Thread to talk about the actor...oh fuck it. You know what to do
>>346 The other one is "we are friends". They can't both be at the concert of her best buddy ES, but they are friends, sure.
>>347 If it's this year, theatre or indie, there isn't that much time for a blockbuster.
(has anyone else read about the +4 TH had at the Empire Awards? Or better about one of the +4?)
>>351 (I mention this not because I think there is anything in it, but because I was bemused by his stans posting it just to shoot it down. Don't even talk about it if you don't want the suspicion out there. I wouldn't have known except for them)
>>352 I did read about this - the blonde UNICEF lady?
I would say that TH is pretty unlikely to being his actual GF to an event like that, especially if she is not a celeb.
He did it once for JA at Wimbledon, and then went straight underground. He must have been dating her for a long time after, but he denied it and they only surfaced in BB due to her efforts.
Then with EO - a lot of sneaking around until Toby got hold of that fan pic, and someone sent it to the DM. Then he tried to ride the publicity wave with Pursegate - dismal failure so back to the denials.
The TS stuff I regard as a total aberration - quite uncharacteristic of how he has previously behaved with any GF, and also at odds with what he says he feels about his private life. I think we exclude it from our dataset.
>>353 It was bizarre, for a moment I thought it was a bycycle-like blog trying to start a rumour, instead it was a hardcore fan's blog. (I bet even if they claim it's nothing, they'll be checking her SM all the same)
I agree that he is unlikely to expose a GF at an event full of media right now. Plus, it would be at odd with what he recently stated.
However - let me contradict myself for the fun of it - he also said he doesn't plan on hiding. So while this particular case is at 99.9% nothing, more in general, bringing a GF to a public event is something that he might do.
TH at Japanese tv morning program ZIP
http://tw.weibo.com/torilla/4088137510422198
Short article from the person who interviewed Tom and got that long pause from - explains how much they cut of the pause and his publicist's reaction during it. Scroll down to "Silence is Golden" section. https://www.google.com/amp/www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/03/how-school-visit-prompted-me-re-assess-john-ruskin%3Famp
Posted earlier before heard about the London attacks - hope everyone in this group in the U.K. is safe and sound. Our thoughts are with you.
>>339>>348 Jake hated the Brooklyn Thanksgiving Weekend pap walk with his niece, TS, and his sister Maggie. And Jake thought that anyone on his team who encouraged such fakery, games with the press, and blatant PR machinations with his family, didn't have his best interests at heart. Now he seen only with a pretty girl once a year (having lunch or coming from Soul cycle) or vacations with an actual female friend. Jake hates fake.
>>351 I think that the guests at the Empire awards were Victoria from Prosper PR, UNICEF blonde Louise O'Shea from G&W TS lookalike breakfast pics, maybe UNICEF worker Joe English, a dark haired woman who was at the London premiere of Kong who no one has yet identified, and actors John Macmillan (Tom's cast of Cymbeline and the U.K tv series Chewing Gum) and Laurence Spellman (Cymbeline) both of whom Tom was rumored to have dated, ha.
>>353 No idea what happened with TH and EO on set of ISTL. But all of Tom's pics at G&W are set up in some way since he is always papped there, with his coffee and scripts. I think that TH and EO did a planned catch up breakfast in prep for the pap walk after the Elephant Man play at the Wolseley, later that night. They set up the press at G&W themselves, or emailed the photo to a fan website themselves. EO went on vacation with her friends to Hawaii during the Kong filming, b/c her girlfriends instagrammed the vacation pics, and she caught up wi Tom for a Brie-end. Since TH was filming TNM for five months abroad and EO was in LA most of that time, at most they publicized a quick hookup for ISTL press, and then ran for the hills and denied all romance when the film got uneven reviews at the festivals.
I am all right. Thank you for asking. Hoping that the other Brits on here are also ok.
>>359 Glad to hear that, take care everyone.
>>358 >>351 Quite the detailed list. Someone associated with the event managed to sneak a picture of the table assignments and it floated across my tumblr dash on Monday. I'm pretty sure he was listed as TH plus 4 - no specifics on names. No one replying to the thread mentioned names either. It was assumed they were old friends as opposed to the people you listed.
>>361 The Unicef girl is sure, her face was clearly visible in one of the photos, and the blog where I saw the photos mentioned her name. I have no idea about the other 3.
>>361, >>362 Including the UNICEF folks would make sense, since THo likely would think his charity work is all that would qualify him for a "hero" award; and he'd probably want to share that with their reps. (But can't be sure since there's no vid of his full speech.)
Not sure if this is new info or cobbled-together old quotes. Either way, may be his pr's response to his having been included in the JG/TS narrative this week.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/tom-hiddleston-on-rise-to-fame-you-just-have-to-hold-on-to-reality-a3497536.html%3Famp
>>361 I saw that - the table plan did indeed say TH+4 with no names. I am assuming that beardy UNICEF guy (the one who was cut out of all the pics of TH with UNICEF blonde!) was also there.
Dear me. The dailymail did a mashup of the GQ article and the
Evening Standard article, and kind of suggests that the summer relationship was PR. Please make it stop.
"Their split was nearly as abrupt as their sudden dalliance, and the time they did spend together seemed to be for the benefit of gossip fodder."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4343624/Tom-Hiddleston-looks-romance-Taylor-Swift.html#ixzz4cBTeqlhY
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>>365 And the pix of him the DM used just had to be the one of him seeming to check his fly on the Empire red carpet.. .
>>365 The Eve. Std. article itself pulled heavily from GQ, so this and others are mostly likely a mismatch of previous quotes to keep up the clickbait. I doubt it will stop until either there's some new work news from him, or he drops completely out of sight for months.
The DM article, and several others on Twitter that also parallel the STD.'s, even pull in quotes that sound like what he said when he broke up with SF (too busy for a GF/romance), especially since he isn't visibly busy right now. Starting to smell more and more like his PR team put this out. The drawback - something like the DM did in implying TH wasn't in touch w/ reality during Tayto!
Though has he used the "projections" language before?
Box office strategy in China for Kong. Fascinating.
http://chinafilminsider.com/on-screen-china-kong-will-be-king/
Now this is a bit of fun. Remember the unconvincing beard from the bar scene in KSI? Looks like it may have been a completely CGI beard!!!
bryaninspace/status/845305669741789184
>>369 From tumblr I think that's an alternate version of the scene where they hire Conrad. His clothes are different too, two shirts here but one blue shirt in the movie. There is also a photo somewhere of him in the two shirts version with a dog. On Instagram or Torila.
>>369 The beard was def. a fake though, and not a very good one.
>>370 Oh I see - two scenes, one with a stick on beard and one without!
Funny how tumblr was all over the beard pic when it first came out, insisting it was a real beard!!! And how people who said it was a crap fake stick on beard were haters (the usual stuff....)
>>369,370 That was one of the worst movie beards I've ever seen. I love applying beards and it's really not that hard to float one on by hand for a day or two of pickups. There's no excuse for being that sloppy.
I'd say it's a case of TH's personal very talented and expensive makeup artist Bill Corso not being available or unaffordable for those 'quick let's shoot a bar scene to cover those plot holes and stick a beard on it' pickups.
Real beard my arse... so many 'experts' on tumblr!
>>373 I remember you saying this when BeardGate first happened!
But anyone who has seen Tom with a real beard should be able to tell the difference between that and the KSI beard. It's the wrong colour and it doesn't grow where his natural beard grows, or in the right pattern.
>>370,374 The fact that the scene was shot beardless during scheduled production to me screams of the producers demanding a reshoot because TH didn't look tough enough. His real beard looks more like the bum fluff of a hormonal teenager than the thick wooley terrain of a wild rugged mountain man.
>>375 I was sad that the Henry V beard wasn't macho enough for 'former SAS Conrad.' I like that beard.
>>376 Very sad, but what wildman has time to meticulously clean shave his baby cheek sideburns and trim his delicate goatee to a number 2?
>>375 I rear will never be able to see TH's beard again without thinking of your description and snorting!
Agree that his full beard, when left untrimmed, is rather patchy. I prefer him in Henry V mode (think he's actually one of the few gents who can make a goatee work), or his day-to-day unshaven scruffiness.
>>378 I FEAR I'll never be able.... Little subliminal influence from the "bum fluff" phrase! (I'll just go to my corner and giggle now.)
How many of us have seen Shit Island? I think SoSorry has - anyone else? Can it be that more of us have seen ISTL than KSI?!!!!
Looks like TH, OC, and HL are all casually committed to the second series of the The Night Manager. No mention of ED yet, as the love interest again. I'm not a sequel person. So I'm lighting a candle for the script. Please let Le Carre help with its development. So Tom will not be following in the footsteps of Richard Burton by playing The Spy Who Came in Frm the Cold for Tom, I guess. My oh my.
>>382 Well, it's the DM and it's from a "source," so I'd take it with a chunk of salt. Unless they come up with a stellar script, I'd suspect Tom might rather play the Burton role. Especially since it felt as though most of the attention he got for TNM was for baring his bum, or as his "six-hour Bond audition."
At least for once TH is saying his participation depends on the script, rather than jumping into the project sight unseen!
>>384 Not yet (I didn't plan well this weekend, partly because I can't decide if I want to splurge for 3D). So, going to catch it late in this week or the weekend. Fortunately there's a giga-plex near me, because it doesn't look as though KSI will still be showing at medium-to-small theatre complexes - too many movies opening this month. Have you seen it yet, Anon ?
>>385 I haven't seen it yet. Tried to persuade a friend to see it this weeks but she wanted to see Hidden Figures (which was excellent). It is on at lots of places here but mostly the larger places as wth you.
I went and sat through ISTL at a giant cinema at the Westfield Centre (huge shopping mall in West London). Me and one other person on a Sunday morning.
I was thinking of that day and it feels like such a long time ago. Most of us on here at that time saw it. Partly to see whether he could sing and partly I think because he had tried so hard and publicised it so gamely.
I somehow don't feel motivated this time. It's probably a better movie overall than ISTL (and it's certainly earned a lot more - I read $400m worldwide). But somehow the goodwill isn't there for me any more. He seemed strangely underpowered as regards publicity, too. Is it just that he has dialled it down to "normal for everyone else"? Is he not so interested in this project, for all that it earned a lot? Is he wary of giving the press anything to criticise? It is he just over trying to be a massive movie star?
>> Know what you mean. SI isn't the kind of flick that I'd normally go out to see, so I'll be going mainly out of curiosity about the performances and how much JVR borrowed from other Vietnam-era movies.
I think his low-power PR was due to a combination of the things you listed. The behavior dial-back was probably due somewhat to having to share the spotlight for most of the tour with two other co-stars (who, as someone here said earlier, can hold their own). But mostly likely due to having been so burned for his antics this summer, he doesn't want to give the press more ammunition. Look how he responded whenever he was asked to dance - either doing very little, or even just referring the asker to YouTube.
That, coupled with his tone about SI changing from this summer (ComicCon) to now, possibly after he'd seen the final cut. It went from "myth/origin story/power of nature" to "monster mash" in his description, and he didn't spend as much time talking up his character's background and heroism.
I really don't know if he's over trying to be a big movie star, but it felt like he's over all the pressures/scrutiny that come with it. We'll get a better sense once we find out about his next projects (assuming they're not just IW).
I haven't seen it. I swore I wasn't interested in going when the movie was announced. It looks more entertaining than originally pitched, so I will see if there's a 3D showing this week.
I welcome the new Tom "Over It All" Hiddleston. It was easier to watch the interviews.
I saw an interview with Tom in Japan where he was given a pair of Lokitty cat ears. He barely cracked a smile and didn't make any real effort to put them on. A contrast to the TTDW tour in S Korea when he wore a flower crown while signing autographs. I think some of it is a positive development. When people ask you to do these things you don't have to agree! I hope he can find a balance going forwards between his own unique slightly goofy charm and Crazy Extra Guy.
>>390 He did laugh after his first reaction to the ears, but mostly he looks like he's thinking "just when I thought I'd seen it all...." mixed with "must be polite!"
He did seem to loosen up a bit in China without going too extra, so that was good.
>>390 And in a postscript to one of his interviews in Japan, the interviewer said <<...he struck me as awkward. Despite such an elite background, I was surprised by how earnestly he came across, like he was constantly thinking, “What can I say to please this person?” “Am I making a good impression?">> So he was trying hard to be serious while there. (Elle Japan translation at http://insanely-smart.tumblr.com/post/158856651338/elle-japan-interview-with-tom-brie-translation )
Here are variations on what must have been a group interview in Japan. Interesting bits:
"I felt it was a really good thing to train my body to its very limits. I mean, I’m already 36 years old, so it won’t be too long before my body starts to steadily break down, I think. (laughs bitterly)" (http://insanely-smart.tumblr.com/post/158875643543/japanese-interview-mynavi )
"Tom describes Kong as a “masculine protector”. “But he’s misunderstood. That’s why we’re able to sympathize with him. People feel hurt when they’re misunderstood by others, aren’t they? Kong tends to be thought of as destructive and terrifying but in reality he’s responsible and self-restrained, which are really attractive qualities. He’s actually kind of similar to my ideal. I’m always thinking about how I want to become the sort of person who’s kind, respectful, and responsible. Those are rare qualities in the world we live today.”" (http://insanely-smart.tumblr.com/post/158903186033/japanese-interview-translation-cinema-cafe ) -- The post-Tayto themes are rampant in that one.
"“People have more life experiences as they grow older and the stories they want to tell become more abundant. That’s why I think I’d like to grow with Shakespeare. I mean, Shakespeare understood every stage of a person’s life, he’s someone who has represented characters at all different stages of life. First you have lovers, then soldiers, kings, fathers, sages, jesters… My ambition is to play each kind of role Shakespeare left behind. Which is why I’m so pleased to be told I have range as an actor. From here on out, I intend to try playing every kind of role I can.” " (http://insanely-smart.tumblr.com/post/158868567608/japanese-interview-with-t-site )
Apparently Ben Wheatley has already written the Hard Boiled script, though who knows if that will get the film much closer to being made. BW is scheduled to start shooting another project in August. The relevant info is almost at the end of the article.
Video from the NYC Apple Store SI interview is finally up. Watched the first half and it's good - intelligent discussion. Sam Jackson really takes the lead and Brie chimes in a lot; Tom is engaged but doesn't talk much at all. The 2nd half will be audience questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpqpWFG4Cm0&feature=youtu.be
Captcha: TH's remnant school nickname - "pid"!
>>395 I shall watch this, this weekend.
Your links to the article were very interesting. He hasn't shown much evidence of growing with Shakespeare lately. If you want to be a first class Shakespearean actor - or stage actor generally - you really have to go back to it regularly, in my view, especially if you didn't do much at the outset. All the greats like McKellen started out in rep theatre and notched up years of experience on the stage before getting diverted to film. Tom doesn't have that to anything like the same extent - time to tread the boards again, perhaps.
>>396 Thanks! For his WS experience, I think he did a little at Cambridge (Romeo), maybe some at RADA (or a WS contemporary), before he did Cassius and Coriolanus. But I agree that isn't much compared to most Brit Shakespearian actors. I was thinking after I saw that quote that a couple of years at the RSC would do him a world of good, not that it would happen at this point in his career. But even one good production would really recharge his batteries, I bet; he probably thrives with an audience even more than most actors.
Tom flying in the face of reality and a lot of gifs by insisting that he didn't "bare all" in HR....
http://damageditem.tumblr.com/post/159030768933/lolawashere-tom-hiddleston-featured-on-the-star
>>397 I'd love to see him do a season at the RSC. He won't - it's a big time commitment, it involves him living in Stratford which is so small he would have even less privacy than now, and the pay is crappy (no higher rates for "stars", which you get at the National).
I really think he should. He has never done true comedy but I have a feeling he would be a fine comic actor. Something light hearted like Love's Laboirs Lost or Much Ado would iron out a lot of wrinkles.
>>399 I also think he'd be very good in a comedy. We've gotten little glimpses, such as the eye take he does in CP when he finds out that Edith is Cushing's daughter. And when I watched ISTL with the director's commentary, in the scene in which Hank brings his new wife home only to find his mistress there, Tom's facial reactions are priceless. It wouldn't take much to tip that into farce.
There's an interview with Branagh in which he said he'd love to direct TH in Much Ado. Personally, I'd love to see him in Love's Labor's - he'd rock as Berowne!
>>398 It's interesting that he seems a bit touchy about the HR scene, given the nude scenes in OLLA and Deep Blue Sea. Perhaps between HR and TMN (and CP) he started to feel that the nudity was getting too much attention vs. focusing on the reason the character is naked. (His bum does seem to attract all the attention in interviews about those productions - Stephen Colbert in particular loves to discuss it!)
>>402 I figured he does, at least the slowed down one after Sienna's character drops the bottle onto his balcony, because of the touchiness during the interview of which you spoke.
>>400 I always wondered if he had more than a tinge of envy about the Much Ado movie Joss directed several years ago. I'd love to see him do either that or LLL with Branaugh in the future.
I'll have to watch CP again - I finally got it - and watch his facial expressions.
>>400,403 I forgot about one of the main glimpses - of course there is a lot of comedy in I Henry IV.
He would be delightful as Berowne.
I am torn about Much Ado because I saw one of the great productions at the National - Simon Russell Beale and Zoe Wanamaker. I really wasn't sure about that one - I thought they were both too old and SRB isn't exactly the "ideal" of Benedick. How wrong I was. Their age made it seem like they were two people who had spent their lives missing one another. And SRB truly is one of the finest comic actors there is, as well as being probably the best Shakespearean actor living. I am not sure TH could ever better that.
I can't work out whether he knows about all the HR gifs. His willy was all over twitter when the French trailer came out and everyone realised he wasn't wearing a pouch - and we know he checks his twitter tag.
But he has since said that in HR you don't see more than you would at a beach. Either he is going to nudist beaches on the sly (if so, where???) or he doesn't quite realise how much he showed. Or he is fibbing again.
He says he is happy with nudity - I think the truth is that now he is famous he is happy to be shirtless or flash the award winning bum, but not go full frontal. That is sensible in my view - and a rare instance of him having an off switch. I think he is right not to. He deserves some privacy and once you reveal all, what is there left? Little flashes are more tantalising anyway!
We were talking about weight loss and gain. I found this on my tumblr dash today - a series of Coriolanus gifs. In gifs 3 and 4 you can see he definitely had a bit of a tum and nowhere near the six pack definition he now has. I actually prefer it and carrying a bit of extra weight shows in the arm and chest muscles.
>>403, >>404 The moment in CP is short, but very nicely done.
Another small comic moment I love is in Miss Austen Regrets when his character is about to propose. Plumptree can't decide whether or not to kneel on the grass for his proposal, and in the meantime has to wrangle those long legs.
TH probably didn't miss much with Whedon's Much Ado - the cast mostly seems to be folks that Joss worked with on his TV series.
I'm also a bit conflicted about Much Ado because I have a favorite Benedick (though from long ago) - Sam Waterston! (See https://s3.amazonaws.com/tm-photos-production/108016.jpg ) And I can imagine SRB in that role, and agree that TH might not be able to top that. It's part of why I think Berowne could be a great role for him - there aren't any definitive performances of it that I know of.
Have to admit I didn't find TH all that funny in Henry IV Pt 1, but I've only watched it one, and also I find the character of Prince Hal more annoying than comic. Plus playing opposite SRB and Jeremy Irons showed that while TH is very, very good at Shakespeare, there's still room for him to grow with it. (Age and experience have their advantages!)
I know there's been some chatter that TH is in Atlanta filming possible Thor pickups with the cast but I can guarantee Thor himself was in Melbourne yesterday. My friend saw him in a cafe wearing a dubious pair of purple jeans and was very pleased that he checked out her rack.
>>408 I saw people on Tumblr saying Chris's trainer posted about going to Atlanta but I can't see anything on his Instagram about it. His Twitter hasn't been updated since Nov. So where are people seeing this? The Tom thing they got from another person's Tumblr and we're doubting it until Taika posted pics of himself in Atlanta.
>>409 The instagram pic from 1 day ago claims he's in Atlanta:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSVVOEnFfsA/?taken-by=chris_elsa_hemsworth
>>410 Oh! I won't tell her she got the wrong Hemsworth, she'll be devastated. I cross paths with the Liam brother a fair bit. He does look similar in a better looking way.
I guess pickups/ reshoots for Thor are underway.
>>410 The location on the original poster says the Atlanta airport. So either he was arriving or leaving. If Anonon's friend saw him in Aus then he was probably arriving in the US then.
>>412 My friend posted she saw him just after midday yesterday. I don't think that's enough time to fly to Atlanta when Brisbane is closer than Melbourne.
It's illogical and highly unlikely she saw the real CH. Lucky she stopped herself from asking if she could hold his hammer.
Taika is definitely in Atlanta - I saw a set pic on IG. If Hemsworth and TH are also there it looks like they are shooting pickups. I saw reference to a tumblr based in Atlanta saying he had seen TH in the airport. Haven't seen the original post.
It would make sense of TH saying in recent interviews that his holiday was over - and to earlier slightly opaque comments that he had a full diary. As Anonon explained when we talked about KSI reshoots, pickups are arranged in advance for big projects, so he would know that this was coming up - have I understood what you said aright Anonon?
Taking shots at TH is still in season, unfortunately. The NY Post has an article allegedly confirming that Daniel Craig has signed up to do a final Bond movie.
"The source added, “Plus, Barbara Broccoli doesn’t like Tom Hiddleston, he’s a bit too smug and not tough enough to play James Bond.” "
http://pagesix.com/2017/04/03/daniel-craig-ready-for-more-007-after-slash-my-wrist-diss/
There are no other news reports of this signing, and the NY Post turned from respectable paper to a rag back in the 80s, so it's not to be trusted.
>>415, >>416 And the body of the article doesn't even say that Craig has committed, just that they're "close," unfortunately other rags/sites already picked up the slam to TH, including one headline of "Tom Hiddleston reportedly rejected as Bond for being too Tom Hiddleston." I really hope somebody signs for Bond soon so this pain point can go away. (And after seeing SI this weeekend, IMO Tom should not play Bond.)
>>417 Yes, review please! I can't get excited about paying full price for it.
>>418, >>419, >>420 My review - you did ask for detailed! In two parts, because it's too long for this field.
I’m surprised by how disappointed it left me. I was expecting good mindless entertainment, but found it only mindless. And it had the potential to be a lot better.
The trailers showed almost all of the big scenes, and some of the reviews spoiled most of the other surprises. I’m easily scared, and I only really jumped once.
The good parts: many of the set pieces with the monsters, some of the other creatures, beautiful scenery, nice cinematography at some points. Loving close-ups of early 70s tech – rotary phones, portable turntables. And the soundtrack (CCR, etc.)
The worst parts: the plot, the dialogue, and the pacing. The plot premise boiled down to “we have to get from one end of the island to the other in 3 days to catch our ride.” The dialogue was lame, especially the supposedly witty banter between Tom and Brie’s characters. (One line made me snort out loud, but it was so lousy that now I can’t remember it!) And letting the actors improvise wasn’t a good choice; they need to keep their day jobs when it comes to comic interactions…. The pacing was off, to me. Many scenes could have been much richer with just a little more time; and other scenes seemed to have had seconds snipped out that caused minor continuity gaps.
Missed potential: letting the characterizations build so the characters change during the story. To me, they all seemed either stuck where they were at the start of the story, or they changed suddenly for no reason. Sam Jackson was better than I expected, but JVR should have done something to let him turn into Ahab more slowly; as is, that happens almost at the beginning, so SLJ has nowhere to go. John Goodman’s character turns out to have a significant backstory, but we get no hint of the craziness/obsession that it should have caused in the man until he tells the story, and even then it’s mild. And maybe I missed it in between all the action scenes, but Tom/Conrad goes from cynical at the start to “let’s save Kong!” without any transition between the two states.
>>421 2nd part of my review:
So, Tom. I got the sense that the bar scene towards the start was added because otherwise, there was no clear reason for Conrad to be part of the expedition. There was nothing for the character to track, and no jungle survival skills shown that any of the other military characters couldn’t have shown too. But it really felt like many of Tom’s scenes were cut. He’s set up at the start to be a major character (including one Titantic-like shot on the ship to the island), but with what’s left, he’s at most a foil to SLJ and John C. Reilly’s characters.
And there must have been more of a relationship with Brie’s character originally. (When she’s coming to after an accident, he tells her “it’s me!” as if that were significant. A real jungle survivalist should have checked for vital signs and started doing CPR instead!)
Tom is OK in what was left of his character, but only OK. He looks great, of course, but has little more to do than stand and pose with his rifle, or walk or run with his rifle. The gas-mask samuri bit is pointless except as a cool visual – he’s not really protecting anyone or driving off the flying creatures. And he just doesn’t come off as alpha male enough to provide real conflict with either Sam Jackson or John Reilly’s characters. (I strongly suspect the reason the character is a Brit is that Tom couldn’t project the kind of overtly macho toughness that you’d see in an American Special Forces vet, for example.)
If it’s any consolation, Brie’s character is also pretty pointless except for the obligatory scenes with Kong. Pity, because much more also could have been done with her and the character’s POV as a questioning photographer. (I think some of the critics had to extrapolate pretty hard to find the themes they claimed to find in this.)
The best scene for Tom and Brie turned out to be the post-credits one. Tom got to show a little range, and one exchange was actually clever.
I’d say that at this point, unless a theater near you is still showing it in Imax or at least 3-D, don’t bother going unless you really, really like monster movies. (I saw it in regular 2-D and Kong and the monsters just weren’t all that impressive.) I probably will rent the DVD from my library just to see the deleted scenes, and to see if any of the extra features explain why JVR or the studio decided what they did. They certainly didn’t end up with a “kind of movie we loved as kids” like Raiders or Star Wars, which is what they apparently sold to Tom.
>>415 Wow. The dailymail has posted the Pagesix Bond article and the comments from readers about Tom are brutal. My my. I mentioned before that Bond producer BB was producing Craig off Broadway in Othello, and for that reason, Craig has been in bed with BB all this time. He was always going to return, and all the younger actors for Bond in the headlines was just PR to keep us involved with the franchise until they come up with a solid script and a release date, which I truly hope they do.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4381136/Daniel-Craig-poised-return-James-Bond.html
>>422 Thank you! Great review. It is kind of what I expected. Just goes to show that quality has little to do with box office.
As for Tom: I can't get over the fake beard in the trailer - and the fact that the "let me list all the ways you're going to die" line sounded so hackneyed, over-rehearsed and unconvincing. It sounds strained, not like his natural voice. I guess it had been filmed in Vietnam (hence the original pics of him sans beard) and then reshot in NYC. So it must have been rehearsed a LOT. If this is Tom at Peak Butch I can see why they didn't go for him as a replacement for Daniel Craig (though I do think there is room for another suave as opposed to thuggish Bond, but there you go).
I'm not sure whether to say; LOL, Ouch or Duh.
http://crazydaysandnights.net/2017/04/blind-items-revealed-5-676.html
>>425 I think I am going to go with "yawn." I am not that surprised that he might be defensive about it since it is raised during every single press junket some way or another.
Yes, he is privileged by his upbringing. Asking him about it won't make him give any better answer - journalists aren't very original in the questions they ask! He is also privileged by being unbelievably good looking. Plenty of people in Hollywood are and they use that privilege to achieve careers that they don't deserve through talent! Maybe they should ask him about his genetic privilege...!!!
>>424 When I first heard the "let me list" line in one of the trailers, it sounded fine. In the movie, though, it and his whole speech seem really rushed. And Conrad never really shows that much cynicism again. It's one of the bits that imply there was a lot more left on the cutting room floor (or that the character wasn't well thought out in the first place).
I agree that Tom would fit the suave Bond mold better than the thuggish one, but I still feel that he's missing something needed for the role. Brosnan and Moore had that natural cockiness for the role and Tom doesn't (when he tries to play cocky in interviews, it comes off as more camp, IMO). Which is why the "too smug" reaction attributed to the producer is rather funny.
He also doesn't really come off to me as dangerous in roles such as Conrad or Pine, and even the suave Bonds need to be dangerous at times - the character is a killer, after all. I think Bond needs a quality that automatically angers the villian, just through the force of Bond's personality.
Now, if the producer wanted to take the franchise and character in a different direction, Tom could be interesting in the role. But I can't believe Broccoli would choose that approach.
>>423 At least the DM refrained from what I fear would be the first set of photos if Tom were cast. Daniel Craig bare-chested and beefy in the ocean from Casino Royale, and TH tank-topped and pale in the ocean from Taymerica. Almost my first reaction to the T-shirt picture was "there goes any chance of Bond."
All the "who will be the next Bond?" PR also might have been partly to put some pressure on Craig to finalize the deal -- "look at all the guys we could get to replace you!" And it certainly helped flog the franchise while that got sorted.
Some UK supporters do not think he is smug, and still want TH for Bond in the future. The dream is still alive, I guess. I'm still a Daniel Craig girl. Way too soon to consider anyone else, for me.
There will be TH sightings this weekend. He's on a panel about TNM on Sunday afternoon: http://www.radiotimes.com.edgesuite.net/news/2017-04-05/tom-hiddleston-joins-the-bfi--radio-times-television-festival-line-up
As of my lunchtime, no news on if he'll be at the Olivier Awards just after that. But I believe Kenneth Branagh is receiving an award, and TH will probably attend even if he's not presenting.
Taken March 16th according to the comments, while on promo tour for K:SI, either going to or coming from Mexico City:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSfeZVulYHd/
K:SI broke the $500M worldwide sales mark.
http://deadline.com/2017/04/kong-skull-island-crosses-500m-boosted-by-china-1202064019/
>>434 Just another day in TH's new life. Spotted walking in the park and stopping to check on a little girl who'd crashed her scooter. Someone else sees the tweets and chimes in with a Snake reference and disses him.
Captcha: fi
And here he is: com
Sorry, don't know what happened there: https://www.instagram.com/p/BSoakMfDFVk/
>>437 Apparently TH was with his agent, Christian Hoddell, on Primrose Hill. And Tom was heard talking about a noir thriller. Not sure if he was talking a book, a play, a new film script, or watching classic pictures on Turner Classic Movies : )
>>438 Tom was supposedly attached to 'Black Wings Has My Angel' years ago...maybe it's been dusted off. Would make such a great film.
Thor Rag trailer is online and trending all over the place. Tom looks so good.
>>441 Tumblr has gone into complete meltdown. He is does look so good, totally wasted peak hottness on Tayto.
TNM passed over for a lot of BAFTA nomn categories, including lead actor. Tom Hollander was nom'd. http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fentertainment-arts-39563454&t=YjI4YjJmNWJjNjZmM2ExNzU0ZDE2NzQ4Mzk0ZDYwMjIyOTM3Y2JmZCx1eUxhWmJYWQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AwtihBn2-rFBsXVQ3xZvuag&p=http%3A%2F%2Finsanely-smart.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F159446289248%2Fbafta-tv-awards-tom-hiddleston-and-the-night&m=1
>>443 BBC news complete analysis for why TNM was shut out of the awards, except for the great performance by Tom Hollander. Everything from TNM's implausible plot and inconsistent reviews, to TH fatigue due to the TS PR relationship and the OTT GG "inelegant" acceptance speech, to the fact that the BAFTA has fewer category spots, to the push for diversity in the actors nominated for acting awards, to the public's penchant for period pieces over modern pieces, and the intl shooting locations instead of local UK shooting locations is considered. Not sure how I feel about this. Olivia Coleman was nominated by the BAFTA for her performance in Fleabag, but not for TNM. TNM was not a groundbreaking masterpiece by any means, but it was a deeply involving and gorgeously directed mystery thriller the captivated international audiences ( it was harder to reach US audiences on the cable AMC channel.) I love the book, but I really didn't connect to the new War and Peace adaptation, to say it mildly. This feels like a slight since TNM almost swept the GG awards, Hugh Laurie is so successful in the US due to House, and since the BAFTAs don't really seem to enjoy recognizing Tom. Remember when TH didn't even get nominated for playing Prince Hal in the Hollow Crown series? That was wild. Didn't think Tom deserved to win for the Hollow Crown, but his performance was the ballast of the show. Of course Cumberbatch was deservedly nominated for playing Richard III for Hollow Crown this year.
The new trailer for Thor looks wicked. I hope that the script is good and that the director Taika Waititi and CB rocked it. Loki always pops. TH has that character in command and the public loves Loki.
>>443>>444 http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39564174
Sorry for the long post!
>>444 I am slightly over British awards shows after the Harry Potter plays (aka, another attempt to wring cash out of a franchise that everyone thought was finished) won more Oliviers than any other theatrical production. Ever.
PS no need to apologise for long post! x
>>441 It is a great trailer. I actually really want to see this, especially for Jeff Goldblum at Def Con Eyeliner.
Not so sure about the new Loki hair though. It looks a bit - curly mullet....!
Slightly creepy stolen pic from a fan of TH heading home from a run in London yesterday, wearing a brand new running hoodie/jacket.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSvF99HDIbp/?taken-by=tomhiddleston_daily
>>444 I think the BBC article was just continuing their sniping at Tom, rather than that the BAFTA voters would pass over Laurie and Coleman (and the series) just because he's in it too. (I suspect it was a combination of some of the other reasons the BBC article suggested.) It was nice to see that, so far at least, not too many other outfits jumped to harp on the snub to TH; I was seeing more surprise at all the different snubs. May go to show that TV really is where a lot of the best work is now happening.
>>447 "DefCon Eyeliner" and "curly mullet" - lol! I can't wait to see the craziness that is Goldblum encounter Loki's snark. The mullet-like locks could be deliberate; there's been a lot of mention of the movie's "retro 80s" look (for example, the logo: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/thor/news/a820386/thor-ragnarok-logo-retro/ ).
>>448 Agreed. Much prefer the little stories of encounters without pix (such as the woman who ran into him twice in one day and was proud that the 2nd time, she managed not to exclaim "Holy fuck!" to his face. Or one from yesterday in which someone, behind him in line for coffee, was checking out his ass before realizing that it "was Tom Hiddleston's ass!").
>>447, >>449 Meant to mention that I didn't really notice Loki's hair - I was paying far too much attention to how the new helmet emphasizes those cheekbones....
