Her possible victory was almost a certitude. Her possible victory was on everybody's mouth. Her possible victory was way too possible.
Everyone believed it but perhaps the only one who didn't was her, Emma Stone, who as soon as she heard her name spoken by Michelle Yeoh appeared tenderly incredulous and stunned.
As she reached the stage trying to hide a tear on her mint dress - all fault of Ryan Gosling's Ken show - she trembled and cried like a novice actress, as if what she was about to hold in her hands was her first Oscar, and not the second one for Best Leading Actress.
It is also this genuineness of hers, this candor that makes Emma Stone the great actress that she is.
Bella Baxter in Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos was "The Role" that every actress dream of, the one that can let you express every inch of yourself, the one that can really consacrate a career; and Stone gave such a courageous and exceptional performance that not rewarding it -honestly - would have been a crime.
35 years and two Oscars for Best Leading Actress: incredible numbers that proudly let her go sit right next to three legends such as Elizabeth Talylor, Meryl Streep and Jodie Foster.
Red hair, blue eyes as big as a movie screen, and an even more immense talent.
Versatile, funny, intense, expressive, Emma Stone proved to be everything and more, and there is always a bit of her in every character she plays: she is hungry for life like Bella, complicated like Sam in Birdman, pleasantly rebel like Cruella, determined like Mia in La La Land (her first Oscar in 2017), passionate like Abigail in The Favourite, sweet like Eugenia in The Help and …what else?
Which characters will be waiting for her?
Time will answer... but in the meantime: Congratulations Emma, we are crazy about you!
It's the final countdown!
Hollywood is ready for the most glittering evening of the year and you can already smell the scent of celebrities and haute couture who will parade on the red carpet of the Dolby Theater on March 10th for the holy Oscar night.
In fact, it is a matter of hours before the most awaited sentence of the year will finally be pronounced.
But who will be the winner of Cinema's most famous statuette?
Without a doubt, all eyes are pointed on Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan which has racked up nominations (13!!!) but also on the controversial Poor Things by the greek director Yorgos Lanthimos; decidedly less hope - despite the incredible success at the box office, for Barbie by Greta Gerwig (nominated only for the screenplay) and for Killers of the Flower Moon by the legendary Martin Scorsese who will compete also for best director... obviously!
And if, regarding the victory for Best leading actor, everyone is already imagining Cillian Murphy's acceptance speech (perhaps also due to Leonardo DiCaprio's undeserved absence...) there is still great anticipation and suspense regarding the Best leading Actress category.
There are those who bet on the amazing performance of Emma Stone, those on the charismatic Sandra Hüller, protagonist not only of the powerful legal drama Anatomy of a Fall but also of the touching The Zone of Interest, and those who instead - with a veiled touch of political correctness - hopes for the victory of Lily Gladstone who would become the first Native American woman in history to take home the Oscar.
Surprise surprise: The Best film of the year may not be american...but what about the Best international film?
In the competition we find Italy's Io Capitano by Matteo Garrone, Japan with Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, Spain with Society of the Snow by Juan Antonio Bayona, England with The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer and Germany with Das Lehrerzimmer by İlker Çatak.
The emotions will be as many as the categories to be awarded and the hours of live broadcast that will keep the world glued to the screen until the end. So let's be patient.... and make a lot of coffee!
The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival has just ended and like every year there was no shortage of surprises, twists and prestigious names who walked the iconic red carpet.
The Jury led by the director Greta Gerwig decreed the film most deserving of the Palme d'Or "Anora" by Sean Baker, a romantic and entertaining comedy with all it takes to become a classic that for some aspects reminds the unforgettable Pretty Woman.
The award for Best Director goes to Miguel Gomes for “Grand tour”, and if speaking of actors the best was considered Jesse Plemons for his performance in “Kinds of Kindness” by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Actress category is certainly the one that created more sensation: the winners are Adriana Paz, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofía Gascón, the four protagonists of “Emilia Perez” by Jacques Audiard, thriller\musical – also winner of the Jury Prize - focused on female empowerment , love and freedom.
“The Substance” wins the award for best screenplay, the Grand Jury Prize goes to the Indian film “All We Imagine as Light” by Payal Kapadia, and the Special Prize "The seed of the sacred fig" by the Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof.
But let's talk about stellar names!
Speaking of stars...let's start with the father of Star Wars, George Lucas, to whom an emotional Francis Ford Coppola presented a well deserved Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement; and let's remember one of the most touching moment of the Festival when a super moved Juliette Binoche( literally in tears) declared all her love and gratitude to one of the most adored and acclaimed actresses of the world: the Magnificent Meryl Streep awarded during the opening ceremony.
Cannes means Movies, Cannes means fashion. The applauses, the tears, the smiles, the photographe's screams.
Cannes is everything and more. But now it's over. See you next year. LONG LIVE TO THE FESTIVAL! LONG LIVE TO THE MOVIES!
Donald Sutherland is gone.
And for all of us who love Cinema, a piece of our heart goes with him.
Versatile, charismatic, charming.
88 years old. A degree in engineering but a life dedicated to acting - almost 200 films! - the thing he loved the most after his third beloved wife Francine Racette and his 5 sons.
“I have never planned anything. I have been doing this job for over 50 years. I have been paid to work with some wonderful people and it has been a huge gift, to me” .
A good face, his, capable of becoming any character the script required. And two big blue eyes that just with a glance could say everything you need to listen.
Winner of an Emmy, a Golden Globe and an Honorary Oscar in 2018, Sutherland loved challenges and there was no role he couldn't bring soul to....
He achieved success in 1967 with" The Dirty Dozen" by Robert Aldrich and was then directed by masters of the caliber of Robert Altman in the unforgettable and hilarious "M*A*S*H", Federico Fellini ("Casanova"), Bernardo Bertolucci ("Novecento") and Alan J Pakula who strongly wanted him in the beautiful crime thriller “Klute” alongside the splendid Jane Fonda.
"Animal House", "Don't Look Now", "Eye of the Needle", "Backdraft" by Ron Howard, "Ordinary People" by Robert Redford and "JFK" by Oliver Stone... are just some of the films where he gave a brilliant performance.
Cinema for life. Cinema was his Life.
As his son Kiefer said “He loved what he did and did what he loved, and you could never ask for more. A life well lived”.
And this, perhaps, makes us a little less sad.
She’s the most requested star of the moment and for sure one of the most talented and versatile Hollywood’s young actresses and producers.
Margot Robbie, 33 years of pure splendor, is the epitome of talent and beauty.
She started her career in Australia - where she was born - playing little independent films and soap operas but the real turning point arrives in 2013 when Martin Scorsese choose her to play Naomi Lapaglia, the typical sexbomb in “The Wolf of Wall Street”…something apparently easy to impersonate when you are a pretty blue eyed girl with… but the challenge is massive and everything but easy.
In movies it takes just a scene to conqueer the world and if you got Leonardo Di Caprio at your feet hoping to have something more than just a little “view” the scene became an iconic moment, a captivating proof that Margot Robbie is not a classic blonde bimbo but a real professional with a personality.
A strong personality that let her became the badass, crazy, ‘Daddy’s little Monster’ Harley Quinn in “Suicide Squad”, role that in 2016 let her win the Critic’s Choice Award as Best actress in an Action Movie. She’s tough, she’s funny, she receives good critics but she still need something to impose herself as a real good actress. And the big chance arrives in 2017 with
“I, Tonya”, an independent biopic (that Robbie produces too) about the american skater Tonya Harding.
That’s the Moment! That’s the Role!
The film is a Knockout. Hilarious but at the same time sad and harsh but so entertaining you can’t look away. Margot’s brilliant performance is so accurate and touching that she got nominated for the Golden Globe and for the Academy Award as Best actress.
She doesn’t win the Globe nor the Oscar but the critic is unanimous: A star is born.
From that moment everything slides like golden oil: everybody wants her, everybody needs her.
The legendary couturier Karl Lagerfeld choose her as Ambassador for Chanel. Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, W are just some of the many Magazines that want Margot on their Cover because her face, her attitude, and her magnetism grants success. And in 2019 another master named Quentin Tarantino thinks that her face is the perfect one to bring back to life the stunning and unlucky Sharon Tate in "Once upon a time in Hollywood”.
Another big challenge and another important role that brings all the eyes on Robbie.
Playing an icon like Sharon Tate is something huge for many reasons - she was an Hollywood rising star brutally killed by the Manson Family in 1969 while she was 8 months pregnant of Roman Polanski’s child - but since the first pictures from the set it’s obvious that Margot is the right choice: there’s no real physical resemblance but her candor, her light-heartedness, her glamour are the same qualities that distinguished Sharon from all the others and made her unique.
Following the “Me Too” movement she then accept to star with Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron in “Bombshell” and produces the provocative and successful thriller “Promising Young Woman”. In 2022 Nellie La Roy is the name of the wild aspiring actress that she plays in “Babylon” by Damien Chazelle and Margot gives another poignant and powerful performance demonstrating once again her ease and her interpretative versatility.
But 2023 reveals itself as the “Pink Year” because the most famous fashion dolll of the world knocks to Margot’s door asking to be played by her and …who dares to say no to Barbie?
“Barbie” directed by Greta Gerwig is a giant project that Robbie enthusiastically accept to play and to produce.
As predicted, the film turns into a blockbuster since day one and It is the first live-action film directed by a woman to reach the billion mark worldwide.
Margot did it again. As an actress and as a producer.
She’s only 33 and we can’t wait to discover how high she will fly.
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV may not sound familiar but this is the real name of one of the most famous actor of Planet Earth: Tom Cruise.
His name reminds boldness, beauty, danger and action.
You say Tom Cruise and immediatlely you hear the first legendary notes of “Take my breath away”, you see an F-14 fighter jet hurtling through the sky, you can smell a brown leather jacket, and then a smile appears…
The smile that bewitched the world since 1986.
After a brief start as a model, Tom makes his acting debut in Amore senza fine directed by Franco Zeffirelli. “The Outsiders” directed by Francis Ford Coppola and “Risky Business”directed by Paul Brickman will make him famous but the real breaktrough arrives with “Top Gun” directed by the late Tony Scott.
The role of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell - role brought back to the screen after more than 30 years (Top Gun: Maverick) - turns him not only into a global superstar but also into a sex symbol that beneath his good-guy face hides an irrepressible passion for adrenaline.
Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson are just some of the legendary names he meet on set but big names doesn’t intimidate him, on the contrary he likes challenges because they showcase his versatility as an actor and they can bring out his real charisma and his talent. He likes his Job, he’s proud of his job and as he once said “I can't do something halfway, three-quarters, nine-tenths. If I'm going to do something, I go all the way”; and maybe this is the reason why it’s so easy for him passing with ease from the headstrong Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee in a “Few Good Men” to the charming and disturbing Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles…for sure one of his best acting performance.
He’s a star. One of the biggest, one of the richest.
Women love him, men wanna look like him.
Nothing is impossible when you say Tom Cruise and ironically in 1996 Brian De Palma direct him in a future blockbuster that will consacrate once again his planetary celebrity and end up to be not just a cult movie but a film series: “Mission Impossible”.
Extremely risky scenes are Cruise’s favorites, he’s tireless, he’s not afraid of getting hurt and he doesn’t need stunt doubles on set because he can literally do whatever the part requires: jumping off a cliff on a motorcycle, skydives, motocross jumps, high speed racing… no one does it bigger or better.
So, no doubt Tom likes to dare on set …but he falls in love too, and the love story with Nicole Kidman - known during the filming of “Days of Thunder” - is probably the most important of his life.
They stay married 10 years, adopt two children and play husband and wife in the last Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece” Eyes Wide Shut”, an erotic psychological drama that probably due to the stress caused by endless rehearsals and shooting is in part guilty of their divorce.
But if Cruise’s private life collides with ups and downs, his career doesn’t seem to totter.
In the years “Magnolia”, “Vanilla Sky”, “Minority Report”, “The last Samurai” , are just some of the titles that have done nothing but increase his fame and his authority as an actor.
Time goes by, but the desire to see Tom Cruise on the big screen does not diminish… and it won’t as long he will be able to run faster then the speed of time.
Fascinating, sensual, damn good!
Jessica Lange, shrewd and reserved anti-diva - born in 1949 - is one of the most popular names in international cinema.
She began her career as a model but ends up to Hollywood thanks to Meryl Streep or, perhaps, thanks to Dino De Laurentis who not considering Meryl Streep "pretty enough” chose her to be the beautiful blonde girl in King Kong (1976).
Destiny got strange plans sometimes but is more than certain that Jessica Lange was born to act. Due to her delicate features and her mischievous and penetrating gaze, Bob Fosse let her play Angelique in All that Jazz; her incredible beauty, so ethereal but at the same time so malicious, brings her to the role that in 1946 belonged to Lana Turner in the steamy remake of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” opposite Jack Nicholson.
The chemistry between them is incandescent and despite the not easy hot scenes Jessica proves to be not just perfect for the part but also disinhibited and professional.
But the film that truly highlights all her potential arrives in 1982 with "Frances", the dramatic true story about the rising star Frances Farmer who was lobotomized after several nervous breakdowns. Her touching and outstanding performance earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress which unfortunately she won’t win. But from that moment it was clear to everyone that Jessica Lange wasn’t another blondie sweetheart looking for fame: she was a serious actress and extremely dedicated to her profession.
Whether she plays a good or bad character, she's perfect: her voice and her way of acting are a charming manual of technique and natural talent and the way she usually moves her hands is hypnotic like a dance.
In 1986 she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress playing the sweet soap opera actress Julie Nichols in “Tootsie" and her career takes off: Everybody's All-American by Taylor Hackford, Music Box by Cost Gravas, Cape Fear by Martin Scorsese and then in 1994 an amazing role in an independent Film: “Blue Sky” directed by Tony Richardson which gets her the second Oscar, this time, finally, as Best Actress.
In the years to come, many other more or less well-known titles will follow and as many moments away from acting and projectors; moments that she will fill with theatre, with her passion for photography and love for the tranquility of nature.
In 2011, however, a bold and attractive proposal arrives from the controversial Ryan Murphy: he absolutely wants her in his future series American Horror Story.
Initially skeptical and undecided, she ends up to accept becoming not only one of the basic characters of the series - where over the course of the seasons she will play 4 roles including an evil sexy nun (Sister Jude) and the Supreme Witch (Fiona Goode) - but the real protagonist who will keep viewers attached to the television for almost five years.
She wins two Emmy Awards one after the other and, paradoxically, knows true celebrity after more than 30 years of career becoming one of the most loved actresses by the young audience. After five busy years on set, she decides to come back to theater by bringing Eugene O'Neill's play Long day's Journey into Night back on stage…and she wins a well deserved Tony Award as Best leading actress in a play.
In 2017, Ryan Murphy knocked again proposing her to become the legendary Joan Crawford in Feud where once again she demonstrates meticulousness and study of the character, honoring the memory of one of the most loved divas in Hollywood. Marlowe directed by Neil Jordan it’s her last role for now…but such actresses hopefully will never stop acting!
There are actors who seem indestructible.
Actors who naturally look like heroes: strong, protective, invincible.
Bruce Willis is one of those actors.
His face like a good avenger and his sweet and understanding eyes make him one of the most appreciated names in cinema and one of the actors to whom the public is most fond.
After various auditions gone wrong including Desperately Seeking Susan with Madonna, he asserted himself thanks to the famous TV series Moonlighting with Sybill Shepherd. The success derived from this television success brings him to Hollywood with the adrenaline-pumping action movie Die Hard where he plays the policeman John McClane, a role that he will reprise several times and that will undoubtedly make action cinema the genre that best represents him. He works with Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) Luc Besson (Le cinquième élément), Terry Gilliam (Twelve Monkeys) and Michael Bay (Armageddon); but he always finds time to take part in hilarious comedies such as Death becomes her by Robert Zemeckis, and in unforgettable dramas such as The sixst sense by M. Night Shyamalan, a director who will a want him back in 2000 to play an unwitting comic book's superhero in Unbreakable.
Bruce is a professional.
He works hard and most of all he has a strong humanity, precious and secret ingredient that makes him "one of us", reason why his name has always brought people to the movies. He is an actor to whom one easily becomes attached because of his ability to represent any role with great sincerity: whether he plays a loving husband, a robber, a child psychologist, an astronaut or a bandit, he is always believable.
Bruce is cool, bold, tough… sometimes one wonders if he is truly indestructible… yet life, unpredictable and harsh, offers him the most difficult role, a role too painful to accept but impossible to refuse. After the first symptoms of aphasia, which makes it difficult to speak, it is discovered that the actor suffers from frontotemporal dementia - a neurodegenerative disease that affects the areas of behavior, language, thinking skills and body movements - which unfortunately and tragically force him to retire from the scene.
Assassin, a sci-fi thriller where he plays the leader of an elite group of the CIA, is one of his last films.
Though lovingly protected by his family - including his ex-wife Demi Moore and their three daughters - it hurts to think about Bruce Willis and imagining him sick and vulnerable, so keep on watching his films is the best gift we can give him...after all, the beauty of the actor’s craft is that despite everything, its work will remain forever and will never be erased.
When an Actor doesn’t need a surname to be recognised, the actor ain’t an actor anymore: is a Star.
Marilyn Monroe was a Star. Probably the biggest of all, for sure the one that really captured hearts and fantasies of men and women since the first time she end up on the big screen.
She was so sinuous, so graceful and so tenderly maternal in every gesture that falling in love with her was absolutely inevitable.
But her shining surface hided a deep sadness.
Behind those beautiful smiles there were as many tears covered with layers of makeup; inside that soft body so naturally capable to drive people crazy there was a thin little girl named Norma Jean Baker who terribly suffered for a father that never wanted to meet her and a mother who would have preferred to abort her.
Cinema was a safe place to Norma Jean, a magic home, the only shelter, and actors seemed so beautiful and happy and loved on the big screen, that becoming one of them was the only way to get rid of the heavy burden caused by a troubled childhood.
And she became not only an actress, but the most famous woman of the world. An Icon adored and idolized, the image of beauty, of femininity, of sex.
Marilyn radiated light from every pore but secretly held darkness.
A darkness made of loneliness, disappointments, indecent proposals, bitter offences, children never born, valium tablets to calm the nerves, sleeping pills to forget the noise, men who had physically and psychologically abused her, and women who had just pretended to be friends and lovers.
Marilyn glittered, yes. She has always glittered, because glittering was the only way to be seen and to be loved by people.
But the price too pay was high, too high.
She was a dispenser of big smiles in public, but she was a victim of her own fame and demons once the front was closed. She was the most wanted woman of the planet , but she was also the loneliest.
She wanted to be a professional, she studied to improve her skills because she wanted to be a good actress - and she was! - but in Hollywood it’s hard to be considered a real actress when you are seen only as a sex symbol or a tasty piece of meat.
And most of all it’s hard to be respected as a human being.
Marilyn was everything, and much more.
She was talented, she loved to read, to write poetry and to be always up to any kind of circumstance.
She spent 36 years looking for something pure, clean... something different from the artificial light of the flashes that had raped and machine-gunned her till the end, even when she had left her Brentwood home for the last time, covered only by a white sheet.
Marilyn was an angel.
Fallen, beaten, smashed and polished, but still an angel.
She was born to be unique, desperate and legendary.
She died alone, misteriously, to be Eternal.
Small, thin, aesthetically unattractive…yet irresistible.
Woody Allen: a sagittarius - born and raised in the Big Apple - with a thing for writing and clarinet since early age.
Normally it takes just the opening credits to understand that it is one of his films - often set in his beloved and hated New York - where “crimes and misdemeanors” come to life, where complicated existences intertwine, where men and women meet and collide. With his typical biting sarcasm he lays bare neuroses, phobias, obsessions and human weaknesses; with his hilarious vitriolic jokes and Jewish mottos he makes his characters tell uncomfortable truths to the rhythm of jazz.
A unique, unrepeatable, unequivocal style since the first film: "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" (1969).
In each of his movies there is always a gag that refers to his childhood or to religion (especially the jewish one).
In each of his films there is always a theme that fascinates him: psychoanalysis, philosophy, magic, Ingmar Bergman in particular (style that we find in "Interiors" ,"September"," Another Woman") and European cinema in general. And of course a woman who represents his feminine ideal, blessing and curse of each one of his leading characters... first Diane Keaton - with whom he falls in love at the end of the 60s - muse and leading actress of 9 films including "Annie Hall" (winner of 4 Oscars) and "Manhattan"; then Mia Farrow inspiration, wife and (…let’s forget scandals and private life!), up to Scarlett Johansson in the amazing thriller "Match Point" and Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine".
Like a swing melody, in Allen's films drama and comedy alternate and merge as well as irony and sweetness. Watching his films most of the people laugh, reflect and wonder.
Funny provocateur, improvised investigator, awkward seducer with the big glasses… Allen is itself a character!
Inexhaustible ideas, disparate characters in disparate scenarios live in his mind and he writes everything robotically with his skinny and neurotic fingers... at least one film a year!
The last one, Coup de chance, It is set to premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on 4 September 2023 and scheduled to be released in France on September 27th: after all it's not a secret that Allen is much more admired in Europe than in America.
He's 88 and thank God, nothing seems to stop him!
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