'The Bends' and 'The Mountain Between Us'

I have to agree with you regarding her choices. "Mountain" might be okay (but the fact that Robbie dropped out is troubling even though it appears to be for better movies with Tina Fey and Martin Freeman and The Suicide Squad is understandable), but "The Bends" is questionable to say the least. I would think she would have been getting more interesting offers with A-list or more dynamic directors after her nomination. She is not getting any younger and people have short memories.

Hany Abu-Assad is a great director - have you seen Paradise Now? It's SUPERB. He's been nominated for several Oscars too. Hunnam is a solid actor who has a pretty exciting lineup of films. I'm more worried about the film with Joel K - he's like a C list actor who has had a ton of flops (anyone remember the Robocop remake? Yeah, me either).

But I agree that her choices are iffy. I'm not too pleased. She needs to capitalize on her acclaim and book more interesting work.

I just looked up Abu-Assad and one of his last movies went straight to DVD. But that might be a blip. Pike is a good actress. I have seen Hunnam in some of his recent films and he was very bland (some movie with Olivia Wilde) and Pacific Rim, where he was just dreadful (but he was not the only one who was except for Idris Elba). I see him doing a lot of taking his shirt off poses, so I hope there is something substantive there to stand up against Pike. I mean, the description has him playing a doctor and of the two I would believe Pike is the doctor not Hunnam.

Interesting - no idea which movie of his went straight to DVD. His last movie - Omar - was nominated for a foreign language best pic Oscar. I think it is his second (or maybe third, not sure). I watched Omar recently - it's superb. I worry because a lot of foreign language directors making their English debut tend to either fail miserably or make a splash. It always seems to be one or the other. I hope it's the latter - for the sake of Hunnam and Pike.

Pacific Rim was pretty bad. Everyone was bad. I agree Hunnam was pretty stiff in that movie. I love him on Sons of Anarchy though. He did some career best work in recent seasons - especially Season 7, Ep 11. Truly terrific acting there.

I just worry that Pike is not making great decisions post-Gone Girl. Between her dreadful awards season red carpet style (shallow as it may be, being placed on best dressed lists does help with a celebrity's profile especially when coupled with the fact that they are receiving immense acclaim for a performance) and current lineup of upcoming films -- I'm just not hopeful she's going to be on the up and up. I feel like she will disappear after Gone Girl hype dies down and I really don't want that. :/

You may be on to something. The recent straight to DVD movie featured good English speaking actors, so...


Like I said, Hunnam may be fine on some TV, but he has yet to impress in various films. It is that way with some actors. Just like some actors suck on TV and are great in films or horrible on stage. He was not even the stand out on SOA to me. That was Goggins, Segal and Perlman, but Hunnam was alright. He is getting by on a lot of taking his shirt off moments.

Totally agree about Pike's decisions. Usually critical acclaim opens the doors and huge opportunities, but she has pretty much been forgotten even though she was in a huge movie. I almost wonder if she pissed off someone or something. I know she just had a baby and that is a huge effort, but it is like she completely fell off the radar. Also, she needs to fire her stylist. Like you said, it is shallow, but this is Hollywood and things like that matter,for a woman --sad to say.

to be fair, it can't be easy to be a woman in her mid 30s in Hollywood. not too many great roles out there

but I wouldn't judge a movie too harshly when we haven't even seen a trailer.

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