stuff
Alessandro Nivola (Junebug, Goal!) will star opposite Audrey Tautou in Coco avant Chanel. He'll play Arthur Capel, the English polo player who was the lover and sponsor of iconic fashion designer Coco Chanel. (THR) [imdb]
Danny Huston, Shawn Roberts and Australian actress Borjana Novakovic have joined the thriller Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson and directed by Martin Campbell. Gibson plays homicide detective Thomas Craven, who investigates the death of his activist daughter (Novakovic) and uncovers not only her secret life, but a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent tasked with cleaning up the evidence (Robert De Niro). (THR) [imdb]
ETA: The Wiki page for the original Edge of Darkness, the British miniseries on which the film is based, is very interesting. Definitely not your average political thriller. (Thanks, cyberducks!)
An Iron Man deleted scene.
Hi-res character photos for True Blood, including this one of Eric. (via trueblood_tv)
Cherche l’homme: “La Femme Nikita” and Macho Drag - a lovely column by John Ruch about Michael Samuelle. Written by a fan, for the fans, but if you've never seen an episode of La Femme Nikita, I implore you to try it.
Someone surviving well, and typifying the macho drag portion of the program, is Michael (the French-Canadian actor Roy Dupuis), Nikita’s mentor, evil genius and love interest. Stoic to a point of Zen-like facial immobility, Eastwoodian reticence and robotic economy of movement, and capable of killing anyone, anywhere, anytime in about a nanosecond, Michael is a classic modern action hero.
Thus, he should also be a classic bore. Instead, he’s a remarkable, moving deconstruction of masculinity, thanks both to the screenwriters’ conception and Dupuis’s talent, which results in one of the finest screen performances I’ve ever seen (speaking as a one-time professional critic of such things).
As in all action movies, Michael’s persona is presented as an efficient, useful adaptation to a hideous job. But “La Femme Nikita” lets slip the dirty secret that at best it’s useful only in highly limited circumstances. It tells us that Michael has a much richer inner life. It shows him fumbling to reach Nikita through his own emotional armor, and Nikita similarly unable to touch him. It shows Michael’s mask as something he struggles to remove, something that sometimes suffocates him. It shows him dying to reveal himself, but feeling more comfortable in disguise. It shows him confusing his identity with his act.
In short, it shows us your average guy writ large.
Danny Huston, Shawn Roberts and Australian actress Borjana Novakovic have joined the thriller Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson and directed by Martin Campbell. Gibson plays homicide detective Thomas Craven, who investigates the death of his activist daughter (Novakovic) and uncovers not only her secret life, but a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent tasked with cleaning up the evidence (Robert De Niro). (THR) [imdb]
ETA: The Wiki page for the original Edge of Darkness, the British miniseries on which the film is based, is very interesting. Definitely not your average political thriller. (Thanks, cyberducks!)
An Iron Man deleted scene.
Hi-res character photos for True Blood, including this one of Eric. (via trueblood_tv)
Cherche l’homme: “La Femme Nikita” and Macho Drag - a lovely column by John Ruch about Michael Samuelle. Written by a fan, for the fans, but if you've never seen an episode of La Femme Nikita, I implore you to try it.
Someone surviving well, and typifying the macho drag portion of the program, is Michael (the French-Canadian actor Roy Dupuis), Nikita’s mentor, evil genius and love interest. Stoic to a point of Zen-like facial immobility, Eastwoodian reticence and robotic economy of movement, and capable of killing anyone, anywhere, anytime in about a nanosecond, Michael is a classic modern action hero.
Thus, he should also be a classic bore. Instead, he’s a remarkable, moving deconstruction of masculinity, thanks both to the screenwriters’ conception and Dupuis’s talent, which results in one of the finest screen performances I’ve ever seen (speaking as a one-time professional critic of such things).
As in all action movies, Michael’s persona is presented as an efficient, useful adaptation to a hideous job. But “La Femme Nikita” lets slip the dirty secret that at best it’s useful only in highly limited circumstances. It tells us that Michael has a much richer inner life. It shows him fumbling to reach Nikita through his own emotional armor, and Nikita similarly unable to touch him. It shows Michael’s mask as something he struggles to remove, something that sometimes suffocates him. It shows him dying to reveal himself, but feeling more comfortable in disguise. It shows him confusing his identity with his act.
In short, it shows us your average guy writ large.