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Who Knew Amelia Earhart Has So Many Teeth?

Amelia Trailer / Dustin Rowles

Trailers | June 26, 2009 | Comments (25)

Poor Hillary Swank. I do not envy anyone that might have to follow Amy Adams’ remarkable performance as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum II (seriously). It might have been a comedic performance for little kids, but goddamn it was good. Not good enough to make the movie worth seeing, of course, but definitely worthy of a nice highlight reel.

Hillary Swank will be playing Amelia Earhart in a biopic of her life directed by Mia Nair. I like Nair — The Namesake was fairly good, and Monsoon Wedding was outstanding. But Amelia looks a little like a Bollywood film with American actors. Everyone in it looks like they’re trying too hard to pull off the actressin’ performance of a lifetime. It’s just two minutes of evidence, but it feels way overcooked. Richard Gere is pulling the loud whisper. Swank is shoving it down your throat. And even Ewan McGregor seems to be trying too hard to play it up for the Academy (and with 10 slots now, who knows?). It just feels really strained. What’s remarkable is that Amy Adams’ performance was 47 times more exaggerated, but it’s Swank’s performance that doesn’t feel natural. She needs to tone that shit down.

Here it is. Stick a fork in it:


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Comments

Ack. Exactly the sort of movie I will avoid at all costs. You're not kidding with the overcooked Hillary.

Posted by: Cindy at June 26, 2009 11:21 AM

I wonder how Naim handles the end of this film from Earhart's point of view. I feel like no matter what she does with it it's doomed to fail.


It would be great if she copied Christopher Moore's Fluke - people would leave the theaters not understanding what happened. The Academy wouldn't know what hit it.

Posted by: Susie Derkins at June 26, 2009 11:32 AM

I'll make it. I know I will.

No you won't.

Posted by: courtney at June 26, 2009 11:32 AM

I like Nair

Who wears short shorts? DR wears short shorts!

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at June 26, 2009 11:38 AM

No you won't.

Just to be safe, we should probably include that in a spoiler alert. We've ruined the endings of Titanic and Passion of the Christ here before.

Posted by: branded at June 26, 2009 11:45 AM

When I was a teenager in the 1970's I had a harvest gold, pleather, Amelia Earhart brand suitcase. A friend looked at the logo and said, "Does that mean your suitcase never arrives at your destination?"

I loved that suitcase. It had wheels and a chain leash to pull it around. I named it FANG.

Posted by: BWeaves at June 26, 2009 11:54 AM

Are they going to cover her contributions to Juliet's book club?

Posted by: Walt Diesel at June 26, 2009 11:54 AM

I wonder how Naim handles the end of this film from Earhart's point of view. I feel like no matter what she does with it it's doomed to fail.

Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" starts playing and then it cuts to black.

Posted by: twig at June 26, 2009 12:12 PM

Does anybody do "early 20th Century dapper style" as well as Richard Gere? The man looks like he was born to wear a pinstripe suit.

Posted by: Snath at June 26, 2009 12:14 PM

Amelia should have been played by Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn playing Amelia Earheart.

Jeez, Swank is toothy. Like shark week.

Posted by: tf breakher at June 26, 2009 12:22 PM

I like Nair

Who wears short shorts? DR wears short shorts!
-Tracer

Yeah, they're better to show off the hideous rash that Nair gives some people. Some people who only wanted to look pretty for the pool party and instead wound up resembling a leper.

I'm bitter.

Also, before this trailer, I was unaware that Amelia Earhart was secretly a dude.

Posted by: marebear at June 26, 2009 12:24 PM

I like Nair
Who wears short shorts? DR wears short shorts!
Posted by: Tracer Bullet at June 26, 2009 11:38 AM
Maaaan, you beat me to it. He really can't get away with things like that.

Posted by: Optimus J. Rhyme at June 26, 2009 12:27 PM

Seriously who keeps giving Richard Gere work!?

Whoever thought casting piano-mouth Swank in this was WAY off. Bitch looks nothing like Amelia... unless they wanted to go for butch lesbian.?

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at June 26, 2009 1:25 PM

Was Amelia tall? Joan Allen would have been great for this with her Contender haircut.

Posted by: amanda47 at June 26, 2009 2:06 PM

There must be like 180 edits in those two minutes. Am I the only one who gets a headache?

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at June 26, 2009 2:32 PM

Actually Swank looks a lot like Earhart. Earhart looked like a boy. Just Google photos of Earhart.

Posted by: BWeaves at June 26, 2009 3:54 PM

Spoiler: like in all Hillary Swank 'Oscar' movies, she ends up all bruised and hurt... but LEGENDARY.

Posted by: Sofía at June 26, 2009 4:20 PM

Aww, this looks like one of the movies with Ewan McGregor where he's not naked, so I'll pass.

Posted by: Rebecca at June 26, 2009 4:31 PM

The resemblance is definitely there, BWeaves. Earhart must have had some awful teeth, though, since she was an absolute master of the closed-mouth smile (unlike the divine Ms. Swank).

Posted by: Che Grovera at June 26, 2009 6:02 PM

The direction of the film looks interesting but I'm never going to see this, I can't choke down two hours of Swank playing Hepburn playing Earhart. Like, what the fuck is up with that? Also, I'm still mad at the fact that she took home Best Actress the year Kate Winslet was nominated for Eternal Sunshine.

Everyone's trying just a bit too hard in this, it's completely saturated with desperation. Take three respected actors, one script add a dash of capable director and toss it into the Oscar-making machine.

Posted by: citizen_cris at June 26, 2009 8:47 PM

I never can get a grip on why people make these historical dramas. There's no suspense, we all know what's going to happen. Maybe it's just me. All the wonderful performances and brilliant direction mean nothing to me if I know how it ends. I'll see a predictable movie, sure, but not one I know the ending to because it's historical fact...

Posted by: redfeathers at June 26, 2009 10:31 PM

The reason Amy Adams portrays a better Amelia Earhart than Hilary Swank is because Amy Adams is just flat out a better actress than Hilary Swank. Sure, she won two Oscars for playing 'edgy' parts. Pretty much any woman who goes and plays an unattractive character will get rewarded. Swank's actressin' is revered because you can tell that she's trying to work, you can see that she's acting. Adams on the other hand is just a spitfire, a burst of life who whenever acting in a film, regardless of how light or dark it is, she succeeds at charming the audience.
And in my honest opinion, Boys Don't Cry was not a bad movie, it's just the kind of movie I never really want to see again. It was beyond whether I liked it or not, I still can't tell you and it's been ages since I've seen it. I didn't love Swank's performance, it was all right, but Annette Benning was just a little bit better in American Beauty. I have not seen Million Dollar Baby, but I can tell you that Kate Winslet was outstanding in Eternal Sunshine, so why she lost remains a mystery.
In short, Hilary Swank proves that being an adequate actress can get you a long way. She hasn't been outstanding in any of the movies I've seen her in, and yet she's already won two Oscars. Man, the academy once again mystifies me.

Posted by: Kamikaze Feminist at June 27, 2009 10:00 AM

redfeathers, If they can uncover some "Now you know the REST of the story" aspect, I'm fine with it. But when's the last time anyone in Hwood worked that hard?

Your central point, however, remains a good one.

And who is this targeted to anyway? I'm a grizzled old-timer by Jib standards and Earhart was wayyyyy before my time, I have no memory of her and I have no idea if Earhart had a ton of charisma or really captivated the world in her day or anything, and I really can't be bothered to care much. Calvin Coolidge got elected president, he must have had SOMEthing going for him, but I'd never want to see a Calvin Coolidge movie (unless the true backstory is he was from Alpha Centauri or something).

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at June 27, 2009 10:35 AM

She doesn´t have more teeth than usual. You can just see them all at once...

Posted by: Henrik at June 27, 2009 11:15 PM

"I have not seen Million Dollar Baby, but I can tell you that Kate Winslet was outstanding in Eternal Sunshine, so why she lost remains a mystery."

Completely disagree. Kate's a great actress, but her Clementine is merely very good. I thought Swank was excellent in both MDB and BDC. Whether she deserved the Oscar is a toss-up, but isn't it always? There's never really a clear winner. I'll never understand the animus heaped on this actress - she doesn't seem as deserving of scorn as, say, Gwynnie.

And Earhart was boyish in a gamine way, but very, very pretty. She wasn't manly in the least.

Posted by: samantha t at June 29, 2009 12:45 PM