Thompson On Hollywood

Colin Firth: Mr. Darcy vs. Mr. Big

Colin Firth not only leads my My Fair Lady poll on who should play Henry Higgins opposite Keira Knightley--by a huge margin--but he is also Jane Austen fans' fave Mr. Darcy. (Is he a model for Mr. Big?) Lead by Firth's sexy performance, the BCC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice continues to dominate all other entrants in the Austen field. I watched it again recently, and Firth does even better than Sir Laurence Olivier (in the 1940 film) at capturing Fitzwilliam Darcy's darkness and light. And Firth scored again in a Darcy-inspired role in Bridget Jones' Diary and its sequel.

I told an interviewer writing yet another story about women's pics in the wake of Sex and the City (here's Rachel Abramowitz's latest) that Jane Austen invented the romantic comedy formula that Hollywood has long relied on. Women are hardwired to believe that a good marriage leads to happily ever after, no matter what their brain tells them. No one has played on the wedding fantasy better than Austen. And Hollywood can steal her stories forever, as far as I'm concerned.

There's a reason romantic movies keep coming back to Firth, from Richard Curtis's Love Actually and Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me to the upcoming movie musical Mamma Mia! (Here's the trailer.) I'm there.

Trailer Watch: A Previous Engagement, Mamma Mia!

I'm smack dab in the bullseye of the target audience for the indie comedy A Previous Engagement, which will likely only play for folks over 40 when it opens May 9 in NY and LA. But the trailer for this movie is hilarious. This reminds me of Enchanted April, the ultimate older women escapist fantasy. A Previous Engagement stars Brit thesp Juliet Stevenson, who can do comedy (Bend it like Beckham) or tragedy (the late great Anthony Minghella's romantic drama Truly Madly Deeply).

In this romantic comedy, written and directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin, Seattle librarian Julia Reynolds (Stevenson) coaxes her dull hubby Jack (Daniel Stern) to take a family vacation on Malta. Her undisclosed agenda is to keep the date she made twenty-five years ago with her first love Alex (Tcheky Karyo). When he shows up with a younger girlfriend in tow, all hell breaks loose.

Here's the trailer.

Trawling similar terrain is the movie version of the hit theater musical Mamma Mia!, starring Meryl Streep as a free-wheeling mom whose daughter is getting married and invites to her island wedding three possible fathers--handsome charmers all-- Brit Colin Firth, Swede Stellan Skarsgard and Irish Pierce Brosnan. Here's the HD trailer.

Summer Movies: Women Want Sex and the City

The NYT's Manohla Dargis seems to think that there aren't many women's pictures coming out this summer. True, much of the summer movie advance buzz and online hype is about what the fanboys are interested in. The women's pictures, which appeal to one or two audience quadrants and don't necessarily target men, won't be blockbusters. That's one issue. (Another is the current phobia about putting sex in movies, like Speed Racer and Iron Man, because it will scare off men and younger folks. Please.)

But several movies in theaters now and still to come are aimed at women, from Made of Honor and What Happens in Vegas to the Meryl Streep Abba musical Mamma Mia! and Sex and the City. Even Get Smart, starring Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway, is going to pull women. And don't mess with Wanted's Angelina Jolie: she can kick ass on-screen as well as any male action star.

Finally, some marketing is starting to hit on Sex and the City, from Parker hyping her role as a mother on the cover of Parade, to early raves from Oprah and Fox News' Roger Friedman. Cinematical and Women and Hollywood debate Sex and the City's b.o. mettle. Carrie Bradshaw's getting married to Mr. Big? It will be huge.

Do I agree with Dargis that we could use more and better movies targeted at women? Fuck yeah!

Leatherheads: Clooney Goes Retro

George Clooney is the sort of movie star who gets to do what he wants, especially if he's willing to direct himself. In this case the period football comedy Leatherheads had been languishing on the shelf at Universal for decades, and was going to be directed by Steven Soderbergh at one time. Clooney's version is a sweetly daffy valentine to classic Hollywood screwball comedies, Coen brothers comedies and romantic comedies. Clooney stars as a handsome over-the-hill football player who's pretty smart but gets beat up on the playing field and takes plenty of pratfalls and romances a wise-cracking reporter (Renee Zellweger).

Does Clooney have the directing chops of Howark Hawks (His Girl Friday's Rosalind Russell is a model for Zellweger's tough-girl reporter) or the Coens? That's a tall order, but he does use the Coens' storyboard artist, and the film looks great. It could have been a tad sharper and faster and better, and I suspect it will have more appeal to women over 25 than anyone else. Whether the football marketing will alienate them is anyone's guess, and the critics are bound to be mixed. Here's Variety's review.

Universal has been spending heavily on Leatherheads, even giving it a Superbowl send-off spot, but I can't imagine it will make its P & A money back, much less its budget. Which will make it all the more difficult for execution-dependent, overtly uncommercial movies like this to get made. All power to Clooney for having the moxie to go for it, commerciality be damned.

UPDATE: Here's Clooney's interview with Reuters.

Juno Soundtrack Climbs Music Charts

After Rhino released the Juno soundtrack last month exclusively to digital outlets, it climbed to #1 on SoundScan's Digital Album sales chart. Now the Juno soundtrack CD has arrived in stores. Juno star Ellen Page came up with much of the music, including eight songs by Kimya Dawson (both solo and with The Moldy Peaches and Antsy Pants). Page duets with costar Michael Cera on a cover of The Moldy Peaches song Anyone Else But You (which is also heard in its original version). The album also includes music by Buddy Holly, Cat Power, Mott The Hoople, The Kinks, Sonic Youth, Belle & Sebastian and Barry Louis Polisar.

Trailer Watch: SXSW Hit Hannah Takes the Stairs

IFC First Take is releasing the SXSW hit Hannah Takes the Stairs, Joe Swanberg's indie romantic comedy, on August 22 in NYC.

Here's an interview with Swanberg:

Becoming Jane: Austen Manque

Moliere uses the same tactic: take a famous writer and use their writing as the source for a movie about them. Shakespeare in Love did it more successfully. Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen, doesn't ring true at all. For once I completely agree with Richard Schickel. But this femme blogger, on the other hand, adores the movie, which earned a 55 ranking on Metacritic.

I'm of the school that thou shalt not Americanize and make contemporary period Brit subjects. Let the Brits do their own thing. Yes, Gwenyth Paltrow can do a British accent. So can Renee Zellweger. But Anne Hathaway seems athletically feminist, and not at all period. On the other hand, it opened well in limited release...Miramax, at least, seems to know how to market it. As usual, women are starving for summer pictures geared to them.

Sex and the City Movie: Too Late?

This morning I was kibbitzing with Monica Corcoran, aka The Stylephile, about the Sex and the City movie. We both reluctantly admitted that while we loved the super-frank HBO series, we thought the movie was probably too late.

The filmmakers would have been better off making the movie two years ago, but it took this long to work out a final deal with Kim Cattrall.

"They're too old," we said guiltily, knowing that we were somehow buying into the worst aspects of our youth-obsessed culture. I adore these characters. But while it doesn't matter so much if Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford are aging action stars, somehow it's not the same when women of a certain age get up close and personal on that big, big screen. I hope they all prove us wrong.

Screenhead also asks if this movie is a good idea.

Top Ten Romantic Comedies

What are your favorite romantic comedies? Billy Mernit supplies two top tens, one old and one new. His reasoning: you can't get any new movies onto the list if you include your favorite screwball comedies. Mine are: Philadelphia, The Lady Eve, Trouble in Paradise, The Awful Truth, It Happened One Night, Holiday, Bringing Up Baby, Ninotchka, Shall We Dance and His Girl Friday, to name a few.

And then there's the contemporary list---not nearly so easy to rattle off but some of my not so guilty pleasures include While You Were Sleeping, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Moonstruck, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones Diary, Notting Hill and What Women Want. I'm missing some better ones, I'm sure.