Christmas has come and gone. So, now’s the time to plan some activities for those late nights at the family home, when the kids and elderly relatives have gone to bed and the last thing you want to do is spend quality time with awful Cousin Myrtle. Last week, we rounded up the best new fall TV shows to catch up on over the break. But if you’d rather settle down with a great movie and happen not to have dropped Netflix after their year of terrible decisions, then allow us to alert you to some of 2011′s best films that also happen to be available for streaming on the site. A gay British romance for the ages, a dreamy Thai meditation on death, and a hilarious mockumentary that finds Steve Coogan (sort of) playing himself are just a few of the noteworthy new movies from around the world that await you after the jump.
This week, we read about one of Rooney Mara’s first acting gigs, as a guest on Law & Order: SVU. She’s not proud of the moment, calling the role “ridiculous,” which, let’s be honest, it probably was. But there’s not necessarily any shame in that. After all, many great (or at least famous) actors started out doing bit parts in cheesy movies and TV shows, especially in horror flicks, crime procedurals and soap operas. Inspired by Mara, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the most notorious (and unknown) early roles of actors and actresses who have stood the test of time. Obviously, every actor has to start somewhere, so there are an unlimited number of these, but these are our personal favorites — be sure to chime in with your own in the comments! Read More »
For all the remakes and reboots and 3-D blockbusters, 2011 was a great year for film actors, with a wealth of terrific performances for us to choose from. What’s more, in sharp contrast to most years in recent memory, there was a bumper crop of terrific roles for great actresses — a trend that we’d like to see stick around for a while. After the jump, we’ll tell you about some of the best performances we saw this year, and why we’re still talking about them. Read More »
Michelle Williams is already getting Oscar buzz for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn, which opens in theaters this Wednesday. “She channels every facet of the legend’s persona — her seductiveness, her neuroses, her candle-in-the-wind vulnerability and sometimes breathtaking naïveté — while keeping her feet planted firmly on the ground,” writes Rene Rodriguez at the Miami Herald. “Williams makes Monroe simultaneously seem larger than life and heartbreakingly human.” Even critics less impressed with the film as a whole — like Ronnie Scheib at Variety or David Rooney at Hollywood Reporter — seem enamored of her performance.
But Williams is just one of many actors who have portrayed iconic stars — some to universal acclaim, and others to widespread derision. Click through as we examine some of the most noteworthy examples. Read More »
Editor’s note: Welcome to Dear Costume Department, a new bi-weekly feature brought to you by our fashion-minded friends from Of a Kind, a curated shopping site of limited-edition goods by emerging designers. With each installment, they’ll bring you a head-to-toe look inspired by a buzzed-about pop culture personality — complete with info on where to grab the pieces for your own closet. Enjoy!
Michelle Williams has some big (high?) shoes to fill when her new film My Week with Marilyn hits theaters later this month — there’s the walk, the voice, the hair. And so does the person dressing her, whose job it is to achieve Marilyn circa 1956 — post-The Seven-Year Itch and pre-Some Like It Hot. The requisite balance between subtlety and sensuality… well, here’s how we’d do it. Read More »
Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fug Report! Each week our fashion blogger friends Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the sartorial geniuses behind Go Fug Yourself, will feature some of their favorite looks of the week in this space. We hope you enjoy it!
Diane Keaton just published her new memoir, Then Again, which talks about her early relationship with director Woody Allen. The couple fell in love during the Broadway run for his Play It Again, Sam and broke up soon after, but their filmic twosome lasted through 1993′s Manhattan Murder Mystery. Their greatest collaboration, however, remains Annie Hall, which Allen insists is not autobiographical, but the real-life similarities are certainly obvious. Genuine to the core, Annie Hall is one of the greatest screen love stories ever told and certainly one of Allen’s best films.
“Most people assumed Annie Hall was the story of our relationship. My last name is Hall. Woody and I did share a significant romance, according to me, anyway. I did want to be a singer. I was insecure, and I did grope for words,” Keaton recently toldVogue magazine. “After 35 years, does anybody care? What matters is Woody’s body of work. Annie Hall was his first love story. Love was the glue that held those witty vignettes together.”
What other off-screen couples made memorable partners on-screen? Past the break we pick a few of our favorites. Share yours with us below.
The 49th annual New York Film Festival drew to a close last night with screenings of The Descendants, the new (and rather wonderful) comedy/drama from director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt). Its centerpiece performance is a magnificent, nuanced turn by George Clooney, but there’s another one well worth mentioning: that of Shailene Woodley, the heretofore-unknown-to-your-author actor (she apparently co-stars on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, whatever the hell that is) who plays his 17-year-old daughter Alexandra. Woodley appears in nearly as much of the picture as Clooney, in a role just a complicated and difficult as his, and in scene after scene, she just nails it. Woodley’s complex (and relatively unsung, thus far anyway) performance puts a final spotlight on perhaps the most encouraging trend at this year’s NYFF: a rich assortment of extraordinary female performances.
Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fug Report! Each week our fashion blogger friends Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the sartorial geniuses behind Go Fug Yourself, will feature some of their favorite looks of the week in this space. We hope you enjoy it!
Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. We’ve got six new trailers this week, and — for the first time in the feature’s history — they all look varying degrees of worthwhile. Check ‘em out after the jump.
