I Am Link

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--- Hot Air Man - Recently I caught some of Spider-Man 2 on the telly and after thinking to myself, "Good god this movie is wonderful on every level!" I thought to myself, "Where the hell are you, beloved director Sam Raimi?" It took me a moment and I remembered that oh right he's in Oz aka The Emerald Kingdom, yo. He's hard at work making Oz, The Great and Powerful, about the huckster turned wizard in L. Frank Baum's classic tale. The films's not out until March of next year but thanks to BC we now have a lo-fi look at James Franco in the title role, and... it looks like James Franco in a top hat. Hopefully by March of next year James Franco in a top hat will have stopped making everyone immediately cringe remembering him hosting the Oscars, for this movie's sake.

--- The Slice Set - Just yesterday when we heard that Nicolas Winding Refn was making a Barbarella TV seres we said our mind was good and boggled by all the crazy cool insane TV news of this kind lately, and now today we hear that David effin' Cronenberg is going to make a TV series with Tim effin' Roth called Knifeman about a "rogue self-taught surgeon." Breathe that in, marinate in it. Good lord. Sam Raimi's producing.

--- Everlasting Fassy - If you want to know what the Fassybot said to the giant white dude in Prometheus, look no further, all's been revealed. Spoilers, natch. And here I was sure it was "Mine's bigger than yours."

--- Singular Cinema - My brain keeps breaking down every time I try to think up an answer to this question myself but over at TFE Michael's asking us what movie we always defend that nobody else does. I wanted to have an answer by the time I linked over, and the only thing I can think of is fucking Aeon Flux which is ridiculous. I mean I enjoyed Aeon Flux and I think it's bad rap is way overblown but I've only seen it once and maybe I was just high. There have to better answers.

--- Russian Dolls - Also at TFE Beau took a look at the first trailer for Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, which looks pretty dang lush. And I loved his eloquent defense of Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Method therein, because that's another bad rap that's nonsense - I thought it was really daring work by her. Back to Karenina though - post-Hanna, I'm on board. If it's Atonement 2 though, I'll throttle somebody.

--- Pretty Boy's Serious Bid - Ass model Ryan Phillippe is trying his hand at directing - he's making a movie called Shreveport, in which he will also star, about "a fading movie star who is suddenly kidnapped, held hostage and tortured." I think Ryan might want to think about getting a new star though, I hear this Phillippe guy can't act a damn. Might be a big challenge for his first directing gig, getting a performance out of him.

--- Auteur Overload - Oh my god I want this I want this - STYD has word on a new Blu-ray set called Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection that will be out in September but only for a limited time. Besides the thirteen movies (although sorry you can't called yourself "The Masterpiece Collection" and include Topaz, you just can't) there's a literal mountain of bonus stuff included, most promisingly a documentary titled The Birds: Hitchcock's Monster Movie. I want to go to there.
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