.
"Ray" is the movie that finally allows Foxx the full flower of his talent. His Ray Charles is such a fully lived-in performance that any questions of imitation vanish. You don't watch him thinking, "I can't believe how close he is to Ray Charles." You watch him as if you're watching Ray Charles. It's Charles' own recordings we hear in the musical numbers, but Foxx's imitation of Charles' speaking voice is uncanny. It begins as a sort of stutter, then words start to come out in little husks, almost without breath. The words gather speed and bubble out -- higher than you'd expect but gently, as if he were half speaking to himself -- before slowing to the insinuating honey drip with which he draws sentences to a close.
Mr. Bale's portrayal of 27-year-old Patrick Bateman, a budding master of the universe by day (he works in mergers and acquisitions, which he facetiously refers to as "murders and executions") and homicidal maniac by night, is alternately funny, blood-curdling and pathetic.
As this character metamorphoses from preening, wolfish yuppie to chain-saw wielding maniac to whimpering crybaby, Mr. Bale makes us feel the underlying connections between these multiple personalities. One minute Mr. Bale's Patrick is a cowering corporate geek and self-described empty shell, the next an arrogant, name-dropping smoothie, the next a hysterical wimp unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.
Some of the funniest speeches are Patrick's pompous lectures -- each a prelude to homicide -- on the 80's pop stalwarts Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis and the News.
Thanks to Meryl Streep, whose performance as the editor in chief of the world's most influential fashion magazine is eerie perfection, "The Devil Wears Prada" is often quite funny.
The stage is set for Streep's entrance as the dreaded boss, Miranda. Word gets out that she has arrived in the building early, which creates pandemonium in the office as desks are cleared, hair and clothing are primped and comfortable shoes are replaced with high heels. We're led to expect a screaming harpy, but Streep is too smart an actress for that. She's the boss, and the boss doesn't have to raise her voice. Instead, she speaks in a quiet monotone, complaining and giving orders with an air of mildly pained bewilderment. Her most vicious comments begin in seemingly innocuous ways, with "Why is it impossible that ..." or "I really don't understand why ..." Miranda is much scarier than a demanding, screaming boss. She takes pleasure in slipping inside her employees' minds and torturing them.
Beneath Streep's coldness, there's more coldness, and beneath that coldness is something worse. She makes you feel that the devil really does wear Prada.
Mandy Moore recently talked to Empire about voicing Rapunzel in the upcoming animated Disney film. Disney is set to release its 50th animated feature, Rapunzel sometime in December of 2010. The project is 3D animation but even though it's 3D animation, the images are designed to look like a traditional 2D film. The visual style is said to be based on Jean-Honoré Fragonard's painting The Swing.
Kristin Chenoweth had been cast as the voice of Rapunzel but was replaced by Mandy Moore after the entire project was overhauled. Moore discusses Rapunzel's personality and her favorite Disney princess:
"She's sort of the quintessential sassy, feisty Disney heroine. She's quite modern, quite a curious girl as well," says Moore of the once-entowered princess. "She's just coming into her own and is anxious to figure out a way to see the world around her that she's been kept away from for so many years."
"I just feel honoured to be in such good company. Being a Disney Princess is kind of every girl's ultimate dream."
"I was always really fond of the Little Mermaid growing up, so I would probably have to go with Ariel."
Megan Fox will be hosting the season premier of Saturday Night Live tomorrow. I haven't really seen NBC promote the season opening, but hey, maybe they don't need to with Megan Fox and all. Anyway, you can check out all the promos in the video below.
Carla Gugino plays adult entertainer, Elektra Luxx in Women in Trouble: "A serpentine day in the life of ten seemingly disparate women: a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender, a pair of call girls, etc. All of them with one crucial thing in common. Trouble." Written and directed by Gugino's boyfriend, Sebastian Gutierrez (Snakes on a Plane), the film is the first in a trilogy that will include Elektra Luxx and Women in Ecstasy.
Women in Trouble has a pretty impressive cast (Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Simon Baker), but, it's the women who get the best roles in the film (Marley Shelton, Adrianne Palicki, Cameron Richardson, Connie Britton, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, and Emmanuelle Chriqui):
"Women in Trouble is a fun addition to the current trend of revisiting and reworking exploitation-film themes in a lighthearted way...There's a certain pleasure in seeing a movie where the men are relegated to the Supportive Spouse and Lust Interest roles, after I've seen so many films where those are the only roles for women." [Cinematical]
We're nearly halfway through the list. It's been tough to narrow things down, and as usual, there weren't really any rules, and I tried to balance the characters as much as I could. Here's the next batch for you:
70 - Paikea Apirana (Keisha Castle-Hughes) Whale Rider - I said earlier that there won't be many teenagers on this list, and there will be even fewer pre-teens. Pai will end up being one of a handful of memorable children. Fueled by the strength of Castle-Hughes, Pai is the poster child for female empowerment - the ultimate personification of girl power. Sometimes it's hard to believe she's just a child.
Pai is the only available heir to her grandfather, the chief of her tribe, though customs demands that the chief be male. But she stands up to her grandfather, who would rather Pai had been born a boy, or perhaps, not even born at all (''There was no gladness when I was born.'')
Keisha Castle-Hughes on her role in Whale Rider:
''It's about a girl who's trying to find who she is in a male-dominated society,'' explains Keisha Castle-Hughes, the 13-year-old star of Niki Caro's inspiring coming-of-age film, ''Whale Rider"... The tale of the Maori in New Zealand has been embraced around the world, proving that it's more than a chick flick. ''One man said he saw his grandfather in Koro, the patriarch,'' Castle-Hughes says, happily surprised. ''He could relate, even though he was an Italian from New Jersey.''...The movie's message is a universal one: ''If you want something, you've got to go out and grab it with both hands..."More on Whale Rider:
Keisha admits there are certain parallels between the young actress and this remarkable character she has played so effortlessly. "I think we're both strong willed and independent, and Pai has a great unique quality about her. She's an 11-year-old girl who's confident about who she is and knows exactly who she is. Not many 11-year-old girls are like that. She's a great role model for young girls. I think I'm like that too."
...Cate Blanchett, as the Royal Albert Hall-era Dylan (there we go again with the pushpins), is the most hypnotic, capturing the spirit of Dylan -- or, more accurately, one of his many spirits -- in her willowy frame. This could be the performance of the year, in one of the most inventive and joyous movies of the year.
Cate Blanchett gets all the attention and awards talk for her cross-dressing portrayal of Dylan at his most scathing and magnetic, and she deserves it. You can’t take your eyes off her as she staggers through Dylan’s best-dressed, most confrontational and most fucked up time in his life, what was essentially a long-playing nervous breakdown. It’s an over-the-top performance rooted firmly in the truth.
...it's apparent that the role of Frida may easily be the most challenging role Hayek has ever undertaken. The part shows that Hayek is much more than just a pretty face. She mesmerizingly portrays Frida throughout all stages of her life – young girl, budding woman, old and dying. Not to mention that she has to convey the horrible physical pain Kahlo endured as a result of a crippling childhood accident. Additionally, prosthetics ranging from aging make-up, numerous scenes in full body casts, and of course Frida's omnipresent unibrow were heaped upon Hayek. "Honestly, it is definitely by far the most complex character I have ever played and maybe the most complex character I will ever play," exclaims Hayek. "But it was not the most challenging one. When you are so passionate about something and when you love someone so much, it's easy to feel their pain."
...As he talks to the killers, to law officers and to the neighbors of the murdered Clutter family, Capote's project takes on depth and shape as the story of conflicting fates. But at the heart of his reporting is an irredeemable conflict: He wins the trust of the two convicted killers and essentially falls in love with Perry Smith, while needing them to die to supply an ending for his book. "If they win this appeal," he tells his friend Harper Lee, "I may have a complete nervous breakdown." After they are hanged on April 14, 1965, he tells Harper, "There wasn't anything I could have done to save them." She says: "Maybe, but the fact is you didn't want to."66 - Bettie Page (Gretchen Mol) The Notorious Bettie Page - This is arguable one of the best examples of perfect casting in a biopic. Gretchen Mol, with her huge eyes, big black bangs, and dazzling smile plays the sweet, innocent pin-up girl of the 1950s with so much charm and vulnerability. She's just as comfortable dressed in high heels and leather as a dominatrix as she is being bound and gagged - or even completely nude.
It has often been said that Bettie Page, the legendary '50s pinup with the pert features framed by those famously severe black bangs, was the rare American sex goddess who was equally at home projecting the image of a good girl or a bad girl. Frolicking, naked, in the ocean foam, her leg extended with playful pleasure, she was all dazzle and sunshine: the girl next door who said yes yes yes. In her scandalous underground bondage photos, where she posed as a dominatrix with a whip held high, or as a masochist with a ball in her mouth, she vamped like a pussycat from hell, her eyes narrowing with mean delight — or widening in mock terror. Yet the mysterious alchemy of Bettie Page isn't just that she could turn on a dime from light to dark, saint to sinner, virgin to vixen. It's that she was somehow able to project both qualities at once. In the bondage photos, so shocking for their time, her warm, spirited, peekaboo vibrance doesn't disappear; it's there just beneath the surface aggression of her poses. As for her all-American cheesecake shots, they have a quality of delirious, laughing abandon, as though she were winking at the she-devil inside. What Bettie Page conjured — always — was the promise of pleasure without limits. She was a one-woman orgy in centerfold form.65 - Alice (Natalie Portman) Closer - Alice is an intelligent, sexy, 20 year old, who deals in deception ("Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off...but it's better if you do.") It's easy to be fooled by her innocent face, but even when Alice tells the truth it is to hurt her partner, not to unburden herself of guilt. She talks a good game about love, but one wonders at the end of it all if she's ever really felt it.
Portman, who digs so deep into the bruised core of her character that they seem to wear the same skin. It's a blazing, breakthrough performance.And:
As for the elfin Portman, it's far and away the best performance of the adult portion of her career. Gone is that kid-genius preciousness; she seems like someone abused by men and self almost to the breaking point.64 - Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) Donnie Darko - The title character in the film is a
puzzle. He goes to a nice school and he's walking around with Jake Gyllenhaal's angelic face. But on the inside, he is gloomy, tormented, lost. He is a paranoid schizophrenic dealing with the mundane aspects of teenage life. He's more than just an angst-ridden teenager. He hears voices in his head, hallucinates, has visions of the future - he's often visited by a giant rabbit with an injured eye. He's an oddball with the guts to ask out the new girl.I remember that when [Richard] was in the bunny suit that we shot that at night and that there was pizza behind the camera, because we were going over, and all I wanted was a piece of pizza, that was my main motivation for that... I couldn't agree more with Steven. When I read it, I just immediately responded to it, even though I didn't read it all the way through when I met [Richard]. I had ten pages to go and I had five minutes before the meeting and I knew I already wanted to do it. Good to know that I didn't know what happens in the end because I still don't know what happens in the end. But it was an amazing experience for me and a familiar one too because this was hopefully not the last time that I work with my sister, but everyone sort of became family from that experience and I'm so proud of it.
Two younger actors play Latika at earlier ages, so she drew from that work. However, most of the adult Latika was intuitive from the script. "I read the script first and I read little Latika's part. I was like, 'That's the character. That's the Latika that I can relate to because she's a spicy, stubborn girl. She's got this zest for life and she's playful.' She's a fighter and the moment you come to the girl in the middle, she automatically gets submissive and she's kind of grown before her time. She's 14 but she looks like she could be 18, 20. So it was really important to watch the kids to see how they had grown so I could grow beyond that as well. So Danny had already shot scenes with the two characters and I watched it and it was such an immense amount of pressure because they were so good. They just seemed so effortless. It just makes it kind of simpler to have watched it, so the growth seems not disconnected. It just seems fluid."
...things get infinitely better when Shia LaBeouf appears as Sam, a smart-mouthed teen who discovers the Transformers with his would-be girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox).
LaBeouf is a good choice to act out the lively script by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who never forget that they're writing a movie about robots from outer space that can turn into helicopters and boom boxes. The rising young actor, who will play Indiana Jones' sidekick in next summer's big movie, has a geeky charm that recalls a young John Cusack or Patrick Dempsey.
Brand, a Brit stand-up, radiates star quality and ace comic timing as the sexually insatiable lead singer of Infant Sorrow, a rocker so self-involved that he doesn't see why Sarah wouldn't want to join his groupies, the Sorrow Suckers, on tour. Brand is priceless when a pushy waiter (Hill is perfecto) asks if Aldous has listened to his audition CD. "I was going to," says Brand in an accent that blends Keith Richards with Monty Python, "but then I just carried on livin' my life."
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.
Okay, we're one-fifth of the way through the list. It's been tough to narrow things down, and as usual, there weren't really any rules, and I tried to balance the characters as much as I could. Here's the next batch for you:
80 - Officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) Crash - To be honest I didn't really love Crash, but John Ryan was the one character who stood out from all the others. On one hand Ryan is loathsome and awful - he's a racist and he molests a woman, Christine (Thandie Newton), right in front of her husband. He's an easy character to hate. In a film with no real villain, he's the closest thing to one initially. As the film unfolds we watch Ryan care for his ailing father and save Christine from a burning car. He's detestable and admirable all at once.
Actor Matt Dillon spoke about the two sides of Officer Ryan in 2005:
"Well, I wanted to be very truthful to play this character. I recognized things that I felt to be true, totally, in this script, about human nature and I wanted to be honest about it. I mean, I wouldn't have gone into this project with any other agenda. I've never been one that's been that concerned with my character looking good… What I liked about the film was that it went deeper, explored the more personal nature of this cop, this racist cop, so we got to see the other side, the loving son who's frustrated with his life [and] the fact that his father's sick, terminally ill. And it doesn't make his actions acceptable, but it puts a human face on the character, which as an actor we always look for characters that are balanced in that way."Roger Ebert explains why Dillon is one of Crash's strengths:
For me, the strongest performance is by Matt Dillon, as the racist cop in anguish over his father. He makes an unnecessary traffic stop when he thinks he sees the black TV director and his light-skinned wife doing something they really shouldn't be doing at the same time they're driving. True enough, but he wouldn't have stopped a black couple or a white couple. He humiliates the woman with an invasive body search, while her husband is forced to stand by powerless, because the cops have the guns...
I always felt that Crash was a manipulative film with contrived characters, and I think Officer Ryan was written that way on the page. But the Officer Ryan that Matt Dillon brings to the screen isn't contrived. He feels real, like any of the characters we encounter in our own lives.
79 - Leopold Mountbatten (Hugh Jackman) Kate & Leopold - Like Christian before him, Leopold is one of the decade's few purely romantic leading male characters. He is a courteous English gentleman who time travels from 1876 New York to the present day, and it isn't at all surprising when Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) falls in love with the gallant third Duke of Albany. Leopold is in many ways the perfect man: he's uncommonly handsome, well-bred, brilliant (he is the inventor of the elevator), and he can ride a horse.
A less capable actor would probably have made the near-perfect Leopold irritating and insufferable, but Hugh Jackman gives Leopold a lot of passion. Where he could come off as lecturing, Jackman makes him honorable. Where he could seem tactless, Jackman makes him honest. He isn't being pretentious in this film - Leopold really believes what he says, and in an era where most of the romantic comedy heroes are either hiding something or downright lying, Leopold Mountbatten is pretty damn interesting.
78 - John & Jane Smith (Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie) Mr. & Mrs. Smith - While Mr. & Mrs. Smith isn't a particularly memorable film, it's the characters that I remember the most. There's a lot of chemistry between the two characters, and upon seeing the film it was very difficult for me to tell if I was watching Pitt and Jolie or Smith and Smith. I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Whatever it is, it's certainly a memorable thing. Both characters are cunning, and there's an amusing coolness to their cavalier way of dealing with potentially assassinating each other. The brilliance is in their paradoxes - are we dealing with characters in an old-school romantic comedy or a 21st century action movie? It's obviously both, and even though the film itself doesn't quite pull it off, Pitt and Jolie do it flawlessly: it's almost impossible to take your eyes off the pair of them.
77 - Arwen (Liv Tyler)
She, like her grandmother Galadriel, is wise and strong. She is a great warrior who saves Frodo's life ("If you want him, come and claim him!"), and at the same time chooses to live as a mortal because of her love for Aragorn. Instead of leaving Middle-earth and sailing to the Grey Havens like her father Elrond wants, she stays in Middle-earth, refusing to leave the man she loves, even if he may not return. These are extraordinary sacrifices. Arwen is also the reason Aragorn chooses to fight on and not despair - during hard times he thinks of her.
More on Arwen:
Of Arwen, Tolkien said she was the Evenstar (the Evening Star) of her people, the embodiment of the mystery and brilliance of the night with a star spangled sky above. Arwen is dark...and seems younger, although she equals Galadriel in wisdom. She is also half human, with the ability to be mortal or immortal, as she chooses.
As Tolkien writes, `the braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost, her white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as one who has known many things that the years bring.'
A luminous being, then, who combined innocence and wisdom, who shone like the stars in the sky. Liv Tyler embodied all this, and also brought some vitality and athleticism to the role, when Jackson chose to give Arwen a more active part to play in the quest.
But it was not the dazzling physical beauty that was the most arresting thing...although they were of course beautiful in Tolkien's description. These elf women were older in elf years than the brotherhood of the ring - Arwen, indeed, far older than Aragorn, her beloved. But they did not age physically. The beauty that shines from them is the beauty of accumulated wisdom and compassion, something it is hard to render for a modern audience.
76 - Nemo (Alexander Gould)
Despite the close relationship between Nemo and his father Marlin, in an instance of childhood defiance directed at his overprotective father, Nemo is taken far away from his home on the Great Barrier Reef.
Andrew Stanton on Nemo:
Nemo's short fin — a deformity that does not slow him down one bit — became, says Stanton, "a metaphor for anything you worry is insufficient or hasn't formed yet in your child. Parents think their child's handicap is a reflection of the parent. They become obsessive and anxious over that, whether it is the child's ability to read or the way they walk. This movie says there is no perfect kid; there is no perfect father."
75 - Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) Star Wars Episode: I, II, & III - Very few things about the Star Wars prequels lived up to the original trilogy. The little I did like included Qui-Gon Jin, Queen Padmé Amidala in The Phantom Menace, and above all, Obi-Wan Kenobi. As Owen Gleiberman says: "The one figure in Revenge of the Sith who taps the true spirit of Star Wars is Ewan McGregor: With his beautiful light K, clipped delivery, he plays Alec Guinness' playfulness, making Obi-Wan a marvel of benevolent moxie."
For me, Obi-Wan is interesting because of his character's growth. Sure, other characters have an arc as well, but Obi-Wan is the only character where you can see genuine maturing. While Anakin Skywalker is a perpetual child, and Amidala is loyal until the end, Obi-Wan is the only one among them who feels like a real human being.
In The Phantom Menance Obi-Wan starts off as a Padawan who is fiercely loyal to his Master. But there is self-confidence in Obi-Wan that he will grow into later. He disagrees with his Master, Qui-Gon, who is convinced that Anakin can bring balance to the force and defeat the Sith. Obi-Wan is confident enough to voice his disagreement, but respectful enough to realize that his Master ought to have the final say. Despite Obi-Wan's doubts about Anakin he takes on the responsibility of training him.
By Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan's doubts about Anakin are proven correct. While characters around him like Padmé refuse to see Anakin for what he truly is until is too late, Obi-Wan has the wisdom to see his true nature from the beginning. The difference between a young Obi-Wan and older Obi-Wan is that the older man has the courage to attempt the unspeakable - kill his closest friend.
74 - Charlie's Angels (Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu) Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle- When I was 14 years old, Dylan Sanders, Natalie Cook, and Alex Munday were the coolest chicks the girls my age had ever seen. Sure, a character like Trinity from The Matrix was kick ass, but she's was too cold, distant, and self-serious for girls in their early teens. Sanders, Cook, and Munday were different from many previous tough girls. They had cute non-threatening boyfriends, drove fast cars, wore trendy outfits, and of course, could kick the crap out of people. They were campy and fun, and for once there was a movie with young women who could really be friends without hating each other.
By the time the inevitable Charlie's Angels sequel came around, I was nearly an adult and had moved on to other things. But now, nine years on from the first film, I will occasionally stop to watch the three Angels whenever I catch them.
The actress [Drew Barrymore] is meltingly cute, has crack comic timing, and can execute those Jackie Chan moves (she does some stunts herself) with startling fluency. But she also has a slight speech impediment and a trace of nerdy self-consciousness, and when she leaps into a battle you can see in her eyes that she's amazed—and thrilled!—to be playing a kung-fu superhero.
And Diaz, clearly the most vivacious performer of the trio, continues that goosing around with some energetic booty wiggling that'll have the audience hooting or cheering – depending on the, uh, viewer sophistication levels involved.
Lui...she has an icy glamour-girl veneer-- but she does throw off a measure of sadistic good cheer disguised as a leather-clad efficiency expert who threatens a group of nerdy software engineers with a collective spanking
73 - Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo) The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - Melquiades is one of those characters who will stay with me for the rest of my life. And though he is dead for much of the film it is his loyalty and his loneliness that hovers over everything.
One of the best descriptions of Melquiades Estrada:
The friendship happens between West Texas rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Mexican ranch hand named Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo) who just shows up one day looking for work. The two men don’t ask many questions of each other — they’re not really the question-asking kind — yet over time they come to see that they are but two cowboys riding the remnants of a dissipating range, mirror images reflected across the unforgiving border that divides their two countries. “If I die over here,” Melquiades tells Pete in a moment of uncanny prescience, “I don’t want to be buried on this side, with all the fucking billboards.”
72 - Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) Good Night, and Good Luck. - The 
beauty of the film was that instead of it mimicking the traditional biopics Hollywood often cranks out, the audience simply gets a snapshot of Murrow's career and a piece of American history. What makes Edward R. Murrow so fascinating in the film is his professionalism and his commitment to the truth, even if it may destroy him and CBS, the network he's work so hard for. David Straithairn, though he has little resemblance to Murrow, moves exactly like him. It's very eerie, watching him sit in stone silence, cigarette in hand, as he gives an interview.
Men like him don't exist anymore in modern American journalism, so watching Strathairn's performance is really watching an era that will probably never exist again.
(Good Night, and Good Luck) could have been made in 1941. It could have been in the 1800’s, or 1941 with the Japanese-American internment camps … the fear of Indians, so we'd better take away their civil liberties and put them on a reservation. It could be Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, any place that is where fear has been used … and confusion and the oppression of news has been used. The light has shined on it by this film. I don't think it's any coincidence that it's coming out now. I think that it's just a wonderful confluence of timing, that George (Clooney) got it together to make this film. I imagine if (George W.) Bush hadn't gotten a second term, it wouldn't be quite as potent an illumination, but there's always going to be something going on apropos of this, on this issue. Especially today, where we are fearful, but I think we are more confused; we're more paralyzed by our confusion as to who's telling us what, and what do we believe, and where's the truth?
I mean, it's sort of relative now. One news network is really only speaking to those people who need to be re-affirmed of their particular ideology and another one is (supporting another) – so these tribal factions in our society are feeding off these wildly opposing founts of information. Murrow was not about that. Murrow was about information for all, for the good of all. It's not a film to polarize or proselytize or indict, it's just to examine and to maybe build a platform for debate about these issues, and the responsibility of the journalist to find what's most important. Sure, we need to find out what's going on as a result of (recent hurricanes), but to what extent? To the extent that it puts a smokescreen over the (Alito) confirmation hearing or Gonzalez vs. Oregon, a physicians right’s (case)? There are so many issues out there that Murrow would have targeted, because they were so important to our daily lives.
...Mr. Bernal, with his smoldering eyes and equine features, is the movie's heartthrob. Though the film does, by the end, view Ernesto as a quasi-holy figure, turning away from the corruptions of the world toward a higher purpose, he is also portrayed as a mischievous, eager boy. Early in the film, the travelers stop in the seaside town of Miramar to visit Ernesto's girlfriend, Chichina (MÃa Maestro), whose wealthy parents clearly disapprove of him.... The scenes between Ernesto and Chichina have the delicious ache of late-adolescent longing, a feeling that suffuses the film even as it turns its attention to graver matters.
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