Week in review: 3/17 - 3/21

This week saw two big Hollywood players, Sofia Coppola and Andy Serkis, sign on to direct projects for the benefit of the little people -- kids, that is. A cult classic celebrated its 10th anniversary, we were treated to our first look at classic cartoons in 3D form, and a critic made an impassioned plea for accomplished short films to be taken as seriously as any modern classic feature. While we're on the subject, Golden Era-Hollywood choreographer and director Busby Berkeley, he of 42nd Street fame, will be the subject of a new movie, thanks to producer (and most likely, star) Ryan Gosling. Unfortunately, Gosling's Busby biopic is not a Sony project, which is too bad, as the studio could use a hit, or quite a few, right now.

Our final pick of the week has no direct ties to the world of film, but is nonetheless an interesting read for anyone interested in art and entertainment criticism (and spats) in general.

What have we missed? Let us know by sounding off in the comments below!

Sofia Coppola to helm 'The Little Mermaid,' Deadline Hollywood

Andy Serkis to direct 'The Jungle Book' for Warner Bros., The Hollywood Reporter

Blessed Are The Forgetful: Remembering Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on its 10th Anniversary, Indiewire

You're a CGI-rendered Man, Charlie Brown in the Peanuts 3-D Teaser, The A.V. Club

Does the Cinema Need Short Films?, The New Yorker

Ryan Gosling Producing Busby Berkeley Biopic, May Also Star, Indiewire

Sony Interactive Group Shuts Down as Layoffs Begin, The Hollywood Reporter

Rosen: In Defense of Pop Criticism, Vulture

Cannes reception bodes well for June release 'Bling Ring'

The Cannes crowd reportedly gave a chilly reception to The Great Gatsby, but early reviews for Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring have been more positive. It's worth noting that these reactions come from the very same crowd that booed her 2004 effort, Marie Antoinette. The A24 Films release comes out in the U.S. on June 14, and I think it could do big business, drawing in young crowds who think they're getting another Mean Girls along with cinephiles interested in Coppola's latest.

Variety and THR came in with opposite reactions, though both had positive things to say. THR called the work "beautifully shot but light on social commentary," while Variety opined that "when future generations want to understand how we lived at the dawn of the plugged-in, privacy-free, Paris Hilton-ized 21st century, there will likely be few films more instructive than The Bling Ring." THR appears to be in the minority with this view, but it's interesting that one critic argues there is no larger statement, while the other thinks the work is emblematic of a generation.

Coppola based her screenplay on an article in Vanity Fair about the real-life Bling Ring, a group of kids who decided to rob celebrities of their clothes and Birkin bags. They hit Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, and Megan Fox before they were finally caught on surveillance cameras and stood trial. Emma Watson leads a cast of unknowns who play the rest of the five-fingered discount crew, and Leslie Mann plays the goofy, hippie mom who homeschools Watson and her best friend and adopted sister (Taissa Farmiga, who is the younger sister, by 21 years, of actress Vera Farmiga). Coppola has always been fascinated by celebrity, but she usually focuses on the ennui of the already famous. This time, she focuses on the wannabes. Growing up just outside the world of the rich and famous, they have a sense of entitlement about their actions. Coppola wisely doesn't mock them within the film, leading to a "intriguingly intuitive and atmospheric movie," according to the Guardian.

A24 is the same distributor that released Spring Breakers, and their trio of releases so far have focused on youth, transgression, and celebrity, to varying degrees. In an roundup, The New York Times' A.O. Scott grouped together Spring Breakers, The Great Gatsby, and The Bling Ring, calling them "fables of acquisition" that speak to the current articulation of the American Dream. If Bling Ring indeed hits a cultural sweet spot, it's possible the movie could catch on beyond the "target hipster demo" predicted by Variety.

Emma Watson and Sofia Coppola team up for 'The Bling Ring'

Every once in a while you hear of a project pairing that makes perfect sense. That's how I feel about Sofia Coppola directing The Bling Ring. The movie will be based on the true story of a few status-conscious L.A. teenagers who stole clothes, jewelry, cash, and drugs from celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. They broke in, raided their closets, and then wore the stolen loot out to the clubs frequented by the same celebrities.

The teens were profiled in a memorable 2010 Vanity Fair article. While they came from backgrounds characterized by strife, they were also the product of fairly well-off families, many of whom had jobs in the movie industry. Adding another dimension to the whole tale, two of the teens were going to potentially be celebrities themselves. They were being followed for a reality show called "Pretty Wild." That got complicated once its stars were arrested. Lifetime got to the project first, though I imagine the TV movie will not bear more than a passing resemblance to Coppola's project.

Coppola's known for her moody, character-driven pieces. I loved her most recent work, Somewhere, which centered on a bored and depressed celebrity living at the Chateau Marmont reconnecting with his daughter. I think The Bling Ring will be a good chance for her to combine her knack for ennui with an actual plot. Coppola knocks tone out of the park, but she rarely tries to combine that with actual action and thrills.  She's said she wants to use the case to "reveal a sobering view of our modern culture" and comment on the celebrity machine. Who better to do that than Coppola?

She's already cast Harry Potter's Emma Watson in one of the lead roles. In the real-life case, there were a few major players and more on the sidelines, so I imagine the number of leads could depend on what works for the adaptation. Looking up to celebrities is nothing new, but the extremes these kids went to in order to feel like they were as cool as celebrities is extreme. At the same time, tabloids like TMZ have further removed the wall between the star and the audience. These paparazzi are like private detectives, following the stars' every move. Perhaps it's only a natural extension of this invasion of privacy that drove the teens to break into their houses and steal everything they thought would make them like the pretty faces they saw in the magazines. Given Coppola's already insidery view on celebrity, she'll be able to make this tale both real and precisely critical.

 

Movies to look forward to: 'Never Let Me Go' & 'Somewhere'

By Sarah Sluis

Focus and Fox Searchlight, those dependable distributors of specialty fare, recently released trailers for Somewhere (trailer) and Never Let Me Go (trailer). Both of the trailers are moody and exciting and fabulous, and I can only hope the movies match up to the previews.

Never Let Me Go (Fox Searchlight) stars Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, and Andrew Garfield (The

Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus) as '70s boarding school students with an unusual purpose. In a kind of parallel Britain, they are clones that are educated and then donate four organs before "completing." The movie is based on an acclaimed book (that I couldn't get through) by Kazuo Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki a decade after the A-bomb went off (read a great review of the book here).

What sets this world apart from other dystopias is the characters' belief in the system. They don't question what they've been instructed to do, even though they want to live longer than they've been told they will. In the trailer, they seem to be under the impression that if they find true love, they will be given a few more years to live. It's been said that the British love to form a queue, and this adherence to the rules even when the audience clearly sees evidence to the contrary is maddening, creepy, and sad. The director, Mark Romanek, last directed the dark movie One Hour Photo. The trailer offers a first look at the cinematography and costuming in the film. It's odd to see a futuristic movie set in '70s Britian, and the hairstyles sported by Knightley and Mulligan are priceless--who knows, maybe they'll even inspire a trend. The movie will be out October 1st.

The trailer for director Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (Focus) follows the formula of her trailer for Marie

Antoinette--great indie music, decadent locales, and people walking down halls while crazy things are happening. Coppola's movies make really good trailers, but they don't always match

up to the preview highlights. I still remember the excited feeling I got watching

the trailer for her Marie Antoinette (with the great New Order

song "Blue Monday"), but the movie didn't have the same effect on me.

This trailer starts out with music by Phoenix before shifting to the lower-key song "I'll Try Anything Once" by The Strokes. Elle Fanning looks great in the role of a movie star's abandoned daughter, enough to quiet my thoughts of sibling nepotism (she's the younger sister of Dakota). The movie star is played by Stephen Dorff, who has two decades of movie credits without a role that I remember him in. It's great casting--a suitable blank face with movie star looks, and not someone that the audience would have any recollection of from the tabloids. Coppola has been criticized for her lonely-people-in-glamorous-locales theme, but who cares? Audiences like seeing what it's like from a higher perch. The trailer also reveals her fantastic eye for details and looks. She can tell so much by showing father and daughter getting into a car together wearing matching sunglasses, or playing the swimming pool game tea party. Likely pursuing an awards campaign, Fox Searchlight has the movie aimed for a December 22nd release.