WAR OF THE WORLDS

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) Not what you might call a great movie.  My expectations entering the theater were extremely high and my anticipation was nearly insatiable. My trepidation was equally inconsolable. I felt really nervous for the success of this picture. After suffering a string of less than sterling movies over the past three years ranging from unmitigated failures of Cat in the Hat (2003) to Hide and Seek (2005), I felt desperate. Dakota really needed this movie. I knew that Dakota had done her best, but I felt she was being sabotaged at every twist and turn by idiot directors, producers, and worst of all co-stars. Case in point: Tom Cruise’s crazy romantic antics coupled with his spooky Scientology hokum. I felt that Tom had done the promotion of WOTW a huge disservice by creating a spectacle that shifted the focus of media away from the movie and on to Tom Cruise jumping on the couch.

     Dakota herself has never failed to deliver; she always managed to elevate what ever project she is attached to from what amounts to mediocre hack, to something special. I don’t think the poor girl knows she is surrounded by idiots. However it is enough to say that a couple of Dak’s past movies have missed the mark. I felt this WOTW was a make or break affair. If WOTW tanked, well . . . I wasn’t really prepared to contemplate failure.

     This is a movie doesn’t fool around, after a brief introduction to Ray the worlds shortest Newark dock worker, dead-beat-dad with the automobile engine in his living room. The action starts. Dakota is absolutely adorable on her arrival with her little zebra backpack and toy horsies. The visibly real-life pregnant Miranda Otto does well establishing the good and caring mom vs. the motor-head New Jersey Dad. Then the lightning comes and it is truly terrifying. At first amused by the spectacle, Ray beckons Rachel outdoors to view the unnatural phenomenon. Dakota delivers a chilling understated line: “I want to go inside.” She is convincing as a girl who wants to be with her dad but instantly recognizes that this is scary stuff. The lightning it turns out is only a precursor to further death and destruction as a massive electro-magnetic pulse renders (most) electronic devices useless.

     The Martians are truly terrifying, with their monstrous walking-machines, flailing tentacles and fog-horn calls of destruction that seem oddly mono-syllabically reminiscent of the five-note melody of universal harmony from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Instead this time the sound is malevolent: “I am going to kill you.”
      So what about Dakota? Dakota is absolutely superb. Who can resist a girl covered in mud? She doesn’t have a lot of time in the opening moments to establish character but she does the most with what precious few seconds she has. When she orders humus from the health food store or when initially she balks at getting into a strange car I could hear echoes of her suburban perfect I’ve-finally-married-up mother: “Whose car is this? Whose car is this?”
     Dakota manages to covey terror so convincingly it’s almost painful to watch. The sheer terror and confusion created when Ray tells her to wait by a tree while he goes to confront her brother. The kindly misguide couple who try so hard to abduct her for her own well being and half-realizing that he’s loosing his daughter but absolutely certain that he will loose his son. The total terror of Ray knowing that he can’t save both children at the same time and having to choose who to save. This is one of the movies most powerful scenes. Then there are the quiet scenes of terror when Dak wipes the spider from her face. The quiet, sweaty close-ups of her with a blindfold, while she knows full well her dad is going to kill the strange man who is up to this point has been their benefactor. Soon enough Dak is confronted with the hideous mechanical eye of the alien and she emits what has to be a modern classic movie scream to rival Janet Leigh in the shower. So good, infact she was ask to re-inact it on the TODAY show!
     I don’t have nearly as many problems with the ending as many of the movie critics to review this movie before me. I really can’t say that I liked the ending or it was satisfying in the same way that the last line of MASTER AND COMMANDER was perfect: “After all Steven, it is a flightless bird . . .”  I really can’t say I hated the ending. It was pretty much the way the book ended and the 1953 movie ended. The Martians die of the flu. It could have been more poignant, I think I might have like it to be a little bit more pan-dramatic, and as this was WAR OF THE WORLDS. Instead, Steven Spielberg chose to keep it intimate, one family’s reunion. Sure it was sappy, but I don’t go to the movies to leave feeling bad.

  

     H.G. Wells, an Englishman, a founding father of modern science fiction writing was considered in his day a left-wing radical who wrote his 1898 novel of Martian invasion as an indictment of English imperialism. Ironically, Orson Wells chose to update this theme for his 1938 audience as a warning of the coming of Nazis. Again in the 1953 movie, the bad guys were harbingers of the Russians and the Cold War. Spielberg has followed his predecessors and once again updated this theme when Dakota ask: “Is it the terrorist?”


WAR OF THE WORLDS  (2005) ** ½

UPTOWN GIRLS

UPTOWN GIRLS (2003) It doesn’t seem possible that eight years have gone by since Dakota made this movie. Uptown Girls was the first movie Dakota made after becoming what you might call a bona fide movie star. It was the first movie she made that I waited for in anticipation, stood in line, and bought my ticket solely on the basis that it was a “Dakota Fanning movie.”
     My road to Dakota Fanning “fandom” was one fraught with happenstance, luck and fate. I saw my very first Dakota Fanning movie quite by accident, sometime in 2001. These were the days before Netflix and DVDs, on the weekends I would walk up to the local video store and rent a movie. By chance I picked up I am Sam (2001), a movie I rented on the basis of the strength of the two stars Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer. A story about a retarded man and his struggle to retain custody of his six-year-old daughter. I remember enjoying the movie, at the time I distinctly remember thinking to myself, How absolutely utterly adorable the little Blonde girl was who played Lucy. Cute little girls come and go and I simply can not be preoccupied with every cute little girl that ever graced the screen. Needless to say this particular cute little girl was quickly forgotten. As was my custom back then, I lent the movie to my mother.    

     I never gave the movie or that little girl a second thought.  All that changed in the fall of 2002 when a  then fledgling Sci-Fi channel presented an original mini-series Taken, produced by Stephen Spielburg, something about alien abduction. I took no notice and didn’t even watch it.  That was until Mother said to me, “Have you been watching Taken?” I said no.  Mom said to me, “I think you should, you’ll like it,  I think you might be pleasantly surprised . . .” I didn’t know it at the time, but Mom wasn’t talking about the movie.  It must be the “Norman Bates” in me, but I set my VCR and dutifully recorded Taken and settled in to watch the movie. I was immediately captivated. Not just by the intriguing science fiction tale which was excellent, but what really caught my attention was the narration. There was this voice, a lilting sing-song Southern voice. It was the voice of a child, a voice that was familiar. At first I was baffled and the Sci-Fi network did nothing to untangle my intrigue. I had heard this voice before of that much I was convinced. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I was so suddenly drawn into the narrative of this story by this unseen narrator. It wasn’t until episode seven, "Dropping the dishes,"  that I suddenly had a face to put to that voice. Remember the adorable little blonde girl from I am Sam?  It was of course Dakota Fanning, and I was at once completely captivated. Here was an eight-year-old girl who totally carried this made-for-TV movie. This was a fresh face, a new talent as sassy and precocious as Tatum O’Neal or Jodie Foster . . . I had waited twenty-five years to discover such a girl!  So believe me when I say,  I don’t make such comparisons lightly.
     Uptown girls, directed by Boaz Yakins, from a script by Allison Jacobs. Stars Brittany Murphy as Molly Gunn, the feckless freewheeling daughter of a deceased rock legend, who is forced to get a job after her manager steals all her money. Molly takes a job as nanny for precocious enfant terrible Ray (Dakota Fanning), the oft ignored daughter of a music executive. Molly inadvertently learns what it means to be an adult while teaching Ray how to be a child.

     Dakota was just nine-years-old back then and she reminds us of why we love her so much. She is super cute, with baby teeth intact. Precocious to a fault, a 29-year-old woman in the body of a nine-year-old. Dakota is a funny girl, a natural comic with a “rubber face,” and impeccable timing. She excels at the art of the dead-pan delivery, “Swinging door” was perhaps the funniest line in the whole movie. I wish Dakota made more comedies, she could easily be the next Lucille Ball.


Uptown Girls (2003) ** ½

WALKABOUT, 40 years later

WALKABOUT (1971)─Two young children, a boy (Luc Roeg) and a teen-age schoolgirl (Jenny Augutter) are stranded in the Australian outback.  Their father drives them far into the desert, where they stop for what they expect to be an idyllic  family picnic. Suddenly, without warning, their father begins shooting at them. When the two children run for cover, he sets the car on fire and kills himself. The boy and the girl are now completely lost and alone.

 

      By dawn the next day, both children are weak from exposure. Discovering a small pool with a fruit tree, the boy and the girl unashamed, take off their clothes and spend the next few hours blissfully  playing and bathing naked. Next morning, the pool has dried up, just as they are about to despair, they meet an Aboriginal boy on "walkabout," a ritualistic journey where he must leave his tribe, live off the land, and prove his manhood. The young Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) and the girl cannot communicate, but across the void they make a connection, a universal understanding of humanity.  With the Aboriginal boy as their guide, the two white children learn how to survive in the outback.

 

      The three children travel together for several days, with the Aborigine boy sharing food he has caught hunting. Together they learn to communicate using words and gestures. These characters have no names, yet in their anonymity, they represent us.  At one point the Aboriginal boy and the girl notice each other’s naked bodies, there is a definite spark of chemistry between them that transcends the 40,000 years of primordial human existence that separates a common English Schoolgirl and the black Aboriginal boy. The girl is naked and the boy watches as she swims in a deep pool.

 

      Walkabout is about many things, but is known for principally only one thing: Jenny Augutter’s nude scenes. Jenny Augutter was just 16 years-old at the time of principal photography was for Walkabout. I think there is something  missing in the discussion when we consider the morality of the depiction of a young girl's naked body. The the film is about the natural world, being naked is a natural state. The two children are dying, dehydrated, the water in the pool represents life. The scene represents the most honest reaction in the world, to take off ones clothes and immerse oneself in the life giving water. A brother and sister naked together?  I for one don't have a problem with that. First of all the human body is beautiful, and secondly lets be upfront and honest, Jenny Augutter is one beautiful girl! The overall undertones of child pornography are nothing more than the egregious western prudery.

 

     Although this is a sound film, and the characters talk to one another, this film has no real meaningful dialogue, it is a purely visual film, yet it speaks volumes.  Director Nicolas Roeg’s (“Don't Look Now”) cinematographic skills are clearly on display, he has a special admiration for the sweeping vistas of Australia’s awesome scenic landscape as well as the sensuality of Jenny Augutter naked body.  The whole effect is embellished by John Barry’s sublimely magical score. This is perhaps the most naked movie ever filmed without a hint of sexuality.

     
Walkabout *** ½

VIOLETTE NOZIERE

VIOLETTE NOZIÈRE (1978)─Is a French crime film directed by Claude Chabrol adapted for the screen from a novel by Jean-Marie Fitère and starring Isabelle Huppert. The film, is based on a true French murder case in 1934, Violette Nozière is a fourteen-year-old French school girl who secretly works as a prostitute while living with her unsuspecting parents. 

     Rebelling against her mean spirited and petty petit-bourgeois parents, her father Baptiste (Jean Carmet)  and mother Germaine (Stéphane Audran). Violette falls in love with a spendthrift young man Émile (Jean Dalmain).  Émile’s careless and wanton spending habits eventually cause Violette to hand over increasing amounts of money from her prostitution earnings soon she resorts to stealing from her parents to support her lover.

     After contracting syphilis from sex with multiple partners, Violette's double life is scandalously discovered.  She conspires to poison her parents ostensibly to get her hands on their money. She plies them with glasses of barbiturate-laced “medication,” which she claims has been prescribed to them by the family doctor; her father dies, her mother barely survives.

   Overnight, Violette’s  lurid act of “double parricide” became the most sensational crime of the French interwar era—At trial, her defense claimed her father raped her. All to no avail, the verdict of the court was guilty, the sentence, death by guillotine. Violette’s sentence is eventually commuted.

     The film was entered into the main competition at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, where Isabelle Huppert won the award for best actress.  VIOLETTE NOZIÈRE represents one of my great "lost" quest movies of the seventies.  Just twenty years-old in 1978, I found myself thoroughly  in awe of Isabelle Huppert's smoldering sexuality. Her Frenchness alone made her seem very exotic and the very fact that I had never seen Violette, elevated the film at least in my own mind to virtual mystical status. Hard to find, the film is now available on Netflix.

Violette Nozière *** ½     

PRETTY BABY, a retrospective

PRETTY BABY (1978)─Directed by Louis Malle from a screenplay by Polly Platt. The year was 1917, the year the United States entered World War I in the waning days of legal prostitution in the infamous red-light district of the Storyville section of New Orleans. Hattie (Susan Sarandon), a prostitute working in an elegant brothel run by the Madame Nell, has a twelve-year-old daughter Violet (Brooke Shields). Introverted photographer E.J. Bellocq (Keith Carradine) comes calling with his camera.
    Bellocq asks permission to take photographs of the women. Madame Nell agrees, but only if he pays. Peculiarly, Bellocq chooses only to takes pictures, he never has sex with any of the women.  His sole passion is photographing whores. His particular favourite subject is Hattie, as he photographs Hattie, we come to understand that the camera, the act of taking pictures has somehow become a surrogate extension of Bellocq's repressed sexuality. His strange demeanor and odd mannerisms fascinate Violet, whom he initially regards as a pest.
     The character of E.J. Bellocq is based on a real photographer who captured on glass plates of silver nitrate the real prostitutes of Storyville. Though the specific story built around him in the movie is fictional. The real Bellocq photographs are used to create a sense of the time and place and evoke the movie with authenticity.
     Over the next few months, Nell decides that Violet is now old enough for her virginity to be auctioned. At the auction Violet is bought by an apparently quiet customer, but her first experience of sex is brutal. Hattie, meanwhile, aspires to escape prostitution. She marries, and abandons Violet, leaving her daughter behind to face a life of prostitution. Bellocq continues to spend time with Violet, entranced by her beauty, and photogenic face. When the brothel closes, Bellocq marries Violet, ostensibly to protect her from a dangerous world; however there are some who question his motives.
     At the beginning of this film, there's a tight shot on Violet’s strikingly beautiful face. She appears to be watching something with great interest and we hear a woman moaning off camera. Since Pretty Baby is a movie about prostitution, one might naturally assume that the child is watching some sexual act. Actually, it’s just the opposite; as the moans turn to cries of pain. We realize with a wink and a nod that Director Louis Malle has tricked us. We see that it’s not a woman in the throws of ecstasy but rather a woman in labor, and that Violet is witnessing her baby brother being born.

     Pretty Baby is famous for one thing and one thing only: twelve year-old Brooke Shields get'n nekid. Brooke has four separate nude scenes, including one scandalous scene where she is seen completely naked lying in repose on a couch, while Bellocq takes her photograph. Apparently child nudity, any child nudity has been deemed too much for our modern American twenty-first century sensibilities.  If you view the new politically corrected  DVD version of Pretty Baby, be forewarned, the movie has been censored by re-framing the original scenes. This was done to avoid any naughty shots of Brooke’s pubic area or her baby buttocks.  If you want to see the original theatrical movie as shot, cut by Malle, you need to find  a VHS version.
     On the other hand, if all you want is to see nekid pictures of  Brooke Shields, the nudity in Pretty Baby is pretty tame by comparison to the Gary Gross photo shoot.  Two years earlier, before the hue and cry over Pretty Baby, Teri Shields, the consummate stage-mother allowed her then ten-year-old Brooke  to pose for photographer Gary Gross WARNING THESE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE EXPLICIT.  Brooke Shields by Gary Gross.  *Whew* Brooke poses completely nude in  a bath tub,  we’re not talking baby’s first bath pictures here. Brooke is posed, tarted up, oiled down, in all her full frontal prepubescent glory. No higher authority than the U.S. Supreme court ruled these pictures "art" and not child pornography.  Art or not, they are way too controversial to post on this blog.  Pretty Baby remains a testament to the fact that the 70’s were a vastly more liberated time, at least when it comes to issues of a naked child's sexuality. No American studio could (or would) make this film today.

Pretty Baby (1978)  ** ½

Prom picks with Dakota Fanning

     A prom isn’t the same without the perfect prom dress, as anyone knows who’s ever been horrified at past prom Polaroids or watched “Pretty in Pink.” Dakota Fanning wore a blush Hervé Léger mini to her prom at Los Angeles area private school Campbell Hall. And she sifted through four racks stuffed with 100 BCBG Max Azria dresses at Children’s Hospital of Orange County to help 35 teenage cancer patients and survivors pick their favorites for the hospital’s annual prom.

     “Do you want a long one? Do you want a short one? Do you want color?,” asked Fanning of the girls, who were treated to jewelry from Forever 21, and makeup and hair consultations from Stila and Frederic Fekkai as well as the BCBG dresses.

     After trying on three dresses, 17-year-old Danielle Knowlton chose a short black cocktail number. Emily Justiniano, 15, rejected nine dresses on the way to settling on a long, tiered silvery blue dress.

     “I got to meet Dakota Fanning, and she is so cool,” beamed Justiniano, while getting makeup tips on eyeliner application from a Stila makeup artist. “She is so much like a regular person.”

     Up next on the regular person agenda for Fanning is graduating high school and heading to college in the fall with plans to study psychology. Less regular is Fanning’s summer job working in London on the upcoming movie “Now is Good” in which she plays a leukemia sufferer. After “Now is Good,” Fanning, who won’t take a hiatus from acting for college, starts shooting another movie in New York in September. “The school is allowing me to be flexible. I don’t want to stop working for four years,” said Fanning, who also will be seen in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” next year.

by Rachel Brown

posted 05.27.11

on wwd.com

Dakota is a "VERY GOOD GIRL."



Dakota Fanning is in talks to star opposite Elizabeth Olsen (infamous little sister of the titular Mary-Kate & Ashley) in Naomi Foner's  “Very Good Girls.” The rest of the cast is no less stellar and includes the talents of  Peter Sarsgaard, Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek.


     Written and directed by Naomi Foner (Loosing Isaiah),the storyline revealed thus far: “Very Good Girls” follows two teenage girls through the New York City summer after they graduate from high school and decide to lose their virginity. When they both fall for the same charismatic street artist, their friendship is tested and they have to find their way through a tangle of lies and complicated intentions to discover what real love is.  Producers Gale Anne Hurd and Hawk Koch head production; filming is expected to start in September.

     Excuse me, am I missing something here?  Haven't we seen this all before?  I may be a bit old fashioned, behind the times, but it seems to me that a race to loose one's virginity doesn't  rank as one of life's most decorous,  unachievable, not to mention exemplary behaviors . . . I think the word we're looking for here is SLUT. 

     "Get off the table Mable, that money is for the waitress!"  I may be having a Déjà vu moment, but it seems like  we've seen this all before from from the pure at heart, Barnaby and Cornelius . . .  ♫ Out there, there's a world outside of Yonkers . . . ♫  in HELLO DOLLY to the raunchy and debased PORKY and dishonorable mention AMERICAN PIE. Who can forget the unfortunate pairing of Kristy McNichols and Tatum O'Neal in LITTLE DARLINGS, that vacant vapid vacuous 80's summer camp movie, in a race to loose their own virginity.  Yeah, been there, done that.
 

     I for one remain very disappointed in Dakota and her management, that she is unable to find any better material than this.  Saorise Rohan at least got herself cast as an Elf  maiden in "The Hobbit." I might be a little old fashioned, but the last time I checked, getting your cherry popped doesn't exactly rank up there with the achievement of discovering plutonium.

 

Dakota you could do so much better.

HANNA

Sunday

April 10, 2011

HANNA (2011) Okay, let’s be upfront about this, get our cards on the table. I’m a huge fan of girls with guns, I can’t help myself; I just love 'em!  Whether it's the Japanese graphic novel Gunslinger Girls, Natalie Portman in The Professional, or a gun toting Dakota Fanning in Push.  Most recently we were treated to the titular pint-sized foul mouth assassin Chloe Moretz in Kick Ass.  I think it’s safe to say that Hanna will join the pantheon of my favorite tough-girl films.

     Saorise Rohan is Hanna a 16-year-old girl raised in the wild arctic tundra of Finland by her "father" (Eric Bana) an ex-CIA agent.  Trained to be the perfect assassin, young Hanna is sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna cuts a swath of dead bodies across Europe all the while eluding agents dispatched after her by a shadowy ruthless intelligence operative with secrets of her own (Cate Blanchett).

      This is Bourne Supremacy meets the brother's Grimm fairy tales, an intense techno-action fable about a teenage girl groomed to be the ultimate assassin. The plot is confusing at times and not enough is explained which makes the whole chase sequences a lot less interesting. Even after the end of the film I still had questions as to the story and the reasons why things happened. There are some obvious plot holes, why does Eric Bana have a big red button, and why does Hanna feel compelled to push it?

     Some of the bad guys have a tendency to spend far more time brushing their teeth and cackling about how "evil" they are than they do developing character.  It seems the bad guys profess far more malevolent vengeance than the thin plot can justify. For her own part, Hanna is capable of bring down a bull moose with a bow and arrow, yet she is naive and sheltered, she's never seen an electric kettle or a ceiling fan, nonetheless, at one point in the film she effortless sits down to a computer and easily Goggles her way into solving the story’s central mystery. These kids now days . . . At this point I gave up trying to keep track of the plot and spent more time wondered, just what in the Sam Hill is going on here?   That’s not to say Hanna is not entertaining, there’s one pulse-pounding chase sequence through a maze of air shafts of a military installation . . . note to self, next time when designing impregnable underground military installation, do not install random unguarded manhole cover.  There is another pursuit through an impossible jumble of shipping containers, owing much of its excitement less to the compelling plot, and more to the pounding beat of the Chemical Bros. techno, trip-hop electronic soundtrack.

     Joe Wright (Atonement) makes very good character-driven movies that are often visually stunning.  This movie is interesting in the way it was filmed. There are parts which seem more like a music video, and then other moments that are sensitive and unexpected. 
      More than a few people have devoted far more time than they should to conjuring up or otherwise fabricating a non-existent rivalry between Dakota Fanning and Saorise Rohan.  I for one don't see the connection, what is clear to me is why Joe Wright chose to work with Rohan again.  Rohan is an absolute star!  This girl has a face the camera loves, with stunning blue eyes and a smattering of girlish freckles,  Saorise is beautiful in that "girl-next-door" sort of way——she possesses a charisma and worldly-wise magnetism that transcends her scant sixteen years.

HANNA (2011) **1/2

"Oh Lola" Oh Dakota!

Sunday

27 March 2011

 

DAKOTA FANNING'S modeling career appears to be on the fast track. Dakota is to be the new cover girl for Marc Jacobs’ new fragrance “Oh Lola.” The campaign was shot by Juergen Teller, who as you may recall is the photographer who shot Fanning’s first campaign for Marc Jacobs back in 2007 when Dak was 13.

     Dakota is beautiful; the photos are however more than a little bit provocative. Fanning is older now, she turned 17 in February, so I guess that's to be expected.  Still one has to question who made the decison to have her pose with a perfume bottle stuck in her crotch. What were they thinking?

On Dakota being naked, redux

Saturday

12 March 2011

ON FEBRUARY 9th, 2007 I wrote an essay titled On Dakota Being Naked. This has proved to be my most popular article on this blog, receiving on average of fifty page requests per day. I stand behind this article and do not retract a single word written—However, it does trouble me that in lieu of the numerous other enlighten articles to appear on this blog—that the apparent prurient nature of this single essay  attracts so much attention.

     It was never my intent to be salacious or provocative. You should understand, this article was written in the days before the movie HOUNDDOG was even released. A great deal of the information was based on a news release by BLUE LINE RADIO based on purported script excerpts from Deborah Kampmeier’s original script. Much of the most inflammatory and licentious aspects of the script never made it to film, viz. The up skirt shots of a then nine-year-old Isabel Fuhrman ORPHAN (2009). Lewellen forces Buddy and Grasshopper to strip naked and she ties them together forcing them to touch each other. A scene where Lewellen stands in front of the full length mirror takes her clothes off and looks at herself naked in the mirror. Daddy sneaks into Lewellen’s bedroom as Lewellen lays in bed in her underpants. Later on he climbs in her bed nude. Daddy wants Lewellen to sit in his lap, Lewellen asks why and he smiles and says because it “feels so good.” None of these scenes ever happened, and if they were in a draft of the script, they never made it on screen.

     In the context of February 2007 we were faced with the very real prospect that  "Fern,"  our fresh faced pig-tailed Fern of CHARLOTTE’S WEB (2006), was about to take off her clothes in front of the camera. That Dakota Fanning, the most prolific and influential young actress of her generation was on the cusp of doing a nude scene. For the record, Dakota NEVER appears nude; Dakota does however spend a considerable amount of screen time, cavorting about in her underwear.  Go figure.

     So where does that leave us?  No where really, underage girls have appeared naked in American film before.  Keira Kightley was sixteen when she took off her top and exposed her boobies in THE HOLE (2001).  Brooke Shields, although no where near as famous as Dakota at the time, does appear nude, lying in repose, on a couch in Louis Malle’s PRETTY BABY (1978).  Jenny Agutter who was a little bit older, but decidedly under age when she appeared nude in Nicolas Roeg’s WALKABOUT (1971). I don’t see anything wrong with the decision by Jenny to appear nude in this film. Jenny was beautiful, the film was poignant and the nudity was crucial to the story.
 

     The first amendment absolutely protects the depiction of a child nudity on the screen. Even full frontal nudity, is protected as long as the child is not depicted in a salacious or overtly sexualized situation. I think the biggest misconception in the public mind is that child nudity, even full frontal nudity is somehow analogous to child porn. I don't think its so much the actual depiction of  a naked child on screen that upset the public, African children appear naked on National Geographic, on Discovery channel all the time without any discernible outrage. No, I think it's more the idea of a famous child appearing nude, that's what really got the public's knickers in a twist! In February of 2007 we suffered credible reporting that Dakota Fanning was prepared to do a nude scene. This absolutely did not happen, and I apologize to my readers for even the appearance of purporting, perpetuating, or otherwise propagating this rumor as it is patently untrue.
 

 

      Our Dakota is no longer a child, she is a young woman, when I recall the tight little black dress Dakota famously wore on the Tonight Show, I get the distinct impression that  Miss Fanning isn't what you might call a particularly shy girl,  (she knows she looks good), she defiantly doesn't mind us "looking." Dakota turned seventeen last month, whether  or not Miss Fanning chooses to take off her clothes on screen anytime soon is entirely her choice. 

DAKOTA FANNING GONE "WILD"

Sunday

February 20, 2011

DAKOTA FANNING has gone wild, “Mississippi Wild,” that is. The sixteen-year-old actress will play the girlfriend of a teen Ryan Donowho (The O.C.) together the pair go on the lam after Donowho’s character steals some jewelry belonging to a local gangster.

     The rest of the cast is rumored to include some serious Hollywood heavy weights; Mickey Rourke is slated to play the gangster while Forest Whittacker has reportedly been approached to take on the role of a rival gangster who is chasing after Rourke’s character. Robert Duvall has also signed on in an unspecified role at the moment. Bager will direct the movie from a script he has written while Shannon Makhanian and Ryan Johnson produce with Todd Slater set to executive produce.

     “Mississippi Wild” is scheduled to begin shooting on March 21 in Atlanta, with a release date sometime in 2012.

Dakota goes royal in "GIRL'S NIGHT OUT"

Dakota Fanning is attached to Michael Hoffman’s project “Girl’s Night Out” a romantic fairytale, from a script by Trevor De Silva. Dakota will play teenage Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's sister, who is allowed out from Buckingham Palace for one night to join in the celebrations. Alongside her yet-to-be-cast sister Elizabeth, the two teenagers  have an adventurous night on the town. Inspired by real-life events, Girl’s Night Out will be filmed later this year, Variety reports. Set against the backdrop of V.E. Day in 1945, the story concerns a weekend in which the two royal siblings were allowed out of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the end of the Second World War alongside the rest of the country.

     The director is Michael Hoffman, who filmed 2009 Tolstoy biopic The Last Station and recently unveiled Gambit, a crime caper remake written by the Coen brothers due to arrive next year.

     Fanning continues to be  one of the most prolific actresses of her generation; she most recently starred in The Runaways and Push, and she can be seen in the upcoming two-part finale of The Twilight Saga. Over the years it has been our privilege to watch Miss Fanning grow-up from a child starlet to a promising teenage actress, due to celebrate her 17th birthday this month. Few child actors are able to sucessfully transition from their adorable stage and blossom into mature talents—but our Miss Fanning seems to be the rare exception. Dakota is on a fast track to take her rightful place as one of Hollywood’s most beautiful and talented leading ladies.

W Magazine loves Dakota!

Friday

January 14, 2011

Dakota Fanning is featured in W magazine’s February “movie issue” issue along with other A-listers like Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.  Our Dak is still on top with her "A" game, and has a sweet photo shoot to prove it.

     Perhaps the most remarkable moments in film this past 2010 film season weren’t the loud in-your-face 3-D crash and burn action sequences that seem to proliferate the movies; but rather the more underrated  subtle performances like Dakota Fanning and her brilliant portrayal of Cherie Curie, the little girl lost in the 70’s biopic The Runaways.  The Runaways came, went, and never even opened in my home town. Almost nobody saw Dakota in this movie, well they should.

     

    "It was important for me to go to a normal high school. I have a locker, which was a big deal. My mom had to buy me a lock and teach me how to use it. It’s the little things: Where do you go at lunch? How do you open the locker? I wanted a yearbook! Now I have a lot of signatures in my yearbook—‘Have a good summer’ and all that."

—Dakota Fanning

Does anyone else think the W picture of Dakota owes its photographic composition and artistic lineage to that classic Jodie Foster pic from Taxi Driver?  The hat, the curly hair, the juxtaposition between the caryatid columns of neon signs. Perhaps any homage, real or imagined is all in my head—but its always seemed to me that Dakota and Jodie share this weird ethereal parallel karma. Whatdoyou'all think, just wondering . . .

LAWN DOGS

LAWN DOGS (1997) Here’s a little undiscovered gem, a bone for you’all to chew on while we wait for Dakota Fanning to make up her mind—Let’s rewind fourteen years to 1997 and imagine the O.C.'s Mischa Barton as cute a ten-year-old.
    Newly arrived in an up-scale housing development, quiet ten-year-old Devon  Stockard (Barton) doesn't quite fit in. Ignoring the urgings of her social-climbing father, Devon chooses the company of Trent (Sam Rockwell), a young man who makes his living mowing lawns, rather than  the "camp fire" girls her own age. The friendship between Devon and Trent continues  to blossom until  one night she unexpected  visits his trailer home.  Although their relationship is a completely innocent, it is obvious that such a relationship between an adult man and a little girl is open for misinterpretation.  
     Lawn Dogs is one of the best treatises on innocence and platonic relationships ever filmed. Trent is an honest hardworking noble fellow, he likes Devon but only in the purest “little sister” platonic way. Devon likes Trent, it remains clear from the onset that she is the instigator, but it’s a innocent little girl crush and nothing in the way of anything sexual ever develops between them. Yet appearances are everything, and appearances threaten to tear the relationship apart. This is a sad tale of unrequited platonic love.
 

     There is a genuine friendship here between an adult man and this little girl. Even when the girl takes off her shirt and shows Trent her scar from open heart surgery, he is uncomfortable; he has great hesitation even looking at her, and when he finally does touch her, its clear that its a loving compassionate touch. Devon for her part isn’t baiting him or tempting him by flouting her naked chest.  She's honest and sincere and her motives are pure. She never tries to kiss him or be romantic with him. Devon sees Trent as a real friend, someone she can trust. She shows him her scar, to prove that she has "scars" too.  Its a tender moment, there is only friendship between them.

     This movie is full of uncompromising images. There is the scene where young Devon climbs onto the roof, tosses her nightgown into the wind and stands naked on the roof top, she howls like a wolf. One could draw all kinds of Freudian symbolism from this scene. I just found it a visceral experience, an act of rebellion; a protest against her parent’s skewed values and the confines of life in a gated-community. Devon’s naked roof top spectacle was meant as a public exhibition of her own “imperfections.” Meaning, that Devon was to all outward appearances is a perfect little girl, yet she was scared, damaged goods from her heart surgery, an imperfection her parents want to desperately conceal, yet Devon felt was an intrinsic part of who she was, not something to be shuttered away, but literally shouted from the roof tops.

LAWN DOGS (1997) *** 

HANNA, first look

Dakota Fanning  has signed with prestigious  IMG modeling agency, you can view her portfolio here  IMG Agency, DAKOTA F. In other Dakota news it appears our favorite actress has dropped out of the supernatural drama "If I Stay."  Sources close to the actress said Fanning has opted not make that movie, which leaves Fanning without a major leading role. Representative for the star confirmed actress’ desire to finish her senior year of high school and enroll in NYU in the fall. Fanning is still on track to shoot the two The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn films (in which she plays Jane, a role that brings a decidedly less demanding workload). It appears Fanning is following the Jodie Foster, education first model. Fanning’s stock remains high with producers who say they are attracted to her mix of vulnerability and maturity, qualities she aptly demonstrated in last years biopic The Runaways.   What all this means is, that with the exception of a few magazine covers, some token two-minute appearances in Twilight, and maybe the promise of an indie quickie, that pretty much leaves this blog without a leading lady.

     We will have to look elsewhere, which brings us to the subject of this post, the action espionage thriller Hanna. I saw the trailer in the theater and was immediately impressed.  If it could be said that  Dakota Fanning has anything resembling a rival—the only actress out there who can hold a candle to Dakota would have to be Irish born Saorise Ronan (The Lovely Bones).  This girl is so talented, so natural it’s almost scary!  So I’m sitting in the movie theater and this trailer begins, it’s obviously a young girl lost in a frozen arctic wasteland, all dressed in animal skins like some kind of white-girl Inuit.  This piqued my interest, but it just kept getting better, turns out this girl kicks ass!  Saorise is such a chameleon actress that I didn’t even recognize her at first.
 

     THE PLOT: Hanna (Ronan) is a fourteen-year-old girl, who possesses the strength, the stamina, and the smarts of a solider; these qualities come from being raised by her father (Bana), an ex-CIA man, in the wilds of Finland. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. The turning point in her adolescence is a sharp one; sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative with secrets of her own (Blanchett). As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence and unexpected questions about her humanity.

     Sounds cool! I love a story about a self-assured young girl who can kick-ass, and with the capable Ronan as the girl, this one promises to be significantly less cartoony than Chloe Moretz’s Hit girl. This is one movie we will defiantly be keeping our eye on. Hanna has an announced April release date.

      

JACKIE EVANCHO, voice of an angel

Friday
December 10, 2010

Jackie Evancho is a star.  All I can say is WOW! When I saw her for the first time, this little girl she absolutely blew me away—if you close your eyes, you might be fooled into thinking you were listening to voice of an adult woman, not even close, Jackie is all of ten-years-old and has poise and talent to spare.
     After Tatum O’Neal and Jodie Foster, lit up the screen in the seventies, I waited patiently for twenty-five years for Dakota Fanning to come on to the scene. The precocious little girl with the wispy blond hair and gravely sing-song southern voice, appeared first in I AM SAM and later in TAKEN.  I was not disappointed.  Since then, we've enjoyed a renaissance of sorts,  a mini-brat-pack if you will, consisting of Abigail Breslin, Anna Sophia Robb and Alison Stoner. All are very talented charming young women but none replaced Dakota. Alas, ever since Dakota Fanning hit sixteen, I’ve been in sort of a maudlin mood, watching and waiting for the next big thing. While I certainly don’t mean to imply that we are prepared to “jump ship” and hastily rename this blog Jackie Evancho: Viewpoint.  It's safe to say, Jackie has caught our interest.

     Little girls are by nature ephemeral creatures, it seems now we have Jackie as heir apparent, and I couldn’t be more pleased. This young lady is destined to become the next Charlotte Church or Sarah Brightman. Let me rephrase that, because I really hate comparisons, the way Dakota was always being compared to Jodie Foster, I found this annoying.  Jackie is a huge talent in her own right, she’s Jackie Evancho, and no comparisons are necessary. I am confident Jackie will develop her own style and bring her own uniqueness to the “classical crossover” of which she is already well on her way to mastering.

     Okay, let’s get this out of the way first and upfront. It goes without saying that Jackie didn’t win America’s Got Talent. This is a lame show with lame performers and looser judges who think themselves clever but if the truth be told don’t know their ass from a hole-in-the-ground. The proof is in the pudding, the one contestant who comes on the show that REALLY does have talent and what happens?  She looses, to whom? Michael Grimm, well the joke is on Mr. Grimm and the millions of people who voted for him. Grimm, isn't worth the powder to blow him up, and is destined for the dusbin of history. Michael Grimm who?  I’m sure in the moment young Jackie was disappointed, crushed, in hindsight; this represents not a loss but a blessing in disguise. Jackie is free to pursue her career unfettered by the constraints of any manipulative AGT contract. Her career is sure to soar!     
     Our Jackie on the onther hand gets to enjoy the last  laugh, her debut album O HOLY NIGHT has already gone platinum! Jackie performed for President Obama at Lincoln center for the lighting of the National Christmas tree. Let's listen to this wonderfully talented young girl. Yeah, Jackie!

PAPER MOON, a retrospective

Sunday
December 5, 2010

PAPER MOON (1973)—As P.T. Barnum put it, "There's a sucker born every minute."
     Paper Moon Directed by Peter Bogdonovich, from a screen play by Alvin Sargent  adapted from the novel, “Addie Pray” by Joe David Brown.  Paper Moon is the story of Moses Pray and eleven-year-old Addie Loggins, who may or may not be his daughter. Together the pair grift the back country of Missouri and Kansas under the guise of the “Kansas Bible Company”—selling bibles to unsuspecting widows, and short-changing dim witted five-and-dime clerks.
     Paper Moon is without a doubt one of the finest pieces of American cinema to grace the 70’s. Lazlo Kovacs' stunning black and white photography  gives the film a nostalgic beauty that perfectly complements the Depression-era it attempts to recreate. The film’s sound track only reinforces the movie’s charm, with the wonderful opening title track; It’s only a Paper Moon setting the stage for the drama . . . Peter Bogdonovich once consulted with no less than Orson Wells, as to whether to call the movie Addie Pray or Paper Moon. To which Wells replied, “That title is so good, you shouldn't even make the picture, you should just release the title!”
     The soundtrack is a marvelous nostalgic cavalcade of vintage recordings like, "Keep your Sunnyside up" and "Let's have another cup of coffee." Madeline Kahn is hysterically funny as Miss Trixie Delight, and Ryan O’Neal gives one of the best performances of his career.

    And her name is Tatum O’Neal; Tatum is just cool.  Tatum so completely steals this movie and I’m not just talking about the quality of her acting, there's just something about her, when she's sitting in bed, clad in a white cotton singlet smoking a cigarette, the camera is in love with her.  We are in love with her. From the second Tatum comes on screen, this little girl who swears and smokes and runs cons with a man who may or may not be her daddy made a powerful impression on me. I think it is safe to say that Tatum O’Neal, for better or worse changed me.  The year was 1973, at fifteen years-old, I was young and impressionable. I was smitten.

     It’s Tatum who gets the best lines (and best close-ups), in one of the film’s classic sequences, Addie confronts Moze at the county fair . . .

ADDIE

I had my photo took Moze!

MOZE

You did, huh? Ain’t that fine.

ADDIE

Moze, can you come have your photo took with me?

MOZE

Can’t right now sweetheart.

ADDIE

Only take a minute.

MOZE

Not now, you hear me? And stop standing around here checking on me . . . you don’t have to worry. I ain’t about to leave some poor little child stranded in the middle of nowhere. I got scruples you know. You know what that is, “scruples?”

ADDIE

No, I don’t know what it is, but if you got them, I sure bet they belong to somebody else.

Paper Moon (1973) ****