After spending the last year with her Oscar and her new baby, Natalie Portman is set to return to acting with a busy year with not one, but two Terrence Malick films. The Black Swan star will join Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett to film Knight of Cups this summer, with all three reuniting in the fall to film Malick’s Lawless with Ryan Gosling , Rooney Mara , and Haley Bennett. Plot details for both films have been kept under wraps, so tee off with your thoughts on the Portman addition and the unusual double film casting move below. [ Deadline ]
Screw moustaches . I give you… Assdance : “Call for entries soon! (THE FILM FESTIVAL IN WHICH ONLY FILMS REJECTED BY SUNDANCE CAN FINALLY BE SCREENED!) All films submitted will be viewed and chosen by a legendary Board of Directors while high on ambien, drunk, and/or stoned (or most likely all at once). Films chosen as Official Selections will simply be the ones which the Board of Directors felt were enjoyable while wasted! That’s it. Call for entries TBA!” [ ASS Studios ]
So we’ve already established that The Artist is going to pretty much dominate next month’s Academy Awards — a certainty that we’ve seen reflected in the behavior of certain awards-season foes who’ve taken aim at the silent film’s ubiquitous wonder dog Uggie. Christopher Plummer led the offensive last week on behalf of his Beginners co-star (and Uggie’s fellow Jack Russell terrier) Cosmo, joined over the weekend by an unlikely ally hoping to raise another dog’s profile as we sleepwalk toward Oscar. Martin Scorsese — yes, the Martin Scorsese, master filmmaker and current Best Director nominee for Hugo — put his name on a cheeky L.A. Times op-ed asking viewers, voters and especially the organizers of the inaugural Golden Collar Awards to consider his film’s fierce Doberman, Blackie. It’s all kind of priceless: OK, let’s lay all our cards on the table. Jack Russell terriers are small and cute. Dobermans are enormous and — handsome. More tellingly, Uggie plays a nice little mascot who does tricks and saves his master’s life in one of the films, while Blackie gives an uncompromising performance as a ferocious guard dog who terrorizes children. I’m sure you can see what I’m driving at. I’m proud of Blackie, who laid it on the line and dared to risk the sympathy of her audience. Let’s just say that on the set, she had a fitting nickname: Citizen Canine. The bath scene alone is a masterpiece of underplaying, with Blackie’s wonderfully aquiline face accentuated by the 3-D. Ohhhh, boy. You really need to read the whole thing, for both a refreshing glimpse at Scorsese’s sense of humor and a bracing example of how dogs — dogs! — have politicized this year’s awards race. Dog News Daily has agreed to add Blackie to its Golden Collar nominees if she receives 500 write-in endorsements today on Facebook. I mean, come on . Blackie is fantastic and all, but Uggie’s 10,000 fans on Facebook say all anyone needs to know about the year’s most formidable four-legged awards contender. Oh, right: Did I mention that Movieline’s Consider Uggie campaign has eclipsed 10,000 supporters worldwide since its launch two months ago? It’s true! With a little less than 30 days remaining before the Academy Awards, we’re on pace for around 15,000 Uggieheads by the big night. I’d hoped for something a little closer to 20,000, so if you haven’t yet joined up, please consider heading over to Consider Uggie HQ and giving our boy a little boost. Tell your friends on Twitter to #ConsiderUggie as well, and continue keeping track of everything he’s up to via Facebook and/or Uggie’s own Twitter page ( @Uggie_TheArtist ). Or as always, keep on eye on Movieline for all your Consider Uggie news and to learn about the next great director to fire across Uggie’s bow. Go ahead, Terrence Malick, I dare you.
There was good news and bad news at the movies over the weekend, where the first big box office frame of the new year showed a nice bounce from the sluggishness afflicting the end of 2011. The bad news? The comeback was led by the film equivalent of a dirty diaper. Let’s have a look. 1. The Devil Inside Gross: $34,500,000 (new) Screens: 2,285 (PSA $15,098) Weeks: 1 Paramount’s microbudget Insurge label scored big again with its found-footage horror goods — well, maybe not “goods,” as the demonic-possession flick nabbed an ultra-rare CinemaScore of “F.” Wow! People hated this movie! So for those of you keeping track at home: $34.5 million worth of viewers went home nursing the aftertaste of battery acid, while Paramount now has the highest-grossing R-rated January opener ever. It’s nice to see 2012 off to such a mutually rewarding start at the multiplex. 2. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Gross: $20,500,000 ($170,201,000) Screens: 3,555 (PSA $5,767) Weeks: 4 (Change: -30.3%) At least there’s this as well from the ‘Mount. Put it on a parade float and let’s just move on. 3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Gross: $14,055,000 ($157,415,000) Screens: 3,603 (PSA $3,901) Weeks: 4 (Change: -32.7%) While no slouch, Holmes 2 looks decreasingly likely to match Iron Man 2 ‘s fest of besting the original at the box office, which I guess means Paramount (along with Marvel) can take even more consolation in having the superior Robert Downey Jr. franchise. To which Warners is all, “Oh yeah? Well, we have the best Jude Law franchise!” To which Paramount is all, “Jude who?” To which Warners is all, “Nice CinemaScore!” To which Paramount is all, “[Stony-faced fuming silence].” 4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Gross: $11,300,000 ($76,836,000) Screens: 2,950 (PSA: $3,831) Weeks: 3 (Change: -23.8%) Let’s hope this silences once and for all the critics who’ve called out Dragon Tattoo ‘s performance as underwhelming or soft: It’s doing pretty freaking well for a 150-minute R-rated rapey miserablist romp. $100 million is less than two weeks away at this rate, and $200 million is hardly out of the question if and when Oscar’s grace shines upon it. 5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked Gross: $9,500,000 ($111,588,000) Screens: 3,425 (PSA $2,774) Weeks: 4 (Change: -42%) Against all odds, Chipwrecked continues to demonstrate its appeal among the naked crackhead demographic sturdy legs heading into its second month. High-five! [Figures via Box Office Mojo ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
When Lars von Trier’s latest masterpiece Melancholia last had any real time in the awards spotlight, Kirsten Dunst was accepting the Best Actress hardware at Cannes . News came over the weekend that their drought is over: The National Society of Film Critics voted Melancholia its Best Picture of 2011, with Dunst again earning Best Actress for her role as a depressed bride coming to grips with the end of the world. Other honorees included Terrence Malick, Brad Pitt, Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain; read on for the full list of winners, runners-up and voting totals. BEST PICTURE *1. Melancholia – 29 (Lars von Trier) 2. The Tree of Life – 28 (Terrence Malick) 3. A Separation – 20 (Asghar Farhadi) BEST DIRECTOR *1. Terrence Malick – 31 ( The Tree of Life ) 2. Martin Scorsese – 29 ( Hugo ) 3. Lars von Trier – 23 ( Melancholia ) BEST ACTOR *1. Brad Pitt – 35 ( Moneyball, The Tree of Life ) 2. Gary Oldman – 22 ( Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ) 3. Jean Dujardin – 19 ( The Artist ) BEST ACTRESS *1. Kirsten Dunst – 39 ( Melancholia ) 2. Yun Jung-hee – 25 ( Poetry ) 3. Meryl Streep – 20 ( The Iron Lady ) BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *1. Albert Brooks – 38 ( Drive ) 2. Christopher Plummer – 24 ( Beginners ) 3. Patton Oswalt – 19 ( Young Adult ) BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *1. Jessica Chastain – 30 ( The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help ) 2. Jeannie Berlin – 19 ( Margaret ) 3. Shailene Woodley – 17 ( The Descendants ) BEST NONFICTION *1. Cave of Forgotten Dreams – 35 (Werner Herzog) 2. The Interrupters – 26 (Steve James) 3. Into the Abyss – 18 (Werner Herzog) BEST SCREENPLAY *1. A Separation – 39 (Asghar Farhadi) 2. Moneyball – 22 (Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin) 3. Midnight in Paris – 16 (Woody Allen) BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM *1. A Separation – 67 (Asghar Farhadi) 2. Mysteries of Lisbon – 28 (Raoul Ruiz) 3. Le Havre – 22 (Aki Kaurismäki) BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY *1. The Tree of Life – 76 ( Emanuel Lubezki ) 2. Melancholia – 41 ( Manuel Alberto Claro ) 3. Hugo – 33 ( Robert Richardson ) EXPERIMENTAL Ken Jacobs, for Seeking the Monkey King . FILM HERITAGE 1. BAM Cinématek for its complete Vincente Minnelli retrospective with all titles shown on 16 mm. or 35 mm. film. 2. Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon . 3. New York’s Museum of Modern Art for its extensive retrospective of Weimar Cinema. 4. Flicker Alley for their box set Landmarks of Early Soviet Film . 5. Criterion Collecton for its 2-disc DVD package The Complete Jean Vigo .
IFP handed out its 21st annual Gotham Awards tonight in New York, honoring Mike Mills’s Beginners and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of LIfe among the laureled Class of 2011. Like Crazy actress Felicity Jones and Pariah director Dee Rees showed strongly as well; read on for the complete list of winners.
After the success of Hugh Jackman’s WWE cameo last month , Disney has partnered with the wrestling juggernaut to bring the Muppets to tonight’s live Halloween episode from Atlanta. “I can only imagine what will trend this week with the Muppets guest starring, especially when the audience sees what the Muppets are going to do,” said a WWE executive. Anything short of Miss Piggy busting a folding chair over Vince McMahon’s head will be a failure. Any other dream scenarios? [ Variety ]
Sure, it’s a tough sell. But Anonymous has plenty going for it both behind the camera (director Roland Emmerich and screenwriter John Orloff posit the legitimacy of Shakespeare) and in front of it as well, where a sterling cast including Rhys Ifans , David Thewlis, Mark Rylance and the estimable mother-daughter combo of Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson — playing Queen Elizabeth I some 40 years apart — dig into the historical, political and romantic intrigues with relish.
Between Puss in Boots , In Time , and Rum Diary , I didn’t see much reason to fork over $13 at the movies this weekend. (Though I did see Like Crazy — or as I like to call it, Jennifer Lawrence Thanklessly Pouts in a Supporting Role .) Instead of paying up, let’s read up on Twitter’s feelings about these three new films. Prepare to have mixed feelings about Justin Timberlake by the time we hit #1.
When Paramount gave a post- Days of Heaven Terrence Malick $1 million, carte blanche, to make his next film, he began developing a highly ambitious project about the creation of life and the cosmos entitled Qasida (or, simply, Q ). Of course, the studio balked at the abstract Malick-ness of it all, the film stalled, and the director took the next two decades off from filmmaking. But! Now you can read Malick’s own Q script notes, circa 1979, and envision how his globe-trotting Q eventually morphed into this year’s Tree of Life .
