Annette Bening Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In his decade in the storytelling business, Rodrigo García has made a name for himself not only as a notable television director (Carnivale, Six Feet Under, and In Treatment), but also as a filmmaker intensely interested in the lives of women and the intricacies of smaller, often interconnected story lines. It started with Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her and Ten Tiny Love Stories, but García really made his mark with 2005's Nine Lives. When he followed it up with the television movie Fathers and Sons, it was inevitable that he would one day take that same theme and apply it to the female characterizations he loves so much. It wouldn't be in the form of Mothers & Daughters, as Carl Bessai* brought that very film to TIFF in 2008. But with a slightly different title, Mother and Child, García jumps leaps and bounds beyond Bessai's take and has created a well-crafted web of female characters and universally engaging storytelling.

*Who, by the way, has his own Fathers & Sons on the way.

After Cinematical's new "Movies I Will Never See" series elicited a strong variety of reactions – both positive and negative - from readers, it occurred to us that there's a huge, untapped reservoir of existing films that we have actually seen, and it would probably be at least as interesting, if not more so, to go back and see how well they held up in the years since their release. These may be acclaimed classics that audiences simply haven't revisited on a regular basis, or condemned failures that might deserve a second look; but setting a statute of limitations of five years or more old (meaning before '04), we're going back to see how good are the bad movies, and how bad are the good ones - in other words testing their shelf life.

After last week's look at Titanic, it seemed somewhat appropriate to revisit other noteworthy Oscar winners. But while there were certainly a wealth of questionably worthy titles celebrated in the Academy's history, one in particular seemed especially ripe for consideration: American Beauty, Sam Mendes' directorial debut. Perhaps it's because so many movies followed its lead in deconstructing suburbia, or perhaps it's just because it's been ten years, but Mendes' film doesn't seem as relevant, important, or even as good as it once was – which is why we recently popped it in the DVD player for another look.

What do you get when you mix Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo in a comedy? A same-sex couple and one eager sperm donor. (Bet you weren't expecting that!) Variety reports that the trio, plus Josh Hutcherson (Bridge to Terabithia) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), will star in a new film called The Kids Are All Right.

Bening and Moore are playing a couple who long ago used donated sperm to start a family. Years later, when their son and daughter (Hutcherson and Wasikowska) have grown up, they want to find the man behind the sperm. So, they hunt down Ruffalo's character, and he "totally upsets their family dynamic once he enters their lives."

This project is coming from Lisa Cholodenko, which bodes particularly well for the already-unique story. You might remember that she's the writer and director of Laurel Canyon, one of the few films to show the lovely Frances McDormand as a beautiful and carefree woman, rather than a quirky gal steeped in kitsch.

So, a filmmaker who can challenge the norm, a same-sex couple played by two multi-Oscar-nominated actresses, and an original storyline to boot? Pinch me, I must be dreaming. The film just started production, so I can only hope we get to see how this all pans out soon.

As soon as the name of an old icon enters the wind, it's only a matter of time before another Hollywood group gets a whiff and starts up a competing feature, or mind-melds with an international subconsciousness and starts one up unknowingly. Just last month, word hit that Ernest Hemingway was getting a biopic, and now THR's Risky Biz Blog says another is on the way, and they already have a star in mind.

It appears that Andy Garcia is cooking up a feature called Hemingway & Fuentes that he'll write and direct, and Anthony Hopkins is tentatively attached to star as Papa. Garcia hopes to grab Fuentes, and Annette Bening might sign on to play Mary Welsh, Ernest's final wife. Hilary Hemingway, niece of Ernest, is teaming up with Garcia to write the script, which will revolve around Hemingway and his friend, Gregorio Fuentes, captain of the writer's beloved fishing boat, Pilar. But Fuentes is also a little something more than that -- some rumors say that he's the man who inspired The Old Man and the Sea.

Like the other project, this feature will focus on Papa's later life, but Garcia says it will be an historical drama, rather than a biopic, delving into Hemingway's psyche, his relationship with Fuentes, and his deep love of fishing. I'm happy to see so much attention being paid to the writer, but it's an incredible shame that it's all being focused on his struggles with depression and subsequent suicide. There are a million other stories to be told -- from his writing adventures overseas, stateside, and in Canada, to his crazy collection of wives, the war, how he was raised (which gives a lot of insight into his writing), and his times in places like Key West.

At least it will be interesting to see how Hemingway's male friendships evolve into different features.

Considering Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married (133 screens), Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky (60 screens), Penelope Cruz in Elegy (21 screens) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (52 screens), Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long (20 screens), Meryl Streep rising above the ineptitude of Mamma Mia! (178 screens), and several others, it has been an exceptionally good year for roles for women -- all except The Women (164 screens). To date, I've spent a good deal of time railing against that movie, without ever asking: what happened to some of those amazing actresses that they should end up here?

Meg Ryan, for example, was once a top star -- one of a trinity of "America's Sweethearts" (with Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock) -- and a sure thing. She was irresistibly adorable, and she mastered a kind of self-conscious, nervous eye-flick that won over audiences time and again. And she made her debut in the final film by George Cukor, for goodness sake! Her highest point was probably When Harry Met Sally... (1989), where her effortless performance was not as easy as it looked. She had a hard time branching out into serious films, mainly because her cute, sweet, funny quality made it seem as if she had a lack of depth, and she looked out of place in hardcore, delirious movies like The Doors (1991). Her last ten years has given us a string of flops. But I maintain that her best films are the ones that nobody understood.

The gimmick of The Women is that no men appear anywhere in it -- not as background extras, not as voices on the phone, nowhere. It's all women, all the time. Which might sound empowering and feminist, except that the women are all shallow, vain, and petty, and their primary topic of conversation is, you guessed it, men. (Also: shoes, manicures, shopping, facelifts, etc.) If this were any other film, I suspect women would be complaining about Hollywood's sexism and misogyny. But hey, we men had nothing to do with this one. This one is all you.

Written and directed by Murphy Brown creator Diane English as an update of the 1939 George Cukor comedy (itself based on a Clare Boothe Luce play), the film establishes its tone in its first scene, with two women walking their dogs in New York City. The dogs fight, and the women, their faces invisible to us, respond cattily to one another. One remarks that the other's shoes are "last season," then confides to her dog that the other woman is "a word not usually heard outside a kennel." I think that's supposed to be a joke, but if the word she's referring to is "bitch," then I've got news for her about how its usage has spread.

And that's the movie: women harping on and mistreating one another, and cracking jokes that aren't funny.

The women have been really hard to come by -- at least when The Women in question is a remake of the 1939 classic. (What is it with the year 1939 lately?) MGM was first focused on the project, but no real headway was made and the title was sold to Ted Turner as part of MGM's library. He, in turn, bought New Line and made the film a starring vehicle for Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan, with James L. Brooks signed on to direct (1994). It was at this point that Diane English was brought on to the production, a writer known for her work on Murphy Brown. It took a handful of years and then she was named director of the project in 2001. It took another 5 years to get further, when Matt Bradshaw posted about the cast of the film, which consisted of Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow, Anne Hathaway and Candice Bergen. It was supposed to start shooting in March, but nothing happened when Spring rolled around.

Now Variety has the scoop on The Women, which almost has a finalized cast, and has gotten an actual start date -- August 6 -- over ten years after the adaptation was put in the works. Some of the cast has stayed the same, and some have changed. Along with Ryan and Bergen, actresses in final talks are Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith and Debra Messing. That's really one hell of a cast considering that the film has got a budget under $20 million. One of the backers is Dove, you know, the soap? When the film begins to be marketed, I imagine there will be lots and lots of soap-centric commercials with these leading ladies. As for how the title is translated over 60 years later, word has it that English's "script maintains the arch spirit of the original, and the all-female cast, but the gals aren't as relentlessly catty this time around." It is, however, still about the group of female friends and how one's husband is cheating on her.

I don't think any jokes are necessary here -- Lindsay Lohan backing out of a film titled A Woman of No Importance is funny in and of itself. According to her rep via People, La Lohan has simply been taking on too many roles as of late and "doesn't want to just yes everyone and compromise herself anymore." In the pic, she would have starred alongside Annette Bening (who was supposed to co-star with Lohan in Freaky Friday until she dropped out) and Sean Bean.

Honestly, with all her medical problems, so-called addictions and tardiness issues, it's probably best that Lohan take a little bit of a break; not including A Woman of No Importance, the girl currently has three films (Speechless, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The Best Time of Our Lives) in pre-production, one filming (I Know Who Killed Me) and one (Georgia Rule) she will soon need to promote. Oh, and that's not counting her potential involvement in that apocalyptic horror flick, as well as a Steve Nicks project. Damn, no wonder she's a mess.

Right now, there's no word on a replacement for Lohan (might I suggest someone a little less controversial -- Dakota Fanning, perhaps?). A Woman of No Importance is based on the Oscar Wilde play, will be directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) and is due out sometime in 2008.

Bestselling author Augusten Burroughs has seen his memoir, Running with Scissors, ride the New York Times bestseller list for over two years; now, the book has been adapted to a film, starring Annette Bening as Burroughs' mentally ill mother. Burroughs was in Seattle recently to promote the film, and graciously sat down with Cinematical to chat about the book, the movie, and what's up next for him. Burroughs was impeccably dressed, soft-spoken at first but more animated once we broke the ice. He was by turns thoughtful, funny, and introspective, elegant and articulate -- as you might expect from a man who boiled and polished his coins to make them shiny when he was a child. The one giveaway to the inner nervous energy hovering beneath the calm surface was his nonstop nicotine gum habit ("Quitting smoking?" I asked upon seeing the skeletons of several packs of nicotine gum in the trash. "Oh, no, I quit years ago," he replied casually, as he popped a piece of gum in his mouth.)

Cinematical: Talk to me about the process of making the book into a movie. I know you were very creatively involved throughout, can you talk a little about how that all came about?

Augusten Burroughs: I first met Ryan in a restaurant in a hotel in Soho . I was meeting him, actually, to tell him that I wasn't optioning Running with Scissors. I just didn't have any confidence that Hollywood was going to get it right. I was kind of worried that the humor I'd used as a coping mechanism to survive my childhood would end up being the focal point of the movie, that it would end up being very campy or kooky.

If you didn't know better, you might find it hard to believe that the things that happen to young Augusten Burroughs in the film Running with Scissors actually happened -- and yet, they did. The film opens at a pivotal point in Augusten's life: His mother's decline into madness. When your mother is mentally unstable, your father is an emotionally walled-off alcoholic, and the two of them spend most of their time together embroiled in violent fights that end in threats of murder or suicide, it doesn't make for the most stable of childhoods. Augusten, who worships his mother and tries patiently to get the attention of his father, compensates by being a painfully neat child.

He obsesses over his hair being perfectly conditioned and styled, he dresses nattily in jackets and sweater vests, he decorates his mother's dog, Cream, with aluminum foil, and he boils his allowance and then polishes it with silver polish. When you're a kid whose adult support system is out of control, you take your stability where you can find it, and so Augusten carefully controls those things that are within his limited power.