Best Actress 2013: Sandra Bullock, Gravity

Little is known about Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity.  He cowrote (and coedited/produced) the science fiction drama with son Jonás and Rodrigo Garcia (Mother and Child, Albert Nobbs) concerning surviving astronauts of a damaged space station.  Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey, Jr both eventually passed on the project, along with Natalie Portman.  Considering that the lead role has also considered Marion Cotillard, as well as Scarlett Johansson and Blake Livelys' names being floated around, the female role seems to either call out for Oscar winner and/or the latest young and pretty thang, which is disconcerting.  But, yeah, the studio has to sell tickets.  But, still, one wonders if the "right fit" was found.  Sandra Bullock and George Clooney eventually took the plunge.  I worry about the commercial prospects of this $80M project which sounds meditative and not unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey or Clooney's Solaris remake.  Original fare of this genre are tough sells, especially when the tone is more pensive.  Stories driven by females are even tougher sells.  Director Cuarón was behind Children of Men and Y tu mamá también, and it has been over six years since he has helmed a major motion picture, so this has an almost "make or break" feel to it taking everything else into consideration, including a postponed release date by almost one calendar year, which is now October 4th, with Universal as the distributor.  Filming took place in Lake Powell on the Arizona side and Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England.  Jany Temime designed the costumes for the greater portion of the Harry Potter franchise as well as Skyfall.  Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki has been nominated five times for Oscar, including two Cuarón films, and has yet to win.

[Image via Celebuzz]

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Kidman's Third Lip Will Not Stand in Her Ambition's Way

The countdown to Kidman's Second
Oscar Begins

One of Lainey's favorite monikers for Nicole Kidman is Third Lip, because, well, those collagen injections or whatever she does to inflate her mouth make her kisses look monstrous (Granny Freeze is another codename she uses for the actress in regards, again, to her unhealthy and unaddressed love of plastic surgery, as well as perhaps her fashion missteps over the years).  But, lately, Third Lip is getting what she wants in larger gelatinous yields.  While Rabbit Hole was a career uptick (in more ways than one), it was really the only bright prospect after years of crashing and burning or, as far as the masses are concerned, underwhelming.  But, then, the masses didn't even show up for Rabbit Hole.  (Yes, Margot at the Wedding was engaging and Birth was interesting, but I digress.)  Three years ago, The Danish Girl made it sound like she was on a comeback, but when that production stalled and went through five or six (!) major female costars (let's see, from the top of my head, Charlize Theron, Rachel Weisz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, Marion Cotillard; not necessarily in that order), I actually considered that Kidman may have met her Waterloo.  But, this is Hollywood. And, like her ex Tommy Girl (that's what Dlisted likes to call Cruise), Kidman doesn't give up so easily.  They were a good match in that respect; you could almost say they are having his and her comebacks.  And it has been quite a good week for her.  She has secured financing for her Oscar-bait Grace of Monaco; 2012 Oscar buzz has begun over her possible Best Actress performance in The Paperboy, and, she’ll be in Cannes for her “it’s-not-TV-it’s-HBO” film premiering for us plebeians this Monday.  [5/24 Note: Well, I spoke too soon, as the air is starting to wheeze slightly out of her inflatable lips.]

Interesting how, sixteen years after the first high-profile film treatment of a real-life Ernest Hemingway love (played by the trendsetting Sandra Bullock), there are now two similar projects due to come out in the next calendar year.  On May 28^th, HBO will release the uninspiredly titled Hemingway& Gellhorn (after the unprecedented Cannes premiere on the 25^th, which guarantees Kidman walking the Croisette and further blurs the lines between film and TV for better or worse) and begin Kidman’s push against Julianne Moore for the 2012 Best Actress in a Television Movie/Miniseries Emmy (which are now generally won by film actresses).  Seriously, does it really matter how good Kidman is?  She already nabbed the Oscar over Moore for arguably Moore’s most competitive nomination back in 2002.  Me thinks Kidman’s team should have considered delaying release until qualifying for next year’s awards.  But, alas, Kidman appears to be building up some steam finally.  I’m sure a loss won’t hurt her too badly. 

While she may not reach the pinnacle of her prime in 2001-2003 (who will?), her near future is starting to look actually bright again.  As of the last couple days, she has Oscar prognosticators giddy with the prospect that she might be a “late” addition to this year’s Best Actress race for The Paperboy (time will tell how big her role actually is; though, I admit, it’s hard to imagine Kidman settling for any designation less than lead (*cough*Virginia Woolf*cough*, unless it’s an obvious cameo).  There’s her impending vampire film directed by Chan-wook Park.  Stoker was originally rumored to star Colin Firth, who was hot off of an Oscar win for The King’s Speech.  But, how could we count Kidman out of nabbing one of Hollywood’s current hottest commodities?  She has begun filming Oscar-bait The Railway Man with him, already having partook in a pre-promotional junket (is this a fairly new custom, or have I been sleeping under a rock?).  And, unlike how much time and effort she invested in The Danish Girl, she rather swiftly lined up the production dollars for her go-directly-to-Go-and-collect-your-AMPAS-nod for Grace of Monaco. 

Back to the Hemingway film, Kidman is playing Martha Gellhorn, a celebrated American war journalist who was also Hemingway’s third wife.  They were married through the bulk of World War II, before she asked for a divorce.  The role will likely focus on Gellhorn’s desire to not “being a footnote in someone else’s life,” which parallels Kidman's existence somewhat during the 1990s as Mrs. Tom Cruise.  Gellhorn was neither maternal, not much of a lover, and completely devoted to her work.  After dealing with cancer and near blindness, she committed suicide at age 89.

Bullock played Agnes von Kurowsky In Love And War in 1996, who was an American rumored to have inspired the Catherine Barkley character in A Farewell to Arms.  Hemingway fell in love with her while she was a nurse working in Italy during World War I.  Upon being asked for her hand in marriage after he returned to the US, she rejected the author via letter.  She lived to be 102. 

Annette Bening in American Beauty

Also on the past-Hemingway lover radar is AnnetteBening.  She’ll play Mary Welsh in the creatively titled Hemingway & Fuentas.  Anthony Hopkins will play the title icon and Andy Garcia will play the lesser-known Fuentes, as well as cowrite and direct the film.  Welsh was also an American war correspondent and was the fourth wife and widow of Hemingway.  While I LOVE me some Bening, the movie’s potential is plagued with A LOT of question marks (and I’ll leave it at that).  

Do you think there will be films based on Hemingway’s other wives?  There is American Hadley Richardson, his first betrothed, who bore him his first son.  Her life was beset with tragedy, but she had the luxury of living off various inheritances, which funded her early 1920 Parisian years with Hemingway.  Nothing immediately jumps out about second wife Paulie Pfeiffer, the woman Hemingway left Richardson for, except that she had a child experiencing gender dysphoria who would later become a doctor and interpret her autopsy and attribute her death to an over secreting adrenal gland caused by a call she received from her eldest child informing her that her youngest biologically male son was arrested for using a female bathroom.  Her son/daughter sounds WAY more interesting. 

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