The Finest Bana

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There's been a criminal lack of attention given to the fact that Eric Bana is The Finest Hours out this weekend -- if they'd worked on reminding me that there was "New Bana In A Uniform" to be had I'd have been paying way more attention. No all those trailers show is footage of a boat going up a wave - footage that makes me do a double take every time, thinking I've stepped through a time portal and it's the year 2000 and The Perfect Storm is suddenly new again. Nobody needs that! Give me Bana or give me nothing, nothing at all, or Eric Bana wearing nothing at all, that's what I always say.

We All Went A Little Mad Sometimes

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There still hasn't been a definitive fictionalization of the Charles Manson story, probably because it's one of those cases where the terrifying non-fiction trumps the fakery. But people keep trying ,and if anybody's gonna take a stab at it then it might as well be the incredibly talented two-some who gave us American Psycho - director Mary Harron and screenwriter Genevieve Turner have adapted the book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult, which is actually not about the 1969 murders or even as far as I can tell about Manson himself, not directly anyway - it's about the friendships between a grad student and three of the "Manson Girls," and her process in helping to de-brainwash them. This sounds like a much more interesting angle, doesn't it?

Of course my second thought, after "Yay Mary Harron!" was to wonder if John Waters is a character in the book - he's been friends with "Manson Girl" Leslie van Houten for a very long time and has spoken at length about how he believes she's been rehabilitated and how she should be released. I'm more interested in who'd play him than in who'd play Charlie Manson, honestly. (thanks Mac)
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Which is Hotter?

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After all the ups and downs and ins and outs of production Natalie Portman's Western Jane Got a Gun is finally out in theaters today, a fact even I, who'd been following the hullabaloo pretty closely given the players that came and went (bye bye Michael Fassbender), had completely missed until just this minute. I haven't read any reviews, I have no idea if it's any good or not, and looking at my schedule I probably won't make it this weekend. But if you see it let me know! And also you should totally vote on this poll, too:

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And not to color anybody's votes but as I looked up images for this post I found this clip from the film, which is chock-full of Joel being hella rustic hot, so hit the jump for some gifs from it...

Channing Bears the Sailor Surge

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Only one week until the Coens' new film Hail Caesar! is out and it's earned that exclamation point - I couldn't be more excited about it, not even if Channing Tatum and his sailor friends were promising back-alley gang-bangs with the purchase of every ticket! (Untruth. I would be more excited by that.) The Playlist has a few new images and a clip from the movie, but it's all Clooney & Brolin and nothing's going to be better than the last Alden Ehrenreich infused trailer so I didn't bother watching.

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #53

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I know, I know, Agent Carter isn't a "Movie" 

like the title of this post promises, but...

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... you guys...

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... I cannot resist...

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... hidden rooms behind bookshelves! 

I can't and I won't!

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I love this show so much.

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Jamie Bell Four Times

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(via)

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Quote of the Day

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"I've been waiting almost a year to see this film. Saw it tonight. What-the-huh? Camera movement, compositions, lighting, action sequences--a compendium of art house cliches. Okay, five brilliant minutes here, five brilliant minutes there, but, overall, meh. Where is Pauline Kael when we need her. This is just the sort of pomposity she feeded on.

... It is a critical phenomenon I call "buying stock ". Critics and viewers consciously or unconsciously purchase shares in an artist's work. "I have ten thousand shares of Tarantino." "Fifty thousand shares of Star Wars." Etcetera. Once a viewer has purchased stock in an artist he/she becomes committed to that stock valuation. I first noticed this when Peter Bogdonavich purchased a massive holding in Howard Hawks and was then thrust into the awkward position of defending "Man's Favorite Sport". I watched as cinephiles have purchased stock in DePalma, Carpenter, the Coen Bros to the point that they are no longer objectively assessing the work but instead defending their investment. The latest is Hiseau Hisean Ho [sic] and the assumption by stock holders that it it must be a masterpiece because he worked on it for eight years."

That's Taxi Driver and Raging Bull writer (and director of The Canyons!) Paul Schrader on his Facebook wall taking on the critical consensus over The Assassin and director Hsiao Hsien Hou (whose name he totally butchers) -- for the record, I wrote kind of the exact same thing in my review of the film, which I just didn't get the excitement about either. An interminable film.

I Am Link

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--- United Colors - I feel as if I have to post this even though it's not entirely in my wheelhouse, but then it does involve David Oyelowo so it's not a massive sacrifice - you know how just the other day I was wondering where the hell Rosamund Pike had gone (girl) to? Well here's an answer! EW has the first image of her and Oyelowo in A United Kingdom, about the true-life story of the 1940s romance between a regular ol' white English gal (I mean she looks like Rosamund Pike though, let's not be crazy or anything) and the Prince of Botswana, which was a big scandal and forced the Prince into exile.

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--- Forget The War - Why would you take a book titled The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War: Katherine Gun And The Secret Plot To Sanction The Iraq Invasion and re-title it as a movie called Official Secrets? SNOOZE. The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War is a terrific title! Anyway the thing is being directed by Justin Chadwick, who directed The Other Boleyn Girl and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, so he knows from SNOOZE. But he has gathered up quite a cast - Natalie Dormer, Paul Bettany, Harrison Ford, Martin Freeman and Anthony Hopkins will star as various real folks in over their heads.
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--- La Barbie - I had my own "white privilege" slap me upside the head the other day when it didn't even occur to me when I posted about Joseph Fiennes playing Michael Jackson to consider the racial implications - I was just thinking about the physical  match, which is there. But I get why people were upset! Anyway I had no such problems recognizing the race problem right off the bat with the news that noted-Latino Charlie Hunnam just got cast as a Mexican drug-lord. According to that source the dude he is playing "was also light-skinned and blue-eyed, apparently, and he had the football and cartel-nickname of La Barbie" but still. This is a bit much.
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--- Mama In Law - In my mind I seem to have convinced myself that I like Mama, the 2013 horror flick produced by Guillermo Del Toro, but I think what it is is I just liked it slightly more than my boyfriend, who hated it. I remember thinking it was okay. Anyway there is going to be a sequel because the original film did great business and they just made a really terrific choice on who's directing - Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch, the directors who made last year's terrific Hollywood nightmare called Starry Eyes, will take the helm.
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--- That Face - This article amused me -- a site called The Inverse took a look at "The Psychology of Why Mads Mikkelsen Looks So Fucking Evil" by diving into the shapes and contours and individual forms of his glorious and particular visage. The specter of Creepypasta's "The Expressionless" is summoned, and at that point I was rolling on the floor. It's all good though!
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--- Anon Anon - I should probably stop waiting for Andrew Niccol to make a movie as good as his first movie Gattaca (or his second script for The Truman Show) because it probably ain't gonna happen at this point. I did like last year's drone-thriller Good Kill well enough to keep paying attention though, and news on his next thing is positive -- it's called Anon and it's a sci-fi story about a future with no crime and a mystery woman, and it will star Clive Owen. Probably not as the mystery woman, but who knows. Anything's possible.
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--- Make A Scene - Phew, I've got my lunch-time reading all sorted out -- the New York Times spoke to Todd Haynes at length about his visual references for Carol, which he apparently sorts out into photo collages to create a texture and a feel for what he's gunning for. Clearly some enterprising publisher needs to get this shit together and make copies for all of us to have! (thanks Mac)
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--- Mighty Weiner - Nate Parker's ultra-buzzy The Birth of a Nation sold for an enormous sum of money out of Sundance, which is awesome, I can't wait to see it, but it swallowed up the other happy-making Sundance buy which is that Amazon bought Todd Solondz's film Wiener-Dog with Greta Gerwig for "seven figures" and the contract apparently stipulates "a significant theatrical release" which is all great news for Solondz. When I first read Amazon bought it I figured it'd show up on my Prime account next week with no fan-fare or something. I mean I wouldn't mind seeing it that fast but Todd should bank some buck once in awhile.
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Design For Living (1933)

Tom: That's one way of meeting the situation. 

Shipping clerk comes home, finds missus with boarder. He 

breaks dishes. It's pure burlesque. Then there's another way. 

Intelligent artist returns unexpectedly, finds treacherous 

friends, both discuss the pros and cons 

of the situation in grownup dialogue. 

High-class comedy, enjoyed by everybody. 

George: There's a third way. I'll kick your teeth out 

and tear your head off and beat some decency into you! 

Tom: Cheap melodrama. Very dull. 

Today is the 124th anniversary of the birth of the 

great director Ernst Lubitch, who made this the very best 

"throuple" comedy starring Garry Cooper. (More here)

Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, World

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This is so much gayer than anything I have ever posted.

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Gratuitous Ricky Whittle

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Casting has finally begun being announced on the forthcoming adaptation of American Gods, and Neil Gaiman and Bryan Fuller have found their Shadow Moon -- his name is Ricky Whittle, and he is a British actor who can currently be seen on The CW's show The 100 and has previously graced the small screen with his gorgeousness on Hollyoaks and Single Ladies. And you guys?

He is astonishing to look at. Just a vision, from that beautiful bald head on down down down, deep down, very very far down. I'm shocked he'd never been on my radar before now. And I was even more shocked about that when I first googled his name a couple of hours ago and literally hundreds of pictures of him in various states of undress revealed themselves to me. Literally hundreds.

Okay let's set aside the gratuitousness just for the eensiest of split-seconds though - besides being drop dead perfect looking as a visual object, he is also drop dead perfect for Shadow Moon, right? Gaiman thinks so too, saying in this announcement that his auditions were "remarkable," while Fuller had this to say:

"We searched every continent and country and all the islands in between for our Shadow Moon, and we are lucky to have found Ricky. Fans of the novel will find he has every bit of the heart of the character they fell in love with."

Hooray! I'm sure now that the big dog's been cast we'll be hearing lots more names dropped now - they start shooting this thing in April and if it's true to the source material this thing will probably have a very large cast. I suppose it depends on how much book they cover over the first run of episodes, but still, there are lots of Gods up in there! Speaking of gods...

... enough talking! Time to get on our knees and... pray? Say thanks, more like it. You know how I mentioned "literally hundreds" of pictures a few sentences ago? Well I gathered up over one hundred of said pictures and I'm posting them here after the jump...

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

It is forever hobbit Elijah Wood's 35th birthday today -- doesn't it seem crazy that he's only 35? He's been a movie star for nearly 20 of those 35 years (and even if he wasn't a star at that point I'll always remember his first appearance as the little kid in the 80s cafe in Back to the Future 2) so it makes sense that he feels like such a part of The World Itself that he couldn't possibly still be so young. 

Yet young he is. You've still got so much life ahead of you, Elijah Wood! Maybe you can even manage to not be a hobbit someday. I think he's done a good job with his post-Frodo career, but then I am a horror movie fan so of course I do. He's become a genre stalwart! We all thought his creepy role in Sin City was a terrifying outlier but it turns out that's where his heart lives!

Anyway even with all of those horror movies full or murder and mayhem on his resume I still marched right back to Lord of the Rings and poor, dumb Gollum for today's "Way Not To Die." When I looked in our archives and realized this scene hadn't been covered, I gasped, I literally gasped. (It wasn't as gay as that sounds, either.) My guess is the scene seemed spoilery for awhile, but seeing as how you haven't been able to flip past TBS for ten years without this movie being on I think we can set aside such worries now.

Hit the jump for links to the Previous Ways Not To Die