No chemistry? Oh, so it wasn't just me who noticed? Academy president Tom Sherak tells TheWrap: Franco and Hathaway Had 'No Connection'

Oh, so it wasn't just me who noticed how contrived the relationship between James Franco and Anne Hathaway seemed during Sunday's 83rd Annual Academy Awards?

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TheWrap
Academy Chief Sherak: Franco and Hathaway Had 'No Connection'
By Daniel Frankel
Published: March 03, 2011 @ 5:22 pm

Pelted by critics of the 83rd Annual Academy Awards telecast over the last three days, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Tom Sherak quipped to TheWrap Thursday that he remains in a "bunker."

"I'll climb out as soon as I hear Winston Churchill say it's OK," he added, conceding that the host pairing of James Franco and Anne Hathaway wasn't as dynamic as hoped, but defending the overall ratings performance of the ABC telecast, which drew an average of 38 million viewers.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.thewrap.com/awards/article/sherak-his-bunker-there-was-no-connection-between-oscar-hosts-25235

*All screenshots above and below from the 83rd Annual Academy Awards of February 27, 2011 by South Beach Hoosier.


Oh, I get it.
Anne Hathaway in tails and James Franco in drag, all so he can make a Charlie Sheen joke. But really, do you think that people watching the Academy Awards show LIVE in Germany or Eastern Europe when it was 4:15 a.m. or so found it so damn hysterical?
Me, I've got to think they just groaned.
Like I did here in Anytown U.S.A., Hallandale Beach, Florida
For whom it was intended...

Well, at least someone didn't needlessly mention Sarah Palin just to make her a liberal punchline and show how "edgy" they are!

Gothamist: James Franco Says "F*** The Yale Daily News"
http://gothamist.com/2011/03/04/james_franco_says_f_the_yale_daily.php

The whole show reminded me of the very awkward relationships created when people are thrown together like a salad during long car rides from IU to Fort Lauderdale or Daytona Beach during Spring Break, tales related to me by friends once we were all back in cold Bloomington.

I once even personally experienced that clash of personalities on such a drive down here.
I was ready to jump out of the car somewhere between Chatanooga and Atlanta, probably near Franklin, home of Paramore, home of some very steep mountains on I-65, and those runaway truck pits on the side of the road are no laughing matter when it's raining hard.

And the drama didn't end once the four of us actually got here, either, when we were staying at the Sheraton Yankee Trader -and that fabulous swimming pool of theirs that was such a great people-watching magnet.

One of the girls on the trip down just "vanished" in Fort Lauderdale, so we had to call her parents up in Fort Wayne and then get the Fort Lauderdale police involved once her folks said they hadn't heard anything from her.

Shocker -she met some guy from some other school who was also visiting, and and she just decided to spend all her time with him and his friends -without telling us.

In comparison, at least nobody had to call the LAPD for either Anne and James once James seemed to check-out mentally and just sleepwalked his way thru much of the show.

So much for the great idea of having one of the hosts be someone who was nominated for an Academy Award!



Great Cate! Every inch a movie star: Cate Blanchett.
She is transcendent in every film she does.

Her dress was from Givenchy Couture, and was NOT so keenly received by the fashionistas:
http://www.vogue.fr/mode/look-du-jour/articles/cate-blanchett-en-givenchy-couture/6999


Bosom pals from Down Under with talent-to-spare: Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Nicole is wearing Dior Couture.

Mr. Sherak, the answer to who should be hosting the Academy Awards show if they are not nominated for an award themselves is obvious.
It's right in front of you: Jackman & Kidman.

The two of them have more natural (and honed) singing and dancing talent than almost any two other actors you could've found in the Kodak Theater, and everyone knows it, too.
And everyone also knows what great friends they are, too, and that enthusiasm and synergy will surely show up in their performance as well.
Case closed.

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See also:

Official website of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: http://www.oscars.org/

Transcript of Live Chat: After the Oscars, with David Denby
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/ask/2011/02/david-denby-oscars.html

TheWrap online: http://www.thewrap.com/

TheWrap's YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/thewrapnews

Perfect film casting? Aussie as Honest Abe? Maybe says Jeff Sneider in TheWrap: Eric Bana as "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"

Above, 1923 Abraham Lincoln three-cent stamp

But Eric Bana won't be starring in Steven Spielberg's historical film "Lincoln," which was originally going to star Liam Neeson as the 16th U.S. president, but which will now feature Daniel Day Lewis, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/ but rather in a very different sort of film, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0051509/

Here's the exclusive story with casting Bana as Honest Abe as I came to learn it last Thursday in my daily First Take email from Sharon Waxman's savvy Santa Monica-based entertainment industry news site, TheWrap, http://www.thewrap.com/
And you know how I love Santa Monica!

The Wrap
Exclusive: Eric Bana Circling 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter'
By Jeff Sneider
December 16, 2010 @ 11:52 am

EXCLUSIVE
Hollywood may be looking to continue to outsource the role of Abraham Lincoln.

British Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis was recently set to play the 16th President in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," and now another foreign import is being eyed to play Honest Abe.

Australian actor Eric Bana is circling the title role in 20th Century Fox's big screen adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" TheWrap has learned.

While Bana hasn't landed the coveted role yet, he's scheduled to meet with director Timur Bekmambetov soon, and is certainly in contention for the part.

Read the rest of the exclusive story at
http://www.thewrap.com/deal-central/column-post/exclusive-eric-bana-testing-abraham-lincoln-vampire-hunter-23294

The last time we saw Daniel Day Lewis in buckskins was 1992's The Last of the Mohicans, which I've seen about a dozen times.
Hope DDL wears some as Abe!



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Eric Bana's upcoming film is Joe Wright’s Hanna, co-starring Saoirse Ronan and Cate Blanchett, which opens in the U.S. on April 8th, 2011.

As you can see for yourself below, the trailer really grabs you from the get-go!



Hanna (2011) HD Official Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bucFp1tQ0z8

"Sometimes, children are bad people, too." -Marissa Wiegler

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993842/maindetails


TheWrap YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/thewrapnews

New film trailer for Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe & Cate Blanchett; Matthew Macfadyen & Keeley Hawes

Below, the TV commercial that'll be running during the
Super Bowl 44 telecast on Sunday.
Robin Hood opens nationally May 14th, 2010.

Starring: Russell Crowe as Robin Hood, Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian, William Hurt as William Marshall, Mark Strong as Sir Godfrey, Mark Addy as Friar Tuck, Oscar Isaac as Prince John, Danny Huston as King Richard, Eileen Atkins as Eleanor of Aquitaine, with Max von Sydow.
Directed by Ridley Scott

http://www.robinhoodthemovie.com/

Below, the longer trailer I previously posted here.

Matthew Macfadyen, who plays The Sheriff of Nothingham in Robin Hood is an actor I've been following for quite a while, as he is almost always pitch-perfect in every role he plays.
He first came to my attention when he was so compelling as the brilliant but emotionally conflicted MI-5 agent Tom Quinn in TV's Spooks (MI-5), and then played Mr. Darcy in the terrific 2006 film production I loved of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, opposite the beautiful and beguiling Keira Knightley.



More recently he was fabulous as the lead of Arthur Clennam in the Andrew Davies adaption of the BBC-1 TV miniseries of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit, which was telecast here on PBS as part of Masterpiece Classic, which, in my opinion, may've been the single best thing on TV last year. It deserved to win the 2009 Emmy for Best Miniseries it garnered.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/littledorrit/index.html

The quality of every single episode was so amazing that I just hated when it came to an end on Sunday nights and I had to wait another week to see what happened.
I may've even loved it more than I did Cranford, which is saying something.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/cranford/index.html

Months later, I was somewhat surprised to discover how many people I knew who confessed to me that, while they don't "usually watch PBS," they got hooked on this production because it was so damn believable.

If you agree, be sure to watch writer Andrew Davies discuss the characters and his adaption of Dickens here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/littledorrit/slideshow.html

Next Masterpiece Classic program is Northanger Abbey,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/northangerabbey/index.html

As if being so good in top-rate TV shows and films wasn't enough to create envy, Matthew Macfadyen is also the husband of the fabulous actress Keeley Hawes, who was MI5 agent Zoe in Spooks and who more recently starred in BBC America's Ashes to Ashes.



Keeley, as a brunette, is exactly like the girl I married in a recurring dream I had when I was in high school in North Miami Beach, and life here in hum-drum South Florida was just too boring to contemplate when I wasn't involved with sports or politics.
In my dream, she and I lived in Essex but commuted to the City for our great jobs, me in advertising and her in film/TV.
In later dreams, we had a daughter that looked a bit like, well, Romola Garai -who just played Emma- but who sings more like Essex's own adorable Pixie Lott.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/emma/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/emma/watch.html


Thanks a Lott, Pixie: Students in her home town get a music lesson in the form of a free gig
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1248806/Thanks-Lott-Pixie-students-home-town-music-lesson-form-free-gig.html

The approaching hoofbeats of Robin of Locksley -that's Robin Hood to you

The original 1938 Robin Hood film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Raines and Basil Rathbone, remain one of my all-time favorite films, one I've seen and enjoyed at least thirty separate times.

 

The thing to consider when you see this film is that although Olivia de Havilland was only 25 years-old when she filmed this, and three years younger than Vivian Leigh with whom she starred in Gone With the Wind the following year, yet she was cast to play Melanie, Scarlett's older sister, and was superb. 

She is the only star of either film that's still alive, and remains movie royalty.

 

Of the upcoming remake of the gritty swashbuckler, due out in May, we now finally have a film trailer to analyze for great portent. Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Mark Strong, Mark Addy, Max von Sydow and Oscar Isaac, directed by Ridley Scott. Opening May 14, 2010. For film synopsis and images see: http://www.robinhoodthemovie.com 

For a historical perspective, see Robin Hood and his Historical Context By Dr Mike Ibeji http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/robin_01.shtml