Jane Heller

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author

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Movie Night: "Birdman"

November 10, 2014

Birdman poster

Finally, a 2014 Oscar contender I can unequivocally say I loved. LOVED. “Birdman” may not be for everyone – it’s experimental in form and structure and cinematography – but this writer with her short attention span wasn’t bored for a single second. It was riveting. I literally don’t think I took a deep breath during our two-hour Cinema Society screening.

It’s the story of Riggan Thomson, a comic book action hero of the “Batman” variety (the casting of former “Batman” Michael Keaton was inspired and perfect), who, after turning down yet another fatuous sequel, has suffered a career crash. He’s washed up, no longer relevant – not to his once-adoring public or his ex-wife (a terrific Amy Ryan) or his angry just-out-of-rehab daughter (Emma Stone as we’ve never seen her). His only friend is his lawyer and now producing partner (Zach Galifianakis, who more than holds his own) in an all-or-nothing venture on Broadway that Riggan is writing, directing and starring in – all in an effort to prove he’s not just his feathered movie character but rather a serious actor. Stuff happens, to say the least, and I won’t give any of it away.

Alejandro Inarritu, who directed “Babel,” one of my favorite movies of the last few years, managed to shoot “Birdman” in what appears to be one long continuous take – and in a mere 29 days, we learned at the Q&A. What he didn’t have in budget he made up for in creativity. The setting is the cramped quarters of the St. James Theatre on Broadway and we see Keaton moving from stage to dressing room back to stage in one swooping motion. Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, who, along with Keaton and the others, worked for scale, are great as actors Riggan casts for his play.

I could blab on and on about this movie – whether Riggan lives or dies at the end, whether he gets his act together, whether he stops hearing the Birdman voice in his head, what it means to be a celebrity versus what it means to be an actor – but I just hope the Academy voters recognize the brilliance in it all. It’s probably too edgy for a Best Picture statue but Keaton is about as close to a lock for Best Actor as it gets.

And just as a P.S., there was a reception for him after the screening and he was as accessible and friendly as could be. I like when that happens.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Mainly Jane, Movies Tagged With: Birdman, Cinema Society, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Michael Keaton, Naomi Watts, Santa Barbara

The Oscar Noms Are, As Usual, A Bit Mystifying

January 10, 2013

Random thoughts about this morning’s announcement as well as the nominations themselves….

  1. Why is Seth MacFarlane hosting the Oscars? He was terrible in his few minutes this morning (A Hitler joke? Seriously?) and he doesn’t have the stature or the humor to M.C. the movie industry’s biggest night of the year. Mocking people just isn’t my idea of what a host should be doing.
  2. Emma Stone can do no wrong, as far as I’m concerned. Love her.
  3. I don’t get all the praise for “Life of Pi.” Yes, it was visually arresting in 3D, but the film itself was boring, story wise – not my idea of a Best Picture.
  4. John Hawkes was robbed in the Best Actor category, especially since Helen Hunt was nominated for “The Sessions” in the Supporting Actress category.
  5. Bradley Cooper was very good in “Silver Linings Playbook,” but was his performance career-defining in the same way as Hawkes’ was in “The Sessions?” Not for me.
  6. In the same category, I would like to have seen Richard Gere get a nod for “Arbitrage” – the guy has never been nominated in his career! – but so be it.
  7. I can understand why the Academy voters didn’t give a Best Director nod to either Kathryn Bigelow or Tom Hooper, despite the Best Picture nominations for their respective movies, “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Les Miserables.” They’d both won recently. But Ben Affleck? Why not reward his work in “Argo?”
  8. Marion Cotillard should have been nominated for Best Actress for “Rust and Bone,” but I have no idea which actress I’d replace to put her there. Just not enough room at the inn, I guess.
  9. Conversely, I was thrilled to see Naomi Watts get her Best Actress due for “The Impossible.”
  10. “The Intouchables” got screwed in the Best Foreign Film category. Conventional wisdom is that it was too big a commercial success – i.e. a crowd pleaser – and Academy voters found it a bit retro in a “Driving Miss Daisy”-ish sort of way.
  11. I continue to scratch my head over “Lincoln.” Daniel Day-Lewis will be tough to beat for Best Actor and deservedly so, but Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones too? Yikes, I must have stumbled into a different movie.
  12. Very happy that “Beasts of the Southern Wild” was recognized in such a major way. After seeing all the nominated films, it’s still Michael’s favorite of the year, along with “Silver Linings Playbook.”
  13. Leo DiCaprio probably should have been in there for Best Supporting Actor for “Django Unchained,” because he did great work in that film, but Christoph Waltz was incredible too.

Can’t wait for the show. The Golden Globes this weekend will have to tide me over until February.

 

 

Filed Under: Mainly Jane, Movies Tagged With: Academy Awards 2013, Emma Stone, Seth MacFarlane

The "She-Fan" Book Is Now A Screenplay Too

January 22, 2011

I know a lot of you don’t like baseball, so the appeal of my recent nonfiction book, Confessions of a She-Fan, is probably lost on you, as is the corresponding blog of the same name. But I just thought I’d bring everybody up to date on that front.

I teamed up with Gordon Greisman, a long-time Hollywood screenwriter and (like me) a diehard Yankee fan, to write a script very loosely based on the She-Fan book. Gordon wrote and executive produced a critically acclaimed mini-series called “The Bronx Is Burning,” which aired on ESPN in 2007. Anyone remember it?


Instead of being a memoir about how my husband Michael and I followed the Yankees around the country for half a season so I could prove my undying fandom (and wifedom), the “Confessions” script is a straight-up romantic comedy – a love triangle, actually – about a 27-year-old woman who’s engaged to one man, attracted to another, and obsessed with the Yankees. With her wedding only days away, she must come to terms with who she is and which man she really loves. Suffice it to say, hi jinks ensue. We’re shopping the script now, and the key is “attaching” an actress to play the lead. My first choices?

Emma Stone
Mila Kunis
Anna Faris
Anne Hathaway
Elizabeth Banks

Okay, you get the picture so I won’t bore you with all of the names on my wish list. I just think – and admittedly I’m not objective – that our script is hilarious and should be a movie!

Filed Under: Mainly Jane, Screenplays Tagged With: Anna Faris, Anne Hathaway, Confessions of a She-Fan, Elizabeth Banks, Emma Stone, Gordon Greisman, Mila Kunis, The Bronx Is Burning

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About Jane Heller

Jane Heller is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her fourteen breezy, witty novels of romantic comedy and suspense are now entertaining millions of readers around the world, along with her two books of nonfiction.

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