So, we're all agreed? Five months from now, we all see Reese Witherspoon in "Water for Elephants" at the theater? YES!

Water for Elephants film trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiNVZLwHbLc

Monday afternoon's Los Angeles Times books blog, Jacket Copy, subtitled "Books, authors and all things bookish," had a very interesting piece by Carolyn Kellogg titled An early look at 'Water for Elephants' interviewing author Sara Gruen about her book-turned-film that is generating so much positive buzz and excitement five months before its U.S. release on April 15th.

One of the most important things you need to know about this film is that it's Reese Witherspoon in a very good film, not a frothy banal one, so you know she's going to take it up a notch and be sensational. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000702/

To me, she's always at her best in productions that feel and look intelligent and positively oozes context, and this looks to be such a film, as savvy entertainment folks I know and trust implicitly on the Left Coast have been urging me to buy the book ever since she was signed to star in it, something that I've resisted thus far.
And I hear the script's dialogue is great.

But I must say, the trailer, which I saw again today for about the fourth time in a week, looks so damn good that I may well have to change that status quo situation before too long.

As I've commented before, in my opinion, Reese Witherspoon is one of a handful of actors and actresses on the scene today whom I believe the majority of American and European film audiences actually root for oftentimes, despite the actual quality of the films they're appearing in, and if the truth were known, they'd actually prefer to see her in more high-minded films -even if that meant less films by her- simply because it drives them crazy to see her in forgettable or frothy fare where she has to play less than, well, the Reese we love, in films that leave no lasting impression except for a few scenes here and there.

The sorts of films where when she's out promoting them on TV talk shows like David Letterman's, they actually cringe inside, despite how much they like HER.
In fact, I should know, I'm one of those such people myself.



Reese Witherspoon on CBS-TV's The Late Show with David Letterman in November 2010 promoting her film, "How Do You Know"
http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=rrQVumXofQNKpTvyZXJUKyyjg8zQ5Tte
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1341188/

I feel the same way about certain other film actors, one of whom as many of you know, famously, is Ashley Judd. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000171/

Ashley Judd on cover of Condé Nast Traveler, September 2005, only one of my favorite photos of her.

Everyone who knows me very well knows that I've adored Ashley from the very beginning of her show business career, yet I'm still waiting for her creative follow-up to Ruby in Paradise that leaves me dazzled the way that film did, though she's been good in supporting roles.


Ruby in Paradise
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108000/

Ashley's talent is so very obvious to me, and has been since 1993, but it needs to come out in something of quality and high-mindedness that I can respect.
Rather selfishly, I guess, I need to have that faith of mine in her reaffirmed on the big screen in a starring role.

I guess that's more my problem than her's, but some of Ashley's films, well, to be honest, I've just plain avoided them for the same reason that I've avoided seeing Reese in a film as a ghostly presence in a San Francisco apt. , i.e. 2005's Just Like Heaven co-starring Mark Ruffalo.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425123/

Sorry, I don't want to see Reese or Ashley as a plucky ghost or wife-done-wrong at a movie theater, or have to see her do fare that seems more like it's designed to appease grandmothers with their daughter and teen grand-daughter in tow over the Christmas holidays at the Mall cinema megaplex.
For me, that's "A Bridge Too Far..."

My own belief is that film audiences have such highly positive feelings towards Reese Witherspoon, esp. in the Midwest and the Plains, that they almost instinctively want her to be in a film they can honestly highly recommend to their friends, rather than for them to have to hem-and-haw when asked afterwards whether they really liked it or not.
They want to be affirming about Reese because they like her so much already.
That's not really such a bad thing -or place to be in your career- now that you think about it.

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Los Angeles Times
Jacket Copy blog,
An early look at 'Water for Elephants'
by Carolyn Kellogg
December 20, 2010 | 1:12 pm

Sara Gruen's bestselling "Water for Elephants," a love triangle set in a 1930s circus, is coming to the big screen. Although it's not due in theaters until mid-April, the trailer is already out. Though there's nothing wrong with watching it on a computer, it looks really fantastic projected in a movie theater (at least it did at the ArcLight, where I saw it this past weekend).

The film stars Reese Witherspoon as a circus starlet, Robert Pattinson (famous for appearing in another literary adaptation) as the young veterinarian taken by her, and Christoph Waltz as her husband.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/12/water-for-elephants.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/