I despite websites when they function as straight ahead marketing, riding on the back of poster reveals or new trailers fed to them by the studio publicity machines. It means that journalists that rely on the page view spikes become more beholden to the industry they should hold at arm’s length. Which brings me to Pan, which happens to be directed by Joe Wright, who made a movie out of Anna Karenina and arguably the best Pride and Prejudice. But, do we really need another Pan? The trailer, with a glancing look at Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily (that she is not a Native American is a rant for the more literal minded), seems to owe a debt to Terry Gilliam:
What I’d love is a Peter Pan reboot that investigates the enduring power of the Peter Pan complex by focusing on Wendy Darling, maybe with Alicia Vikander in the role (and Mads Mikkelsen as Captain Hook?). In my novel, Playdate, I wrote:
“When had it become so hard just to sit still and play? Men had Peter Pan complexes, but women had the Wendy Darlings. The Wendys wanted to fly a little and be dazzled by pixie dust, but they were consumed with relationships and caretaking and what the neighbors thought. Wendy’s lost boys were content to fly; Wendy had to civilize. She couldn’t abandon herself to wild dancing by firelight with the Indian braves; she had to funnel them all back into London middle-class respectability. Wendy was in such haste to grow up and become the mother, that central domestic figure; to children, their mother’s skirts were the world.”
I feel an essay coming on — do you have any strong feelings about Wendy? Did you pretend to be her in make-believe childhood role-playing games?
Actress Melissa Leo inevitably surprises. Usually, it’s because she dives so deep into her characters. Whether she’s jabbing her forefinger at the camera as The Fighter‘s peroxide-blonde matriarch Alice Ward, or driving a clunker across a Frozen River, her unsinkable spirit and enormous heart shine through. She conveys an honesty stripped of vanity unlike other actresses of her generation. But, now, she’s surprised the Hollywood community, and her die-hard fans, with a self-funded ad campaign. Above magazine-cover-ready photos of a glammed-up Leo is the single, simple word, Consider. Even more surprised at the sudden uproar in the press following the ads’ publication is Leo. Back in December when she hatched the plan to run ads in the trades, she hadn’t realized she was the Oscar frontrunner. She’s an actress, not an advertising maven.
