The cultural zeitgeist can be a strange thing indeed. A few years ago, it brought us a pair of competing Truman Capote films, 2005′s widely lauded Capote and 2006′s unfairly overlooked Infamous. Then there was poor Baz Luhrmann, who wanted to make an Alexander the Great film starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the early ’00s, only to have his project canceled to avoid overlap with Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004). And it seems that the next few years will bring another raft of competing films on the same topic, from adaptations of counterculture classics to dueling Marilyn Monroe biopics. After the jump, we compare five such pairs to predict which will win each category.
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Quick admission: We’ve never had much hope for the Runaways biopic. Mostly because we think Kristen Stewart is too dead in the eyes to play the Queen of Rock and Roll. It works for Bella, but little else — especially not appearances on Letterman. And then there was the fact the Dakota Fanning was involved, in the role of Cherie Currie. Her puberty upsets us. But now the first teaser is out, and we’re willing to give it a chance, even if all of the the quick cuts make it almost impossible to get a read on whether the film’s actually good or not. Perhaps because “Cherry Bomb” is playing in the background. Or maybe it’s the awesome mullet hair.
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1. Oprah is set to announce today that she’s ending her show on September 9, 2011, when her current contract expires, and moving it to her own network. [via USA Today]
2. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning will kiss in The Runaways, that upcoming Joan Jett biopic. [via Pop Candy]
3. Zaha Hadid is meeting the Pope this week. He wants to “revitalize religious art and architecture.” [via Archinect]
4. Preview the Tim Burton MoMA exhibition website, which officially launches this Sunday. It’s sick. [via MoMA]
5. There’s a new Interpol album expected for early 2010; the band’s drummer Sam Fogarino says they revert back to their earlier sound. [via NME]
Bonus link: Milton Glaser talks about drawing while drawing
Mystery Parisians copy Obama poster: Paris has suddenly become plastered with mystery posters of Nicolas Sarkozy modeled after Shepard Fairey’s iconic Obama posters. The French versions have progressive policy goals (“Making polluters pay?” “Saving each household 1,000 Euros a year?”) above Obama’s “Yes we can!” slogan and pop-art prints of Sarkozy’s face. And no one knows who’s behind the stunt though the hunt for the “SarkObama” campaigners is on. [AFP]
Twilight star to do Jett biopic: If lusting after vampires wasn’t enough to gain Twilight star Kristen Stewart a teen following, now she’s set to play rocker Joan Jett in Runaways, a biopic of the 1970s band directed by Floria Sigismondi. The film will follow the band members’ rise to fame as teenagers and their subsequent disillusionment. While she’s obviously got the drugs part down fine, wonder how Stewart’s reprise of “I Love Rock N’ Roll” will compare to Britney Spears’ in Crossroads (not that we’ve seen that or anything). [THR]
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