Nicole Kidman stomps grapes in the uncanny valley in the Being The Ricardos trailer
Aaron Sorkin returns to his Studio 60 roots for his Lucille Ball biopic starring Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem
Aux News Being The Ricardos
All the way from the uncanny valley, the first full trailer for Aaron Sorkin’s Being The Ricardos is here. Anyone that was looking for an American Crime Story-esque biopic about, arguably, the most beloved television star of all time, Christmas came early this year—or kind of right on time. ‘Tis the season for unsettling biopics.
For everyone else, try not to get too distracted by how weird everyone looks.
Academy Award-winner Nicole Kidman stars as Lucille Ball, best known to audiences as Lucy Ricardo, the star of I Love Lucy. By her side, of course, is her husband, co-star, and business partner Desi Arnaz, played by fellow Oscar-winner Javier Bardem. Neither look particularly like their subjects, which wouldn’t be a problem if the production weren’t trying so hard to convince us that they do.
The trailer is one of those “Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays” type deals. Ricky bursts through the door, yells, “Lucy, I’m home,” and Kidman, peaking out from approximately a metric ton of makeup, stops to consider all the events that led to this moment. And she never paid for drugs. Not once.
Here’s the synopsis:
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are threatened by shocking personal accusations, a political smear, and cultural taboos in Academy Award®-winning writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s behind-the-scenes drama Being the Ricardos. A revealing glimpse of the couple’s complex romantic and professional relationship, the film takes audiences into the writers’ room, onto the soundstage, and behind closed doors with Ball and Arnaz during one critical production week of their groundbreaking sitcom I Love Lucy. Featuring J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda.
Aaron Sorkin returns to his Studio 60 From The Sunset Strip mode here, which is probably his worst mode, right? Producing a comedy show with all the self-importance of signing the Declaration of Independence rarely makes for compelling narratives. In this writer’s opinion, the prolific writer-director certainly has his moments, but this feels like a mismatch on all counts.
Or maybe Walk Hard just ruined biopics. Maybe it’s both.
Being The Ricardos is in theaters on December 10 and streams on Amazon Prime Video on December 22.
178 Comments
1) The prosthetics just further serve to vindicate the crowd of folks who rightly pointed out that Debra Messing is right fucking there2) Walk Hard is brilliant and should have killed the entire biopic genre dead. It didn’t fail us; we failed it. The wrong trend died
I do not get why, from the jump, the AVClub has been fixated on this casting not working (or the casting being the thing that would make this movie not work). Kidman and Bardem don’t look any more or less out of place than the best or worst biopic casting, and as a rule this stuff has always boiled down to performance.
I mean, this is how they talked about Kidman’s casting when the teaser dropped: With her big, bright eyes, and coiffed hair peeking under a scarf, she recreates the grape stomping scene from I Love Lucy. She eerily does look just like Ball. Though her voice doesn’t sound exactly like Ball’s, it’s still close enough that it could make skeptical fans feel more at ease….so they haven’t exactly been consistently critical in that regard. Personally I think Kidman isn’t great, but within the general parameters of biopic casting. Bardem as Arnaz is all wrong, though. Arnaz was a baby-faced pretty boy who was 6 years younger than Ball and looked even younger. Bardem is too craggy and too, well, interesting looking.
That praise is buried within the premise that everyone else is skeptical about the casting, though.
And you can’t look at him without thinking of Chigurh. Or the other roles he’s gotten as a result of that performance like the Bond villain he played.
Different writers, different opinions. There is no unifying vision. This is pretty much just a blog site.
But he aged badly. He started to look as old as Fred Mertz towards the end.
I understand this inconsistency though, because in the teaser, you only really saw ‘Lucy’s’ face in the grape-stomping scene, when Kidman has her eyes bugged out in shock. In those few seconds, she really did resemble her a lot. But in the trailer, in scenes where Kidman’s face is more relaxed, the eyes are so distractingly ‘not’ Lucy to me. Lucy had big, expressive eyes as a default, and Kidman doesn’t at all, unless she’s really making an effort. I’m not saying I think the movie will be bad, but I get why one would be impressed with the resemblance in one case, yet not buying it for a second in the other. And yes, Bardem looks nothing like Arnaz. Hopefully the performances can really sell it.
Ms. Ball was famous for her ‘rubber’ face – that ability to express physical comedy with her facial features. I just can’t imagine Kidman going cold turkey on the botox for this role. Eventually she’ll have to make an expression. Personally, I can’t watch any of her ‘biopic’ work.
They shoulda went with Kidman’s “Nine Perfect Strangers” co-star Bobby Cannavale.
The answer to all “why does the AV Club do this?” queries is that it’s easier than doing actual criticism.
this has been . . . your moment of zen . . .
It’s time for Five Questions!
Actually, as mentioned above you, the answer seems to be “The average AV Club reader…doesn’t read.”
Who has time for legit criticism? There are groundbreaking, gamechanging flexes to discuss ad nauseum.
I guess a Newswire isn’t really classifiable as “criticism”. It’s content churned out from press-releases.
*the deepest, most menacing voice you’ve ever heard in your life* “Lucy, you got some ‘splaining to do.”
“Lucy, heads or tails? Which is it?”
“LUUUCCCYYY, what’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”
I dunno, it feels very “off” to me, she certainly doesn’t have the right screwball energy and both are too old for the part. I don’t really care since I doubt I’ll watch this (as as much as I Love Lucy) but especially in her case it seems like it ought to be a gifted comic actor doing a dramatic turn. Kidman can be funny but… Wrong energy.
To what are you referring when you say that Kidman can be funny? I honestly can’t think of an example, but maybe I’m just not remembering.
To Die For. The Stepford Wives remake kinda.
She has a super weird energy when doing comedies, but I feel like she’s pretty often funny? Even if it mostly goes alongside serious/grim/frazzled performances. The rom com components of Australia were the most effective parts of that weirdly mashed together film and some of what she did in Moulin Rouge was incredibly ridiculous even before the cartoon spring sound effects were added, and that really threw the heartbreak stuff into greater relief.Otherwise she kinda walks a line between taking everything incredibly seriously but still being a little camp? (Slapping her monkey spirit in Golden Compass, her resentful performances in Stoker and Paddington… Regardless of the choices in The Stepford Wives and Bewitched that made the movies overall muddled, I feel like Kidman was never the problem?)
I’d even say her performance in Bewitched is one of her more underrated turns—not a great movie by any means, but she and Ferrell both have a daft sort of grace.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really like the Kidman/Ferrell Bewitched.
It seems I have some gaps in my Kidman filmography.
It’s Sorkin rather than the cast that makes me wary of this.
I think that Kidman looks exactly like Ball in her post-Botox period.
I don’t know. Bardem looks about 30 years too old to be playing Ricky.
Tbf i’ve seen the same kind of obsession over the Kidman casting all over pop culture sites, the Avclub is just the main culprit.
0:31 her walk is in real life menacing psychotic Scarlett Johansson the character is the commandant of Auschwitz she’s speaking Russian so this is his mirror on the Soviet Union concentration camp side someone who was on the Soviet Politburo with Gorbachev it’s calling Vladimir Putin a peasant thug a actress in Hollywood who looks like Scarlett Johansson in her audition video murdered in reply
I’m glad someone at the AV Club recognizes how…off everyone looks in this movie. When they dropped the teaser a couple weeks ago the AV Club writer on call was gushing about how perfectly Kidman inhabits the role, which…uh, if you say so.
She looks totally normal. Kidding.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by normal, but if you’re taking “normal” to mean “bears more than the most superficial resemblance to Lucille Ball,” then no, Kidman does not look “normal.”ETA: Responded before OP added “kidding” to their comment.
That was my fault. I was trying to add the “Nicole Kidman Clapping Freakishly” GIF, but was unsuccessful.
Ah, no worries.
Octavia Spencer is screaming inside.
It’s baffling.
Some have speculated she’s trying not to mess up her nails/smash together her huge honking bracelets.
Please clap. Correctly.She looks like an alien trying to understand our customs.
“Off” is the perfect word for this casting. She doesn’t look like Nicole Kidman, nor does she look fully like Lucille Ball, but then to complicate things, Nicole Kidman doesn’t look quite human, more like a heavily Botoxed android/human hybrid. Whatever, I’m still watching this and hoping she can get somewhere near Ball’s distinctive voice.
The only one who looks ‘off’ is Kidman but it’s less problematic to say everyone looks weird.
How could anyone possibly think this casting was preferable to getting Debra Messing?
Kidman guarantees bums in seats. Messing doesn’t.
I believe the politically correct term is “homeless people”.
“People of inadequate housing”
I believe the politically correct term is “soiling”.
I think the correct term is “unhoused” these days.
Bums in seats.
Yes, I too predict people will go to see this just to get warm.
Seats on people’s couches? Since I imagine more people will be watching this on streaming
Actually, she doesn’t for this kind of thing — though I question if Debra Messing would have been any less…off.
“Actually, she doesn’t for this kind of thing”Please, go on.
I think that, despite being an Oscar-winning actress, people don’t look at Kidman as a chameleon in the same way they look at Meryl Streep, say. Streep is the kind of actress who, if she played Lucille Ball, nobody would care if she looked or sounded completely right, because she’s Meryl Fucking Streep, who can play Everything From Giants to Children!
Nicole Kidman is more somebody who’s really good in her lane, but she has to WOW! us every single time she veers out of it because sometimes she’s great playing against type…and sometimes she’s not. Lucille Ball isn’t the kind of part we thought of when someone says “Nicole Kidman”, and now that she’s doing it we’re noticing she doesn’t really look like Lucy, or sound like Lucy, or even especially act like Lucy — either the “Lucille Ball” we know from television, or the one you saw less often on talk shows rasping away telling stories of old Broadway and Hollywood while chain-smoking. Moreover, I honestly don’t think Aaron Sorkin cares that much for Lucille Ball. That’s not necessarily a failing for him creatively — even though he clearly loathed Mark Zuckerberg, Sorkin nailed a version of him in his screenplay for The Social Network. But the whiff I’m getting off this production is Sorkin on autopilot, hitting what sounds like the same old beats he hit in STUDIO 60 and THE NEWSROOM, only set back in the mid-1950s (so at least no women will be sending a private screed to everyone via group e-mail!).
Does she really? She’s an A-List talent, to be sure, but I’m hard pressed to think of any actors that guarantee butts in seats any more. Movie releases are so much more predicated on franchise than stars any more. Even someone like Robert Downey Jr (AFAIK, highest paid actor right now) might not guarantee a good opening.As a biopic about the stars of a 70-year-old TV show, if this cracks 50Million at the box office (even pre-COVID), I think champagne would rain from the studio sprinkler system.
Why would anyone think Debra Messing would be a good Lucy?
How could anyone possibly think this casting was preferable to getting Debra Messing? Or Jessica Chastain. Or Jane Levy. Or, I don’t know. Other redheads.But yeah, as mentioned elsewhere, Kidman is a star who theoretically can get viewers. (Although now that I think of Jane Levy as Lucy, I can’t stop. Maybe they’ll do a prequel: Li’l Ball.)
Ball herself was naturally brunette (not that those other options aren’t compelling).
She joked pretty frequently about how her red hair came out of a bottle.
In fact, the first movie she was a redhead for was Dubarry was a Lady — at the height of her “smoking hot” period….
“Mousy brown”, she said as Lucy Ricardo.
Pretty sure Nicole Kidman is a redhead, isn’t she?
If she could do the accent, Sofia Vergara would be great.
Would anyone spill ink over this if not for Kidman? I can’t even type Debra Messing biopic without turning the channel.
Debra Messing does a decent version of Lucy Ricardo, the zany redhead who just wants to be in the show. The real Lucille Ball is an entirely different animal all together – gruff, bawdy and domineering. None of the characteristics one particularly identifies with Messing.
The real Lucille Ball is an entirely different animal all together – gruff, bawdy and domineering.
I dunno — have you ever heard Debra Messing going postal over the possibility of Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee?She utterly lost me there.
Angela Lansbury was fantastic, but they wanted Lucille Ball for her role in “The Manchurian Candidate”…man. As soon as I heard that I thought immediately “Oh, my gosh, yes.”
They wanted Messing, but she couldn’t get out of her shifts at Olive Garden
They missed a golden opportunity by not casting Messing, who could also have played the hell out of this role. Kidman looks…odd, and nothing like Lucille Ball.
I found one error in this article:Anyone that was looking for an American Crime Story-esque biopic about, arguably, the most beloved television star of all time, Christmas came early this year —> For anyone that was looking for an American Crime Story-esque biopic about, arguably, the most beloved television star of all time, Christmas came early this year
Shouldn’t it be “for anyone who” rather than “for anyone that”?
Is “whom,” most strictly.
Probably, but leaving off the “for” was the egregious bit
Speaking only for myself, I’ve been trying not to be distracted by how weird Nicole Kidman looks for nearly 20 years.
Maybe that was a different Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut? Not sure.
Maybe the Scientologists replaced her with a double!
That was OVER 20 years ago!!!
She’s the example I use when I talk about why even good face work can start to make one look like a wax figure of ones self. But she doesn’t look bad! She just looks like someone who looks like Nicole Kidman.
even good face work can start to make one look like a wax figure Absolutely. Whatever plastic surgeons are able to do, I have never seen even really good face work actually… you know, age. Which might be why people keep redoing it over the years.
I feel like if you’re going under the knife, the best you can hope for is a Marg Helgenberger situation, and even then it’s clear that you’ve been taken apart and put back together by a skilled surgeon. Angela Bassett’s non-surgical facelifts have been pretty good; crucially she’s not going buck wild with the Botox.
Angela Bassett is a goddess, but even she, in certain pictures, looks a bit too “tight” in places where, facially, a 62 year old should be showing more age, namely around the eyes and the brow.
The issue with Marg Helgenberger is entirely due to her bone/dental structure. All the plastic surgery in the world can’t fix a bad case of jaw misalignment, which is what Marg has if you look at a photo of her head-on. Visually, the misalignment begins to look worse with age as the effects of gravity really start to take hold, often necessitating more surgery than would otherwise be necessary.
“But she doesn’t look bad!”
Unless you consider “looking human” to be good.
Remember when Renee Zellwegger showed up with an entirely new face and then kept on pretending that she never had any work done?
I’ve always looked like a mannequin of myself!
Pauline Kael’s review of “Madame X”(1966) talked about how disconcerting it was to see Lana Turner wearing a Lana Turner mask, and then Constance Bennett wearing a Constance Bennett mask. It’s true, too (actually a more entertaining movie than expected, imo).
She’s pretty clearly a space alien. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Thanks, Lovato.
Thovato.
It’s really bad here. I don’t how much is strange prosthetics and how much is just a progression.
I looked through some images from her films and it looks like it was really just the few years that things just really went off the rails.
Grace of Monaco, 2014. Still stunning: Aquaman, 2018. Something starting to go on with the mouth: SAG 2020: Yep:
It was super distracting to me in “Australia”. She looked like a beautiful middle-aged woman with Botox, and she apparently was supposed to be a beautiful ingenue in the outback. The other characters kept referring to her that way, and it was like they were mocking her. Or mocking the audience.
Yeah I’m really disappointed that she’s gone full “island of Dr. Moreau.” She looks like a cat person is what I’m saying.
The best trailer for this movie would be, if instead of freezing up and looking like “Lucille Ball this is your life,” if they just had about twenty seconds of them doing an episode of the show and pulling it off. Why is everybody misspelling “peeking” as “peaking” all of a sudden?
Twin Peeks
Oh that’s interestingOh that too is interestingTwin Piques
The @StealthMountain twitter account was started years ago rather than “all of a sudden”. I see it’s suspended now though.
I’m noticing several people saying “to the T” instead of “to a T” and now I’m wondering if I’m the one who’s wrong…
Clearly it’s “two for tea.”
Clearly….
If you aren’t twin peaking you aren’t peaking right.
I remember when they released Microsoft Edge and you had Microsoft Edging when the webpage would always almost but not quite load
Fuck, now that? I already have to fight the people who spell the opposite of win as “loose” and can’t distinguish between “roll” and “role”
It’s not that sudden! I’ve seen it for a long time, I think since the advent of autocorrect. Still, yes – why.
I was thinking the same thing. They wanted to start with a moment of dramatic tension without bothering to build any dramatic tension.
This looks like it’s going to take itself way to seriously in the traditional Sorkin way, but damn if I didn’t shed a happy tear watching this trailer.
I came here for Internet famous grape-stomping clips, and I’m sadly disappointed so far. 🙁
They really should have cast a natural redhead as…uh…William Frawley.
I was not reading AV Reviews of “Studio 60…” when that show was briefly on, but God Damn…”self-seriousness of a comedy sketch show like it was the reenactment of the Declaration of Ind” is dead on about that show.Yeah, can’t get into Nicole as Lucy at all. Should have bit the bullet and gotten Messing.
Kidman is a natural redhead, but wears a blonde wig.
Nina Arianda looks more like Vivian Vance than Nicole looks like Lucille Ball. And Javier Bardem looks like Desi if he was on steroids.
Javier Bardem Looks like Bizarro Desi.
Here is Lucy & Desi. I think she started out in vaudeville, she was in movies in the 40s, she was blonde and quite the babe. That top photo of Nicole reminds me of Imelda Staunton in a red wig.
Her first film appearance was in 1933. Her hair color varied until she started appearing in color films in the 1940s, when she was consistently red-haired (“Technicolor Tessie” was a nickname, in fact, due to how well her bright red hair, blue eyes and fair skin photographed in Technicolor).No vaudeville – first modelling, then Broadway, then films.
“Yes Lucy, you must do the show!”
I actually wasn’t going to watch until I saw this trailer. That cast is stacked. Then again, I’m unfashionably fond of Sorkin.That said, I wonder how many people younger than Aaron Sorkin give a shit about Lucille Ball? 70-year old sitcoms seem like they should be losing relevance.
People in recent years focus more on Lucille Ball’s miserable life than on her comedy, which is a shame. It has actually kind of ruined her comedy for me because any time I happen upon it I just remember all the endless stories about how lonely and bitter she was and how much of her life was full of regret.
But she shouldn’t have had that regret. Besides her comedy, her Desilu Productions was great and was responsible in part for making Star Trek a thing (among other shows, including the original Mission Impossible series)
When was she lonely or bitter? I’ve read just about every book on her. She married again within two years and by all accounts the marriage was happy. She had a top 10 show for 15 years after I Love Lucy. Her only career disappointments were the movie version of MAME and her final sitcom, Life with Lucy – which did break her heart, but it was near the end of her life. Her kids said she was a good mom, albeit not particularly loving and she remained friends with Arnaz until the end.
That’s essentially how comedy gets made. It’s all about laughing at the misery in our personal lives.
Then again, I’m unfashionably fond of Sorkin.Hello, brother.
annyong
Sorkin’s always had old tastes for a guy born late enough to arguably be a Gen Xer.
I Love Lucy’s still on television, even seventy years later. Okay, it’s Hulu and Amazon Prime, but the show’s still on….
Well. Kidman might be just fine, really. She seems to have gotten the rasp in Lucy’s voice right. And Bardem pretty much doesn’t do bad work. And JK Simmons is in it, that’s a plus. But… yeah, the trailer has some serious Walk Hard vibes.
J.K. Simmons as William Frawley is damn near perfect casting.
The only other person that I’d accept in the role of William Frawley is Richard Jenkins. After all, it’s not a feature film unless either Simmons or Jenkins is in it.
Only problem with J.K. Simmons as William Frawley is he’s not stinking drunk.
Jesus, I couldn’t even finish the trailer. That statue they did of her was a better likeness.
I’m just saying that in Goodfellas Joe Pesci’s Tommy was supposed to start out in his early 20s even though actor was in his mid- to late-40s and looked like he was in his mid- to late-40s. It didn’t matter. You snicker about it for a second and move on. Suspension of disbelief is superior enough to prosthetics and CGI that you don’t need to distract your audience with weird effects approximating reality. A story isn’t reality and doesn’t need to be. Just let actors act. I would be a great filmmaker if I ever, you know, made a film.
Right. Like, they don’t try to CGI de-age Bob Odenkirk in “Better Call Saul,” even when he’s flashing back to his scam-artist youth. They just put a darker hairpiece on him and ask us to suspend our disbelief and it works just fine.
They wouldn’t de-age Bob Odenkirk because de-aging is expensive and takes a long time in post-production. Plus, Bob Odenkirk is of an age in both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad to where he hasn’t actually visually aged all that much, regardless of the time period difference.
If they were trying to say that Saul and Bad took place 30 years apart, then we’d have an issue. But with the approximately 8 years between the start of Better Call Saul and the last time we see Jimmy in Breaking Bad, Odenkirk’s appearance, in real-life, hasn’t changed so drastically as to necessitate something as severe as de-aging. Yeah, he’s gone more gray, but as you said, that’s an easy fix. If he significantly aged in the intervening period, more would’ve likely been done.
“They wouldn’t de-age Bob Odenkirk because de-aging is expensive and takes a long time in post-production.”
Don’t forget that it never, ever looks good.
The difference is that the vast majority of people wouldn’t know who Tommy DeSimone was, or what he looked like, due to the fact that Goodfellas came out in 1990, DeSimone “disappeared” in 1979, and most moviegoers couldn’t readily research the actual people who the movie based characters on because of the general lack of the internet.
Conversely, Lucille Ball is an American icon whose show is still aired through reruns and syndication, and anybody watching the movie could pull out their phone and see a picture of the real Lucille.
That being said, I’m with you in general. I don’t need to visually believe that I’m watching the actual person on film. Depending on when they were alive, I can do that through plenty of archival footage. However, for people who had really iconic looks (whether it be their physical presence, their face, or their fashions), not getting that right can easily take someone out of the movie.
Put it this way (and taking it to a particular extreme for the sake of argument), you wouldn’t cast a 5’7″, 150lb dude to play Mr. Olympia-era Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think Nicole and her prosthetics look close enough to where anybody would grasp what and whom they’re watching (aside from it being, quite obviously, a biopic), but I don’t think the general complaint is always off-base or unwarranted.
For example, as great of an actor as he was, Chadwick Boseman not looking at all like Thurgood Marshall took me out of the biopic. Their lack of visual similarity meant that unless you knew the specific case he argued/judged, or knew enough about the history to recognize the name Thurgood (since simply calling him Justice Marshall wouldn’t be distinct enough even on the Supreme Court, as there was another Justice Marshall, namely John Marshall), you’d start in the middle of the movie and have no idea that you were watching a biopic of a notable historical figure who existed during a time where we clearly can know what he looked like (especially since, unlike Tommy DeSimone, who lived to an old age and had many more photographs and videos taken of him, unlike the relatively young, and relatively unnotable DeSimone).
People didn’t know who Tommy Desimone was, but the film made it clear that Tommy and Henry were essentially the same age. In real life, Pesci is nearly 13 years older than Ray Liotta, and looks every day of it. And then some. While I don’t think it took away from either the film or Pesci’s performance, it was a larger than normal bit of “suspension of disbelief” that the audience was asked to swallow.
You’re right, but I also don’t think that Tommy’s age, or his look, was particularly relevant to his character.
There’s also the salient reality that some people just live a hard life and age like milk and not whiskey. I think the audience are willing to extend their suspension of disbelief for a fictional character (or a real character that’s relatively unknown, or we don’t have clear photographic or videographic evidence of what they looked like) far more than with a real-life entity who we can immediately draw comparisons to.
“but the film made it clear that Tommy and Henry were essentially the same age.”
It sure doesn’t. The first time anyone tried to make it clear that they were the same age is you, right now.
In all fairness people back then looked at least 20 years older than their actual age compared to today.
Even infants! Many a time a newborn would amble up to a bar and get served back in the day.
K I don’t make films… but if I did they’d have a samurai
This looks like a navel-gazing dirge, where we are meant to clap like seals because Aaron Sorkin is involved. The “somber” version of the I Love Lucy theme actually made me laugh. It just adds to the feel that this is some kind of Youtube or sketch show parody of these woe-is-me dramas. At least that would explain why Nicole Kidman looks like Stephne Weir. They should have just hired the real Stephne, although I guess that would have meant less of the usual 50000 articles about Kidman’s wandering accent and the hyperfocus on her interchangeable TV projects that are collectively forgotten 10 minutes after the finale.
“This looks like a navel-gazing dirge, where we are meant to clap like seals because Aaron Sorkin is involved.”
Well, at least you’ve had a reasonable response.
100%. I bet you there’ll be a joyless courtroom scene where a puffed-up bureaucratic stooge attacks Lucy and she retorts with a withering, portentous, oh-so-smart speech about what it means to be an American or some shit, while epic strings swell on the soundtrack, after which the whole room applauds and the government lackey immediately faints.
The trailer looks meh and it will probably be another boring self-indulgent Sorkin slog, but the absolute venomous mean girl energy of this article fucking sucks. I thought we were past the days of Perez Hilton-style journalism…
Turner Classic Movies is rolling out a phenomenal podcast on Lucille Ball right now, w/out the distracting casting, that I assume will be exponentially more accurate than anything Sorkin is putting out. Also less walk-and-talks. The Plot Thickens – Season Three: Lucy – The Plot Thickens (tcm.com)https://theplotthickens.tcm.com/BTW – S1 was all about Peter Bogdanovic and S2 was all about the making of Bonfire of the Vanities. I cannot recommend S2 enough for anyone interested in the inner workings of the film industry.
Speaking of Bonfire of the Vanities, there’s a new one called Haileywood about Bruce Willis moving to Hailey Idaho and driving everyone crazy. They discuss Tom Hanks teasing him about his smirk while watching the dailies.Willis really does sound like a major asshole.
Oh thanks for hipping me to it, will check it out! I apparently have an unquenchable appetite for stories confirming Bruce Willis has the personality of an elevator fart.
I love when I get confirmation I was correct about celebrities I suspected of being assholes. The Drop Out podcast about Elizabeth Holmes is very satisfying, and Prestige TV pod is confirming what I thought about The Morning Show. Watching The Morning Show is like trying to figure out how to kill a giant spider you just discovered. “I gotta do this, but I feel kind of sick to my stomach ”.
Loved The Drop Out! And Morning Show looks amazing (especially to me, a former journalist and lifelong news junkie)… but I’m all maxed out on platforms 🙁
It is not amazing. It is God awful. I believe from what I’ve read it was supposed to be more of a comedy “ish” show, but when the Matt Lauer stuff came out they decided to go in that direction with Steve Carell’s character. Then Covid also happened, so they’ve been reverse engineering the plot(s) of the show.I heard Bill Simmons say on his podcast “Do we even have the energy to talk about this?”
Ah gottcha, misunderstood.
I assumed the show would be kind of a Mad Men-ish dramedy, set around morning shows and broadcast “news as entertainment” and how women navigate those spaces amid the immediate pre/post Me Too era. All that sounded interesting to me, and the talent they have on deck is all aces. Bummer to hear they’re not landing it.
I think that’s what they hoped for too. Man did they miss the mark. Jennifer Aniston doesn’t have the chops to play whatever her character is supposed to be. She’s great at light comedy but this is not in her wheel house. We don’t know if we’re supposed to feel sorry for her, or hate her, or what. Reese’s character is a nobody that Aniston plucks out of nowhere and makes her co anchor of a national morning news show, with no anchor experience. She was doing features at a small town tv station. Every character is written like they’re pissed off 24-7. I don’t fault the actors as much as the writing. It is ludicrous. Carell’s character actually said these words: “I am not going to apologize for being attracted to Black women. I remember when that was thought to be progressive”.
Carell’s character actually said these words: “I am not going to
apologize for being attracted to Black women. I remember when that was
thought to be progressive”. LMFAO this sounds like it came from Michael Scott/The Office.
In the first episode he’s accused of sexual harassment/assault etc., he’s at home when it breaks on tv, he takes a golf club and beats the sh** out of the flat screen on the wall. All I could think of was this:
Nicole Kidman is always in the uncanny valley because she has had just a simply distracting amount of plastic surgery.
I swear I saw a pic of Cate Blanchett done up like Lucy, and looked more like her than Nicole.
Thanks for the tribute to Walk Hard which is the only biopic I have ever enjoyed.
Walk Hard has ruined every other biopic for me. Seeing Bohemian Rhapsody play every biopic cliche straight completely fell flat because Walk Hard had mocked them all a decade earlier.
– It sure is great being here at Live Aid, isn’t it, Freddie Mercury?
– Sure is, Elton John!
Walk Hard is exactly what I thought of when Kidman said “I’m Lucille Ball. When I’m being funny you’ll know it.”
Waaaaaaaah!!(Heart-shaped iris wipe.)
“You hit her pretty hard there, Rick.”
Aaron Sorkin returns to his Studio 60 roots
That was 2005. Sorkin has been working and successful for like 20 years.*points at spot on tree trunk 20ft off the ground* Look at those roots!
Damn, Ricky looks old.
She looks like a mannequin. That’s not a compliment.
Like Al Bundy, the movie I’d pay to see is “Mertz’s World,” with William Frawley.
Producing a comedy show with all the self-importance of signing the
Declaration of Independence rarely makes for compelling narratives. Or good comedy.
There have been tons of good bio pics where the actors bore little to no resemblance to the people they were portraying.That said, the massive age gap between the actors and the age of the characters at the time is hugely distracting and creepy.
try not to get too distracted by how weird everyone looks. Distracted? Who’s…distracted – ?
Honestly I’d have preferred FEUD: WILLIAM FRAWLEY & VIVIAN VANCE. Just iconic actors & professionals with a friendly dislike for each other trading witty insults all day.
I’m still blaming all of this on Tom Cruise.
Oh good, I always wondered what Lucille Ball would sound like if she was only doing the bare minimum to mask her Australian accent
Eh, they got the wrong redhead to play Lucy.And Our Lady of Gillian can also do a rather fun Marilyn too…(She was, for me, the best thing about American Gods…)
“Neither look particularly like their subjects, which wouldn’t be a problem if the production weren’t trying so hard to convince us that they do.”- Or, other staff of the AV Club who went out of their way in the initial teaser report to suggest that Nicole Kidman looked exactly like Ball. It’s ridiculous and hilarious but I love it.
Hon, it’s “peeking out from…makeup,” not “peaking.” Peaks are on mountains. Nice image, though.
Lucy Arnaz (Lucille and Desi’s daughter) recently posted a quick review on YT and raved about the performance, production value and its “authenticity”. It is a “snapshot” into a particular moment of their lives and not a “BioPic”. The one thing she emphasizes is that Kidman and Bardem are not doing impersonations.
Seeing as how Nicole Kidman is a living person, rather than an object or animated/virtual character, the term “uncanny valley” is being used incorrectly.
Unless she IS a robot, which she might be because she just continues to look incredible.
Featuring J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda.Even if this was all the show had going for it, I’m in.
I’m deeply offended that Aaron “Hitler” Sorkin chose to cast an Australian to play a citizen of the United States of America!