I’m No Mathematician, But…
Is anyone else a little boggled by the choice of actors in this new “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” movie? The titular characters are played by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, ages 42 and 27, respectively. The siblings are supposed to be close in age, yet are portrayed by actors 15 years apart in age. And they look 15 years apart in age! It’s not like Renner is baby-faced and Arterton looks much older. Sigh… just more Hollywood being Hollywood, I suppose. It would be nice, for a change, to see 30+ actresses treated as something other than old hags.
I’m kind of one, and I was puzzled by Moneyball. It’s set in 2002, when Miguel Tejada was 28. He was played by a 41-year-old Royce Clayton.Report
Was Tejada 28 in ’02? Or “28”? Plus he always looked older. But, yea, Hollywood’s casting decisions are screwy, at best. Though offensive is probably more apt.Report
No one ever signed Clayton for offense.Report
The blood stain on the sock in the Thorne claimed the fake stain was on the sock Schilling wore diurng Game 6 of the ALCS. The Hall of Fame sock is from World Series Game 2. It is now a brown color consistent with the color of dried blood on a white medium. (pix and analysis available on ). For Thorne not to be utterly full of crap, Schill would have faked the stain the first time but knew ahead of time that he wouldn’t need to fake the stain diurng the World Series because he knew he really was going to bleed. Ergo, Thorne is utterly full of crap.Report
But where does the grassy knoll fit in?Report
It was a surprise to me to learn just now that Renner was over 40, probably because he’s a relative newcomer as a big(ish) star.
He *does* look a bit young for his age; I mean, he doesn’t look like this guy http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/01/westover_man_arrested_for_cutt.htmlReport
Every now and then, someone hits it big later in life and even more against the odds in Hollywood.
Gene Hackman was voted “least likely to succeed” in his acting class (along with Dustin Hoffman) and this was true until he was in his late-30s. He was working as a doorman for a long time before he began getting cast.Report
It would be nice, for a change, to see 30+ actresses treated as something other than old hags.
It would be nice. But I discovered that after about 45, women mostly disappear. We don’t see tem except as something in the way, blocking the view of the pretty girls behind. Or maybe they phase in and out of view, appearing when some common sense, wisdom, or perhaps a hot meal are needed.Report
I’m curious to see how they handle the character development. Will Gretel be as fleshed out and deep as Hansel? Or will she simply be cute and kick ass, giving rise to teenager boners across the land? Not that I’m expecting much depth from the movie in general…Report
This is mostly true, but there are exceptions Kim Bassinger was 44 when LA Confidential came out.
‘Older’ established actresses (like now Naomi Watts, Sandra Bullock, Julianna Margulies, to name a few) can find work – the big divide is that late 30 and 40 something actresses cannot *break out* the way Renner or Daniel Craig did.
(it also seems to be easier to be an established ‘character actor’ as a male than a female)Report
But look at the roles those actresses got: they don’t get to be the sexy ass-kicking witch hunter. But Bruce Willis still gets to play John McClane.Report
(I was also talking about real life. From experience.)
I’ll go take my gray hair back to the rocking chair and continue with my knitting, now.Report
Heh. I am the worst person when it comes to judging age in the world, especially when it comes to women.
As I see it, there are three groups of women:
1.) Children
2.) My age
3.) My mom’s age
So, if I see a 35-year-old who looks her age, I think she’s my age. If I see a 45-year-old who looks her age, I still probably think she’s my age! If I see a 55-year-old who looks her age, I think they look like my mom.Report
What would be more interesting to me is that same breakdown, only for men and boys.
Consider that a challenge.Report
Anyone who acts like a moron is my age; anyone who acts mature is grown up. Kids are kids.Report
Judi Dench only got killed off as M because she can’t read scripts or see who’s in front of her.
Give me Salma Hayek over any of the young pretty girls.Report
It was the steroids.Report
Also, Sean Connery’s and Harrison Ford’s birthdays are a bit under 12 years apart; there’s plenty of precedent for Hollywood futzing around with ageReport
The classic example, I think, is The Manchurian Candidate: Angela Lansbury played Laurence Harvey’s mother, though she’s only three years older (when the film was made, they were 37 and 34).Report
In North by Northwest, the woman who played Cary Grant’s mother was younger than him by six months.Report
A bit more than seven years older than Grant, according to IMDB.Report
i’m impressed you got past the general bafflement of “hansel and gretel, witch hunt-what the fuuuuu?”Report
We are in agreement!
It looks like a C minus version of the Brothers Grimm movie with Heath Ledger and Matt Damon. That itself was a poor movie.Report
Yeah. Now, Jackson and Van Buren, Werewolf Hunters I could see.Report
Nixon in a big Van Helsing cloak, oh yeah….Report
Beautiful! Love it, babies! We’ll be rolling in the green from the silver screen!Report
nixonferatu!Report
“We are faced this year with the choice between the “work ethic” that built this nation’s character and the new “werewolf ethic” that could cause that American character to weaken.”Report
If it were Jackson against werewolves, I’d be rooting for the werewolves.Report
I always root for the werewolves. (Carrot is a lucky man.)Report
Here here.Report
You hunt witches with bread crumbs.
And young witches hunt old witches
with their older brothers.
Such a pair.
Older brothers,
(and younger ones, too)
who have sisters for witches,
should really take care
and keep bread crumbs in their pockets
with lockets of hair
belonging to the girl they love, so fair.
Because every girl
has an inner hag
just waiting to blossom.Report
1. You should be upset that this movie is being made just because the title makes it sound awful. The fact that it is being released now means that it probably is awful. This is the time when Hollywood Studios release their dreck.
2. This is typical Hollywood. It has been going on forever and I am cynical about whether it will ever change. There are more studio heads and high-ups who are women now but they tend to be adept at playing the game and not changing it.Report
I’m just relieved that that’s not Nathan Fillion I saw in the preview. I was so disappointed in him.Report
That was my initial reaction too.
I could see him doing it just as a “this sounds cool” type of thing though.Report
You’d probably like French movies then- lots of great older actresses- unless, of course, you don’t care for listening to wealthy Parisians droning on and on about their dumb problems while having affairs with one another.Report
Sounds absolutely terrible, except for the part about the affairs!
Reminds me of that weeklong bender when I greenlit something called The Barbarian Invasions!
Boy, was there egg on my face and crust around my nostrils when “Ah-nuld” broke the news to me that “Dis was no se-quel!”
Oh, how we laughed! Then the paranoia got the best of me and I leaped naked out of the window into a juniper bush!
Lemme tell ya, I was pulling needles out of my heineken for days!Report
This is one of my favorite commenters at the moment. But whatever happened to Bad Ass Motherfisher?Report
Yeah I love him.Report
I am only not boggled because it’s so common that I only boggle when male and female leads ARE appropriately age-matched…
I was so excited about Fiona in Burn Notice. “WAIT, THE HOT GUN-TOTING CHICK HAS CROW’S FEET. WAIT, SHE’S ONLY TWO YEARS YOUNGER THAN THE MALE LEAD.”
In this movie, I might’ve cast Milla Jovovich.Report
Fiona is distilled awesome.Report
It would be nice, for a change, to see 30+ actresses treated as something other than old hags.
Not sure what you’re talking about here. Women over thirty are cast in non-hag roles all the time. They aren’t cast in sex-symbol roles because…well…biology, but that’s a false dichotomy.Report
Sure, I was indulging some hyperbole to make a point. Jeremy Renner gets to play a sexy bad-ass at 42. Show me a woman who gets a similar role at that age.
Regarding biology, is it your point that women cease being sexy earlier than men do?Report
At 20, according to the Derb. Musberger was only panting after that 23-year-old bag Katherine Webb because his glasses were dirty.Report
Julianne Moore. Diane Lane. Lauren Graham. Juliette Binoche. Sela Ward. Famke Janssen. Mary-Louise Parker. Marcia Cross. Monica Bellucci. I still have a thing for Brooke Shields. I could go on. Every one of them is over forty. Milla Jovovich is almost 40 and she’s got a whole action movie franchise. Sigourney Weaver had one before her and come to think of it, she’s still pretty damn hot herself.Report
Fark had a headline a few weeks ago “Cindy Crawford is pictured spraying champagne all over her body before taking a swig and letting it dribble down her face. And if you’re still reading this WTF is wrong with you? ”
and you know, honestly, I was thinking, “well, for one, it’s not 1990”
but then I clicked on the link (SFW, more or less)Report
Thank you, Burt!
Also too, Meryl Streep’s still getting plenty of work– and not because she looks younger than her own glorious 60+ age. It’s worth mentioning that the Redgrave sisters (RIP, Lynn) worked well into their senior years.
I’m not naive enough to suggest that looking young”er” isn’t still more important for women than for men in order to secure work in the Hollywood industry. Good lord, I saw an ad the other day for Cougar Town and thought to myself, “Holy crap! What the hell did Cox do to her face?” I mean, clearly the women in this industry still feel the need to … augment. Even serious A-Listers like Kidman.
But vibrant and talented post-40 women actors are hardly relegated anymore to making a living doing infomercials.
I saw the H & G trailer and thought, “Whoa! Why on earth would Renner even agree to do this kind of flick? Maybe he just needed the paycheck.” In other words, I don’t see this film as any particular indictment of the issue of women in the film industry. In fact, if Renner wasn’t in it, I suspect that no one would pay it much mind at all. Just one more booby B flick.Report
Burt,
I think you’ve misunderstood me. My point is not that there are no 40+ actresses who are attractive/hot/sexy. Quite the contrary! As you demonstrate, there are! But Hollywood often seems to act as if there aren’t. When casting this movie, what led to them making the choices they made? The characters look at least 10 years apart in age, despite being similarly aged. I realize that’s a quibble in what will be a silly movie, but I think it is indicative of a broader line of thinking. I don’t doubt the women listed could pull off the role as well if not better than Arterton. But the makers of the film seem to have thought, “We need a sexy badass heroine. Find some 20-something!”Report
Frankly, I think most of the 40+ actors I rattled off before could do well in an action role. They’re all in good physical shape and are, as we all seem to agree, pleasant to look at. They don’t all have to do their own stunts, but they could do some. They could do fighting scenes. They can handle prop guns and jump and kick, even if maybe they would need a little training to prep for those scenes.
I forgot another prominent near miss: Angelina Jolie is 37 years old. Ms. Jolie can certainly do action. Salt looks like it’s getting a sequel, and maybe there will be another Tomb Raider movie, I think even the sequel made a good chunk of money and Ms. Jolie does spy movies where she gets to do some violence from time to time too.
But let’s not bypass the simple fact that quite a lot of action movie scripts now call for a sexy badass woman is a big step forward from fifteen or twenty years ago when men did the fighting and women did the looking pretty and getting rescued — even if the women cast in these roles tend to be younger than 40, that’s not so different from dramatic or comedic roles. (Speaking of comedic roles, Kristen Wiig will turn 40 this year. She’s way cute.)
It’s not equitable yet, by any means. But it does seem to me that it’s getting better.Report
Some of it is typical Hollywood.
Some of it is how the women break in. A lot of women who start young have that youthful sense of immortality. They don’t believe that age and/or gravity will ever take it’s toll so why bother learning to act when you can just be hot and get roles.
To elaborate on the second part, take a look at Megan Fox’s career. After Bayformers, everyone was talking about how she’s the next Angelina Jolie, etc. The problem with this assessment is that Angelina Jolie learned how to act before she learned how to be hot. A good movie to watch to see her “pre-hot phase” is Girl, Interrupted. She is disturbing and decidedly not-hot in that. Angelina Jolie took the hard way of constantly learning her craft. Megan Fox, on the other hand, had her public blow-up with Michael Bay and never bothered to really learn an acting range so now she’s relegated to “where are they now” appearances.
This is the same for every type of media. For every Kathie Ireland who looks ahead to a future where their body won’t be raking in the bucks, there are 20 SI models who believe that age and gravity will never take it’s toll on them. The attrition rate for Pro Wrestling valets is staggering.
In some senses, it’s still Hollywood’s fault. Surrounding a 20-25 year-old woman with people who are willing to stroke her ego and tell her that she is the hottest thing EVAR creates very little impetus to learn how to go beyond “hot chick” level acting. Then, by the time she realizes that age hits everyone, her entourage has moved on to the next hot chick and she is left with directors who aren’t willing to wait for her to learn acting depth. It is an unfair and somewhat deceptive system to expect someone with very little life experience to navigate but that is the way Hollywood has been since the beginning.Report
This is really good summation, but I’d go even further in criticizing Hollywood because they often list the requirements for a job for young actresses as “1.) Be hot; 2.) Be able to act”, with the first one being required and the second one being optional. Occasionally, you have the rare gem like Jennifer Lawrence (I haven’t seen her yet but everyone seems to laud her acting and she seems like a fairly genuine beauty). Otherwise, if given the choice between young and hot or young and talented, Hollywood seems to take the former more times than not.Report
Nobody’s innately beautiful.
Most of beauty is confidence.
It’s why most star’s high school photos look so damn crummy.
(and why people love to look at ’em)Report
not really. most of the original hollywood stars were smart.Report
Seems to me the Hollywood system has precious little to do with talent or looks, either one. Both are commodities and cheap at that. Hollywood is a machine. Studios, producers, agents, deal makers, they pull the levers. Everyone else is just sausage ingredients.
There’s a part of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, where a bunch of Germans and Italians settled. Scouts are always prowling around there looking for the next Giselle Bündchen. We’re talking about country girls, pushed into the fashion machine. Some do well enough, most don’t. Same thing with film talent: if the camera loves them, they might get a shot. But they don’t get two shots unless they’ve got a good agent.
Hollywood is collapsing in on itself. Pretty much everything these days coming out of Tinseltown is crap. Everyone knows it’s crap but nobody really cares. Did I say crap? I mean sausage. Hollywood brand sausage. With a big shiny label on it reading “Delicious! -Chicago Tribune. Fantastic! -Hollywood.com Gripping! -Roger Ebert Bucolic! -NYTimes”Report
Can’t blame Hollywood for giving people what they want.
Judge Dredd: A comic book movie that is almost completely faithful to the source material. Ignored for more familiar comic book movies.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: I can’t say anything here that I didn’t say in my earlier review on Mindless Diversions. The theater was largely empty when I went to see it.
Hell, Pan’s Labyrinith (which Jaybird used as a rorschach test on me) had people raving about it but, even with a big -word-of-mouth push, domestic sales were lukewarm. (Kinda glad Del Toro turned Star Wars down. He doesn’t strike me as a good fit.)
Video Games:
Spec Ops the Line (which did have a terrible demo so there were extenuating circumstances) 720, 000 copies
Lollipop Chainsaw (Suda 51 game. Nuff said.) 740,000 copies
as compared to
Medal of Honor Warfighter (I’ve played it. I like it well enough in terms of controls but, if you were to hold a gun to my head, I would have to admit that I didn’t really know why I’m shooting the opposition other than “They’re brown and they wear towels on their head.” I’m pretty sure they’re probably terrorists though.) 1.78 million and that’s considered a poor seller.
Call of Duty Black Ops 2: 21.06 million.
Yet, if you were to ask a gamer, the common lament would be “Why do game companies not make new and original games instead of COD and it’s clones?”
It’s all well and good to say “we want something other than sausage” but, if noone buys any of the alternatives …Report
I’m just happy to see Hollywood finally open up to the polydactyls. Way overdue.Report
Are you forgetting Hannibal Lecter?Report
Doesn’t count – most of those extra fingers he possessed were not originally his own.Report
“They taste like … ladyfingers!”Report
The only thing about this flick that looks remarkably curious to me is that Renner is in it at all. I’m guessing he just needed a paycheck.Report
Film studio needs summer blockbuster. Film studio doesn’t own comic book company (like Warner Brothers and Disney does) to trawl easy IP from. Film studio realizes the Grimm Fairy Tales and other things like that are public domain. Film studio finds actor with available time and a “name”, who doesn’t require $20 million dollars a picture. Film studio backs small Brinks Truck of money to Renner’s house, who after all, most likely agreed to this at the same time as Bourne Legacy, since while his roles in The Town and The Avengers are ‘big’ in eyeballs seen, he probably didn’t get well paid for it.Report