Sunday Tidbits

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It has been an intense week as far as Natalie news is concerned. The premiere of Song to Song has eclipsed everything else, so here is a reminder of other interesting news in the form of Tidbits:

–Vulture wrote a couple of days ago an interesting article about Natalie and how critics don’t let her “grow up”

–The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, the student film sponsored by James Franco, and with Natalie as one of its protagonists, finally got distribution in the USA. Hopefully this will mean finally seeing the film in some way, after two years in which it has only been seen in some festivals.

–Annihilation, the last film of Alex Garland, had a test screening this week in New York. Although the reactions are embargoed, it has transcended that it’s probably an atypical sci-fi movie, difficult to sell to an audience, with great performances of the whole cast. Paramount has not set a release date yet, but it could be later this year or even in the spring of 2018. Hopefully we do not have to wait that long …

-Finally, here we have a couple of vfx reel videos of Jackie, which demonstrate what digital technology can do today to help a low budget production like this:

The second video shows the scene of the murder, which is a bit tricky, so I put it after the jump:

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Song to Song: Premiere and first reactions

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Finally, the film’s premiere took place at the Paramount Theater in Austin yesterday, and as expected, Natalie was unable to attend the event. Producer Sarah Green shared a note she received from the actress saying that she just had her baby and wasn’t able to get on a plane yet, but that making the film was an amazing experience. The rest of the main cast (Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara and Michael Fassbender), were there:

… As for the critical reception, the movie is following the same path as the last three films of the Texan filmmaker. “Boring”, “same schemes” and “self-parody” are the adjectives that are repeated over and over again in the first reactions and reviews. There are exceptions, of course, but it’s the same tonic as with Knight of Cups and To the Wonder last years. On a positive note, Natalie seems to shine every time she appears on the screen:

Variety: We’ve heard it all before: soul-sick characters, wide-angle vignettes, wispy poetic musings — this time set against the Austin music scene.

Of the characters beyond the initial love triangle in Malick’s too-white ensemble, Portman has the biggest part, and also the most powerful, owing not only to her character’s fate, but also the actress’s ability to take a slender, nearly dialogue-free role and make it feel fully rounded.

The Daily Beast: Ryan Gosling Serenades SXSW in ‘Song to Song’

It’s Portman, though, who gets to explode. As Fassbender’s paramour, she thrusts herself from struggling waitress to seductive vixen to startled and scared captive, addicted to the adrenaline provided by his lifestyle, his money, his sex, and his drugs.
It’s interesting to watch following her lead turn in Jackie, a masterful feat of control and calibration of pitch, body, and emotion in every scene of the film. She’s only a supporting player here, but it’s her role as collateral damage to a life lived song to song that leaves you momentarily silenced.

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