AFTERTHOUGHTS (52)
HITCHHIKING TO SATURN 2008
This year’s Saturn Award nominations have just been announced, and those that made me go “Woot!” are:

30 Days of Night:
Best Horror Film
Best Make-Up (Davina Lamont)

300:
Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
Best Actor, Film (Gerard Butler)
Best Supporting Actor, Film (David Wenham)
Best Supporting Actress, Film (Lena Headey)
Best Direction (Zack Snyder)
Best Writing (Michael Gordon, Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad)
Best Music (Tyler Bates)
Best Costume (Michael Wilkinson)
Best Make-Up (Shaun Smith, Mark Rappaport)
Best Special Effects (Chris Watts, Grant Freckelton, Derek Wentworth, Daniel Leduc)

Battlestar Galactica:
Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series
Best Presentation on Television [Razor]
Best Actor on Television (Edward James Olmos)

Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon:
Best DVD Release

Beowulf:
Best Writing (Roger Avary, Neil Gaiman)
Best Animated Film

Blade Runner:
Best Special Edition DVD Release (5 Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition)

Bug:
Best Actress, Film (Ashley Judd)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind:
Best Special Edition DVD Release (30th Anniversay – Blu Ray)

Cloverfield:
Best Science Fiction Film
Best Supporting Actress, Film (Lizzy Caplan)

The Dark Crystal:
Best Classic Film DVD Release

Death Proof:
Best Special Edition DVD Release (Grindhouse Presentation: Extended & Unrated)

Dexter:
Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series
Best Actor on Television (Michael C. Hall)
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Erik King)
Best Supporting Actress on Television (Jennifer Carpenter)
Best Supporting Actress on Television (Jaime Murray)

Eastern Promises:
Best Actor, Film (Viggo Mortensen)
Best Actress, Film (Naomi Watts)
Best International Film

The Golden Compass:
Best Fantasy Film
Best Performance by a Younger Actor (Dakota Blue Richards)
Best Costume (Ruth Myers)
Best Special Effects (Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, Trevor Wood)

Grindhouse:
Best Horror Film

Heroes:
Best Network Television Series
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Greg Grunberg)
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Masi Oka)
Best Supporting Actress on Television (Hayden Panettiere)
Best Television Series on DVD (Season 1)

El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth):
Best Special Edition DVD Release (Platinum Series)

Lost:
Best Network Television Series
Best Actor on Television (Matthew Fox)
Best Actress on Television (Evangeline Lilly)
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Michael Emerson)
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Josh Holloway)
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Terry O’Quinn)
Best Supporting Actress on Television (Elizabeth Mitchell)
Best Television Series on DVD (The Complete Third Season)

The Mist:
Best Horror Film
Best Supporting Actress, Film (Marcia Gay Harden)
Best Direction (Frank Darabont)

The Nin9s:
Best DVD Release

No Country For Old Men:
Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
Best Supporting Actor, Film (Javier Bardem)
Best Writing (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)

El Orfanato (The Orphanage):
Best Actress, Film (Belen Rueda)
Best International Film

Planet Terror:
Best Supporting Actress, Film (Rose McGowan)
Best Make-Up (Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero, Jake Garber)

Pushing Daisies:
Best Network Television Series
Best Actor on Television (Lee Pace)
Best Actress on Television (Anna Friel)

Stardust:
Best Fantasy Film
Best Supporting Actress, Film (Michelle Pfeiffer)
Best Costume (Sammy Sheldon)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Best Horror Film
Best Actor, Film (Johnny Depp)
Best Actress, Film (Helena Bonham Carter)
Best Supporting Actor, Film (Alan Rickman)
Best Direction (Tim Burton)
Best Writing (John Logan)
Best Costume (Colleen Atwood)
Best Make-Up (Peter Owen, Ivana Primorac)

Twin Peaks:
Best Retro Television Series on DVD (The Definitive Gold Box Edition)

Zodiac:
Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film

The other films reviewed here at the Iguana that also received nominations (some, head-scratchingly so) were:

1408 (Best Horror Film; Best Actor, Film [John Cusack])
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Best Science Fiction Film)
Ghost Rider (Best Horror Film)
I Am Legend (Best Science Fiction Film; Best Actor, Film [Will Smith])
Spider-Man 3 (Best Fantasy Film; Best Supporting Actor, Film [James Franco]; Best Direction [Sam Raimi]; Best Special Effects)
Sunshine (Best Science Fiction Film)
Transformers (Best Science Fiction Film; Best Special Effects)

Guillermo del Toro is also being honoured this year with the George Pal Memorial Award.
For a complete (and downloadable) list of this year’s nominees, go here.
The winners will be announced on June 24, 2008 at the 34th Annual Saturn Awards, in Universal City, California.

Parting shot: Reviews of 30 Days of Night, 300, 1408, Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Beowulf, Bug, Death Proof, Eastern Promises, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, The Golden Compass, I Am Legend, El Laberinto Del Fauno, The Nin9s, No Country For Old Men, Planet Terror, Spider-Man 3, Stardust, Sunshine, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Transformers, and Zodiac can be found in the Archive, along with episodic recaps/reviews of Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, Heroes, Lost, and Pushing Daisies.

(OS's and Lost Season 4 ad courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (39)

39.1 PIMP MY BOOK (6)
Chapters 11 and 12 of Pelicula are up at the website, where you’ll meet a former Shake, Rattle and Roll star, and find out what’s the latest iteration of the CSI franchise!
Scoot on over to the website now.
And thanx to all of you who’ve been reading Pelicula, and to Carl, for keeping the website updated.

39.2 WHAT THE BAFTA?! 2008 (1)
So the BAFTA longlists are out.
Now, note that these are lists that will be whittled down from the current 15 entries to the 5 nominees per category for BAFTA night. (That second round of voting to choose the final five nominees for each category closes on January 14.)
Still, given the insane number of films released in any given year, to snag a spot on a BAFTA longlist is still quite the achievement.
So, the possible nominations I’m excited about are:

Control:
Film
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Make Up & Hair
Sound
Editing
Cinematography
Music
Leading Actor (Sam Riley)
Supporting Actress (Samantha Morton)

Eastern Promises:
Film
Director
Original Screenplay
Make Up & Hair
Editing
Leading Actor (Viggo Mortensen)
Leading Actress (Naomi Watts)
Supporting Actor (Armin Mueller-Stahl)
Supporting Actor (Vincent Cassel)

No Country For Old Men:
Film
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Make Up & Hair
Sound
Editing
Production Design
Cinematography
Music
Leading Actor (Josh Brolin)
Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones)
Supporting Actress (Kelly MacDonald)

Once:
Original Screenplay
Music
Leading Actress (Marketa Irglova)

Stardust:
Make Up & Hair
Special Visual Effects
Costume Design
Supporting Actress (Michelle Pfeiffer)

Other longlisted films for Special Visual Effects are Beowulf, Spider-Man 3, Sunshine, Transformers, and 300, which is also longlisted for Sound.

Again, note that the 15 entries in most of the categories will get streamlined down to 5, so each of those entries above has a 33% chance of ending up on the final BAFTA 2008 ballot (if I’ve got my math right).
Congratulations, and best of luck to all of them. (You can check out all the complete longlists here.)

39.3 MORE HONOURS FOR OLD MEN

The Coens’ latest was also honoured by the Online Film Critics Society with six awards, for best Picture, Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem), Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Editing, the three latter awards going to the Coen brothers.

The siblings were also acknowledged by the USC with this year’s Scripter Award, “which recognizes the year’s best cinematic translation from page to screen.” Author Cormac McCarthy joins the brothers in the honour.

And to cap this off, No Country For Old Men grabbed the # 2 slot on AICN writer Nordling’s 2007 Top Ten list, where he notes:

“Any other year, this would be # 1. And it's still a masterpiece by the Coens, and I take nothing away from it. Javier Bardem plays a villain as iconic as Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader. Josh Brolin has had a fantastic year with this performance and American Gangster, and at first Tommy Lee Jones seems like typecasting but he gets to the heart of that character with such skill it's difficult to imagine another actor playing that part. It's a bleak movie but there's humor there and it treats the audience with intelligence that's been sorely lacking in too many studio films today. It defiantly forces you to make up your own mind. I know what the ending means to me, and I admire the Coens for letting me come up with it on my own. A perfect adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel.”

(At Nordling’s # 4 and # 3 spots: Once and Zodiac. His worst? Spider-Man 3. Check out the entire list here.)

Parting shot: Reviews of Control, Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, Once, Stardust, Zodiac, Beowulf, Spider-Man 3, Sunshine, Transformers, and 300 can be found in the Archive.

(Control UK quad and Eastern Promises and No Country For Old Men OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; Once image courtesy of Fox Searchlight and indiewire.com; Stardust image courtesy of aintitcool.com.)

BEOWULF
(Review)

I once thanked Neil Gaiman for helping keep myth alive in our modern age. Rather humbly (and perhaps feeling I was overblowing the sentiment), Mr. Gaiman replied that myth was doing rather well on its own without his help.
Well, regardless of whether Mr. Gaiman is keeping myth alive or simply prodding it enough so it might run the treadmill and do some cardio more often in its old age, Beowulf, much like the beastial Grendel, is certainly a curious and interesting hybrid.
It utilizes the modern technology of mo-cap (or motion capture), to retell an ancient tale, so as to give 21st century audiences a tragic saga of how a father’s sins comes back, not just to haunt the son, but entire kingdoms as well. More potently, it’s also a tale about the humanity of heroes and monsters, and how that can, sadly enough, be their ultimate downfall.

I quite liked Beowulf, let’s be clear about that.
It does have its failings though, and perhaps tellingly, its flaws are rooted in the “modern technology” half of its cinematic DNA.
While mo-cap is the closest computer graphics can come to emulate humanity, it’s still a ways off from conveying genuine emotion. CGI characters can have the prettiest, silkiest hair in the world, but when you need them to emote, you may as well be asking a mannequin to deliver Shakespeare.
The simulated facial muscles still aren’t up to snuff to garner any Oscar acting nods. It’s a criminal waste, when even a great vocal delivery can come off like a Tara Reid performance when the construct on screen zombies its way through the role.
And their eyes…
Admittedly, the dead eye was far creepier in Robert Zemeckis’ earlier mo-cap effort, The Polar Express, but it’s still noticeable here in Beowulf.

In fact, the only performance that manages to punch its way through the pixels is Brendan Gleeson’s Wiglaf. His stubborn refusal to acknowledge anything that might tarnish the idea of Beowulf the Hero is just heart-breaking.
And while Sir Anthony Hopkins’ vocal delivery is fine, there‘s just something about the character of Hrothgar on screen that doesn’t quite capture the sad tragedy of the aged and broken king. The role of John Malkovich’s Unferth meanwhile, is kept to a woeful minimum.
Beyond that trio, nearly all the other actors are pretty much sabotaged by the limitations of mo-cap. And I say “nearly all” since, again rather tellingly, Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie have some of the more questionable vocal deliveries*; Winstone because he sometimes eats his words, occasionally leaving us with a growling mess where he sounds like a WWE superstar, while Jolie’s strange accent (was Grendel’s mother Romanian?) can’t quite mask the fact that it’s Angelina Jolie.
What can I say? So all-pervasive is its power that we can feel the Hollywood Star Syndrome as far back as the 6th century. (And apparently, women’s fashion is just as powerful, as Grendel’s mum seems quite taken with high heels, enough to shapeshift her feet into them…)
Of course, part of that fault also lies in the decision to make Grendel’s mum look exactly like Angelina Jolie.

I mean, when you’ve got the tools to play around with physiognomies—look at Beowulf, ‘cause that body certainly doesn’t belong to Ray Winstone—why keep to the real thing? And why keep to it when there’s the real possibility of a disconnect that endangers the suspension of disbelief? (Even Hrothgar is not immune to the Syndrome, since, damn, but doesn’t he look like Sir Anthony Hopkins?)
Why use this technology if you aren’t really going to fully play around with it? Why not just do it live-action, that way, you get the full benefit of the actors’ performances. Or, there’s always the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow/300 greenscreen gambit.
It’s kind of frustrating when all Zemeckis seems content to use the presumably liberating freedom of mo-cap for is to do some fancy “camera” work, something he was already toying around with as far back as Contact. (Sure, the sea monster battle was a doozy, but there were a hell of a lot more “ooh, let’s follow this rat, which gets pinched by a bird, then soar dizzyingly through the air, till we reach the poor monster with the acute hearing so far, far away” sort of shots.)

But to be fair to Zemeckis, like I said, I quite liked Beowulf.
Some sequences just work. Like Grendel’s first attack on the mead hall, strobelit courtesy of some mystic fire. That stretch successfully conveys the danger and savagery of a mythic time of monsters, when there was clearly much to fear beyond the light of the roaring camp fire. (On that note though, Grendel might have done well if he’d just opened a club somewhere. Hire a killer DJ, and the gold would’ve come rolling in.)
The battle between Beowulf and Grendel also kicked some bare a$$. Not only was it a commendable sequence, but the synthetic Beowulf also gave Viggo Mortensen some competition for Best Buck Nekked Fight for the Year 2007. (I fought valiantly to stop myself from using the word “stiff” in that sentence. Sorry.)

See? I’m being snarky. If Beowulf had done its job properly, the snark would be kept to a minimum.
Still, and this stands to be repeated: I quite liked Beowulf.
Once we hit the point where the shared deception of Beowulf and Hrothgar is acknowledged, and the subsequent madness comes to pass, I for one, stepped fully into the story. And the reason for that, I think, is two-fold.
One: at that point, the narrative enters fascinating territory.
And two: enough running time had passed that I’d acclimated myself to the limitations of current mo-cap tech, so I could adjust my expectations accordingly.

In the end though, I’m quite happy that after Stardust, there’s another film Mr. Gaiman worked on that I can say I enjoyed. (For Mirrormask lovers, see my Stardust review in the Archive.)
Mo-cap may not have been entirely successful in breathing proper life into the legend, but in this 21st century of ours, it’s allowed a creaky old myth to flex its pixellated muscles just enough to make it look viable—and gosh darn it, pretty cool!—to scores of PS3- and Xbox-attuned eyes.

* Actually, even Crispin Glover’s vocal delivery of Grendel is troublesome as his words are so garbled sometimes as to be nearly unintelligible. I’ll be so thankful for the subtitles when the DVD is unleashed upon the land…
On the plus side, good on Winstone! I mean, from voicing Narnia’s Mr. Beaver to Beowulf…
Talk about a step up.

Parting shot: Though I didn’t mention him at all in the review, Roger Avary co-wrote Beowulf’s script with Neil Gaiman. My apologies.
Unless you had anything to do with Grendel’s mum’s high heels, in which case, you should probably be grateful, as I’d rather not be mentioned at all, than be mentioned in relation to a bit of anachronistic women’s fashion.
To quote Bryan Fuller in an all-together different context: Let the snark reign!

(Beowulf OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

STARDUST
(Review)

Being a Neil Gaiman admirer of long standing (since Black Orchid and Sandman first hit the comic book shelves oh-so-long-ago), I’ve been patiently waiting for his work in film to catch up.
His English translation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Mononoke-hime (Princess Mononoke) didn’t have enough of a Gaimanesque feel to satisfy (and thus, I’ve always preferred watching it in the original Japanese), and Dave McKean’s Mirrormask was one of those films I wish I loved more than I actually do.
Now though, there’s Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Stardust, and I’m quite happy now, thank you very much.

For what Stardust, in a not-so-small nutshell, is all about, I turn to Neil Gaiman himself, from his Guardian article, “Happily Ever After”:

“I wanted a young man who would set out on a quest - in this case a romantic quest, for the heart of Victoria Forester, the loveliest girl in his village. The village was somewhere in England, and was called Wall, after the wall that runs beside it, a dull-looking wall in a normal-looking meadow. And on the other side of the wall was Faerie - Faerie as a place or as a quality, rather than as a posh way of spelling fairy. Our hero would promise to bring back a fallen star, one that had fallen on the far side of the wall.

"And the star, I knew, would not, when he found it, be a lump of metallic rock. It would be a young woman with a broken leg, in a poor temper, with no desire to be dragged halfway across the world and presented to anyone’s girlfriend.

"On the way, we would encounter wicked witches, who would seek the star's heart to give back their youth, and seven lords (some living, some ghosts) who seek the star to confirm their inheritance. There would be obstacles of all kinds, and assistance from odd quarters. And the hero would win through, in the manner of heroes, not because he was especially wise or strong or brave, but because he had a good heart, and because it was his story.”

For anyone familiar with his writing, this should sound like vintage Gaiman, and Vaughn manages to capture a brilliant mixture of enchantment, humour, and suspense, to highlight Stardust’s traditional narrative of a boy’s passage into adulthood, of his coming into the man he was always meant to be.
Though it admittedly lacks some of Gaiman’s poetic language, the script by Jane Goldman and Vaughn nonetheless targets Stardust’s heart spot-on, giving modern audiences the sort of fairy tale even adults shouldn’t be ashamed to adore.

It’s all here, from the black nastiness of the ancient witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), to the transformation of Tristan (Dot The I’s Charlie Cox) from lovestruck fool to honourable, upstanding hero, to the narration by none other than genre icon Sir Ian McKellen.
The story is then ably supported by some fine performances, particularly from Cox, whose innocent and quiet exuberance gives us a Tristan who is never less than convincing, and constantly identifiable. His brash professions of love for Victoria (tabloid regular Sienna Miller, who’d worked previously with Vaughn on his directorial debut Layer Cake, and with Cox in Lasse Hallstrom’s Casanova) early in the tale play off quite nicely against his later actions to defend the star Yvaine (Claire Danes) from the sinister forces that hound her.
It’s clear this is still the same Tristan as before, and yet, it isn’t.
And it’s not just the wardrobe change. That’s the exterior mirroring the internal growth the character has experienced, and Cox conveys that well.

If there’s anywhere that Stardust may not quite hold up though, it’s in Dane’s performance, which may lack a certain level of enchantment for some; it’s not bad by any means, but save for one particular scene where she professes her own feelings for Tristan after she’s fed him some cheese, her Yvaine isn’t quite the blindingly glowing star the character is meant to be.
And then there’s the frankly repetitive score by Ilan Eshkeri (Vaughn’s composer on Layer Cake). Yes, it gets the job done, but does it have to sound so uniform?

Thankfully, Stardust makes up for some of its shortcomings by boasting the added treat of having actors like Robert De Niro (as notorious pirate of the skies Captain Shakespeare), Ricky Gervais of Seona Dancing and The Office fame (as Ferdy The Fence), Vaughn/Guy Ritchie cohort Jason Flemyng, and Madonna cohort Rupert Everett (as two of the lords, now princes in the film), picking up some of the slack.
Vaughn and company are also wise enough to know that good supporting performances should never steal the show, so we see just enough of the actors to want some more, while keeping the focus squarely on the narrative.

With Peter Jackson having wrapped up his epic Lord of the Rings trilogy in 2003, it’s been nearly four years since anything this earnest and magickal has hit the cinemas. The unabashed respect Stardust has for this kind of storytelling, the principal trait it shares with Jackson’s Rings (definitely no snarky, postmodern winks here), bodes well for the future of the fantasy film.
I can only hope Chris Weitz‘s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass—not to mention Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf, whose script Gaiman co-wrote, and Vaughn’s next project, a film adaptation of Marvel’s Thor—continues in this vein.

(Stardust OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com; images courtesy of aintitcool.com.)

THE TUDORS Episode 1 (Review)

Opening with the brutal assassination of a British ambassador (Sean Pertwee, seen recently in Wilderness; review in Archive: April 2007), Showtime’s latest offering, the ten-episode The Tudors, is one of those modern re-tellings of history which can turn a subject usually perceived as dead boring into a matter of interest by making the players identifiable as real men and women. Not unlike you and me, except they don’t have cell phones, and we don’t have crowns.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers (the scheming twat in Woody Allen’s Match Point; and one of Tom Cruise’s lackies in Mission: Impossible III) plays King Henry VIII in his days before all the fat just snuck up on him. His Henry is a young monarch hungry for sex, a male heir, and immortality.
He addresses the first hunger by sleeping with everyone except his wife, Catherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), and by doing so, ends up marrying five more times, sating the second (so history tells). The rest of this episode serves to appease the third craving, as Henry spoils for a fight with France, responsible for the death of the ambassador, who happens to have been Henry’s uncle.
But the scheming Cardinal Wolsey (Sam Neill, perhaps most widely seen in the first and third Jurassic Park films) has other things on his mind…

The first impression The Tudors makes is that it looks authentic: the costumes, the suits of armor, the foppish tennis clothes. The show looks the part.
That, then, is supported by an able cast that brings Henry VIII’s court to life, a court which includes young loyalist Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill, who was one of the chosen few on McG’s Superman shortlist before Bryan Singer came on board and handed the cape and tights to Brandon Routh; Cavill’s also in the upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust)*, who’s just randy for Anna (Anna Brewster), and Lord Buckingham (Steven Waddington), who’s hungry himself, for the throne, which is actually his by blood, and who also happens to be Anna‘s father, none too happy with Brandon shtooping his daughter.

So the first episode is pretty much a set-up for all the conflicts and machinations that will, presumably, be the stuff of the nine subsequent episodes, and the dominoes are arranged with determined ease and skill.
For all its prettiness though, and the confidence with which the story is being told, there seems to be a certain something that’s lacking, some vital spark that is needed to achieve that alchemy that all great narratives possess.
Or perhaps it’s simply that this is the first episode, where some introductions are decidedly brief: among them, Thomas Tallis (a court composer and organist, played by Joe van Moyland) and Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer of Casanova). Tallis, I have no idea what role he played in Henry’s court, and Anne…
Anne, after all, is the woman who’s gonna get Henry into all sorts of trouble, and all we see of her in the first episode is the quickest glimpse (and a convenient intro from her da, should we happen to have missed his last name in a previous scene).

The Tudors is written by Michael Hirst, who also wrote Shekhar Kapur‘s Elizabeth, which got Cate Blanchett an Oscar nom that she really should have won (sorry, Gwynie, but Blanchett just truly kicked a$$ in that one). Apparently, Hirst has got a thing for the house of Tudor, as he’s also written the sequel to Elizabeth, this year’s The Golden Age, with Blanchett returning. (Oscar, take note.)
Perhaps I’m not entirely enchanted by The Tudors since I wasn’t entirely enchanted by Elizabeth either. Blanchett rocked, no doubt (she nearly always does, actually), but Elizabeth was the sort of film that you watched—and recommended—primarily for the performance.**
The Tudors though, does not have a central performance with the power of Blanchett’s Elizabeth. Rhys Meyers is good, but he’s no Blanchett, at least, not in the first episode. So it all falls down to the court intrigue and the politicking, and if the ensemble can keep things interesting.
I’m willing to take on the second episode and see how things develop. If I like what I see enough, maybe I’ll see this all the way through.

* Interestingly enough, Cavill was also in the running for Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, as well as being the other actor considered for Casino Royale’s James Bond. Director Martin Campbell ultimately passed on Cavill since the then-22-year-old was considered too young for the role, which of course, eventually went to Daniel Craig. That’s three pop culture icons Cavill came this close to portraying.

** I am still entirely convinced that the nomination Elizabeth got for Best Picture was delivered on the coat tails of John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love, which made Oscar ga-ga over all things Elizabethan that year.