Prometheus - fever pitch

At this point, Prometheus has done such a good job preparing us for its arrival, with a series of smart viral teasers, it better live up to the hype.

Here're two more.

Noomi Rapace:

And a hopefully misleadingly straight forward, short, interview with Charlize Theron, currently only on imdb - http://www.imdb.com/rg/s/4/title/tt1446714/#lb-vi2445713945.

Prometheus - Full Trailer

Cannot. Wait. Ridley Scott returning to the iconic franchise he started back in 1979, with far more technology, budget & experience at his disposal; aliens vs humans & science vs faith in an epic battle for life & death; one heck of a hot cast. Cannot. Wait. It's good to see a proper Sci Fi outing for Charlize Theron (after, um, Aeon Flux & Hancock), and Michael Fassbender as, possibly, a pre-Ash-era android, but this movie is going to belong to Noomi Rapace, the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Did I mention I. Cannot. Wait?

Snow White vs Snow White or: Charlize vs Julia

Snow White makes a double comeback (for better or worse) in 2012. First as a fantasy battle epic with Charlize Theron, Kirsten Stewart & Chris Thor Hemsworth, then as a gaudy, colourful, Bollywood-inspired fantasy with Julia Roberts, Lily Collins & Armie Winklevii Hammer.

Snow White and the Huntsman: 

Mirror Mirror:

How will they compare to Michael Cohn's gothic 1997 made-for-TV (& Emmy nominated) Snow White: A Tale of Terror, with the lovely Sigourney Weaver playing the evil queen alternately as evil hottie / grotesque goblin.

Awards Tracker - Best Actress

Surprisingly, Tilda Swinton is the biggest nominee so far, with six nominations, and two wins, which should cement her Oscar chances for the challenging We Need to Talk About Kevin. She's followed closely by Michelle Williams in more traditional Oscar-fodder as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn.


Not the de facto front runner one might expect, Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady is tied with Viola Davis in The Help and Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene with four nominations. Glenn Close took long to join the race with Albert Nobbs, but hit the important three with nominations from the Golden Satellites, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild. She is tied with Charlize Theron in Young Adult, although Theron missed out on the somewhat important Screen Actors Guild nomination.

Indie darlings Felicity Jones in Like Crazy, Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia & Olivia Colman in Tyrannosaur round out the multiple nominees, with Jones winning both her bids. Rooney Mara picks up only a single Golden Globe nomination for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but her film was released late, so it could be the start of more to come.

The critics have Michelle Williams far in the lead with eleven nominations and seven wins, followed closely by Meryl Streep with ten nominations, but only three wins. They also threw their weight behind Viola Davis, with eight nominations, as well as Elizabeth Olsen & Tilda Swinton, with seven each.

Kirsten Dunst's three and Charlize Theron's two nominations edge out Glenn Close, who shares her single nomination status with Saoirse Ronan for Hanna, Felicity Jones for Like Crazy, Brit Marling for Another Earth, Anna Paquin for Margaret & Adepero Oduye for Pariah. 

Rooney Mara & Yun Jung-Hee in Poetry lead the single nominees by winning their respective Critics nominations, leaving Glen Close in their wake, at least from the Critics' perspective.

So Williams and Streep are locks, Davis is guaranteed a deserved, career & political nomination and Swinton seems positioned to take the home stretch safely, which leaves just one spot for Theron, Close, Mara & Olsen to vie for. It doesn't feel like anyone else - including Dunst & Colman - has enough traction to knock them out of the race.

Young Adult - Trailer

Oh it is going to be a good one for Charlize Theron. This could go a good way or a bad way, but with Jason Reitman at the helm, I have no doubt the depth and grit will be there. Diablo Cody's writing is still circling high school, but it's hard to deny the appeal of her unapologetically counter-culturalist humour.

Jason Reitman's Young Adult & Labor Day

Jason Reitman has very quickly become Hollywood gold, with 3 great, biting films proving he has much more to offer than his father's surname (his father is Ivan Reitman, once legendary director of Stripes & Ghostbusters, recently director of, um, My Super Ex-Girlfriend & No Strings Attached).

Reitman teamed up with Oscar-winning Juno screenwriter, Diablo Cody, to direct Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron as a divorced fiction writer returning to her small home town to rekindle a romance with her now-married ex boyfriend, played by Patrick Wilson.

Any resemblance to Never Been Kissed may or may not be intentional. It will be interesting to see what Diablo Cody dishes up next (after camping up sexy teen horror in Jennifer's Body & turning Toni Collette into everyone's favourite schizofrenic American mom on Dreamworks TV's United States of Tara), but with Reitman & Theron on board, there is no reason to believe it will be anything less than great.

Wasting no time, Reitman has already cast Kate Winslet & Josh Brolin for his next feature, an adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel, Labor Day. The novel follows bored, horny teenager Henry and his depressed, divorced mother, Adele, who allow a mysterious convict, Frank, to take them hostage in their own home & learn important life lessons, like how to throw a baseball, how to make a perfect piecrust, how to handle jealousy & betrayal & still put loved ones before yourself and that true love is worth waiting for.

Just a touch of Eastwood's A Perfect World. Reitman's last novel adaptation was Up in the Air, so add this one to your watch list.