The Hot Blog

Are there existing Catwoman rumors about her, David? Or are you starting one?

Hey, this chick was in The Prestige.

They should give me an show where I interview hot actresses. That would OWN. Give that idea some thought, D-Po.

I apologise in advance:

"career-best work by Penelope Cruz"

Am I crazy for thinking it'd be sort of amazing if Cruz won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and got to accept it from none other than Javier Bardem? That'd be an Oscar moment, surely.

Having said that, I wanna see this movie so much. Here's hoping Allen gets another success.

Creating one from whole cloth, Luke.

And yes, I do think it's PC's best work... but will be fortunate to get nominated and very, very unlikely to win.

Career best? Big call.. and I suspect it's coming from someone who thought Cruz's career started with Vanilla Sky. Well her Hollywood one did. I can tell you she has never been as unaffected or as brilliant as she was in JAMON JAMON or BELLE EPOQUE, and I'd be very surprised if her work in Woody's flick surpasses those films.

I have actually seen her in a blah movie called Starters for 10. She is pretty good in it. I remember looking her up on imdb right after the I watched the movie because she is probably the only good thing in it.

I have actually seen her in a blah movie called Starters for 10. She is pretty good in it. I remember looking her up on imdb right after I watched the movie because she is probably the only good thing in it.

Damn.
If that Catwoman rumor is true, why doesn't Nolan just relocate the entire series to Great Britain and call it "Batbloke"?

If Cruz is better in this than she was in "Volver," that's pretty damn good.

Dave, why do you say Cruz can't win? She's never won an Oscar, she's just the type of foreign beauty they love to give the supporting nod to, and Woody is definitely known for writing parts that earn women the gold.

I saw VCB last night, loved it, and turned to my buddy right afterwards and said 'Penelope Cruz win the supporting Oscar, you heard it here first"... I'd wager ten bucks on it right now, in fact!

Dave, why do you say Cruz can't win? She's never won an Oscar, she's just the type of foreign beauty they love to give the supporting nod to, and Woody is definitely known for writing parts that earn women the gold.

I saw VCB last night, loved it, and turned to my buddy right afterwards and said 'Penelope Cruz wins the supporting Oscar, you heard it here first"... I'd wager ten bucks on it right now, in fact!

Dave, why do you say Cruz can't win? She's never won an Oscar, she's just the type of foreign beauty they love to give the supporting nod to, and Woody is definitely known for writing parts that earn women the gold.

I saw VCB last night, loved it, and turned to my buddy right afterwards and said 'Penelope Cruz wins the supporting Oscar, you heard it here first"... I'd wager ten bucks on it right now, in fact!

Dave, why do you say Cruz can't win? She's never won an Oscar, she's just the type of foreign beauty they love to give the supporting nod to, and Woody is definitely known for writing parts that earn women the gold.

I saw VCB last night, loved it, and turned to my buddy right afterwards and said 'Penelope Cruz wins the supporting Oscar, you heard it here first"... I'd wager ten bucks on it right now, in fact!

Yancy: OK, that adds up to a $40 bet, right?

Yancy, I think ther are four fare points you make!

Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Mira Sorvino...and they are just the ones who have received the Oscar. What about the nominees... Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Mariel Hemingway... odd though that Mia never made it.

Also, as you say, she got the Volver nom. Salma Hayek was nommed for Frida... Marione Cotilard... plenty of "foreign" accents recently. It's really interesting to see how homogenised Hollywood used to be compared to today.

Sorry about the multiple posts, guys.

I think Mia would have always been in the more competitive best actress category. Also I think Tilly was also nominated alongside Weist for Bullets Over Broadway. This is why I am always glad for a new Woody movie, no matter how long of a bad run there is always hope for another great one. This is the same reason I still watch the simpsons.

hcat,

You're right! I had an inkling that perhaps I was leaving someone out of the nom's list... and it was Jennifer Tilly. Oddly, of all the nominations, I think only two men have been acknowledged. Quite appropriate, given that for someone who so reveres Ingmar Bergman, Woody's women get the more memorable roles.

Given how poor his films have been for MOST of last 15 years, I am trying to keep my hopes in check for VCB but... here's hoping!

The "other yancy" here. Offhand, I can think of at least three actors nominated in the supporting category for Allen films: Caine, Chazz Palminteri and Martin Landau. The latter arguably belonged in the lead category.

Wow, JBD... pretty presumptuous and completely wrong.

I’ve watched Cruz since the early films. Her beauty was greater than her acting chops. And filmmakers were good about not demanding more from here. That just started to change with All About My Mother, continued in Volver (for me, Don’t Move was too far and thus foregettable), and shows itself here as a maturity that she will be able to bring to her “adult” career.

This performance really reminds me of Jason Patric suddenly landing as a prick in Your Friends & Neigbors and realizing that this was his calling from the start. This is a smallish role. But Penelope shows her strong woman inside… the tough one… the raging, angry one who is even sexier when Javier knows she is going to eat him alive. It signals the opportunity to be the 35-60 actress who not only still has looks, but is not afraid to be dark. She’s finally old enough to start thinking about being Streep

I think she "can't" win for this because it's too small a role without an explosion that is bigger than the rest of the movie.

Also... the movie is not as exceptional as those 3 performances.

I just don't see it... just as I don't see Javier nominated for this really amazing work.

But a Golden Globe? Sure.

I think the other thing that will work against Penelope getting a nomination is the fact that Rebecca Hall truly gives the most complex performance in the film. As great as Penelope is (and believe me, David is right that she is absolutely wonderful, although I wouldn't say career-best), she gets to play a part that is all fire and sex and screaming. What Hall does is take a difficult role and make it something way more exciting than it would be on the page; it's the kind of role Diane Keaton might have played thirty years ago.

And in my opinion, Penelope has only been giving really stirring performances the last few years. Age has agreed with her.

It's a shame Cruz came up against the juggernaut that was Helen Mirren. In another year I think she could take taken the award, and Cotillard's subsequent win somewhat proves this.

She would have received my vote for Volver.

There are a few actresses who are quite intriguing to look at Cruz, Binoche, Marie-Josée Croze, Maggie Chueng, come to mind who while respected in some American cinematic circles who do some quality work in foreign languages. At least we think it's quality. How do we know the average person around the globe won't see an American subtitled film and think, "Boy, the range of Demi Moore..." or "You know, whenever I see Melanie Griffith, I think THAT is a level of excellence that all performers should strive to achieve."

Do you think it's possible to detect the nuances of a foreign language film necessary to be a fair critic? I remember seeing La Sconosciuta (the Italian film called The Unknown Woman here) and being pretty amazed by some of the cast, particularily the little girl (like 6) who did a turn you'd never, NEVER, see in an American production. Anyway, the film had won a lot of awards which I didn't know before seeing. There are times I've sat though a foreign film and thought it pretty much blew. You can't tell anybody this. "Well, it won a lot of awards, so obviously it's just too sophisticated for you beer and chili dog tastes, nah, nah, nah!" In reality I wonder if I'm not just picking up the thing is overrated and if I spoke the native tongue I'd be hanging out at the bar talking about the worst piece-o-crap my old lady drug me out to see. Whereby I'd be able to promptly go into recreating melodramatic or cornball hash scenes.

DP I forget sometimes that you're older than I am and have been doing the fest circuit for sometime. It always bothered me that people commented on Cruz's looks and never gave her her due. She was an electric unguarded presence from her first time onscreen. So apologies for being presumptuous. And if she's as strong as Patric was in FRIENDS count me excited.

I don't mind being old, JBD, but I'm not THAT old and my festival travels - aside from personal ones - started about 10 years ago, around Abre Los Ojos, long after I was quite aware of Ms Cruz. I spent a lot of time seeing a lot of movies before I started writing about them.

30 minutes with Rebecca Hall? I'm officially jealous.

Oh, and I'm not as blown away by Penelope Cruz's looks or acting ability as everyone else seems to be... and I'm big on brunettes, too. She's pretty for sure, but as an actor, she's really hit or miss.... and personally I thought she was better in Elegy than Vicky Christina which was a bit overblown. Hall is the best part of the movie IMO.

This chick is aaaaaaaaawesome in this movie.

Just AWESOME. Up there with Bardem, Cruz, and Johansson, and not just holding her own against some of the most charismatic people in modern cinema, but fucking owning their asses. That's not an easy task... The movie is really good all around but all of the Hall segments really stand out.

The Oscars and tweedy critics obviously have a boner for Cruz, but here it's Hall who deserves the awards talk.

Also good to see Bardem suaving it up after coming off like a total buffoon in "Goya" and "Cholera."

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