Summer is the season for sequels, superheroes, special effects, chases, and explosions, with some slob comedies and animated family films added to the mix. But The Guardian points out that while Hollywood has been ignoring older audiences, indie films have showcased more mature performers and more mature storylines. While Glenn Close was barely recognizable in a brief, highly CGI’d performance in the video-game inspired sword and sorcery film “Warcraft,” her contemporaries Susan Sarandon, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Sally Field, and Meryl Streep have had starring roles in first-rate independent films this year.
Faced with such few worthwhile options in the multiplex, older moviegoers have opted to flock to the arthouse theaters instead, making their presence known in a big way. Of the top 10 most profitable independent films to play in cinemas in 2016 so far, seven are aimed strictly at adults, many of them centered on characters age 60 and over.
Hidden Figures Will Tell The Story of Three Black Women at NASA
Posted on July 10, 2016 at 8:00 am
Three of my favorite performers will star in a new film called “Hidden Figures,” the true story three African- American women who worked for NASA during the 1960s space race. of Janelle Monae, Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson will star as Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who are a crucial part of NASA’s history.
Jen Yamato on Three Awful Articles About Actresses
Posted on July 9, 2016 at 3:22 pm
There have been a lot of complaints about the Vanity Fair cover story on Margot Robbie by Rich Cohen (“Vinyl”), which reads like a parody of skeezily raphsodic profiles of beautiful women. I particularly like the takedown from Rebecca Shaw, who is, like Robbie, Australian, and so addresses Cohen’s idiotic comments about her country as well as his idiotic comments about Robbie.
Australia is America 50 years ago, sunny and slow, a throwback, which is why you go there for throwback people.
Bloody hell, calm your farm Richo. We’re America 50 years ago, so what – increasing our troops into Vietnam?…
That was the middle of a search that finally led to Alexander Skarsgård as Tarzan and Robbie as Jane. Jerry spoke of the actress in a tone he reserved for the big stars, the sure things, the Clooneys and Pitts, those whose magnitude seems old-fashioned. “When I think of Margot Robbie, a single word comes to mind,” Jerry said. “Audrey Hepburn.”
A single word: these two words. Earlier in the piece Richo said that Wolf of Wall Street defined Robbie. It “put her up with Sharon Stone in Casino and Cathy Moriarty in Raging Bull – one of Scorcese’s women.
I know I am 50 years behind all of this being one of the throwback people and all, but did you know that women don’t have to be defined by 1. being compared to other women and 2. belonging to some man or another? Astonishing stuff from here, downunder.
The piece reads like an interview in which subject and questioner had zero chemistry. But it’s an interviewer’s job to find that, or fix it, rather than go home and throw Google searches at the problem. Frankly, when I read that conclusion and it so strongly created the image of her just casually standing up and leaving, I wanted to shake her hand. Australia has a right to be offended by the finished article (and it is, from what I’ve read). So too does Margot Robbie, though I suspect she will calmly say nothing. She’s already won, honestly. She, somehow, still comes across as normal and cool even though she’s not given as much voice as she deserves.
At The Daily Beast, Jen Yamato insightfuly brings together the Rich Cohen profile of Margot Robbie with two other articles about actresses that have provoked complaints. Variety’s critic Owen Gleiberman wrote that the trailer for the new “Bridget Jones” movie made him think that Renee Zellweger “no longer looks like herself,” and thus he might not be able to enjoy the movie. (See Thelma Adams’ response, too.)
And the usually-better Wesley Morris wrote a piece titled “How I Learned to Tolerate Blake Lively.” He spends most of the article explaining that he was expecting to see Kate Hudson starring in “The Shallows,” but no, it was another lithe blonde actress from California instead. Yamato has some good advice: “One glaring (and fixable!) factor in this trend of vaguely lecherous, sketchy filmbro culture: Hire more women writers and editors to represent a more accurate diversity of opinions, analysis, context.”
Turner Classic Movies has brought in a new host to join Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz. The first woman host is Tiffany Vazquez, and she first came to the attention of the classic-movie network as the grand prize winner of its Ultimate Fan Contest.
In an interview with Jezebel, she talked about some of her favorite TCM movies (some of my favorites, too).
I particularly like when I just find a movie really funny. People think humor changes so much. I mean, you might watch a standup special from ten years ago and not really laugh anymore—sometimes jokes just don’t work anymore. But for some reason, so many comedies that are some of my favorite classic films are just, I think, always going to be funny. The Man Who Came to Dinner—I think that is a movie that is wildly impressive, probably influential to something like Veep now, because they both have the best insults I’ve ever heard in my life. So eloquent of an insult that you really can’t come back from it—you just really have to walk away.
And then there are so many women that I gravitate towards. I love Katherine Hepburn, I love Bette Davis. I love commentary on Hollywood, so Sunset Boulevard is one of my favorite movies. I love adolescence in films—Rebel Without a Cause is one of my favorites. And people who’ve had to struggle and should have had way bigger careers than they had also interest me. So I really love the Nicholas Brothers, and I think that their scene in Stormy Weather is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
Owen Suskind and His Parents Talk About the Autism Documentary “Life, Animated”
Posted on July 8, 2016 at 8:00 am
Owen Suskind tells me, “It feels interesting to be on the autism spectrum and fascinating.” His parents remember what he has said to them about how it feels to have autism. Ron Suskind reminds him, “Remember you said you see everything at once and you can remember all the moments in your life, maybe too many moments, but you go across them and you get a sense of what?”
“My place in the world,” Owen answers.
Cornelia Suskind adds, “And sometimes it’s a little overwhelming having all the stimulation coming in to you at once. You need to create a quiet space around you. When you were younger it was hard to communicate, language was really hard.”
The Suskinds were there to talk about their new documentary, “Life, Animated,” based on Ron’s best-selling book about Owen and how he taught himself about the world through Disney films. The movie is about Owen and autism and the scary and exciting adventure of leaving home, but most of all it is about family. The Suskinds are one of the most loving, devoted, and compassionate families ever to appear on screen. It is a joy to spend time with them, whether through the book, the film, or an interview.
Owen has regressive autism, meaning that he developed along typical milestones until about age 2½, and then lost his ability to communicate and continue to develop. He loved to watch Disney animated films but barely spoke until age 6, when he suddenly told his parents that his brother Walt did not want to grow up, “like Peter Pan and Mowgli.” Owen was using Disney films to teach himself how people feel, behave, and communicate.
“They helped me communicate to find my place in the world and get my speech back,” Owen said.
Cornelia explained, “Movies are always the same. Every time you pop it in, every time you put in a VHS it will always be the same movie and the same language and the same characters instead of constantly changing, the way it does with people, even my expressions, with you and me sitting here. it’s always the same, very, very exaggerated, very colorful. And I think the combination of the music and animation together activating those parts of the brain were really key in tapping into how Owen was feeling but not able to express.”
When Owen was younger, he preferred hand-drawn animation “because it does expressions and feelings.” Now, he likes computer animation as well, perhaps because it has come closer to hand-drawn in its expressiveness and richness of detail. He has very strong views about sequels: “The only four theatrical animated sequels I love are ‘The Rescuers Down Under,’ ‘Fievel Goes West,’ ‘Toy Story II’ and ‘Fantasia 2000’ and the only direct-to-video animated sequels I love are after the very first film of ‘The Land Before Time’ the animated film theatrical in 1988 were ‘The Land Before Time’ direct to video animated sequels. I would go all the way until the 10th one from late 2003, early 2004 and then conclude right there.” He loves to draw the sidekick characters, who have special meaning for him. His favorites are Sebastian from “The little Mermaid,” Iago from “Aladdin,” and Lucky Jack from “Home On The Range.”
Owen has his own YouTube channel, Owen’s Disney Club, where he discusses his favorite movies, displays Disney paraphernalia currently available for bid on eBay in a weekly “Finds of the Week” screencast, tours his personal collection of rare and hard-to-find Disney items, and interviews special guests.
Owen may be the only fan whose favorite Jimmy Stewart role is in “Fievel Goes West,” where his character says, “Just remember Fievel, one man’s sunset is another man’s dawn. I don’t know what’s out there beyond those hills but if you ride yonder, eyes steady, head up and heart open, I think one day that you’ll find that you are the hero that you’ve been looking for.”
Owen pointed out that Stewart, like a surprising list of other stars, made his last performance in an animated film. Another favorite is Mary Wickes, whose last performance was as a gargoyle in “Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Owen quoted her: “Life’s not a spectator sport. If watchin’ is all you’re gonna do, then you’re gonna watch your life go by without ya.”
Cornelia’s hopes for the movie are equally inspiring: “If we could share a little bit of a positive experience, not that obviously every minute in the film is a positive and our every minute has not been positive, but just the reality of it for people to get another image of what a person on the spectrum is like instead of ‘Rain Man,’ to see how fully realized Owen’s life is and that his wants and desires are every bit exactly the same as ours. I mean it’s extraordinary, it really is. So we’ve guided him for sure and try to teach him but he teaches us a lot more in a profound way.” And in this movie, they teach us all.
