AWARDS BEAT
In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, chick flicks are dissected, Miramax is remembered, and Bieber goes biopic.
Jenni Miller has just the right opening sentencefor a piece on how Paramount is making a movie about Justin Bieber, and how it’ll be in 3D, and how Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth,” “It Might Get Loud”) is in talks to direct: “What rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” Really, I don’t think you need to say anything else. (Cinematical)
Noah Forrest read a recent Entertainment Weekly article entitled “If Women Like It, It Must Be Stupid” – an interview with “Eat Pray Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert in which the gist is that men shouldn’t look down on “chick flicks” (and books) the way they do – and it made him mad. His first point is entirely sensible: “Here’s the thing: most films in general are stupid. Films that are geared towards men or women are just as stupid as the rest of them.” (Movie City News)
On the occasion of Miramax’s sale to an investment company “with no immediate plans to do anything but exploit the company’s library,” Michael Sragow looks back fondly on the Miramax that was. From the perspective of a critic based in Baltimore, he says, the Weinstein-era Miramax was the only independent company to aggressively support films in a smaller market. “The Weinsteins understood that what's essential for the vitality of making, releasing and even reviewing movies is generating energy for this entire form of art and entertainment, so that people feel they have more life in them when they leave a cinema than they do when they walk in.” (The Baltimore Sun)
Anne Thompson’s “Career Watch” column takes a look at Steve Carell. It’s probably the most admiring entry she’s ever done in her series: Thompson thinks Carell has made nary a misstep, navigating his way into “that magical fluke zone in which audiences are loving whatever he does.” His biggest problem, she says, is that the zone doesn’t usually last long, and he might have trouble establishing himself as a romantic lead or dramatic actor. But does he want to? Probably not. (Moviefone)
Jeff Wells pays tribute to (and throws in a couple of photos of the folks responsible for) the tough, creepy “Animal Kingdom,” an Australian crime drama that comes out August 13 from Sony Classics. I thought the film was the best thing I saw at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and it’ll certainly be one of the summer’s best as well. “It's mostly about paranoia leading to poisoning,” Wells points out, “but it's also about the things you're expecting to see never quite happening as you might expect.” (Hollywood Elsewhere)
