Big thanks to Al for emailing me a link to the footage he recorded when he went to watch The Railway Man filming a few weeks ago. There’s a brief shot of Nicole in it, and Al says that he put that in slow motion so we could see more of it! Watch Al’s footage here.

THR’s Todd McCarthy praises the film’s settings as “rich and resplendent,” adding star Nicole Kidman “excels” as the 28-year-old war journalist.

Perhaps appropriate considering the film’s subject, a biopic exploring the contentious relationship between novelist Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn has the critics at odds.

Starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn received high marks in some circles for its scope and performances but was criticized in others for what was perceived as a lack of authenticity.

The film, which covers the couple’s seven-year relationship and beyond, got the big screen treatment at the Cannes Film Festival — a format The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy thought suited it. He praised the film’s rich settings, which true to the world-traipsing couple, include Spain, China, New York, Key West West, Fla. And Cuba.

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You may be wondering–what happened to Lee Daniels’s very hot, controversial movie “The Paperboy’? The film got a 16 minute standing ovation in Cannes. Kidman got the best reviews of her life. But the movie polarized people. Some loved it, some hated it. Kidman is said to be incandescent playing against type as a kind of broke down white trash gal who even pees on one of the characters.

“Paperboy” was made by Avi Lerner’s Millennium Films, with producers Hilary Shor and Cassian Elwes. There was a special screening in Cannes for distributors before the red carpet premiere, and lots of talk. There was even some talk that Millennium would just release “The Paperboy” themselves and skip a distribution deal.
Cannes: Nicole Kidman Makes Early Leap into Oscar Race with Sexy, Dark ‘The Paperboy’ Roger Friedman Roger Friedman Contributor
Cannes 2012: Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, “On the Road,” But No Malick Roger Friedman Roger Friedman Contributor

But I am told that “The Paperboy” continues to a hot potato. More screenings are being set up in New York and L.A. Millennium is said to still be open to another distributor coming in–Weinstein, Fox Searchlight, etc. Whoever gets the movie also gets Kidman’s automatic Oscar nomination, and maybe even win. So even if the movie repulses some, and turns others on, there’s going to be lots of talk and Nicole as a big bonus.

Stay tuned…

- Forbes.com

Nicole Kidman Speaks Out On Taking Risks, Roles And Taking Over Cannes: Interview

With two movies premiering in the Official Selection on successive nights and big worldwide market pre-sales announced for an upcoming film in which she plays Grace Kelly, Nicole Kidman ruled the Croisette in the second half of the Cannes Film Festival this week, and though she looked every inch the glamorous movie star on those back-to-back jaunts up the steps of the Grand Theatre Lumiere, it’s hard work invading the world’s most famous film festival. Perhaps that is why when she arrived Friday morning for Deadline’s interview and entered the Majestic Hotel’s 6th floor suite with its sweeping views of the Cote d’Azur all she wanted to do was take off her shoes and relax for a few minutes. No such luck in the crux of this go-go-go festival.

Kidman has been working a lot lately but all she’s looking forward to next is finally getting back to her ”normal” life again before tackling Grace Kelly’s anything-but-normal life in late Fall here in the South of France. Since making changes in her team a couple of years ago (she signed with Geyer Kosinski who also manages Angelina Jolie), the kinds of movies she’s doing are consistently more challenging and of a risk-taking nature, which is the way she likes it. The Oscar winner (The Hours) has often been drawn throughout her career to edgier material but now it seems to be her mantra. From her role as a Southern trollop in Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy which got Cannes twittering on Thursday to her first big TV project playing pioneering war correspondent and Ernest Hemingway’s third wife Martha Gellhorn in HBO’s Hemingway And Gellhorn directed by Philip Kaufman (which had the rare honor of a Cannes premiere for a TV movie) she has made a lot of noise just as Cannes 2012 is winding down. Add to that the challenge of being one big star playing another in the upcoming Grace Of Monaco and recently completing the great Korean director Chan-Wook Park’s (Oldboy, Thirst) first English-language feature Stoker, Kidman’s plate is full of fascinating projects. Things really turned around in late 2010 when the independently made film version of the devastating David Lindsay-Abaire Pulitzer Prize winning play Rabbit Hole, which she also helped produce, won her a third Best Actress Oscar nomination along with rave reviews. She was somehow even attempting to fit in a Broadway revival of Sweet Bird Of Youth opposite James Franco but it didn’t ultimately pan out. It’s not as if she needed the work.

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