Woman to Woman

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In the final days of the 2011 Oscar campaign season, the big guns are emerging with both barrels blazing. Yesterday Julia Roberts spoke out on behalf of Javier Bardem's worthiness for a Best Actor nom for "Biutiful", and today, Kathryn Bigelow stepped forward for the film "Winter's Bone". Bigelow won the Best Director Oscar last year for "The Hurt Locker", becoming the first woman to ever win the award, and now she's campaigning for another female-helmed movie. By all accounts, director Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone"is a solid darkhorse to take a Best Picture nom, and star Jennifer Lawrence could not only get nominated for Best Actress, but could possibly even win.

Do You Really Want to Say "No" to Anton Chigurh?

Whenever major award nominations are announced, there's always immediate talk of "who got snubbed" because he/she didn't receive a nomination. But for the most part, especially with the Oscars, most actors who turn in note-worthy performances end up being recognized in some way. Movies are so pervasive in our culture that if someone does something really amazing in one, someone's going to notice. But with that said, sometimes a mind-blowing performance does fall through the cracks, either because the actor's film didn't get enough recognition, or the actor doesn't have enough "buzz" around himself. And then sometimes, the entire industry just commits one big, colossal fuck-up. And so far, it looks like the latter might have occurred in the case of recognizing Javier Bardem for his performance in "Biutiful".

A few weeks ago, we started noticing how many critics were mentioning that they wished that Bardem would win some recognition for his performance as a Spanish underworld figure who is dying of cancer and attempts to put his life in order before his demise. The movie caused a stir at Cannes last year, but for some reason after almost thirty different critics awards have been given in the past few weeks, there hasn't been one mention of Bardem..
A few weeks ago, the director of "Biutiful", Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, told Eonline.com that he screened his film for actor Sean Penn a year ago, and when it was over, Penn was speechless for 15 minutes, stunned at Bardem's performance. And now, today, Julia Roberts was quoted as saying that she thought Bardem should get an Oscar nomination, saying that, "If there's not hope for talent, then we're (expletive)."
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(javier bardem and julia roberts in "eat pray love")

So with this kind of acclaim, why hasn't Javier Bardem won one single trophy in this movie award season so far? It's a head scratcher. But let's face it, sometimes, as a people, we're more like sheep than human beings with their own minds, and when someone makes the first move to honor someone, everyone else just follows along. And sadly, it looks like no one made the first move this year to recognize Bardem. It's especially strange considering that Bardem just won an Oscar three years ago for "No Country For Old Men", so it's not like he's not on the radars of Hollywood awards-givers. But don't panic, something tells us that Bardem might still get an Oscar nom. In Hollywood, when Sean Penn and Julia Roberts speak, people listen.
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In related Javier Bardem news, Bardem has made no secret of the fact that he's dying to be on the hit t.v. show, "Glee". He's told anyone who will listen that he and the show's producer, Ryan Murphy, have discussed that Bardem would play a heavy-metal rock-and-roller. But lately, Bardem has told several reporters that he hasn't received a script yet, and that he fears his lack of a singing ability might hurt his chances to be on the show. Really? Javier, please, having no ability to sing has nothing to do with being on "Glee". And yes, we're looking at you, Britney.

Eat Me, Julia Roberts

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We predicted a few months back that the Julia Roberts vehicle "Eat Pray Love" would do well, and we were right. The film opened last weekend, and was only beaten at the box office by the all-star action flick, "The Expendables", starring Sylvester Stallone.
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But we're sure, as we also said back then, (click on "Movies - Eat Pray Love" in the Labels list at the right of this page), that "Eat Pray Love" was helped a great deal by the fact that Roberts' co-stars were three of the sexiest men in Hollywood, James Franco, Javier Bardem and Billy Crudup. Hell, we'd see the movie for James Franco alone, even if it did mean sitting through 90 minutes of Julia Roberts.
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Next up for James Franco is Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" in which Franco plays real-life Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who found himself trapped on a mountainside in Utah when a boulder rolled onto his arm, and he had to go to horrific lengths to free himself. Boyle won the Best Director Oscar for 2008's "Slumdog Millionaire".
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But we're more excited about the movie that Franco is currently filming. Believe it or not, they're making a prequel to "The Planet of the Apes", the 1968 Charlton Heston sci-fi classic which spawned a very popular five film franchise. "Rise of the Apes", which co-stars the "Slumdog Millionaire" beauty, Frieda Pinto, will tell the story of how the apes gained the ability to speak, which eventually helped them to overthrow their human masters.
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Actually, there was an earlier revisit of the "Planet of the Apes" franchise, a remake of the original film in 2001 which starred Mark Wahlberg, but we're just going to pretend that one didn't happen.
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(Click on "Actors - James Franco" in the Labels list at the right of this page to read our other posts about James Franco.)

Anton Chigurh Stalks the Glee Kids

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Javier Bardem, who won every acting award known to man, including the Oscar, for his role as Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men", is reportedly going to play a guest spot on "Glee". Bardem worked with Ryan Murphy, the executive producer of "Glee", this summer on "Eat Pray Love", the Julia Roberts film which Murphy co-wrote. According to EW.com, Bardem watched the entire first season of "Glee" in one sitting, fell in love with the show, and pitched the idea to Murphy to be a Spanish hard rocker on the t.v. musical.
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Bardem is only one of many Hollywood heavy-hitters who have either already been asked to be on the show or who are desperately pining to be asked. Katie Holmes is reportedly cast for a role, and many others, including Katy Perry, have been very public about their anxious desire to guest star. Perry even encouraged "someone to start a Facebook campaign for her". Oh, the irony. A show about unpopular outsiders has become so popular that every A-Lister in entertainment wants to join their club.

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Some advice for the "Glee" producers: instead of focusing so hard on bringing in top-natch acting talent, your time might be better spent bringing in some top-notch script doctors to get those messy storylines and sometimes incomprehensible scripts in shape. And as for the Glee kids, if Bardem comes in one morning with his hair combed to the side and carrying a long metal "wind instrument", we'd run for the hills.

Hollywood Watch - Part 1

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"Eat, Pray, Love", Sarah Gilbert's memoir of post-divorce self discovery, which has spent over three years on the New York Times paperback non-fiction best seller list, is currently in post-production as a movie starring Julia Roberts.

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Any time Julia Roberts stars in a movie adapted from a mega-best seller is interesting news, but this project is particularly intriguing because the film managed to cast three of the hottest leading men in Hollywood to co-star with Dame Roberts. James Franco will play David, Billy Crudup will play Steven and Javier Bardem will play Felipe. Wow. With a line-up like that, maybe even Julia's sometimes utter lack of screen charisma won't be able to drag this picture down.