I Am Link

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--- Mick's Back - Director Greg McLean and actor John Jaratt are returning to Wolf Creek! Not for a third movie (for now), although if you add it up it's about the same - they're making a six-episode series for an Australian video-on-demand service called Stan. Once upon a time I've have whined here about not being able to access something from the other side of the planet, but thanks to the wonderful magical internet I am pretty sure I won't have to wait very long at all to get my grubby mitts on this.

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--- Techno Twosome - I've never heard of this electronic band called Sparks but they've just blabbed about two upcoming movie projects they're working on and they're both pretty rarefied - the first one is a filmic adaptation of their album called The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman by no less than Guy Maddin; the album's apparently about Bergman going to Hollywood and yadda yadda Hollywood destroys him, the usual. But Guy Maddin! And the second project is apparently a musical with Leos Carax! Good grief, that's some hip company they're keeping. This would be Carax' first project since the brilliant Holy Motors.

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--- Civilized Society - Arrow Video USA has released its slate of blu-ray titles for the next several months and man alive there's some cool stuff up in here - first and foremost a fancy release of the gruesome class comedy Society, which has been nigh impossible to get one's hands on for ages (you can get a used copy for 52 bucks on Amazon right now). I did a big Ways Not To Die post for this movie awhile back, see that here (although beware big spoilers for the movie) - it's a great bizarre thing, this movie, and I cannot wait to own it. Other awesome titles included are Blood and Black Lace, Takashi Miike's The Happiness of the Katakuris, and Spider Baby!

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--- Girl Hood - Naturally we don't know any details about the story, this pair keeps their projects pretty close to their vests til they're out and blowing our minds with their small-scale awesomeness, but Michelle Williams is re-teaming with director Kelly Reichardt for a third time - they've previously made the great duo of Wendy & Lucy and Meek's Creek together.

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--- Mutant Menfolk - Proving himself to be exactly like the rest of us, Kodi Smit-McPhee just couldn't get enough of working with Michael Fassbender (penis) with the western Slow West, so he's followed him over to the X-Men movies - he's just been cast as the young Nightcrawler in Bryan Singer's X-Men Apocalypse. Alan Cumming played this role, quite well actually, in X2. I like McPhee, he seems like great casting to me. In related news, the character of Colassus (played by slab of beef Daniel Cudmore in three X-films) will be in Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool movie, but Cudmore will not be playing him.

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--- Deep Red - A couple of Scarlett Johansson bits of news to share - her Black Widow will indeed be in the next Captain America movie; I thought we already knew this but everybody's saying it's news so I guess it's news! In more interesting news, she's set to star in a movie called The Psychopath Test, an adaptation of a book that Jay Roach will direct which is about "how the medical community tries to diagnose and classify an elusive group - remorseless, deadly psychopaths." No word on which side - doctor or psycho - ScarJo will fall, and I could see her going either way.

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--- Crawl Back - I expected this list of "Eight Secrets" that writer/director Dan Gilroy's "revealing" about his flick Nightcrawler to be lame stuff that I'd heard a billion times over in the lead-up to the film's release, but it's actually almost all news to me. The "smashed mirror" story's told again, sure, but we get more background than usual, and I like the insights to Jake's seemingly random character choices that ended up working out so perfectly (the hair, for instance).

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--- Ready To Wear - Last night the Costume Designers Guild gave out their awards to Birdman (um, okay) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (okay yes, that makes much much more sense to me) and today over at The Film Experience Manuel's taking a look at Oscar's costume nominees, showing off some of their best looks. Sounds like the Oscar is Budapest's to lose, which sounds right by me.

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