It's been a movie kind of week. I've seen:

New Year's Eve
Immortals
and the newest Sherlock Holmes.

All really fun films and great distractions during finals..

I would imagine that when you ask what was the last movie I saw it was one at the theatre. It's been so long now that I'm really not sure what the last one was. It was either the first Twilight (I was dragged kicking and screaming) or 2012. Whichever one came last, that was the last one that I saw.
How pathetic is that???

Timeless movie, great choice! Over the past day or so, i've watched The Lake House for the four hundred bazillionth time, The Holiday (again, for the bazillionth time), Grave Encounters (knock off movie kind of spoofing Ghost Adventurers, not great) and We Need To Talk About Kevin (pretty powerful movie).

Saw Young Adult tonight, which was pretty funny. I really want to see Hugo next.

"Little Children"

Seemed interesting at first, but once all of the characters were introduced it was pretty easy to see how it was going to turn out.

Kate Winslet, as usual, gets a thumbs up.

The Other Woman in 'Albert Nobbs'
 

In the new film "Albert Nobbs," British actress Janet McTeer stars opposite Glenn Close as a cross-dressing lesbian in 1890s Ireland.



Playing a woman who has chosen to live her life as a man was a first for Ms. McTeer, 50, although she has more experience than most people playing women who love women: In the 1990 BBC miniseries "A Portrait of a Marriage," Ms. McTeer starred as Vita Sackville-West, a bisexual writer who had an affair with Virginia Woolf. She later played Gertrude Lawrence, a stage actress who carried on a romantic relationship with writer Daphne du Maurier, in a 2007 BBC movie "Daphne."
[ARENA] Robert Ascroft

Sex Change: Janet McTeer says, 'I wanted to play with the confident air of the cheeky chap who thinks he can get away with it.'

Ms. McTeer, who studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, has kept a relatively low profile in Hollywood since she garnered a best-actress Oscar nomination for playing a Southern single mom in the 1999 indie "Tumbleweeds." She is a major star on stage, best known for her Tony-winning performance as Nora in a 1997 production of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," and as Mary Queen of Scots in a Broadway production of "Mary Stuart" in 2009.

Prepping for the film, Ms. McTeer became fast friends with Ms. Close, who co-wrote and produced "Albert Nobbs." Ms. Close, who stars in the DirecTV crime drama "Damages," asked the show's writers to create a part for Ms. McTeer for the show's fifth and final season, which airs this summer. In February she will appear in "The Woman in Black" with Daniel Radcliffe.

The Wall Street Journal: How do you see your character, Hubert?

Ms. McTeer: I always thought of Hubert as someone who considers herself not to be in a category, not in a pigeonhole, not with a label…. Yes, she ended up stealing her ex-husband's coat and getting a job and surviving [by passing as a man], but I am sure she did all of this without saying "I'm a gay woman." I am sure she had no idea what that concept even was. People didn't discuss it. And I imagine that she did it to feel safe and ended up feeling very comfortable.

See a clip from the film "Albert Nobbs" starring Glenn Close. Video courtesy Roadside Attractions.

Could you talk about your research?

Years ago I played [Sackville-West], and she wrote about this, saying she was always happier with girls but she got married because that's what one does. So when she had a relationship with her first girlfriend it was such a revelation that other people didn't feel the same way.

I think that if you were a gay man at that time, there was more of a circuit, as it were, than if you were a gay woman. There certainly were lesbians in Victorian London but I don't think Hubert would have been part of that scene. I think Hubert was somebody who ended up the way he did, and decided he was very happy the way he was.

How did you learn how to walk and move like a man?

I'd just watch men. Men's center of gravity is different. I wanted to create one of those very barrel-chested, big-hearted men, not a slight, tall, thin man. Women are aware of their chest, and I have a big chest, whereas with a guy, they just stand tall with their shoulders back. There's no vulnerability. I think that psychologically goes into the way you move. I wanted to play with the confident air of the cheeky chap who thinks he can get away with it. There's that Irish kind of Liam Nee-son thing—sort of big and chunky and very real. I kept my hands in my pockets a lot. I have very girly hands and I use them a lot when I talk in a way that I think is very feminine. There's nothing you can do about hands.

Speaking of, what kinds of makeup did you wear?

I had false skin, a false nose, false ears, false eyes and eyelashes. Make-up took 2½ hours a day.

Did you fool anybody on the set?

One day, I had been working and Brendan Gleeson [the actor who plays Dr. Holloran in the film] just arrived. He got out of the car and I just looked at him and nodded. He looked at me like, "Oh, I'm supposed to know who that is, but I don't." And I just smiled—for one split second I got him.

You and Glenn Close never worked together before. How did you first meet?

I was on Broadway doing "Mary Stuart" and she came to see the play with her daughter and after we had a chat. She said "I've got this script," and the following week she sent it. At the time, shooting was going to begin relatively soon, but it wound up being a good year and a half before she got the money together, during which time we'd meet and have coffee and we went off to do loads of prosthetic fittings and everything. By the time we actually started rehearsals we got to know each other a bit better. We rehearsed for 10 solid days, I think. We were in Ireland. We would go back to the hotel, have pints of Guinness and do jigsaw puzzles.

You and Glenn e-mailed each other photos of some women in Latvia. What was that about?

There's this culture in Latvia where if the family didn't have any boys, the women would live their lives as men. We started thinking, if you live your whole life as a man, what does that do to you? What does that do to your face? The lack of product, the lack of care. We've all got lovely skin, with blush and lipstick and everything. Up in Maine you see some of these women who are fishermen with unbelievable skin—the veins and the wrinkles. You can't fake that.

In a certain type of film like "Shakespeare in Love" [in which Gwyneth Paltrow dresses in drag] or "Pirates of the Caribbean" [with Keira Knightley], it doesn't matter as much if they are believable—they still look gorgeous. We wanted to really create a scenario when you could genuinely believe this character was a man. Also, we weren't actually playing men, so we couldn't fake an Adam's apple or stubble.

The Internet is packed with speculation about your sexual orientation.

I've always thought if you watch the performance and you don't know about the person, then you only see the performance. It's got nothing to do with me not being open about my private life. I could care less. I just want people to focus on the performance. Otherwise you say, "I know this person just had a divorce. I know that person just had a baby." You are putting what you know about the performer onto the character. That's not right.

By RACHEL DODES

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...392480236.html

I saw Four Christmases last night and laughed really hard. I don't wart to give away the story line but it's worth the watch if you like comedy :):

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
 

It is a fantastic piece of work, and is immediately by far my my favorite film of all time. I really couldn't say enough good things about it so I'll just end by saying that all other films are 'B' movies in my mind after seeing it.

We saw it last night. I loved it. I thought it was really suspenseful and well made. Rooney Mara's performance.....I can't say enough good things about it. She was fantastic, she was mesmerizing all the way around and has created one of the most memorable characters in a film in a very long, long time.
I would only say that if you are bothered by violence in movies than this movie may not be for you. This is most definitely a HARD R rating.

We also just saw "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron. It was really good, sort of a dark comedy for those of you who have never heard of it. I expect to see her nominated at Oscar time along with Rooney Mara.

the 2nd Sherlock Holmes...was pretty good! pretty funny too.