The Great White Way (also known as Broadway) gets more and more like a ridiculously expensive movie theater every year. There are just so many movie adaptations on the stage. I love movies and I love Broadway but I don’t want them to be the same thing. There are 40 Broadway theaters and of the shows playing or debuting this season a huge chunk are based on movies/television: BILLY ELLIOTT, MARY POPPINS, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, ELLING, PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, THE LION KING, ADDAMS FAMILY, THE PEE WEE HERMAN SHOW, SISTER ACT and still more have been back and forth from the stage and screen so many times that its easy to forget where they originally began like DRIVING MISS DAISY, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, WEST SIDE STORY and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES.



The latest news should give you whiplash. THE KING’S SPEECH, which most Oscar pundits (like myself) believe to be THE SOCIAL NETWORK‘s main competition for February’s “Best Picture” Oscar battle, isn’t even in theaters yet and it already has plans for a Broadway version! That’s insane. The movie version stars Colin Firth, Helena Bonham-Carter and Geoffrey Rush and since it’s a small cast intermingling in offices and rooms, it seems like an easy transfer.




I wish they’d speed it up in the other direction, though, stage to screen. It’s so strange that the movie version of WICKED is still years and years away. What the hell have they been waiting for all this time?


† 7 Word Movie Reviews

† Meryl Streep in Indiana?

† Rabbit Hole Trailer

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Are Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal your favorite Hollywood siblings? If so bad news: it doesn’t seem like they’ll be acting together any time soon. Early in their careers they did play brother and sister onscreen (Donnie Darko, 2001) but they have no plans to do so again. Jake spoke about Maggie frequently during his interview at the New Yorker Festival on Saturday which I had the pleasure of attending but he crushed fan hopes when answering a question about the likelihood of them working together.



“It would just take something that meant so much to me that regardless of the size of the role, I’d need her to be a part of it or vice versa. Or it would be something that was just so awesome that we couldn’t not do it. We don’t go around like ‘let’s look for something to work together again’ I’m busy wanting to spend time with my niece, her daughter, and spend time as brother and sister.”




He then got caught up with a story, and like many of his stories, it went to weird awkward circular places. “She was nominated for an Academy Award last year and I was shooting and I was like ‘I will do anything to be there because if my sister were to win an Academy Award and I wasn’t there I don’t what I would do. If I missed out on that moment that would have been awful. So I got no sleep and was a cranky person BUT I WAS THERE. And that’s what matters. And that was a weird story. Anyway … I love her a lot!”



Ha! Oh Jake, everyone knew Mo’Nique was going to win the Oscar for Precious. You could have stayed on set! My point is this: Jake is hilarious in person and he and Maggie are obviously close. That’s good. Hollywood’s star siblings are rarely this close: Shirley Maclaine and Warren Beatty never acted like best buddies. Olivia deHavilland and Joan Fontaine, both in their 90s now, STILL aren’t speaking. Julia and Eric Roberts weren’t exactly tight. Elle and Dakota Fanning? We’ll see!




† A History of Julie Andrews

† Top 20 Actresses of the Past 20 Years

† Oscar Schedule Changes?

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I was so sad this morning to hear about the death of Oscar nominated film editor Sally Menke (Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds). She’s best known for editing all of Quentin Tarantino movies. She was right there at the beginning of his career, helping choose the best takes for that amazing “Like a Virgin” riff at the start of Reservoir Dogs. She made sure Uma & Travolta looked impossibly cool on the dance floor in Pulp Fiction. She cut those incredible sword fights in Kill Bill as skillfully as The Bride wielded her Hattori Hanzo.




The famous “Auteur Theory” suggests that a movie director is the sole author of a film. The theory is fallible. With writer/directors like Tarantino it makes a lot of sense but movies are deeply collaborative. Hundreds of people affect every scene we’re watching, for better and worse. Quick what’s your favorite scene from a Tarantino movie? Why do you love it? Even if it’s just a killer line delivered by a great actor, like Christoph Waltz “That’s a bingo!” in Inglourious Basterds, so many things beyond the director/actor affect why we love the moment: what the actors are wearing (the costume designer), how the scene is lit (the cinematographer), the underscore (the composer), which take is used and the pacing of the cuts surrounding the moment (the editor).




Movies have so many makers. So here’s to one of the greatest movie makers of all, Sally Menke (RIP). Quentin has long promised a Kill Bill Vol. 3. It won’t be the same without her. Tarantino respected her so much she was his most trusted collaborator and he’d even have the actors say hi to her on film to surprise her and keep her entertained while she edited, just watch the video below.




† The NC-17 Movie Rating is 20 Years Old

† True Grit Coen Bros Christmas Movie Teaser

† 7 Word Movie Review: The Social Network

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Clint Eastwood turned eighty earlier this summer but he’s obviously not the retiring kind. He makes more movies than most directors half his age. Hereafter, a new supernatural drama starring Matt Damon opens in a month and then he’s shooting a biopic on J. Edgar Hoover, the infamous first Director of the FBI who wielded enormous power and also lived a scandalous closeted life.



You wouldn’t necessarily expect Clint Eastwood, that cultural icon of taciturn masculinity to take on a gay biopic but I guess when you churn out so many movies you’re bound to hit on every genre eventually. (What’s next, a musical?) Leonardo DiCaprio will be playing Hoover and word is out that Eastwood wants Joaquin Phoenix to play his longtime rumored lover, Clyde Tolson. Tolson also worked in the FBI for decades, socialized and vacationed with Hoover and inherited his estate after his death.



Can you imagine Joaquin and Leonardo as lovers? Or, rather, how quickly did you just imagine Joaquin and Leonardo as lovers?



It seems like an odd project for Eastwood but then again … maybe it makes sense that Eastwood, a powerful figure in Hollywood who just won’t abdicate his throne would relate to Hoover, a powerful figure in Washington who ruled the FBI up until his death. One suspects Eastwood hopes to die in the director’s chair rather than a bed … many, many years from now.




† First Clip of Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole

† Love and Other Drugs‘ Sexy Poster

† Trailer to Mildred Pierce Starring Kate Winslet

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The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing and early reviews are good for LET ME IN, the remake of Swedish vampire flick LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. The new version stars Kodi Smit-McPhee (Viggo Mortensen‘s son in The Road) and Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass). But honestly, the first one is barely two years old and it’s *so* good that I highly urge all of you to watch it before it gets ‘replaced’. That’s the saddest thing about the remake and reboot craze. You can even see Let the Right One In on Netflix Instant Watch right now. Highly recommended!




As you can tell, I’m not a big fan of remakes. Eventually someone will threaten to remake Lord of the Rings, Mean Girls and Moulin Rouge!, Slumdog Millionaire, Million Dollar Baby and The Devil Wears Prada and every other movie that was widely beloved in the past ten years. I don’t even love all of those movies but all of the inevitable remakes will be unnecessary. On rare occasions a remake will win as much acclaim as the original. Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (2006) a remake of a fine crime drama called Infernal Affairs starring two of Hong Kong’s biggest movie stars Andy Lau (The House of Flying Daggers) and Tony Leung (Hero).




In recent years people have threatened to remake everything from Rosemary’s Baby to Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds and The Manchurian Candidate. Thankfully they haven’t done so … yet. Oh no wait, they DID remake The Manchurian Candidate. But nothing in the 2004 version was half as scary as Angela Lansbury in the original.




† First Clip of Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole

† Love and Other Drugs‘ Sexy Poster

† Trailer to Mildred Pierce Starring Kate Winslet

† Follow Nathaniel R. on Twitter!

The Venice Film Festival starts tomorrow. International celebs and important movie folk will be there to attend the opening night film, Darren Aronofsky‘s BLACK SWAN. Natalie Portman plays a ballerina and the movie looks sensational. The only way Venice could be any more enticing tomorrow night is if Madonna were inexplicably in town to recreate her writhing-in-the-gondola Like a Virgin video.



All of Aronofsky’s movies (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Wrestler) feature characters who are totally losing their grip so expect Natalie Portman to mentally unravel while she pirouettes. Aronofsky is totally brilliant and deserves the type of attention that his contemporary Chris Nolan (Inception) regularly gets. They’re only a year apart in age and they both made their first features in 1998. But since Aronofsky’s biggest hit (The Wrestler) made less in its whole run than Inception did on opening weekend, he’ll have to wait for Nolan-size accolades and fandom. In the meantime he can console himself each night by going home to Rachel Weisz. That’s a fine consolation, yes?




Aronofsky is supposedly being considered to direct the X-Men Origins: Wolverine sequel which would reteam him with his Fountain star Hugh Jackman. It doesn’t seem like his type of movie and their last collaboration flopped but if it happens, a longshot “if”, he’s sure to get his first huge hit and we’re sure to get a sequel that’s a million times better than the original.




† Nicole Kidman Shops in Brazil?

† Meryl Streep’s Best Moments in The Devil Wears Prada

† Mad Men at the Movies: Chaplin, the Sad Clown

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