What I've Seen, SAG Awards Fashion...
John Wick 2
Tacking on a higher body count and 20 minutes from the first film, “John Wick 2” brings back Keanu Reeves as the titular monotone killer whose retirement just won’t stick.
Days after the end of the first film John Wick is a new dog owner and set to return to retirement from the killing game. But his revenge fueled foray back into the game gained the attention of Santino (Riccardo Scarmcio, “London Spy”)
who helped Wick retire the first time. The terms of Santino’s help was that Wick can never get back into the game, with that broken, Santino forces John to assassinate someone for him in order to secure his place in a global cartel.
The task takes Wick to Rome where he’s pitted against other assassins who want a crack at him like Cassian (Common)
and Santino’s silent partner Ares (Ruby Rose).
Can I take a moment to appreciate Ruby’s body?
The stunts are more outrageous. It’s unbelievable what was conceived for these stunt people to do. Just massively frenetic and brutal stunts involving cars, firearms and hand to hand combat. But I felt there were too many of those scenes and they were recycling moves. I think I know how to wrest away a gun from someone and do a twist out due to seeing it in this film so many times.
They’ve also built up the universe. In the first one we get insight on the Continental Hotel ran by Winston (Ian McShane) and the assassin clientele it serves. Here we meet the head of the International Hotel (Franco Nero) and the sheer breadth and width of the clientele and the criminal underbelly it serves and how it is served like their assassin phone center where if you want to put out a hit you call a service where the female operators are all dressed like Lily Tomlin’s character Ernestine except they’re all tatted up.
Keanu is Keanu in that he’s laughably stilted. It works for this film as a hard nosed killer who doesn’t mince words.
The film stars Lance Reddick as Charon the concierge at the Continental and Laurence Fishburne as an information broker who has a past with Wick.
It was the premiere
and I went because one of my two rabid Keanu fans friends asked me to come along. I came because I wanted to see Riccardo Scarmacio in an American film and I even told my friend, “there’s no way the studio is going to fly him out from Italy for this.” I’m here for her Keanu obsession and popcorn.
We’re standing outside watching the black carpet interviews and arrivals. My friend pointed out Keanu’s mother and sister to me. Saw Chris D’Elia formerly of NBC’s “Undateable”, Keegan Michael Key (and funny enough they were screening his former comedy partner Jordan Peele’s directorial debut “Get Out” at the theater at the same time) Eion Macken who I saw two weeks ago at the premiere of “Resident Evil” (he was there supporting Ruby Rose)
I’m on scrolling through my phone absently talking to the Friend of my Friend (FoF) and he says, “Who’s the woman in white? Someone’s taking a picture of her.” I turned around to see who he was referring to and standing in the corner of one of the theater doors was Riccardo Scarmarcio and who I would later find out to be Claudia Gerini who plays Riccardo’s sister in the film. They’re chatting with their handler and smoking cigarettes. I gasped and turned away as if Riccardo would catch my watching him and told FoF who he was and how he was the reason I was there. So FoF gets excited and says, “You gotta take a picture” and I told him no, that I didn’t want to bother them.
Later, I’m still on my phone, FoF and my friend are going back and forth over something and I hear my friend say “Ask Dawn.” So FoF asks if I could take a picture of him and I said, “Sure.” I’m waiting for him to hand me his phone and he’s heading inside the theater with me trailing behind. I’m thinking he’s going to take a picture in front of the display the theater has for upcoming movies. As we’re approaching the display he veers to the right calling out, “excuse me. I finally clue in that he wanted me to take a picture of him with someone. That someone?
My old nemesis Mayhem! Chad Michael Murray!!
FoF asks if he could take a picture, Chad asks his very pregnant wife to hold one a bit. He takes the picture, claps FoF on the back and tells us both to have fun and enjoy the night. Admittedly, he wasn’t a douchebag but I this meme exists for a reason.
I had FoF send me the picture because I just can’t believe of all people I had to encounter it was CW’s RPS’ own CMM. FoF decides to not see the film to instead go shopping nearby, me and my friend see the film. The studio head intro’s the film about how the first “John Wick” was an original script, not based on a comic book or a remake of a 50 year old movie.” Yet ignoring that he was there for the sequel. If you’re going to slam studios for perceived sins, put yourself in the mix. He said he wanted to introduce the cast. I could see Keanu standing in the aisle to come down but no one else. He asked each to stand as he called their name. The friend I was with was the same one with me at “Birth of a Nation”, who was shocked by my heart eyes for Armie Hammer so when he said Riccardo’s name she turned to me as I cheered a little too loudly. He asked Keanu to come down and Keanu sprinted to the front . I don’t even think he stopped. He jogged to him, grabbed the mic, said, “Thank you all for coming out” while in motion, handed back the mic, ran back up the stairs to his seat.
Movie ends, I race out to the lobby hoping to see Riccardo.
Yeah, I’m a fan
I turn my phone on because I had it off to save the battery since I was futzing around on it while waiting for the movie to start. I see Riccardo, I glide over tell him I’m a fan and ask for a picture. He says sure and because to curl his arm around my shoulder for a selfie and I pull back a bit and say, “Oh, I can just take it.” ::cringe:: As I’m holding it up to take the shot texts from FoF start coming through asking if the movie was over. The text hang above whatever I have open for a few seconds so I’m snapping thinking surely the picture will come out even with the text display up. WRONG.
I find my friend to tell her what happened and like a good friend she said, “That sucks. That was a once in a lifetime chance!”
We’re hanging out in the lobby, we see Keanu’s mom and sister again, Lance Reddick is chatting with a group of people as is Common, then Keanu comes and we’re standing a few feet from him just listening to him greet people. And just like when I saw him at the premiere of “Cloud Atlas” where he held court in the lobby with Lana Wachowski and no fans came up to him, everyone just let him be. He was gregariously showing off some of the armed combat moves-way more animated than he is in the film. He introduced some guy to the people he was speaking to and referred to the guy as being “a gentleman in training”. I’m texting back and forth with FoF when my friend starts laughing and exclaims, “Oh, no!” I look up. Riccardo has strolled back in and walks past us-my phone in my palm too startled to do anything. I tell her,”You’re going to have to ask him for a picture for me. I did this already.
Security clears the lobby and we head out. We stick around a bit talking to people and then head to the parking garage with FoF who has now returned. He asks if Keanu was still around and we said, no that surely he had left as it had been ten minutes or more since we all cleared the lobby. He points out that there were black sedans still waiting in the garage and I said it had to be studio folks because, “Trust me. All of the actors are gone.” We’re waiting for the elevator to arrive and I’m looking outwards talking when my begins laughing again. Riccardo is now heading for one of the sedans. I just said, “Nope. I don’t care. I’m over it!”
The Space Between Us
Talk about a waste. Not the film itself, but the soundtrack. No sign of Dave Matthew’s The Space Between anywhere!
A film brought to the masses by Allan Loeb who dumped “Collateral Beauty” on us. “The Space Between Us” has a failure to launch due to sloppy writing that is more focused with concepts instead of character insight.
Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldman, who is looking good. Like a slim, sane Steve Bannon) finds his lifelong space program of inhabiting a test colony on Mars in jeopardy when soon after arrival his lead astronaut Sarah Elliot (Janet Montgomery) discovers she’s pregnant.
Not wanting to get the program defunding Shepherd and his team, including co-director Tom Chen (B.D Wong)
decide to keep Sarah’s pregnancy and eventual death during childbirth a secret. Due to being born in an artificial space environment Shepherd and Co. knows that the baby, Gardner, would not survive the trip back to earth or the earth’s environment so he’s raised on the space colony among the wave of global astronauts who come to work on the colony like Kendra Wendham (Carla Gugino).
At sixteen Gardner (Asa Butterfield) decides he wants to take the risk to go to Earth in order to meet his cyber pen-pal Tulsa (Britt Robertson) and to find his birth father.
Upon Gardner’s arrival the doctors realize he won’t survive on Earth and want him to return to Mars. Not willing to give up his chance to have a life on Earth Gardner and Tulsa go on the run
With Shepherd and Kendra on their heels as Gardner strives to find his father before he dies.
Although Britt Robertson irks me in the same inexplicable way Peter Sarsgaard does, I still think she’s really fun to watch. She’s a great plucky actress and that worked well opposite Butterfield’s wide-eyed man-child Gardner. The story gaps were my biggest problem. They never explain how Gardner met Tulsa online, if he had the internet and human interaction on the ship why did he act like “Starman”? He had no concept of human relationships, he didn’t know what a horse was! Then there’s a line early on about why Oldman’s character could never go to space which is completely jettisoned towards the end. Just sloppy and completely misses the mark if it was trying to lean on people’s emotions.
Fifty Shades Darker
At one point Ana (Dakota Johnson) tearfully asks Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) “Who did this to you?” and I thought, “Myself, Ana. Myself. I did this to myself. I knew the first “Fifty Shades of Grey” was Fanfic.Net trash and yet, here I am again.”
Where we last left our protagonists Ana left Christian when he finally broke bad in the bedroom and she became frightened at his level of sadism (i,e, the only hot scene in the first film). Of course Christian Grey isn’t a man to take no for an answer-just one of the MANY creepy things about this character and after popping up at an event he and Ana rekindle their relationship. This time Ana has her own demands in that Christian is more communicative about who he is so that she can get a better sense of what drives him.
Between parties
And racy, ribald sex (the woman in front of me just kept shaking her head in incredulity and turning to the people with her like, “can you believe they’re showing this?!”) is turmoil in the form of Ana’s new boss Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson. After one particular scene of jerkitude someone loudly exclaimed, “Douche!”)
and Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger), Christian’s former lover who nurtured his BDSM streak.
After the departure of director Sam Taylor-Johnson after the first one and the ensuing news that author E.L James’ husband Niall Leonard would adapt the script and James Foley would be directing it, many people thought the film would “suffer”. Not like it has far to fall, but I think this was better than the first one. I think the first film used Ana as a leveling device, where she could be more comedic with the fish out of water element, but now they’ve given Dornan a chance to be quippy so he’s not just this brooding, creep with consent issues.
The fans loved it. That crowd was supremely into it which made it enjoyable for me. They were yelling, screaming, swooning, everything Ana and Christian did got a reaction. Whether it was nervous reaction from the sex scenes. They showed Johnson’s breast and butt each chance they could, but Dornan only had one full butt scene. Others were just swells of his ass as he would only barely push his pants down to have sex. Not that Dornan has a great ass, but I think if this geared towards women at the very least give me that Belfast booty.
Returnees include Marcia Gay Harden as Grace, Christian’s mom, Andrew Arlie as Carrick Grey, Christian’s dad, Rita Ora and Luke Grimes as his siblings Mia and Elliot, Eloise Mumford as Ana’s best friend/Luke’s girlfriend Kate, Max Martini as Christian’s driver/security detail Jason and Victor Rasuk as Jose Ana’s friend who is besotted with her.
Rita, Luke, Andrew, Eloise, Marcia
Rita, Eloise, Luke and Victor
I only saw it because Tyler Hoechlin was cast in the film but neither Hoechlin or Hugh Dancy appears in the film (I spoke to someone who saw the test screening and the final cut and she said Hugh was cut out, as well as extended party scenes. I didn’t even think to ask about Hoechlin because I thought maybe he was just going to be in the third film “50 Shades Freed”. They showed a teaser for “50 Shades Freed” in the mid-credits like it’s a Marvel film).
At least I got masks out of the deal
And a chance to return to the Ace Hotel( formerly the Orpheum Theatre).
**I didn’t see any of the stars of the film. I came in from the loooong popcorn line (because the venue has an old timey wimey popcorn machine that makes only 10 ounces of popcorn so instead of having it sat out for when the crowds came the poor concession staff had to stand there and make what amounted to a microwavable bag of popcorn every 2 minutes) when EL James, her husband, Dakota and Jamie were being introduced. From a distance I saw Jeremy Alan White (Lip, “Shameless”) and T.I’s wife Tiny Harris.
LOVED
*Some people wore safety pins and gave speeches, but Simon Helberg and his wife took their message to the red carpet.
Octavia Spencer in Tadashi Shoji
*She’s worn Shoji for years, but didn’t wear him for the Golden Globes. I guess she learned from her mistake. I adore this dress. It’s not-basic black. I love the netting.
Samantha Isler of “Captain Fantastic”
*I love mint green and it’s quaint and just looks comfortable.
Annalise Basso
*Isler’s “Captain Fantastic” costar in Bibhu Mohapatra
The “Captain Fantastic” cast with director Matt Ross
*Viggo Mortenson said he’d bring his son Henry to the ceremony with him but I didn’t see pictures of them together.
Henry, and his Exene Cevenka from the band X
Viggo had another family reunion with his LotR castmates
Naomie Harris in Lanvin
*I love a good pants and the lively stripes make her look like a candy cane but that’s part of the appeal.
Thandie Newton in Schiaparelli Couture
*It’s just uniquely constructed and I love the designs that make me think of cave drawings.
*A big improvement over what she wore to the Producers Guild Awards where she presented Colin Firth with the Stanley Kramer Award to he and his producing partner Ged Doherty for “Loving”.
Colin’s speech
**An acquaintance attended an early screening of “Loving” ahead of the awards season and Colin was on hand for the event and Colin told my acquaintance about how excited he was about getting ready to work on “Mary Poppins”. I’m relaying this as an excuse to talk about “Mary Poppins” costar Ben Whishaw!
Ben with “Mary Poppins” costar Lin Manuel Miranda with Martha Plimpton
*I hope Ben finally got to see “Hamilton” during Lin Manuel’s run. While he was doing “The Crucible” on Broadway he said that was the one show he couldn’t get tickets for that he really wanted to see.
*Ben will return to the stage for Almeida Playhouse’s season.
Taraji P. Henson in Reem Acra
*I’ll give this to her but I think she needs a low netting at the top. It’s veering into pasties territory.
Claire Foy (The Crown)
*I guess I have a thing for soft gowns with floral accents.
Kerry Washington in Cavalli
*Not fond of white, but the peek-a-boo hem and the sculpting of the dress makes it sexier.
Pre-Awards
Same with Julie Bowen in J. Mendel
*She just needs a better hairdo. Maybe some ringlets.
Evan Rachel Wood in Joseph Altazurra
*Once again killing it in a suit. Plus, the optical illusion of her before the lights make it look like she’s carrying lanterns and that’s cool.
*Evan brought her fiancé/bandmate Zach Villa.
*Evan’s not the only one getting ready to take another walk down the aisle, her ex-husband Jamie Bell is engaged to his “Fantastic Four” costar Kate Mara.
”This is Us” Ryan Michelle Bathe and Sterling K. Brown
*I love this ivory off-the-shoulder dress. I love the abbreviated scalloped top and draping of the skirt. Beautiful.
Mayim Bialik
*I love how colorful it is. It could be cinched at the waist a bit more, but other than that I approve. I feel like she has worn this before.
Viola Davis in Vivienne Westwood
Michelle Dockery in Ellie Saab
*She looks like a bowl of Neopolitan ice-cream. I love it. Her TNT series “Good Behavior” was renewed for S2.
Rashida Jones in Vivienne Westwood
Alia Shawkat
Yara Shadidi (black-ish) in Naaem Kahn
HATED
Nicole Kidman in Alexander McQueen
*I’d say this dress was for the birds but I feel I’ve made that joke before. Obviously Nicole is such a slave to McQueen designs that she’d wear anything even a Big Bird’s peacock cousin.
Emma Stone in Alexander McQueen
*It looks like I may have torn her dress in rage after hearing all the “La La Land” praise. It’s not even that good.
Jessica Pimentel (“Orange is the New Black”)
*There’s a time and a place for a dress like this and it’s called the BET Awards.
I like to think that Viola and Thandie just caught sight of Jessica’s dress
Taryn Manning (Orange is the New Black)
*She looks like Chucky’s bride.
Her pre-awards look wasn’t any better
Kaley Cuoco
*She looks like my old Happy Birthday Barbie except she got in a terrible row with Skipper and she shredded her dress.
Gretchen Mol
*Is this “Ex Machina” Part 2? It looks like I’m seeing the exposed torso of a robot.
Judith Light in Tom Ford
*Boring column dress and I do not like the pattern.
Gwendoline Christie
*I love you, Gwen, you know I do. But why are you dressed like Zod??
I guess this makes Nathalie Emmanuel Ursa to Gwen’s Zod
OTHERS
Janeelle Monae in Chanel
*I love the Minnie Mouse hair but the French aristocrat collar isn’t a good look.
Her PGA look
Angela Sarafyen (Westworld)
*Looking like Pebbles Flinstone in Zac Posen
Sofia Vergara in Zuhair Murhad
Tracee Ellis Ross
*Too shapeless.
Lori Petty (Orange is the New Black)
*Oddly enough I like this it’s just that the black blob on the top is really a distraction. If only the patch was smaller.
But it’s a big improvement over her 2016 look.
Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black)
*hitting that “Bride of Frankenstein” look a little too hard. Who is her stylist and why do they hate her?
It’s not a bad look completely once I get a better sense of it
Pre-Awards party
Taylor Schilling in ADEAM
Michelle Williams (in Louis Vuitton) and Busy Philips
*I’m..okay with Michelle’s dress but not Busy’s.
There’s this return to not only metallic but metallic dresses that look like they came straight from the 80s just minus the shoulder pads. Like
Malin Ackerman
Diane Kruger
*Who is rumored to be going strong with “The Walking Dead”s Norman Reedus.
Tamera Taylor of “Bones”
Tracee Ellis Ross
Whoever this is
Maisie Williams
*A slip dress is a slip dress but I can’t with her dark matte lipstick that she wears all the time. I guess this is how people felt about me wearing black lipstick for all those years.
Ariel Winter in Mikael D.
*One day she will stop dressing like a Vegas dancer. One day.
Natalie Portman in Dior
*How much did, what essentially is a drop clothe, cost her?
Dascha Polanco (Orange is the New Black)
*Can we jail the stylists for the “Orange is the New Black” cast??
Her afterparty look wasn’t much better
Winona Ryder
*You can take the girl out of Petaluma but you can’t take the Petaluma out of the girl. I love Noni, drab dress and all.
Sophie Turner
Getting casual at the after-party. Kerry Washington (left) look great in her afterparty look, too
Marcia Clarke looks better than Sarah Paulson
Sarah’s PGA look
Maggie Siff (“Billions”) in Zac Posen
*A great turn for a not-so-basic black dress. I love the structure of it.
Emily Blunt in Roberto Cavalli
*Her eye makeup adds to the look.
Meryl Streep in Valentino
Kate Hudson
Amy Adams in Brandon Maxwell
*I guess since she didn’t get a nomination for “Nocturnal Animals” she figured “eff Tom Ford designs”.
Javina Gavankar (Sleepy Hollow) at the pre-awards party
*Anyone wearing a Wonder Woman dress is fine by me.
Lyndie Greenwood (Sleepy Hollow)
Darcy Caden (“The Good Place”, NBC)
*Love this retro look as much as I love the news of the renewal of “The Good Place”.
This was from months ago and I don’t even know who she is but I like her moxie
The Men
Dev Patel
*With his lean form it’s hard for him to not look good in a suit.
Beardo!Casey Affleck with Salma Hayek
Ben Barnes (Westworld)
Leonardo Nam (Westworld)
He’s very stylish
James Marden (Westworld, with son Jack)
Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes and Jharell Jerome (Moonlight)
*I love Trevante’s suit jacket.
Rami Malek in Dior
*He’s always a bit too cinched up. I wish he would unbutton those top buttons. Design wise he’s fun-he has flair, but no top buttoned shirts!
Laurence Fishburne looking like a monk
King Wank-a-lot Dean Charles Chapman: pre-awards and red carpet
*Dean is appearing in at least one episode of TNT’s upcoming series “Will” about William Shakespeare.
Michiel Huisman: Pre-awards and red carpet
*Fake!Daario looking good.
Peter Dinklage
*The hottest Lannister at Sundance.
Jacob Anderson
*The cutest eunuch in Westoros! Take that, Theon Greyjoy!
