WB Doing Stuff...Thangs...What I've Seen...
The WB watertower received a makeover. The landmark has a brand new skirt featuring the comic properties of WB television: “Gotham”, “Supergirl”, “The Flash” and “Arrow”. DC’s Vertigo imprint shows “Lucifer” and “iZombie” received the cold shoulder.
The unveiling was done to John Williams “Superman” score NATURALLY because Superman has kept the lights on for 77 years, dammit.
pic.twitter.com/vaBOD8nQKj
Before
After
~In “let a heaux be a heaux” Orson Wells aka Jensen Ackles celebrated the 11th(!) season of SPN by sassing “Smallville”.
I get why he’s salty. Trying to hold on to your man is very taxing emotionally.
I know he has 6% body fat and I have 60, but you still love me, right?
We’ve actually just had the 14th anniversary of “Smallville”! 14 years later and countless fanfics of Lex sexing Clark into oblivion. I adore this fandom and the people I’ve met through it.
On to lesser superheroes but no less beloved. I can’t wait for “Legends of Tomorrow”. It’s a midseason show so we have a bit of a wait. Thankfully the cast post to social media quite a bit.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl
Played by Falk Hentschel and Ciarra Renee
Rip Hunter himself Arthur Darvill
*very apt tee
Franz Drameh (Firestorm), Caity Loiz (White Canary), Ciarra and Arthur
Brandon, Wentworth and Dominic
If I ever have the good fortune of meeting Victor Garber I will just give him nonstop high-fives for snagging this HUNK Rainier Andreesen. After 16 years Victor finally looked it down and the couple got married.
Pound it, Victor. No, not Rainier. I mean, him too, but pound this fist because you, sir, are LUCKY.
Rainier posted an old photo from his young modeling days.
Better with age
Damn, Victor-you get to have all this?
Okay, this Tom Ford jacket is hotter than Rainier, but it’s close
There were three reasons I wanted to see this film: two Tom Hardys and Taron Egerton. And seeing two Toms and Taron for 2 hours makes up for the fact that “Legend” is a like a cinematic chocolate Easter bunny : it gives all the appearance of solidity but hollow in reality (and it damn near kills me to write that about a movie starring TOM HARDY AND TARON EGERTON.
I’m sorry…so sorry. No, don’t look at me.
Tom Hardy stars as notorious British twin gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray who ruled East London in the 60s. In all actuality they were pretty much local hoods but the mythos surrounding them has made the Krays an enduring…. wait for it….legend in the UK.
Narrated by Emily Browning who plays Reggie’s wife Frances, the film introduces us to Reggie, the more even-minded of the two brothers: he relishes in being a club owner to an establishment that caters to celebrities and other high end clientele almost more than being a bandit. Then there’s his paranoid/schizophrenic brother Reggie who is a barrel of contradictions: he has dreams of creating a Utopia in Nigeria to create happiness for all who visits and wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to his brother, but is prone to violence at the slightest provocation whether real or imagined.
Whereas Reggie is backed up by the steady support of The Firm (the Kray’s gang) members Ian Barrie (Mel Raido) and Albert Donoghue (Paul Anderson),
With Browning and stuntman Jacob Tomuri in his Ronnie wig
Ronnie is bolstered by his equally unpredictable boyfriend Teddy (the always enjoyable Taron Egerton) and the menacing Leslie Holt (Charley Palmer Merkell). They’re the devil and the devil that killed the angel on Ronnie’s shoulder.
As their profile builds, gaining them entre to the Mafia world through an alliance with Meyer Lansky via his proxy Angelo Bruno (Chazz Palminteri), Reggie personal life opens up through a romance with Frances (Emily Browning) the winsome, younger sister of their driver Frankie (Colin Morgan).
The film plays out like a tug of war with Ronnie resentful of having to share his brother/best friend with Frances and their hired businessman Leslie Payne (David Thewlis)
and Frances resentful of Reggie’s unwillingness to give up his life of crime and Ronnie.
The film isn’t just Tom Hardy providing two different performances, but it’s two different stories with different tones.
The Reggie/Frances film is a love story complete with the most believable view of the honeymoon period in a relationship that I’ve remember seeing. We see rom-coms all the time and they focus on the meet-cute, but we never get to see the couples just being a couple unlike in “Legend” which portrays a very tender intimacy with Reggie and Frances complete with soft kisses (I admit I swooned), cute banter and embraces.
Then there’s Ronnie’s movie: a veritable “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” cartoon-ish vibe with Ronnie and his buddies.
Both elements are enjoyable on their own, but together it is too much of a tonal shift and ultimately the Reggie story is the most interesting as the only thing Ronnie does is fume and implode, fume and implode, rinse and repeat.
It’s commendable that writer/director Brian Hegeland (L.A Confidential, 24, A Knight’s Tale) wanted to give another side of the twins with showing the fragility of Ronnie (originally Hegeland only wanted Hardy for Reggie, but Hardy wanted Ronnie so he told him he’d give Hegeland Reggie if Hegeland would give him Ronnie) and the sensitivity of Reggie, but the film really has no viewpoint. It’s not plot driven so it feels aimless; just a timeline connected by a voice-over.
Another complaint is that Carter Burwell’s score and the general music in the film is overbearing. It blares across scenes and considering the heavy accents of the majority of the cast there’s quite a bit of scenes that are just lost to the noise.
It’s “Distracting Trumpet” to the nth degree
There are more than enough bright spots by way of performances. Emily Browning serves her role well as the only thing Frances is supposed to be is a longsuffering pretty young girl who suffers prettily. David Thewlis as Leslie Payne, the Krays accountant who butts heads with Ronnie repeatedly is wonderful to watch.
And a brief, entertaining turn by Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson who is the Krays main competitor in crime is probably the best work Bettany has done in years.
And singer Duffy appears as Timi Yuro, powerfully belting out two wonderful ballads and the film’s closing song.
David Thewlis as Leslie Payne, the Krays accountant who butts heads with Ronnie repeatedly is wonderful to watch. And a brief, entertaining turn by Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson who is the Krays main competitor in crime is probably the best work Bettany has done in years. Chris Eccleston and Selyse Barantheon herself, Tara Fitzgerald as Frances’ disapproving mother.
And singer Duffy appears as Timi Yuro, powerfully belting out two wonderful ballads and the film’s closing song.
*Tom doesn’t fake the funk like Henry Cavill and claim that his dog is his emotional support dog…no, he just brings Woody everywhere with him.
Woody protecting his owner and expectant mum Charlotte Riley from those sneaky birds
Woody was on-set as well and is even in the “Thanks” section during the end credits
~Tom followed up “Legend” with “The Revenant” or as he calls it, “The Foreverandevernant”
His character’s triptych
also with Paul Anderson. Yes, Tom and Jacob Tomuri became legendary with their Dubsmash lipsyncing vids but Paul was also one of the Ravens (which is what they called themselves).
Domhnall Gleeson, some dude, Paul and real life puppet Randy from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Will Poulter
Tom also got a new raven tattoo on his side to go with the one on his pec.
*Hindsight is 20/20 and all that but I jumped at the chance to see it because there was a Q&A with the writer/director Brian Helgeland. It was the same night as the S2 screening and Q&A of “The Knick” and I should’ve done that one instead because Helgeland is an interesting writer…not a great conversationalist. He’s the milqueiest of milquetoast.
Bits and Bobs from the Q&A
~He said it was hard to separate fact from fiction with the Krays as that all the tales he heard about them-both good and bad-were exaggerated. He spoke of meeting a man while working on a tour documentary and the man told him he lost his finger to the Krays. Hegeland put it in his documentary and was issued a cease and desist by the man’s lawyer. He made the story up-he lost his finger in an accident.
~Hegeland says he doesn’t like biopics that start out with the characters young and then progress which is why “Legend” isn’t a starting point movie but starts when they’re already established.
~~He was asked about working with Richard Donner and before he could answer a voice shouted, “Be careful how you answer that!” Donner was there to support him.
~He entertained filming all of Hardy-as-Reggie scenes first and then going back to do Ronnie, but he wouldn’t have access to the locations past a certain point and Hardy had a very small window because he had to go off to do “The Revenant”.
On to Taron Egerton. Taron has been getting glowing reviews for his role in the film despite having very little to do and it’s for good reason: Taron is just a really compelling actor.
It’s true, it’s true, my lad
His “Kingsman: The Secret Service” costar Colin Firth remarked in a Huffington Post Live interview that prior to working with Egerton he had heard praises about him from agents and others in the London acting community and this was when Egerton was still in drama school (a graduate of RADA, he also was rewarded the Stephen Sondheim Young Entertainer award).
Firth said the only other person he remembers having that much buzz surrounding them fresh out of drama school was Kenneth Branagh.
Egerton gave an interview a few months back stating that he was due to return to work in September but couldn’t say on what. Sure enough he recently tweeted his lament at leaving Wales to move back to London.
Taron volunteering in his Welsh community
This doll
gI initially thought the move was only to do reshoots for “Eddie the Eagle”,
but the trades reported that after rumors of his being on the shortlist for the role, Egerton has in fact been cast as Robin Hood in Lionsgate’s “Robin Hood: Origins” (beating out Jack Raynor ) with “The Knick”s Eve Hewson as Maid Marian.
There was a brief hiccup because Lionsgate secured February as a shooting date for “Robin Hood” but Taron is contractually committed to the sequel to “Kingsman: The Secret Service” which Fox secured for an April shoot. Three months would not be enough time for Taron to do both so Lionsgate pushed back their start date so that Taron could do “Kingsman 2”. I can only guess Fox is giving Lionsgate something in exchange for backing down on this-yes, Lionsgate wanted Taron so it’s no problem to wait on him but I think Fox negotiated a deal the same way they worked one out with Sony in 2012 when Fox released Marc Webb from his holding deal in order for him to direct “The Amazing Spiderman 2” in exchange for Sony allow Fox to add a “X-Men: Days of Future Past” teaser at the end of “The Amazing Spiderman 2”. Likely it’s some sweetened distribution deal as Fox distributes Lionsgate films. IDK and IDC I just know that Gary “Eggsy” Unwin will be back sooner rather than later and I’m ready for it.
Taron is also up for a role in the indie drama “Crooks County” which tells the true tale of a whistleblower involved in an undercover FBI operation in 1980s Cook County, Illinois, that resulted in the largest number of convictions of government officials in American history.
Tom Hardy shut down two questions at the TIFF press conference for “Legend” because he deemed that they had nothing to do with “Legend”: one was a question about “The Revenant” and the other was about his sexuality. It’s the latter that made headlines and ended up eclipsing talk about “Legend” in the press.
I try not to police people’s tone. Everyone has a right to express themselves, but I felt bad for the journalists whose only sin was that he didn’t stand by his question with conviction. Yes, he got shut down pretty soundly and I don’t think Tom would’ve answered even if the reporter posed his question in a definitive way instead of having Tom lead him into asking the question, but at least then there’d be little fault on his side. The bigger question for me is if the journalists at the press conference had actually seen “Legend” because then it makes the reporter’s question makes more sense because the first time Ronnie meets Frances he tells her immediately that he’s homosexual and that you shouldn’t hide who you are because that makes you sad.
This is the exchange (and the video because tone is lost in print)
The reporter said, "I'm wondering if you find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality," to which Hardy replied, "I don't find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality. Are you asking about my sexuality?"
The journalist said, "Hmm... sure", to which Hardy fired back, "Why?", before giving a firm and final "thank you" to the reporter.
Now here is Tom explaining to the site The Daily Beast his reaction to the question.
The Daily Beast: … so I wanted to ask you about privacy. I think it’s the understanding of some entertainment journalists that celebrities are not entitled to the right to privacy, which I don’t agree with.
Hardy: I think everybody is entitled to the right to privacy. There should be elegant ways to approach any topic, and there’s a time and place to approach anything and have a good, common sense conversation about anything. I do think that there’s a responsibility for people to own the way that they speak publicly. This doesn’t stop us from being human beings; some things are private. I’m under no obligation to share anything to do with my family, my children, my sexuality-that’s nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t see how that can have anything to do with what I do as an actor, and it’s my own business. If you knew me as a friend, then sure, we’d talk about anything. But that was a public forum, and for someone to inelegantly ask a question that seemed designed entirely to provoke a reaction, and start a topic of debate… It’s important destigmatizing sexuality and gender inequality in the workplace, but to put a man on the spot in a room full of people designed purely for a salacious reaction? To be quite frank, it’s rude. If he’d have said that to me in the street, I’d have said the same thing back: “I’m sorry, who the fuck are you?”
TDB: Right.
HardyAlso, if you felt it was so important for people to feel confident to talk about their sexuality, why would you put somebody on the spot in a room full of people and decide that was the time for them to open up about their sexual ambiguity? There’s also nothing ambiguous about my sexuality, anyway. I know who I am. But what does that have to do with you? And why am I a part of something now that, however legitimate, I haven’t offered my services for? It’s not about what he and his publication stands for, none of that is offensive, and on the contrary, it’s very admirable, and an important issue. But how I was asked was incredibly inelegant, and I just thought it was disrespectful and counterproductive to what he stands for.
His response to Entertainment Weekly about the press conference
But it was the manner in which Hardy was asked about it on Sunday that the actor says felt like a real invasion of privacy. “It’s so important to the LGBT [community] that people actually feel safe about their sexuality and are able to speak freely and not be stigmatized or feel like they are being pointed out,” Hardy says. “Why point me out, assuming that I’m gay because I’m ambiguous about it, which I’m very clear if you look into what I’ve said in the past.”
Hardy adds that he feels badly for the reporter, whom he believes didn’t mean anything malicious by the question, yet he can’t seem to shake the interaction.
“I’m quite sensitive and I feel like I’ve let people down for something that I actually didn’t ask for, for something that’s important to a lot of people,” he says. “Should I come out of the closet when I’m not in one? I ought to maybe come out of the closet, even though that’s a lie, to do the right thing. Or, if I say no, then I’m homophobic? Bless him, he’s young. But at the same time, it left me feeling like I have to do something about that. And it’s like why? Whose business is it anyway and isn’t that the point?”
Tom’s absolutely right that he’s been clear about his sexuality in the past and the reporter should’ve just researched that instead of asking Tom as if he was going to get a different question. But, again, if the journalists were screened “Legend” I understand why the reporter asked the question: Ronnie, as depicted in the film, was unafraid to declare his sexuality in a time when it was illegal to be gay so asking an actor who has openly discussed same sex encounters in the past despite being in an industry where you’re encouraged to stay in the closet is a bold act. But I also understand Tom’s feeling of having something you once said many moons ago trotted out to you time and time again for examination. It feels like it’s a bigger issue than it really is. But nothing in the reporter’s question was disparaging or disrespectful.
While Tom’s reaction had supporters, it also had detractors because they point out that he has time and time again talked about his drug addiction in grand detail and didn’t find that troubling for his wife, so why does a question on his sexuality suddenly become disrespectful to his family(He was even dating Charlotte and pointed her out in the audience of Jonathan Ross when he told his story about missing a meeting with John Woo because he went on a crack binge and woke up naked in bed with another man, a cat and a loaded gun). What he needs to identify is why he felt the question was designed to humiliate him. Inelegant? Yes, very. Disrespectful? Not at all.
For further illumination; here’s Tom on record about his sexuality.
Tom’s Next Magazine interview
Of the character Handsome Bob
Interviewer: How did you approach a gay gharacter in a guy Ritchie movie?
Hardy: I think there’s an uber stress on being a guy. Guy Ritchie movies, in my opinion, can be very bloke-y in the same way that car magazines or fighting magazines are sort of specifically for the boys. So, Ironically enough, I just played him as straight as possible. So my identification with me and my girlfriend was exactly the same as it was about Bob and One Two, Gerard’s character. There was no need to be camp or anything like that. I’m in love with Gerard, and that’s it, no big deal.
Interviewer: Was there anyone in particular that you modeled the character after?
Hardy: I watched Cool Hand Luke and Midnight Cowboy, you know, with Jon Voight and Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. You know, those kind of images that I wanted to find a sort of modern day homage, in a way, discreetly to those three guys.
Interviewer: They’re all pretty huge sex symbols for gay guys.
Hardy: Well, I also find them incredibly sexy. It made sense to me to do that. I wanted him to be sexy. As sexy as he could be because it’s not something that I’ve ever really explored.
Tom’s Attitude Magazine interview
Interviewer: And your character (Handsome Bob) was gay in the end.
Hardy: Which was great! It was a very simple story. Guy’s stories are like comic books. It’s the night before I go into prison and they’ve set me up with these beautiful Russian escort girls and there’s drugs and they’re going to see me off properly. I’m miserable and Gerard’s like, what’s the matter with you. And I go “It’s not that I’m unhappy but you wouldn’t understand,” and he goes, “Of course I’ll understand - I’ve known you for years.” I’m just like “I don’t want the fucking girls, I want you. “ And he starts berating the fact that he’s known me for years and had showers with me and that. It actually happened to one of the guys involved in the writing: this villain came out to him.
Interviewer: It’s such a tradition of London gangsters, the gay thing, what with the Krays…..
Hardy: I wouldn’t like to say. I really wouldn’t. It’s an unsaid, untalked about thing. The military get it as well. Sexual relations where it’s a necessity, like prison, are different from being a homosexual.
Interviewer: Have you ever had sexual relations with men?
Hardy: As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor for fuck’s sake. I’m an artist. I’ve played with anything and anyone. But I’m not into men sexually. I love the form and the physicality but the gay sex bit does nothing for me. In the same way a wet vagina would turn someone else into a lemon-sucking freak. To me it just doesn’t compute to me now that I’m in my 30’s and it doesn’t do it for me and I’m done experimenting.
Interviewer: Have you done it all?
Hardy: Not all but I can imagine. We’ve all got an arsehole and I can imagine. It just doesn’t do it for me, sex with another man. But there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life. A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I don’t think I’m metrosexual but I’m definitely my mother’s son. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine.
Interviewer: You seem very masculine.
Hardy: A lot of people say that but I don’t feel it. I feel intrinsically feminine. I went to an insight course at the parachute regiment. I thought, “I want to join up, do three years, go to Iraq, do my bit, get physically fit.” So I went to White City barracks and I realized I had a real phobia about groups of men, I’m frightened of them, I’m much more comfortable around women. I’d love to be one of the boys but I always felt a bit on the outside. Maybe my masculine qualities come from over-compensating that I’m not one of the boys. Anyway, it was fucking horrible, man. I signed up for three years and after forty minutes I had to talk my way out of it. They don’t need people like me, they need someone who’s prepared to go over and kill people. (dawnybee: I’m always confused how he equates human feelings like compassion with femininity. He seems to not recognize that gender and societal gender norms are not the same thing. )
Now here comes the interview that had/has people turning on Tom and saying that he’s in the closet and that Charlotte’s his beard and that he’s homophobic, etc, etc, etc.
Tom’s Marie Claire UK interview
'I had a distinct lack of male role models, apart from the ones I chose. Boys are not qualified to pick healthy ones. I held onto my immaturity.’
This much candour makes you wonder whether Hardy ever regrets being, well, quite frank. 'I don’t regret anything I’ve ever said. It’s just a shame things are misconstrued and I don’t get the opportunity to explain.’ Not even the time he said he’d enjoyed relationships with men in his twenties?
'I have never put my penis in a man,’ is Hardy’s characteristically direct response. 'I’ve never had a cock in my arse, and I have no fucking desire for it. If that’s what you like, cool. But it doesn’t do it for me.’ He’s irritated his words were taken out of context, but conceded, 'one thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about’.
**That’s not ambiguous nor does it negate what he said in the 2008 interview. People are working themselves into knots attempting to discern the type of sex he had as if that’s the cipher to uncovering his sexuality. As if he’s only received blowjobs from men then that’s evidence that he’s not gay but if he’s given them he is. And that’s not how people parse their sexuality.
By the strictest definition if you’ve had same sex and opposite sex interaction than you are bisexual. But there are people who don’t adhere to that line. Rupert Graves gave an interview about how he had a same sex relationship when he was younger,
but I bet if you ask him, this twice married father of five if he considered himself bisexual he’d say no. That’s why I emphasized Tom’s statement about being in the military or jail being these outliers of sexual identity. In his opinion these situational same sex interactions exist as a workaround and not truly an indication of your sexual orientation.
I understand why people would want him to “pick a side” and claim him as their own. It’s human nature to want to have a community. I selfishly do that with ethnicity. Like I have this ridiculous dislike of Rashida Jones only because when commenting on her ethnicity she described herself as being a mix ov ethnicities and yes, I’m sure if you look at her parents ancestry you’ll see a mix of all of that but her mother is White her father is Black and I felt that she should simply say “I’m bi-racial or Caucasian and African American” because by focusing on the latent ethnicity in her ancestry I felt it was a cop out. Now how Jones or anyone else identifies doesn’t affect me in any way: it doesn’t take or give to me, but it’s that irrational side of myself that thinks, “Why aren’t you claiming “us” Why don’t you want to be one of “us”?”
And there is the aspect of helping out representation. The more actors can flip people’s perception about ethnicity the better I think it is for the industry as a whole. So that way casting agents don’t just have one idea-largely stereotypical-of what a biracial woman or Black or Asian or Latino actor is.
So I get it-I get why Tom Hardy not claiming bisexuality despite having same sex encounters make people feel slighted.
The unveiling was done to John Williams “Superman” score NATURALLY because Superman has kept the lights on for 77 years, dammit.
pic.twitter.com/vaBOD8nQKj
Before
After
~In “let a heaux be a heaux” Orson Wells aka Jensen Ackles celebrated the 11th(!) season of SPN by sassing “Smallville”.
I get why he’s salty. Trying to hold on to your man is very taxing emotionally.
I know he has 6% body fat and I have 60, but you still love me, right?
We’ve actually just had the 14th anniversary of “Smallville”! 14 years later and countless fanfics of Lex sexing Clark into oblivion. I adore this fandom and the people I’ve met through it.
On to lesser superheroes but no less beloved. I can’t wait for “Legends of Tomorrow”. It’s a midseason show so we have a bit of a wait. Thankfully the cast post to social media quite a bit.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl
Played by Falk Hentschel and Ciarra Renee
Rip Hunter himself Arthur Darvill
*very apt tee
Franz Drameh (Firestorm), Caity Loiz (White Canary), Ciarra and Arthur
Brandon, Wentworth and Dominic
If I ever have the good fortune of meeting Victor Garber I will just give him nonstop high-fives for snagging this HUNK Rainier Andreesen. After 16 years Victor finally looked it down and the couple got married.
Pound it, Victor. No, not Rainier. I mean, him too, but pound this fist because you, sir, are LUCKY.
Rainier posted an old photo from his young modeling days.
Better with age
Damn, Victor-you get to have all this?
Okay, this Tom Ford jacket is hotter than Rainier, but it’s close
There were three reasons I wanted to see this film: two Tom Hardys and Taron Egerton. And seeing two Toms and Taron for 2 hours makes up for the fact that “Legend” is a like a cinematic chocolate Easter bunny : it gives all the appearance of solidity but hollow in reality (and it damn near kills me to write that about a movie starring TOM HARDY AND TARON EGERTON.
I’m sorry…so sorry. No, don’t look at me.
Tom Hardy stars as notorious British twin gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray who ruled East London in the 60s. In all actuality they were pretty much local hoods but the mythos surrounding them has made the Krays an enduring…. wait for it….legend in the UK.
Narrated by Emily Browning who plays Reggie’s wife Frances, the film introduces us to Reggie, the more even-minded of the two brothers: he relishes in being a club owner to an establishment that caters to celebrities and other high end clientele almost more than being a bandit. Then there’s his paranoid/schizophrenic brother Reggie who is a barrel of contradictions: he has dreams of creating a Utopia in Nigeria to create happiness for all who visits and wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to his brother, but is prone to violence at the slightest provocation whether real or imagined.
Whereas Reggie is backed up by the steady support of The Firm (the Kray’s gang) members Ian Barrie (Mel Raido) and Albert Donoghue (Paul Anderson),
With Browning and stuntman Jacob Tomuri in his Ronnie wig
Ronnie is bolstered by his equally unpredictable boyfriend Teddy (the always enjoyable Taron Egerton) and the menacing Leslie Holt (Charley Palmer Merkell). They’re the devil and the devil that killed the angel on Ronnie’s shoulder.
As their profile builds, gaining them entre to the Mafia world through an alliance with Meyer Lansky via his proxy Angelo Bruno (Chazz Palminteri), Reggie personal life opens up through a romance with Frances (Emily Browning) the winsome, younger sister of their driver Frankie (Colin Morgan).
The film plays out like a tug of war with Ronnie resentful of having to share his brother/best friend with Frances and their hired businessman Leslie Payne (David Thewlis)
and Frances resentful of Reggie’s unwillingness to give up his life of crime and Ronnie.
The film isn’t just Tom Hardy providing two different performances, but it’s two different stories with different tones.
The Reggie/Frances film is a love story complete with the most believable view of the honeymoon period in a relationship that I’ve remember seeing. We see rom-coms all the time and they focus on the meet-cute, but we never get to see the couples just being a couple unlike in “Legend” which portrays a very tender intimacy with Reggie and Frances complete with soft kisses (I admit I swooned), cute banter and embraces.
Then there’s Ronnie’s movie: a veritable “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” cartoon-ish vibe with Ronnie and his buddies.
Both elements are enjoyable on their own, but together it is too much of a tonal shift and ultimately the Reggie story is the most interesting as the only thing Ronnie does is fume and implode, fume and implode, rinse and repeat.
It’s commendable that writer/director Brian Hegeland (L.A Confidential, 24, A Knight’s Tale) wanted to give another side of the twins with showing the fragility of Ronnie (originally Hegeland only wanted Hardy for Reggie, but Hardy wanted Ronnie so he told him he’d give Hegeland Reggie if Hegeland would give him Ronnie) and the sensitivity of Reggie, but the film really has no viewpoint. It’s not plot driven so it feels aimless; just a timeline connected by a voice-over.
Another complaint is that Carter Burwell’s score and the general music in the film is overbearing. It blares across scenes and considering the heavy accents of the majority of the cast there’s quite a bit of scenes that are just lost to the noise.
It’s “Distracting Trumpet” to the nth degree
Click to viewThere are more than enough bright spots by way of performances. Emily Browning serves her role well as the only thing Frances is supposed to be is a longsuffering pretty young girl who suffers prettily. David Thewlis as Leslie Payne, the Krays accountant who butts heads with Ronnie repeatedly is wonderful to watch.
And a brief, entertaining turn by Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson who is the Krays main competitor in crime is probably the best work Bettany has done in years.
And singer Duffy appears as Timi Yuro, powerfully belting out two wonderful ballads and the film’s closing song.
David Thewlis as Leslie Payne, the Krays accountant who butts heads with Ronnie repeatedly is wonderful to watch. And a brief, entertaining turn by Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson who is the Krays main competitor in crime is probably the best work Bettany has done in years. Chris Eccleston and Selyse Barantheon herself, Tara Fitzgerald as Frances’ disapproving mother.
And singer Duffy appears as Timi Yuro, powerfully belting out two wonderful ballads and the film’s closing song.
*Tom doesn’t fake the funk like Henry Cavill and claim that his dog is his emotional support dog…no, he just brings Woody everywhere with him.
Woody protecting his owner and expectant mum Charlotte Riley from those sneaky birds
Woody was on-set as well and is even in the “Thanks” section during the end credits
~Tom followed up “Legend” with “The Revenant” or as he calls it, “The Foreverandevernant”
His character’s triptych
also with Paul Anderson. Yes, Tom and Jacob Tomuri became legendary with their Dubsmash lipsyncing vids but Paul was also one of the Ravens (which is what they called themselves).
Domhnall Gleeson, some dude, Paul and real life puppet Randy from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Will Poulter
Tom also got a new raven tattoo on his side to go with the one on his pec.
*Hindsight is 20/20 and all that but I jumped at the chance to see it because there was a Q&A with the writer/director Brian Helgeland. It was the same night as the S2 screening and Q&A of “The Knick” and I should’ve done that one instead because Helgeland is an interesting writer…not a great conversationalist. He’s the milqueiest of milquetoast.
Bits and Bobs from the Q&A
~He said it was hard to separate fact from fiction with the Krays as that all the tales he heard about them-both good and bad-were exaggerated. He spoke of meeting a man while working on a tour documentary and the man told him he lost his finger to the Krays. Hegeland put it in his documentary and was issued a cease and desist by the man’s lawyer. He made the story up-he lost his finger in an accident.
~Hegeland says he doesn’t like biopics that start out with the characters young and then progress which is why “Legend” isn’t a starting point movie but starts when they’re already established.
~~He was asked about working with Richard Donner and before he could answer a voice shouted, “Be careful how you answer that!” Donner was there to support him.
~He entertained filming all of Hardy-as-Reggie scenes first and then going back to do Ronnie, but he wouldn’t have access to the locations past a certain point and Hardy had a very small window because he had to go off to do “The Revenant”.
On to Taron Egerton. Taron has been getting glowing reviews for his role in the film despite having very little to do and it’s for good reason: Taron is just a really compelling actor.
It’s true, it’s true, my lad
His “Kingsman: The Secret Service” costar Colin Firth remarked in a Huffington Post Live interview that prior to working with Egerton he had heard praises about him from agents and others in the London acting community and this was when Egerton was still in drama school (a graduate of RADA, he also was rewarded the Stephen Sondheim Young Entertainer award).
Firth said the only other person he remembers having that much buzz surrounding them fresh out of drama school was Kenneth Branagh.
Egerton gave an interview a few months back stating that he was due to return to work in September but couldn’t say on what. Sure enough he recently tweeted his lament at leaving Wales to move back to London.
Taron volunteering in his Welsh community
This doll
gI initially thought the move was only to do reshoots for “Eddie the Eagle”,
but the trades reported that after rumors of his being on the shortlist for the role, Egerton has in fact been cast as Robin Hood in Lionsgate’s “Robin Hood: Origins” (beating out Jack Raynor ) with “The Knick”s Eve Hewson as Maid Marian.
There was a brief hiccup because Lionsgate secured February as a shooting date for “Robin Hood” but Taron is contractually committed to the sequel to “Kingsman: The Secret Service” which Fox secured for an April shoot. Three months would not be enough time for Taron to do both so Lionsgate pushed back their start date so that Taron could do “Kingsman 2”. I can only guess Fox is giving Lionsgate something in exchange for backing down on this-yes, Lionsgate wanted Taron so it’s no problem to wait on him but I think Fox negotiated a deal the same way they worked one out with Sony in 2012 when Fox released Marc Webb from his holding deal in order for him to direct “The Amazing Spiderman 2” in exchange for Sony allow Fox to add a “X-Men: Days of Future Past” teaser at the end of “The Amazing Spiderman 2”. Likely it’s some sweetened distribution deal as Fox distributes Lionsgate films. IDK and IDC I just know that Gary “Eggsy” Unwin will be back sooner rather than later and I’m ready for it.
Taron is also up for a role in the indie drama “Crooks County” which tells the true tale of a whistleblower involved in an undercover FBI operation in 1980s Cook County, Illinois, that resulted in the largest number of convictions of government officials in American history.
Tom Hardy shut down two questions at the TIFF press conference for “Legend” because he deemed that they had nothing to do with “Legend”: one was a question about “The Revenant” and the other was about his sexuality. It’s the latter that made headlines and ended up eclipsing talk about “Legend” in the press.
I try not to police people’s tone. Everyone has a right to express themselves, but I felt bad for the journalists whose only sin was that he didn’t stand by his question with conviction. Yes, he got shut down pretty soundly and I don’t think Tom would’ve answered even if the reporter posed his question in a definitive way instead of having Tom lead him into asking the question, but at least then there’d be little fault on his side. The bigger question for me is if the journalists at the press conference had actually seen “Legend” because then it makes the reporter’s question makes more sense because the first time Ronnie meets Frances he tells her immediately that he’s homosexual and that you shouldn’t hide who you are because that makes you sad.
This is the exchange (and the video because tone is lost in print)
The reporter said, "I'm wondering if you find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality," to which Hardy replied, "I don't find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality. Are you asking about my sexuality?"
The journalist said, "Hmm... sure", to which Hardy fired back, "Why?", before giving a firm and final "thank you" to the reporter.
Now here is Tom explaining to the site The Daily Beast his reaction to the question.
The Daily Beast: … so I wanted to ask you about privacy. I think it’s the understanding of some entertainment journalists that celebrities are not entitled to the right to privacy, which I don’t agree with.
Hardy: I think everybody is entitled to the right to privacy. There should be elegant ways to approach any topic, and there’s a time and place to approach anything and have a good, common sense conversation about anything. I do think that there’s a responsibility for people to own the way that they speak publicly. This doesn’t stop us from being human beings; some things are private. I’m under no obligation to share anything to do with my family, my children, my sexuality-that’s nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t see how that can have anything to do with what I do as an actor, and it’s my own business. If you knew me as a friend, then sure, we’d talk about anything. But that was a public forum, and for someone to inelegantly ask a question that seemed designed entirely to provoke a reaction, and start a topic of debate… It’s important destigmatizing sexuality and gender inequality in the workplace, but to put a man on the spot in a room full of people designed purely for a salacious reaction? To be quite frank, it’s rude. If he’d have said that to me in the street, I’d have said the same thing back: “I’m sorry, who the fuck are you?”
TDB: Right.
HardyAlso, if you felt it was so important for people to feel confident to talk about their sexuality, why would you put somebody on the spot in a room full of people and decide that was the time for them to open up about their sexual ambiguity? There’s also nothing ambiguous about my sexuality, anyway. I know who I am. But what does that have to do with you? And why am I a part of something now that, however legitimate, I haven’t offered my services for? It’s not about what he and his publication stands for, none of that is offensive, and on the contrary, it’s very admirable, and an important issue. But how I was asked was incredibly inelegant, and I just thought it was disrespectful and counterproductive to what he stands for.
His response to Entertainment Weekly about the press conference
But it was the manner in which Hardy was asked about it on Sunday that the actor says felt like a real invasion of privacy. “It’s so important to the LGBT [community] that people actually feel safe about their sexuality and are able to speak freely and not be stigmatized or feel like they are being pointed out,” Hardy says. “Why point me out, assuming that I’m gay because I’m ambiguous about it, which I’m very clear if you look into what I’ve said in the past.”
Hardy adds that he feels badly for the reporter, whom he believes didn’t mean anything malicious by the question, yet he can’t seem to shake the interaction.
“I’m quite sensitive and I feel like I’ve let people down for something that I actually didn’t ask for, for something that’s important to a lot of people,” he says. “Should I come out of the closet when I’m not in one? I ought to maybe come out of the closet, even though that’s a lie, to do the right thing. Or, if I say no, then I’m homophobic? Bless him, he’s young. But at the same time, it left me feeling like I have to do something about that. And it’s like why? Whose business is it anyway and isn’t that the point?”
Tom’s absolutely right that he’s been clear about his sexuality in the past and the reporter should’ve just researched that instead of asking Tom as if he was going to get a different question. But, again, if the journalists were screened “Legend” I understand why the reporter asked the question: Ronnie, as depicted in the film, was unafraid to declare his sexuality in a time when it was illegal to be gay so asking an actor who has openly discussed same sex encounters in the past despite being in an industry where you’re encouraged to stay in the closet is a bold act. But I also understand Tom’s feeling of having something you once said many moons ago trotted out to you time and time again for examination. It feels like it’s a bigger issue than it really is. But nothing in the reporter’s question was disparaging or disrespectful.
While Tom’s reaction had supporters, it also had detractors because they point out that he has time and time again talked about his drug addiction in grand detail and didn’t find that troubling for his wife, so why does a question on his sexuality suddenly become disrespectful to his family(He was even dating Charlotte and pointed her out in the audience of Jonathan Ross when he told his story about missing a meeting with John Woo because he went on a crack binge and woke up naked in bed with another man, a cat and a loaded gun). What he needs to identify is why he felt the question was designed to humiliate him. Inelegant? Yes, very. Disrespectful? Not at all.
For further illumination; here’s Tom on record about his sexuality.
Tom’s Next Magazine interview
Of the character Handsome Bob
Interviewer: How did you approach a gay gharacter in a guy Ritchie movie?
Hardy: I think there’s an uber stress on being a guy. Guy Ritchie movies, in my opinion, can be very bloke-y in the same way that car magazines or fighting magazines are sort of specifically for the boys. So, Ironically enough, I just played him as straight as possible. So my identification with me and my girlfriend was exactly the same as it was about Bob and One Two, Gerard’s character. There was no need to be camp or anything like that. I’m in love with Gerard, and that’s it, no big deal.
Interviewer: Was there anyone in particular that you modeled the character after?
Hardy: I watched Cool Hand Luke and Midnight Cowboy, you know, with Jon Voight and Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. You know, those kind of images that I wanted to find a sort of modern day homage, in a way, discreetly to those three guys.
Interviewer: They’re all pretty huge sex symbols for gay guys.
Hardy: Well, I also find them incredibly sexy. It made sense to me to do that. I wanted him to be sexy. As sexy as he could be because it’s not something that I’ve ever really explored.
Tom’s Attitude Magazine interview
Interviewer: And your character (Handsome Bob) was gay in the end.
Hardy: Which was great! It was a very simple story. Guy’s stories are like comic books. It’s the night before I go into prison and they’ve set me up with these beautiful Russian escort girls and there’s drugs and they’re going to see me off properly. I’m miserable and Gerard’s like, what’s the matter with you. And I go “It’s not that I’m unhappy but you wouldn’t understand,” and he goes, “Of course I’ll understand - I’ve known you for years.” I’m just like “I don’t want the fucking girls, I want you. “ And he starts berating the fact that he’s known me for years and had showers with me and that. It actually happened to one of the guys involved in the writing: this villain came out to him.
Interviewer: It’s such a tradition of London gangsters, the gay thing, what with the Krays…..
Hardy: I wouldn’t like to say. I really wouldn’t. It’s an unsaid, untalked about thing. The military get it as well. Sexual relations where it’s a necessity, like prison, are different from being a homosexual.
Interviewer: Have you ever had sexual relations with men?
Hardy: As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor for fuck’s sake. I’m an artist. I’ve played with anything and anyone. But I’m not into men sexually. I love the form and the physicality but the gay sex bit does nothing for me. In the same way a wet vagina would turn someone else into a lemon-sucking freak. To me it just doesn’t compute to me now that I’m in my 30’s and it doesn’t do it for me and I’m done experimenting.
Interviewer: Have you done it all?
Hardy: Not all but I can imagine. We’ve all got an arsehole and I can imagine. It just doesn’t do it for me, sex with another man. But there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life. A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I don’t think I’m metrosexual but I’m definitely my mother’s son. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine.
Interviewer: You seem very masculine.
Hardy: A lot of people say that but I don’t feel it. I feel intrinsically feminine. I went to an insight course at the parachute regiment. I thought, “I want to join up, do three years, go to Iraq, do my bit, get physically fit.” So I went to White City barracks and I realized I had a real phobia about groups of men, I’m frightened of them, I’m much more comfortable around women. I’d love to be one of the boys but I always felt a bit on the outside. Maybe my masculine qualities come from over-compensating that I’m not one of the boys. Anyway, it was fucking horrible, man. I signed up for three years and after forty minutes I had to talk my way out of it. They don’t need people like me, they need someone who’s prepared to go over and kill people. (dawnybee: I’m always confused how he equates human feelings like compassion with femininity. He seems to not recognize that gender and societal gender norms are not the same thing. )
Now here comes the interview that had/has people turning on Tom and saying that he’s in the closet and that Charlotte’s his beard and that he’s homophobic, etc, etc, etc.
Tom’s Marie Claire UK interview
'I had a distinct lack of male role models, apart from the ones I chose. Boys are not qualified to pick healthy ones. I held onto my immaturity.’
This much candour makes you wonder whether Hardy ever regrets being, well, quite frank. 'I don’t regret anything I’ve ever said. It’s just a shame things are misconstrued and I don’t get the opportunity to explain.’ Not even the time he said he’d enjoyed relationships with men in his twenties?
'I have never put my penis in a man,’ is Hardy’s characteristically direct response. 'I’ve never had a cock in my arse, and I have no fucking desire for it. If that’s what you like, cool. But it doesn’t do it for me.’ He’s irritated his words were taken out of context, but conceded, 'one thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about’.
**That’s not ambiguous nor does it negate what he said in the 2008 interview. People are working themselves into knots attempting to discern the type of sex he had as if that’s the cipher to uncovering his sexuality. As if he’s only received blowjobs from men then that’s evidence that he’s not gay but if he’s given them he is. And that’s not how people parse their sexuality.
By the strictest definition if you’ve had same sex and opposite sex interaction than you are bisexual. But there are people who don’t adhere to that line. Rupert Graves gave an interview about how he had a same sex relationship when he was younger,
but I bet if you ask him, this twice married father of five if he considered himself bisexual he’d say no. That’s why I emphasized Tom’s statement about being in the military or jail being these outliers of sexual identity. In his opinion these situational same sex interactions exist as a workaround and not truly an indication of your sexual orientation.
I understand why people would want him to “pick a side” and claim him as their own. It’s human nature to want to have a community. I selfishly do that with ethnicity. Like I have this ridiculous dislike of Rashida Jones only because when commenting on her ethnicity she described herself as being a mix ov ethnicities and yes, I’m sure if you look at her parents ancestry you’ll see a mix of all of that but her mother is White her father is Black and I felt that she should simply say “I’m bi-racial or Caucasian and African American” because by focusing on the latent ethnicity in her ancestry I felt it was a cop out. Now how Jones or anyone else identifies doesn’t affect me in any way: it doesn’t take or give to me, but it’s that irrational side of myself that thinks, “Why aren’t you claiming “us” Why don’t you want to be one of “us”?”
And there is the aspect of helping out representation. The more actors can flip people’s perception about ethnicity the better I think it is for the industry as a whole. So that way casting agents don’t just have one idea-largely stereotypical-of what a biracial woman or Black or Asian or Latino actor is.
So I get it-I get why Tom Hardy not claiming bisexuality despite having same sex encounters make people feel slighted.