A little something to get you in the spirit. (Remember Christina Ricci’s cool days? I miss those.)
No holiday for me, of course — lousy unthankful non-American that I am. So I’ll be holding fort around here for the next few days, while Kris takes a well-deserved breather. It’ll be quieter than usual, but feel free to keep me company.
• EW rounds up eight memorable Thanksgivings at the movies. “The Ice Storm” wins for me. No contest. [Entertainment Weekly]
• Anne Thompson on the indies hoping to score in the acting races. [Variety]
• Dave Karger lays out the Oscar prospects for “Milk” and “Australia.” [Entertainment Weekly]
• Todd Martens reports on some alternative Best Original Song contenders. Yay for Jenny Lewis. Boo for Mariah Carey. [Los Angeles Times]
• Miyazaki’s “Ponyo on the Cliff” has an English-language voice cast. Step up Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon and Tina Fey. [The Guardian]
• Some Oscar predictions from the ever-perspicacious pen of Nick Davis. [Nick’s Flick Picks]
• And Brad Brevet weighs in with some updated picks of his own. [Rope of Silicon]
• A.O. Scott calls “Milk” a “marvel.” I’m starting to think we might have our winner here. [New York Times]
• Uh, so apparently TomKat are remaking “Last Tango in Paris.” April Fools’ Day was, like, eight months ago, but whatever. [SpoutBlog]
• Finally, just to cheer you up on your day of gratitude, Hollywood is doomed. [Forbes]
Sorry, I made it as festive as I could. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.
Here’s what I love about Ang Lee: there is simply no way of anticipating what his next project is going to be. So far, the decade has seen him bounce from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” to “Hulk” to “Brokeback Mountain” to “Lust, Caution” – a group arguably linked by thematic concerns of outsider identity, but with precious little in common besides. If there’s a more adventurous filmmaker at work these days, I don’t know his name.
Now Variety confirms that his next project sees him revisiting Nixon-era America, the period having served him well in “Brokeback” (part of it, at least) and what I believe to be his finest work, “The Ice Storm.” Not that “Taking Woodstock” – Lee’s third film in a row for Focus Features – sounds like anything he’s done before either.
The project, which enters production this month, has been adapted by James Schamus, Lee’s regular cohort, from the memoir of Elliot Tiber, a Greenwich Village interior designer who wound up in the creation of the biggest rock concert of all time when he lent his family’s motel to the event organisers.
In an inspired piece of casting, Tiber will be played by “The Daily Show”‘s Demetri Martin, while other members of an interesting, and evidently complex, ensemble include Imelda Staunton as Tiber’s mother, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Tiber’s closeted lover, Emile Hirsch as a Vietnam vet, Paul Dano as a hippie concertgoer, Liev Schreiber as a transvestite, and Eugene Levy as Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm where it all took place.
Sounds like a suitably broad canvas for Lee to paint on – this should afford him plenty of room for a typically nuanced investigation of class, sexuality and popular culture, while offering him another completely new story world to explore. I can’t wait.