Problem: Renee Zellweger has not been in anything like a hit live-action film since 2005 2003’s Cold Mountain, for which she won an Oscar.
Solution? Bridget Jones 3.
Two years ago, Zellweger acknowledged the danger in the yo-yo dieting mandated by her iconic role:
‘I had a panic attack with all the specialists talking about how bad this is for you long-term, putting on that much weight in short periods of time,’ she said.
‘The health professionals were warning me about not continuing the project any further.”
Priorities, etc.
Vanity Fair recreated a number of famous shots from Alfred Hitchcock films for their March 2008 Hollywood Issue, and they’ve got a story about the shoot on their website. It’s pretty much content-free––unless we’re really supposed to be blown away by Renee Zellweger’s professionalism and commitment to the endeavor because she waited until she was getting her hair done to watch the Vertigo scene she had been assigned to ape––but Jeff Wells still finds something to grumble about.
“Of all the actors Vanity Fair could have picked to stand in for Cary Grant in a restaging of the classic crop-duster scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, they chose (who else?) Seth Rogan.” Yawn. Of course, George Clooney would be the obvious choice for the role, but even George Clooney seems to be tired of playing Cary Grant. The whole idea of having people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Keira Knightley star in these slavishly recreated spreads is so milquetoast and boring, that the casting of Hollywood’s new, chubby-nerdy-hot guy as Cary Grant––especially Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, an ordinary guy who becomes sort of unexpectedly invincible––ends up looking strange enough to be inspired.
Leave it to George Clooney to make a football movie that actually looks good to people like me. And by people like me, I mean people with no interest in American football whatsoever (I attend Super Bowl parties exclusively for the 7-layer dip). Yahoo! is hosting the trailer for Leatherheads, Clooney’s much-anticipated directorial follow-up to Good Night, and Good Luck, and the romantic sports comedy looks like the most appealing football flick — particularly for women and also guys like me — ever produced.
Part of the appeal for me, though, is those old uniforms, which bring me back (cinematicaly — I’m not that old) to the football fields of Horse Feathers, Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman and that famous still of Ronald Reagan from Knute Rockne All American. Then, of course, there’s the appeal of Clooney in old-timey clothes, ala O Brother Where Art Thou? Considering how much Clooney resembles Cary Grant in both appearance and acting style, it’s no wonder that I prefer him in stories that take him back to periods in which Grant was a big star. Okay, so Leatherheads is actually set in the 1920s, before Grant and his silly accent made it to the big screen, but I’m willing to ignore that little historical inaccuracy (just as the Coen Bros. ignored a lot of historical fact with O Brother). Had sound films come about earlier than they had, Cary Grant could have been wooed by Hollywood much sooner than he was.
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