The delightful Jonathan Groff of “Glee” is now voicing and singing one of the leads in Disney’s new animated holiday film “Frozen.” He plays the Norwegian Ice Man, Kristoff and also his reindeer Sven.
Jonathan is also starring in a new HBO series “Looking” debuting in January.
Editing ~ Kevin Teller
Seeing “12 Years a Slave” for the second time was quite an intense experience. It really held up. And seeing it with a paying New York inter-racial audience was very interesting. They were spellbound to put it mildly and so was I.
It was very interesting that the audience was so mixed, which shows that it’s reaching different demographics. Which is great. And people did gasp at some of the most horrific scenes. And they applauded wildly when for one brief intense moment Solomon Northrup breaks out of his slave role and beats the living daylights out of the horrid white overseer played by Paul Dano.
Dano is really excelling in these creepazoid, slimy roles this year, having also just been seen in “Prisoners” as a pervy offender. He’s truly hateful in “12 Years a Slave”, one of the worst characters in it.
I was so overwhelmed by Chiwetel Ejiafor as Solomon Northup, the title character, and also by Michael Fassbender’s tremendous turn as Master Epps, Solomon’s final owner, that I didn’t mention how terrific Paul Giamatti is as another noxious slave dealer who sells Solomon, who he re-names “Platt” to his first owner in the movie, the benevolent(but not so) Benedict Cumberbatch.
This is also the scene where the naked slaves are casually displayed like livestock in Giamatti’s home. Giamatti, whom we all know as usually a genial boob, here is completely hateful as the pragmatic slave dealer, who slaps Northrup across the face so hard, you, the audience, feels it, too.
He also sells Eliza, the mother (Adepero Oduye)of two young children to Cumberbatch and splits up her family, selling her son to one person and keeping her mulatto daughter for himself. It’s horrifying.
I also never mentioned how frightening Sarah Paulson is as Mistress Epps. No Scarlett O’ Hara, she, no fragile Southern Belle. The White women in this film as all just chillingly, matter-of-factly evil,,just as bad as their husbands, if not worse.
She is insanely jealous of her husband (Fassbender)’s seeming obsession with the beautiful Patsie, the slave, who picks so much cotton, Epps calls his “Queen of the fields”. Mistress Epps violently scratches and scars Patsie (Lupito Nyong’o)’s face in one midnite scene where a restless and bored Epps awakens his drowsy slaves in the middle of the night and has them dance for him.
The love triangle between the two Epps and Patsie was clearer to me the second time around and both Michael Fassbender and Lupito Nyong’o’s performances grew in grace and stature. Fassbender underplays Epps for most the film I realized this time. He only raises his voice and his fists and his whip when he is truly angry. And he does obsess in a very sick S&M way over Patsie. And yes, he does violently and repeatedly rape her, too.
Patsie seeks comfort and support from Mistress Shaw, a former slave who married her white plantation owner, and now is the mistress of her own domain, and has her own slaves as servants, at a very charming tea party. You also see Patsie looking at her as a role model. Could it be in the back of her mind that she might supplant Mistress Epps? Alfre Woodard is a treat in his too small role.
So much horror is piled upon horror in the masterful film directed by Steve McQueen, that the first time you see it you are so swamped by the constant brutality, the smaller incidents just get blurred into one stupefying whole. Images like Solomon screaming “help!” from his basement jail, as the camera objectively pans up to a tranquil matte shot of Washington, D.C. in 1854.One notes that the capitol dome was still under construction then. And nobody hears Solomon scream.
And when an unrecognizable Brad Pitt turns up as the scraggly bearded, white Canadian house builder Samuel Bass, you cheer his arrival. An incipient Abolitionist, he’s the cavalry riding in a the last-minute. And yes, as the title implies, there is a happy ending. And it’s Pitt. He’s also the producer of this film, which, according to director McQueen, would never have been made without him.
It also becomes clear that Fassbender and Nyong’o are going to sail to Oscar victory in their Supporting Categories. NOBODY is going to be able to touch them. Their performances are staggering, unforgettable, as is Ejiafor’s. But his Northrup is so powerful that you really do need to see it again to get all the nuances McQueen has built into their performances and into the film. Pitt and McQueen are also Oscar-bound as producer and director of this unforgettable film.
And the audience? There was a lot of audible sobbing at the end, but then when the titles coming up, thunderous applause. And this is something you never see happening with the general paying public. But applaud they did!
I’ll say it again, it’s a masterpiece of our times that you CAN NOT miss.
So now it’s officially started. Awards season I mean, with the announcement this morning of the Gotham Awards.
The Gothams are New York’s answer to the Indie Spirit Awards which are held and given out in LA. They don’t often match up, but they DO help, as they’re supposed to, small indie films reach some kind of early recognition before they get clobbered in the main races by The Majors.
As Guy Lodge says this morning at http://www.hitfix.com “To the surprise of no one ’12 Years a Slave’ leads the pack with three nominations,” Best Picture, Best Breakthrough Actor for the stunning newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, while the brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor is mentioned in the newly created Best Actor category.
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/12-years-a-slave-before-midnight-in-line-for-gold-at-gotham-awards#HTAAOvGJKl8aTC4X.99
I look forward every year to the Gothams. For a few brief, shining moments, New York feels like a film capital. It’s only one night though. Most of the film biz is in L.A. as I”m sure you all know, dear readers, dear cineastes. And with Focus Features closing it’s New York offices, things are looking bleaker than ever for indie films in in the Big Apple. But the Gothams soldier on. You can read all about the other categories and contenders and Guy’s astute analysis at Hit Fix, as it says above.
Meet the truly delightful young actress Louisa Krause who had two new independent films at the Provincetown International Film Festival this summer. “King Kelly” and “Bluebird” and who was also in “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and “Young Adult.” A star on the rise, to be sure!
Shirley Herz was one of the great theatrical press agents and one of the first, if not THEE first PR people to let me in to see shows back in the day, when I was just starting out to review theater and interview people on “The Coca Crystal Show” back in the ’80s.
She was also one of the first guests, along with Diane Judge, on “The Stephen Holt Show” in, I think 1989. It was at the Italian restaurant Delsomma. Long gone now. In the theater district. I remember her saying to Diane. “I love it. We can just sit here and name all our clients!” And they did! It was very entertaining.
That show exists on out-of-date tape formats now. 3/4″ and also VHS. I’ll have to get it transferred to DVD and put on You Tube. And of course, on my show.
Shirley, we’ll miss you.
And below is a press release sent out about her Memorial.
And so it continues. More and more Oscar drop-outs. Meaning they’re all getting out of the Awards season upcoming onslaught of “12 Years a Slave”! And who can blame them? The latest casualty of this brutal Oscar race is George Clooney’s “Monuments Men”. Opening it “in early 2014” is equivalent to meaning it doesn’t have an Oscar prayer.
And the premise, getting Art out-of-the-way or back from or something like that from the Nazis. Meh. Gorgeous George is writing, directing and starring in it. This just doesn’t sound good. January and February are like movie grave-yards. The good stuff opens NOW. In October, Nov., Dec.
And “The Wolf of Wall Street” has also moved its’ purported opening from this fall. Which is now. Until Christmas. MAYbe. Maybe not. “Wolf” is the Martin Scorcese’s latest for Leo DiCaprio.
As I said when I saw it in Toronto, nothing can beat “12 Years a Slave” for Best Picture and maybe many, many other categories, too. http://www.goldderby.com is now reporting Lupita Nyong’o the beautiful Yale School of Drama grad, who steals the show at “12 Years a Slave” as the tragic slave, Patsie, has now passed Oprah Winfrey in the Supporting Actress category.
Which I was saying at TIFF. THAT role! The things that happen to Patsie are the worst, the most horrific abuses in that filled-with-horror movie. Lupita cried as she won the New Hollywood Award at the Hollywood Awards last night. The first of her probably many accolades this year and Oprah was nowhere in sight!
Tom O’Neil’s experts now have Michael Fassbender tied with Jared Leto for “Dallas Buyer’s Club.” Leto, who plays a draq queen in “Dallas Buyer’s Club” also just got a Hollywood Breakout Performance Award last night from the Hollywood Awards. Which nobody takes seriously. Although E! just called it “The Official Beginning of the Awards Season.” Really? I thought that was the Toronto Film Festival. And Steve McQueen of “12 Years...” won for the Hollywood Breakout Director Award,
Gold Derby has “12 Years” winning Best Picture by a mile and also Chiwetel Ejiafor as Best Actor.
They’ve also got Cate Blanchett(“Blue Jasmine”) way out in front of Sandra Bullock for “Gravity”. Whose box-office, as every one knows, is in the stratosphere. For Best Actress. I think “Gravity” has become so big that the Academy is going to want to give it something big, besides all the technical awards it will surely win, and that will be Best Actress for the beloved Bullock. Bullock won the Hollywood Best Actress award last night, too. And wowed the crowd.
I really do get a kick out of the ever-intrepid Jeff Wells’ exploits, and his terrific writing. I don’t always agree with him, but I think it’s really kinda neat that he’s flown over to London from L.A., a ten hour flight, in COACH! to be the first Oscarologist to see Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks” and the London Film Festival which is happening right now in Blightey.
I used to live in London. For years. And jeff’s candid shots and vids made me nostalgic. I don’t hold out the highest hopes for “Saving Mr. Banks”s ability to shake up the Oscar race as anything but a “Gravity” v. “12 Years a Slave” scenario. The previews of it on line are mere piffle. But I know I’ll enjoy Jeff’s lively take on Merrie Olde.
You can catch up with Jeff’s exploits abroad, of course, at http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com.
The man is unstoppable! GO JEFF!
Michael Fassbender’s declaration in the current GQ mag that he’s not going to campaign for an Oscar for his Supporting Role(really a lead) In the monumental “12 Years A Slave” is just a tiny bit disingenuous to me for voila! There he is on the cover! Looking great, I might add, and very much a winner already.
At Toronto, he seemed to me to be cramming every minute with press time. I sat through a press conference with him and the director Steve McQueen and the rest of the brilliant cast. And he was of course, fascinating. http://www.FascinatingFassbender.com is a website that is worth checking for all things up to the minute on Fassbender.
But at that press conference, he talked openly and freely and feeling about the character of the slave-owner Epps that he embodies so magnificently and so frighteningly in “12 Years a Slave.”
“I don’t see him as evil or a villain. I see him as a person. A businessman who is protecting his property.” I wasn’t taking exact notes, but it was words to that effect that sort of stunned people there when he said it. Because he seems to be the absolute embodiment of evil.
But an actor, a really good actor, and Fascinating Fassbender is a brilliant actor, ALWAYS has to humanize a character for himself and see the world through that character’s eyes, as he has so memorably done.
He was on Charlie Rose, too, with Steve McQueen and Chiwetel Ejiafor(I think you can watch that on You Tube on http://www.youtube.com/CharlieRoseShow.) So he did A LOT of publicity, and he did it early and now has gone off to New Zealand to film “Macbeth” and HE’s playing yes, Macbeth.
He did a lot of press already and now he feels he’s done enough. After “Shame” everybody in Hollywood now knows who he is, and then when he didn’t even get nominated(I knew he wouldn’t. And said so. All that nudity and urinating on camera! i mean, it was riveting, but the SWORM, the Straight White Old Rich Men, who form the bulk of the Academy were shocked.) And he was devastated when he didn’t get nominated, and now in GQ he says he wants no part of the process, which he found humiliating and this time is going to sit out Phase I of the Oscar season, which is now upon us.
October, November and early December is when you build buzz and the Oscar campaign machinery begins to shift into full gear. Then the nominating ballots are sent out around the holidays and the nominations themselves are announced in January, which is the start of Phase II.
But after the nominations come out in January and he starts winning awards(how can he not? I mean, they ALWAYS award the white guy, even a villain, in a black movie, like they did just last year for “Django Unchained”s Christophe Waltz) and he’ll come back to pick up his trophies the same time Mo’nique did in Phase II.
And this year the Oscars aren’t being handed out til MARCH! Because of the Olympics, so it’s a super-long Phase II.
Like The Terminator, he’ll be back.
I predict these things.
Stephenholtshow's Blog 
Written
on October 31, 2013