What a difference two days makes: Less than 48 hours after the launch of Movieline’s “Consider Uggie” crusade , the movement’s Facebook page has acquired 1,100 followers and counting, its honoree has his own Twitter page, and Uggie himself joined trainer Omar Mueller for a campaign stop on E! News. Crazy! And overdue .
When Australian writer-director Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty made its debut at Cannes last May, the responses among critics I talked to veered from bland outrage to vexed boredom. That doesn’t leave a lot of middle ground, and I had to see Sleeping Beauty a second time before I was reasonably sure what I thought about it. I’m still not reasonably sure what I think about it: The picture is clinical in its approach and its technique, yet it leaves so many questions unanswered — it’s straightforward in a vague, maddening way. It’s also strangely, obliquely compelling.
As noted earlier, Emily Browning was among the squad of young talent to storm this year’s Hamptons International Film Festival. The Australian actress best known for Hollywood efforts Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events and this year’s Sucker Punch dropped by this time around for something completely different: Sleeping Beauty , writer-director Julia Leigh’s disturbing dive into the realm of somnambulistic sex work.