It’s one thing to cast Robert Redford or Michael Keaton as unorthodox villains in superhero films—veterans playing against type, a bit of capital-A acting in with all the Chrises and women just collecting paycheques. It’s quite another to make the Big Bad Cate Blanchett, who is more awesome—in real-life talent and here in Thor: Ragnarok—than […]
Cate Blanchett
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Carol
Of his time-period-hopping contemporaries—the Coens, Tarantino, Linklater—it’s Todd Haynes who uses era most effectively, not merely as a cool framing device or something to subvert with modern language. From Velvet Goldmine’s lurid, woozy ’70s palettes to I’m Not There’s grittiness to, until this, his masterwork Far From Heaven’s lush, painting-like world, he uses era for context and emotion. His characters are […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hanna delivers thrills, teeth
Hanna is a lot of things. Its surface is suggested in the trailer: Saoirse Ronan is the titular teen, raised since diapers to be a polyglot killer by her father, Erik (Eric Bana), hiding in snowbound wastes from CIA nasty and dental hygiene obsessive Marissa (Cate Blanchett) until she’s old enough to face up to […]